Status and Doomslakers RPG Notes

What's going on with me right now?

Life is happening. Family life is pretty good. We're dealing with the dystopia of the United States one day at a time. How fucking hard it is to get rid of an obvious existential threat to your own nation? Pretty god damn hard, it seems.

But I digress.

Creatively: I'm in a weird place. I have not been drawing very much. I doodle here and there. But my main energy has been going into creating the Doomslakers RPG. That progress stalled a bit a few weeks ago as some drama creeped up, but I started running a playtest of the rules last Monday and I'm excited for that. I'm running The Gardens of Ynn by Emmy Allen using the Doomslakers rules. The setting is completely different, but this playtest kind of happened suddenly and I wasn't ready to run the full game with its own setting. Since I had been wanting to run Gardens for years, I seized the moment.

Here's a quick and dirty overview of the Doomslakers rules:

It's a d6 pool. Basic roll is an exploding 1d6 (1d6e). You add dice based on the skills you have, tools, and other factors. You need at least one success. A success is either 4, 5, or 6, based on difficulty and all that. It's a fairly standard success-based pool system.

Instead of hit points, you rack up damage. There's no upper limit for damage. If you take 6, you add 6 to your running total. At some intervals, you have to make an impact roll. This is a 1d20 roll + current damage. So if you have racked up 12 damage, you roll 1d20+12 on an impact table. The results range from minor hindrances (usually reduction of pool dice) to death.

So you can die in one roll from one blow.

There is a meta currency. Luck points are earned when you roll your lucky number in an action roll. Since the number is 1-6, it will come up pretty frequently. You will earn luck points multiple times per session. I hope that leads to players being willing to spend luck freely instead of hoarding it.

One of the things you can do with luck is defer your impact roll. Ultimately you must make the roll, but luck can put it off. There are other mechanics that can reduce damage. So the idea is you might be able to reduce your damage total before being forced to make an impact roll, thus giving you a better chance at not being killed or knocked out.

One of my concerns is that the impact rolls will be too frequent. I mitigated it by having thresholds for when they are made. You don't make one every time you get hit, unless you get hit pretty hard. But there are triggers that force the roll no matter what.

At the end of a fight, if you have any damage, you have to make that impact roll. Luck can't prevent it.

Anyway, that's the core mechanic of the game at the moment. It applies to all actions, not just fighting.

But I am toying with the idea of changing it to a d12 pool. The only reason for doing that is to get some granularity out of the numbers, which is just another tool in the kit. But that also makes luck points less frequent, so it might not be worth the trouble. I need those luck points flowing because they do a lot of heavy lifting.

The Doomslakers RPG itself is based on the setting (implied and explicit) of Black Pudding. It is an original system and has no direct basis in D&D... so it isn't a Black Pudding RPG, directly. Black Pudding zine remains a classic D&D based zine, at least for the first 8 issues. This game is a riff on the ideas within where you play the role of an agent of the Doomslakers Adventure Company, taking nasty, dangerous jobs in the seedy city of Seapath. If you see it in Black Pudding, you will probably see it in Doomslakers in one form or another.

Cataloging Yourself

I did my first paid work as an artist when I was in high school way back in 1987 or so. It was a drawing of a girl writing for the cover of a poetry zine that one of my teachers published. I think it was called Promise. Since then, I've done work for hire, work for trade, and work for fun for many, many people. And I absolutely never bothered to keep track of any of it. At all.

For years now I've promised myself I would make a real effort to catalog all this work spanning decades and put it into some kind of big, fat list. Why? To remind myself of what I have accomplished. Because I get down on myself a lot. I berate myself for not doing enough. I'm a lifer amateur, by choice. I work a day job to survive and pay bills and support my family. I do art because I'm an artist. So... often I don't take my art as seriously as I should. I don't categorize myself with other artists who make their living with their craft. At best, I augment my living with my craft.

Anyway, self-deprecation aside, I realize it will be nearly impossible to catalog all I've done. Hell, I've done art for people in the 90s that I mailed to them and never saw again. I didn't have a computer back then, no camera in my pocket. I don't have pics or scans of that work. It's just gone. And I don't even remember much of it.

But I can make an effort to do what I can. This Spring I hope to dig through the boxes in my storage shed and work on some kind of catalog of my small press comics work, at least. I spent over a decade doing that stuff and I never show or talk about it. I tend to do a thing, then move on to something else. Which is fine, I think, and perfectly healthy. But you also have to remind yourself that you've done something lest you forget your own efforts and achievements.

Carry On

Been in a funk lately. I was working on the new game every day, kind of obsessed with it, then I got COVID. Seems like that's when the funk started. Been kind of flitting around since then, not focused on a damn thing. Arting randomly, no focus at all.

But such is life. I have a wandering mind. Sometimes it's worse than other times. I would probably fit into some category of neurodivergent, but I'm not dysfunctional enough to give a shit about checking.

Even unfocused, though, I still draw a decent amount. I berate myself for not doing much but then I look at my art stack and realize it just keeps growing and growing and growing. Even my daughter, who draws all the time, comments "How do you just keep drawing so much?".

I guess my issue is that I see all these accomplished comics creators, for example, who did x number of issues of their book over x decades and I'm like "Where's my x book?". I don't really have one. People know me either for The Pool, Pan-Gea, Black Pudding, or my pin-up art. I think. I'm so god damn random I can't even tell if any of that is true.

Here's a logo I recently drew for a character aptly named Hoofnar. Great visual concept. I even have a cool cover for it, pictured here. But I've been unable to settle on the character's core. Is he a goofy bastard bumbling through a cartoon world? Is he a serious straight Conan riff? Is he something else? I don't know. It's got me locked up on doing him.

I mean, this idea has legs, right?

Meanwhile there's Zarp. That little red bastard has been with me for 23 years and I've drawn lots of little comics about him. I even drew a 16 pager at the end of 2022. I want to get that into print. But I'm stumbling around not sure if I want to do a dedicated Zarp comic or not.

And now, suddenly, there's this Hymla idea. She's a badass warrior chick. She's thick and mean and missing a tooth. I like her a lot. She deserves a comic too.

Picture it in FULL COLOR.

Come to think of it, the Hymla piece, in color, would make a fucking sweet 11x17 poster. I might do up a few and sell them, signed and numbered and all that.

All of this leads me to the inevitable concept of a simple anthology comic wherein I can just dump all my comic book ideas. Like Random Order Comics, which makes sense. I already did a Random Order Comics & Games zine back in the oughts. And my imprint is Random Order Creations (established 1994, and consistently used ever since).

Which leads me to this concept.

Yeah, I'm a creative mess right now. But that's cool. I've always been a mess. I still keep messing around.

What's the Plan?

I was just thinking how much I am averse to planning creative projects. I'm such a spoiled brat, creatively, I only want to do what I want to do right then and there and because I have a job and art doesn't may my bills I'm of the mind that it's my god damn business anyway. Right?

Flipside to that bratty stance is that I'm gunshy about failing. I have dived into huge projects in the past only to hit a brick wall and abandon them. I stopped making promises around 2005 or so and just rolled with the flow after that.

But planning ahead can lead to great things. Would we have Old School Essentials in all its glory if Gavin hadn't made a plan and stuck with it? As wild and chaotic as MÖRK BORG appears would we really have that delicious book and all the insane media that surrounds it if Pelle and the creators didn't have a plan?

I guess planning ahead pays off.

I'm still not doing it, though.

This is a picture of a pantsmonster. I was putting on my pants on day and I looked down and thought "That button and zipper looks like some kind of dinosaur". So I took a picture. Later that day I doodled from it, then forgot about it.

And that's what I'm talkin' about. To prove my point I'm scheduling this post ahead of time. That's planning right there.

In a Rage

I doodled a few weirdos in masks a couple of years ago and applied the name "Mask Ragers". I knew it had to become an RPG but it took me a while to get back around to it. For some reason it came around again pretty hard Friday and now I have a game system and premise on my hands. I guess I'll have to make a game, dammit.

Which is, honestly, really fucking cool. I mean, if I can sum up my entire creative plan in life in a single sentence: I want to make a lot of cool books that inspire other people to make cool stuff too.

As the great George Carlin once said: "I got a lot of good ideas. Trouble is most of 'em suck."

Story of my life.

Not-Inktober + Life Size Life

What is going on, you ask?

I made a pathetic attempt at Inktober, but quickly abandoned the foolish idea. I did the entire month 2 years ago and that was fun and timely. But last October I was neck-deep in Supercalla and my mom's declining health and this year my spirit is just not in it. I'm busy with GOZR and just surviving.

To be honest, I'm in a lull. I get this way from time to time and it sucks but it's just part of my artistic journey. It happens. I get in the lull generally on the heels of some creative high - probably completing Cozmic Metal Heads. Then I eventually come out of it and hit some new creative high. And that's fine with me as long as I keep creating. That's really all I care about, as an artist. I want to keep working. I'm happiest when I'm creating. Games, comics, random drawings... doesn't matter.

And that's the most urgent thing I would tell any creator who is struggling with any aspect of creativity. Just keep doing it. It is the act of creation that matters more than anything. You can dream about creating, and that is fun and rewarding. You can look back fondly on what you created, and that is also fun and rewarding. But nothing compares to the pleasure of being in the act of creation. Especially if you have confidence and faith in the thing you're doing.

That's probably my biggest weakness. I lack faith in my own work. I find comfort and strength in peoples' comments, though they are rare. It is lonely work doing this stuff. Any signal that I'm reaching someone is like fresh air, a cold drink, or a hot meal.

Bit of a rambly post but it's on my mind and I wanted to share it. Now I'm off to noodle about a new game idea. But aren't you working on GOZR?? Yes... but there's room for other ideas to germinate. I love having multiple ideas cooking at once. Though... if I'm honest... I'd prefer to have 100% focus on one thing at a time. Just not in the cards for me, I'm afraid.

The Great and Powerful Illusion of Block

One of the many Random Order Comics I drew between 2001-2002.

When I was in Mexico for a recent work trip, alone in the hotel one night, I discovered Alexa Donne's YouTube channel. Now I'll be totally honest here... I clicked on her video because she's super fucking cute. I'm just like that.

But I watched a few of her vids while drawing a Troika! character sheet and I really enjoyed her. She's honest and solid in her advice. I have no idea if she's a good writer or not, but she's good at telling you like it is.

One of her comments was that writer's block isn't real. It's an illusion. You'll know it's not real when you stop whining about it and just make yourself write. Soon the words flow and the "block" is lifted. I get what she's trying to say here and I generally agree. But it's not quite right to say that writer's block isn't a thing. Because it totally is a thing.

Calm down, Donnettes*, let me explain.

Writer's block is not a thing in the sense that there's this one, monolithic problem that prevents you from writing. But if you are a writer and you can't seem to write, then there's something blocking you. That's really all writer's block means, isn't it? For example, maybe my favorite gay uncle just married a woman and I'm existentially confused about it, causing me to lose my mojo and be unable to write for some time. That's a block.

Alexa is talking to YOU, dumbass.

The trick is that these aren't impenetrable blocks. Very few blocks would be legit impenetrable. But they can absolutely feel god damned impenetrable. And of course I'm not just talking about writing books here. This idea applies to all creativity.

Speaking for myself, creativity usually strikes me hard when I have a free block of time and I'm not physically in pain. I can sit at my desk and - usually - accomplish something. But there are times when that doesn't happen. I can tell you that right now at this moment I'm in a little bit of a psychological tailspin and it is definitely affecting my creative time. Maybe that's why I'm blogging about writer's block instead of working on one of my projects or commissions.

Writer's block isn't a thing in the sense that it's objectively real. Writer's block is a thing in the sense that when you fail to write (and you're a writer) then something is blocking you. Unblocking is not always easy.

*I made that up. Cute, huh? If you like Alexa Donne you're a Donnette.

Being a Wizard

I often say it's "the process" that really matters in any art. Drawing, writing, comics, RPG design, music, whatever. The end result is just a token or snapshot of what you went through on a journey. To put it in motivational poster cant: it's the journey, not the destination.

But to say "the process" is what matters isn't exactly right either. The process is whatever steps you take in order to put one foot in front of the other to DO art. And that is very important, no doubt. But it's not exactly what I mean when I talk about DOING art.

It's the doing that matters most. My good friend Jayne and I have this mantra we've screamed at one another for decades: FINISH IT. And it's a motivating mantra. But of course while the goal might be to finish something, that's not the real goal. The real goal is to be doing something. Because, at least for me, an artist who isn't doing is going to feel dead inside.

The process, on the other hand, is whatever craft you devise to keep the doing alive. So process does include brushes and paints and pen tablets and software and how you use those tools. But also, what rituals do you perform to get into the creative zone? Coffee in a particular cup? Sitting a certain way, listening to certain types of things? Clearing the room of distractions? These are all part of your process, which should lead to doing art.

I have struggled my whole life with getting to the doing part. I can think and prep and worry all day long and never actually do anything. I cannot express accurately how much time I've spent thinking about doing instead of actually doing. In fact, easily the overwhelming majority of all the thousands of hours I've spent in my 48 years in "creative mode" have been hours spent thinking about, preparing for, and worrying about the thing I want to do instead of actually doing the thing.

I get sick to death thinking about doing. I long to be doing. I long to be elbows deep in working on a thing, to see the thing taking shape before my eyes. I feel powerful in that space. I feel like my existence really matters. I feel like I'm part of the whole god damn universe and not just a nameless speck that will be forgotten. I feel like a wizard.

Black Pudding #6... and more

Now that I'm in the latter half of my Xmas vacation I finally got around to working on something. Specifically, I'm diggin hard into Black Pudding #6. Specifically, at this moment, the Meatshields segment.

This segment is always super fun for me. I never plan it, I just let shit emerge. I grab sketches and bits of art here and there, strip characters out, reuse, remix, and just let the chips fall where they may. I'm proud of this super goofy bullshit and I hope it shows.

Example... I just gave chewing weed and a spitune to a busty paladin. Because I can and I did. And it's a glorious feeling to be creatively unfettered. I'm not trying to win any awards or impress any particular people with this project. Black Pudding is just my zine. It is exactly the kind of shit that I would do if given the chance to just do some shit. Which is exactly what I'm doing.

Not that I don't care about quality or doing awesome things. I absolutely do want this book to be cool and impressive. Just as importantly, I want it to be useful. Because as much as I believe RPGs are an art form, I also fully acknowledge they are a hobby pastime... a game. And there are practical concerns at the gaming table. I try to give you a bit of a random shotgun blast of fun stuff you can pluck out and use as desired. Much of it does fit into a greater setting-specific context, for me, but I try not to stuff the pages with too much of that.

Later, at some point, I may collect, revise, and remix a lot of this content into a setting book or standalone game. But right now I'm happy to keep letting the muses guide me down random paths of old school roleplaying goodness.