Black Pudding #8 is now live on DTRPG and itch.io!
This moist issue features new classes (death witch, feral knight, goon royal, among others), spells, magic swords, adventures, and weirdo monsters such as the troglozyte. Glorp your copy today!
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| Hymla the Horn vs. the Eye Am cult |
From my Witch Valley B/X campaign, the Loom.
LOOM
The Great Loom have said nothing should be done except in its own time and by its own way. The Low Loom have said having four hands to do the work doesn’t hurt.
RESTRICTIONS
You attack as a Fighter. You can use any weapon and wear any armor created for Loom (cost is quadruple and plate mail is exceedingly rare, costing ten times the normal amount). You can use magic items usable by Fighters. Your Prime Requisite is Strength, which must be at least 13. You are 8’ tall and quite intimidating. Non-Loom reactions to you are at -2.
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Armed & Dangerous: You have four powerful arms. You can choose to make 2 melee attacks per round at a penalty of -3 per attack. At level 7 you can make 3 attacks at -3 each, or 2 at -2 each. Upon reaching level 10 you can attempt 4 melee attacks per round at -3 each, 3 attacks at -2 each, or 2 attacks at -1 each. During any round in which you attack more than once you can take no other actions, including movement. You can use two shields at the same time, gaining the -1 AC benefit of each. If you make 2 successful unarmed attacks against an opponent you can grab them. A grabbed enemy takes 1d6 points of damage per round from head butts, punches, bites, or strangulation. Only by passing a saving throw vs. paralysis can they break free.
Moon Curse: Your people tell a story about falling to earth from the Moon. When the Moon is full you are filled with strength, gaining +2 to saving throws and +1 to melee attack and damage. When the Moon is new you suffer -1 to all such rolls.
One thing that is becoming increasingly clear to me, on the whole creative front, is that I need to stop thinking about doing stuff and just do stuff. One of my big problems was, after GOZR, I didn't want to devote myself to such an intense project again for a while. I was like... y'know... just do traditional fucking layouts with text and fonts.
But I haven't been doing those. So it kind of stands to reason that I should just lean into what I know how to do best and stop fucking around. Meaning: Draw more pages and make little books. It's the one thing I love to do more than anything else and the only reason I don't do it more is because I'm constantly second-guessing myself.
No, this is not a New Year's resolution. I don't do those.
Ideas on the table that already have some progress and that I could/should finish:
Black Pudding 8: Mostly finished.
ZSF: Tons of work put into it, but depending on final form it is either half done or barely started.
Blood Red Pinup Book: This one is done. I have a 64 page book all fixed up. I just need to get it printed and offer it up for sale.
Rock Hardy Book of Dwarfs: Literally finished, including layout, other than doing maybe 3 additional drawings. I just can't muster the energy to do it. I fear it is just a meh book.
GOZR Adventure Book: This is an idea for which I have a few pages. I know people have asked for some GOZR adventures and I just haven't been able to return to that game with the same passion. I think because I poured so much time and effort into it I'm just finished, for now. I gave it my all. I made a complete game book. The idea was that you'd make your own adventures.
Sorry, this is a bit of a random and slightly bitchy post. I'm honestly not in a bad mood. I'm just not focused, which is becoming more and more troubling.
Anyway, one thing they did kind of surprised me. The GM said that NPCs and monsters basically can't attack or anything unless it is indicated on the Threat Dice. I am not sure if this was a house rule or just a misinterpretation of the game rules.
I went back and re-read page 41 (Creatures). My intention for Threat Dice was that they represent extra things a creature might do. In a sense, this is like GOOZ points for monsters but isn't a limited resource and is less potent. Examples given: Take half damage, take instant action, resist vulgar magic.
But creatures are actors in a scene, just like PCs, and should be able to attack and move and use items normally, regardless of Threat Dice rolls. If your crew is attacked by water-dwelling krolguin, which they were in the actual play, the creatures would get to make attacks each round. They have 2d6 Threat Dice. So the GM would roll 2d6 each round an if a 1-2 is indicated, then one or more of the creatures would do an extra thing, such as shake off half damage on an attack or something unexpected like whip out its own vulgar magic spell.
Also, the special abilities listed for each creature are not limited to Threat. For example, the ickmuck's claws cause sickness. This is not a Threat action, it's just what happens. Any time a gooz is clawed by an ickmuck, they player should probably make a Prowess check to avoid falling sick. If they fail, then they should roll on the Sickness table on page 8 to see how bad it is.
One thing I noticed in this actual play was that the PCs were slaughtering singular enemies with ease. This is because I wanted combat to go quickly! I wanted to have one-shot-kills. The balancing factor is that creatures, especially in numbers, can quickly destroy the PCs via Threat and by high damage rolls.
Let's look at the krolguin again.
You encounter them. GM rolls 3d6 for pack size and gets 12. Each one has 4 HP (or 1d8). If you're using a 1d6 damage weapon, you're going to be doing about 7 to 10 points of damage per hit, on average. You're probably going to kill a krolguin with each strike.
But there are 12 of them. Each round the GM rolls 2d6 for Threat, so very frequently a Threat will occur. Maybe a few of them grab the boat and capsize it. Maybe one of them is a wizard and casts something nasty like Lightning Strike. Things can go wrong very quickly!
But PCs are resilient and have GOOZ to spend. Also, monsters may fail a Morale Check and run away (this happened in the actual play). There are many ways a GM can leverage the rules to make encounters more brutal or less brutal, as the game-story needs.
Anyway, just some quick thoughts. I should start considering a revision of the rules with a few clarifying bits. What is in my head doesn't always come across on the page as clearly as I think it does.
A continuation of the fine, fine tradition of randomly opening PDFs in my massive library of RPG PDFs and dashing out my off-the-cuff first impressions. I do this every so often, such as here, here, here, and maybe even here. And other places too.
Today's method: Open the folder marked "new", close eyes, click on something.
Even though I actually own physical copies of the first six Conan books in this series, I'm not terribly familiar with it. I don't know the system at all. But it's a BIG DENSE MEATY looking game and I'm intimidated.
Even though there's at least one Simon Bisley cover on this series, the thing overall just isn't barbaric enough for my blood. It looks too much like a vanilla D&D 4e or 5e fantasy game. I want blood, dammit! This feels slightly softened for some reason.
Call of Cthulhu Cosmically Horrific Comix #1 "Sermon of Sludge" is an adventure scenario for use with the classic Call of Cthulhu horror RPG. Like most CoC books, this one richly outlines a situation and presents environs and characters to interact with, all leading to some nasty outcomes. In this case, a comet set to deliver some nasty stuff.
The book has a lot of pre-generated characters, plenty of maps and other handouts, and lots of fun cool art.
Definitely worth having, just to look at if nothing else.
A game you can play across generations.
Violence as a last resort
Challenge matters, threats are real
If in doubt, do it like BX
Use oral culture techniques
Avoid 3rd person, try to use ‘I’ and ‘We’
Geese are treasure
No weapons
Courtesy instead of Charisma
XP for Friends and Food
Pretty good list. Let's you know up front what you are NOT getting into. This will not be a game of dungeon-crawling and monster-slaying. This will be a fairytale type of game, possibly kid-friendly, definitely violence-averse. Cool.
So basically this is a game with a very specific setup. You and all the other players are from the same village or family and your mom is sick. Also, the goose is missing. This is bad because geese are super important and valuable. You must help your mom and get that goose back!
And if you resort to violence anywhere near a goose you're in big trouble because those bastards have a demonic berserker rage mode.
Interesting game concept. I don't know if Patrick developed it beyond this "proto-design" doc from 2020. Here's a blog post he made about it.
Oldskull Game Epansions I: Character Creation by Kent David Kelly is a big fat book of character creation optional rules, tables, and clarifications of existing rules for Old School Essentials, or really any B/X style game. It's got lots of ability score rolling methods, exceptional ability score rules, tables for appearance, alignment and deities, personality, skills, etc. The list goes on.
The book looks fine. It might suffer a little from over-production, IMHO. It has a slight tinge of that early desktop publishing era mania where you felt like you had to use all the buttons on the program. But maybe that's unfair of me. It does not have a garish watermark and the font is easy to read. So I'll back off that a bit. It looks fine. I just don't like the header and footer very much. Something about them is too busy for what the book is and is trying to do.
It has a lot of art, which seems to be a mix of public domain and clip art. And it's all good stuff. I think this is a nice little resource to have in your back pocket if you're gonna run some straight-up D&D type shit.
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| Digital drawing I like. |
Anyway, prior to going digital I was deeply invested in my art tools. I obsessed over pens and brushes and brush pens and papers. In the 2000s I found that my favorite combination was a mechanical pencil (HB) + PITT brush pen + PITT or Micron .05 pen + Prismacolor markers + Paris Paper for Pens. This was the winning combo on which I drew all of my Pan-Gea art.
I went digital and found it to be so convenient and forgiving I just couldn't bring myself to draw on paper again for years. I mean YEARS. I had a brief period in the 2010s when I was drawing on paper quite a bit, doing stuff for Goodman Games and what-not (they had a no-digital art policy). After that, I switch back and forth but mostly drew digitally. The entirety of GOZR and about 50% of Black Pudding was created using my tablet.
But in late 2022 I suddenly started drawing on paper again. I can't even remember what happened to
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| Snot slug with Pentel brush. |
In the past week or two I've been sorting all my tools. I have a LOT OF TOOLS. Like, copious numbers of markers, pens, and brush pens. Nibs and brushes. Inks and papers. Some of these had to go away because they were dried out. But others were fine, some just needed a little TLC.
The tools on my desk right now that I'm favoring:
And I just revitalized an old fountain pen by Sensa and it has a deliciously smooth line... but it is unreliable as hell. In fact... it stopped working entirely and I can't seem to fix the damn thing.
I picked up a Kuratake brush pen (#50) and it's a dream too. Though, honestly, the line quality isn't any better than the much less expensive Pentel. The main difference is the Kuratake can take an ink converter so you don't have to rely on disposable refills. And it has a metal tube, which feels good.
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| Kuretake #50 brush pen (not my art or pic). |
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| Sailor Profit brush pen feels very nice. |
But there are workarounds. You can refill those empty cartridges using a syringe. There is also a cool tutorial you can find that teaches you how to modify an ink converter to fit into a Pentel body, so you can just use that instead.
An ink converter is just a refillable ink cartridge. Typically you twist the top to suck up ink into the cartridge so you can put it into your pen or brush pen.
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| A very popular ink converter from Platinum. |
Creators often make a game that is a one-off. They cerate it out of passion, then move on to something else. I do this all the time. Why haven't I created a follow-up to GOZR yet? Because my passion lies elsewhere. I have no commitment to "supporting" that game by producing more material. Every fucking thing you need to play it is in the book, warts and all. Play it once, then put it away if that's what you like. Play it twice, three times, whatever.
But play other games. Play weird games you never heard of. Play games that make you uncomfortable, at least once. Play something you swear you'll hate. Make it a pact with your group: We will play at minimum, one completely different game per year or per six months or whatever feels right.
I started an online gaming group in 2014 that has been meeting every Monday ever since. We've played a shit ton of Labyrinth Lord, but also a shit ton of other games. We played Psi World, My Life With Master, Warhammer, Star Frontiers, The Black Hack, Into the Odd, Fiasco, GOZR, Quantum Lunch, Top Secret, and Bean! for pete's sake. And more.
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| Kenn Minter |
I don't have a ton of experience with comic shows so I can't say the Richmond Comic & Toy Show was fantastic. But I had a good time hanging out with a couple of friends, met some cool artists, and picked up a stack of books. So I call that a success.
Oh, and there were nerds walking around in Star Wars and Sailor Moon uniforms, so that was cool.
Here are the creators I met and interacted with. I spent pretty much all my pocket money on these folks.
Kenn Minter of Near Mint Press with Country Creatures comic.
Bryce Oquaye of Mad Hundreds.
Tressa Bowling, who has some amazing sketch zines.
Ken Kirk doing fun sketches on skateboards and writing comics.
J. D. Thompson with The Hound of Cold Hollow: Vengeance comic.
William Leslie of Blackwill Comics.
Joe Slucher doing fantasy art for Magic: the Gathering.
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| Hard Justice, by Wes Gift, Bryce Oquaye, and Taylor Esposito. |
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| Tressa Bowling's cool art books. |
While drawing in this wee sketchbook I just decided to do a very simple OSR sheet. No room for extras, dammit! This game is about the basics, you losers. Go play 5e if you want squishy drama and backstories, you pieces of shit. If it doesn't fit on an index card you don't need it, you rubes!
Ok, that's enough of my sarcasm. Play your games the way you want, you're valid, etc. Blah blah. And artful character sheets RULE!
Crits or DIE!
Why?
There's a character class I wrote and turned into a mini-zine for a Gary Con I attended. It was called The Lug. It's basically a big, dumb brute of a guy who has a heart of gold. Essentially Fezzik from Princess Bride. You know the trope. I have often thought I should give The Lug a rendering in Black Pudding, but I can't seem to do it.
Why?
It seems to be because these are relics of a decade ago when I was in a very different mindset. I was just discovering the beauty of revisiting old school D&D and it was shiny and new again. And I wanted to put on the aesthetics of that era. I did work. Then I changed and moved on. I have other ideas now and my approach is very different. I can't put myself back into that mindset.
It was a mistake to start Adventures in the North as a multi-part series. I've never been good at maintaining that sort of thing because my inspirations drift over time. It would have been wise of me to do it as a one-shot adventure location instead of an 11-point mini-setting.
The Lug has the same problem. It was a cool idea at the time, but now I think about it... it feels very liming. Your character would be a one trick pony. You bop people on the head and smash things.
Where IS the God of Tits & Wine??
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| Game of Thrones |
Too bad this 10/10 performance petered out and landed on a 4/10 sour note, like a toddler who says "I'm gonna stay up all night!" but their wild energy turns to irritation and then slumber.
I enjoy discovering new artists and being amazed by what they can do. The internet has been a magnificent blessing for the arts as more and more folks are practicing and sharing their work. In the old days, you'd find new artists by reading comics and browsing the bookshelves and magazines. Today you can find ten new ones a day and get bored before you run out.
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| Sean Aaberg amazes me. |
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| Erol Otus mesmerizes me. |
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| Raven Perez blows my mind. |
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| Brian Baugh makes me happy. |
Don't do this.
Evlyn Moreau enchants me.
It isn't helpful to anyone, most of all to yourself. You are not them. The strokes you make are yours. The drawings you draw are yours. You can never do what they do because you are not them.
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| Bud Root gives me funny feelings. |
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| Joe Vaux kickstarts my imagination. |
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| Matthew Allison makes me want to get better. |
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| Vaughn Bodé sings to my spirit. |
This issue is a milestone for me because it includes a 16-page gazetteer (17, counting the names tables) setting of my fantasy world of Yria. I had toyed with this idea for a long time, assuming I would have to devote an entire 100-page book to the topic to do it right. In the end, I realized all I needed was a quick-and-dirty GM's guide to the setting. And 16 pages did the trick, at least for me.
It starts with a map, as is often the case. I have a love-hate relationship with maps. They define things a little too much up front for my tastes, but they are also beautiful and inspiring - and the whole point of any Black Pudding zine is to inspire. The Yria map is one that has went through a lot of incarnations over the years, but the one showing up in BP7 is as close to legit as you're gonna get. Hell, in a future edition I might utterly change it. I don't know. Each TTRPG table is its own world, after all.
The next two pages are an actual gazetteer of the 36 locations, ala X1: Isle of Dread. Less is more. I went with broad strokes, planting images using keywords for each location. Instead of describing the government structure and ruling elites of Seapath, I just tell you the vibe: One of the five cities. Serpentine across the mountain pass, ruled by the rich, sought by the desperate. Come to trade, stay to dream. You get an image of the city (serpentine across the mountain pass... it lays like a snake, humped over a mountain). You know who runs the show. You know why folks would go there and something about why they might stay. It seems to be a place rife with corruption, but also full of hope or at least potential wealth.
Next five pages are devoted to the five cities. Yria only has five cities of note. Any other cities are either ruins, cursed, or not very big. This concept is very much in the vein of the "points of light" across a "dark wilderness" motif. That is, I believe, a super-effective way to game*. Each city gets one page with imagery and various tables for what you might see or encounter. The rulers are noted, and a very brief description is given, akin to the 36 location gazetteer style. So if the short description of Seapath from above isn't enough, the one page for Seapath gives you a little more.
The second half of the section is the mythos. This mythos (100% using that term because of Deities & Demigods, the most inspiring D&D book of all time) has been with me for many years. Decades. It underpins almost every fantasy setting I've ever created or tried to create. It is based on one dozen beings, each of which I sketched onto small blue cardboard cards sometime in the early 2000s. Those images appear in the book, though in gray scale of course. The section gives you that list of beings and their general powers, broadly-speaking. Being heavily influenced by Deities & Demigods, I wanted/needed each of them to be corporeal as well as spiritual and eternal. They have bodies. They have stats. You can interact with them.
The whole thing wraps with 5 d66 tables of common names, each keyed to one of the five cities.'
In case you ever wondered, this is my favorite thing so far in the series. I realize it isn't exactly the same kind of stuff that made the zine popular. It isn't hand-scrawled, it isn't universally useful. It's very specific to my world. But I designed it as loosely as possible to allow easy access. It is very easy to steal from.
Other things in the issue are more typical of the zine. There are 4 new character classes, one of which is the Rat Bastard. I created that one way back in 2017, which is why it, more than any other, has the tone and vibe of early BP issues. It was meant to go into issue 2 but somehow I left it out. I have no idea what happened or how I missed it all these years. Happy to finally include it.
The other class I really love in this one is the Eyeball. That one is a keeper, for me. And we also get some coolness from contributor David Okum! A handful of monsters and a character sheet round the thing out. In fact... this one features my favorite character sheet so far. I love this one because it is the cleanest and most useful that I've ever created.
*The first proper D&D campaign I was ever in, way back in 1987 in high school, started as a crude 8.5 x 11 map of a town. It was the DM's setting at that point. I think he only knew the town and nearby areas, so that's where we adventured. It grew a bit over time. It's a brilliant way to do a campaign: don't flood the players with information! Just paint the image and start playing.
I really don't care too much about precision when it comes to describing the arts. For example, there might be an album I call heavy metal and you say it is technically grindcore, I think that's fascinating but ultimately I don't care about getting it "wrong" very much. It's still metal. And let's be real: some of the sub-categories of metal are ridiculously granular*. Unless you're a super-aficionado, nobody cares. Heavy, thrash, death, prog, and black are probably all you need to describe the landscape. Maybe.
That's a digression. The point of this post is to talk about genre in fiction, a little bit. And to ramble. A lot.
Anyway, the books I read when I was young were mostly fantasy novels with a few SF tossed in here and there. I know a lot of people say that D&D expands kids' vocabulary and leads them to read more. In my case, once I started playing D&D I actually read fewer books. I was too damn busy making things up and giving them stats. Why would I read someone else's ideas when I could make up my own?
Later, mostly in my 20 and 30s, I read a lot of nonfiction. Far more nonfic than fiction. I was really into books about science, such as The Beak of the Finch and River out of Eden and I also read things like A People's History of the United States and Night.
Today what I discover is that my favorite genre of fiction is sword and sorcery... a sub-category of fantasy that isn't easily defined and is historically marked by some of the most egregious sexism and racism you can find in fantasy fiction. I never claimed to have lofty tastes, after all. I am a lowbrow artist, I believe.
But when it comes to making games, I really do love sci-fantasy. That is, fantasy with spaceships and robots. It's kind of goofy, a little over the top, but it offers everything and that appeals to me for some reason. Especially when running games. I like to riff and improvise and such a setting is most forgiving in that regard.
*I use Spotify a lot. Like a fucking LOT. I go to sleep with it in my ears on most nights. Each year they do this "wrap up" thing where they tell you what you listened to. Mine always tells me I'm "adventurous" because I listed to over 1,000 genres in the past year. How the FUCK are there 1,000 genres? I know for a fact I do not listen to all types of music. I've never been into hip-hop, for example. But I guess because there were a handful of hip-hop songs that I listened to more than once that counts as me being adventurous. I dunno. But jesus, "hyper-techno-death-thrash-grindcore-alternative" is not a fucking thing. It's probably just rock.
Beauty and the beast is a kind of trope that refers to a juxtaposed couple: the beautiful, pure, true, good female and the bestial, rough, bad male. Of course the story typically entails her finding the good in him.
But what is the wider trope of the beautiful female juxtaposed against the grotesque, weird, robotic, or monstrous male? Not quite the same as beauty and beast, this wider trope can involve any sort of weirdo being next to the female character. It's a super common thing in fantasy art. You see it all the time with artists like Bode, Azpiri, Corben, Frazetta, etc. It's so common it just kind of hides among all the other art.
Women and weirdos. Hotties and horrors. Chicks and chucks (ok, that's a stretch).
To wit, here's an Arthur Suydam piece perfectly illustrating the idea. Let's ignore that he's a prick for a moment and enjoy his Wally Wood impression.
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| Arthur Suydam |
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| Blas Gallego |
WARNING: Rambling ahead. Just a whole lot of rambling.
I'm trying to remember life in the 1980s. I was born in 1970, so my entire later childhood and teenage years were in the 80s. I grew up in the 80s.
This is an interesting position, I think. Because I remember the 70s, to a lesser degree. I was there for disco and punk rock... at least temporally. I was a kid so I didn't know punk rock from pop rocks. I heard of disco, of course.
The 70s was before the rise of cable TV, but at the heights of TV's general power. When I was really little, we only had whatever channel would come in using the antennae (bunny ears). That was basically KET and the local Fox 41. I saw Emergency, Bozo, and The Incredible Hulk.
But anyway... the 80s came. Things changed as they do. Cable was a thing. We were poor, so we didn't have it. But we did have it once for a few months, including The Movie Channel. It was great. I saw 1941 and Excalibur and a bunch of stuff I don't remember. Hell, I watched Excalibur when I was 12... probably too young. Those scenes of naked women juxtaposed against armored knights really left a lasting imprint on my brain.
In the 80s, you had rotary phones and push button phones at the same time. And phone cords that got twisted up. We didn't have a phone at all until I was about 16. If you have never lived in a world without a phone, that is probably hard to fathom. Like... how the fuck would we have called for an ambulance if we needed one? The answer is we'd run to the nearest neighbor with a phone. When I was about 8 in 1978 my mom and I lived alone on a hill in an old shack without a phone, bathroom, or sometimes electricity. There was an old lady about half a mile down the road who had a phone and would let mom use it if she needed.
So anyway. In the 80s you had the rise of the VHS. We didn't own a player but you could rent one with your movies. If I remember correctly, it was about $5 to rent the player for 3 days and I think $1 per movie. So one of the things we'd do on some weekends, after mom started working at a factory job, was rent a player and 3 movies. I got to pick one movie. The store had maybe a hundred or so movies and my focus was on fantasy and sci-fi.. so basically this one shelf with maybe 20 films on it. I watched Beastmaster, Road Warrior, and Weird Science many times.
The other way you'd catch a cool flick was when they would put it on TV as a special event. They did that frequently with Conan, Road Warrior, and First Blood.
For music, this was the reign of the cassette tape. My first foray into listening to music on my own was to get my hands on a cheap jam box and score a few bootleg cassettes at the flea market. Alabama's Roll On was the first, I think. Then a cousin hooked me up with some AC/DC and it was all over for me. I was a metalhead. When I got my job at Hardees, I would buy at least one tape every paycheck. Often it would be based on the cool ass album cover and names of songs, having no clue who the band was. I didn't read magazines and didn't know anyone who knew shit about it other than a couple guys at school who seemed to know what was up. They clued me in on Metallica.
It was like that, though. Word of mouth was perhaps the most potent form of advertising. Because you weren't going to see TV ads for the super cool shit like D&D (with exceptions... there was the cartoon) or Vinnie Vincent Invasion. You needed your stoner friend who was a year older than you to say "Check this out, man. It's badass."
We were afraid of being consumed in a nuclear fire. This is not hyperbole. We were in a cold war with the USSR and a full-blown nuclear arms race was the name of the game. We had post-apoc movies like Mad Max. I remember checking out books from our local library about survival. They had one called Nuclear Winter that scared the shit out of me. At one point I planned to move to South America and live in the Amazon... probably because I had watched Romancing the Stone a few times. Kathleen... sweet Kathleen.
Let's see... I rode the bus to school pretty much my entire career with the exception of my senior year when I carpooled with some guys. The road I lived on at the time was hilly and curvy. If it snowed and school let out, the bus driver would not attempt to go up the hill. So she would stop and let us out. It was about a mile and a half to my house from there. About 8 of us would get off and hoof it home. By the time I got home, I was alone because I lived near the other end of the road. It was a weird, dreamy time. I don't know if the driver was supposed to do that or not, but it was done.
My friend had a computer (Tandy) and so we did play some games. Test Drive, Galactic Conquest, Bards Tale, etc. But the idea of an "internet" didn't enter my vocabulary until around 1994. I didn't get my first computer until 2000. I think I got my first email, a Yahoo account, in 1996 or something. But in the 80s, almost nobody had a computer until much later in the decade.
We did have consoles. Specifically Atari 2600. My cousins had one, which we played on their huge floor model TV on the carpet in 1982. We didn't get an Atari until a few years later when mom started working. Combat, Pac-Man, Pitfall, Berserk, Duck Hunt, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Swordquest!
Lots of people smoked. Every restaurant had ashtrays, every car, everywhere. Yes, you would visit some office such as a doctor or whatever and you'd see people smoking inside. That's just how it was. It was less so in the 80s than the 70s, but still omnipresent.
In my experience, which I know is particular to me, there was never any discussion of race, gender, or sexual orientation in the better part of the 80s. Sexual orientation definitely became a topic as the decade progressed, with the AIDS epidemic. And I know it was a hot discussion point for a very long time before that, but those discussions never filtered down to my level: rural white trash. Fuck's sake, in 1982 I was still telling racist and gay jokes in school. EVERYONE DID. And even though I felt that nagging sensation that "this ain't right" it didn't stop me from occasionally doing it to get the yuck-yucks from my peers, who were mostly redneck boys who probably still tell them to this day.
It was a time.
Another topic nobody talked about was socialism. Holy shit... the fucking communists were the enemy! Socialism was very literally a dirty word. I had no idea what it meant other than it was "people who hate freedom". The level of propaganda against communism and socialism that blanketed the USA at that time is incomprehensible. If you are a leftist today posting on social media about politics you really have no idea how lucky you are to be able to do that at all. You couldn't breathe a positive word about that shit when I was a kid. It was exactly as bad as saying you were gay... and that shit would get you beat up.
Not the best of times. But it had its charms in other ways. We got B/X D&D, some great heavy metal, some classic movies, and some killer comics out of the deal.
It was through following Baugh's Insta that I noticed all the posts about this "Wulf and Batsy" duo of a big werewolf and a slinky vampiress. Which eventually lead me to visit the Alterna Comics website and actually BUY THEM. Good move. Because these are great comics.
Physically, the comics I got from Alterna are tops. They are lovely objects, very old school, with a $1.99 cover price that is kind of amazing today. Not sure how they do that. But the printing is on some kind of newsprint, interiors are black and white. But it looks fantastic.
Printing aside, the comics look gorgeous. Baugh is not worried about being in a hurry or trying to cram too much into a small space. One story about a weird science villain takes four issues to play out but what happens is actually very simple and straightforward. But Baugh likes to soak up the scenery and give us what we came to see: cool ass black and white horror line art that is one part gothic, one part classic, and one part sexy pinup.
FUN.
Check out the cool trailer for the series.
I'm just happy this kind of thing has space to exist today. I want more.
Here's a thing that is very common in adventure stories but is not necessarily the easiest to use in an adventure RPG: the heroes are captured and thrown into the actual dungeon (jail)!
Happens all the time in movies and TV shows. All. The. Time.
But in a traditional adventure RPG, what is the first thing that tends to happen when any NPC tries to lay a finger on a PC?
"I cast fireball."
"I throw my axe."
"I slip into the shadows so I can get a backstab next round."
Combat. Initiative.
Now, I'm of the mind that the GM should practice firm-but-gentle scene-framing. I think the GM has the power - nay - the responsibility to "force" PCs into certain situations if the alternative would lead to absurdity or certain doom.
I mean, players always assume the PCs can find a way to do anything. And that's great, because they are the heroes. But surely there are times that the party knows collectively when it should measure its words and actions and bide its time. Right?
But we covet our free will as gamers so furiously! Those magic items we carry are not separate things, they are PART OF US. The IDEA of some NPC just taking Hipcracker the +2 war hammer or Whipcakes the Staff of Power off our person and escorting us into a dirty cell? RIDICULOUS.
Of course the NPCs have to be careful. If you have 5 powerful entities in your throne room carrying such mystical magical items and possessing unknown magic powers... you might think twice before just saying "Throw them in the dungeon!"
So there's a caution for the GM as well.
But still. We need to have some cool "will they escape??" moments without "I skewer the first guard on my spear" as the default reaction.
Been in a funk lately. I was working on the new game every day, kind of obsessed with it, then I got COVID. Seems like that's when the funk started. Been kind of flitting around since then, not focused on a damn thing. Arting randomly, no focus at all.
But such is life. I have a wandering mind. Sometimes it's worse than other times. I would probably fit into some category of neurodivergent, but I'm not dysfunctional enough to give a shit about checking.
Even unfocused, though, I still draw a decent amount. I berate myself for not doing much but then I look at my art stack and realize it just keeps growing and growing and growing. Even my daughter, who draws all the time, comments "How do you just keep drawing so much?".
I guess my issue is that I see all these accomplished comics creators, for example, who did x number of issues of their book over x decades and I'm like "Where's my x book?". I don't really have one. People know me either for The Pool, Pan-Gea, Black Pudding, or my pin-up art. I think. I'm so god damn random I can't even tell if any of that is true.
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| I mean, this idea has legs, right? |
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| Picture it in FULL COLOR. |
This post is a nerdy dive into some ZSF rules about character creation. Proceed at your own risk.
I've been drawing a lot of ZSF art lately. I don't know how much of it will end up in the game book, and I'm not even thinking about it. I'm just having a great old time drawing.
As I was doodling last night, I drew this sketch of a character who I named Captain Vista. So I thought I'd go ahead and give him game stats. I wanted to write a little bit about it because I can discuss the character creation system a bit.
Here's the Captain:
Basic Skills
Every PC has six Basic Skills: Explore, Drive, Fight, Operate, Shoot, and Talk.
A new PC has a rank of 1 in each skill and you can distribute 9 additional points between them for a total of 15 ranks. The Captain has a total of 19, not 15.
As you play the game, the GM will hand out Space Points, which are like XP. You spend them on your character to make changes. One of the changes you can make is bumping up your skills. It costs 3 SP to increase a skill by 1 rank. So the Captain has spent 12 SP on skills.
Life Points
Every PC starts with LP equal to their Explore + Fight ranks + 20. Cap's E+F+20 equals 29, but he has 35 LPs.
You can add 1 LP by spending 1 Space Point, so the Cap has spent 6 SP.
Traits
Every PC starts with 2 special Traits. A Trait is really just anything at all about your character that isn't covered by other chargen rules. Rapid healing, a rich uncle, and a magic gun are all examples of Traits you could add to your PC.
Captain Vista has 6 things listed on his sheet that could be counted as Traits, though 2 of them are probably just gear.
• Animated Hair (definitely a Trait)
• Hyper Strong (definitely a Trait)
• .50 Cal gun (probably gear, not special)
• Katana (probably gear, not special)
• Captain of the Heroic Tortoise (definitely a Trait)
• Space Eyes (definitely a Trait)
The difference between what is a Trait and what isn't is that a Trait is something extra. All PCs can buy a laser pistol. If your character buys a pistol for $100 and it deals 5 DMG (damage), then that's just a standard thing. If you want it to be something special, you can spend 2 Space Point and turn it into a Trait. You might then say the laser pistol actually has modular parts and you had a super zapper module lying around. Now your laser pistol, a Trait, deals 9 DMG instead of 5. Or it can be set to scan mode or something.
The Captain started with 2 Traits at chargen. Assuming his weapons are not special, he currently has 4 Traits, so he has spent a minimum of 4 Space Points to add 2 new Traits. It is possible that he spent more, because you can improve your Traits by spending 2 SP on them. We don't really know the details of his abilities from what we're shown here. Let's just assume he spent 4 SP.
Money
Captain has $625. All PCs begin with $100, so he has probably spent and earned some money over time. He's not rich at all. He can't even buy a laser pistol with that kind of cash. So I don't think he has spent any Space Points to make himself richer (you can get a quick $500 for 1 SP).
Summary
In total, we know that Captain Vista has spent 12+6+4 = 22 Space Points. If the GM follows the guidelines given in the rules, they will award 1 SP per 1 hour of play. Adjusting for snack runs and Monty Python jokes, Captain Vista has been involved in at least 22 hours of game play, or about 5 or 6 typical game sessions. He's not a new character.
Of course it's possible the GM awards more points than normal or starts with more bennies for PCs. Every table is different, you know.
Last Thought: The Heroic Tortoise
Nobody starts with a ship in this game. At least not a ship worth a bent penny. Part of the game's theme is that you are poor outsiders working within or against a system that is inherently unfair and kind of ruthless (sound familiar?). Captain Vista would not have a ship like this one as a new PC.
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| The Heroic Tortoise |
