A Letter from Chgowiz

Michael "Chgowiz" Shorten contacted me last week and asked if I'd be willing to allow him to post a letter here to the Old School community in regards to his decision to take down his blog. I readily agreed. I think a general clearing of the air is best for the overall well-being of whatever it is we're trying to accomplish. Take it away, Chgowiz.

It's been a month since I yanked my blog and I've been feeling pretty damn conflicted about it.The whole deal was pretty fucked up. I'm not going to lie and say I had noble intentions - I didn't. I hit the end of my rope literally and figuratively and I was just done with it. The whole kit and kaboodle. Raggi hit the right notes, my #3 and #4 hit #1 and #2 and after the hard work and all the crap that happened, I was just done. But there's something I need to say.

Thank you.

There's a metric crapton of good memories and really cool things that I learned, shared and did with you all and I thank you for that. Thank you for your support and the kind things you did during the really fucked up 2009 that was. Dad dying, @thePrincessWife (Angie) getting diagnosed with lupus, almost losing my son, watching my finances go down the toilet - it was tough but I found some true blue friends and that's the best part of all this. Thank you to my buds at THM, my friends through the cons and OPDC. Thank you for the kind words and for buying my little game things and enjoying the stuff I handed out for free. Even those of you who royally pissed me off, you guys challenged me. One thing my Dad always taught me was to listen to both sides and come up with the best conclusion that I could match with my own sense of values. So I tried to do that.

By pulling back, I've taken a look at what is important to me in the gaming world and that is the games I'm running/playing and the local gaming scene. The on-again/off-again solo game with @thePrincessWife, the tabletop AD&D campaign and the online Google Wave game are all still chugging. I'm still playing in Alexis's online game. Once I'm through this really hectic April/May (which are always hectic with the volunteer and social groups I'm a part of outside of gaming) I'm hoping to get involved more in doing things locally related to Classic D&D. There are some cool events, like the 3 to 4 times a year Chicago GameDays, the RPGChicago.com meetup group and various deals there, and Winter War convention and GaryCon convention. After running a really fun B2 11 hour marathon, I know the interest in Classic D&D is there locally, so I'm going to continue doing what I can to put asses in chairs. I'm just going to do it more locally - where I can deal with people face to face and sit down and have a beer after and feel a good positive energy feedback for what I put into it.

It probably doesn't hurt that I've started increasing my volunteer activities towards the GLBT community and some other personal interests. I have friends and some family members who are GLBT and I've had friends who've died from AIDs and those are things that my fundraising can really help with. So I'm investing my energy there.

Oh yea, the new Harley kinda is distracting me too...

I don't know what I'm going to do in the future. I'm not really interested in blogging for/about the "OSR" anymore. It's been a month and the anger is still fresh. I have developed a serious distrust of people who I haven't met face to face. Blogging and being part of the incestuous Internet circle is not worth having shit tossed my way from some assholes sitting behind their keyboards. That anger/distrust is not going to go anyway anytime soon. The whole deal (blog/TARGA) got turned into something other than what it was by people with agendas or axes to grind. The fallout was just really awful to me on a personal level and I've just got no interest in repeating that. I've got too many other things that matter in life. I'm really glad that the whole deal has died down.

I know I pissed people off with yanking all my stuff, but it was a question of responsibility. If I have stuff out there, I have to support it, it's my responsibility and it's a constant reminder/danger of it all happening again. It's like being burned at the stove - I've got no real interest in feeling the pain again and the only way to avoid getting burned again was to back off completely. So I did. I don't know if I'll be interested in doing it again. Life goes on, the Internet has another 3 day cycle and my stuff wasn't all that unique - there's so much creativity going on right now.

I'm really glad that $350 will go to GaryCon 3 and that the One Page Dungeon Contest is still a positive thing. It tickles me to no end to hear of people getting their spouses into solo games. If nothing else, I can say that my goals of leaving the gaming world as enriched as I was from being there came true.

So thank you. And in the words of Rick Krebs, who really inspired me with his words, "Go have fun!"

Hounds of the Great Mother

No. Enc.: 1d4+1 (2d6)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 120’ (24’)
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 2+2
Attacks: 1 or 2 (bite)
Damage: 1d6 and 2d4
Save: F1
Morale: 9
Hoard Class: None
XP: 47

These dogs resemble lean Doberman Pinschers at first glance, but a closer inspection reveals that their hook-filled mouths open on four hinges and that they possess a lamprey-like secondary maw on their bellies which is ringed by dangling red cilia. Any Hound whose attack roll is 5 or more points higher than the total needed to hit or who rolls a “natural 20” has possibly knocked over its victim. The defender must make an STR check and, if is failed, the Hound overbears its target and automatically bites with its secondary mouth for 2d4 points of damage.

The party was wondering why there was dog crap inside the courtyard of the ancient pyramid today--the one which has been sealed for roughly a century...

These babies leaped to mind while I was watching In the Mouth of Madness the other week. There was a scene where Sutter Cane is standing by the door of the church with three Dobermans at his side and they struck me as looking particularly menacing in that shot. Give them a second set of jaws surrounded by crimson cilia and make their mouths hinged like the Predator and, voila, horrific hounds to chase you down in you nightmares.

Object Lessons and Dead PCs

You’ll notice it’s been a little slow here at the Society this week. Now that I have a regular game of my own to run, I find that I have more of a desire to write for that game than about it, which naturally leads to things quieting down here if I have to divide my time between activities. However, the happenings at last Sunday's session need commenting on and I’d like to get that done before the events of tomorrow’s game move to the forefront of my mind.

Time for a confession: I hate killing characters.

Truth be told, I get attached to the personas that explore my imaginary world and help to breathe life into what would otherwise be a lonely illusion. I root for them as they confront dangerous monsters or try to puzzle out a fiendish trap. After all, if they succeed, they earn experience, advance in level, and gain more power. That means I get to add even more neat stuff to my world and I get to play with new ideas and build more interesting sites for them to explore. Therefore, it’s in my best interests if the adventurers survive.

On the other hand, I’m not a big proponent of the “Everybody gets a trophy” school of thought either. Better minds than mine have argued that when everybody’s a winner, winning means nothing. That’s an attitude which I’m very much in agreement with. I’ve worked damn hard for the things I’m most proud of in life—which is the reason I’m so proud of them in the first place. Our recreational activities should be no different. There is really no point in playing if you’re assured victory because, for me at least, avoiding defeat is half the fun.

I’ve learned to balance these two facets of my personality by simply giving the players enough rope to hang themselves and then waiting to see what happens. This is exactly what happened last Sunday.

If you’ve read the recap, you’ll know that four members of the party died at the hands of fungal zombies when they delved into an undercroft beneath the temple complex. While I can’t say that I planned this, in the interest of full disclosure, I can’t say I’m surprised either. That room was purposely assembled as an object lesson and it did exactly what I hoped it would.

The primary purpose of that encounter was to serve as a litmus test to see how greedy and cocky the players and their characters could get. The answer was too much of both for their own good. Everyone seems to have forgotten the First Rule of Zombies: “They’re no sweat when there’s just a few, but if you let them overwhelm you, you’re screwed.”

The party had no trouble knocking them down when they were popping up in twos and threes. Before long, the entire chamber was crowded with zombie bodies. So many, in fact, that one of the players asked if I wanted him to start removing the knocked over miniatures from the grid map. He should have suspected something when I said, “No,” but that’s all part of getting comfortable with a new group: you have to learn what everyone’s capable of in their roles as players and referee. I bet the players will take notice in the future if I start leaving “dead” miniatures on the board.

When the zombies started springing back to “life”—first one half of them, then the other—the players started cracking jokes about staying down there and “grinding XP ‘til we hit 5th level.” That plan changed once the PC with an armor class of 1 got torn to pieces. Of course, by that time, the way to the single-file ladder that exited the chamber was blocked by a horde of toadstool-sprouting zombies. I hope that my second purpose for this set piece of an encounter was sinking in at that point: “Although boldness pays off in D&D, sometimes it’s best to quit while you’re up in chips—even if it means possibly leaving a bigger pot behind.” More of the PCs could have escaped if they hadn’t been so determined to make sure all the loot had been found.

Although not intended, I think it will be some time before we start splitting up the party again, even if it’s just “We’ll be in the next room.” The fact that half the party was upstairs when the zombies sprang back to life was bad news to those guys still down in the hole. However, this development did teach me a bit about the players and their characters. I learned who was brave enough to risk death (and in one case, find it) by rushing in to help their comrades-in-arms when it would have been easy to stay upstairs where it was safe. I’m always on the lookout for such selflessness and usually reward it on a later date in some manner.

I usually place one or two of these object lessons/set pieces in any dungeon I construct at the start of a campaign. This is especially true when I don’t know the players all that well and would like to learn more about their individual play styles and such, as well as showing them what kind of game they can expect from me as a referee. The fungal zombie room was one such encounter and I hope the players learned something from it. I know I did and I intend to use that knowledge to customize the campaign so that both myself and the players get as much enjoyment out of it as we can. I think such a noble aim is worth a few dead PCs at the start of the campaign. Hopefully everyone else will too.

Despite what some people might think, you don’t need to be playing some "new school" role-playing game that features drama points, constructed narratives, flashbacks, cut scenes, dice pools, etc. to both instruct and learn about the players. Sometimes a big room of fungus-covered zombies and a fistful of twenty-siders works just as well.

Lulu's Free Shipping Deal

Before I forget about it completely, let me just remind you fine folks that Lulu is offering "free" (actually a $3.99 credit towards the cost of) shipping this month until May 1st. Take advantage of it by entering the code "FREEMAIL305" during checkout. The obligatory link to Stonehell Dungeon: Down Night-Haunted Halls is here.

The Body Count Grows

I'll probaby have more to say about this session in the near future, but the recounting of Sunday's events is now up on the wiki's adventure log. Six party members died over the course of the day's explorations: four at the hands of the aforementioned Wrecking Crew and two underneath the tender caresses of animated statues.

I am not a referee who gets any pleasure from the deaths of characters. I really am the players' biggest cheerleader, but unfortunately characters do die, hopefully leaving the survivors a bit wiser in the process.

The Wrecking Crew

Fungal Dead
No. Enc.: 2d8 (3d10)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 60’ (20’)
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 1+2
Attacks: 1 (bony claws)
Damage: 1d6
Save: F1
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: See below
XP: 27

The fungal dead are human corpses whose bodies have been overtaken by a virulent strain of unwholesome fungus. These alien spores animate their non-living hosts into a nightmarish semblance of life and seek to spread the colony into new, recently-deceased corpses. Luckily, this horrid fungus is only known to grow in places steeped in the unwholesome radiance of that bizarre fertility deity, Ishnigarrab.

Fungal dead tear at their opponents with ragged hands, raking their victims with sharp, splintered fingers. If a fungal dead is struck by a weapon, its body emits a cloud of foul-smelling, psychotropic spores. Anyone in melee combat with a fungal dead when struck must save vs. poison or become afflicted by horrific but short-lived hallucinations. Such characters suffer a -1 penalty to all attacks and saving throws for 1d4 turns. A successful save indicates that the character is immune to further exposure by these spores during that encounter.

Although fungal undead can be “slain” by normal attacks, the fungus that powers them reanimates the host corpse after two turns with full hit points. Only by completely destroying the fungus that affects the corpse, usually by using fire, acid, or similar destructive means, can a fungal dead by permanently slain. As they are not true undead, fungal dead are unaffected by turning attempts or holy water.

On some occasions, fungal dead are born from sacrificial victims that have been exposed to colonies of the loathsome fungus as part of the veneration of Ishnigarrab. These sacrificial victims are adorned with symbolic, low grade jewelry prior to being cast into vile pits filled with the fungus and some may still bear these tokens when discovered. Each group of fungal dead has a 40% chance of wearing these decorations when encountered, with the jewelry on each corpse worth 2d10x10 gp.

Knockspell #4 Now Available

Knockspell Issue #4 contains a veritable cornucopia of gaming content for your retro-clone or out-of-print fantasy campaign! Here's a preview of the table of contents:

From Kuroth’s Quill Allan T. Grohe, Jr.
Beneath the Crossroads: an Adventure Joshua James Gervias
Artist Interview: Christopher Burdett
Megadungeon Adventuring Tactics Matt Finch
Isles on an Emerald Sea 3: An Adventure Gabor Lux
Random Tavern Generator Robert Lionheart
Artifact Type & Attributes Scot Hoover
Spell Interval System John Stater
Online Roleplaying: A Quick Overview Marcelo Frossard Paschoalin
Rats in the Walls: an Adventure by Jeffrey P. Talanian
Stealing the Histories Michael Curtis
Free-Form Rules as a Referee’s Toolbox Al Krombach
Rolling Along: Wheeled Magic Items James Bobb
Weird Weather and other Unexplanable Phenomena J Shoultis, J Larrey, J Hartleb
Review: The Dungeon Alphabet Allan T. Grohe, Jr.
Weapon Generator J.R. Cone
New Magic Items James Bobb

Knockspell #4 is now available in both print and pdf versions from Black Blade Publishing

My contibution to this issue is a primer on how to steal off-beat adventure ideas from Herodotus' The Histories. In other news, Allan "grodog" Grohe, Jr. offers up a review of The Dungeon Alphabet. I think he has nice things to say, but I've yet to read it myself.