Satine runs a game...

<---(Satine shown here totally not in the middle of running a game)

So my 5th level thief, Blixa, started life as a Warhammer PC. He then, through the magic of FLAILSNAILS Google + games, has migrated through the D&D retroclone Swords & Wizardry, then AD&D, possibly Mentzer red box-era D&D in there, Labyrinth Lord (another clone), Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy, and now, for his greatest challenge ever, we took this 3d6-rolled-in-order schmuck and kitted him out with skills, feats and dailies so he can roll 4th Edition style (and his little dog, too)...

And--god help us--our girl Satine is the DM.

Actually Satine's been DMing a lot lately since she started organizing twice-weekly games at Meltdown Comics* but since I've been in another country all winter this was my first chance to see her actually go to the comic book store and see her do it. Some notes:

-Did you see that episode of Axe** where Satine lost her PC and was saying how she'd lost the last one 15 years before? You know how she lost that one? Hell hounds. You know what she had us fight? Hell hounds.

-4e's much-lauded balance relies on several assumptions, one being that your PC has 4e stats. Mine doesn't. He's got a 7 strength, 7 con and his best score is a 14 dex. I had to self-balance by trying as hard as possible never to ever do anything that required me rolling the dice. Which is exactly how I run Blixa in every other game. (Thieves suck) (Yet oddly this thief is one of the highest level FLAILSNAILS PCs.)(And people die like flies in those games.)(Go figure.)

-Satine's good at describing things as they happen "It explodes and there's a shimmer of light..." etc. and has an admirably relaxed attitude toward the Rules As Written. We're doing group initiative f'r'example. World hasn't ended yet.

-So I'm in a ring of fire, right? Because I brought flaming oil with me and these are ice hell hounds...

-Best 4e moment of the night: So all the other players are totally new to the game--this is their first campaign (and they're so sweet). This one kid is trying to shoot a hellhound with an arrow and decides he'll run so that me and my ring of fire are between him and the hell hound, then shoot an arrow through the flame, so it catches on fire on the way and then hits the hell hound. Excellent***.

-Worst 4e moment of the night: The brand new girl (the D&DMelt crowd is about 20% female) with her psion has seriously this 4 page character sheet and has to wade through it like a bucket of pint tar every round. Satine did a good job of priming the kids with "Hey you can do whatever you want, these are just some of the things you can do" but still, a 4e sheet is a lot to handle and poorly organized. And the fact that the online builder does it for you means the new girl wasn't along for the ride in making all these numbers happen so she doesn't remember them.

-Kinda What You'd Expect 4e moment of the night: The new girl finally finds the part of her character sheet where she can use her brain powers to make the hellhounds fight each other. Everybody is like Whoa, you're awesome! She seems much happier and more relaxed and pro-active once we're out of combat rounds.

-So there's one of those situations where you grab an NPC to interrogate and eventually--you guessed it--the NPC loses an ear. That always happens. Do you blame Tarantino or Lynch or do you blame ears? They look so cut-offable.

-The kids love Satine. It's cute. I hope they aren't traumatized when she kills them.

______________
*Hollywood geography lesson: Meltdown Comics, by dint of being in central Hollywood across from Guitar Center and also massive, is sort of the Hollywood funtelligentsia's front lawn, like you take the MGM executive you're trying to talk into producing your Alita Battle Angel movie to eat at Toi across the street and then go buy an Alita Battle Angel comic book so you can go "See she looks like this?" and then he goes "I get it, I get it...I'm seeing...Cameron Diaz?" and then you cry--with the much smaller and less vinyl-toy-infested Secret Headquarters in Silver Lake being more the same cohort's den/drawing room, like where you go to meet up with the other screenwriters and special effects guys and DJs and go "Cameron Diaz? I know, right, but I'm getting 9 figures just for the treatment so fuck it".

**There's currently some propaganda telling you to join the marines at the beginning of the video. Don't join the marines.

***Even if there's no way I would've let him do that. Unless maybe he coated the arrow in oil first. But hey, adventure is the aestheticization of physics

There Is Life After Dangerous Ice Monkeys

Dear players:
This is where you are. You are in the ice maze. I'm sure you remember all about the Royal Fist Monkeys.

This is Brug. Remember Brug? Sam is (was?) playing Brug. Now Brug is an ice statue. If Brug gets knocked over by monkeys, even an Ice-To-Flesh spell is not bringing back Brug.

You are in the Ice Maze because the naturalist Miriya Essik is paying you to capture the ice medusa. This is Myria's home.

Just catch the ice medusa, get her to your boat, and sail for 6 days.

Miriya has promised you 2000 gold pieces each. If you return the ice medusa, she will probably offer you more gold to go find her an even more dangerous monster.

Do you have to do it?

No, you can do whatever you want.

Like what?

Here are some outstanding issues you have created:

This is Connie. You remember Connie? Connie's PC got drunk and..well a lot of things happened that got rolled on a random table. One of them is she got in a jam and prayed to her god that she be not in that jam any more. Vorn answered her prayers.

Only problem is: now Vorn wants something in return...

...some crown. Which one? Vorn says Connie will know it when she sees it and it's hidden somewhere in a fortress or dungeon somewhere in the islands you are now in.

Every day she spends not looking for this crown she will lose a saving throw point. That is bad.

So she has to either look, or find a way to get the quest spell lifted. Vorn is watching.

This is Queen Jayaeleene. You rescued her from the ice maze and took her back to her kingdom of Vrokk (one of the islands). She appreciated that. You are welcome to visit whenever.

However, also visiting her is this here white elf, Gormengeth. He's kind of creepy, frankly.

This is Mandy. She is still hallucinating. Someone might want to try to do something about that before the most powerful and unstable member of the party starts imagining flatworms crawling out of your eyes and tries to mace them.

This is the witch, Frost. She's had a vendetta against Mandy ever since she killed one of her bodies waaaaaaaaaay back at level 2. Last time you guys left the ice dungeon, she was there waiting and attacked...

...with her leopard men. They are vicious and leopardy. They will put you in jeopardy.

Then there's always your home, back west, which you have fled, on account of that skeleton invasion. Who the hell knows what's going on back there now?


And, as always, there's the whole rest of the planet to check out. Click to enlarge and be even more confused.

An Embarrassment of Impressive (& More Pie Charts)

Finally finished reading all the way through Secret Santicore and I have to re-say: it is very good. Like I can't think of the last time I saw anything published (for money or otherwise) that had this much stuff that was actually going straight into my game immediately.

People keep asking for The Complete _________(something other than a city)_____ Kit? Well a lot of what would go into a thing like that is right in this obscure little pdf. (And it's nice to see many of the Hack Vornheim Contest winning DMs continuing to come up with creative stuff here.)


The little details really make a huge difference here: like Jeremy Duncan's Vat Spawn character class? Ho hum more mutants, yeah yeah, weird weird--but he tells you they are immortal and their whole personality and skillset 're-boot' every 100 years. That explains so much and suggests so many possibilities. Plus the actual mutations and weirdnesses he gives them seem actually thought-out and playable rather than just the typical Dragon Magazine grab-bag of abilities-inspired-by-the-last-movie-I-saw.

Anyway, highly recommended. Again.


Also worth a look: Zombiesmith Miniatures appears to be producing some intriguingly Cobalt 60-ish miniatures, from what I can tell from their extremely poorly-organized site. (No offense, so far as I can tell, all miniatures sites ever are extremely poorly organized. Whats up with that?)
Aaaaand here are some entirely unrelated infographics regarding the girls' race and class choices over the course of all sessions. I have limited the info to only PCs in games I GMed in order to avoid filling my head with even more useless data and maybe accidentally crowding out things like what month it is and what city I am in.

Notes On The Maxim Article

(right click and go Open In New Window to see it big and avoid blogger's dumb windowbox effect)

So the very polite and pleasant Davy Rothbart came over and played D&D with us and was a druid and wrote about it for Maxim (temporarily adopting the Maxim house style to do it).

(The pictures were taken on a whole other day.)

The article is very sweet and pro-D&D. If you're curious, it's the January 2012 one and is out now. It has something called a JWOWW on the cover.

Some notes:

-In the big picture of Satine using a Tiamat-paintjob Reaper hydra to attack another Reaper hydra held aloft by Connie, (full-frontality cunningly concealed by Maximvision) careful attention to the foreground will reveal a gummi worm attacking a pair of minis.

-Photo includes my hair looking even more disastrous than usual. I have no idea how photographers manage to find these angles.

-The girls' ship, the HMS Tastycakes, is a schooner, who knew? Not I.

-Day of- actual play.

-Our apartment is "quaint".

-For the record, only Satine would read Game of Thrones. Well, read it and be glad she read it. I would maybe carve a sword into my desk.

-There are a lot of references to-, and quotes from people in-, TV shows which I never watch but (judging from the blogs) you do, in the article

-Fact checks: 1.It was not "a friend" who put in my first movie, it was a total stranger 2. Mandy contacted me, not the other way around. 3.And she is like a GG not a DD. But honestly Maxim did a way better job on the accuracy and fact-checking front then 90% of highbrow mainstream media outlets so I'm not bitching. Basic rule: bigger the budget, the worse the fact-checking.

-This is a good bit: the girls are talking and "...comparing their male costars like golf caddies sorting though a bag of donated clubs"

-Semi-related: Joke and ye shall receive. There is now a snark-spawned a Tumblr called Female Fighters In Unreasonable Armor courtesy of the lovely Ms. Fishlemons. Submit your sword-wielding cheesecake today.

There is a lesson in the fact that Women Fighters In Reasonable Armor is run by a guy and Female Fighters In Unreasonable Armor is run by a girl. And that lesson is? All the fun girls like good grammar.

-And for no other reason than that looking at Maxim leaves everyone feeling distractingly nipple-denied for the rest of the day, here's Mandy wearing no clothes:

Of Patience and the Lack Thereof

-"Aaaaalright peeps, if you remember, your are in the ice maze, you are in a room in is forty wide it is thirty north south there is an exit to the north there is a door to the south, you came from the north, there is a statue, you got attacked earlier by an ice lamprey (eeew) there is a pool, in the pool is bluish water and some viking skeleton people, you were chased here by monkeys, what are we doing?"

I have a cup of coffee, because it is cold, and I have a cup of Dr Pepper because I am hopelessly dependent on it. I am alternating. I am also playing Schoenberg's Farben for its Ice Labyrinthy and rising mix of cinematic sublimity and teeth-putting-on-edge tinkiness.

My players are looking at each other. The veterans and the tenderfeet. Very quietly. What do we do?

Who is the leader?

Not the most intelligent, not the most experienced, not the one who remembers what's going on best, not even the most charismatic. Not the most anything.

The least patient.

-Local example:

If I (Lord Impatient Imperial Entirely) am DMing and not playing, then the impatience goes like this:

If Mandy has a plan, we're doing Mandy's plan.

If Mandy is absent or feeling too sick to have a plan, Connie does something impulsive from which the party is about to have to rescue her.*

If Connie is absent, Kimberly says "Well fine!" and then hits something. Or throws a switch. Or
solves the puzzle. She's is often a lot like "Ok, well if none of you people are going to step up then so I'm going to do something--as like punishment--and I'm sure it's the wrong thing to do and you'll all be sorry" and then she does it and it's the right thing. Is there a compound German word for that?

If none of them are around, it all becomes very strange. Unless like McCormick is around.

-If the patience equations aren't clear (and they become unclear around the mid-2os each month) you get exchanges like this:

"We go forward!"
"Forward is, regrettably, not a map direction"
"What? I gotta look at the map?...ok...." (shuffle grumble)
"It is indeed a terrible burden, I know"
(shuffle shuffle) "...ok, fine, we go East!"

-I have noticed when I play in G+ games I am real fucking impatient.

-I wonder what goes on in the mind of the patient player when nothing is going on: is it "Whatever, man, it's allllllll gooood" or "Fuck I'm bored but I'm too shy to say anything" or "Fuck I'm bored but I'm not confident enough to say anything and don't want to be the one responsible for killing us all" or "Man it's fun watching Mr Impatient over here tie himself in knots figuring which statue to kick..."








__________
*I recall saying Connie never died last week. I remember now I was wrong, she died in a pit trap I'm remembering now. I think it was a gnome.

Royal Fist Monkeys Are Trying To Kill You

This is a Player Service Announcement.

Dear My Players:

Royal Fist Monkeys are trying to kill you.

They are small and white.

They have large stone-and-metal gloves on their right hands, encrusted with precious gems.

They are trying to kill you.

They hate you.

You broke into their ice house looking for fun and profit, they have decided you will never leave.

You have observed these things:

They are fearsome.

They are organized.

They are horrible.

They do not die fast.

They know how to use both fire and flaming oil.

They killed Roger's guy.

Their Royal Fists are capable of delivering one punch doing d8+8 damage. After the punch they bite for d4+4.

You know because you have seen this happen 24 times.

There are many other dangers and wonders in the Ice Labyrinth of Hakleth besides Royal Fist Monkeys.

But you will never see them if you fight Royal Fist Monkeys all day.

Tips:

-When you're in a big echoey room with a bottomless pit, and Kimberly Kane is like "Hey what's over there?" and I go "Are you yelling that across the room?" and Kimberly is like "Uh, yeah, sure" then be all "NO, NO KIMBERLY DON'T DO THAT! THE ROYAL FIST MONKEYS WILL HEAR US AND CHASE US AND THEN WE WILL BE FIGHTING ROYAL FIST MONKEYS FOREVER AND ALL DIE IN THIS HORRIBLE ICY MONKEY DUNGEON"

-Actually, that's the main tip. I can't think of any others right now.

________________

To Any Other Readers Of This Blog Who Play Google + Games Or Are Thinking About It:

If any of you have characters hanging out back at the FLAILSNAILS Cantina, you have heard the bartenders of Earth-Amalagmated-FLAILSNAILS have started a betting pool on the success of this expedition.

Here's how it works:

You chip in 100 gp.

You say who you think will survive, who will die, how successful you think it will be that week, you make any other crackpot prediction you see fit.

There are no penalties for extra incorrect predictions beyond the first, so go ahead and make as many as you like.

Whichever player is the most right gets all the gold (and associated xp). If there's a tie, you split it.

Here's the deal so far:

They are in this maze looking for an ice medusa name Moroschka--trying to capture her and bring her back alive.

The Royal Fist Monkeys make traps. They are alerted to the PCs presence. They have 6HD. The last time there was a fracas there was 17 of them.

Other hazards have included an ice lamprey and some kind of emerald ooze. One each. Neither was too much trouble so far.

The core contestants on any given day may include, but are not necessarily limited to...

Kimberly Kane as Miss Mold Pig--5th level Bloodthirsty ADD half-elf barbarian. Accompanied by her (relatively lucky) dog, Sueno #6.

Mandy Morbid as Tizane Ildiko--5th level Curious Fancy tiefling cleric of Vorn and 1st level Barbarian. Accompanied by her wolf, Ursula. She has recently been reduced to 12 wisdom and has begun hallucinating after looking at a rug.

Caroline Pierce as Smacky the Fighter--5th level Laid Back human fighter. A very experienced and careful RPGer.

Darren, who plays a 4th or 5th level Sneaky Laid Back dwarf and tends to show up an hour late, save everyone and then leave.

aaaaand...

Connie as Gypsillia--4th or 5th level Sneaky ADD Greedy half-elf thief. Like Kimberly, she is impulsive yet has never died.

There are several other players in the mix potentially, but since all of them either have erratic schedules right now or you can't really find out much about them on this blog by clicking the 'players' tag (or watching old Axe episodes) then I don't think it'd be fair to make you guess what'll happen to them. These four have been taking point lately in most of the recent games.

Consequences of Beer, Both Real & Imaginary

Barfight Knockback Table

(When a blow connects, attacker or defender may trade two points of damage for a roll on the knockback table--d12)

1. Table--reflex save/dex check or fall over
2. Chair (as table above)
3. Patron--look up and smile--charisma check or get attacked by patron, too
4. Patron holding glass--take d4 minus 2 damage plus as 3 above
5, Serving wench holding tray full of drinks--take d4 minus 2
6. Over the bar--you are now behind the bar. Any knockback behind the bar causes d4 damage from falling bottles.
7. Dartboard--take d4 minus 3.
8. Window--take d4 minus one from the glass plus reflex/dex check or fall through it.
9. Stag's head mounted on wall--take d4
10. Stairs or slippery rug, take d4-2 plus dex/reflex check or fall down stairs/down on rug
11. Shelf with something ornamental but heavy on it take d4-1
12. Sleeping pub dog. Reflex/dex check or trip over, plus charisma check or it attacks as a 1 hd monster

Hey, It's Sunday...

Z: You know what's cool?

Connie: What?

Z: Being awake.

C: Yeah? I mean, I just started but maybe, like, after I try it for a while I might get into it more.

Z: Oh, totally, like, in the beginning it's like What's up with this? I don't really get why people are so into it, but then like, after a while you realize it's kinda cool like you can do stuff like, say, stuff you said you were going to do the day before...

C: Oh yeah, totally, I can see that.

Z: Yeah.

C: What time is it?

Z: 2:45 pm.

C: I was up late. We were drinking.

Z: Really? So like you weren't totally sober when you posted at 5:45 am on Google+ Hey, we're jamming, who wants to hang out?

C: No, I was not.

Z: So...I imagine it'll be a bit before you're over to play.

C: Maybe...3:45.

Z: Yeah, maybe.

You May Now Play Whatever Whenever Forever

Despite all the rot we talk on these blogs, we all know there are only 2 real problems with RPGs:

-it's hard to find players, and

-even if you have players, it's hard to throw a game together on the spur of the moment since someone has to be mentally ready to GM.

D&D With Porn Stars is happy to announce:

These problems have been solved. Thank Google + free multiperson video chat. Let the RPG renaissance begin. Play any game any time from anywhere with anybody.

Me and some D&DWPS readers rustled up an insomniac's pick-up game of D&D (Labyrinth Lord, technically) ex nihilo last night:

I said "Hey who wants to DM?"

Il Male stepped up.

Then got 2 other players, made some Labyrinth Lord PCs and then we rolled--took less than an hour from "Ok, who wants to play" to "Alright, roll characters".

And this was, note, in the dead of night, when hardly anybody comments on this blog.

Antion was a halfling, Graham (no blog yet) was a dwarf, and I was a wizard named Gruesome. Il Male did an ace job getting us rolled up and equipped fast.

We ran from some skeletons, talked to a corpse hanging from a tree, fought some goblins (I wish I could roll as well as I did last night all the time--didn't have to use my one spell once) then met a baffling witch who fucked up Graham's shit with a riddle and so I had to shoot her in the stomach.

IMPORTANT: If any other PCs want to rescue us in subsequent Google + sessions: we are trapped in the northmost (?) room under the weird looking tree behind the graveyard. We have 25 gp and will split it with you in exchange for our freedom!

_______________
Check it:

Like I said: Google + has free multiperson video chat built right in. If you have a camera on your computer (or just audio) and anyone you know anywhere is on Google +, you can get in on The Neverending Con.

If you're like me and your eyes glaze over when you see computer stuff, let me walk you through it:

So step one is get a Google + invite from a friend.

Step Two: Once you get that you show up on the site and go "looks like facebook" then you leave.

Step Three: Forget you have it until you decide it's time to play GURPS Supers at 3 in the morning with someone in Madagascar who must be a good DM because he likes Motorhead as much as you do, at least judging from his comments on your blog...

Now what:


So once you have Google + you can get to your page by clicking like so...





...which takes you to a very Facebook-looking page. Here are the important bits about this page:

-there's a green button on the right that says "start a hangout" which you can use to start a video session (only if you're not already in one on Google +)(though you can use Google + and Skype simultaneously--the people will be able to hear each other).

-If one of your friends has started a video session, there will be a green button allowing you to join in under their name, where this Larry Page guy has his message written in the picture. Click it and you're in.

This is what a video session looks like (only perhaps the people in your session may look a little less...festive...than the models in this Google PR photo I found on-line.) Anyway, important bits to remember are in red:

A-Hitting this button will make a little text chat window appear in the margin which allows you to type shit to the other people there. It's good for keeping track of dimensions of rooms, PCs names, etc. Also, if it's hard to hear someone talk you can type something in. Usually the audio's pretty good, though.

B-Hit this to invite new peeps to the session. You can do it by name or by "circle" (Google + name for a ton of people you've put in the same category)

C-This button theoretically lets you all watch the same youtube video but it doesn't seem to work yet.

D-The program senses whoever's talking and makes their head big. (Beardy is talking here, apparently). However, if, for example, the GM is holding up a map to the screen and you want the big camera to stay on one person, just click on their little head. To switch it back, click the little head again.

Glitches:

-Some people get asked to download a plugin when they first start a Google + vid chat and can't join until they've done it. After you download it, you should be cool.

-The thing freezes occasionally. (4 times in 2 hrs for 5 seconds each time with us, probably because we had a player in Italy) If this happens, just use the text chat thing in the corner for a few seconds while it unfreezes.

Personally, since I sit at a desk painting all day most days and can play tolerably well while painting, I predict I'll be using this a lot. If you try to add me on Google + please shoot me an email (zakzsmith at hawt mayle dawt calm) to say what your screen name on there is so I can add you--I get a lot of random requests for random reasons but if I know you're from the gameblog I will add you on to the right "circle" rather than to my "who the hell is this?" box.

BIG P.S.

If you are interested in DMing a Google + game this week, please get your pitch together: Day, Time (describe the time you're available using at least one western hemisphere and one eastern hemisphere time zone so peeps can figure out whether they're around), system(s), level, do we need to bring anything? (like, say, a 3rd level character) and anything else you think might make your pitch intriguing--setting, etc.) and I will put up a new post tomorrow where you can leave your pitches for this week in the comments (I want to give everybody a day to sort of let it sink in.) Please include a way ppl can contact you OUTSIDE of Google + so that you can tell who they are when they request you and you can discuss details.
____________
UPDATE:

Playing a game at midnight Pacific tonight. Comment on my most recent Google + post if you're in.

Some Odds and Ends

-This pdf is the most useful game tool I've come across in a long time. And I don't even have a d30. Download it and check it out. It's free.

-Anybody remember a 2e-era module with like a dwarf city with giant worm tunnels all over it? What's it called?

-So, like I said, Connie and I played in a Type IV game yesterday. We had fun. Was talking to the DM, cameraman Darren for a bit after, I've played Type 4 twice, he's played Type 4 since before it came out (he was a beta tester) and we agree--the fun of Type IV is like this:

It's fun while you're taking your cleric and slowly finding a way to turn him into a perfectly-tuned chess piece. But if and when you ever finish doing that, you look at your character and it's suddenly not a cleric anymore, it's just a chess bishop. Your powers are in general so much more powerful than any lateral-thinking tactic you could think up, so you just gotta use 'em. Then hopefully you level up and there are new fiddly bits and it's fun to figure out how they work again if they're interesting fiddly bits.

Anyway, it was me and Connie and a bunch of D&D newbies. We pretty much just fought 3-and-a-half rounds of a bunch of kobolds invading a village and it took four hours and it was lovely.

-Transylvanis 1600 seems oddly compelling. Despite the fact that I usually think having more than one vampire in a story ruins vampires. Thing is: James' version will probably contain lots of (eww) rural peasantfolk and (double eww) Renaissance stuff. So I may have to make my own doubly-decadent Hungary-1600-that-only-exists-in-my-head version.

The phrase "anti-Camelot" keeps popping up in my mind.

I've been there--Hungarian Renaissance sculpture is actually really interesting. It looks, superficially, like Italian Renaissance stuff and is just as technically polished, if not better--but it has this creepy, downcast angsty look to it and lots of sharp edges. One of those things they don't teach you in art history class. Fucking Vasari.

--The hack Vornheim contest is still rolling.

-Another thing still rolling is Gigacrawler. Some of you left additions in the comments in the last few months and had them swallowed up by the spam filter--but I just found that part of blogger and cleaned it out, so your comments are back and that won't happen again. Sorry bout that, and thanks!

-If you took a look here yesterday and saw me making a head, you might be interested to see how these things end up. Here's Connie's head, done the same way......and here's the finished piece...-And here is a work I just finished entitled "Furries Undermine Legitimate Cosplay"

Connie Needs A Character...

Connie and I are going to a friend's house to play a Type IV game today.

Connie is probably not awake yet, but says she'll pick me up in an hour.

Connie doesn't have a character yet.

We don't have time today to sit around making a character before rolling.

So: if you post a 1st-level 4th ed character below, or a link to one, Connie just might play it today.

And you will earn her eternal gratitude.

Connie has played mostly rogues, though I think she might go ranger or barbarian or something. And she's definitely pro-demihuman.

I gotta go take a shower and get ready and all, so I can't answer any questions, but there you go.
_________
Bitching about 4e will be pre-emptively considered boring. C'est magnifique mais ce n'est pas le Gary. Ok, we know. That's what our pal feels like running today.
_________
Addendum:

Connie ended up using Kelvin Green's Goblin Rogue, who acquitted herself admirably. Thank you, Kelvin!

Why Are You So Boring? Oh...

This is the result of OKCupid doing some data-mining on their clients.

You have to love the detail that all the DNDWPS-type-girls are into "grammar" whereas the OMGD&D?WTF???-subset are into "England"......also the phrase "regularly" seems to explain a lot...

Vornheim: Hack This Book Contest + All Games Considered

So I'm doing a contest...



See, I did this D&D book and, judging from the links I've been getting, people like it...



"It is inspirational reading; the most so I have seen in maybe 25 years for any sort of RPG. "

Dragonsfoot Forum



"It’s probably the most-bang-for-the-buck RPG product I’ve ever bought in my life. "

Lost Papers of Tsojcanth 1 and 2



"This is quite simply one of the best and most useful RPG products that I have every purchased and read through in my entire gaming career."

WrathofZombie'a Blog



"[Vornheim] is like the first crash of Johnny Ramone's guitar across the bow of fantasy arena rock. Vornheim is, as I have said elsewhere, like the Sex Pistols covering Ptolus."

Hite, Kenneth



"I can't recommend it enough. No matter what edition you use, or retro-clone, this is going to help any campaign you make. Not just for the city games either."

RPG: Rants and Raves



"I can pretty much guarantee you that if you have any interest in running urban-based fantasy at any point in your campaign, then you, too, will find it worth every penny."

Alexandrian, The 1 and 2 and 3



"The stated goal of the book is not only to allow a GM to create a city on the fly, but to make it interesting, memorable and fun, and I would argue that it more than succeeds in that task." Brighton Role-Players





"So the real magic of the book, like I said before, is how it becomes easy to create textural elements, randomly or semi-randomly, with very little effort"

Drawings and Dragons



"This compact book does contain enough genuinely useful material for detailing a fantasy city on the fly to make it indispensable to any referee whose campaign involves regular urban forays outside the dungeon."

Grognardia



"Smart and yet playful. A bold kick up the arse to other setting books."

Haque in Black



"For me, Vornheim - The City Complete Kit is the most innovative role-playing product for a long time and is a hot candidate for an Ennie."

LeckerTHAC0! (English Translation)



"And it's all a very inspiring and stylish package"

Metagame (English Translation)



"I have to admit I am rather impressed... 5 out of 5 stars"

Other Side, The



"It's inspiring and I want to skip work, press gang my players or co-workers and use it right now."

Places to Go, People to Be



Planet Algol 1 and 2 " It's an innovative product, but it shouldn't be; that not an indictment of Vornheim but of what RPG products are generally produced."



"In terms of art and graphic design, Vornheim looks like no other RPG book ever."

RPG.net Forum Discussion



"This is definitely not your daddy's Greyhawk or 2e Renfaire Realms anymore."

RPGSite Forum Discussion



"This is really my cup or tea."

Savage Swords of Athanor



" It gave me a whole lot of flexibility that I've never really experienced in a game before. Seriously, if you haven't bought Vornheim yet, you really need to. Even if Zak's game isn't your style, use the format and concepts and fill in the tables with things that meet your style. It's that useful."

Gaming All Over The Place



"Everything you've read about it is true. Including and especially the talk about changing how people make stuff for their games."

Seeking Wing, The



"I want something that will make it easier for me to run sessions in cities with little or no prep, and I really want this Kit to do that for me; so, first impressions, does it do the job it sets out to do? My quick answer: yes!"

Sky is Full of Dust, The



"HOLY **** IT'S **** AWESOME!"

UK Roleplayers Forum Discussion



"I will definitely use the book at the table."

Apprentice of Old School (English Translation)



(the Underdark Gazette liked it, too)



"I think this is probably the best product I think I've ever come across."

This guy did a video review (cue up to 7:29)(and even though it's from "Scary Hair Studios" I swear I had nothing to do with this video)



"It's exactly what it says on the tin: a thunk-provoking tool kit that'll probably be great fun to unleash on the players."

Vaults of Nagoh



"In some urban RPG’s, an unexpected player decision might be disastrously time consuming; not so with the aid of Vornheim. Vornheim provides the referee tools to handle any number of circumstances that might occur within a city adventure."

Vorpal Dice



"It crawls with cunning charts & maps"



"The biggest problem I have with Vornheim: The Complete City Kit is that it's going to make all other city sourcebooks seem dull by comparison."



"It is a beautifully illustrated and very well constructed book."



"...Vornheim is an amazing approach to doing a city sourcebook which, although intended for old-school D&D, has plenty of utility for story gaming."



"...felt like a breath of fresh air after all these colorful, overproduced RPGs"



"Looking over Vornheim. Wow. this is really, really good."



"Infinite *s out of 5...The book is almost insidious in nature as it seeps into your own creativity and basically challenges you to be more creative, to raise your game to another level, and to be better at running your games."



"Zak dribbles more creativity and inspiration on page 3 (territories surrounding Vornheim) than most books manage in their entirety. And that's a pale shadow of page 7..."



"... too valuable not to have in you DM arsenal."



"I read Vornheim during my vacation and was amazed. Zak's really got something great here. I'd say award-winning."



"Random tables and charts, strange characters and locales, and snakes as books. Brilliant."



"The quality of the book is exceptional in every way."



"This totally raises the bar, you realize."



"Where Ptolus is a huge, whopping, incredibly detailed city book, this is stripped down the the very basics, the bare minimum, so that all that’s left is the raw rock and roll. It has exactly as much as you really need, leaving the gamemaster to play around and flesh out the rest..."



"...Vornheim is Byzantine, brilliant, and exhilarating..."



"Vornheim is, in my opinion, one of the most innovative RPG products I've seen in years. It is exactly what it claims to be, a city building toolkit designed to make life easier for the DM and provide a vast and interesting urban sprawl for your players. If you are even remotely entertaining the possibility of a city-based campaign, you need this book."



"It's a damn good book, full of useful stuff."



"If you are planning urban adventures, Vornheim is AWESOME for it. I ran adventures in a small town of 1300 and it was very useful."



"I honestly can’t find anything negative to write about this book, it really is a slice of fantastic RPG creativity and I urge anyone who enjoys fantasy city gaming to pick up this gem before the print-run of 2000 copies disappears."



"Good ideas, great tables!"



"It is an amazing toolkit and wonderful aid."



"It is a work of art, brilliant in how useful it is."



"I have to give you props sir, your experience and insight into city play made for a better night for me and my friends."



"The book is crammed with quirky and imaginative ideas."



"Once I next run a game set in a fantasy metropolis, I will most certainly have my Vornheim by my side, whether it be set in Sigil or Kaer Maga or the City of Greyhawk."



"Actually at last count I have read this think five times. Each time I read it, I realize more and more, this is the perfect city book."



"Lot's of goodies to use for any city-based adventuring. "



"I have to say that thus far it’s really changing the way I look at city campaigns and the build of a fantasy city in general. Zak really is an amazing wellspring of ideas; he’s sort of the Grant Morrison of D&D..."



"It is awesome."



"It's official...Vornheim is freakin' amazing. Best city supplement ever."



"It's quite inspiring...I can't believe that anyone would not be able to take some creative inspiration from it."



"...a beautifully produced handbook for running city adventures."



"...brilliant..."



"...mind-blowingly awesome and original..."



"I would like smaller books that take an approach kind of like what Zak S. did with his Vornheim book: give me the means to make and use good content on the fly for a specific adventure type"



"Vornheim is an amazingly cool supplement. I've been using mine (PDF) almost since the day it came out." (down in the comments)



"Vornheim is awesome; I'm still getting used to it, but there are so many tables in there that allow me to generate interesting things on the fly."



"Flipping thru my copy of Vornheim. I'm pretty sure I want ZakSmith/Sabbath's brain..."



"That thing is a friggin' work of art."



"Vornheim is excellent. Atmospheric, great spur for creativity. Can't wait to use it!"



"This is a damned good game book. Even the first part of the book, which presents Vornheim itself, is full of material that can be directly incorporated into any city campaign. The whole book lives up to the subtitle ("The Complete City Kit"), not just the ingenious shortcuts and excellent tables."



"This little book by Zak S, best known for I Hit It With My Axe, and the D&D with Porn Stars blog, is pretty damned awesome."



But so anyway, yeah.



So here's a contest:

The Official Vornheim: Hack This Book Contest



So what I want (and what we all want, because we like useful new GMing tools) is for you to hack Vornheim. Expand it, make it bigger, make it more fun, make it do things it doesn't yet do....



For example:



-Re-write a table in Vornheim for a different genre of city: a sci-fi city, a modern city, a gilded steampunk city, a pirate city, whatever.



-Re-write something in Vornheim for use outside a city--make it into a dungeon table or a wilderness table or a seagoing table.



-Expand something in Vornheim--like the Immortal Zoo of Ping Feng but feel like it could use an aquarium? Want to make 80 more legal situations? Want to make the encounter chart into a d1000 table? Knock yourself out.



-Did I forget something? Make a whole new table or tool for use in medieval urban adventures.



Point is, take any idea in Vornheim and run with it. Entries will be judged on:



-Usefulness: Does this thing look like it'd produce gameable results at many different tables? How often? At how many different tables? Or how many times at one table? Give us something that makes our job easier or more exciting. Your Random Medieval Funny Hat Table may wow them at your Friendly Local Game Store but, to be honest, it doesn't really do a lot of heavy lifting.



-Efficiency: Did you manage to get what you need across without the GM having to dig for it?



-Style: Did Zak think it was neat?



Rules:



-Enter as many times as you like, however, since the secret reason for this contest is to give us all more game stuff, each entry must be published on-line so that everybody can use whatever tool you've devised. If you don't have a blog or wish to remain anonymous, then send it to me at zakzsmith at hawt mayle dawt calm and I'll publish it if it's any good and I have time and I feel like it. If you do publish it on your own blog remember to email me and tell me you did it.



-Entries should be no longer than a double-page spread in Vornheim itself. Remember: efficiency is beautiful, efficiency is art.



-If it doesn't have to be a pdf DO NOT MAKE IT A PDF (or at least not only a pdf). In an email, text is fine: "cut" "paste". In a blog entry just type it. Pictures are fine.



-Speaking of art, don't just send a picture unless it is also a map or diagram or otherwise part of a game-useful tool.



-I reserve the right to be totally arbitrary and my decision is final and entering the contest means you waive any legal rights to claim damages or claim anything legally-binding about this contest or anything arising from it and me writing this constitutes I'll do my best and try to be a right guy about all this shit and if you don't trust me, don't enter.



-Contest ends on Gary Gygax's birthday, July 27, 2011. Winners will be announced soon after unless there's like a gazillion entries.



Fabulous Prizes:



First place winners will receive a signed copy of Vornheim PLUS a single prize package thingy of their choice from the list below, second place winners will get to pick one thingy from what's left over after that, third place winners get to choose one from what's left over after that...



-Art: Original artwork from the interior of Vornheim signed by me



-Work: A d100 table on a topic of your own devising written by me (if this prize is chosen it will also be posted here on this blog).



-Game stuff: I will give you a list of all the game stuff sent to me over the years that's left around this house and you can pick something and I'll send it to you.



-Booby prize: If you're a fan of one or all of the DNDWPS girls I can get you signed pictures or memorabilia or some other mutually-agreed upon thing--lemme know once you win.



-Hey man, can you...?: If you have a product to pimp, I will read it or watch it and review it and post the review here.



-15-minute Commission: I will take 15 whole minutes out of my day and draw a thing of your choice, then have the girl who works for me mail you the drawing.



____

Oh, and PS, here's me and Satine and Mandy and Kimberly and James Raggi on the All Games Considered podcast.

Female Characters Done Right: FemShep

Mandy......and Vivka...
...on the costume options for the female Shepard (the main character you first-person shoot as) in Mass Effect 2.
Viv: I can see the point of her outfit since she's a commander of a military unit, but as a girl who likes girls I am appalled. Jack's is skimpy and Miranda's is totally skimpy, but you can't play as them...(that's Miranda ass)(below is Jack)
...why can't hers be skimpy too?

Mandy: Miranda's way hot--the one outfit you unlocked is great.

Viv: There should at least be an option you can unlock if you beat the game.

Mandy: The fact that they let you customize your battle armor is at least a bit better, but the thing that bothers me about it really is that they didn't change the sort of Cerebus pseudo-military uniforms for the women at all--which I can sort of see as utilitarian and fair but I don't want to run around in the same uniform as the men --at least give her something less bulky and manlike, when you see her moving around she looks like a tranny, her hips don't move like a woman's hips.

Viv: Another thing: as a person who likes cosplay, I like Rikku's outfit in Final Fantasy, it's cute and sexy but it's got layers and they show her stomach and...

But look at Shepard she's got this frumpy outfit--like I like the Evangelion plugsuits, they were form fitting but utilitarian...

Mandy: In real life having women's military outfits be as similar to the men's as possible makes sense but this is a fantasy game.

Viv: Am I the only one who thinks its weird you can give her scars, but not change her boob size? Or at least give her shorts over pants?

Mandy: Or like a pencil skirt suit and big boots?

Viv: That would be way hot.

Mandy: Its sexist to put her in there but then animate her so she looks like a man with a woman's head.

Late At Night, After 6 drinks, 2 Stripclubs...

...one lapdance*, and an hour of youtubing, we made this...

Seriously
people
like
Vornheim
and
you
should
get
it.






Apologies to both Sifl and Olly**. Though not Cifal, he can go fuck himself.
____
*Mandy's sister'd never had one so Mandy was forced to accompany her to the booth for moral support.

____
**Sifl and who? Oh, you haven't lived...