Gaming Road Trip and a Start to a New Campaign

Our old gaming group was together again in person.  All except Rusty, but we'll catch up with him later this summer.  We got together and had a board game night.  We ended up playing Munchkin (read more about it here) for the first time.  I had the starter pack for about a year and finally was able to break it out.  It was a blast.  You'll see the result in the left hand column of my running total of the year. 

On Saturday we went on a game store road trip.  The three of us hadn't gone on a road trip for nearly twenty years.  We went on a pilgrimage to the Warzone Matrix in Cleveland.  I love that store.  It's like an archeological dig into gaming's history.  Just layers and layers of gaming stuff in every corner.  I found a set of the Spell Compendium's I've been looking for and after a little wheeling and dealing I got the set for $100.  Which was great.  Then I ended up buying 3 Munchkin accessory packs.  Yup.  Damn you Munchkin!

The second store we hit was...well it pretty much sucked.  After an amusing encounter in the parking lot with two 'dudes' trying to move a truck that was blocking everything the game store with a huge reputation was underwhelming.  I guess if I was into Magic the Gathering and it did have a bunch of board games, but as for role-playing stuff, D&D and Pathfinder.  There were a few other core rule books for other systems, but the owner said the only thing he sold were Pathfinder and D&D. 

The one funny note was there was a cork-board with gamers looking for gamers.  One guy's ad looked something like this.

Me: 30 year-old gamer, Teacher, Not Smelly

Looking for: RP gamer, adult, Not Smelly

The last night we were together we got to play a mega game of Munchkin with all the additional packs I bought.  You need to be a professional card shuffler to play it once you have all those cards added in.  It was a good weekend of gaming. 

Rusty Battle Axe is feeding us information about his campaign he will be running us through.  Still trying to decide what I want to play.  I actually considered playing a bard for the very first time in my gaming career, but don't see that on the list of classes.  Looking forward to exploring a new world and see what kind of trouble I can get to into there.  I'll probably blog about my character selection process.

Interview with Bob Liddil : Part 1

I discovered Bob about 20 years ago when I bought Apothecary on the Street of Dreams. It's been a pleasure to learn about his history with gaming and his trials of publishing. Here is Part 1 of the interview with Bob. I hope you enjoy.

SHORTS: Everyone has an initiation or discovery story about how they got into gaming. How did you discover gaming?

LIDDIL: It literally happened on a “dark and stormy night” back in 1977 or so. My friend Jack Powers invited me over to his house for a “snow storm and popcorn party.” I was one of a party of 6 players he introduced to this neat new game called “Tunnels and Trolls.” It was the most fun I’d had in a really long time and it was a great intellectual exercise as well. That night, more than two feet of snow fell on Southeastern Ohio, paralyzing the roads, so basically we slaughtered Orcs until 3AM and then crashed on whatever furniture we could find.

At that point, having spent the entire night trying to keep Damian The Dangerous alive in the roadways and dungeons of “The World” I was totally hooked. Together, we wrote a classic fantasy adventure story, albeit orally, and for me, as an already budding writer, that was just the coolest thing ever.

Next morning, we were awakened by a car crashing into the side of Jack’s house that took out part of the back porch and kitchen. It skidded on the snow and came right into the building. Ironically, Damian had gotten himself trapped on a runaway wagon in the game the night before and almost got his 3x5 card torn in half. He and I both lived in perilous times


SHORTS: Independent publishing is prevalent in the gaming industry now, but back when you published “Griswald Grimm's Little Shop of Poisons and Potions” in 1988 what obstacles did you need to overcome?

LIDDIL:In the very beginning when Dimensions and Doors, Castles and Kingdoms and Demons and Notmen, my first three were published, only two kinds of typesetting existed. Professional typesetting was messy, expensive and cumbersome. Or one could use an IBM Selectric for the different type fonts of the day.

By the time LSPP came out, personal computer typesetting was coming of age and I was learning how to use PageMaker. Probably the biggest obstacle on the first book was just the physical process of assembling the book. To save money, Dallas Nillsen, my partner in Pandora’s Treasures, threw a “collating party” at her house in Logan, Utah. Once collated, the print shop wire bound them and they were ready to go. It really wasn’t much of a hassle for me, because she handled everything other than the actual typography and writing.

In the late 80’s the single most difficult obstacle to overcome had to be the cost of printing. Analog printing is inefficient on “short runs” and not cost effective at all. The cost of a single unit in a 1000 unit run was typically more than $5 per book. Since the wholesale price to a distributor typically seldom exceeded $6.00 the profit margin was usually a wash.

Only selling the book at retail at conventions allowed me to sell it at all. Distributors seldom bought more than 25 at a time so I would say that getting the finished product into the hands of the gamer was my biggest obstacle, that and the fact that Dragon Magazine wouldn’t let me advertise because of the title. TSR were in deep conflict with the Christian Right at the time and the words “Poisons and Potions” were so inflammatory that the book was actually banned by the Wizards of the North!

Coming up with the formulas was easy. I am a very irreverent game master and a great believer in “look before you touch.” I play tested the poisons and potions at a game convention in Salt Lake City in an “ancient apothecary dungeon” and killed virtually every gamer in attendance. The days of drink anything and watch what happens pretty much ended that weekend for those kids.

It still makes me laugh to remember that 13 hour-long game during which I must have signed five dozen “Certificates of Death,” a product of mine in the late 1980's.


SHORTS: Your products from 20 years ago reflect a lot of what's going on in gaming today, being self-published and system neutral supplements. What was the response then to your books being system neutral?

LIDDIL: System neutrality was a necessity during the decades of the 70’s thru 90’s. Gary Gygax and TSR would sue you where you stood for merely mentioning D&D compatibility specifically, where Rick Loomis encouraged T&T fans to “do their thing,” and Steve Jackson was cool as ice every time someone mentioned GURPS.

I always believed that the heart of role-playing was in the storytelling. That’s where my emphasis pointed. Also, having been introduced to T&T prior to D&D, I acquired that sort of “anti-establishment” rebellion attitude right off the bat.

System neutrality the way I published, with no real rule set and compatible with every single rule set was a scarcity. Most Kitchen Table Publishers of my era were broke, stayed broke or went broke.

Lou Zocchi and Gamescience were the obvious exception, and Steve Jackson as well.

You can find more information in Part 2 of the interview soon, but if you just can't wait head over to Digitropolis where Bob makes his home on the web.

Meet Whimpy. The Magic d20.

Gamers are a super superstitious bunch especially with their dice. Whimpy is the elder statesmen of my dice. He was the first d20 I owned and he's still going strong 30 years later. I don't remember how he got his name. That memory is lost in the fog. But here is the thing, even if I had a hundred attacks in one round I would rather roll Whimpy a hundred times rather than roll a hundred d20s at once. He's my magic d20. Whimpy has the ability to roll a 20 when I am in desperate need of one. He loves mixing it up. If I need a critical hit all I need to do is ask. But there is a catch. Like most magical items, this one has a drawback. Whimpy can't make a saving throw to save my life. Completely useless. Whimpy has no interest in the defensive side of things.

Through the years I have gravitated toward GURPS and lost touch with Whimpy. Only six siders need apply at Steve Jackson Games. Whimpy waited patiently in the darkness of the drawer along with all the other four, eight and twelve siders. With the new excitement stirring around an Old School revival Whimpy has come into light once again. Even though his corners are a little rounder, his colors are chipped and fading he still manages to assist me in striking down foes with a thunderous roll. But please, oh please, keep that Finger of Death away from me.