More Conan

Speaking of Conan, I had a thought while thinking.

Here's my Conan: He is a muscled man, beardless and tan. He is fair and respects his word. He will treat with you with respect as long as you honor your own word. He will gut you otherwise and not lose a wink of sleep. He loves the ladies and the wine and the adventure. Every day is a new day that should lead to some cash, which leads to some wine and women. Conan doesn't wear a lot of armor and doesn't indulge in speeches.

My Conan is based mostly on Savage Sword comics and the 1982 movie with a smattering of Robert E. Howard. This is my Conan.

People will argue that this is not an accurate portrait of the Cimmerian. Only the image of Conan presented in REH's writings are true, everything else is false. And I get it. If you want to be an originalist to the works of a dead man, I get it.

But let's be honest. REH wrote maybe 21 Conan stories, and most of them are really cool. But since his death there have been many more stories written, many novels, some movies, cartoons, RPGs, and a metric FUCKTON of comic books. One could inundate oneself with Conan material and be a Conan fanatic without ever reading Robert E. Howard.

This is upsetting to originalists, but it's the god damn truth. If you spent your youth reading Conan comics and never read a single Howard story you are still a Conan fan and you still have Conan in your blood, by Crom. Don't let the dogs tell you otherwise!

But of course by all means you should read Howard. Most of those stories are pretty good shit. The longer ones are not my cup of tea, but worth a look.

Al Qadim Again

I've posted many times how much I love Al Qadim. I have been collecting the books for years (not finished yet, but getting close), but really I've only played in one Al Qadim game one time in the mid 90s and I've never ran it. Maybe I never will.

An interesting thing about this setting is just how inaccurate it is to Arab culture and the mythos in which it plays. For example, my understanding is that the tales we call Arabian Nights are actually Chinese in origin (?), not Arabian. but folks in the Arabian world, having also grown up knowing about these tales, assume they are Arabian. There are lots of other culturally inaccurate ideas in the game that you can Google for yourself.

I'd love to say these things don't matter because it's an elf game. And... yeah... I mean, mostly that's true. But we'd be fools and - worse - assholes if we totally ignored it. This is a game series based on a distinctly American male's idea of what Arabian fantasy is. More specifically, it's based on a certain generation of American males: mine.

When I was in first grade, c. 1976, I remember our little asses being marched into the school's auditorium to watch a movie. I remember it vividly because we were arranged from shortest to tallest (so people could see over each other, natch) and I was second in line. The only person shorter than me was Vickie and her pigtails. I loved Vickie. Being placed next to her in line, for me, was an early romantic experience that filled my wee mind with ideas. I was her "taller man".

Anyway. That's not important. The fact that she ignored me is meaningless. The point is we watched the 1963 classic Jason and the Argonauts, then only a little over a decade old. It was phenomenal! Warriors, ships, giants statues, skeletons! My mind reeled with the imagery looming over me.

This has jack shit to do with Arabian Nights, but it's this sort of movie, along with mummy movies and other adventure flicks, that fueled the imagination of Jeff Grubb, author of TSR's Arabian Adventures setting book that launched the Al Qadim campaign series.

Jason and the Argonauts, the mummy movies, Sinbad, the Thousand and One Nights... these are the sources for Al Qadim. Arabian mythology and history are really a distant second. The setting is a hodge podge of middle-world cultures and ideas, all filtered through the brain of a white male American riffing on ideas that inspired him in the 60s and 70s. And it's fucking fantastic! I love Al Qadim, for what it is. Warts and all.

But I understand that folks from middle-world cultures might find the work irritating or even mildly offensive. I don't believe it is egregiously so. Jeff Grubb and crew did a bang-up job of doing the best with what they had and genuinely trying to make a setting that lovingly and respectfully approached the material. But it was by and for white Americans, so any actual near-east perspective is not really present in the work - and that is one of the things that must be kept in mind when exploring it.

This is the subtle point that people miss out on when they complain about "cancel culture". Nobody is running around screaming "cancel it!" like the right wing media machine wants you to think. Rather, things we took for granted are being examined from new perspectives and sometimes that means something old and beloved has to be re-evaluated if you want to be intellectually honest and socially responsible.

You can still love the shit, so if you feel some sense of outrage welling up just tamp it back down, kiddo. Enjoy your magic carpet ride, just don't forget it's complete fantasy.

But hey, maybe check out this video series that goes into a lot of depth on the topic. They talk about these issues more broadly, from a modern perspective, so don't go into this expecting a short review of Al Qadim. You ain't gonna get that, buster.

EDIT: And I want to say for sure that I 100% accept that this series has serious problems. No defense will come from me on that front. This is probably why, even though I own this and still collect it, I have not ran it. I could have easily ran this setting long ago. Still I don't.

Robot Ideas

Robots!

I've been drawing more robots lately and thinking about a robot RPG. One of the thoughts I had is that a percentile system, not unlike Star Frontiers, would suit a robot RPG quite well.

So I started noodling the idea more and I have a draft of My Robot Head in progress. I don't know how far I'll take this. I hope I'll see it through and publish, but this is just a fun thing I'm playing with right now. Stay posted.

As a teaser, the game would probably be set in the future in our solar system. I actually had written a bunch of this last year and I wrote that it takes place in or around 3100. All humans are dead. They left behind a fairly vast empire of cities and colonies on the Moon and Mars and places. But they are all dead because some AI asshole decided to bake a DNA timebomb into them and remove them. Now you are robots in this future where your masters, the humans, are gone. What do you do?

So the game deals with the fun shit like robot combat, exploration, resources, etc. But also angst and ennui. Robots are self aware. They have to decide how to be a people moving forward without destroying themselves through warring factions. My Robot Head as the title refers to the inner struggle of a robot character to understand who they are and where they belong. The dawn of a new civilization with the raw power and mental prowess to very quickly destroy itself.

Percentile system inspired by Star Frontiers, but not a clone. Lots of information carrying over from Cozmic Metal Heads because My Robot Head as a concept came first. I actually stripped MRH down and turned it into a Troika! book, so now I'm circling back and revisiting the original idea.

The other idea is to publish a robot art book. I'll have enough pure robot drawings that I could do a little art book in POD someplace. Sorry folks, I'm just not up for the whole physical printing and shipping one man show at this time. POD is where it's at for me. At least for now or until someone wants to publish my shit in nice, shiny volumes I don't have to physically handle.

 

The Cimmerian

The Cimmerian knows.

In recent times I listened to an excellent audiobook compilation of all the Weird Tales Conan stories. Even though Conan looms large in my mind as an early influencing force, I really only read maybe 3 or 4 legit REH Conan tales when I was younger. I'm a damn weirdo and I just didn't read heavily past age 16. Between 14 and 16 I had a book in my hand all the time. After 16 or 17 I wanted to get kissed and drive around listening to metal. No time for books unless they were comics or RPGs.

So I listened to them all. And they were good, mostly. I am not a fan of the longer ones, though. Conan, for me, is about short tales. In and out, like a yard of Hyrkanian steel.

I decided to draw this portrait after I doodled this on top of my water bottle at work.

Usagi Yojimbo RPG

I'm going to run the Gold Rush Games version of Usagi Yojimbo RPG, a game built on the Instant Fuzion Rules from R. Talsorian and Hero Games.

I have spent most of the last week digging deeply into this 98 page game book and trying to grokk the rules. I do not have a background with Hero System or Cyberpunk (I played one game of Cyberpunk in 1989), so this is all new to me. I have owned Usagi Yojimbo RPG (UY from here on) for 15+ years, so I have read it before, in chunks. I have studied it to some degree. It is a simple system and I dig it.

But this game has issues. It is delightfully focused on Usagi material and feels like it will be a breeze to play. But it does suffer from some fairly significant layout and design flaws, in my opinion. I'll address one of them in this post.

There is a one-sheet breakdown of the entire Instant Fuzion (IF from here on) system on page 11 of the book. Under Actions it says a Hero can Dodge. By Dodging, they can't attack that phase* and they get +3 to Evasion. But the combat rules in UY simply say that when it's your turn in a fight you choose Total Attack, Cautious Attack, or you hold your action. When you are attacked, you can choose Total Defense. These actions are called the Three Strategies. There is no mention of Dodging.

Likewise, the IF rules do not mention the Three Strategies.

So reading between the lines, I assume the Three Strategies was an add-on by the author, Greg Stolze, to better simulate Usagi-style fights. When he wrote the rules for it he did not integrate IF rules into the text. So you have essentially two separate documents that can each stand alone. Which do you use? Both, either?

Here's the thing. They do not contradict each other regarding Dodging. So if I tell my players we're using the Three Strategies, not IF, then I'm cheating them out of the benefit of Dodging. And since Dodging doesn't contradict the Strategies I don't have much of a reason to do that. I want them to have that option. So I'm forced to say the combat rules are on page 11, but also there's the Three Strategies on page 43 and you need both in order to carry out a fight.

Bad design! Why aren't these things integrated? It feels like Stolze was asked to use IF as a base then he added things to it and just kind of let them be separate.

I did read somewhere that the Three Strategies were really intended for swordfights only. But that's not true because it literally says "Here's how fights happen in this game." and the examples listed do not limit themselves to swordfights.

My solution? I'm going to integrate these rules myself in a document for my players.

Also, if this plays well, I might just hack the shit out of UY RPG and make a new game. Why not? Seems like fun. Rabbits & Rangers deluxe?

*Regarding Phases... I will make a different post about that. But I'm not planning to use phases, only rounds. I don't see the benefit of phases in this game. More on that later.

Zebu: Reek of the Parvenu

It's my blog and I'll cry if I want to. So I'm a gonna post some music albums here and there. Note that this is not a "review" series, at least not in siprit. I'm just posting shit I found that I have some reason to talk about. Very very often it will be because the album cover art caught my eye.

This one is part of the Chicks on the Cover series. I think that is self-explanatory, isn't it? Come for the cover, stay for the tunes?

Zebu: Reek of the Parvenu

This is a really good Greek metal band. If you like the band Death, this will appeal to you, I think. Mostly because the vocals are similar. But this is a solid band with a heavy doom sound that doesn't fall into the overtly Black Sabbath end of the spectrum. The riffs aren't boring.

There's a backing vocalist on one track who I could have swore was Michela D'Orlando from Power Symphony, but turns out is really Katerina Kostarelou from Bacchus Priest. There's a deep cut for your ass.

The cover is by Mike S. Putrefurnaced and it depicts a witchy looking woman with lovely blue hair being hauled down by little ghosts or faeries or something. Epic!

100% True Story

HOW DID YOU GET INTO GAMING?

It was 1984, I was 13. I had a crush on my math teacher, Mrs. Kendall. She was a short, plump woman with chubby red cheeks and an overbite. She had these delicious black rimmed glasses and wore simple dresses. But they were snug enough that her ample curves couldn't help showing through. I was 13. I noticed this shit.

Anyway. Um... one day after class I stopped to chat her up, like you do at that age. I was putting on my moves, talking about Conan comics and she clearly wasn't into it. She was rushing me. Time to leave. I got the message eventually and left the room with a cool swagger, pushing up my glasses to show solidarity.

In the hall was my buddy Sam talking to this tall dude I saw around but didn't know. His name was David and he had in his hand a thick biology book that contained no references to evolution and this other book with the fucking weirdest looking creatures on the cover I had ever seen. Title said "Monster Manual". It was some next level strange bullshit. He also had this little blue ball in his hand... like tiny. Like a toy. Kept saying it was a "20 sided die", which sounded like complete nonsense to me.

Well, turns out that book was for this weird board game without a board called Dungeons & Dragons. He was looking for some players and Sam was volunteering us to join the game. As it turns out, I remembered Mrs. Kendall one time talk about a game like this where you used numbers to represent character traits. Like you'd have a strength score or something. She seemed to think it was a useful math tool or some shit, so I was like in my head going "This could be my way in" so I was like "Yeah man, let's play."

So we did. I played a character (you make up characters) called Beano the Cheesey Wizard. David, who was the MC of the event, didn't seem to love that name but he was like "whatever, just roll for initiative". Beano was kind of a skinny, weak, silly asshole who wore a fedora and carried a big sword. Now... here's the thing about the game. Wizards couldn't use swords. David said I couldn't have a sword and I said the price list says 15 gold pieces and I have 48 so unless the shopkeeper shoots me, I'm buying a fucking sword.

I got the sword, but wasn't allowed to use it. I know, it's fucking stupid. But the rule book says I can only use a dagger, dart, or staff. I mean, in the words of Lars Ulrich, "they don't actually put anything there to stop you, like spikes"*. So I carried that fuckin' sword and made a point of threatening people with it as often as possible. But the MC was stubborn and would not let me use it. I played this up. "Beano tries to draw his sword but some invisible force stops his hand. He struggles against it... clenching teeth and pushing at the force but to no avail! Frustrated, he casts Magic Missile instead."

Beano was killed by kobolds who laid a pit trap. Poor bastard fell in, taking 6 damage... 4 more than his hit point total. Then a kobold shot him with an arrow for 6 more and he was at -10. Apparently, according to the MC, -10 is a big deal. I said "Look, I'm fine with Beano being dead. I'll roll up a dwarf named Cormac Mac Daddy. But if this shit doesn't get me to second base with Wanda Kendall I'm telling people you shave your nads."

David lit a cigarette at that point. Not uncommon back then. He was older, maybe 17. I remember Toto playing in the background when he looked at me and said "That might play well with my rep.". Someone, I think Jesse, knocked over a can of Dr. Check at that point, spilling it on the Monster Manual. Not sure what happened next, but it's not important. I did score that copy of the Manual from David later that year by trading issue 107 of Savage Sword of Conan. I didn't mind the Dr. Check stains, but it pissed me off that pages 17 and 18 were stuck together. Seriously, David? What the actual fuck.

When I relayed the story of Beano to Mrs. Kendall she smiled, nodded, and said "Ten foot pole could have found the pit trap." I believe the "ten foot" comment was a phallic suggestion, honestly. And, if I'm being straight, it kind of put me off a little. Like... what was she suggesting anyway? Feeling incredibly self-conscious, I stopped making moves on her and kept our potential affair to myself for private time. "Tow the line, love isn't always on time", right? But I still kept playing in David's D&D game. Cormac made level 3 before succumbing to a roper's grasp. His sister, Fanny Doodle Mac Daddy, inherited his +1 war hammer and lived on to see level 9.

That is the truth, I swear it. Every detail.

*He was talking about driving between the lines.

Goblins!

I have had my moments when I fought hard against fantasy tropes. Back in 1990, when I was a year out of high school, I decided "no more elves, dwarves, and dragons". I switched to GURPS and ran a campaign in my world of Midaka. It had its moments and was fun, but ultimately flopped out and was never finished. Mostly because I am just not a big GURPS fan, as it turns out.

But that's such an aside and not the point here.

The point here is that I do love certain fantasy tropes and lean into them pretty hard with my D&D. Dragons are not one of them. I just never got into them. But goblins... now I love me some gobbos.

I did a goblin character class for Black Pudding:

In my campaign world of Yria, goblins are born from rot. Wherever food or carcasses lay to decompose, there is a chance that goblins with emerge. They are green, generally, and foul. They eat their own. They have no manners or sense of moral shame. Their culture, such as it is, arises from certain ancient curses that caused them to be spawned from rot in the first place.

Goblins can be good. Mainly because I don't use alignment in my games, typically, and I figure if you want a kindly gobbo you can certainly have one.

Goblins use whatever weapons and armor they can get their greasy little fingers on. They are naturally skilled at working together to bring down enemies, favoring the setting of nasty traps and flat-out bum-rushing foes in a cluster of green. Their wills are quite weak, so they are easy targets for powerful leaders such as wizards to rally them into service. If a goblin believes they are fighting for a higher cause - almost any cause - they will fight harder for it. They enjoy being told what to do and complaining about it later.

A similar monster, the nasty ork, is born from the same primordial curses. But orks are spawned from wherever a demon or devil or other infernal hell creature steps or spreads its spore. Thus they are rarer, bigger, and more wicked. While a goblin's desires lie in eating and sleeping, mostly, an ork's chief desire is to hurt others. Orks also have weak wills and fall easily under the yoke of more powerful creatures.

I say all this because I've been thinking about writing up my campaign setting in a series of zines (little books, whatever) so I can have them in print. It would sure help me organize and not contradict myself at the gaming table. "Now... what was it I said about orks and imps? Oh, let me check the book."

The Aquabot

One of the many patrons of the various Hellion Cross seedy dives. For the upcoming Troika! book, Hellion Cross.

Cheech Wizard's Book of Me

My wife picked this up for me for $4 using some kind of voodoo magic coupon. I love me some Bodé and this is a book I hadn't seen before. I'm not the kind of guy who obsesses over collecting everything an artist creates but I'm always giddy when I pick up something new.

This book is assembled by Vaughn's son Mark Bodé and I feel like he did a fantastic job. Lots of very old doodles and sketchbook pages are included. Maybe these appeared somewhere else before and I just didn't see it. But there's a lot of stuff in here I've never seen before. I guess this is also because my experience with Bodé is almost exclusively the Deadbone Erotica stuff. I own very little Cheech Wizard material.

Barely got into this so far but it's just chock full of explosive cartooning!