More Polar Bear

I haven't been getting a whole heck of a lot o feedback on my recent Land of Ice posts, and I don't know why. I'm not saying that it surprises me, I'm saying I literally don't know.

Not that I couldn't hazard a guess or two...but really it doesn't matter all that much (I wasn't complaining). Well, it matters that people find it interesting and useful (or inspiring for their own games) 'cause that's why I write this type of stuff (usually). But I'm having fun with it anyway, so I'm going to keep posting till I get to the end of the series.

HOWEVER, it occurs to me that perhaps I haven't been gonzo enough with the setting...I may have been modelling it too close to "real world" Vikes and the kind of human-human conflict (psychic or not) found in MZB's Darkover novels (a major inspiration, in case you couldn't guess). It may be that the stuff I've been putting out there just isn't "D&D enough"...in other words, not weird enough for use in your average (or below average) D&D game.

So I will be endeavoring to get some more weirdness "stuck in" to the mix. In reviewing my notes for a different B/X setting concept (one based on Dark Sun, of all things) I can see I had plenty of magic mixed in with the psychic weirdness and the monsters were certainly fit for the blasted post-magic-apoc setting. I probably need MORE weirdness in mine: talking polar bears and psychic snowflakes and such...otherwise what are characters supposed to DO in this setting.

[*sigh*]

Anyway, we haven't gotten to Chapter 6 yet, so there's still time for me to up the ante on the strange and bizarre. We'll see if I can find it in my heart to do so...
; )

O You Bastards...

That used copy of Dark Sun is missing the last 15 pages or so from the "Wanderer's Journal;" basically all the monster section.

Welp, that's the price of getting something used. I knew it was missing the maps already, but maps aren't what I wanted it for. What I wanted was to check out the rules/background and see if I could use it/adapt it to make a B/X campaign setting.

The answer: oh so very easily.

In fact, in my not so humble opinion, I'm pretty sure I could make a knock-off better than the setting as presented. Yes, this may just be my ego talking (or my fever...I've been running one over 100 degrees since last night)...but I'm pretty sure I could grind a little tasty treat out of this post-apocalyptic fantasy setting. And, yeah, it would be fairly easy.

Of course, it wouldn't be exactly the same...after all, I can go with the cheetah-like elves and (mostly) with the hairless dwarves. But cannibal halflings? Come on now! That's just...ugh!

Games Workshop's Warhammer has long had running gags about the appetites of halflings and their potential for cannibalism, but it's been just that: a gag. A joke. To make it a serious and sincere part of the game world...? I don't know if it's twisted enough that I like it or if it's too absurd even for my fevered brain. I think the latter.

I have a convention to go to tomorrow, and I'm supposed to be running a B/X game (the same one that got assed-out last Sunday), AND I am still sick. I need to get better SOON...like in the next 24 hours. How to turn off my brain so I can sleep???

Fire Up the Hookah

I quit smoking close to ten years ago. Cold turkey. Zip, nada, nothing.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say I quit smoking January 1st 1998, but then started again around the time I met my wife (who was a smoker). Then, when she was ready to kick the habit (close to ten years ago), I had no problem going back to my life as a non-smoker. After all, I'd already decided I preferred to live and breath (nominally) clean air rather than cigarette smoke.

And while I don't have "cravings" for cigarettes, it wouldn't be accurate to say I don't sometimes miss it. I always loved smoking. I haven't had much of a sense of smell since age 12 or so (don't ask) so that part never bothered me. In fact, if the damn things didn't completely F you up and kill you, I might still be smoking today. The one thing that made me want to become a non-smoker again was just that...I wanted to live, and wanted to live to a ripe old age. Smoking was not in the game plan for that kind of goal.

But they DO kill you, and so I have cut them out of my life (and good thing, too, now that their prices are soaring). I don't put anything into my lungs anymore if I can help it; but sometimes I wish I did, so that I could have the chance to fire up a hookah at smoke some Turkish tobacco.

No, I am not talking about bongs or even water pipes, I mean real honest-to-goodness hookahs. Seattle has a fair number of hookah bars in town, where one can rent and smoke and commune with others in a real Old School Arabic fashion. Even though smoking indoors has been banned in Washington State for several years, hookah establishments can get away with this by being "private clubs" (membership is cheap) after a certain hour of the day. Some are simply gyro shops for lunch and hookah clubs at night. Plus, who doesn't enjoy coffee in which you can stand up your spoon?

However, the hookah scene didn't really get going till after I gave up the habit (or rather, replaced it with the breathing habit), so I never got to sample this particular branch of Seattle night life. Which is kind of a shame...since a hookah would seem to go quite well with my recent acquisitions from Gary's Games in Greenwood:

- The Complete Psionics Handbook (2nd Edition)

- The Dark Sun boxed set (2nd edition AD&D)

Now, I'm sure many of you are thinking, JB must be smoking something to blow his hard earned dough on 2nd edition junk which he hates-hates-hates. But as I said, I don't smoke anything anymore...and no I haven't been drinking either.

What I have been doing is fighting a "summer cold" the last two-three days...and most of the time it's felt like I've been losing the fight. My head is stuffed to the gills, I haven't been thinking clearly, I haven't been sleeping well...hell, I've even voyaged into the land of feverish dreams once or twice (probably not helped by a recent viewing of Inception at the theater).

And when everything starts to lose cohesion, or become surreal, and when I'm bored and frustrated and want to lash out like a half-giant gladiator (sorry, I don't like being sick very much) my half-baked brain tends to come up with half-baked schemes. Like writing a 64 page setting book for B/X play, modeled on a certain sorcery ravaged setting. Including weird-ass psionics and strange dweomers of the kind only Vance (or a guy hopped-up on sudafed) could ever imagine.

See, I've mentioned before that Dark Sun has always held a strange and terrible fascination for me. First off, you're reading the writings of a dude who loves psionics and gladiators (which right there might be a warning you should STOP reading). Second off, I don't find the setting terribly original, as my old AD&D group did something similar years before TSR ever published Dark Sun.

At least, according to wikipedia, Dark Sun was first published in 1991. Well in 1988 my long-running game group had decided to scrap our existing campaign and start anew from scratch, in a world ravaged and left barren by ancient sorcery, a post-apocalyptic fantasy world modeled much on the imagery of the ancient Roman Empire (especially the gladiatorial games), where strength of arms was as important as the powers of the mind. Oh, yeah...and half-ogres were used as a standard race.

Well, unfortunately this was our last campaign together as a group, and we only ran one or two sessions before a falling out that sent us all on our separate ways. Which was unfortunate for a variety of reasons (we had all been quite close friends), but had the additional loss of never seeing where our cool campaign setting would take us. And I always thought it had a ton of potential (and no, it wasn't my brain-child anyway...I was just a player, not a DM).

Of course, now I don't even play AD&D, let alone 2nd edition AD&D, so it would be quite a challenge to see how hard it would be create a similar setting using the B/X rules. Personally, I don't think it's nearly as ambitious as the other couple things I've been considering with my fuzzy brain: B/X De-Constructed and a little space opera RPG that finally has a name and is NOTHING like B/X nor Star Wars (still 64 pages, though).

We'll see which of these ideas (if any) bear fruit. Right now, it's nap time.

Blood on the Sand

"Joey...do you like movies about gladiators?"

- Captain Oveur, Airplane!

I have to say that I am a huge fan of "Sword and Sandal," flicks...always have been.  And it's not just 'cause I think the Russel Crowe movie is great (though I did cheer when it won the Oscar for Best Picture), or 'cause Eric Bana is so righteous as Hector in Troy (booo! he should have gutted Brad Pitt!).  No, I've been watching blood on the sand films for a looooong time.

Even before I started playing D&D, I can recall watching some sort of gladiator movies on the TV.  Every Sunday (before and/or after going to Church), I'd flip through the (four or five) channels on my TV to find something with dudes dressed like Greeks or Romans or Israelites...I seem to recall watching Hercules and Samson movies, biblical stories being interchangeable with Greco-Roman myth.  In retrospect, these movies were probably filmed in Italy, dubbed in English, and featuring some Italian bodybuilder, a la Lou Ferrigno (just kidding...Lou was born in Brooklyn, folks...but someone like him).

And it's not just "gladiator" movies specifically. From the Sinbad movies to the Greek mythology to the 1001 Arabian Nights tales to the Arabian Knights cartoon...if it involves curvy swords, dry climates, turbans, flying carpets, and ivoried elephants then its MY type of fantasy.  From the Mediterranean to the Aegean Sea to the Middle East...I guess I prefer warm weather for my adventuring climate.

It may come as some surprise that I have never owned, borrowed, or read the Dark Sun campaign rules, nor any of it's supplementary material.  There are several reasons for this, not the least of which I wasn't play D&D (any version) in 1991 when the game was released. Another reason is that the setting of Athas and its history was eerily similar to the last D&D campaign in which I played prior to AD&D2...circa 1987 or so. 'Course we used half-ogres instead o half-giants.

Fact o the matter is, though, that while swords and sandals may play (as a D&D campaign), gladiatorial combat does not...at least, not very effectively.  D&D combat is simply too abstract to represent the give-and-take, the ebbing of the crowd, and the spirit needed to triumph in man-to-man combat.  Hey, I've tried it before (Thyatis, anyone?)...it's simply a no-go.  It's a real case of system DOES matter.  Of course, it's pretty hard to model the gladiator mood effectively in game play...I've purchased, downloaded, and attempted design of several gladiator-themed games, none with any satisfying results.

Thing is, there has to come a time when you step OUT of the arena...personal, individual glory only matters so much within a limited context.  If you're not out exploring the world (or a dungeon) or righting wrongs and saving folks...or conquering and carving out a kingdom...personal prowess in the ring is a shallow thing indeed.

But still, it calls to folks...and I think, in its way, D&D (especially the Old School variety) represents something of the gladiator in our game play.  Characters are still competing, still facing death, and still seeking the adulation of the crowd (in this case, the oo's and ahh's of fellow players, including the DM). The arena exists, in the form of the shared imaginary environment.  Survival and earning glory do not always go hand-in-hand, sometimes the choice comes down to one or the other.  But there is some drama in that, if you make room for it.

More on this later.