Showing some appreciation for 'generic' character classes...

Because I'm really starting to appreciate them.  Quite a bit, actually!

I can remember when I first came across NPC classes in the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide (Warrior, Expert, Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner) back in...hmm, like 2003...?  I thought they were such a good idea that I immediately wanted to start making characters with them.  The Expert class, especially...I mean, why wasn't it already a widely used option?  It just seemed so versatile, and (personal side note, skip to next paragraph if that sounds terrible) it matched up with what I had as a sort of lifelong dream, to earn the right to be considered an Expert in one topic or another.  (It's why I eventually pursued a PhD...I was levelling up myself(!)...and arguably became just that, for one specific thing.  One beautiful, very narrow, practically worthless, conversationally tedious thing.)

I also liked that the DMG specifically highlighted the Expert class as one that may be worth promoting to the big leagues...to pull a quote from the SRD:

The expert could make a PC-worthy class choice, but only for those players willing to create a character focused on something other than a traditional adventuring career.

As someone who was pretty new to the ways of D&D and enjoying the chance to immerse myself in whatever class ideas I could get my hands on, this sounded awesome!  And then...I thought it was pretty cool when I happened to open the Sage miniature in a Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game booster and realized that they had actually made him an Expert, according to the full RPG stats that were found on each mini's card (on the opposite side from the skirmish game stats).  (I think, anyway...)

The Sage, from an eBay listing; I can't wait to see the other side of the card and be proven right.  Someday.  Maybe.

When I eventually realized (via the SRD) that the 3.5 book Unearthed Arcana also included so-called 'generic classes' (Warrior, Expert, Spellcaster) that served as amped-up versions of the NPC options...and I found out that the True20 system, right from its start in the original Blue Rose book, sorted every character into a similar tripartite taxonomy...I started to really take an interest in this approach!

I think that part of the reason I've become so drawn to these classes is that they're a fairly clean combination of aspects I like in some of my favorite RPGs.  I love D&D-style class-and-level gaming because of its history, its implementation of genre archetypes, and its interesting 'stories' that are told without any dice being rolled, just by internalizing the abilities of a specific class.  And I love West End Games' Ghostbusters (maybe my fave RPG ever) and many of the games it has inspired, as their straightforward attribute + skill mechanics are easily grokkable and contribute to a freewheeling tone where it seems like, somehow, 'normal' people fit in and anything goes when it comes to the adventure.

Dr. Peter Venkman's Ghostbusters stats; from the very helpful collection at Ghostbusters International

I like where generic classes sit in between these two approaches and have had them in mind a lot lately while considering the setting that shares a name with this blog, especially since I typically think about the Monstrous Matters campaign as some variant of 'Ghostbusters + D&D.'  And to a lesser extent, I like applying the generic classes to thoughts on UNLTD/POA/whatever I end up calling this 3.75-inch action figure skirmish game thingy I'm kind of working on...

So, let's see...

I have one spot in my home where I actually display action figures (other than the Lego minifigs that topped our wedding cake).  The lineup changes based on whim and convenience.  Here's a pic I took a few months back; I figure that eventually, I'm going to want to have all of these characters statted out for playing war, so I guess I'll start with that parapsychologist down in the lower right (next to Tars Tarkas) since I already have some 'official' numbers to base him on.  Seems like a good testing ground for an Expert class (and I certainly have no issue treating the Venkman of the first film as a Level 1 character!)...

(He came from the awesome Plasma Pack set featuring the entire 'busting quartet in 3.75" form, btw...a pretty awesome 48th birthday gift from the parents this summer...!)

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Peter Venkman, Ph.D.

Expert, Level 1

Human, 34 years old

Affiliation: Ghostbusters (the 'real' ones)

STR       DEX        CON      INT       WIS      CHA

10 (--)  13 (+1)    10 (--)   11 (--)   19 (+3)  19 (+3)

HP 4   Move 30 ft.

Attack Bonuses: +0 melee (expertise with unarmed attacks), +1 ranged

Proficiencies (Expertise***)

Saves: Dexterity, Intelligence

Weapons: All simple weapons

Armor: Light armor

Languages: English

Skills: Investigation, Insight, Perception***, Deception***, Persuasion***

Tools/Talents: Parapsychology

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Geeky SKAturday: Ghostbusters!

Relative to the amount of time I spend actually sharing things on here, I spend way too much time considering whether or not I should blog about random stuff I come across on the web.  In doing this off and on for almost 10(!) years, I've managed to bounce around enough topics to have a blog that's kind of about everything, and kind of about nothing, and kind of about just whatever's in my head at the moment.

But occasionally, I see something that I know I should share...AND that 100%...no, 110%...fits whatever it is I blog about.  It is this:

I've featured the work of JER from Ska Tune Network before on here (for Sonic and Pokémon tunes, if you're keeping score).  And this certainly isn't the first time this classic theme has been given a ska makeover (it obviously works well with a third wave ska punk treatment!), but it's definitely worth noting when the immensely talented ska evangelist JER takes a crack at it...

The first/new look of Monstrous Matters

I'm too stoked about this piece of art to sit on it anymore!  Just had to share...

One of my innumerable ongoing nerd projects is to finally put together the bits and pieces I've gathered to play a campaign based upon the paranormal research and protection organization known as Monstrous Matters, whose members investigate the intrusion of extraplanar creatures upon our world.  It's sort of my take on Ghostbusters meets D&D...maybe my own version of a fantasy heartbreaker...and I'm hoping to have a rules-lite yet suitably evocative document to share with the world by...well, I guess I should just say the end of the year at this point, since I move so slowly on everything hobby-related.

I knew that the incomparable Kelvin Green would have some excellent ideas for representing this type of adventure in a single picture, so I hit him up for it, and he did not disappoint.  Quite the opposite, actually...I kind of can't believe how much I enjoy looking over the details he put into this piece!  Without further ado, here is the first official image for Monstrous Matters, the organization:

I'm probably gonna have to make some version of this into a header for the blog eventually.  Until then, I'll keep fighting through my gamer ADHD* to chip away at the game, while undoubtedly getting distracted by a variety of similarly inconsequential projects along the way...!

(Thanks Kelvin!!)

* FWIW, I'm not ashamed to mention that I have received this actual diagnosis...not "gamer ADHD," that would be weird...but regular old ADHD.  I say this not to brag (ha!) but to make sure it doesn't look like I'm taking a legitimate hindrance on others' lives and turning it into a joke.  For some reason, people seem really comfortable making jokes about having some of these alphabet soup disorders -- ADHD, OCD, PTSD, probably more -- and while I threw in a flippant mention of one of them, I figured:  Why not pull the mood down a bit by making something into a more serious issue than it has to be?  But hey, that's probably just the OCD at work, eh?

Comparing task resolution difficulties across RPG systems (D6 + d20 + more)

I'm hoping someone out there might find it useful to see the side-by-side comparison of skill resolution target numbers/difficulty classes for a small variety of RPGs that are of interest to me right now.

If you just want to see the tables, you can skip on ahead to the figures so you don't get bored by my introductory rambling.  If you want more detail, possibly along with a small word salad, read on.  Either way, please let me know if you see any errors on these charts.

So...when I was beginning my deep dive into RPGs around 20 years ago, I was really intrigued by mechanical systems that lent themselves to covering modes of gaming outside of just crunchy campaign play, like miniatures, card games, or even just more casual roleplaying.  The D6 System from West End Games (WEG) really caught my eye, especially once I realized that it was implemented in such diverse forms as Ghostbusters (its genesis), Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game (perhaps its best-known form), DC Universe (altered to handle superpowers), and Star Wars Miniatures Battles and Live-Action Adventures.

These last two might have been the most intriguing, as they shifted the typical WEG D6 mechanics from a dice pool to [D6 + Attribute + Skill].  And somehow, using pretty much the same values as the standard WEG Star Wars RPG, that shift seemed to work in play.  It almost felt like I didn't know at the time that this kind of adjustment was even allowed in RPGs. :)

As I've looked around lately for a system that I might be able to use for a variety of gaming projects, I found myself looking really hard at Ghostbusters...and liking what I saw, a lot.  Also remembering a message board post where someone pointed out the similarity between the target numbers of the D6 System and one of the major iterations of d20 (I think it was already 5E at the time), I decided to take a look at how some of these systems stacked up in terms of difficulty classes for skill rolls.  Here are the systems included:

1.  Ghostbusters -- The point of the exercise and maybe the greatest RPG ever written

2.  Spooktacular -- A retro-clone of Ghostbusters with an associated OGL-friendly SRD (Sixtacular)

3.  FIE, I SAY! -- A traditional fantasy take on the Ghostbusters core rules, from Tim Snider; clearly constructed with love, humor, and an eye toward old school cachet

4.  The D6 System -- A generic toolkit for RPG system construction, published by WEG in 1996 and often called "the Cookbook" by fans

5.  Mini Six -- The clever and concise universal D6 ruleset released by AntiPaladin Games under the OGL

6.  Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition -- The WEG one, not the WotC one...although the numbers are probably pretty similar considering...

7-8.  Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 and 5E SRDs -- Probably the two most-referenced RPG System Reference Documents

9-10.  Mörk Borg and Shadowdark -- Some darlings of the old school RPG crowd over the past few years (well-deserved reputations, I believe); both d20-based, with toned-down expectations for stat bonuses

11.  Star Wars: Live-Action Adventures -- A system for LARPing in that galaxy far, far away; uses essentially the same stats as the tabletop game but relies on a single D6 for task resolution (same scale as the WEG Star Wars minis game)

12-14.  Live-Action Adventures, +4 and +4/adjusted -- Having found 1D6 resolution to give a narrower range of results than I would like (relative to the possible spread of attributes and skills in the system), I'm looking at using 2D6 instead; +4 accounts for the added die, and the "adjusted" values shift the typically 2-point difficulty bands for 1D6 rolls to 3-point or 4-point bands (shifting "Moderate" downward in order to move toward a standard of 10 as the target number when attacking an average, unarmed human)

Here's the full table:

Here's a quick reference on how closely Ghostbusters and the WEG Star Wars RPG actually line up with target numbers in the d20 System (which would come along around the turn of the millennium and dominate roleplaying for years):

And finally, here are the tracks for FIE, I SAY! and Shadowdark, along with the table that I'm leaning toward as the eventual model for my ongoing Monstrous Matters campaign and its associated endeavors.  I like this scale quite a bit, and it's interesting to me that a dice-pool approach (FIE!) might match up so closely with both 1D20 (Shadowdark) and 2D6 resolution mechanics in terms of skill difficulties.

Thanks for checking these out, and please let me know if you have any thoughts on improving or adjusting these!

The Monstrous Matters Campaign, Part 2: So this is how goblin genocide starts.

A little while back, Father Josh threw me another tabletop bone by playing as the sole PC (with a supervisory role over the other protagonist) in Session 2 of the Monstrous Matters campaign.  (For my Session 1 ramblings, check out the post HERE.)

The high points of this session:

    1.  The first pieces were planted to tie into what might turn out to be a meta-narrative that makes its way through multiple adventures.  I say "might" because I'm committed to not railroading this thing...BUT I can have the overarching story in the back of my mind that MAY become obvious to the game's player(s) over time.

    2.  We returned to a more "standard" dice pool resolution mechanic for the D6-based system we're playing with.  I see this being The Way going forward, but I've honestly never determined what I find to be the optimal approach to the Wild Die/Ghost Die in these games, so I'll probably still play with that over the coming sessions.

    3.  The importance of player motivations with respect to the goals of the game itself came to the forefront, as one of the characters shifted into murder-hobo mode in a game that is, ostensibly, very much not about murder hobos.  The thing is, it really worked narratively, so it's drawing our attention to the value of determining the PCs' ethical views of creatures that have made their way to our world via connections to magical fantasy realms.  I'm sure there's also some political commentary that could be dropped into this exploration, but I'm going to do all I can to avoid that because (1) it seems cheap and exploitative, and (2) this is very much meant to be escapist entertainment.

So, here we go...

To begin the session, the team (Fingers Watson and Bobby Flech) move down the staircase from Level 1 to Level 2.

From the free and excellent Dyson's Delve mega-ish-dungeon...check out this level HERE.

Moving east, they peer into a room with six goblins; none notice them outside the cracked door. Five of the goblins are dressed in tattered rags, while one is in much nicer attire (including some fancy brass-ish goggles). He seems to be in the middle of a chemistry experiment. (When questioned, he says that he is “just trying to make it explode.”) He looks something like this:

On his wrist, there is a striking signet:

When asked, the goblin says that the signet is the symbol of his guild, the Izzet.

It doesn’t take long now for Watson’s long-harbored hatred of planar outsiders to show itself. He first tricks a few of them into falling into a carefully deployed portable hole. As they attempt to recover, he kills one with a dagger thrown into its eye. He then pulls out his sidearm and shoots four more dead. Finally, the chemist – by now the dozing victim of a scroll of Sleep – is strangled by Flech at Watson’s direction.

The protagonists have now shut themselves in the goblin den. There are other dungeon inhabitants outside, alerted by the noise and trying to get in. It doesn’t look great for the Monstrous Matters pair. There is a wildcard here, though: Fingers would happily kill every last one of them...

Hadestown, Wall-Building, and the Gotham by Gaslight Effect

In my continuing efforts to become a liberal coastal elite, fully out of touch with my working-class roots [that's mostly sarcasm, in case it needs to be said], I've become a pretty big fan of Broadway musicals.  I've long enjoyed musicals [and (1) have even been playing around with writing one for like 20 years, and (2) think that an RPG that plays out like a musical might be the most amazing game I can imagine].  So, now that Laura and I live close enough to hop over for a day in NYC, we take whatever opportunities we can (and can afford) to see the best that musical theater has to offer.  (West End theatergoers, I'll entertain your arguments.)

Our current Broadway favorite obsession is Hadestown.  This musical has an interesting origin, as it started out in smaller theaters in New England, then was turned into a concept album by its creator, Anaïs Mitchell, in 2010.

Starting in 2016, the musical made its way to an off-Broadway theater, then to Edmonton, to London, and finally to the big stage of Broadway (although it uses a fairly small stage, to be honest), winning the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2019.  It's inspiring, as a would-be creator of a variety of media, to see that an idea was able to progress this way.  And in all seriousness, it is a freaking work of genius.

Hadestown tells the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in what seems like a Depression-era New Orleans juke joint (as Hermes tells us, "Don't ask where, brother, don't ask when"), plus this setting's associated underworld, called Hadestown.  I could gush about pretty much every aspect of this production, but I'll try to keep it brief by saying that it is a complete work of art, with meanings that I'll probably be working through in my head until the day I take my own trip across the Styx.  It is also beautiful.  The underworld's dieselpunk aura is especially striking:

This is actually a shot from a Korean production, rather than Broadway, but the dark deco feel is still there.  Image from HERE.

The end result of this mashup of mythology and Americana is a near-perfect story that always leaves me wanting more, to the point that I start to imagine what other works of classical mythology would fit nicely into this cultural milieu.  I eventually recognize that overplaying the details and themes that make Hadestown so transcendent will probably just lead to a bunch of stuff that doesn't feel nearly as special anymore.  That little drive is always there, though -- whether it's due to my comic-filled childhood or my love of gaming, I inevitably want to expand the "Hadestown Universe" just to get more of it.  (That's a tendency I've chosen to call the Gotham by Gaslight effect.)

We took in the production for the second time last Wednesday...and while there are a number of excellent songs in the show, there was one that was just taken to another level that day.  Having watched the American presidential debate the night before, and listened to the anti-immigrant nonsense espoused therein*, I was struck by the remarkable fact that Mitchell wrote the song "Why We Build the Wall" way back in 2006.  Many viewers assume the show is just a statement on modern American politics...but it's really just a show about the nature of humanity and of being human, and this song just happens to hit a lot harder because of the world we live in now.

If you have a couple of minutes, I really, really recommend giving this tune a listen.  Here's a lyric video featuring the original Broadway cast (leading right into the last few lines of the first act).  Laura and I were a bit late to the game, so while we actually missed the runs of the original main cast members, we have not been left wanting.  Hades is currently portrayed by Phillip Boykin, whose performances have been jaw-dropping, to say the least.  (The last time we saw it, in the split second between the end of the number and the rise of applause, you could hear a guy a couple rows behind us just say, "My god...")

Now, to make sure I'm keeping this blog suitably ridiculous, I think I'll close this out by taking a look at Hades as a character in a Ghostbusters-type game.  So here goes...

Hades

Image from HERE

If we're using the "Ghostology" section of the old Ghostbusters RPG's Operations Manual, Hades would fall into the category of Really Bad News, which includes "demons, powerful gods, and the like."  This essentially puts him into a category where he doesn't need stats, because the PCs aren't going to be able to do much to affect him anyway...that is, unless they can find that one unique way to defeat him.  For the Hades of Hadestown, there are some key weaknesses that can be seized upon: (1) his greed and love of power, and (2) his genuine love for his wife Persephone.  Anything the players can do to impact Hades will have to feed off of the insecurity that comes from these two qualities of the character.

However...he should be a little more fun to play than that.  So, here are a few tidbits stolen/adapted from an OGL 5e take on Hades:

Spell-like Abilities (all at will): hellish rebuke (3rd level), mold earth, thaumaturgy, fear, phantasmal killer, wall of stone, gate

Soul Syphon: Hades inhales souls in a 60 ft. cone. Each creature in the affected area takes 13D damage unless they pass a Strength check with a difficulty of 21, which cuts the damage in half (rounded up).

Bass-Baritone: Hades' voice is really, really low.  Just do your best.

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* Yep, I know immigration is a complex issue (as they all are), and there is a discussion to be had on the proper approach to reform that accounts for both American safety and human dignity.  BUT...that bullshit last Tuesday?  That was nonsense.

5 tips for running the Ghostbusters RPG (AKA another lazy post!)

Inspired by Adam Dickstein's killer Chapter 2 writeup of his awesome Ghostbusters + Tokyo Ghost Research idea in action over at his Barking Alien blog (seriously, check it out), I really wanted to get another Ghostbusters RPG post out into the world. BUT...I have to focus on real life a little too much today. Aha...BUT(!!!)...I did finally write up a little list of things I've learned along the way as I've run the classic West End Games RPG myself. I said I might get around to it, and then I finally did so in...another Reddit thread.

So here we go. Written to a first-time Ghostmaster, and with pretty minimal editing here (like I said, another lazy post!). Maybe someone will find it helpful...? [This is where I shrug, but I'm not sure if I should put an emoji or just write *shrug* or what...]

5 Tips for Running the Ghostbusters RPG

1.  The more you set things in locations you're familiar with or can easily imagine, the easier it will be to improvise over the course of the adventure.  (I guess this really applies to any RPG...)

2.  Have a list of potential complications to turn to if nothing comes to you after the roll of a ghost on the Ghost Die. I have had a session before with so many ghosts rolled that by the end I was just like, "Okay, you miss hitting the demon and...uh...you fall down. Yes, you step on a well-placed banana peel!" (This may or may not be a precise example, but it ultimately helped me realize that you can put ridiculous stuff on a complication/fumble list, and it somehow seems to hold more weight among players if you randomly generate it from a list rather than just making it up in the moment. [NOTE: That's probably just my own assumptions showing through.] Although...I'm sure there's an effective GMing style that involves ridiculous ad hoc complication creation as well!)

3.  If you have the time, you can try prepping (to whatever extent you plan to do so) like three adventures, then have multiple calls come into Ghostbusters HQ in rapid succession. It gives a sense of agency to the players from the start. You'll just want to make sure they don't try to split up to cover all three at the same time, which would be pretty cumbersome. (Ghostbusters as a game lends itself to possibly humorous notes to players along the lines of: "Each of these calls seems really dangerous. You can just tell that you're going to need to take the full crew to whichever one you choose, for the sake of either Ghostbuster safety or Ghostmaster sanity...I'll let you know which in a little while.")

Obviously there's a good chance the players won't get through all of the adventures in one session, but then you're already prepped for a future game AND you have some security in case someone comes up with something that makes you think, "Yeah...that IS really smart and could potentially solve this case in about five minutes' time..."

4.  I've had good luck with the adventures written for the game Paranormal Investigators & Exterminators (P.I.E.), a Mini Six variant from Genius Loci games that works as a GB retro-clone. (Specifically, I've used versions of the adventures "Humble Pie" from the original P.I.E. release, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" from the Good-bye American P.I.E. supplement, and "Chocolate P.I.E." from its own individual module, all in the "three calls" setup above.)

(You can click HERE to head to the company's DriveThru page...)

5.  I'm sure this will vary by group, but I've always found it fun to zero in on a fairly specific time in the past to set things. Sharing some of the details of the world in general that you'll find with just a google search or two can help give the game a retro feel, which I think is often part of the appeal of playing as Ghostbusters. This can conflict with #1 a little bit -- you can set things in a location you're very familiar with, but you may not have much of an idea of what that place was like in, say, 1986 (not that it necessarily matters unless you have a player who will recognize and care about any inaccuracies) -- BUT a little touch like a certain song or sporting event playing on the radio is an easy way to add a little atmosphere.

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With the Monstrous Matters campaign in progress, I'm really interested in seeing everyone's approaches to the art of running a Ghostbusters-style paranormal RPG, so please hit me up with your own tricks and insights if you get the chance, here or elsewhere!

Mini Six vs. OpenD6 (vs. TinyD6, kinda)

Okay, a very low-effort post today...!

There was a recent Reddit thread on universal RPG systems, so I had to chime in and spread the love for the D6 System, my current mechanical obsession.  Another poster asked if I could explain the difference in OpenD6 and Mini Six (as well as TinyD6), and I ended up writing a bit more than I imagined I would.  Then I realized that there's a chance other people might google something like "OpenD6 vs. Mini Six," and that it might be helpful to have that same response as a blog post, especially for anyone who avoids Reddit threads when they search.

So, eliminating my opening and closing caveats and apologies, here's my from-memory take on the differences:

TinyD6 is the one I know the least about and have never played. As far as I know, it is its own system using one or more (I really don't know which) d6s and is pretty rules-lite. It seems to have a following of its own, and content in a variety of genres, so it is probably a good gateway to "univeral gaming" even though...AFAIK...it is not directly related to the other two.

OpenD6 and Mini Six, on the other hand, are very much connected. OpenD6 is the license/movement/set of games that came about when the owner of West End Games' D6 system (used in Star Wars and DC Universe, with a proto-version in Ghostbusters, among others) released it via the OGL. You can probably find a lot of the old WEG books...or versions of them with IP removed...for free on the net, although it's been a while since I've surveyed that availability. At its heart, the D6 System is more of a toolkit than a specific way to play, and there's even an old book simply called The D6 System (with the subtitle The Customizable Roleplaying Game) that is often called "the cookbook" and has a bunch of options laid out with the idea that you'll choose the ones most appropriate to your game (including stuff like which attributes you'll have for characters). There was a set of three books for Fantasy, Adventure, and Space that had rules specifically tailored to those genres. (Space, for example, was built heavily upon the old Star Wars rules.)

Once OpenD6 became a thing, the Mini Six system was one of the first to use the license. It is a very approachable, fairly stripped-down ruleset that is also available for free and that can be used for just about any genre. At the time it was released, I saw it as the authors (Ray Nolan and Phil Morris of AntiPaladin games) sort of reverse-engineering Ghostbusters (probably my favorite RPG ever) while bringing in some of the options and technology that had been innovated for the D6 System over its lifetime. I definitely recommend checking it out:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/144558/mini-six-bare-bones-edition

Overall, the potentially diverse application of the system was a plus for folks who really like to tweak their games, but some of the drastic differences in how the games end up playing out probably made it tough to gather as much of a unified community as there was for, say, the d20 System. It's typically pretty easy to convert from one "subsystem" to another, but I just don't think that feels as universal as systems that have a unified set of attributes (and skills, and even how to read the results of rolls, in the case of games like DC Universe that used a success/fail-based version called D6 Legend).

The D6 System has recently gotten some love with stuff like the Zorro RPG and a recent Kickstarter for a "D6 2e." I've gravitated to my own houseruled version as a sort of house system for my own games, and so I check out new developments when I think about it and have the time, in case there's something I can bolt onto the form of the game I'm running with.

And then I followed up quickly after to add this:

Also, just wanted to add that the owner of the system IP who released it into the wild was Eric Gibson of Purgatory Publishing. It was a really kind move that definitely helped keep the system alive. There are a few other folks who have been vital to it over the years, but I don't want to start naming them because I'm afraid I'll leave out someone important...!

If you happen upon this while investigating the system(s), please let me know if there's anything more to my opinions that may be helpful in your search!

The Monstrous Matters Campaign #1

Life's a little weird right now.  I have to admit that the inescapable, fever-pitched, hyperbolic-yet-genuinely-worrisome media coverage of this year's presidential election is bringing me down a little.  Pretty much every day.  And I see it a little more than usual now that I'm spending more time at home, having declined to follow my previous employer to another state in order to keep that job.  So now I don't have that job.  (And it always seems to end up catching up with me psychologically when I'm "in between jobs.")

Luckily, I still have a love for losing myself in fantastic worlds (a passion that never really lets me down)...and so, a few weeks ago, my buddy Father Josh indulged my delusions of storytelling grandeur by playing in the first session of what will hopefully be a lengthy campaign, and one that is kind of important to me...

Because it is THE ONE™.  The Monstrous Matters campaign.  This is what it's all been building toward.  (All of what, you ask?  All of all of it.)

I mean...that is...until I get bored and move onto THE (NEXT) ONE™.  When it comes to dumping a lot of heart, soul, and brainpower into an obsession, this ain't my first time around the block.  But for now...

In this campaign, Monstrous Matters is an organization that investigates and facilitates protection from the fantastic forces that enter our earthly realm through portals leading to and from other regions of the multiverse.  We are familiar with many of these beings...from mythology, folklore, fairy tales, and games with weird dice.  The work of Monstrous Matters overlaps quite a bit with the operations of Department-7 in that "Ghostbusters + Urban Arcana" game that I ran with Josh about...oh man, four years ago...?  (The time.  It flies.)

Rules and Such

The system for the game is probably best described as just "houseruled Ghostbusters."  I went with a set of "Big 4" stats (Might-Dexterity-Knowledge-Presence) and am using +2 bonuses for all Skills/Talents.  Defense/armor value is static.  Health is tracked via Hit Points.

For the first session, we just used 1d6+Attribute+Skill (if appropriate) vs. target numbers (as seen in the old West End Games Star Wars miniatures and LARP rules), although I think I want to go back to the dice pool system.  Rolling a handful of dice is arguably a big part of the D6 System experience, and it was probably a mistake to move away from it so quickly.  (That initial choice was partially inspired by wanting to see how well the stripped-down, just-roll-a-humble-d6 approach works with stats at this scale.)  We also rolled for attributes (d6-1, minimum 1 for each stat [EDIT: We actually used 1d6, treat sixes as fives; my bad.])...which is how we ended up with some characters that are VERY capable stat-wise.  Here's Josh's guy...

I also wanted to have an extra character (controlled by me and/or Josh, doesn't really matter) to make the Monstrous Matters operatives into an actual team, as well as provide strategic options and an extra avenue for exposition.  Who would step up to this challenge?  Well...there's a slight chance that those who read this post will remember a character that was used in that earlier Department-7 game...a gentleman by the name of B.J. Flech, who moved on from a brief career as a Ghostbuster to defend the Earth from fantastic multiversal villains (and giant ants).

B.J. Flech is now retired...but his son Bobby is a new member of the MM team who is partnering with "Fingers" to pick up whatever...uh, pointers...he can.  (Harhar.)

For the opening adventure, Fingers and Bobby were dispatched to the Craggy Gardens area of western North Carolina to investigate a breach in our plane's veil.  The team began the operation with a single, fully charged Uncertainty Gun (to be detailed in a future post) and a selection of magical scrolls.  A level of connected caves and halls has been mapped using advanced radar and sonar (and some AI data compilation)...this gave me an in-story reason to go ahead and introduce the full, unkeyed map of the level, simplifying dungeon-crawling via Zoom.

For the dungeon itself, I'm using Dyson's Delve, which is an amazing free resource and one that you should absolutely consider using for your own dungeon-crawling needs. (Seriously, how many of our lives have been made both richer and simpler thanks to Dyson's work? He's one of the most luminary figures of the OSR, as far as I'm concerned.)

Check this level out HERE

And...well, I guess I should just summarize by saying that Session 1...was a success!  By my standards, anyway.  I had a blast!  Some rats and goblins and a ferret were sent packing with the Uncertainty Gun (yeah, it sends creatures back to their plane of origin; I really do need to write this up at some point...).  The session ended as Fingers and Bobby headed down some stairs to Level 2...

Hoping to have more to share on this soon, as the adventure continues and the specifics of the organization known as Monstrous Matters are established...

The BIG 4 of RPG attributes

It is possible that I would be a little embarrassed if most people knew how much time I spend thinking about character stats in roleplaying games.  And not in the sense of theorycrafting a perfectly minmaxed build...more about which attributes are the simplest or fastest or somehow the best for breaking down an RPG character.

I think my approach to it -- and probably that of many others, honestly -- is rooted as much in beauty as it is in usefulness.  Like a physicist drawn to supersymmetry, I don't know that I am ultimately being guided to the set of attributes that actually describe people most accurately.  I think I mostly want a set of stats that feels whole and balanced...which may or may not be the best approach, honestly.  I mean...that's subjective anyway, eh?

Lots of systems employ a physical/mental attribute split, including the one that probably introduced most of us to the idea of characters as numbers...the six stats of D&D.  Strength/Dexterity/Constitution and Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma are a nice 1:1 divide between body and mind.  The other main approach to rational attribute assignment would probably be the one taken by games that break stats down into Mind-, Body-, and Soul-related attributes (e.g. the appropriately named Tri-Stat System).  That's a different symmetry that still "feels" good, I think.  (Conversely...the five stats of Savage Worlds?  They do not feel good.  I know, I'm weird.)

At any rate, I would guess most gamers who care to think very hard about attributes realize pretty quickly that there's an arbitrariness to the division.  And since gamers love nothing more than to fiddle with the games they already love, a lot of work has been done over the years to perfect the spread of stats.  I'm pretty sure that somewhere out there, there's a big list (maybe even called the "Big List of...") compiling a ton of the attribute options on display in various RPGs.  This post isn't about exploring that diversity, though; it's about expressing appreciation for what I consider a sort of Big 4 of RPG stats:

1. How strong and tough are you?

2. How quick and nimble are you?

3. How knowledgeable and logical are you?

4. How emotionally resilient and capable of manipulating others are you?

Or, as the Ghostbusters RPG introduced them to me:

MUSCLES

MOVES

BRAINS

COOL

Not necessarily in that order.

I just keep coming back to these as potentially the most succinct yet simultaneously satisfying way to describe a character...two physical, two mental; two based on power, two more about skill.  (I think one of my friends, when I first described the stat breakdown to him many years ago, just said, "Yeah, that pretty much covers it...")

I loved it when Mini Six came out and sort of codified this set of attributes for light hexahedral gaming (as Might, Agility, Wit, and Charm).  I enjoy spotting other games that follow in this tradition.  And I think it's kind of cool to see that even the West End Games Star Wars RPG -- probably the best known game to use the WEG D6 system that grew from Ghostbusters -- basically rehashes these four (as Strength, Dexterity, Knowledge, and Perception) then adds on a couple of extras by pulling out the otherwise Dexterity- or Knowledge-based skills which are technologically oriented into their own stats (Mechanical and Technical, which do give D6 Star Wars some of its space opera flare.)

If in doubt...I could probably stat out most RPG characters using these (with an established scale) and translate them to a ton of other systems without an excess of effort.  I'm not sure if it's best to try to figure out how to define them generically or if I should take on more of the D6/Mini Six spirit and pick my favorite names.  I kind of partial to Might, Dexterity, Knowledge, and Presence right now.  I've gotta let those settle a bit...but they feel pretty whole and balanced at the moment.

This is definitely worth obsessing about for a while.  I'll get back to you on it.

A belated happy Ghostbusters Day (40th anniversary!) to all!!

So I'm late to the punch in delivering this message, but as Ghostbusters Day (the anniversary of the first film's debut) was on Saturday (June 8)...and this year is the 40th anniversary of the classic movie...and Ghostbusters occupies a fair amount of my allocated nerd brainspace these days...I couldn't let things pass much longer without hoping all of you enjoyed it!  Or...if maybe you didn't even know that happened on Saturday...I hope you'll take some time soon enough to enjoy the gift to the world that is the Ghostbusters franchise.

I'm lucky enough to live where it was pretty easy to pop over into the city to take part in the big celebration at the actual firehouse...and I don't know if I can overstate how cool that is to this Gen X nerd.  (Click HERE, btw, for some reflections from fellow doggo fan and established GB aficianado Adam Dickstein of the Barking Alien blog.) 

And...I'm so glad I did!  I've gotta admit...I've gotten a little old and selfish with my time to do nothing lately; I could easily have been convinced to stay home and act like I was going to do things around the house on Saturday.  Luckily, Laura got us tickets to see a 2:15 showing of the original film at a theater in Manhattan, so we made the trip!  (Interestingly, that 2:15 showing was cancelled, which I don't think I've ever had happen before...something strange...)

So, what'd we see?

I think Laura was genuinely surprised at how large the turnout was!

The view down N. Moore St.

There were a ton of people there...and pretty much everyone was smiling!  In NYC!

We actually got there too late to see anything in the way of an official ceremony, but the atmosphere around that firehouse was awesome for hours.  I don't really like posting pics of myself, but here's one of Laura and me so I can show off the shirt I was wearing; it's a custom job that Laura created, featuring the "dumb bell" that stars in a certain Claymation Christmas number.  I had a feeling this might be the crowd for it...and for the first time, someone recognized the character...!  That is nerd paradise.

The awesome custom Claymation bell shirt designed by my awesome wife 

It was pretty amazing to be a part of an event for Ghostbusters that literally drew folks from all around the country and the world!

Here are a few more haphazardly curated views of the celebration...

The cosplay was varied and lots of fun!

Multiple Ecto-1 variants made an appearance...see Adam's post at Barking Alien for a selection of their license plates!

Each vehicle had their own details...

The functioning firehouse's engine was parked outside for the festivities.

(Glad to finally pick one of these up...a patch from the station!)

So fun to get this perspective...

Check out all the patches of Ghostbusters fan groups from around the world!

Two actors from the original film, Joe Cirillo and John Rothman, were on hand for pictures and autographs.  Love it!

I really don't want to use "Counting Crows" as the title of this post, but man it's hard to ignore...

While at some point I might return to This Day in Anthro History posts highlighting examples of fictional animals walking and talking like people, I wanted to take a moment today just to point out something fascinating in the realm of nonhuman animals' demonstrating arguably human capabilities.  (I think I might be especially keyed into this topic as I follow Pun at Halls of the Nephilim in his creation of a TMNT-inspired RPG...!)

Last Thursday, an article dropped from the journal Science (one of the most reputable out there, so this is a reasonably notable study) in which researchers demonstrate that carrion crows - apparently already known to be able to count to 30 - can accurately vocalize counts up to four.  As in...these crows can see an Arabic numeral on a screen, or hear a sound that corresponds to a numeral, and caw the right number of times.

Four seems to be about the limit for this specific task.  According to the summary on Science.org:

But they did make mistakes, usually after performing numerous trials and when the target number was three or four. “They loved the number one and really disliked four,” [lead author Diana A.] Liao says. Sometimes, the crows displayed their dislike of four by refusing to utter a sound; instead, they simply pecked at the screen to end the trial.

While it's easy to think, "You just told me they can count to 30...why is it interesting that they're counting to 4?"...the accurate vocalization in a "one, two, three" manner is what is really catching people's attention.  It's hard not to see a similarity to the way humans often learn to count.  And one of the neatest details here is that researchers were ultimately able to predict a crow's final "answer" according to the first caw alone...an indication that the crow knows (before speaking) exactly what it plans to say.

If I can add an assumption that the crows are happy to find themselves in this situation, I absolutely love this research.  If it sounds like your style, you can check out the Science summary HERE, a summary from noted bird apologists the National Audubon Society HERE, and the original paper HERE.

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To celebrate this, here's an anthro crow character built using the online character generator for the Awfully Cheerful Engine (ACE)...an RPG from EN World's Morrus (Russ Morrissey) that acts as a huge tribute to the old Ghostbusters RPG and already includes some options for animal traits.  ACE is in the family of GB-inspired games I'm currently obsessed with statting stuff for...!

From HERE

Crowbar (seems a bit like a silly TMNT-villain-style name)

Trait/Role: Unlucky Crow

Health 4, Defense 9

Brawn 2 (Tough)
Moves 3 (Piloting)
Smarts 5 (Physics)
Style 2 (Public Speaking)

Ability: Flight

Holy..... How did I miss these 3.75" Ghostbusters that are on the way?

I mean...I guess the obvious explanation is that I don't do daily checks for important Ghostbusters or action figure news...but I still felt behind the times when I finally saw this announcement!

Thankfully, I caught an article on preorders starting for the upcoming 1:18 scale Ecto-1.  The phrase "alongside the upcoming 3.75″ o-ring action figures" made me do a double take.  I know I'm easily impressed by new and shiny things...but would it be too much to say that these are the toys I've been waiting my entire life for?

From HERE

One thing I'm still a little confused by: the newer article mentions a 1:18 scale Ghostbusters: Afterlife Ecto-1, and the older one refers to the upcoming release as "a retro-style take on the previously released Plasma Series Ecto-1."  Because the Plasma Series figures are larger than 3.75"/1:18, I had assumed that the accompanying ghostbusting vehicle was the same...but sure enough, according to this video, the old Ecto-1 is much smaller than the figures.  Has there been a 1:18 Ecto-1 out there for me to drool over this whole time?

On preparing adventures for the Ghostbusters RPG

With my mind on a lot of things lately related to West End Games' classic RPG Ghostbusters, I was thinking of putting together a blog entry offering some of the lessons I've learned when I've run the game (maybe my favorite RPG to run!).

However, I recently noticed that over at Cannibal Halfling Gaming, they're in the midst of a really interesting series of articles on Spooktacular adventure writing that can complement and probably supersede anything I would have to offer on the topic.  In case you aren't familiar (and I'm guessing most people aren't...?), Spooktacular is a sort of retroclone of Ghostbusters with a few changes (arguably for better or worse) and, of course, with the serial numbers mostly filed off.  (It's one of a number of games that have tried to tap into the spirit of the old Ghostbusters game for a modern audience, and from what I can tell, it looks like it does a pretty good job.  It's even accompanied by an SRD for a ruleset called Sixtacular to encourage others to publish compatible works!)

Part 1 was posted on April 5 and gives some background on Ghostbusters and Spooktacular, while Part 2 begins to prepare us for successful adventure writing with some interesting thoughts on what a lot of us get wrong about preparing to run an RPG.  I think I'll need to brush up on some Forge-style RPG philosophy to get the full impact, but I really like the directions we're taken by author Sabrina TVBand.  I'm looking forward to the closing entry on May 3!  Maybe I'll even get around to writing up my thoughts in some sort of "tips and tricks" form.

Did the Ghostbusters RPG influence Magic: The Gathering?

As conversions among game systems are almost an obsessive focus of daydreaming for me, I have noted at various times in my life that attempts to transform Magic: The Gathering stats into roleplaying numbers often feel more correct with a dice pool system like D6 (as seen in Ghostbusters and WEG Star Wars, for example) than with the d20-based systems I've probably played the most (D&D and its offshoots and clones).

With this in mind, and with the additional fact that MTG and the Ghostbusters RPG are two of my absolute favorite games ever, I thought it was cool to hear RPG legend Sandy Petersen note in the interview below (from Ghostbusters, Virginia) that the resolution system pioneered in Ghostbusters was a potential influence on Magic!

(Should be cued up to about the right time in the video...MTG is mentioned at around 5:30...)

Anyone have any insight on this?  Heard this before?  Thought this before?  I'm pretty sure I've read S. John Ross cite Ghostbusters as a big influence on Risus (another game with a formative influence on me), but I can't recall seeing Richard Garfield mention it.

(I hope it's clear that I'm asking this not to challenge the veracity of the claim, but honestly kind of hoping there's more evidence or just speculation about this connection out there.  I think I found this video by specifically searching for threads connecting the two games...!)

Looking at 5E for quick pickup games...

A while back, in the midst of remembering Ivan Reitman, I wrote a little about rule conversion that hinted at the possibility of using 5E D&D as the base for a game intended to be about as streamlined as the old Ghostbusters RPG.  You could create a character pretty much the same way in either system just by determining attributes/traits and adding on some proficiencies/talents.  If it works for a pickup game of Ghostbusters, it should work for a pickup game using 5E rules, eh?

During this year's run of holiday gaming, I ran a Lovecraftian horror one-shot for Halloween and wanted to try out this streamlined approach to 5E as a universal system.  So, I just took 5E, added in a couple of modern skills and tools that might be important, and asked everyone to make a character using a Background only (or an equivalent set of proficiencies plus an extra roleplaying-based characteristic).  Sanity was tracked like hit points, and everyone rolled both that and HP (instead of maxing out at "1st level") to keep things tense(?).  I had come across at least one example on the net where someone discussed setting up a 5E funnel with background-only characters, and this seemed like it should work just as well.

For the adventure, I modified and quickly converted the Call of Cthulhu convention module Dead Boarder to take place at Miskatonic Community College on Halloween 1985.  (Note: I definitely recommend this scenario, as it's a pretty cool and easily adaptable Lovecraftian romp, and its convention-game focus helped us keep a one-shot as an actual one-shot, which we sometimes have trouble with...!)  And honestly, I think it went pretty darn well.  Background-only 5E gaming may just become a go-to for themed one-shots I want to try out.

I mean, when players come to the game with characters like the one below, how can things go wrong?  Quick creation...just enough substance to care about the character through a single session...defaulting to 5E rules that we all know reasonably well...I realize there's nothing groundbreaking to this approach, but I was really pleased with the outcome.  Here's Rachel's character, sharing without her knowledge or permission or anything like that but I really don't think she'll have an issue with it...

Milton Casey

40s or 50s, tall and slight but with ropey muscles, thinning brown hair and clean shaven. Wearing classic olive-beige jumpsuit of a custodial worker.

Str 10, Dex 12, Con 10, Int 14, Wis 9, Cha 14

Skill proficiencies: Repair, Perception

Tool proficiency: Cleaning equipment (floor buffer, wet vac, etc.)

Languages: English, Spanish

Background Feature: Knows Where the Bodies are Buried - For the campus where Milt works, he knows where every employee (staff and faculty) keeps their files and important papers and can access them at any time (licitly or otherwise).