RPG A Day 2018: Day 26 Gaming ambition for the next 12 months

Today is the first day of my 9th year of teaching at Al Seddique Boys School in the Liwa Western Region of the beautiful desert country of the United Arab Emirates...with any luck I'll make it will be the beginning of my farewell tour. As such getting out of here will be a lot of work on my end and I must focus constantly throughout this year so that I'm not caught with my pants down this Spring when resignation time comes around. Certain set-backs have already happened over the summer that will either mean even more work than I expected to achieve that end or else put my head down and stay where I am for one more year beyond the one that just started. In either case, the RPG year for 2018-2019 will probably be the worse for it.

On the docket:

The Roll*20 Cyberpunk 2020 weekly game should continue. At times my roster of players is like a revolving door, and even I had to take a session off last week thanks to a summer cold. If I get tired of the setting I may persuade my players to take on the 'Journey to Ragnarok: A Norse Mythology Adventure for 5E' that I backed on Kickstarter...this may also become a live table option, but that's really not the plan...

At the weekly live table we should continue a D&D5E campaign hopefully from September onward. I want to run Mutant Crawl Classics with them as a palette cleanser if the group is up for it. This group is also at a crossroads as the regular DM from last year has moved away. I want to step up, but as I have a four year old, I am a bit of  a flake that's liable to call it at the last minute nowadays. There are other teachers in the group who are also planning on making this their last year. Odds are even if I get stuck yet again, they'll be moving on. Could be the end of an era for us.

On the Gulf Roleplaying Community front, there is usually at least a meeting or two in the capital city of Abu Dhabi. Last year we only had the one meeting back in October '17, and I know of at least three group members who've already hit the dusty trail, so who knows if they'll even run one for us this year? The rest of the meetings are in Dubai--the most famous of the Emirates--which I normally don't take due to driving distance. I may make exceptions this year based on how much gaming I'm able to do. It is my farewell tour after all. Also in Dubai is the Middle East Comic and Sci-Fi Convention, our own Comicon, which always has a strong GRC presence. Again, it's not usually my thing but I'll play it by ear this year.

Kickstarter and other online strangeness. I already have a few products that I want to buy. As I mentioned yesterday, R Talsarian Games are offering Cyberpunk books that I want in print with more promised, and an official My Little Pony RPG by Hasbro that I really want with a dice set, dungeon master's screen and everything. These products may in fact be purchased, but I'm holding off because I have too much stuff to move already. Unfortunately, aside from PDFs which I really don't like all that much, I've had to retire from backing Kickstarter projects as in addition to adding to my moving burden, they may not be created and mailed out to me in time. I'm really pushing the idea of GingTFO of here this year if at all possible.

Anyway, that's the year at a glance. If I do get to move, I wonder if I'll have time to participate in RPG a Day 2019?

RPG A Day 2018: Day 18...Art That Inspires Your Game

Since I'm not very good at drawing, I rarely draw my own characters and instead re-purpose artwork and photos as needed. In particular in Roll*20: I search google, find an image that I like, download that, use the Token Tool app, upload to Roll * 20 and there you go for characters. I usually create a cover for the campaign in a similar way. Most of the time I use anime style characters because I'm fine with anime and a lot of the younger players that I end up running for are familiar with the style and usually will pick such for their own avatars. Obviously, choosing art from D&D books and 7th Sea books was appropriate for those campaigns. With the current Cyberpunk 2020 campaign, I've chosen to use real pictures from my end--players can keep drawing style if they like. I use celebrities sometimes, but mostly it's random cosplayers or just normal people I find online. Be careful if you post your pic there as if you look interesting you just might become a game token or background. This prompt lends itself to showing a few pics...so I will:

Ryuutama: 

There's a monster in this game that is a living bamboo statue. I thought this was a fair representation.


7th Sea:

I had need of a haunted light house in game it was named...The Bloody Lighthouse


Cyberpunk 2020:

This is my media NPC, Coco Lopez. Got no idea who she is IRL, but if she's good enough for the Halloween store, she's good enough for my game. I wish more girls took on this hairstyle...it's less than two years until 2020...they should get with it.

I was proud of this when I made it, but I don't know how funny Gallagher references are to a lot of younger people who have no idea how big he was...my whole Prop Comic Wars between him and Carrot Top was probably lost on them.

Loved this screenshot from Bladerunner 2049

Mutant Crawl Classics:

I love the style of Goodman Games books Dungeon Crawl Classics and Mutant Crawl Classics.

Dungeons and Dragons:

I couldn't not put this one up there. You know it and love it.

FYI...I'm not making any money off of this particular blog. If  I were and if I had the time now even for free, I would list the artists/photographer/actor...but this is for personal use only, so it should be okay.

RPG A Day 2018: Day 16... Describe your plans for your next game

If we're talking about my next session, it's Saturday night on Roll*20 in my Cyberpunk 2020 campaign. I run modified versions of old modules and shoehorn them into a cohesive, yet sandboxy narrative based on how the players interact with the story...at least that's the idea. I started them off with the module--again, do we still call them that?--Thicker Than Blood which you can watch a funny review of here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKVQ8heQulQ

That's by Seth Skorkowsky @SSkorkowsky 

There are a lot of other fun reviews on his channel so give it a look.

They've more or less wrapped up the story which we began back in May...we're in mid-August now and only 5 days of game time has passed--we're playing weakly...er, weekly...so you can see I'm kind of on a slow build, but it seems to make sense. Anyhoo, the players still have a couple of loose ends if they want to explore them as well as many other seeds sewn that will lead to other pre-written modules depending on which direction they want to take.

This session will be all about repairing and rebuilding as they are attending a bazaar of legal and illegal sales taking place overnight in an aquarium in one of the more upscale areas of Night City. They also have rewards to collect from the owners of the La Hacienda Hotel and Casino who hired the party to bring the cultist, war criminal...and 80's prop comic...Gallagher to justice. That would be one of those things not in the original module by the way.

If we're talking about next system then it will be Mutant Crawl Classics. I plan to introduce this newly minted system funded by Kickstarter to my live table group that should be starting up some time next month or October at the latest. It sometimes takes us all a while to get back into the groove once school starts back...that happens in less than two weeks by the way. It's the double edged sword of RPG A Day, I enjoy writing, watching and reading he responses--it's like a mini-Christmas--but I hate that when it ends, the new school year starts.   

Mutant Crawl Classics: Kickstarter Review

My review of Mutant Crawl Classics from Goodman Games. A couple of weeks ago I received my copy of MCC written by Jim Wampler and containing fantastic artwork by various artists.

This roleplaying game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world closely akin to the old TSR/WOTC Gamma World setting. For non-role-players—and why are you reading my review if you’re not an RPG enthusiast? –it’s kind of like the classic version of ‘Planet of the Apes’ wherein some world-shaking disaster has completely changed the landscape of the planet and its surrounding environment—in this setting’s case it is never revealed to be Earth specifically, and in any case the level of advancement for the society that did exist prior to the great disaster was far advanced from our current time.

I originally backed the project on Kickstarter where 2,311 of us pledged $206,806 against a, relatively modest for Goodman Games, $20,000 initial goal. There were many reward tiers and add-ons for the project including: special edition books, T-shirts, PDF modules, special dice, GM Screen and print versions made available for everything. The game is also fully compatible with Goodman Game’s most famous (?) system Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Waiting is the hardest part:
Depending on how much of my stuff you read, you know I’m an English teacher out in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Although I’ve been out here for eight years now, I have always—and will always—realize that this is not a permanent situation. In fact, this year—my ninth—I plan to document in blog form my efforts to look for different—if not greener—pastures, but I digress. The point is that I’m far from the States and even within the UAE, I’m out in the sticks. The couriers in these parts are…let’s say…interesting.  In spite of this fact—and the understanding that I’ll have to move all of this stuff eventually—I love physical print copies and the swag that comes with it.

The project funded almost exactly two-years ago today, but Goodman Games are indeed very good men…and women, I assume…when it comes to updating and giving samples of the process and progress along the way. If you haven’t backed a KS project, I suggest you find one you like and do it. Depending on the creator you back, you can learn a lot of behind the scenes information, and at least for the projects that I’ve chosen it has been very interesting. Grant me one more aside—group fund within reason as it is addicting, make sure you back trusted creators, beware of backing video-games, and remember it’s not a store and you do have to wait for your reward. KS is probably going to be your best bet if you do take the plunge because they at least have some policies to hold creators accountable.

In the case of MCC, we have had the PDF versions of the game since at least Sept. 17th of last year. As I said however, I’m not really a PDF guy so I gave it a quick browse anticipating the eventual arrival of my hardcover copy. A lot of backers who are better men than me, helped to playtest and proofread the PDF. That’s a couple of thousand sets of eyes catching errata before the book goes to print. That’s brilliant, and one of the big perks of KS and the like for these types of projects: the backers get early access and the creators get feedback before the product ever goes to market.

On a slow boat from somewhere…
Fast forward to April 2018 and the first books start heading out the door. This is where I hit a little snag. I find out at this point in the process that an outside company from the UK will be distributing books to overseas backers. I’m not too worried yet because I’ve backed many things before. I just prefer that the package be sent via standard postal services because in my area of the UAE it’s all P.O.Boxes.

May 2018 comes around and the KS update touts 97% shipped…and I’ve got nothing. A short time later I received an e-mail from the UK company stating that the order had been shipped, and a tracking number was included. Not surprisingly—to a guy who’s lived out here for eight years—the tracking number didn’t function. Sometimes our couriers may have a famous name, but it will be up to the man in the truck on the ground as to whether or not he will decide to live up to the lofty expectations—that is to say what would be considered minimally acceptable service from the States and other western countries--associated with said name. A week passes before I’m told that this courier will not deliver to a P.O. Box. Supposedly he would be willing to drop it off at the post office itself and have me pick it up there.

In June the KS updates with 99.9% fulfilled, and I get to welcome myself to the .01% --a very exclusive club. New contact from the UK middlemen confirms that my shipment has been lost to this world. As a make good, Goodman upgrades my pledge giving me all the print goodies beyond the core book—Hooray!!—but, it still needs to get to me. To that end, the UK group goes with the more expensive, super-deluxe, we don’t use these guys except in special circumstances courier…numb to my request that they send it via regular international post.

Two weeks later we head into the middle of June and I’ve still got nothing. Goodman Games was off touring the convention scene and couldn’t answer me directly, while the last communique I received from my pals in the UK was to say that once they sent the product to the courier it was out of their hands. Of course, I was ticked off by this point as I had been preaching since the first hint of trouble that regular postal services were the way to go. Happily, good fortune smiled on me and for whatever reason in the middle of the following week a regular post office truck delivered the package to me at my job. It was in the packaging of the second, expensive courier by the way. Nobody knows how it turned out that way and I really don’t care. I was just glad to get the books.

So, how are the books?
They are just as excellent as I had hoped they would be. The artwork is stupendous. If you’re an oldskool guy like me, then you’ll like the art style even more. Goodman really took care of me when they gave me the upgrade as all of the modules are up to the same quality as the book and have a feel to them that you can’t get anywhere else. As to the system—which I won’t go too much into, it is D20 modified to use the “weird dice” made famous by the sister product Dungeon Crawl Classics. I had mentioned earlier that DCC is completely compatible with MCC, but I think MCC is a bit easier. Maybe it is my familiarity with DCC—meaning I didn’t go into this completely cold--or maybe the creators worded things slightly differently, so that I could understand them more easily. In either case, it is fun to read about all the strange powers and locations. A nice map and GM screen came along with it, so I felt like a kid in a candy store…or else like a kid when the book fair used to come to elementary school.

The initial player races are: Pure Strain Human, Mutant, Manimal and Plantient. In the oldskool fashion only the Pure Strain Human gets a class. We can say his power comes from his class. The classes are Sentinel (fighter), Shaman(wizard), Healer(cleric) and Rover(thief). The other sentient beings get race specific powers. Mutants are mutated humans,  Manimals are sentient animals, and Plantients are sentient plants. All the character types—save PSH—can devolve to their non-mutant form. The mutants just become PSH, but the Manimals and Plantients will  become base—I can’t imagine still playable—forms of animals and plants.

The module included in the core book is a take-off on a very famous family from the future. It took me far too long to “get” the joke, but once I did it was obvious and very funny. One of the unique features of DCC and MCC is the level-zero character funnel. The included module is one of those. The concept is for players to create 3-4 of these fragile characters each. They take the whole lot of them—using the highest of their character’s initiatives or other traits to speed things along—and try their best to survive a dungeon—er, areas of ancient ruins--that’s sure to make them drop like flies. Characters that survive get to become level 1’s and also have a backstory to tell wherein they almost certainly lost a few comrades. In the MCC scenarios, the funnel is a ‘rite of passage’ to adulthood and full member of the tribe. These newly minted heroes graduate from their previous tribal roles of ‘hunter’ or ‘gatherer’ to become a prestigious ‘seeker’ from which point the normal adventuring and campaigns can begin.

Closing:
I’m currently on a Cyberpunk 2020 kick over on Roll 20 while my live-table—which is usually D&D focused—will be on hiatus while we’re on summer break. Unfortunately, that means that I haven’t been able to run or play in an MCC game yet. That hasn’t stopped me from reading the books over and over nor from watching a couple of playthroughs available on YouTube. The plan is to at least run the included funnel as a one-shot for my live-table when school is back in session in September. With that being said, I would give the game my highest recommendation.

Scores:
Game System: 5/5: All the oldskool fun from DCC except easier and a relief from the doldrums of a tired strictly fantasy setting

Presentation: 5/5: For me this is the selling point. If I never get to play—I sure hope to—I would still call this a worthy investment because the art, the lore, the style of the presentation are all just so good. I have come to expect this quality from Goodman Games and they didn’t disappoint me here.

KS Campaign: 4/5: Ultimately, I was taken care of. Unfortunately, I must take a point away because Goodman should have specified how the product would be delivered before taking my pledge. I had previously received material in my P.O.Box from Goodman with no middlemen and no problems. So, I assumed I would be getting the package direct from Goodman to me. We all know what happens when we assume. I've backed many projects--so many that my wife is making me retire--and this was the only one to give me shipping trouble. The designation that the product ships “Anywhere in the world” should mean anywhere in the world…which in the end it was for me...but, none of the parties involved know exactly how that came to be. I could just as easily be sitting here empty handed.

Customer Service: 5/5 from Goodman Games. They were always quick to respond to my complaints and in the end they delivered to me more than what I had paid for. Had they listened to me and went with the regular post, they would have saved us all a lot of time—but then I would have only gotten the core book, so a winner is me. That being said, I would have to be leery of ordering other products from them until such a time when I’m no longer in the UAE…or else find a buddy with a physical address.

3/5 from <Redacted> Games from the UK: The communication with them wasn’t so great. They truly are middlemen and I was an annoyance to them. I won’t use their company name because it ultimately worked out. Had the result been different the review would be even worse. They gave me extra jobs to do—virtual legwork that very nearly became physical legwork—to track the package when my only job should be to making sure the cheque clears.