My day job is what, in modern parlance, is called immaterial labor. I don’t create much that takes physical form — I’m not producing material goods or growing food. I spend a lot of time sitting in meetings and typing up documents that get sent in electronic form.
One of the characteristics of this type of work is that, because it’s largely contained in emails and Word documents (and always in need of updates and revisions), it’s hard to look at what you’ve accomplished and say, “This is done.” As a result, many people in such jobs find it difficult to feel a sense of accomplishment.
That’s one of the reasons I love producing physical things in my hobbies. Holding a cutting board I crafted from wood or a printed zine I wrote allows me the pleasure of the fruits of my labor. I can say, “I made this, and it is complete.”
As our RPG hobby continues on a “digital first” path, I hope that we’ll always delight in physical books, playing in person, and the other incarnated aspects of living in a physical world. There’s a qualitatively different value to playing and creating in the real world that we would do well to never forget.
My friend Luau Lou had me on his podcast This Ol’ Dungeon to talk about my history in gaming, designing for Dungeon Crawl Classics, and my current projects:
Give it a listen, and if you like Lou’s style be sure to subscribe to the podcast!
With Twitter and other social media becoming increasingly unhelpful, I’ve decided to launch a quarterly(-ish) email newsletter! It will be filled with reviews, musings, and a new DCC spell, monster, or something else ever issue.
And, when you join, you’ll get a FREE copy of Ruined Sanctum of the Serpent Priest, a new DCC-compatible mini adventure!
The first edition will launch at the end of August; just put your email in the form below to join!
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I’m pretty picky about purchasing resources that purport to add to your game. I’ve been burned by more than a few that, when push comes to shove, I’ll never actually use at the table, either because they’re too cumbersome or because they do something I can just as easily do myself.
On the other end of that spectrum, C. Aaron Kreader’s 101 City Encounters is a book I can’t imagine running a city campaign without. Designed as a sort of mega random encounter table, the book offers a variety of interesting vignettes and situations a party might stumble across while traveling through a fantasy city. Some are relatively mundane (a funeral procession, a request for help unloading goods from a ship), while others offer tantalizing hooks that could lead to their own mini adventure (a carrier pigeon is killed and its note taken, a red devil appears and disappears leaving strange runes where it stood). Each entry includes suggestions for running the encounter and possible follow-ups.
101 City Encounters also includes a simple system for tracking a PC’s reputation in the city with a variety of groups: the Thieves’ Guild, nobles, the townsfolk, and religious temples. Higher ranks grant various benefits from each group, while lower ranks can cause problems when the party has to deal with the group in question. The system offers just enough detail to be helpful without becoming onerous to the Judge, especially with the inclusion of a custom reputation tracking sheet.
Although compatible with DCC RPG, the book is light on stats and can easily be adapted by a competent Judge to other fantasy systems.
101 City Encounters has already benefited my games and is highly recommended, especially if you’re running a DCC Lankhmar, Planescape, or similar campaign.
I’ve got a new project I’m involved with live on Kickstarter!
My friend Luau Lou (who wrote the camp cookie hireling) is launching an anthology of three adventures for the Dare-Luck Club, his fantastic RPG of 80s-inspired adolescent adventures!
I wrote one of the adventures in the set, in which your Dare Luckers sneak into the local amusement park after hours to play some Monsters & Magicians. But when the game gets a little too real you’ll have to survive the likes of an amusement park transformed into a fantasy landscape. Can you find your way home?
A Fairly Odd Tale (12n-4p Eastern Time): A band of hapless adventurers is sucked into a book of fairy tales and must use their wits and cunning to make it out alive! I’ll be kickstarting a print run of this module later this year. Come get a sneak peak!
Museum at the End of Time (7p-11p Eastern Time): The Rite of Passage is a generational custom, and the PCs’ future position and rank within their society is largely determined by the quality of artifacts brought back to the tribe! This 0-level funnel is one of my favorite adventures to run at cons!
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a fun romp whose middling story is lifted by the charm of its cast. It owes an obvious debt to the popular (and lucrative) Marvel films, even if it’s more of a Thor or Captain Marvel (movies I put in the middle of the MCU spectrum) than an Iron Man or Infinity War.
If that seems like damning with faint praise, it’s not meant to be. Chris Pine’s natural charisma is on display as the lead, Edgin Darvis, a widowed father who turns to thievery as a means of providing for his daughter. When he takes a chance to pilfer a relic that can resurrect his dead wife, he winds up imprisoned, which is where we find him at the start of the film. He and his friend, Holga, an exiled barbarian, team up to recover his daughter and the relic, both of which are in the hands of the conman who betrayed them.
They assemble a small team for the heist, including Simon, an inept sorcerer, and Doric, a druid with a talent for shapeshifting. Regé-Jean Page’s chivalrous paladin, Xenk Yendar, is in less of the movie than I would have suspected from the trailers, but is a fun foil to Edgin. As the group’s plan unfolds they discover that the troubles in Neverwinter go deeper than they expected. At this point savvy moviegoers will no doubt be able to guess how the story will play out, but it’s an entertaining ride nonetheless.
Packed with Easter eggs for hardcore D&D fans, Honor Among Thieves is accessible enough for those who don’t know Baldur’s Gate from Ten Towns. In fact, the movie doesn’t try to overexplain the lore of the Realms (we’re told Doric is a tiefling, but not what a tiefling is), which would have been an easy trap to fall into. The filmmakers also display a love of practical effects in the realization of many fantastical creatures and characters, although I suspect the digitally-created red dragon Themberchaud will be the fan favorite.
My bottom line: if you’re looking for a fun popcorn flick to pass away an afternoon, Honor Among Thieves will fit the bill. If not, you could certainly wait for it to come to streaming. Personally, I’m hoping it does well enough to warrant a sequel; there are plenty more tales to be told — and creatures to be spotlighted — in this world.
Last week I was invited to chat with Stefan Surratt and Matt Robertson on Rules As Written, the show that dives deep into the Dungeon Crawl Classics rulebook. They had me on to talk about third party publishing, hirelings and henchmen, and why you should be making more morale checks!
I arrived in Indianapolis in the early afternoon and got my vaccination status verified. I wandered down to the stadium and must have passed my luck check, because I later found out I shouldn’t have made it down there without a badge. In the stadium I beheld the wonder of the Wizard Van in all its glory! Then I met some of the Goodman Games’ judges for a group photo before picking up my GM badge. On my way out the door I ran into Alexi and Leah Sargeant of Cloven Pine Games! Alexi was kind enough to sign my copy of The Great Soul Train Robbery.
Thursday
I started Gen Con with a session of Savage Worlds, a game I’ve heard a lot about but hadn’t played before. It was a 1950s Stargate-esque scenario; I played a military medic escorting a scientific expedition to another dimension where we saved a some villagers from being sacrificed to a hideous beast. I found Savage Worlds very quick to pick up, but a little swingy for my taste — the exploding dice mechanic makes every roll a lot more tense than I expected.
After a quick trip through the exhibitors (where I picked up some Goodman Games exclusives) I met up with my friend Luau Lou for lunch before setting up for my session of The Museum at the End of Time. I only had three of five players show up, but they had a great time traversing the Taboo Lands and descending into the titular museum.
Friday
In the morning I ran a second session of Museum which included a woman who came with her husband — it was her first RPG, ever! In the afternoon I ran Luau Lou’s module Seekers of the Un-K’nown, a Mutant Crawl Classics romp that may or may not be based on a classic D&D module. I was a little nervous since I hadn’t run it before, but it wound up being a great session with some memorable moments including mounting spears on a hover bike and befriending the robotic security guards by tending for a damaged unit.
Saturday
Saturday morning I ran a session of my Dungeon Crawl Classics module A Fairly Odd Tale. I’ve been honing this adventure for a year or so and I think I’ve got it to a solid place — enough so that I plan to publish it sometime next year. I had a mother/daughter pair at the table and they may have been my favorite players of the convention!
My Saturday afternoon game was canceled, so I took the opportunity to grab some classic fantasy novels from the Goodman Games booth and headed back to my room to get some rest.
Sunday
Sunday morning was supposed to feature a session of Star Trek Adventures, a game I’ve owned for over a year but never had the opportunity to bring to the table. Unfortunately only two of us showed up, so I wandered the exhibitors hall, picked up a few more items, and then went to the Goodman Games raffle. Unfortunately I didn’t win anything, but I had fun seeing all the prizes and watching people delight at their wins.
Final Thoughts
I had a great time! I haven’t been to Gen Con in 10 years, and this is the first time I ever ran games there. Being with other DCC/MCC fans made it super easy, and Goodman Games was very supportive (they brought afternoon snacks around to all their judges!). I was also grateful that all the games I ran were in Lucas Oil Stadium — it wasn’t nearly as loud there as in other spaces, so even though we all wore masks I never had to strain to hear people.
I intentionally didn’t hang around for a lot of evening events; I tend to be susceptible to con crud, especially when I overextend myself. This seemed to work out really well, as by the end of the con I still had plenty of energy. I may ad an evening event or two in the future.
