Right right right, Ur-D&D is SO awesome. It is sooo fast. Happens this is patently wrong. For whatever reasons, I bought into that crap of Ur-D&D being faster during combat. Whereas what actually happened in our mini-campaign was different, but not faster. In 3.5, a lot of reading and spell interpretation slows battles. In Ur-D&D, the lack of formalised tactical options frees everyone up…to create their own ones, and think and discuss a lot of them. Now, that is not bad per se, and in some ways might be the essence of enlightened adventure gaming: extrapolation, ad-hoc rulings, player input, Abenteuerspielplatz sans rules etc.

But seriously, for Dungeoneering and fighting monsters, once an idea has been tried out, there is no good reason not to keep the rules for later re-use. Basically turning them into a feat-like power, only available to a slightly larger part of the group.

Ultimatley, while our Ur-D&D mini-campaign continues to be great fun, it starts to evolve into AD&D and 3.5 immideately. So, where is the point?

One point is the different power levels. My player group managed to stroll around and ruffle the scales of a twelve headed Hydra guarding a magical lake in the centre of Ogrewood.

After several shennanigans involving sleep spells applied to single-HD heads, a Hoth-Snowspeeder style rope-trick, a potion of plant control used to command ersatz-treants and barrells of oil, the twelve headed-hydra was vanquished by four measly third level adventurers.

Admittedly, the Dwarf kept rolling nat-twenties, without that, they would have been in even greater danger.

The battle took two and a half hours.

I am still puzzled and frightened by 4e and the general sorry state that US-pop culture is in right now. See, we Germans have all we need & want in a version of our own, except two things: Nuclear Warheads & Pop-Culture. So we borrow both from the US. Thanks for that, btw.

On this ongoing quest to understand the general dearth of intellectually stimulating or just plain awesome ideas & practices, I stumbled upon the following.

As a second introduction, please remember that my current conjecture is that the main motivator for 4e is economic fear, WotC and their customers are frightened to the bone, clouding their minds and killing all creativity and independent thinking.

So…two quotes. Two quotes from Palladiumbooks products. One from 1988, the other from 2008.

Beyond the Supernatural 1st, p. 195 in the section detailing how to roll up „Victim“ characters for low powered horror.

FINANCIAL BACKGROUND (Roll Percentile)
01-20
Poverty: The family lives on welfare, occasional part-time-jobs, and handouts from other, more well-to-do. relatives.

21-65
Wage Slavery: Bound by debts, mortgages and credit card bills, the family makes too little money to ever break even. Every month the total owed gets larger and the amount of available cash gets smaller. The family is living beyond their means and is trying to keep up appearances.

66-95
Yuppie Heaven: All the adults of the family work at high paying professional jobs. There’s enough moey to go around, the shortage is in time. High-powered jobs require lots of overtime, traveling and job-related socializing. As a result the family members are pretty much strangers to each other.

96-00
Wealthy: So much money that mere professions no longer mean much. Every family member has just about anything they would like. Also implie a lot of feuding over the family fortune along with involvement in politics and high finance.

— Erick Wujcik, 1988

Fast Forward twenty years…

Dead Reign, p.87 in the section detailing the „Everyday Shmoe“ (Survivor) O.C.C:

Optional Table: Success & Annual Income Before the Apocalypse
Roll percentile dice. Might be a nice character element.

1-20% Just getting started/struggling artist – 2D6x1,000
21-40% Modest success – 3D6x$1,000 + $12,000
41-60% Successful – 5D6$1,000 + $30,000
61-80% Very Successful – 6D6*$1,000 + $60,000
81-00% Top in his field – 2D4*$10,000 + $90,000

— Hilden, Sanford, Zombieda 2008

Shocking, isn’t it?

As part of a small bet, I am half-obliged to read a superhero comic. As I only feel half-obliged i did check out something I wanted to do for a long, long time. That weird Jesus story.
That goes a while back and was part of one of the first and last comicbooks I owned myself. Maybe it is interesting to note that in Germany in the seventies & eighties, Superhero-Comics were marketed as ultra-kiddie-stuff by „Condor-Verlag“. Very cheap paper & binding, available in newsstands. Also, most of the people I knew at the time would never consider buying a small magazine style thingy. If it did not come with a „Gimmick“ or in pocket-book size, we would feel ripped off. We grew up on Lustige Taschenbücher, don’t you know? Also, continueing storylines were only rarely heard of.

So, what did the fine Condor-Verlag unleash upon little Settembrini’s mind, that haunted him for so long, you might ask?
Of course, back in the day, and in some ways I still do that, I bought the book for its cover.

Pretty nice color choice & composition for German supers edition, the others usually looked utterly terrible and cheap, as we even understood back then. I have read somewhere that Condor-Verlag did „atrocious things“ with re-colouring original covers and re-composing as to include more characters in a single frame. Also not that Spider-Man is called „Die Spinne“ Which is „The Spider“ and actually pretty nifty, probably as respectful as „THE Batman“, whereas Spider-Man is pretty ridiculous when translated.

So in any case, where was I? Right, Weird Jesus story. Oh, before I come to that, did I mention that these cheapo-slightly too violent for decent people comic books were totally reserved for lower-class kids? Yes, as closer to social welfare your parents were, the bigger your stack of these Condor-Verlag books became. Decent people had LTBs or somesuch (see above).

Anyhoo, back to the Jesus Story. It had that creepy cube in it. And Captain America. And these ultra-awesome villains with these awesome uniforms, and Spaceships flying into a tree-stump!

That was basically all I remembered, until a few days ago, when I sought for it. As it happens you can get these pocket-books ultra cheaply (lower than the former retail value, after 25+ years). But the cover (s.a.) immideately struck a chord, so I thumbed through it…and BAM! JESUS & the Cube!

I do not really know how famous this thing is, but apparently there is quite a mythology about that stuff. So I reveal the story:

Captain America Annual Nr. 7

But, see, to me back then, it was just a short story in „Die Spinne“. What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK?

I never could wrap my head around it: The German name was „his last transformation“. And it never said it was part of anything bigger. Apparently it is the big finale of some epic story line about the Cosmic Cube that becomes Kubik later on, a companion to the Shaper of Worlds. Man, this short story had like, a hundred different characters, fifteen plot twists, five major battles, and a RETELLING of the whole FUCKING pre-history of the Cosmic Cube in under 40 pocket-book pages! And to top it off, it had JEEEESUS! Who appeared for no reason, and especially, due to editorial cuts in the German version has the cosmic cube in his hand in the middle of a battle. As a kid, that confused me as hell, but as an adult it still does. Is there something missing there? Also, the translation DID NOT HELP: Cap has Wundarr the Aquarian (==Jesus) in an Aikido grip, which makes some sense, as Wundarrr has Nullifying powers:

But fuck, all the fine German translator gave us to work with was: „This grip is a transformation of YOUR power.“ The. Fuck.

Man, I was so confused by this back then. So, what else was in that comic book? Stuff from Peter Parker the spectacular Spider Man issues 80-83, 5 stories in total. It has the Punisher in it, as well as a what if…story with another Über-being: Der BEOBACHTER (the Watcher?; he reminds me of Phase Worlds Dominators, btw). In that What if…Dardevil is revealed to be blind and stuff happens. The other three stories have Cloak & Dagger in it, as well as Felicia the cat-lady. But the Spidey stories are okay, „Terror in the Harbor“ is nice plain low-key Vigilante-action with followable action scenes. The daily bugle paper roll scene haunted me visually through my GMing career. Reading it now, I think the paper-roll thing has been reused a lot, right? Also: no emo-crap!
The Cloak & Dagger stuff still confuses me as an adult, too much emo crap, too. Where did Frank Castle aka The Punisher go in the end? Also, was this his first appearance? He is so well introduced, or did the authors retell his story EVERY time?

Okay, so enough rambling, tomorrow I will go on and tell you about a Supers story that I actually liked when reading it some days ago. I’ll give the Supers-Genre that: confronting young minds with the likes of the Cosmic Cube is as close to confrontative art as you possibly get. I definitely now have a strong urge to revisit even more Phaseworld and probably even pair it up with HU2 to get that out of my system.
Fuck, in two panels a whole world (including idiosyncratic architecture) was created by that Pegasus lab guy and destroyed again, and I am not even speaking about the lizardman transformation. Holy shit. I also had nightmares about the tentacle transformation of the cube.

Spidey stuff was boring then and is boring now, in comparison to Jesus & the Cube. If anybody knows about the prequels to the Cap Am story if they exist in German, I would appreciate.

PS: When we were young, we really thought it was Jesus, and was only not called that way for copyright/translation/law reasons. I swear to…Wundarr! Wundarr sounds pretty stupid in German, btw…(= Mirracl)

To the original discussion

There is no RPG-Theory, but there is RPG-Philosophy.

A lot of critics say it“™s great because „it“™s not really about zombies, it“™s about relationships.“ If that doesn“™t set off alarm bells, you“™re not the readership I take you for. Because we know what that means: characters implausibly standing around expressing their Screenwriting 101 feelings about non-essentials while the undead are tearing down the door.

This is also why all storyfications of games are 100% wrong. Tasteless crap.

From here.

I was prompted by several users to listen to a new German RPG-Podcast. On the commute, I did just that. And it highlights so many things that are wrong with the mindset of German mainstream gaming. The podcast was a one hour long review of a new box for DSA. This box has some promise: it supposedly is about a Dark Age five hundred years before the current continuity. I had hoped for an un-shackled World of Dere, but alas, this was not to be.

Instead the reviewers engage in the two cardinal sins that exist if you want to please me:

1) long-windedness and point-per-point re-telling instead of a review
2) pettifogging megalomania

Nr. 1 is self-explanatory. Snorefest! Also, where are your critical mindsets?
Alas, the criticism was saved up for Nr. 2…

See, the hosts talk as if some Bavarian Schuhplattler Yokel was trying to sound like a politician. But they get humorous and slap each other’s backs, chuckling, when bashing what they think of as bad gaming.

„And the city of Elem is described in full detail, as we know it is about to be destroyed by the Vengeful Star. Good riddance, as elsewise we would have had T-Rex riding PLAYER characters on Dere! *Collective chuckling* Oh yes, thank god it was destroyed. That should NEVER have been allowed.“

In fact, their pettifogging megalomania reaches the greatest heigths in that instance, as they actually do not say T-Rex, but insist on calling it „Schlinger“ = „Devourer“, which is the „in-time“ (codeword for in-universe originating with the LARPS scene) terminus technicus. Because you know, DSA and its world are SERIOUS, Dinosaurs would be stupid, so they are Giant Lizards and evey single one of them gets a new name, which the mainstream uses for collective „in-time“ masturbation.

The King-Kong lookalike short adventure in the reviewed box is collectively frowned upon, with the hosts exchanging chuckles and mentions of „like in the old DSA…hurhur“ and „good riddance“. There are several other instances of this smug attitude that sees greatness in keeping everything small and mundane.

The most shocking moment was the giggly fit two of them went into when fantasizing of how it would be if actual rules would have been provided for the running of an empire. „You would have to work with uncountable TABLES and OODLES of RULES…thank Jesus we are spared THAT!“ *sigh* *chuckle* „Oh yes, adventuring to become emperor, and then it MUST stop. Who wants to administer grain after all.“ Right, because that’s what God-Emperors do: administer grain. You small minded fools!

Also, instead of providing openness, the main point of the box seems to be the provision of even MORE canon that needs to be adhered to. Extensive chapters are written as to how all openness can be collapsed afterwards so that the holy canon of the current timeline is never invalidated.

Even if the authors of the box might have had other things in mind, the mainstream will eat it up just as those smug yokels of podcast hosts, wallowing in their own and their game’s mediocrity.

With a wimper, the cuddliest, cutest and mostly harmless „Alveran“-Forum for the German-Style Pseudo-RPG DSA (= Das Schwarze Auge) today announced its closure.

It is the only place in the whole internet that caught the cuddly atmosphere that one could perceive as being a positive thing about the whole DSA-affair.

Ultimately, I frequented the site for its quite encompassing and expansive database of reviews of DSA products, including linked fan discussions on the particular product as well as some very nifty timelines for the gameworld of Dere (basically the same anagram trick as Oearth, just in German). One of the Old Ones is chained to Deres Crystal Sphere, didn’t you know? At least that’s where my Dere 3.5 D&D meta-campaign kicks in, fueled by Siembiedan Family Atomics. As it happens, cuddly Derean Villages and Gods have a higher shock value when burnt or staked than most other Fantasy worlds.

Sadly, this fine Internet ressource (Alveran) is no more. It had been freelancer operated. Think of them like being Palladium freelancers that got shafted by a new comittee of owners.
That is bascially what happened. They had „fiefs“ and were allowed to influence the gameworld. That was the whole payment for their writing work. On top, they operated this Alveran site out of their own free time and pocket. Because the fiefs had been taken from them, they are packing up their toys and leave. A sad day!

Such are the happenings if you seperate the escapist worker from his imaginary material base of production. Historical immaterialism predicts the collapse of the hobby any minute now.

Some time ago I ordered several of the new BattleTech HexPacks, and recently we did some test gaming with them. On the material side, they are printed on pretty thick cardboard and can be punched out without hassle.
To my surprise, two scenarios as well as some additional rules for terrain, buildings and weather are to be found in the accompanying booklet. The scenarios are very good, actually, as they represent non-balanced tactical situations. Here, non-balanced means that neither the tonnage nor the Battle Value or whatever they call it these days are the same for both forces. You can play just with the contents of one starter box, which we did, also using the „new“ rules for cover. Isntead of the +3 of the olden days, you get a measly +1, but all hits against the legs are ignored. In that way, the paradoxical nature of a 1 level cover is done away with. In the olden days, cover was either a campers paradise, or a deathtrap due to the increased chance of headcappin‘ hits.

The scenarios are tactically varied and interesting, the one shown below is about a Liao partly jump-capable Strike Force trying to snatch some crucial LosTech from a building guarded by an Elite piloted Awesome long range sniper/killer Mech.
My opponent played the damned Davions guarding the LosTech building and made a crucial mistake in his setup…

The new cover rules did not help his Jägermech at all. The flame markers courtesy of Gale Force Nine. Now I only need a lot of smoke cloud markers and we will start using the smoke-and-fire rules again with glee…
For every BattleTech player and especially for Mechwarrior GMs, this is a very useful addition. It also meshes very well with just the starter box, and is one of the best done add-on products for BattleTech as a boardgame since CityTech came out.

Questions or Additions?