Doxy, Urgent Care Cleric

I'm planning on making a tab up top for a page where I can put info on nerdy stuff I've done that doesn't show up on DriveThruRPG.  Oh wait...what's that you're saying?  Narcissistic?  Why, yes, thank you.

Anyway, here's one of the first things I want to share...Doxy, Urgent Care Cleric and Fight On!.

When I first discovered the OSR, I thought Fight On! magazine was just about the coolest thing going.  Around that time, I had an idea for an RPG-themed comic strip (Doxy, Urgent Care Cleric) and was lucky enough to find an awesome artist (Kelvin Green) to team up with me for contribution to the fanzine.  I had stuff printed in issues 10-14 (although one of the comics was pretty much all Kelvin...can't say I earned that byline at all)...a comic in each, and a short article in the last issue about a science fantasy RPG campaign premise (working as agents of a modern organization known as the CROwN - this also featured awesome artwork from Kelvin, btw).

If you dig old school roleplaying, there's probably a lot you'll like in Fight On!  Although it seems to have faded away around 2015, the magazine's website can still be found here, and its Lulu store is here.  Also, issue #14 didn't seem to make it to the site, but its RPG.net announcement can be found here.

Kelvin has posted a number of Doxy episodes over on his creative works site.  The art and good jokes are his, the lame jokes are mine.

Also, for whatever it's worth, I had no idea of the meaning of the word doxy when I came up with the name.  I actually just liked it because it often gets used as shorthand for the antibiotic doxycycline, and I thought it sounded like a silly name for a cleric.  I guess I was right.

Retrocyberdungeonpunk

As I often do a lot more than is beneficial to my life in general, I've been pondering a game setting lately that may or may not ever make it onto a table or screen of mine.  It's based on a sort of nostalgia for a specific era, but mostly influenced by properties that I wasn't actually all that into during that era...it's only later that they've come to be representative of that time for me.  Wow...that was convoluted...

Okay, let's start with TRON.  I was aware of TRON when I was a kid, had an action figure, may have even played the arcade game...but I don't think I actually saw the movie until I was an adult.  I love (or at least very much like) the film now, though, and its aesthetic is as representative of the 80s for me as G.I. Joe, He-Man, or any of a number of other universes that I was deeply immersed in at the time.

Similarly, I didn't play classic roguelikes back when they were first breaking ground in computer gaming (although I did play the also-classic and at least superficially similar Castle Adventure as a kid).  Over my adulthood, however, I've gained a great respect for the genre and the devotion shown by its fans, and the ASCII art (especially representing D&D-esque fantasy) has also taken on a certain nostalgic feel for me.

Screenshot from NetHack, a classic roguelike

I've come to love the idea of combining these two themes...the "Inside a Computer System" trope of TRON with the old school dungeoncrawling of Rogue...into a single retro-tinged game setting.  Now, I'll note that from what I know, Fantasy Flight Games' Virtual setting from their Horizon line of d20 books did this in a way, reskinning a lot of D&D 3.5 elements as being possible due to taking place inside a computer where all sorts of "magic" is available.  So...I should maybe pick that up at some point to make sure I'm not ripping things off too directly.

I really think the aesthetics are a big part of this for me.  I like the idea of maps' being built on the ASCII template of the game, and even as you zoom in to smaller scenes, maintaining the retro character feel.  So, I could take freely available art like this goblin/imp...

Image by Lorc from Game-icons.net, licensed under CC BY 3.0.

...and use an ASCII art generator to generate flavorful art for the game...

I suppose this might get repetitive after a while, but I think it could also do really cool things for immersion.

There are so many directions a story set here could go, as well.  I imagine it being a TRON-style world of apparently sentient programs existing within a computer, and somehow - either through their own natural evolution of sorts, or from influence by roguelike games - the programs are in this retrodigital, pseudomedieval world full of multilevel dungeons.  Maybe that's what "the Grid" gets called here: the Dungeon.  TRON's users - humans who interact with the grid - could be called Rogues in homage...and there are probably some fun options that play with the fact that the @ symbol traditionally represents the protagonist (and other human characters).  Perhaps some are true Rogues...some are actually nonsentient programs that can pass a Turing test...I dunno, seems wide open, honestly!

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of...

The Sun Belt Conference baseball tourney would be set to begin in Montgomery, AL, on May 19.  I thought my new baseball scorebook was going to be delivered today...which would be a key piece toward getting my own version of it using a simple, homebrewed tabletop baseball simulation underway.  It didn't arrive yet, but the more key piece is actually getting all the teams in the league statted out, anyway, and I'm still dragging on that.  I do think I've nailed down most of the final details to make the game as fully playable as I expect it to be, though.

For documentation's sake, the new rules are below.  As a recap from my last post (sample player stats can be found in that blog entry)...

For each at-bat, just roll a d100.  If the result is 1-50, check the pitcher’s table; if it’s greater than 50, check the batter’s. Finally, if the result is “In Play”, roll another d100, check it on the hitter’s “In Play” table, and resolve the play.

New additions:

1.  Stolen Bases - Every player now gets a Speed rating of A, B, or C.  For now, I'm just using a quick-and-dirty method to determine this based on their number of stolen bases per trip to first.  Ratings A-B-C successfully steal on d% rolls of 75-65-55.

2.  Sacrifice Bunts - If the at-bat's first d100 roll is a HR or "In Play," the sacrifice bunt has successfully moved the runner(s) over.

3.  Sacrifice Flies - Keeping this one really simple.  Runners score from third on any outs to the outfield.

4.  The Big d100 Table of Randomness - This is the one that's going to take me a little more time to work out, as well.  I want a big table to roll on whenever a 100 is rolled in the game, for somewhat rare events like balks, weather delays, and fights.  I'll post it when it's done!

I'm also thinking I need to get something in there to model pitchers' tiring out.  Maybe I should just have a consistent 6-2-1 pattern for innings pitched by the starter and relievers...?  Or even 6-1-1-1...?  One of those could work...

Once again, everybody stay safe out there!

Because I probably haven't left much of a paper trail...

...I figured I should document my piracy and copyright infringement digitally.  I've started a page to collect the things that I'd like to keep available for public consumption but that aren't fully mine to publish for one reason or another.

You can check it out with the "IP infringement" tab above or by clicking HERE.  Right now, it just includes War Games for Boy Scouts, Ghosthackers, and a Steel Monsters minicomic, but there may be more on the way eventually.

Horrors and heroes, hot off the press!

Seems like lots of folks are getting in on the sharing of free stuff to make quarantining at home a little more bearable, or at least trying to shine a light on things that others are doing to help.  While I will point out that everything I've put up on DriveThruRPG is free so far, I'm not plugging anything there today.  Not directly, anyway.  No, there are two RPG releases have caught my eye lately that I wanted to spotlight just in case my post can raise their signals a little.

The first is by awesome gaming blogger and all-around great guy Justin Isaac from Halls of the Nephilim, who has written the horror game Slashers & Survivors - Slashcan Edition as a spiritual successor to his game Slashers & Victims.  While the earlier release was a quick-playing, rules-light game that first appeared as an add-on for Swords & Wizardry Light, this new one is...well, still pretty quick-playing and rules-light, but based on the engine of Bloat Games' dark fantasy RPG The Blackest of Deaths.

He's included a bunch of the trademarks of slasher films to help you craft a bloody horror game just how you like it.  Part of the idea with this new release seems to be that you may want to string together scenarios into a slasher campaign, rather than just run one-shots as Slashers & Victims might have been used most often.  This contrast makes me really enjoy the wording of the games' titles (in addition to "slashcan" being a cool word!).

Also, this is just a preview of sorts...there's a full version on the way!  In addition, Justin is currently statting up horror characters for the game in his April A-Z Blogging Challenge efforts over at the Halls.

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The second game for today's spotlight is something that I'm especially happy to share.  Quite a while back, Justin (the same Justin from above) and I published a series of titles for Light City, a hack of Swords & Wizardry Light for superheroic roleplaying.  One of these publications was The Assembly, designed as a quick-start add-on for the already quick SWL base game.  Well, a somewhat mysterious RPG author I know only as "soner du" from comments on here...so that may or may not be his name AND he may or may not be "he," as I am basing that only on his Blogger avatar...has taken The Assembly, added levels to the classes, thrown in a smattering of other stuff Justin and I produced, added his own original content, and translated the whole thing into French!

Even with the very limited French I remember from eighth grade, I can tell this is an awesome addition to the Light City canon.  It's a complete game in itself, which definitely inspires me to want to produce the same sort of thing in English at some point.  I can also tell that the author is (A) very good with small details...which you can see in moves like reordering the results of the 1d6 roll for The Marksman's specialty weapon so they're still alphabetical in French; and (B) not looking for much attention, since I'm not even sure of his name, and he only lists me, Justin, and Erik from Tenkar's Tavern (who created Swords & Wizardry Light) as authors - even though the new contributions are significant!

You can pick up Light City - L'Assemblée over at DriveThruRPG and on Lulu.  Oh yeah...the most exciting part about it is probably the back cover, which is a teaser for an upcoming book of magic for Light City called La Congrégation.  I can't wait to see this new addition to the Light City Multiverse!

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I hope you're all passing your socially distant time in enjoyable ways...stay safe!

I'll make a cup of coffee for your head

As is probably obvious from some of the stuff I've posted on this blog, I'm old and don't always understand new and interesting things.  For example...TikTok.

As you may know because you're more capable of absorbing the nuances of an ever-changing world than I am, TikTok is a new social media platform built on videos of 15 seconds or less.  My wife loves it.  My coworkers love it.  It's hilarious.  You can spend hours scrolling through it.

I just don't get it.  Maybe I just haven't seen the right stuff yet.  The percentage of of videos that are interesting seems far too low to make it worth the effort.  But...again, I suppose I just don't get it.

Okay, so...there is this one song that I kept hearing my wife come across on the app, and it kept sticking with me.  Quite an earworm, really, especially for what is essentially just the melodic hook for a lofi hip hop song.  All I had to use in searching for it were the lyrics "I'll make a cup of coffee for your head" and the fact that it's used a lot on TikTok.  This was more than enough, and there's a nice little history to the song, but I didn't find it gathered all in one place for easy access.  So, that's what this page is for...the person like me who wants to know what's behind the tune but doesn't know where to start.

First off, here's the song that's being used, "death bed" by Canadian rapper Powfu, sampling the song "Coffee" by Filipino-British singer-songwriter Beeabadoobee:

Here's a selection of TikTok videos (I guess they're called TikToks...? maybe...?) that use it.  FAIR WARNING:  I don't necessarily recommend watching this entire video as a good use of your time.  However, to reiterate, I just don't get it...but oh man I just found myself watching one after the other and maybe I'm starting to get it...

Powfu first released the song in 2019, putting it on SoundCloud.  In 2020, it started getting used a ton on TikTok and was finally released commercially (I guess in that order).  Powfu apparently waited because he didn't think he could legally use the Beabadoobee sample in the beat, which he had found on SoundCloud from producer Otterpop.  Here's that beat:

This backing track, entitled "Don't Go to Bed/One Day I'll Be Fine," is also used in rapper Kalvonix's song "One Day I'll Be Fine," which seems to have already been released in 2018...so I guess it predates "death bed?"

Now, that hook.  It's a slightly sped up (and higher pitched) clip from Beeabadoobee's 2017 song "Coffee," which is beautiful:

Here's a fun live version:

Finally, if you'd like to hear more from Powfu about his thoughts on the song...here you go...

Revisiting an obsession of 13-year-old me

Strange times lead to strange activities.

Ah...who am I kidding, this isn't a strange activity for me at all.  I've mentioned before that I enjoy following sports (especially those of my Georgia State Panthers) and, like pretty much everything I enjoy, I occasionally follow its threads to their obsessive and geeky ends.  (That's shown up in, say, the 1d6-skill-system-based football microgame I worked on way back when.)

So, you may have noticed that sports aren't really going on right now (although I saw a rumor that maybe they'll be playing baseball in South Korea...?).  In a strange way, it's almost seemed to me like a tiny contribution I could make to the world, to fill that void in a very small way that I can control.  In thinking about this, I've drifted back to one of the first games I ever put real effort into designing, a baseball simulation that I worked on back when I was around 13 (the reason I bought my first-ever "funny dice").

This isn't a complicated "simulation" at all.  It's just a d100-based resolution system in which the results of each at-bat can be determined by one or two rolls.  It uses a "50-50 method" of following the pitcher's stats half of the time and the batter's the other half...which I found out in reading around lately is a somewhat controversial paradigm among those who enjoy tabletop baseball games like Strat-O-Matic (which might have to be a post for another time).

For each at-bat, just roll a d100.  If the result is 1-50, check the pitcher’s table; if it’s greater than 50, check the batter’s. Finally, if the result is “In Play”, roll another d100, check it on the hitter’s “In Play” table, and resolve the play.

Image by Cindy Jones from Pixabay.

Some examples with a GSU batter and pitcher:

Merejo, Elian
GSU – LF
---
98-100 HR
87-97 BB
78-86 K
51-77 In Play
---
In Play
86-100 2B
41-85 1B
36-40 OUT (fly 9)
31-35 OUT (fly 8)
26-30 OUT (fly 7)
24-25 OUT (fly 6)
21-23 OUT (ground 6)
19-20 OUT (fly 5)
16-18 OUT (ground 5)
14-15 OUT (fly 4)
11-13 OUT (ground 4)
9-10 OUT (fly 3)
6-8 OUT (ground 3)
4-5 OUT (fly 1)
1-3 OUT (ground 1)


Watson, Ryan
GSU – P
---
19-50 In Play
16-18 HR
12-15 BB
11 HBP
1-10 K


Results:

First AB: First roll is a 9. Check Watson’s table...Strikeout.

Second AB: First roll is a 61. Check Merejo’s table...In Play. Second roll is a 22...ground out to SS.

Third AB: First roll is an 89. Check Merejo’s table...Walk.


I'm just working out some rules for stealing bases and need to write out what I see as the most reasonable way to resolve baserunners' advancing in different situations, and I think it'll be complete enough for now.  I have a spreadsheet going that turns stats into player tables pretty easily, and my plan is to play out the conference championship tournament that we won't end up getting this year.

More to come.

Stay safe out there!