Sketchbook Caramel

Another batch of recent sketchbook drawings.

 

Artists I Like: Frederick Moulaert

I was a teenager in the 80s when Helloween dropped. We didn't say "dropped" back then. I was 16 when I saw their video for Halloween on MTV's Headbanger's Ball. I'm quite sure being on the Ball is what propelled them into fame.

But this isn't a post about Helloween. It's a post about the artist Frederick Moulaert, a Belgian who drew lots of fun cartoony art for the band Helloween. I had completely forgotten about those ad spots and CD case drawings. But dammit, Frederick was killing it in those days. The one that stands out in my memory the most was of a woman leap-frogging a pumpkin. You know the one, you metalheads out there.

So it looks like Frederick has his time in the spotlight in the late 80s, in terms of doing heavy metal art. Then he moved on to other things and currently I believe he's mostly a website designer. My selfish brain badly wants him to do a bunch more lowbrow comic art, though.

In terms of style, he's solidly European. He did some art for Fluide Glacial and Spirou. His work would fit perfectly into an issue of Heavy Metal, but I'm not sure he ever did anything for that magazine.

Sketchbook Warble

A batch of sketchbook faces.

 

Sketchbook Upchuck

Another batch of sketchbook drawings.

 

Artists I Like: Waldemar Kazak

I can't remember where I first laid eyes on the work of Russian artist Waldemar Kazak, but I know I liked it. His paintings are like looking at "what if Norman Rockwell painted beautiful women, airplanes, and weirdos?".

From perusing the artist's Facebook page, you can see that he draws a lot. Like... he puts everyone to shame with how much he draws. His approach is naturalistic. He posts a lot of color sketches of local parks and scenery, life drawing, as well as his whimsical illustrations. And he is able so shift between that immediate, naturalistic style to a more commercial, vibrant style with extreme cartoon exaggeration.

He also posts a lot of concept imagery of some unusual cars. I don't know what's up with that. I think he is a professional concept artist.

Check him out.

Sketchbook Rampage

Even though this Vanrtto sketchbook is kind of a piece of shit (the binding is falling apart), I've enjoyed trying to fill it up with random doodles. Here's another batch.

 

Doomslakers RPG 02

A brief note about adventures and "game support".

I like making game books, then moving on to the next thing. I never made a GOZR expansion or source book partially because of this and partially because holy shit that game was labor-intensive. Hand-writing an entire RPG is kind of fucking hard. I am proud of the work. It's probably my favorite single book I've ever created. But I'm not likely to do a follow-up any time soon.

My biggest regret with GOZR is that I didn't include an adventure. In my mind, I was including tons and tons of adventure ideas and resources. Hell, the whole book is a toolkit. But I think including a fleshed out example would have been good.

Anyway... this is one area where I hope to do a better job with Doomslakers. It's still very early in the process, but I'm hoping to create at least 1 or 2 adventures for the book and another couple of adventures to publish as follow-ups.

But also, I know me. Once I finish this game and publish it, I will likely want to work on anything else OTHER than this project. I'll need some space from it. So the goal, right now, is to finish the book and some adventures at the same time rather than try to circle back and do the adventures after the fact.

Sketchbook Roundup

This Vanrtto sketchbook has toothy paper, which I complained about earlier. But I'm having fun with it. I think when I realized it was so toothy I didn't care about what I drew in it, which was kind of liberating. The grainy paper gives a nice, organic feel to the brush strokes.

Here's a batch of recent doodles.

 

Artists I Like: Sean Aaberg

I came to know the work of California artist Sean Aaberg through the monster section of Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion. Sean was a fitting if not perfect answer to the iconic demon and devil art of Dave Trampier from the Monster Manual.

Sean has been a punk and metal artist since the 90s, and publisher of the free zine PORK, which is all about rock and roll and low brow culture. He is also the publish and creator of Dungeon Degenerates, a pretty badass looking board game.

Check his shit out.

Doomslakers RPG 01

Maybe I'll start blogging about my process for writing this game. It can't hurt.

Very brief background: Doomslakers RPG is the Black Pudding RPG. But it's not based on D&D. Instead, I'm taking the game mechanics from GOZR and hacking them to fit the Black Pudding implied setting of Yria. So... Doomslakers is an original game about the world of Black Pudding whereas Black Pudding zine itself is explicitly catered to old school D&D play ala Labyrinth Lord, Old School Essentials, or Basic Fantasy RPG.

To be even more clear: Doomslakers RPG is not a D&D game nor does it attempt to be compatible with those games. The Black Pudding OSR Play Book still exists in issue 4 of the zine, but I don't have any plans to publish an expanded version of that at this time (though I'll be honest and tell you I spend MANY hours working on one, so don't count it out completely).

Enough of my head canon.

WHAT YOU DO

The game is highly structured in terms of "what you do". It's an adventure game. You play the role of an Agent working for an Adventuring Company (Doomslakers Adventuring Company) to do dangerous jobs for those who can pay. It's a simple conceit. It's a very easy way to frame an adventure. The answer to the question "why are you going on an adventure?" is already delivered. Because it's how you get paid.

There's more to it, and room for Company intrigue and all that.

BACKGROUNDS

I would say the biggest influence on character creation is Troika's Backgrounds. I love that concept so much that Doomslakers is more or less the same exact thing. I even have 36 Backgrounds, such is my love of that character creation system. Most of them are Black Pudding character classes converted to Doomslakers Backgrounds.

CORE STATS

The game's core is characters with 3 basic stats rolling d20s to do things. I like it when the dice numbers go high, so one of the design principles is that it is always better to roll high. I'm trying very hard to never have a situation where a low roll is beneficial.

This means something important. It means there's no roll-under mechanics. This is only important to the most jaded nerds among you as no one else in their right minds would care.

So those 3 basic stats I mentioned... those are your target numbers. If they are high, you need to roll higher. Therefore having a low stat is better than having a high stat. This is outlined in GOZR as well.

The 3 stats are called Action Roll Targets (ARTs)*. Cunning is for thiefy things, Magic is for thinky things, and Prowess is for fighty things. These 3 stats go back to sometime around 2018 when I was working on a game called Dead Wizards, a sword and sorcery thing. That concept morphed into GOZR in 2020. But it is fitting that I return to the original idea since it was also based on the Black Pudding setting.

Sorry... more head canon stuff.

PLAYER-FACING MECHANICS

All rolls are player-facing. I must have picked up this idea from The Black Hack because I was playing various Hacks of that game by 2018. Then I found Into the Odd and was solidly in the player-facing rules camp. To do a thing in this game, you roll 1d20 vs. the ART that makes sense, as outlined above.

BEING OLD AND USING SKILLS

I'm also old. I'm 54 as of this writing**. I like old games. I like some game design styles that might be thought of as clunky or outdated today. I'll dig my heels in and say that a tabletop game cannot technically be outdated because it relies on brains, not computers. That isn't to say its content can't be outdated, but the mechanics... are timeless, my friend.

That being said... Doomslakers includes Skills, which are a bit 90s if you think about it. And they are simply +1 or +2 or whatever. So when you want to punch a bastard, you roll 1d20 + Punching Skill (if that's a thing) vs. Prowess. If you make it, you punch 'em. Intuitive, right?

HIT POINTS VS. LUCK (POINTS)

GOZR uses Hit Points. I like HP. They are simple and direct. But I wanted to challenge myself to avoid HP for Doomslakers. I made this fateful decision a mere week or two ago and it has vexed and thrilled me ever since. And while I did avoid a straight HP system, I do include something like it.

In the current iteration, players have Luck. This acts as both hit points and meta-currency luck points. Attacks against you can be absorbed by spending Luck or you can take a risk on a sort of wounds table roll. It's up to you. You can spend Luck to do cool things, avoid damage, etc. When you run out of Luck, you are dead. Or, as in GOZR, you can choose to survive and be Debased... taking some kind of permanent setback.

I like this approach. There's still risk. You still LOSE something if you run out of Luck. But death isn't the only end game for running out of Luck.

And so on. More later.

*Nothing is set in stone. All the terms discussed herein are working titles and subject to change. But Action Roll Target is literally what they are and so I'm rolling with that for now. In GOZR, they are called Action Classes, or ACs. Which seems to confuse some folks because of AC being Armor Class in other games. But it's the same principle, right? Like a Saving Throw. You're trying to roll a target number.

**Jeez. Best not to think about it.