The Wildly Comedic, Yet Somewhat Restrained, Story Of Mostly Purple Patty And Auntie Rosie’s Birthday

…featuring Auntie Rosie, of course!

Some Thoughts On Favorite Roleplaying Genres

So I was recently thinking about the fact that I am both playing in and GMing D&D 5E fantasy games. I’m enjoying them both immensely, but I did realize that, outside of the odd game at conventions, I have not GMed anything but fantasy for several years.

This can, of course, be explained by the fact that D&D style fantasy games are by far the most popular and common types of rpgs out there. If you don’t believe me, check out the D&D Adventurers League or the Pathfinder Society.

Anyway, I was thinking about the genres of games that I have run since becoming a GM about just about 40 years ago. They cover a whole lot of ground and many rules systems, so I thought I’d do up a list. My memory not being what it used to be, I’m sure I left a couple out, but here are the ones I remember, along with the rules systems I used.

Fantasy

Around 500 individual sessions spread out among 7-8 lengthy campaigns and many short ones & one shots, mostly using D&D/AD&D, but with sidetrips into Tunnels & Trolls, Runequest, GURPS Fantasy, Talislanta, and a few homebrew systems.

Science Fiction, mostly Space Opera

Around 50 sessions, mostly in 3 campaigns. Traveller, GURPS Space and a modification of D&D (for a short Star Trek campaign) were the systems of choice.

Horror

Around 60 sessions, pretty much evenly split between Ravenloft for AD&D and straight up Call of Cthulhu.

Hero/Weird Menace Pulp

Around 150 sessions, including 4 campaigns. I used the Justice Inc. rules for Hero System at first, but then moved to Chaosiums Basic Roleplaying, GURPS Cliffhangers, D&D, Fudge and Over The Edge.

Modern Strangeness

At least 60 sessions, almost all using Over The Edge, but a few using Fudge.

 

Old West

Only about 10 sessions, with 6 of those using Boot Hill and the remainder using Basic Roleplaying.

Comedy

200 sessions, mostly using Toon, but with a good bit of Paranoia and a couple of others I can’t recall.

 

Time Travel/Dimension Hopping

About 10 sessions, all using Fudge

 

Historical

Only 2 sessions, since I am nobody’s historian. Used Call of Cthulhu rules.

Modern Espionage

About 5 sessions, using the James Bond rules.

Science Fiction, Post Apocalypse

Around a dozen sessions, mostly using GURPS mixed with Car Wars, but a few using Over The Edge.

Science Fiction, Other

Around 8 sessions. Includes everything from a robot uprising to 1950’s giant bugs. Call of Cthulhu rules and Over The Edge.

 

Steampunk

2 sessions, using Basic Roleplaying.

Assorted Other Genres

10 sessions. Everything from Bunnies & Burrows to Planet of the Apes, using a bunch of systems.

Hmm, that works out to 1,069 gaming sessions. Let’s round it up to 1,700. That comes to a bit over 42 sessions a year over 40 years. Considering that in 1982 and 1983 I ran 2 sessions of AD&D a week for about 48 weeks each year, that takes care of 192. Add in a few one shots and we’ll call that 200. Still comes to an average of 39.4 sessions a year, although several of those years had over 50 sessions a year and some had less than a dozen.

Next time, I might write about genres I’d like to GM more often.

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It’s All Fun And Games Until Your Face Gets Stuck That Way

…your mother WARNED you, didn’t she?

 

 

The Doclopedia #1,270

The Alphabet: Q is for…

Quill Beast…, also known as a Spiny Terror. Imagine a 7 foot tall cross between an Ogre and a porcupine and you are not far off as to what a Quill Beast looks like. They are big, dumb, easy to piss off and covered with 6 inch long barbed quills that release an acidic toxin when they sink into flesh. It is said that the pain will make a barbarian berserker fall down screaming and crying.

With their own kind, Quill Beasts are friendly and gentle. They live in small family groups and if they meet another family, they never fight. This does not apply to them meeting and other species larger than a fox.

Quill Beasts are most often found in mixed woodland. They sometimes live in evergreen forest on mountains. They are almost never seen in praries.

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The Doclopedia #1,271

The Alphabet: Q is for…

Queelgah City…is the largest city on the island of Guodra, with a population of 395,015 humans, Kloavians, m’Ret and Tunjunku. Due to frequent releases of poison gas from Mount Remkar, the entire city is under a dome.

Queelgah City was first established by m’Ret merchants and explorers in Month 9 of Galactic Year 78,002. Many other races arrived over the next 4 millenia, with the humans arriving a scant 300 years ago.

Besides the sale of tros, winlaa and skameel, all of which are abundant on Guodra, the city is known for fine dining, excellent museums and the Royal m’Ret Theater.

Chapter 704: In Which Our Hero, Being Without Funds, Cons A Pig Farmer Into Giving Him A Five Pound Note

 

…and a rasher of bacon.

 

DogCon 9

Day Six: In which I  update this report throughout the day, just to be different.

8:00 am: We started our day with a delicious breakfast at Pancakeville. That place never skimps on the portions. I highly recommend the cheesecake pancakes.

9:00 am: While most of our traveling band went off to play various games, Sasha and I did a seminar entitled “Mad Science In Your Game”. It was well attended and the audience had many thoughtful and borderline disturbing questions.

10:15 am: With Sasha off to address meeting of the Central Texas Non-Human Terran Association, I got into a game of Lords of Waterdeep. I am not winning, but it’s fun and it should be done in time for me to meet Grace & The Girls for lunch.

 

12:00 pm: We had lunch at Curry On Eating!, a damn fine new Indian buffet. We were joined by Avis and Ginie. There is some small possibility that we all crossed the line into “Ate Too Much” territory, but damn, fresh warm naan and goat curry!

 

1:00 pm: We met up with the rest of our party and some other folks for a rehearsal of tonight’s Old Time Radio broadcast of “The Adventures of Doc Mystery: The Laughter of Death!”. It will be an hour long and run from 8:00 to 9:00.

2:30 pm: Spike, myself and 4 other gamers over 50 did a panel  called “You Kids Get Outta My Dungeon!”, which for being a bunch of old farts talking about gaming pre-1990, was well attended and full of laughs.

4:00 pm: I ran another Toon game, this time for 24 players, including Grace, Silky, Sadie, Lauren, Mary and Max. It ran for 2 hours and we probably had 50-60 spectators at any one time. I was knackered when it was done.

6:30 pm: We had dinner at Chez Mom’s. I ate a chicken fried steak the size of a large frisbee.

7:45 pm: We are all in the Green Room at station KRTR awaiting the start of our show. More bloggage later before yet another party.

9:15 pm: Radio show finished. Some of us (Grace, Mary, Silky, Lauren, Sadie) went back to the hotel to relax and sleep. The rest of us are heading to the Costume Party, This year the theme is Zombie Robots, costumes will be provided.

 

2:30 am: Tipsy, but not drunk, Sasha and I are back from eating chili after the party. It was another very fun party, considering everybody was made up to look like badly rusted robots. We shall sleep now.

 

 

Radical Lorikeets Angered My Skinks

…you do not want to deal with angry skinks

DogCon 9

Day Seven: In which, while we humans eat an expensive dinner prior to yet another party, the critters discuss their day at the con.

Sasha: I started the day playing in the live critters only dungeon with Silky, Roxie and Sadie.

Sadie: It was lots of fun! I played a thief.

Roxie: I was a wizard of the School of Fire. I fried several zombies and a bugbear,

Silky: I was the cleric of the party, Sister Orella. I had my work cut out for me between healing Sasha & Sadie and smiting unbelievers.

Sasha: I was a barbarian with a bigass sword. We kicked ass.

Daisy: Max and I played board games until I had to do my panel on GMing.

Max: Yeah, I really liked “Mars Explorer”. It’s a competitive, but you also get points for helping other players out of jams.

Leon: I got into a minis war game at 8:00 am that lasted 6 hours. It was United Planetary Marines versus Martian Warbots on Mars. It was a pretty fast moving game considering there were 10 players.

Max: After Daisy went off to do her panel, I played a game of Paranoia with Sasha and Sadie. That was some funny shit.

Sadie: Yeah, we blew through about 4 clones each before we even got out of the briefing room.

Sasha: And another 3 down in R&D!

Roxie: Silky and I went to watch some anime. The first few episodes were Magic Girl stuff, which is fine, but then they started showing some goofy high school romance comedy that was just too goofy.

Silky: Yeah, the Japanese have a different sense of humor, for sure.

Leon: When my game finished, I went to the all cat play area. It was fun for a couple of hours. Then I went to the Dealers Room and bought some minis.

Sasha: Yeah, the three of us hit the Dealer’s Room, then went to the arcade to play the hell out of Pac Man and the like.

Max: I rule at Venture!

Sadie: I set a new personal record for Centipede.

Roxie: Sounds like we all had a fun day. So, who wants to order room service before we meet the humans at the party?

Support this blog on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DocCross

No Man’s Lamb

…those sheep belong to Little Bo Peep!

DogCon 9

Day Six: In which I do a very cursory bit of reportage on my day, with critter commentary.

The Summer of Love party last night was great, especially for those of us who actually grew up in the 60’s. However, as often happens when one dances the night away and consumes alcohol, today was a rather slow starting day.
(Daisy: Max and I danced all night at our party and we were fine today.)
(Silky: That’s because you’re 5. I think I wore out 3 of my legs.)

(Sasha: I’m beginning to think that 7.5 years old is too old for the mosh pit. Even my ears hurt this morning.)

Breakfast: We ate at Waffles From Outer Space, where they made some special veggie waffles for Max and fish topped waffles for the cats.

(Max: Oh man, those waffles were the shit! Yum!)

(Leon: Waffles topped with tuna are my new love.)

Seminars: I gave one entitled “Time, The Multiverse & You” and it had a full house. I went to one Spike was on called “Editors: Threat Or Menace?”. That one was full, too.
(Max: Mr. C. was in rare form at his seminar. It was funny as hell. )

Games: I ran a Toon game. It was “The House That Jerks Built” scenario. As usual, it went very well. I played in a short session of Feng Shui, in which I was a Scrappy Kid. After lunch and a long stroll through the dealer’s room, I joined Spike and Grace in a life sized game of “Kill Dr. Lucky”.

Other Fun: I bought an hour hookup to a robot at GenCon and went around saying hi to my friends up there.

(Sasha: I did the same thing an hour before my longass X-Files game.)

Lunch: Partaken of at Taco The Town. I won a tamale eating contest.

Purchases: Too much to list.

(Sadie: My dad did the same thing, and this after he went hog wild at that pulp show.)

Dinner: Ate with a big group at Big Slabs O’ Meat .

(Daisy: MEAT COMA!)

Leaving now for tonight’s party. No theme, just lots more partying.

More blog-o-rama tomorrow.

Hot Damn! It’s The Dancing Elks!

…and they’re wearing tuxedos

DogCon 9

Day Five: In which we reach Critter City, meet up with lots of friends and prepare to party.

Having spent the night less than an hour from Critter City, we all got up late today, around 9:30. After a fairly light breakfast, we got on the road and rolled under the big dome at 11:45.

After parking in the Hyatt underground and then getting all of our stuff into our suites, we went to meet assorted friends and then get our con badges and swag bags. Among the first dozen friends we met were Brian Misiaszek, his wife & daughter & dog. The Misiaszek family and Sadie have traveled to this con with us before several times and Brian is always involved in a couple of the old time radio productions we do, to say nothing of panels and games.

The swag bags at DogCon are always good and this year was no exception.Our bags included…

A t-shirt depicting a movie starring ConDog, the lovable mutt mascot of the con as “Dogtor Strange” and looking sort of Cumberbatchy.

Three six sided dice (mine were electric blue) with the 6 replaced by the DogCon 9 logo.

A poster for a low budget, Kickstarted movie called “It Came From Under Space”, which looks to feature a giant mole.

A super yummy (and safe for critters) lemon cookie the size of a tea saucer.

A book of discount coupons for favorite eateries like Chez Mom’s, Thai One On, Ed’s Big Weenie, Pizza My Heart, Waffles From Outer Space! (BACON & BUTTER FLAVORED SYRUP!) and Mistress Diana’s Breakfast Dungeon, plus a few free drink coupons.

A mini board game called “Carp Wars”

The con book, which this year is done up to look like a steampunk Journal Of SCIENCE!

Having gotten our swag, we all made our way to Ed’s Big Weenie to eat delicious hotdogs and look through the con book.

Since I have your attention, I will note that besides the seminars, panels and games that Spike, Brian, Peter, Sasha, Daisy and I run, this year will see Grace & Mary as part of a 6 person panel with the title “I Married A Gamer”. I am told it has already been moved twice to larger rooms.

And now we are back from dinner at Thai One On and are letting our tummies rest before heading out to the pre-con party and alcohol fest. This years theme is “Marvel VS DC” and costumes are provided. Oh, yeah, this year, there is also a critters only party sponsored by Non-Human Terrans of Texas. The theme for that party is “Summer of Love”.

More blogging tomorrow.

 

RAISING KOBOLDS FOR FUN AND PROFIT

…of course, you do have to feed them a baby or two

DogCon 9

Day Three: In which we do not have the most interesting of days, but still manage to spin off a new timeline or two.

It was hot in New Mexico today, averaging 103 most of our way across the state. Our East Coast contingent does not deal well with hot dry weather, so that plus a surprising lack of places we wanted to stop made the trip a mostly driving one.

Travel Tip: You cannot go all the way across New Mexico on I-10 because after Las Cruces (about a third of the way across the state) it dives down into Texas. Thus, we split off to Route 70 when we left Las Cruces, took that to Alomogordo, then took Route 82 the rest of the way to the Texas border.

Aside from stopping for lunch at a swell Mexican Restaurant in Alamogordo for lunch before going to learn all about how the USA learned to blow shit up atomically at White Sands Visitor Center, we stopped at two other places.

First was “The Strange Spot”, a place a few miles off I-10 near Deming where the desert rocks are set up in such a way as to cause multiple echoes and strange sounds from the wind in a sort of maze-like 50 acre area. You ride through it in golf carts and stop every few minutes to yell, then listen, then take pictures. The whole tour takes about 45 minutes and I’m pretty sure that without the small personal cooling units Sasha provided, Avis and Ginie would have melted away. But it was worth the buck fifty each and we did get t-shirts, bumper stickers and other stuff.

The next place was in the town of Artesia, where we came across the “New Mexico Youth Talent Show” being held in a rather large high school gymnasium. Now, at first, we were going to just pass it by, but when Daisy saw the sign saying “Free Admission” and “Everyone under the age of 18 free to perform” she told me to stop, then gathered the other critters and went off to the Meadow Room for a meeting.

About 45 minutes later, after the rest of us had played a couple of rounds of “Love Letter” and “Murder of Crows”, they came and said we needed to take the bus back in time to just before the event started at 10:00 am (it being by then about 2:45). We did so and they went to the Clothes Closet (which is about the size of a large Wal Mart) and came out wearing very nice suits (for Max and Leon) and skirts (for Daisy, Sasha, Silky and Roxie). The clothes were vintage early 60s lounge act looking.

Going into the gym, we noted that there were maybe 50 other acts and about 600 spectators. The critters signed up as the “Smooth Tones” from Taos. We humans got our seats and began a quiet conversation about what the hell was up. We didn’t worry about changing history, but we did wonder if this might cause some sort of temporary local disturbance that might see us making a hasty retreat to the bus.

The Smooth Tones were the fifteenth act on, coming after singers, dancers, magicians, two trained dog acts (one very good) a poetry reading and a couple of young men with excellent juggling skills. As the critters (in their teenage android bodies, I remind you) came out, the stage lights dimmed and they began an slow and loungy a cappella version of “Video Killed The Radio Star”, no doubt spurred by today being the 35^th anniversary of the launching of MTV. They were terrific, as you might imagine from sentients with perfect pitch due to android bodies. The crowd, never having heard the song, was dead silent. Spike leaned over to me and asked my odds on this spinning off a new timeline, seeing as it was 5 years before the song would be released in England and 6 years before MTV would debut. I put it at about 85%.

When the song was done (including lead singer Max pointing right at a local TV camera as he sang “Put the blame on VTR!”) the crowd went wild. The critters came up to join us, followed by several young folks and a guy who gave them his card and said he was a talent agent from Dallas.

We watched another two hours of acts, including a young lady who sang a hymn with a voice that indeed sounded like that of an angel. The crowd loved her.

After all 50 acts had done their thing, the entire crowd got to vote. Angel Voice came in First, the Jugglers came in Second and the Smooth Tones came in Third. They won $100.00. They also signed a shitload of autographs, which I reckon raised the new timeline spinoff to 100%. Then we took out leave back to our proper time.

Note: The hundred bucks was donated to a local charity.

Having spun off an alternate timeline where, in a few years folks would say, “Hey, the Buggles ripped off that song!”, we drove the rest of the way to Highway 18, then down to Hobbs, where we are stopped for the night. We have all praised the Smooth Tones, in particular Max, and they will get their favorite meals for dinner, lovingly prepared by ChefBots Alton, Julia & Jacques. The rest of us will be eating Indian fare, also prepared by the ChefBots.

Entertainment tonight will be six half hour episodes of “Doc Savage: The Animated Adventures”, which make up the story arc “Devil Doctor”, featuring Doc vs Fu Manchu.

Tomorrow, it’s Texas and 1986! More blogging soon.