Stil Out There in Blog Land

Things have been a bit weird of late but for my few but loyal fans , just a reminder. I am still out there in Blog Land and I will have some more posts about games both new and old school.

High Trust Gaming

We call it Robot Chicken Night

Really its just when some of the players can't show up for the main game or the GM is feeling too tired. What we do is well make up something. Most of the time we make up some kind of simple rules and we just try anything. The only real rule is everyone has to be OK with it and to have fun.

In the past we've done police procedural/horror “Night Shift” post apocalyptic unfrozen convicts “Chosen Frozen” violent action “Hit Squad” and even with a new player never before GM'd game of Avatar the Last Air Bender “Three Elements Team Are Go!”

Rule have been all over the map, d6 systems, d20 1-4 Crit Fail, 5-16 Succeed 17-20 Crit Succeed, 3d6 GURPS like, d10's whatever's handy.

And you know, it works really well.

Why it does is not a mystery.

We have highly functioning high trust players. No Dinner Table Knights but just good solid gamers willing to lead and follow and help each other out.

This allows us the freedom to experiment, the ability to quickly end bad games (Faerie Cafe was not a success ) and the ability to trust both GM and Player to work together to bring on the fun.

And believe me not every group has that.

You see ,the default assumption Gygax and Arneson, all full grown mature adults had was that gamers were also imaginative mature grownups and in the 20 and 12's that is not always the case.

And no I am not talking about the games we played at 13 and 14 (Gor themed D&D shudder) or as kids, at that age a little juvenile behavior is to be expected.

No , I am referring to games where the players are theoretically adults. And I mean theoretical . Unfortunately many “adult” players these days have issues and those players, the immature, the self centered and the emotional runts can ruin any game.

They make high trust games, old school games difficult and suck up the fun with their issues and drama. Yuck.

Being there are so many, you can't always spot the or ban them much as you want to, you adapt and you play like B.A. Felton at least till its not fun, than its back to X-Box.

Happily however my current group while younger by a decent measure than me or the original founders were , are all adults .

But by dint of them having had had responsibilities and good parental investment they are as grown up as they should be for their age and as people were back in the founding era of the hobby.

That means they can do Old School , New School, our fave GURPS or Robot Chicken Night with aplomb which means more fun for all us.

Thats wonderful and having been exposed to a lot of bad gaming I am so aware how great it is to have a group like that. And so if any of y'all are reading this, thansk for being awesome.

So how about some mostly random D&D?

Yes seriously.

I was thinking about this. You roll almost everything.

Start at Level 0

Pick Race

Roll Stats

Roll Social Status

Roll Gifts (thats a custom bennies system I am working on)

Roll Staring Skill (like the old secondary skills system not adventuring skills)

Roll Starting Gear

Get you L0 Hit Points (4+con)

have a little adventure



Now you hit L1

Get you HP (Max +Con)

Get some limited class abilities

Roll on a version of the cool chart that Zack came up with for 2 class abilities

Roll Starting Gear and Money

Roll any other skills, traits, junk, proficiency I plan on using.

You guys life starts now.


Between adventure sessions (in the city etc) roll random events and at level up of course roll on some version of my version of Zack's table.

About the only thing you don't roll ironically is hit points. Those are Greyhawk Average

So does that sound like fun or too random?

Community Question . Old School Classes, Few or Many ?

This one is easy, do I go with few classes (3-6) in my old school or take advantage of one of the many rules sets I have for making custom classes and go with many?

Unarmed Martial Arts of Midrea

Martial Arts that emphasize unarmed combat are far less common in a world with horrible monsters and where almost everyone travels armed with at least a dagger or cudgel.However there are a number that have developed over time or from pieces of other arts and that are widely taught and used. Here are six of them.


#1 Combat Wrestling

#2 High Hand and Foot

#3 Sama-Dab

#4 Initiate of the Litany

#5 Street Fighters Way

#6 Sport Wrestling

Armed Martial Arts of Midrea

As I mentioned in my last post I had a Midrea post in the hopper.

Knowing my readers this won't be most interesting or high traffic post but its one I wanted to do.

Midrea being a realm of gates has been exposed to Martial Arts styles of many cultures (Mostly European) from over a millennium. Technological and ecological changes for example have made the rapier and the smallsword passe and a lack of teachers and just preference has eliminated many Asian weapons from general use.

Over the 15 centuries of Midrean habitation these are the two dozen armed hand to hand combat styles that have proven to be the most useful and lasting.

#1 Masters of Defense

#2 Dagger Fighting

#3 Aramite Knife Dancing

#4 Cut and Thrust Fencing

#5 Eastern Fencing

#6 Sword and Buckler (with occasional "weapon" and buckler styles)

#7 Pollaxe Fighting

#8 Staff Fighting

#8 Stick Fighting

#10 Shortsword Fighting

#11 Weapon and Shield Fighting

#12 Spear Fighting

#13 Polearm Combat

#14 Slaver Method

#15 5 Elements Fighting

#16 12 Fold Path Sword Work

#17 Whiskey Stick Dance

#18 Speed Fighting

#19 Dream Blade (also Dream Staff)

#20 Discipline of the Forms

#21 Sword and Dagger

#22 Longsword Fighting

#23 Spear and Shield

#24 The Hala

What people are reading on my blog

I tend to write whatever I feel like. After all this blog is just for fun and not making me a dime, so the only audience I absolutely have to please is me.

I went through the most list and took advantage of Google's excellent analytic tools just to find out what people are reading.

The number #1 most viewed pots was my short SOPA protest post. It had well over 1000 readers and to y'all I say, thanks. You helped all of us save the Internet (for now anyway)

Now on a more focused note my readership is first and foremost here for casual talk about Old School. These hit decent numbers and often elicit conversation.

Stuff about me, house rules, chat about stuff I am playing that kind of thing, seems to do pretty well too. Its odd to think that anyone cares. The number #2 most read post, my old Pathfinder/3x class list fit here with well over a hundred reads as did the #3 post , an old school house ruled character of all things.


What people don't read is anything Midrea related. This does not surprise me. People rarely buy worlds and in my estimation rarely care much about most of them. There are exceptions with fan bases (Realms, Greyhawk, Arduin) but as a general rule, don't bother with your world unless its for your peasure. No one but you and maybe your players will care.

Also Pathfinder posts don't do well either, again not a surprise either. Most of the cool blogs sending traffic are old school and thats what people are here for.

A last curio, GURPS folks seem to like my blog. I get a lot of GURPS hits on my rare articles, maybe from the SJ Games forums or from some of the other blogs. Regardless its something to consider.


Anyway there you have it, what peopel are reading.

As for me I want by readers to enjoy their few moments here but push to shove "its my bloggy and I'll post what I want too."

OK that was silly, anyway I'll try to get more old school and less Midrea (at least after the one post in the hopper) and maybe a bit more GURPS too.

If any of y'all have things you want to see feel free to chime in too. The blog is really better with us not just me.

Thanks for reading