WoAF - Game Session 15

And so we find our heroes hightailing it down Route 89 back the way they came.  Eastward they rumbled the Armored Ground Vehicle.  Good Captain Samwise considered their options.  If they head back all the way to Page, Arizona, they'd likely find the Paladins of the Golden Lion giving them an unfriendly welcome.  While Fred wanted desperately to head south back to Tuscon, there were really no good routes available for that, and in addition, the other members of the party decided that they wanted to complete the mission after all.

"This needs to stop," said Fred emphatically.  "Look, Captain, you almost just got shanked back there because we could not hear what you were saying because the audio equipment of the AGV is all busted.  We have all this information to deliver back to Federation Command.  We should go south, deliver the goods, re-equip, and then head back to Utah and do the mission."

"Well," started Samwise, "we're halfway -"

"No! We're halfway to nowhere!" interrupted Fred.

There was a fierce debate.  Guns suggested going back to Tuscon to get Rocket Jets to go to Tuscon.  There didn't seem a practical avenue to accomplish that. 

"The question is," said Sam, "has the team given up on the Mission?"

In the end, the answer was no.  And so when they came to Johnson Canyon Road, they cut a sharp left turn, and headed north.

They passed derelict burned out farmlands, and into a canyon valley that snaked along a windy little river. About 15 miles in the road turned westward.  They drove through the forested hills, and at one point they passed what looked like a small cluster of houses high up on the ridge of a cliff.  There showed no signs of life, so they continued westward into a region of ever thickening forest.  In the air there were orange sized dandelion puffs floating by the hundreds, then thousands. They passed a herd of deer that stared out at them from within the covert of a shadowy wood, several of which had eight legs and six eyes, and bizarrely shaped horns. Samwise noticed that all of the fauna in the region appeared to have been mutated.  Wherever the puffs landed, they began sprouting leaves and vines within a few minutes.  The number of these puffs increased steadily the further west they went.  It was not entirely comforting.  They secured the ventilation system and kept moving westward.

The road entered directly into a long wall of dark and gigantic forest.  The trees grew to the size of Sequoias, the tallest towering nearly 300 feet into the glowering sky.  The forest appeared to have grow up around a regular forest, whose thousands of oaks and pines formed a skeletal under-forest, dead, leafless and decomposing.  Amid the dead branches of the under-forest a murder of crows was seen flocking, cawing, and staring at the passing AGV with a strange intensity.  The giant trees seemed to crowd in on the road, and roots of those trees had begun to break through the road in certain spots.  From the high branches enormous vines draped down, crossing ominously above the road.  Guns thought they seemed to be moving sinuously, but it might just have been the shadowy light playing tricks with his eyes.  On the other hand, he also thought the vines could be sentient.  He wanted to shoot them.  The good Captain gave the order.

As the machine gun fire hit the enormous vines they shattered, and flocks of crows scattered cawing madly in all directions.  They continued forward cautiously. The vines grew thicker, and the trees closer.  It grew darker beneath the enormous cathedral of trees, until not a hint of sunlight could be detected.  It was nearly pitch black, and they travelled very slowly so as to not lose the road.  Guns swiveled the turret randomly picking targets in the foliage, but not firing at anything. 

Eventually, they came to a dark burbling stream crossing the road.  The water was about 3 feet deep and deep mud covered the banks.  Up the stream, about 50 feet or so, on the edge overlooking from a little cliff that hung over the stream bed, they saw the corner of an old dilapidated wooden house.  Guns aimed the machine gun at the house.  The porch was obscured by trees and deep shadows.

"For all we know, this house could be full of Tech," said Pita.  But no one wanted to find out.  And so they rumbled slowly past, wondering if 'old granny' had put out warm ginger cookies for them.  Yep.  No one wanted to find out.  They crossed the stream and kept going.

After a long slow drive, the forest began to thin out, and after some time the trees lessened in size and eventually they came to a river, the crossing of which allowed them to leave the forest behind.  Good riddance, they said.

The road snaked westward through the hills.  They spotted another cluster of lifeless buildings up on a hill, and passed by.  After a time they came to the town of Glendale.  

Captain Samwise stopped the vehicle, and they surveyed the town from a concealed position.  Glendale had activity.  Military activity.  Jeeps, tanks, troops, and there were occupied houses, and people on the streets.  It looked busy-busy down there.

"At this point in time, I do not really want to tangle with the U.S. Army.  I don't think we can assume a friendly response," said Samwise.  He was inclined to go off road.

Pita recommended they find a place to hide and do any necessary repairs on the AGV before heading off road. They plotted a course on the maps that Fred had been able to recover from Mech Base 12.  They headed up a backroad up towards a nearby lake that looked unoccupied.  The area around the lake was desolate.  They parked and Linda suggested that she could transmit to Federation Command using the Ultra-Low Frequency transmission.  It would take a minimum of four hours to transmit and receive any reply, which coincided roughly with the amount of time it might take to effect repairs.  

It was early evening, and would get dark in about an hour.  Guns thought that it might be better to do what they need to do during the day, rather than at night.  Linda, for her part, liked the spot because the terrain would help to transmit as the area around the lake was flat.  They decided to transmit for two hours, provide a time to recommend Federation Command to transmit their reply, and effect some repairs.  Fred and Sam suited up and stepped outside to work on the AGV.  

Guns wanted a half hour to stretch his legs and scout around a bit.  He donned the heavy armored suit, and took his trusty Springfield rifle, Ilene, and headed out for a half hour perimeter search.  He climbed up on a hill to the north, found a concealing spot, and with his binoculars took a look around.  He was able to see the military forces in the town from his position, and noted that there were no military forces north of the town.  All activity seemed clustered around the south side of Glendale.

Meanwhile, Pita took the time to take a look at the AGV's electronics to see if he could repair anything else.  Linda transmitted to Federation Command.  Samwise climbed up into the Perch to keep a lookout.

By the time the ULF transmission was complete, it was dark, but the moon was shining brightly, and there were no clouds.  High above, the sky was pierced by the never ending multi-colored coruscating bands of radiation in the upper atmosphere, making their characteristic high pitched twirping-hissing sounds.  Then they heard the sound of Thunder in the distance.  

Samwise decided to travel northward without lights, to try to avoid observation by the military.  As they drove the sounds of thunder grew fast and furious and the trees lit up with reflected flashes of light.  But no storm approached.  Guns swiveled the turret around in all directions, and to the south he saw what it was.  Over the horizon, beyond the mountains, perhaps 20 miles southward, massive explosions were lighting up the sky and creating a thunderous display.  It looked like a full scale war to the south west.

"Bombs bursting in mid-air, gave fruit to the night", intoned Guns somberly.

"Fruit to the night?", asked Samwise.

"I always wondered what kind of fruit that was," replied Guns thoughtfully, scratching his chin.

The team moved slowly forward, Pita guiding the AGV along a back road towards Golden Haven Ranch.  There was activity there, but not of a military nature.  They slowly passed by, trying not to draw attention.  They got back on 89 and headed north.  Sam was surprised it was that easy, but no one came out of the ranch house, and so they took their good luck and ran with it.

"If we stay on 89, we can almost make it all the way to the Salt Lake," said Sam, to Fred's intense annoyance.  They poured over the map carefully.  He recalled that originally Alt-X had recommended coming in from the west onto the Salt Lake Flats, so he looked for a route up 89 that would get them to the west side.  It was midnight.  The roads were desolate.  It would be about 100 miles before they intersected with Route 70.  Samwise estimated they would arrive there by the morning, if all went well.  Fred was no end of annoyed by these plans.

Behind them the explosions continued beyond the mountains.  

"Well, at least nothing is going on up here," said Samwise to the crew.

"Wanna see me tempt fate?  Thank goodness," replied Fred with a snicker, and popped a couple of pills and went to bed.  

They passed several empty and desolate towns, such as Gravel Pass, and Hatch, as the road snaked its way through hills.  They came to the intersection of Route 89 and Route 12.  It was about 3 in the morning.  

Guns was the first to spot the circle of crosses on the side of the road.  On it were chained skeletons.  A storm began to come in from the north west.  The wind picked up.  Scanning around with his binoculars by the flashes of lightning, Sam saw that every house nearby was covered in massive vines, through the doors and windows, and through holes in the rooves.  As the storm was approaching rapidly with wild flairs of lightning, the Captain decided to hunker down and bolt the AVG's pilons into the ground.  He directed Pita to a spot about 1500 feet to the west of the road on a flat area.  They talked about waking Fred up to handle the Retro-Tech required to drive the pilons into the ground, but he had drugged himself into a virtual coma and was snoring away in a deep slumber.  

Sam gave Fred a little kick, to which Fred flailed his arms, fell off the couch and smacked his face on the floor.  This woke him up.  The Captain directed him to use the manual override to drill down the pilons, and Fred shook himself, and prepared.  It would require going outside and manually running each pilon using the gear mechanisms.  He and Sam suited up, and went outside.  The winds had picked up to 70 to 80 mph, and a driving rain began to fall.  Enormous strikes of lightning began peppering the nearby hills.  They scrambled around the AGV, and a couple of times nearly got blown away by huge gusts of winds, but their tethers held and they managed to complete the job and scramble back inside.  

The storm flooded the area with a three foot deluge, and they found themselves bolted down in the middle of fast moving river.  By morning, however, the storm began to abate.  They remained hunkered down for a few hours to let the waters recede while Linda worked the ULF receptors, and at about noon she picked up a signal from Federation Command.  Her rig, full of vacuum tubes and sparking wires, managed to receive the message.

"GOOD JOB.  STOP. AQCUIRE ALLIES.  STOP. PROCEED TO BLACK WIND. STOP."

"Your dad would want us to bring you home safe and sound," stated Fred.

"I think my dad would want us to complete the Mission, actually," replied Linda.

There was another fierce debate about what they should do next.  At this point Fred had gained the support of Guns, who also began to think that they simply were no longer equipped to handle the kind of terrors they were inevitably going to face.  Linda, on the other hand, was determined to complete the mission, and Sam felt the same way.  Pita agreed to do whatever the Captain decided, though personally, he felt Fred and Guns were probably right.  They went back and forth on the question for quite a while, covering all possible pros and cons.

Eventually, the good Captain decided to forge ahead.  Fred popped a pill and went straight back to sleep.

They withdrew the pilons from the ground, and made their way to the road.  Passing the circle of skeletons they got very bad feeling.  Pita took a glance over, he couldn't help himself.  He noticed that every skeleton in the circle had its head turned towards him, and was staring at him with their dead and empty eye sockets.  A wave of hopelessness came over him like a tsunami.  It suddenly seemed to him that death is inevitable.  There was really just no point in fighting it.  There never had been.  As this feeling washed over him, he maintained just enough wit to activate his Mentarian Mind Shield.  Unfortunately, while he was able to see the attack in time to prevent it, his poor luck came into play once again, and the Mind Shield fizzled into nothingness before the inky darkness of the Rays of Un-Life that overwhelmed him.  And so, having lost control of his mind, he took his foot off the gas, put it on the break instead, ground the AGV to a sudden lurching halt, and threw the gear into park.  Without further ado he slumped over in his chair, and limply slid to the floor of the AGV waiting for the end to come and put them all out of their misery, forever.  Such is the spiritual wickedness that has engulfed the world after mankind's fateful decision to wage the Ultra-War. 

"Pita," yelled Guns, popping his head upside-down from the turret, "what's going on down there?  Why'd we stop? You ok?"

"It's just not worth it," moaned Pita from the floor, drool running down his cheek to the floor.

"You know when I'm feeling down, and I feel like the whole world's against me" said Guns encouragingly, "I take out good old Ilene and and shoot things until I feel better. What do you want me to shoot, man?  Name it!"

"You might as well just shoot me," said Pita in the most despairing voice any of them had ever heard.

"Captain, request permission to blow the shit out of those skeletons," said Guns, his voice trailing off as he eyed the crosses with furrowed brows, a sense of dread and doom overwhelming him. He imagined that they would all be on those horrible crosses soon.

Fred was dreaming.  It was a nightmare.  He was running through the fields, but he had no legs.  He looked down and saw his body was a poisonous snake writhing in the mud.  Skeletons on crosses were reaching out for him, and lifting him up, nailed him onto one of the crosses, their empty eyes staring at him with a terrifying gloom.  All around him in every direction was pitch black horror.  The horror of a universe dying.  He could not move.  He lay on the couch, drooling.

Samwise leapt over to Pita and tried to rouse him with a violent shake.  That however, only solicited a dismal groan from the poor miserable hero.  Sam jumped into the pilot's seat, grabbed the steering wheel, flipped the gear shift into 3rd, and slammed his foot on the gas.  This caused the AGV to lurch forward suddenly and descend into a muddy ditch, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, Linda had managed to spring into action, having activated her Mind Shield in time.  She ran over to Pita and used her Mentarian Power of Influence Emotions to try to rouse Pita from his despair.  With all of the mental energies she could put into it, it would last only two minutes at the most. With her best and most encouraging words, however, she was unable to rouse him. Sam was trying to get the AGV out of the ditch.  He revved the engine three times, turned the steering wheel wildly, and commanded the vehicle to move forward - to no avail.  It just slid around in the mud uselessly.

Guns, who was also being infected by waves of despair, decided to focus all of his attention on taking apart Ilene, cleaning each part carefully, and reassemble her with great and unerring care.  This actually worked wonders to keep him from becoming immobilized.  However, he wouldn't do anything at all but that.

"Pita, come back to me!" yelled Linda, throwing her arms around him, and putting everything she had into it.  When Pita heard her voice, he realized how beautiful she truly was, and this brought him back to his senses.  He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her.  The sense of being alive filled him, cleared his mind, and he immediately grabbed the wheel from Sam, pushing him out of the way, and floored the gas.  Pita, unlike Samwise, was an expert Pilot. At first the wheels slipped and slid sideways, drifting the massive vehicle leftwards about 10 feet.  But Pita also had The Gnack.  

"Common, baby," he cooed has he gave the dashboard a whack with his fist. The AVG engine roared, and slid to the right about 15 feet.  He stacked his skill of Insane Persistence on top over everything else, and tried one more time.  This time the AGV gained traction on the rock base beneath the mud, and suddenly the vehicle lurched out of the ditch.  

This all took about 45 seconds. Across the floodwater flats towards Route 89 they roared, and without a hitch Pita got the AGV back onto the road, flooded as it might have been.  They roared northward. The further away from the Skeleton circle they got, the more Fred's dream went from nightmare into bizarre drug induced fantasy.  Crushing the bones of the skeletons onto a mirror he happened to be sitting in front of, he proceeded to snort the white boney powder like a mad man.  All kinds of bizarre images were flashing through his incoherent.

Pita drove furiously, sweat pouring off his brow.  But before they could get entirely out of the range of the Skeletal Horror... the wondrous Influence Emotions wore off... it had been two minutes, and now he realized that it was all a dark ruse.  There was no way to escape the skeletons, and they were all doomed no matter what.  Even if they made it up the road, death would soon find them, encircle them, drown them, kill them, ransack their souls, and feed them to the Maw of Horror.  Despair covered him completely.  And so, he slid quietly back to the floor and laid down, drooling to himself incoherently.  The AGV came rolling to a halt. 

Meanwhile, Fred failed to snort enough of the skeletons, there being hundreds of them in his nightmare.  He began to see boney fingers protruding from his snake body.  The sky was bright pink and green, with dark holes in it leading beyond into a sky of infinite blackness.  There were no stars up there anymore.  He vomited. 

Sam leapt into the pilot seat and attempted to take control of the AGV.  Once again, a deficit of skill and luck lead the AGV to drift sideways, but this time Sam managed to gain control of the situation and kept the AGV on the road.  The vehicle churned through three feet of flood water.  They could mark the road only by the signs that stuck up out of the water at various tilts.

The all pervasive doom had Pita, Fred and even Guns in its horrendous grip one way or another.  Linda went around to each of them in turn to find out how they were doing, and try to provide comfort.  When she got to Fred her voice invaded his dream, and so he somehow managed to mumble "my bag... my bag".

She looked around and found a small bag on his belt, and intuiting that this was significant, she opened it.  Inside she found a number of bottles, carefully labelled.  Drugs of various kinds.  Lots of drugs.

She took the bag to Sam who was struggling to keep the rig on the road, and he listened as she listed the names.  Sam selected Sertraline IV, a powerful anti-depressant.  Linda gave one to Fred, who swallowed it in his sleep, and one to Pita.  Guns declined and stuck with assembling Ilene.  The effect of the drug was somewhat negligible, but it did help to some degree to keep Pita and Fred from the worst of the Despair. Their drooling lessened a bit, and Linda took this as a hopeful sign.

Eventually, however, Sam drove them far enough away, and by the time they arrived at the southern edge of Panguich, the influence of the skeletons had abated.  Although the sense of misery, loss and absolutely pointlessness still clung to them, they had mostly shaken off the worst of the effects.  After a few fits and starts, Fred, who woke up by then, took a few steps, fell, smacked his face on the floor, and then slowly, groggily stood up again.  He seemed more or less back to his usual self.  Pita, not to be second bested, also stood up, wiped the drool from his chin, smiled faintly, and took the wheel of the AGV.  He did not feel well at all.  But he could still drive.  However, Sam, seeing the look in Pita's eyes, said he could continue to drive for a while, and sent him back to recover.  He promptly turned and went to the back of the vehicle and laid down next to where Linda was sitting.  She put her arm around his shoulder and they sat quietly as the AGV rumbled along.

The weather was gloomy, clouds churning darkly in the sky, the cold winds howling.  The road turned west, and there ahead they caught a glimpse of the township of Panguich.  Biological assault was evident everywhere.  Tall spindly orange colored vines with unnaturally phosphorescent blue flowers clustered everywhere.  There in the mud to the right was a creature slithering towards a rocky mound protruding from the swirling waters.  The creature had the upper body of a pig with the lower body of a giant fat worm.  Near it a 40 pound toad sitting on a moldy purple tree stump belched a spray of green acid at the pig.  It squealed and slithered away.  Further ahead, on the road a man in a torn trench coat was staggering down the road.  He was missing the top part of his right thigh.  His face looked partially torn away.  He swayed his arms as he staggered towards the AGV.

Good Captain Samwise wished very much to skirt the town.  He didn't want to go towards the staggering man, and looked around for another way to go, but the road seemed the only path forward, as on both sides of them was a huge mud waddle which he thought the AGV would simply get stuck in.  The shambling man made bizarre gestures, and flailed his arms as he approached he uttered strange gurgling noises.  He appeared to be trying to intercept the AGV.  He did not look well at all.

"That's a zombie, isn't it?", asked Fred craning his head to get a view of it through the wind shield.  "I say we blow him up".

Sam ignored this and rolled the AGV past the creature.  The zombie tried to grab on to the side of the vehicle, possibly, or something.  It was hard to say because they lost sight of it as they rolled past, but they heard some banging sounds, and in their rear view mirror they could see the creature slashing around in the water, groaning horribly and making loud and bizarre guttural noises.

"Friendly," commented Sam.  "You know, I don't like the look of this town," he added thoughtfully.  "The welcoming committee hasn't impressed me as much as I had hoped."

"We could try to befriend them," said Pita, his head laying on Linda's lap.

"Well, that has worked like never before," replied Linda stroking his hair.

And so Captain Samwise rounded the bend and they took a first look out at the ruins of Panguich pensively.  It looked like a bio-war horror show.  What to do?  What to do?

And so we left things there for the night.

Fun times for the Heroes of Federation Command.

Tenkar's Interview with VBWyrde of Elthos RPG and the Mythos Machine

I had a nice time chatting with Tenkar about Elthos RPG and the Mythos Machine ... here's the interview ... Many thanks to Tenkar for the interview! You can find Tenkar's Tavern on the Web and on Discord.


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#Elthos #ElthosRPG #MythosMachine #Gamemaster
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Elthos RPG - The World's Ultimate Fantasy Heart-Breaker

Someone on G+ recently mentioned that they encountered Elthos a while back and thought it is "the world's ultimate Fantasy Heart-breaker".  While not entirely surprising, given the very long haul this project has taken, I nevertheless find it amusing.  I have to wonder if it's true.  After all... it could be.  Perhaps I can take pride in that somehow?  After all, being the "ultimate" anything is distinctive.  Hmmm...

As to whether or not it happens to be true... How would I know? I'm just the poor shlub who's been tinkering away this for the past 40 years.  And I'm pretty sure I will continue to tool away at it, quite happily, for the next 40 years.  More if I can manage it. Elthos is my art form, and as such, it's something I work on because I enjoy it.

As you may know, the Mythos Machine is a major piece of the Elthos Project.  Aside from the simple enjoyment I get from tinkering with the code, I tool away at it because I would like to fulfill my vision ... The main driver in this regard is my own sense of satisfaction in knowing I thought up something that seemed useful for the world of RPGs, and then went ahead and persevered with it until I achieved it. I'm a pretty stubborn person, and this kind of project seems suitable for my temperament. I started the project in 1978 with the creation of my homebrew Elthos RPG Rules, and in 1994 I conceived of a computer application to help me crunch the numbers for game prep and so taught myself databasing and programming.  Between then and now I've been chipping away at this concept in my off hours as my Once and Great Hobby Project.

By 2000 I had a Visual Basic 6 application that does a LOT of very cool stuff related to world building and character management.  I mean a LOT of wonderful features are packed into that program.  Even more than the Mythos Machine web application does, actually. For example, it has a map painter utility that integrates the combat rules so you can run the entire game pushing characters around on the map and combating them, taking into account weapons and armors, magic, movement, terrain, and every rule I use to run my games. It's pretty damn slick, if I do say so myself.  But as it was a Microsoft VB6 project, it has fundamental flaws and I was concerned about being able to support it if I sent it out into the wild.  So I decided to shelve it, and work on a web application instead, largely because it would have a much easier support model.  It also gave me a chance to start over from scratch with the code base.  That's the Mythos Machine.  I began that in 2006.  Now, 12 years later, I think it's ready for public consumption. It doesn't handle everything the VB application does, but handles most of it.  I will add the other pieces as time, resources and interest dictate.

I should admit that my expectation is not to sweep the RPG market and become rich on the back of Elthos RPG, though. To think that is even possible would be blatantly absurd, of course.  Even if it were hugely, enormously, outrageously successful, we're really talking about a tiny niche hobby, out of which I am trying to provide something of interest to an even tinier subset of GMs who happen to want to create their own Worlds (and would like comprehensive computer support with building and running their game Worlds, but that's a different kettle of fish, in relation to Elthos RPG, which I'm talking about in terms of it's success as a stand alone RPG).  Planning on becoming rich on that prospect would be akin to depending on winning lotto as a career plan. And if that were my goal, then yeah, I'd say I'd be likely to end up in Fantasy Heart-Breaker territory.  But that's not my expectation, so on that level I don't think this outcome is likely. Financial success would be nice, but is hardly necessary. That said, of course I would like people to take a look at what I've created because I honestly think it's worthwhile. But for my own sanity, I don't want to depend on that result, either.  I want to enjoy it for what it is, and leave the rest to fate, or destiny, or luck, or the Tao, or The Gods, or whatever.

“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

But as far as money is concerned, I derived my entire programming career from this project, having taught myself programming so in order to work on it starting in 1994. I make a very decent living as a programmer/analyst, so I have to include that in my calculations as to how much money Elthos made for me.  Fact is, if it weren't for Elthos, I wouldn't ever have become a programmer ... this plus the fact that I've had a fabulous time Gamemastering Elthos and tinkering away at the Mythos Machine over the years... even without it being successful in the market, I think  I'm already way ahead. And I never borrowed money for the project so I don't owe anyone anything. It is very cheap to run, and I can keep it online at very little cost.  So, I'm not in a rush to make money on this thing.  I just want it to be done with as much excellence as I can put into it.

As I look at it, I've managed to successfully create something pretty awesome while avoiding all of the usual tricks, traps & "Imperial Entanglements" associated with Capitalist System.  Because of that I completely own Elthos. and so I am at perfect liberty to do with it whatever I want. And it does a great job for me. I use it to run my own games, and my friends have had a myriad hours of fun romping around Elthos killing monsters, taking their stuff, and saving (er, sometimes destroying) the world.  And that makes me happy, too.

What would be especially cool, though, is to find in the end that I added something to the world of RPGs that was not just some transient wisp of an idea, but something that really helps lift the hobby, overall, and in the long run. I think Mythos Machine as an innovative piece of RPG software has a shot at that. But that is not my goal for the projec,t either.  It would be a lovely if all goes well, but it's not the reason I work on it, either.  Again, I'd be crazy to assume that my work will be influential in the world of RPGs as there's waaaaaay too many brilliant people contributing far more popular ideas to the hobby than I am.  But still, I don't know too many who have stuck to creating RPG game prep software for their systems quite as doggedly as I have... so there's a chance that 'ere the end Elthos and the Mythos Machine will prove of some value to Gamemasters creating their own Worlds.  In this I do stand some chance of winding up in the Fantasy Heart-Breaker zone, but again, I'm not convinced of that either.  After all, even if no one uses it... I use it.  And to very good effect for my games.  So at the very least, I constructed a software system that helps me run my games.  I think that's pretty kickass, so I don't think I will wind up heartbroken if people don't wind up finding out about it.  Maybe that will turn out to be a cool thing in its own right... the only person in the world who uses a specific software application to run his world?  I don't know ... somehow I see kudos there.

But yeah, of course I hope Gamemasters will look into Elthos and find out how it and the Mythos Machine may be useful to them. And yes, I hope people support it so that I can keep improving it. Why not?

But, what I'm actually shooting for is something just as ridiculously improbable as financial success... probably more so...  I want to help encourage and foster human creativity.  I feel like we are living in a time where creativity and imagination are under direct assault by The Powers That Be.  Free thought is at a low ebb and there's way too many people who are all too willing to give up their own ideas and creative powers to those who claim to be the true arbiters of creative value.  I want to resist that because I think it's rubbish, and the Elthos Project is my way of doing that for myself, and a tool I want to offer others to help them do the same.  The Elthos Mission is all about exercising your own imagination. I know, I know ... you can stop laughing now.  I admit, it is an uphill battle.  But fortunately, the RPG community is bursting at the seams with people who already have the spark of creativity.  I just want to fan the flames and help inspire more of it.  Lots more.

Back when I started the project, I wanted to see if I could find a way to use computers to bring people together, rather than drive them apart and isolate them. I think I came up with this idea after seeing a film called Future Shock in the late 70's. I watched the movie and said to myself, "OMG, screw that. We can definitely do better".  In fact, the Elthos Project is kind of a big jab in the eye of the direction the Big Technologists have taken things over the past 50 years. Frankly, I want the world to go the other direction, and I want to try my best to inspire people to embrace their imaginations, and create fantastic, amazing, powerful, and wondrous Worlds of their own because I believe that it is the power of human creativity and imagination that will allow us to escape the Techno-Prison being rapidly constructed all around us. If I can help to inspire people to think for themselves and use their own minds and hearts and creativity then I will consider the Elthos Project a true success, even if it does nothing for my own personal fortunes. And we won't know if I managed to achieve that for a long time to come, actually. I do suspect I've had some modest success already with this, but I will have to leave that to future historians of RPGs to ultimately decide.  If' I'm lucky, my timing is good, and I can bring enough excellence to my work, then I hope to help people see the value of their own ideas... if I can do that I will have achieved my true objective.

Of course, in the end, since I owe no one anything, and have no need for Elthos to be successful, and have enjoyed the hell out of the thing for 40 years now, I'd have to say, it seems to me to be about as far away from a Fantasy Heart-Breaker as it could possibly be.  And even if I don't achieve my self appointed Prime Directive, at least I will have tried my absolute best.  And that's ok with me.  I feel proud of the fact that I worked towards a goal that I feel is worthy of my time and effort.  Whether or not people acknowledge that or find it useful... I can't control that.  So I leave it to destiny to work out.

So while some people may be thinking that Elthos is the ultimate Fantasy Heart-breaker, my opinion is that it is unlikely, and that the jury is still out on this anyway.  As far as I'm concerned it hasn't been anything other than a wonderful and wondrous hobby project for me all these years, and that I don't feel heart-broken about it. Nor do I think I am likely to, regardless of how things pan out in terms of its marketability the years to come.  It's been a great project, and I am having a tremendous amount of fun with it.  I expect to continue to do so ad infinitum.

Anyway, I just wanted to explain my viewpoint on that because someone recently mentioned that they had that idea that Elthos is "the world's ultimate Fantasy Heart-Breaker".  I found it amusing... but also I want to mention it was a bit confounding. Just the label itself seems intended to be discouraging.  I don't know who came up with that phrase or why, but what's wrong with people trying to put their projects out there in the public domain?  So what if they are not financially successful?  As long as they don't have freaky expectations of getting rich off of RPGs they should be safe from the dread doom of Fantasy Heart-Break.  I feel like I want to reject that label.  I don't like it.  I strikes me as a bit of a cruel thing to say about anyone's project, whether it is successful or not.

But who knows... it may turn out to be true in the end. Maybe I'm just fooling myself, and the work I'm putting into this project will be ignored by the community, it will have no success in the market, and I will eventually find myself heartbroken because of that.  Still though, I won't know that for a good long time, I suppose by then there's a good chance I'll be senile enough to really be enjoying myself in the World of Elthos!  Haha.  And in the meantime, I'm having fun and expect to continue doing so for a good long time.

I do hope you will take the time to look at Elthos RPG and the Mythos Machine. and decide for yourself if it is worthwhile, and potentially useful to you.  Enjoy.  :)

:)

1st Review of Elthos RPG & Mythos Machine!

News Flash - Just in!  The very first official independent review of Elthos RPG Mythos Machine  ... Wow!  I am Bloooowwwwwnnnn Awaaay!  WOW!!  This is really an awesome Review!


But first ... Please meet Mark Knights, one of the Elthos RPG Mythos Machine Open Beta Testers sent along by way of Rachel Ventura (Thank you Rachel!!). He's an awesome guy! 

After poking around at the thing during the Open Beta, Mark kindly decided to write up a review of the Elthos RPG & Mythos Machine. I could not possibly be more delighted. So after a few weeks of patient waiting while he continued his exploration of Elthos RPG and the Mythos Machine (as well as many other things besides, not the least of which setting up his own Gaming Shop business named "Games On Board"), I am now happy to present his review to you via a link to his blog article...Please take a few minutes to link over and read this amazing Review!

Elthos RPG – More Than Meets The Eye. 

I can't possibly thank Mark enough for this fabulous and incredibly positive review, and for the fact that he took the time to take a comprehensive look at the Elthos RPG Core Rules and give the Mythos Machine a thorough test drive. His observations about how they are designed to be a fully integrated system are spot on, and I feel he really grasps the big picture view of what makes Elthos RPG & Mythos Machine truly compelling. Many tens of thousands of Thanks to Mark Knights for this wonderful review!

Also, I would like to point you in the direction of Mark's "Games On Board" intel, so you can catch up on what he's working on, and offer your support as well.  Mark is an awesome guy, and I hope he has the most excellent of successes living the dream and running a business which will bring joyous gaming adventures and untold fun to the lucky folks in his neighborhood.   Thanks Mark!  And best wishes on your projects!

Elthos RPG Beta Test Report - July

Hi everyone.  July has seen some significant progress in the development of the Elthos RPG and supporting Web Application known as The Mythos Machine, and I'm quite happy to say that the feedback I've gotten has been tremendously helpful. Among the items that have been improved or are currently being worked on:

1. Beta Video Tutorials have been created and linked to a InfoGraphic display of the Primary Features of the Mythos Machine.
2. A variety of forms have been improved to make the application more attractive and more responsive.
3. World Templates have been added and I now have two, Fantasy and Wild West to select from. More will follow, one for each genre.
4. Site Administration and Reporting has been improved.
5. Rules Book Updates have been ongoing and I am now on Version #8 of the Final Draft (oxymoronic in a way, but ... )
6. Some minor bugs were crushed.
7. Improvements made to the World Print Report. New options for output were added, and filters improved.
8. Working on but have not completed a re-rationalization of the Magic Categories System.
9. Planning for the Wandering Monsters System drawn up and reviewed.
10.  I produced a tidy little FAQ regarding the project.

So, I'm making steady progress with it, although I admit it feels like I'm moving at museum speed. I also have to say that the revised Beta is working somewhat better than the Beta 24. It seems that it will be a slow pick up in terms of getting people on the system and trying it out. For one thing, we've had the big lead up to GenCon 2015 and my guess is that almost everyone who is into RPGs is there at this point... except yours truly, and I guess the rest of us who couldn't make it this year. So I can't expect to make much of a dent with the Beta Test at the moment. Understood. Still, I will keep trying.

My guess is that Elthos will be among the early crop of a new breed of GM Helper Software products, and it will take some time for these tools to become well known and popular. There's a lot of hurdles ahead. Pricing, marketing, and improving the products will take a lot of work, and probably a considerable amount of time to build up steam and take off. I'm ok with that. For one thing, I don't feel a dreadful need to rush ahead. Anyone who knows me and has followed the Elthos Project will know what a wonderful understatement that is. For those who don't, I started working on this project in 1978. In 2004 I taught myself programming in order to create GM Helper software based on my Elthos Rules. By 2000 I had a fully realized feature rich Visual Basic application that does a lot of what you see today in terms of features on Roll20, Fantasy Grounds and other similar applications, and quite a bit more that you don't see.

Unfortunately, the original Elthos Gamesmaster's Toolbox application was written in Visual Basic, which means that it was simply too buggy to send out into the wild. I tooled around with it and used it for my own games for half a decade before deciding to shelve it for the next big thing. So in 2006 I started work on a mini-system called the Elthos "One Die System" for use by the Literary RPG Society of Westchester, and then in 2007 I began programming that system for use via a Web Browser. My goal was to create a light weight mini-system that would be easy to learn, and easy to run, providing GMs with the ability to create their own Worlds based on the Elthos RPG rules. That system is called The Mythos Machine, and I've been using it among my friends since 2009, making various updates and improvements and making sure that the Rules and the Mythos Machine are coherent and work nicely. So far so good. I'm now in Open Beta and looking forward to people trying it out and hopefully getting useful feedback.

Ok. Back to the salt mine here. For those of you at GenCon  have a great time! I'm totally jealous.

But for those who are not at GenCon and maybe looking for an interesting RPG thing to check out ... Elthos RPG Mythos Machine might just be the thing. Please take a peek and let me know what you think of it. 

You can find it here: http://elthos.com

Just click the floating Cosmological Map card to get started, and make a free Beta account for yourself. Scroll down the Main Screen to find the Beta Tutorial Videos to get an idea of what the Mythos Machine is about. I do hope people will find it fun to use and useful!

If you want to get a quickie idea of what the Mythos Machine is about you can check out these videos which shows off a little bit about the Mythos Machine's Primary features...

Player Viewpoint
Create a World
World Configuration Options
Create Places in your World
Create Campaigns in your Places
Create Adventures in your Campaigns
Manage the Things of your World
Manage Races of your World 

 Enjoy!
:)

Thoughts on Medieval Knighthood

I posted a video of Plate Armor Combat in a recent post in the Google+ community I like to hang out in, and someone made a comment that I think is worth taking a moment to discuss. The comment was:

Well, you can get through plate armor, just not with a sword or a longbow. Windlass crossbows, lances, and most advanced bludgeons would work. But a knight's primary detail wasn't getting into melee with another knight, it was killing less armored (read: economically poorer) opponents. 

- Marty Lund

To which I posted this counterpoint reply:

Actually, +Marty Lund, I'm not so sure about that. As far as I know, and I've read quite a bit on this topic, there were extremely strict codes of conduct among the aristocrats and royalty in the medieval world. A king could not fight a lesser noble, no matter how much he may have wished to, because it was "beneath his dignity". Likewise, Knights could not fight those whom were beneath their dignity. The entire feudal concept, we should recall, was based on The Honor of One's Word embodied in the Feudal Oath... something everyone in that time took very seriously. That particular code was what bound the Knights to their Lord, and that is why it was held to be sacrosanct. Dishonor was far worse than death because it meant that your entire family could be ruined by your disgrace. Honorable conduct on the other hand ensured that your descendents would continue to benefit from your good graces. There's a lot to the feudal world that is not longer understood and there is a tendency (mostly stemming from medieval history professors who seem to promulgate this view) for modern people to believe that the feudal era was simply a forerunner of the Capitalist Era, and that everyone's motives were the same as what we think everyone's motives are today. However, a thoughtful study will show that motivations change with cultures, and the medieval culture was far more concerned with spiritual matters, truthfulness, honor, nobility and things of that ilk than people today can imagine. In fact the tendency of modern people is to scoff at it all (I've seen medieval studies professors do this) as though there could not possibly be any other motivations in the world than materialism, greed, lust and avarice. My inclination is to think that in the modern world that may well be true. But for our medieval forebears... not so much really.

As this pertains to RPGs and the subject of medieval fantasy, I'm curious as to what other role players out there think of this? In my world I have not actually explored this point of view all that much, but have hinted at it from time to time. My players tend to be rural hicks or low class city dwellers out for adventure. Even so, at least a few of them have noble aspirations, and so they fit in with the chivalric ideal to some degree. But the complex and intricate world of Noblesse Oblige is one that I plan to get into eventually. Perhaps as my player's characters advance themselves in society (which they do tend to do over time) they will run into the world of Chivalry and find out more about it. I suspect they will be surprised at (my vision of) the characteristics of that world, and how nobility actually functions. It is not the World of the Powerful lording it over the weak. It is a more idealized world of Defenders of the Good protecting the innocent from the predations of the evil. Something, perhaps, our own world today might benefit from doing a little more of, possibly.

Anyway, many learned people I suspect will disagree and advance the theory that the Medieval World was essentially no different than our own, and that the Knights and Kings were simply fleecing the poor and downtrodden because, after all, that's what the Dark Ages was all about. Maybe. I don't think so, but I'm willing to admit it's possible. But not in my World.

How about in yours? Do you play a medieval fantasy campaign? And if so, how do you express ideas of Chivalry? Or do you not? Very curious how others handle this question!

The Evolution of My GMing Style

What does it matter what a dice roll comes up showing? As the DM, I'm the only one that knows how much to add to the roll. Or what it is I'm rolling for at all. If I think I really crappy roll is about to royally screw over my players or ruin the story for everyone, I just make something up. As the DM, that's my job.

Richard Stephens

Richard Stephens - I think you kind of hit on the crux of the issue in my mind.  When we first started GMing back in 1978 that is exactly what our point of view was in my town.  All of us GMs had the same attitude about it, and we all pretty much played it the same way.   Later on things evolved.  But in the beginning, I didn't even tell my players what their stats were or even what the exact rules of my homebrew rpg were.   The reason for that was because we GMs collectively decided that it was better for the players not to know the mechanical details, as that information tended to draw them out of their characters and into a game-oriented frame of mind, but we believed that the purpose of the thing was to get immersed in someone else's world.  The mechanics could only inhibit that immersion.  So we had our reasons, and I won't say they were bad reasons.  It was our style in that era, and we played it for all it was worth.

But things changed.  Later, in the late 80's and 90's I decided that the players were at a tactical disadvantage by not knowing the tactical rules.  I began using battle maps to show them where their characters were and told them their movement allocation.  We played that style for about 5 years, and then I made another evolutionary shift.  I decided to give the Players their characters stats, and explained the rules to them.  This was so that they could make more intelligent decisions regarding their character's tactical maneuvers.  While this definitely made them more efficient and effective as players, and their Characters had a much better chance of survival in terms of the calculated odds, it did in fact manage to detract from the immersion.

When I noticed this effect I decided the immersion aspect is important enough to focus on.  So I deliberately established a Descriptive Narration style where I would go very light on stats information in-game, and describe things according to what the Characters know from their own senses.  Gone were the "You did 5 points of damage to the kobold" and in came "The wretch with the glassy eyes cries out, a hellish gash spurting blood on his right arm".

During these different phases of my GM style I held different philosophies about how to use the dice.  At first they were there for me to use as a guide.  I didn't cheat my players though.  I played according to my homebrew rules, and I distinctly played according to the dice.  And PCs died.  Quite a lot, actually.

Then in the next phase with the tactical combat, I let the Players roll their own attacks, and that was done above board, but I rolled for the NPCs and that was behind the screen.  I didn't cheat the players, though.  I simply kept the dice behind the screen because that was my habit from the prior era, and I felt that it kept the suspense high.

Now, in the current era, I am rolling everything above board, and I let the players know the stats of the monsters.  They help me adjudicate the action and make sure that the rules make sense and are working. Of course, this era has been a big play test of my revised mini-system, and that's why I made that particular change.  But over time I found that I rather liked the effect.   So long as I keep the players immersed in my world via Narrative Descriptions I don't think they mind having the immersion interrupted by tactical combat.  We just go in, and go out of the immersion on the basis of the kind of scene that is unfolding.  It feels quite natural at this point.

So yeah, I definitely hear ya.  I just think there are other modalities and ways of doing things that are just as valid, and just as fun.

Original Post on Google+ with discussion

Elthos RPG - Progress Report

Just a quick post on the latest progress with the Web Application, now tentatively (ok pretty sure) named "The Mythos Machine".

A number of my play testers and some friends out there in Cyberland suggested that players are going to want to have the option to Allocate stats to their Characters in some kind of point buy system.  At that time (5 weeks ago) the idea was only a glimmer in my eye, and I fretted that it would take a long time to build that into the site.  But I decided it is a good idea after all.  So I programmed the application to allow the GM to choose what kind of Character Generation System they want.

1. Roll Random
2. Roll Random + Allocation.
3. Pure Allocation

Roll Random allows the Player to click a button and generate their Character's Requisites (along with everything).  The Gamesmaster can decide in their World Configuration how many Re-Rolls Players are allowed (otherwise nothing would stop the ardent Player from rolling as many as they could until they hit a Maximal Character).  The default is 3 Re-Rolls.   It lets you keep all three and then decide which you want to play.

Roll Random + Allocation allows the Player to click a button and generate their Character's Requisites, but then gives them the ability to move points from one Requisite to another in order to optimize the Character for a wanted Class or Race.  They also get to see a list of Races the GM has allowed Players to select from and will roll the Character so that it fits the selected Race's minimum and maximum Requisite limits, and does so randomly within that range.  If they roll well they can move points around to beef up (and diminish) their Requisites.   Again the GM can define the number of Re-Rolls.

Pure Allocation allows the GM to predetermine how many points in total can be allocated to the Character, and this is based on the Race Generation Dice that the GM has chosen for their World.  The Race Generation Dice can be 1d6, 2d6, 3d6 or 4d6, and there's pretty good arguments for using any of them.   The lower the Race Dice number the faster the game play tends to be as all the numbers are small and easier to work with.  It also happens that all the numbers in the game tend to track along with that choice.  For example in a 1d6 Race Generation Dice game the maximum Life Points at 2nd Level is 12 (if the Character has a 6 Strength).   For a 4d6 system the same 2nd Level Character will have 24 Life Points.   Monsters and NPCs work the same way.  So augmenting the Race Generation Dice bumps up all of the stats of everything across the World.

Which leads me to the next major change to the system.  I decided that if I was going to go so far as to allow alternate Character Generation Methods, I should probably go all out and create a method by which the GM can choose their World's Race Generation Dice as well.  Hitherto this, there was only one option, the simplified and fast-play oriented 1d6 system.   So with this change I am no longer emphasizing the ODS as "The One Die System", but instead I am referring to it now as the "The Optional Dice System".  I think this is a big improvement as I understand completely the reaction I got on a few occassions where perspective Players pretty much scoffed at a One Die Six System.  After all, they reasoned, who the heck can do anything with just one six sided die to run an entire RPG World?   Well, actually, I can.  But that's a quibble I would just assume live without, and so now we have The Optional Dice System and everyone can be happy.

What turned out to be necessary in making The Optional Dice System was I needed to factor in that Races and Classes will have to change their Minimum and Maximum Requisites Boundaries, as well as Character's Life and Mystic Points.  So I automated that process in the background.  The system will tell the GM what the effects will be if they go, for example, from a 2d6 System to a 4d6 system, or from 3d6 to 1d6, etc.  They can take a look at the effects on Races and Classes, as well as Character's Life Points and Mystic Points.  If they like what they see, and save the new setting, then all the calculations are done in the background and everything in their World flexes appropriately, including Requisite Bonuses.   It's pretty nifty and took a bit of thought to get that piece right.  (Pat on the back).

In addition, I took the opportunity to neaten up the Character Screen and make it both more orderly, and more handsome at the same time.  I'm fairly pleased with the results... not so much because it looks perfect (yet) but because in doing so I made it a lot easier for future embellishments to the look and feel of the screen, and the site as a whole.

These changes represent the last of what I have in mind as far as large-scale systemic modifications to the Mythos Machine.  At least in his Phase.   So I'm very happy that's all behind me now.  It worried me a lot before Christmas because I though these changes would take several months.  Good coding practices along the way, however, added up and it took far longer than I had expected.  Usually in the world of programming it's the opposite of that.  So another pat on the back for me.  Happy Happy.  :)

So this has been a pretty solid three weeks of effort coming out of the New Years and I'm happy with the progress being made.  Ok, that's all.   Back to the Salt Mine.

PS - the site will be changing over to an Open Beta in the not too distant future as we polish  up the look and feel and get it into a final shape that I feel is acceptable enough to show to the general public.  I hope people will find it a useful and enjoyable RPG System, and I think it can easily be used in conjunction with Virtual Table Top systems like Roll20.  We'll see.  I'm of course hoping so, but frankly, I won't know until we put it out there and get some real world reactions to it all.

Ok - salt mine is calling.  Ciao!

Elthos UI - One Small Step

1st Ajax call of Elthos

I don't usually write about technical progress with the Elthos RPG website, but this advance is kind of a big deal for the UI.  Finally, after a long time of working on other more fundamental aspects of the project, mostly on the back end, I have made a number of forays into the UI / UX space.   My first major accomplishment (those who know how easy this actually is, don't laugh please - I didn't know until I tried it myself) is the implementation of JQuery Ajax to call a (don't laugh please) WebMethod and provide a data table that shows up in a label on the form.

For those not too in-the-know about this sort of thing, it means that the page does not "postback" to the server, but instead smoothly glides the data onto the page unobtrusively.  So the page no longer vanishes and then reappears with the data.   And it's a much nicer User Experience. 

Now that I have that down, I can make advances towards generally improving the UI (that is User Interface).  I'm pretty excited about this.  It represents a sea change in how Elthos will be managing data going forward.   Of course, that sea change won't happen overnight, and I have a bunch of alternate paths to explore before making a final decision on whether or not to use WebMethods, or WebAPI, or WCF technologies.  All of them do the same thing, and there's pros and cons apparently for each.  But still, I made my first WebMethod call successfully today, and its implemented on the production server and works rather nicely.  I'm delighted!  :)

Ok, now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The Elthos Cosmology Encapsulated

This diagram illustrates the conceptual framework of the Elthos World ... it includes the relative positions of both groups of Deities - the Cosmic Celestials and the Archetypes.

The Cosmic Celestials operate in the Realm of Divine Ideas, above the conscious mind.  The Archetypes, on the other hand, operate in the realm of the ID, below the subconscious mind.  Wilderness adventures will have a tendency to relate to themes pertaining to the Cosmic Elkron, and quests of the upper world.  Delving into dungeons and caverns will conversely explore the realms of the subconscious mind, and ultimately, if one goes deep enough, the realm of the Id.   So the higher or deeper you go the more mystical the nature of the exploration becomes.

The Cosmic Celestials are represented by Zodiac and Planetary signs, while the Archetypes are represented by the Major Arcane cards of the Tarot Deck.  Each Archetype has a corresponding Celestial.  So if you were to imagine the two groups of Ekron overlapped they would form two disks divided into twelve pie slices, and both disks forming two concentric circles, as can be seen below.

The Cosmic Celestials are pictographically represented here on the back face of the Elthos Tarot Deck. 

The Archetypes are represented in the Major Arcana of the Deck, and here's an example.

So what we see here is that this Major Arcana card is the Archetype of The Magician, and is associated to the Planet Mercury and the Zodiac Sign of Gemini. 

How this all plays out in terms of Elthos, the world, is that the Elkron are Cosmological Forces of the upper and lower realms of the Mind, and personifications of the Alignments to which they are associated.  They war and ally with one another in accordance with their natures and the movement of the Planets and Archetypes as they perform the Dance of the Spheres.   This all happens at the Cosmological level of the Campaign wherein the purposes and circumstances of the Elkron are charted. 

That said, it has been very rare for Player Characters to advance high enough or deep enough to experience or comprehend the true nature of the Dance of the Elkron, or even more than a passing glimpse of it.  However, it is there nevertheless, ever in motion, ever synchronizing elements of the back story with elements of the plot line.  It's quite an exquisite system in many ways.  Some day I do hope to rationalize it well enough to put into a book and explain to other GMs how it works, and what one might do with it.   Until then, however, its to be taken as a kind of philosophic art that enhances the Elthos world in some mysterious way, as yet quite unfathomable to the Player Characters (or other GMs).  Perhaps some day a particularly stellar mage will arise in the Campaign who will begin to make sense of it all.  

Free RPG Day @ Modern Myths

Another fine Free RPG Day hosted by Jim Crocker at Modern Myths in Mammaroneck ...  It was quite a fun event, and gathered about 50 Players and Gamesmasters of various and sundry RPGs...

Jim ran Lady Blackbird for 5...

A few fun game-tests of Elthos RPG Skirmish Board.  :) 

 We played several games, and my testing partner won all of them!  He was tactically smart, brash and tricky, and I must admit - I had a bought of particularly rotten luck!  ;)

There was lots of laughter and enjoyment in the hall that day!

Elthos RPG Weapons Skills Selection Update

My play testers have consistently identified areas that need further genericization in order to make a truly generic RPG game system that allows GMs to configure their worlds in whatever way they want. This is of course one of my primary objectives, and I'm grateful to my Play Testers for pointing out areas that need improvement.

One of those areas was the Edit Weapons feature. Previously I had no way to associate weapons directly with skills. However, since having learned skills for weapons usage affects the Attack Level calculations, it was necessary to include some code that associates certain weapons with certain Skills. An example was "Ranged Weapons". When the Character is using a "Missile" Weapon the code would go and look to see if that Character had learned "Ranged Weapons", and if so they got the correct Attack Level calculated. The problem was that this was quite brittle, and requires every GM to have a "Ranged Weapons" skill in their world, or missile weapons would not get calculated correctly. As long as the GM kept "Ranged Weapons" then everything was ok. But what if they want to change the name, or split it into alternative sets of Ranged Weapons, such as "Hand Guns" vs "Bows", which if you think about it, are two completely different skills.

Therefore I modified the site to allow GMs to associate Weapons with whatever "Combat" skills are in their World. Did you add a Combat Skill for "Butterfly Knives"? Ok, so now you can add a Weapon named Butterfly Knives and associate those to the Skill. Thus, when the Character purchases their Butterfly Knives and learns the Skill, he will have the correctly calculated Attack Level.

This was a very solid advance as it allows GMs much greater flexibility to define their Worlds the way they want.

Feb RPG Carnival - The Icy Embrace of Winter

This month's RPG Blog Carnival is kindly being hosted by Enderra Blog and covers the topic of The Icy Embrace of Winter.

Winter has several meanings and implications for my game.  I will cover them from the overt to the more subtle, breezing over each lightly for the sake of (relative) brevity. 

I like to GM my Campaigns according to the current season with the specific idea that the Players will have a better feel for what the World is like at that time for their Characters.   So in the Spring, Campaigns start during the Elthos Spring, and I do that for whatever season happens to be current when we start a new Campaign.  Of course Campaigns can last longer than seasons, so I either hustle things up to the current season, or if the Adventure warrants a delving into detail, a Winter in Elthos can last a year or more of game time.  Such as what occurred in my last big Campaign (Hobbington), which began in October of 2011 and ended in 2013.  I went with a Winter touch throughout. 

First off, Winter is harsh in Hobbington and the surrounding province because it is tucked away in the mountains to begin with.  The Township of Hobbington itself is situated on a crag more than halfway up Mount Zatok, making it cold generally, and a particularly bitter, ice-shrouded city in the winter.  The denizens there, a rough bunch of thieves, cutthroats and politicians, manage to hang on through each winter, with food supplies scarce, and

firewood even scarcer (they are high up on a mountain, and both food and firewood come from far below) somehow, but not easily.  Fortunately, the city is also heated in places by a few hot springs. And as those few who have dared to venture below into the sewer systems have discovered, the deeper and more ancient tunnels (the current occupants discovered the long unused city and colonized it under duress not long before the time of play), were quite a bit warmer than expected. No one has gone particularly far down in the tunnels (and returned to tell the tale) thus far, by the way.

So winter in Hobbington is a trial by ice for most of the people who live there.   In particular, the many sallow-faced orphans who beg in the streets, their tatters held tight around them, following after the few "Rat Stick" vendors, hoping for a hand out or a fallen piece of hot greasy meat.  Snow can come up to the waist in some places.   The wind is often bitterly freezing, and hungry, snacking on  fingers and toes with its frostbite-teeth whenever the opportunity arises (yes, the elements are often treated as something like anthropomorphic beings in Elthos).  And so, you would find that life in Hobbington in the winter is quite harsh, indeed, and winter storms and ice blasts there frequent and dire.

On the other hand, for some in Hobbington, although the winter is harsh, it is not without it's joys.  There are the winter festivals which center on Holy Days and Shrines to the Saints, and some people who have the wherewithal (the rich, as one might guess) do manage to have a bit of fun skating on the frozen canals that line the township, play winter games, and hold various intellectual contests and events that are best held indoors.  Winter, by those in the know, is considered "High Political Season" in Hobbington, as audiences tend to be captive.  The Player Characters, of course, deal with all of this by bundling up as best as possible, and hustling and bustling from place to place, like everyone else, in order to dodge back inside to cozier climes, such as the hearth of a local pub, tea shop, temple, or home.

In the latest adventure, as a matter of fact, the Party left Hobbington to go down the Long Stair to the Provinces.  Winter is harsh there, too, they soon found out.  Snow drifts can be chest height, and a lack of paved roads make the going painfully slow.  Frostbite is a perpetual possibility. There are few places to spend a warm night, and so camping equipment such as warm tents are essential.   Twice the Party got engulfed in snow storms during their travels and nearly got lost in the white haze.  Fortunately, they wisely prepared themselves with the appropriate winter gear.   At the worst they traversed an area of hills south of Hobbington which has huge ruts and deep ravines, covered by snow, with fathomless pits leading down into the dark icy depths.  Crossing one of those ravines was almost the end of several of the Characters as they in inadvertently (and quite unwisely, I thought) chose to tether themselves with ropes to the largest party member (huge), who also happened to be the clumsy oaf of the group, Bantum.  Had it not been for their good luck, they'd have been plunged down the ravine with him.  Fortunately, although he slipped, he did not go over the edge into the dark icy abyss below, nor bring them all careening downward with him.

Furthermore, Elthos is populated with various breeds of monsters that could be described as Wintery.  There are Frost Giants, of course.  And their diminutive, albeit hardly less deadly cousins, the Frost Ogres, who are hunters and pray on the unwary winter travelers like wolves.   But perhaps the most persistently dangerous enemies in the forests around Hobbington are none other than the Wolves themselves.  They are cunning hunters, cruel, and as deadly foes as you'd care to meet.  And in winter with the snow slowing everyone's movement to a crawl, attack levels thwarted by frozen limbs, and numbed fingers... well, you can imagine.  It can be quite harrowing.

And so Winter is treated in my world as a form of deadly terrain, personified, with monsters.  A hostile one, generally, for Adventurers.  Hint-to-the-wise: it might be better to start a Campaign in the Spring time after all.  ;)

At deeper level, another Winter has crept into my world in the idea of the Winter King.   In ancient Celtic Lore, as I understand it from reading lots of books by Caitlin and John Matthews there was a long standing myth of the

Winter King who in some sense, it is thought, represents the Old Order of things, a King past his prime, one who is soon to be inevitably replaced by the next generation - that of the new and rising Sun King, or the Prince of Spring.   The myth, of course, is tied to the changing of the seasons and the renewal of life after the bleak months of winter.  As such, the myth of the Winter King is infused with the Mysteries of Transformation and Magic, and speaks to the ancient belief of the cyclical nature of Life and Death, and Life and Death, and Life and Death...  Taking this idea I have woven something along these lines into the deeper layers of the Elthos back story.   Elthos, as some of my readers may know, is as much a fairytale World as it is anything else.   And so the conflict between the Winter King and the Prince of Spring who struggle for the hand of Sovereignty, (aka Flower Maiden), is complex and rich with diverse and ancient themes.   These themes show up occasionally in Elthos Campaigns as Player Characters sometimes (rarely, I admit) come in contact with the Mythological Beings that permeate the world.  Those encounters, if all goes well, may reveal something of the mythological underpinnings of the Elthos World, and what the true nature of the Elthos story really is.  Rare, but it has been known to happen.  Of course I've already given a bit more away than I intended.  I'll stop there, if you don't mind.  I wouldn't want to spoil anything for my players, you know.

So in conclusion, on the overt side, Winter is a dire opponent of Adventurers, a bane of travel, and can just as easily bring death and ruin as any giant or invading army.  On the other hand, Winter in Elthos is also a Mythic Being of great importance, a sustainer of the Universal Order of things, often wise, often bitter, and always someone, or something, to pay one's utmost respect to.