Back to the Dungeon Master Bundle...

 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/197560/Back-to-the-Dungeon-Master-Bundle-BUNDLE

Rose Colored Glasses OSR and 5E Musings

Well, finally got to run a game of Labyrinth Lord with a group of old gamers and some of their kids and cousins. 

I guess I look back at Old School gaming with rose colored glasses as the character creation compared to 5E was 

a drudgery.

Without some kind of very nice preset character creation help built in like 5E has, the game can really be taxing on 

your patience. Once everyone had their characters made we finally started to play.

Now mind you we were already a few hours late getting started. After playing the extremely smooth unified 

mechanics of 5E (and my Back to the Dungeon RPG), I quickly realized that much of the old school systems are quite

clunky in comparison. We just had gotten used to how they work and wrapping our head around another system 

can be hard. 

Having used both 5E is pretty much an old school game (because of the design advice from RPG pundit) mixed with 

some new school unified  mechanics which just simply flows better. It's not totally lethal like B/X games but it can be 

once you have ran out of dice for a short rest AND if you have used the exhaustion mechanics. After that, it becomes 

quite hard on the players once those buffers are gone.

The unified mechanic is pretty much Superior to any and all of the old school methods of task resolution. Why? 

Because system matters if it gets out of the way of the game! Roll a D20 instead of just pulling out the various dice 

for checking on sometimes the same thing. Some abilities use a D6 while as a thief they use a % so after coming 

from the B/X, 2E background from my early days of gaming, it seems 5E mechanics are a sweet spot. Very simply 

it just is way smoother than the old stuff.

I am pretty sure that I will be shelving pretty much all my old school games and for my fantasy fix will just be playing 

 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/368009/FUTURE-STREETS-212X

SO WHAT THE F@#% IS FUTURE STREETS 212X AND WHAT THE

F&^$% IS CYBERPUNK?

FUTURE STREETS 212X is a cyberpunk free form table top

role playing game. A player doesn't need to know the

rules, just come up with a character with a few dice

rolls and a story with the Game Master. It only has the

barest of rules and all you need is a D20 to play.

Cyberpunk is an old term of a prediction of a future of

high technology and big cities that went to shit.

Outside the cites there is nothing but darkness and

evil lawless people (or so they say). 

Despite being far

more advanced than we could ever have dreamed of,

mankind has decided to take the worst possible path

towards their own destruction. 

Corporations rule the

world that they want to and all the rest can go to

hell. People are just an employee number or they are

WORTHLESS. 

Remnants of the government try and feign

power but they don't have the money to have any effect

on the world like the corporations do.

So as a person living in this world you must do what

you can do to survive. Almost everyone is out for

themselves and will back stab you in a second. 

You have

to either be satisfied living in a slum as a victim or

go out like a predator and make your way up the ladder

with the skills you have.

FKR: Free Kreigsspiel: VHS Punk '89 (CORRECTED)

Here is my first big trip inot the FKR land of blog posting. I hope to do it more frequently as the Blogosphere has come back alive once again...

Many of these Ideas came to me and from the FKR DIscord site which is what I call Primordial ROle Playing from back in the day before the rules were written, people made it up! 

https://discord.gg/CrD4P7fvXp

VHS Punk '89

The Setting is Any Big City back in an alternate '89 where shit was violent. Street gangs and organized crime. Sex violence and drugs! The Boss rolls up some bad guys and the Gang rolls up some characters.

The Gang will be criminal sorts of no real value to the world! It's all about getting ahead, betrayal at every turn. People are just getting that way. Need money? Go rob someone. Drug dealers and organized crime always have money but they can shoot back. Banks and casinos are next. Rich people can be held for ransom.

Lots of fucked up evil shit and lots of cussing while playing this game is expected!

Back in '89 technology was almost getting futuristic but computers and cell phones were expensive. The internet, if available was dial up. It was very evident that shit was changing! CDs were starting to show up but cassettes and VCR tapes were the now!

One thing was the music. Go back and make yourself a soundtrack for your game!  Styles were wild and in '89 there were so many throwback styles. The hair was especially great!

Hits 3D6 for an average adult. Less dice for weaker people, more for big lunks.

2D6 v 2D6 winner does damage rolled.


Advantage roll Three dice and pick the best Two.

Disadvantage roll Three dice and pick the worst Two.

Heavy weapons, autofire and Shotguns can add the Extra Dice of damage.
Blast have an area where everyone takes damage.
Autofire Damage can be split between targets and every 6 allows an additional dice to be rolled IF the first roll was a winning roll.

Example: Teds 10HP rolls a 11 with a 5 and a 6 and the pig 11HP rolls a 3. That's 11 damage and then Teds roll another dice for a 5 because he is using a Shotgun for 16 total damage blowing the fucking pig away. Die mother fucker!

Explosives double the damage.

Fighting just knocks out a person at 0 Hits. At Half your hits, your bloodied and look real bad. Heal back 1D6 Fighting damage after an hour of resting, fucking and drinking.

Deadly damage is healed at 1D6 point a week. Skilled Medical treatment can double that.

At Half Hits you are Bloodied and have disadvantage.

At Zero Hits you are unconscious  die in as many minutes as your Negative Hits. Example: Johnny got 10 hits. He takes 13 damage so he is dead in 7 minutes.
First aid requires a roll vs damage. If you don't have the right stuff, it's a Disadvantage!  If successful one can heal 1d6 right away and if you get above 1 hot point you are stabilized.

Armor stops damage.
Light 2
Medium 4
Heavy 6

Cover Stops Damage but it works as a layer of Hit Points
Light 4
Medium 8
Heavy 12


VHS Punk 89 Character Creation

1. Roll Age
2. Roll Hits
3. Roll Clothing and Style
4. Roll what do you do as many times as it says.
5. Ask the referee what Equipment, Money and Stuff you own.
6. Make up a name or handle.




Age
1 Teen - Just a stupid kid! A young punk in his teens to his 20s! Only 2D6 for hits.
2-3 An up and coming 30 year old.
4-5 A middle age 40 year old. Roll an additional What you do?
6 Old dog in his 50s plus. Only 2D6 for hits but roll two additional What you do?

Clothing and Style
11 Metalhead
12 Punk
13 Yuppie
14 Seventies
15 Sixties
16 Fifties
21 Eighties
22 Nineties
23 Studders
24 Zoot Suit Throws a coin
25 Shaman Look
26 Biker Leathers
31 Business Suits
32 Ridiculous Suits
34 Feminine/Masculine Clothing
35 Military
36 Goth
41 Emo/Scene
42 Wrestler Outfit
43 Clownish
44 Victorian
45 Medieval
46 Athletic
51 Cowboy
52 White Trash
53 Gangsta
54 Construction
55 Native
56 Preacher
61 Neon Bright
62 Weirdo
63 Jungle
64 Leather and Spikes
65 Futuristic
66 Nudist





What do you do?
11 Gambler
12 Gunslinger
13 Sniper
14 Connected
15 Demolitions
16 Pharmacist
21 Street Fighter
22 Professor
23 Techie
24 Doctor
25 Linguistic
26 Knife Thrower
31 Drug Resistant
32 Disco Fighting
33 Holy Man
34 Mesmer
35 Hotness
36 Chemist
41 Gadgeteer
42 Brain
43 Karate Master
44 Ninja
45 Samurai
46 Kung Fu Master
51 Axe Man
52 Driver
53 Skater
54 Roller Blades
55 Street biker
56 Punk
61 Gangbanger
62 Hacker
63 Security Expert
64 Intelligence
65 Strongman
66 Shadow

Equipment, Money and Stuff
As the Referee to tell you what you have. You probably will be in a desperate situation and won't have much. Always track Ammo and Cash.




Cars have 6D6 (20) Hits. Go up or down for other vehicles and make up the rest.

Doing anything else is roll a 2D6 and 6+ if you are good at something and 9+ if you suck at it. 

Additional Rules: Make up anything else you need.

The Gathering of Heroes

 The Gathering of Heroes

Imagine if you could get the old adventuring party back together? The one from back in the day for a grand weekend of gaming. Many will have lost their characters from years ago so we just digress and all remake level 10 (or whatever level you stopped at back in the day) versions of our favorite characters or ideal characters from who they are now! Hell if many of you became successful, you could rent out a cabin in the wilderness to do this. Perhaps you could make this a yearly event? The adventure wouldn't just be a normal Adventure but time of great peril! These characters would have to come out of retirement in order to save the day. If you could do this in a cabin in the wilderness you could actually have a marathon session like you did back in school! Can you imagine the level fun you could have what you know now in the game in the style of back then? Imagine doing this with the 5th Edition rules as easy and smooth as they play? If you can make that happen with the old Gaming group and get together at least once a year so you don't forget who you are then do so.

I have tried it on and off for the last 20 years at least 5 to 10 times. I'd either get no response or very vague answers.

So should I try to do it again?

P.S. At this point in time I wrote this blog post a month or two ago, and pretty much I don't really feel like trying it again but if you make it happen, let me know. See it almost happened again. We had a place to play and the universe itself in the form of a hurricane ruined that potential place to play. 

 

The Neverending Drachenschwanz #1

SIMPLY PUT!

This might be the greatest RPG FKR Zine ever written! 

https://www.docdroid.net/l8Dy11z/the-neverending-drachenschwanz-1-pdf

Reevaluating my non-gamer life Part 2: Good news a new fire is burning.

 CAUTION! LANGUAGE AND SAD STORY!

Reevaluating my non-gamer life Part 2: Good news a new fire is burning.

It has been quite a while since I have posted on my blog. Time has went by and it has been cruel. while I was writing the last blog post I was at a job that absolutely took all my free time. it had pretty much killed all chances of having any kind of gaming life that involved a campaign. My wife would also not want to go game because she also (supposedly) wanted to be a part of a campaign. I suddenly out of the blue get laid off while the job still had a few months left. What was sad is we had a guy that they had hired that was a former client troublemaker, anyway they hired him to solve all the problems that he had caused with our company. Kind of an indirect way to get revenge. But a snake is always a snake and a worm is always a worm. A BITCH IS ALWAYS A BITCH! This guy was watching our workers worked out in 105° temperature stacking scaffold material to be sent back to the office and claimed they were not doing enough even though he didn't know jack s*** about scaffolding. He got some people from our main office involved and got us all ran off the job in disgrace. I just know this is for as long as I live I will make sure that that guy doesn't get hired if there's anything I can do about it. 

I am probably going to make an NPC in honor of this piece of dog s***. It will probably be something disgusting like a half-goblin that lives in a toilet or something.


Now during this time I'd actually started to get weekends off and I actually started trying to get some people together to do some gaming and also I was going to clean out my Mead Hall which is my building that I use for gaming in as my wife and daughters had filled it up with her crap and we were possibly supposed to move as well but since that was not going to happen anytime soon I was getting my goddamn building back so I can do some goddamn gaming. 

Like I had posted before we tried to do gaming in the living room but that's not my style I have a 4 foot by 8 foot 1 inch grid dry erase board that I set across two tables it's literally fits the content of four sheets of graph paper maybe a little bit bigger! 

So like I was saying I suddenly get laid off and the only job I can find is with the same company scanning temperatures at a gate at less than half pay. One thing this job did afford me was I would work 6 days with two half days in between and then I would have 6 days off. I finally actually had a massive amount of free time something I have not had in over 10 years. 

This was also a time because here in Southwest Louisiana it's incredibly hot. It's not just hot it's also the goddamn humidity. Seriously you cannot stand outside without the sweat dripping on your back going down the crack of your ass. pretty much guaranteed if you're wearing lots of clothes like we do in the plants, you will beginning some kind of heat rash or skin problem. Not to mention massively bad sunburns and such. The sun literally Cooks your guts out.

Wouldn't you know it that in my goddamn Mead Hall the m************ air conditioner would have to go out! 

Just as I have started to have free time and started having the ability to clean out my building the worst case scenario happens and I'm also making less than half pay so cannot possibly afford a new air conditioner so once again my gaming life is set at a delay. One of the other issues as I've stated before is that termites had got into my building and ate a bunch of my books and they have also eaten some of the walls as well. They have long since been eradicated from the existence of this universe by massive amount of poisoning hope I live through it myself but they are f****** gone but the damage is done. 

I finally find a stack of Star Wars role-playing game saga edition along with the second revised printing of 2nd edition West end games Star Wars and a stack of bunch of other Star Wars content. I find a very awesome dude who wanted those books in the past that I make him a hell of a deal for about 150 bucks for $500 worth of books which is about the price of a small air conditioner. Life is finally going to work out and I'm going to finally be able to get gaming started in my Mead Hall I happily hook up the air conditioner find more termite damage much to my f****** anger but I still hook that bastard up and we now have climate control in the super hot ass building. But wouldn't you know?

Life never f****** gives me a goddamn break!

The day before I am scheduled to start cleaning out my building BITCHASS Hurricane Laura decides to show up in Southwest Louisiana and f****** destroy everything! 

ARGH! 

If you haven't went around and looked at some of the videos on YouTube of the aftermath of hurricane Laura so you can comprehend how bad it is over here people literally are homeless living in tents and some will never ever never get their house back. 

You have to be a complete f****** idiot not to insure your house when you live in a hurricane zone but there are some people that are that stupid. And before you call me a judgmental a****** one of the people in question that I'm speaking of who had no house insurance has two or three four wheelers and about two or three side by sides he spends money on other s*** farm more expensive than the small amount that house insurance is in this area.

So we are now suddenly without electricity without water luckily my Mead Hall that I had tied down (and that is the secret of hurricanes not destroying your stuff is too tie them down) so they can't be blown over and blow off survived. 

Wouldn't you know just as we get electricity back and get everything going mother f****** Hurricane Delta comes and hits our area although nowhere is near as bad but for some people that already had a damaged roof with a hole in it a mirror category 2 hurricane (by the way Laura was a four when it hit us at 160 mph winds) it tends to destroy stuff even more so. So I got over the aftermath of that and have been chugging along.

I actually get to do one session of gaming with a good friend the guy that I sold the Star Wars books to and get to try out Pathfinder second edition finally. I can't say I totally dislike it I do say that it is a giant way too many rule convoluted mess of chunky rules. Though I do see it's appeal with the ability to completely customize your characters to the nth degree. This group also knows that I am a dungeon master and wants me to run a campaign for them.

So now finally everything seems to be going okay except the universe f****** hates me.

Now my dad has had health problems for quite a while at the age of 85 he recently had a heart valve transplant and is never quite gotten better recovered fully from it. The doctors keep screwing around with his medications and such trying to get him straightened out. 

But wouldn't you know after Hurricane Laura and then hurricane Delta my dad's somewhat got off his medications that he was supposed to be on and from there he has went downhill. 

So now my dad is in the hospital and it's not looking good he had a massive fluid buildup in his legs and almost had congestive heart failure. He also within a 3-week period has completely lost most of his thought processes and is in a very confused delirious state. This of course has disrupted my entire life once again. It is really painful to see your parent, the last one I have left suffering and going through really bad times like this. It is confusion he keeps trying to stand up and walk which he cannot do so unfortunately they had to restrain him to the bed which is pretty f****** horrible to see.

So as you can see my life is once again in shambles and I am a gamer who can't seem to get any game. The other day I halfway cleaned the Mead Hall but did not get finished. I plan to try and finish it real soon maybe actually roll some dice and run some great games to get rid of all this stress. I don't know about you but way back in the days of middle school and high school Dungeons and Dragons was what I used to help me escape from many of the problems in my life. It literally helps me cope with many things and was a great relief of stress that (not always LOL!) didn't include alcohol or drugs.

In my younger days while we were gaming it completely kept us out of trouble. In adulthood I found it to be one of the most inexpensive forms of entertainment that one could possibly do.

I am not talking about you Warhammer people you guys are f****** crazy with your amount of money that you spend lol!

So where is this post going? 

Well I'm hoping that my dad recovers and can come back home if not we're facing the super hard decision of having to put him in a rest home and then we're going to be left with his house which I have a little tiny house and my older brother still lives there who has nothing. I would love to keep the house but since my brother never got off his ass his entire life cannot possibly afford the place we could literally keep the house and use it as a gaming center. But unfortunately I'm going to have to sell it so my brother will have a place to live and the family home of almost 60 years is going to be gone forever. Strangely enough the neighbor girl that I grew up with has also moving after being there for about 60 years as well...


My God this post has been extremely long but what's the point? 

Well the point is is that I'm going to get the Mead Hall cleaned out and put my tables back up I say to the universe f*** you in your eye you piece of s***!!! 

F*** you and where you came from you're not going to stop me from f****** gaming you've done everything in your power to make sure I can't and I'm still going to f****** do it f*** you universe. I am going to game or I'm going to f****** die trying. The point is a new fire is burning and I will not let this b******* in constant barrage of suckiness win.

I hope some of you out there that are gamers that are working too much and you're not quite in your 50s like I am realize that you are working too much. We need to wake up and look around and see if you're actually living life.

If you're not, do so.

The last 10 years I've had no work-life balance it was just work work work work work balance no life at all. Don't be a victim of your own success and not live any life. If you're a gamer get out there and do some gaming stop doing other stuff that's wasteful and doesn't get you anywhere. This is like a new era like the '80s except no satanic panic.

Sees this time and especially we OSR gamers teach these youngsters how to use the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons rules to play like we did in the old days... 

Well I guess that's all I have got all the thoughts that I need to share at this point in time. I hope this humble narrator of this sad tragic tale has given you some entertainment and some food for thought. I hope that the next blog post that I put down is going to be a bunch of good news about gaming and it possibly my father will have recovered completely but we shall see. 

That's if our entire nation does not fall apart and we're not in some kind of new stupid ass civil war...

UPDATE: 11/16/2020 MY DAD DIED.