Better For Having Been Here

Taking a moment out of my buggered life to remember a life that made me feel good about life.

Happy 77th Birthday to Jim Henson.

He left us so much joy. I leave you with this.

 

 

 

 

Score Jim.

 

 

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Barking Alien

 

Three Ravens

My brain is a bit of a mess of late.

I have a lot on my mind, both life-wise, game-wise and the one place they cross and it is making other things I want to do difficult to concentrate on.

For the purposes of this post and you readers out there, I am basically chasing three ravens...

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I am continuing to progress with my StoryTeller RPG, which is going through a few changes here and there. Overall it is essentially the same game that first came to me like a bolt from the blue, but as the shock from said bolt wears off, I am seeing ways of grounding myself a little more and realizing that the games does need more work than I first thought.

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My second 'holy grail' of late (pun intended) is to finalize work on my upcoming Pendragon campaign before play starts at the end of the month.

For reasons both person and creative I seem to be having trouble reading through the entirety of the rulebook or even the key portions without getting tired or distracted. I am not sure if the material is too dryly written (because honestly I don't think it is) or if I still haven't gotten used to reading PDFs on a screen for extended periods but man, I just can't seem to get through the text in a timely fashion.

As I get older I find I have less and less patience for reading rules. This started sometime ago. When I was 16.

Anyway, I will get through it I know I will as I am really looking forward to this campaign. We have some PCs worked out already and, true to form for my guys, they aren't classical or traditional Arthurian characters but they are damn interesting. More about them in an upcoming post.

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Lastly, but certainly not least, I am working on a new game to run with the kids at the study center I work at in Brooklyn. The students are older now and no longer newbies to gaming so I want to do something a little more challenging. In addition , we've done Fantasy, Superheroes and even a little Comedic Horror but so far, very little Science Fiction.

So my idea for this semester, beginning this coming weekend, is to run a deep space exploration mission where the PCs, working for either an interstellar government or a megacorporation, travel through the universe encountering alien species, discovering lost civilizations and cataloging unknown worlds.

Now, are we looking at Star Trek? Maaaybe.

These kids are largely unfamiliar with the overall concept of Star Trek, which may prove to be awesome (and perfect for proving my 'You-Don't-Need-To-Know-Trek-To-Play-Trek').

Other options include doing it a bit more tongue-in-cheek and going with my homebrew Galaxy Quest, a bit more serious and have a realistic approach to space travel and investigation with InSpace (InSpectres variant) or even Traveller.

I'd love to hear peoples ideas and opinions on this. What simple, fast paced and relatively mechanically lite Sci-Fi game would work best for 1-2 hour session increments, with 6-8 players, ages 11-14?

Let me know.

More to come.

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Barking Alien 

 

The True Bride

Sometimes the love of your life is right there in front of you, staring you in the face the entire time and you don't even realize it.

Such it was with my new beloved and old, dear friend...



 

 

A melancholy need to run something of a fantasy nature has stayed with me from the dawn of late Summer onward until now, not one bit frightened off by the coming spectre of Autumn.

 

I have given it respect and indeed been rallied by it in the form of inspiration and activity toward my own little work of passion and vanity, 'The StoryTeller RPG'.

 

While progress on the StoryTeller continues, it has not satiated my hunger for a long term game I can run with my regular group.

 

I looked back at my posts for the month of August and I noticed something.

 

I listed only two commercial Fantasy RPGs that I've ever really liked and one of them I have never run. I played it some 25+ years ago but never ran it. I've run the other one, Ars Magica, to varying degrees of success (OK, mostly lots of success, one time recently mediocre success). So why try a campaign of one and not the other?

 

Why indeed?

 

 



 

One of my favorite pieces of role playing game art ever.

By Lisa A. Free.

 

 

My thoughts are that with this game, which directly combines the concepts of actual medieval history with folklore and legend (for such is the very nature of its source material), I will have a better chance of evoking the kind of fantasy setting I am longing for while still giving my genre-challenged players the opportunity to battle enemy forces, slay monsters, hunt for ancient and possibly mystic treasures and gain wealth and notoriety, a major driving force for at least one member of the group.

 

For the majority of the players, the chance to do all of the above while exploring interesting characters is easily facilitated by the system and subject matter. The rules governing Passions and Traits will go along way toward helping one or two of them visualize their character beyond what skills they have and what weapon they use.

 

Most interestingly, its my now veterans who seem to have the most difficulty thinking outside the box when it comes to fantasy and genre-troupes in general, where as my newer players are pretty open-minded and flexible as they've had fewer years of D&D pounded into their heads. Well, two more new players maybe coming into the mix. This could get very, very interesting.

 

 

King Arthur as a Boy: "What's the best thing for being sad?"

Merlin: "The best thing for being sad is to learn something."
Camelot, The Broadway Musical, 1967


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Barking Alien

A brief acknowledgement and thank you to my newest followers. Hope you enjoy the site and be sure to tell your friends!

Sapsorrow

Previously I said I felt lucky that when a really good idea hits me (or at least an idea that I think is good), it sort of POPS! into my mind complete and fully formed. After that it's all about cleaning off the direct and shining up the details.

Well, this one keeps coming. It hasn't stopped yet. I keep getting new ideas for it and ways to improve it and unfortunately, with the holiday weekend coming up, there is no way I am going to finish this project this month.

I am as sad a sap as Sapsorrow.

 

Now THAT is a sad sight if ever I saw one.

Even as I was getting ready to detail how Legend and Lore work, I began thinking how to refine the ideas for them, as well as considering adding a subsystem called Peril. I am on a roll. And yet...

The more I work on this the more I realize this is exactly the kind of game I would love and my players would not really get into. It's perfect for RECESS and would do very well with my old New Jersey group. For my current New York crowd...no so much.

I will continue to work on this and should have a finished game very soon. I will definitely be running it at the next RECESS Game Day, mark my words!

In regards to a new Fantasy game for my present group of players, I'm sort of back where I started. I say sort of because I have a bit more insight now as to what I want that will also work for them. If D&D is on the Red end of the spectrum and StoryTeller on the Violet End (although really its not. Its more Blue/Indigo), I need to find a way to locate or make a game that's...Green.

Green? Did I say Green?

It seems I walked right into my own metaphor. I knew there was a reason I liked that color.

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Barking Alien

The Luck Child

Sometimes I get lucky and when an idea hits me, it hits all at once, bringing the theme, setting and mechanics with it in one fell swoop. It is like being buried in an avalanche of coolness.

Yeah. It's like that.

With The StoryTeller RPG it was very much like that, although granted, it didn't start that way.

Actually, it started something like this...

Search for the right Fantasy Game - Get frustrated - Keep searching - Get frustrated - Consider making my own - Keep searching - Get frustrated  - Wait... POP! BOOOM! The StoryTeller.

So here's what I have so far...

Basically, the game is mechanically very similar to The Muppets RPG, which is in turn based on Risus, Sketch! and a number of other RPGs. In addition, some ideas from my Smurfs RPG have snuck in here as well. Since I designed that game with a heavy faerie folklore emphasis, a lot of the same concepts can be applied here (it also goes with the type of game I want to run and the stories I want to tell).

Above you will see the character sheet I designed for the game. It begins with, "Once There Was A...", where you list the type of character you are. Preferably, make this either as descriptive and folklore related as possible or as simple as you can. For example, The Luck Child could be identified as A..."Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" or A..."Luck Child".

Next is "Named", where you write your character's name. In our example, "Lucky" is the The Luck Child's name. Fancy that, eh?

"Who Sought Out" defines your character's overarching goal, quest, purpose or just what they really want in life. It need not be epic but it certainly could be.

The Luck Child did not initially seek anything, being happy to live life as the adopted son and bookkeeper for a Miller and his wife. After being discovered by the cruel and greedy King of the land to be the child prophesied to one day claim his throne, Lucky was told to head for the castle with a written, royal proclamation. Little did Lucky know that the proclamation told the Queen that, upon meeting the boy, she was to have the guards seize him and chop him into a thousand pieces.

Since Lucky did not know this, what he "Sought Out" could be listed as "His Fortune" or "The King's Castle".

This is where "Despite" comes into play. You could say, Despite "A Cruel and Greedy King" or "The Plans of a Greedy King".

Much of the interaction between the PC and the game mechanics and game universe (though not all of it) will come from trying to seek out what you want despite a thing trying to impede you. In the story of Fearnot, Fearnot is a young man "Who Sought Out" What It's Like To Be Scared "Despite" Being Incapable of Fear.

Finally, the opening of our sheet ends at the beginning with "And So Begins Our Story..." in which you give the title of your particular folktale. You see, each PC is a folklore character in a legend all their own. Not only will you be going on adventures of a mythic nature but you are also always on your own, personal mythic adventure. 

How are you liking it so far?

What's that? Hit points? Where are the hit points and armor class you ask? What is the Luck Child's strength? I don't know. Haven't the foggiest. Hmm? Initiative? Don't worry about such things right now my friend. We're here to tell tales by fire light. If it's important I'm sure we'll get to it.

You old schoolers getting a bit uneasy? Keep calm, read on and Fearnot...

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Barking Alien

***

I don't want to depart for today without acknowledging a few items of interest and importance.

Today commemorates the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech and the March on Washington that let it be heard. We could use an ounce of that fire in today's world.

On a personal note, I want to say Happy Birthday to another 'King', Jack 'King' Kirby, born this day in 1917. Born Jacob Kurtzberg, a native New Yorker, Mr. Kirby passed away at the age of 76 from Heart Failure in February of 1994.

He is remembered by comic book fans every day they look at an image or read a story featuring any one of the dozens upon dozens of characters he created or co-created for Marvel and DC Comics including The Fantastic Four, Black Panther, The New Gods, Mister Miracle, Galactus, The Silver Surfer and of course, Captain America.

I neglected to make mentioned on the 23rd that it had been one year since the passing of musician and Muppets puppeteer Jerry Nelson.

In loving memory.