The Epic Adventures of Paul the Nice Thief, part 1

 During our quarantine, I started a role playing campaign with my older son, who turned six this summer. I hesitate to call it “pen and paper” because as my player can’t read yet, there is hardly any pen&papering involved. After the first session I did write down the basic facts for his character though, so I guess it qualifies. The system is almost purely narrative-based. As we started playing while walking in circles in our backyard, pushing the stroller with our sleeping toddler, there are not dice involved.

The character is just a scant few points of data: Name, class, health points, experience points, skills (three to begin with) and equipment. I guided my son through the character creation process by asking him if he wanted to be a warrior, a thief, an archer or a wizard. Of course, he chose to be a thief (his favorite in Heroica as well as Pixel Dungeon). I gave him 4 HP for that, as well as the starting skills sneaking, climbing and reading tracks. Then he got to choose a weapon and a starting item of power. He chose a set of three throwing knives and a disguising cape that could render you invisible while immobile and holding your breath.

I decided to start my son’s adventuring career with a classic premise: The dungeon run. A wizard named Xerax has a tomb that is rumored to be guarded by traps and foul creatures. It is located a day’s march from a nearby village and Paul, our thief, has heard of it. Next up: Paul’s first adventure. I will write it up straight-faced – my son playing a grown-up (as he thinks what that would be like) leads to some Vincent-Adultman-situations which are great fun for me. And perhaps for you as well, my fives of readers.

I have created a monster

 

I’ve recently introduced my son, 6, to roleplaying. While we were in quarantine, walking tight circles in our small garden, trampling what was left of the grass into the ground, we talked. And I said something along the lines of “Let’s play a game. I tell the story, you tell me what the main character does. It’s what I do with my friends when we talk on the computer. Let’s start by creating your character.”

My son was doubtful for about two minutes, then he was hooked. He’s been demanding more and more adventures every day, more than I can feasibly make up between working, keeping up with the family, and two children. But that’s another story. This one is about my son becoming something terrifying: A would-be Skaven-player of Warhammer Fantasy.

How did that happen? Well, the other weekend he asked me what my favorite monster was in the now almost daily roleplaying sessions. “Ratling,” I said, “that’s why they are in almost every game I develop or lead.” My son wasn’t convinced and told me he liked skeletons. I said I prefer zombies because I kind of see how they could feasibly function (one of the drags about being an adult: Weaker suspension of disbelief). We agreed to disagree.

Then the kid asked me if I had invented ratlings myself. I told him no, they’ve been around in some form or the other. Skaven from Warhammer for example. I followed up with a short, child-friendly description of what a tabletop-strategy game is. Then I whipped out the phone, googled some images of Skaven armies. “Did you play them?” “No, they were too expensive for me. I had evil elves.” “Can we play this game with my toys? Legos?” “Sure, why do you think there are still mechs left over in the Legos that you inherited from me?” The conversation drifted elsewhere.

Then, while getting ready for bed later, he talked to my wife. She came to me “He’s been talking about saving all his money to buy an army to defeat you with rats?” the mother of my children asked me, knowing full well that this was about some form of nerdery by her men that her normie-brain couldn’t possibly understand. “Fuck,” I thought, this wasn’t going where I had hoped. I gave a her a quick-rundown of what tabletop-strategy games are, then of my youth with hundreds of Marks wasted on the stuff. “I will defeat you with the army you never had, Papa!” my son called from upstairs. “No!” I fathered back, “You are not going to get into Warhammer before you’re at least 13 or 14!” Then to my wife who was standing closer to me: “It’s definetly note made for kids.” “But he wants to save up for it.” “And he can and if he does, he’ll have enough money for a Skaven army by the time he is 14.”

The story doesn’t end there.

The next day, he was in preschool. Quarantine had ended in the meantime. When he came back, he had two Eurocents in his pocket that he didn’t have when he left: He had told his peers about his plan to defeat his father with a ratling army. And one boy had actually pitched a coin he had on him into this quest. My son had started crowd-funding his way to a Warhammer-army.

I never wanted for him to get into what my former roommate and friend Justin calls “plastic crack”. I have created a monster. Should I curate stories of my younger years more? I don’t know but it feels like I succeeded as a nerd and failed as a father. Not good. Oh well. I don’t even know if I still have my dark elves. If so, they must have been gathering dust somewhere at my dad’s place for almost two decades. I’ll have to clean them up. Well. I guess I have eight years to get them into fighting shape.

Book Idea: Cogite Ergo Sum

 I've been thinking: What if you made a book that pretends to be a chatbot that pretends to be sentient? Could one do that? I mean, you can have computation of sorts by making a choose-your-own-adventure and have the reader do some of the lifting by following instructions to find certain pages. Then you can add a couple of bits of RAM/Memory like I did with Der Dornengarten. Can you make a book that pretends to have a conversation with the reader, arguing for its own sentience, perhaps even be convincing in it? I'll have to ask a friend who studied philosophy what the killer arguments would be and then make up ways to have them flow into a conversation where one side can only pick out of multiple-choice answers like they're playing a video game. It's just an idea but what if...

Free Release: Zombie Mansion

 A new fully-fledged release by your truly: I've been slaving away what little spare time I have next to two kids and my day-job in order to delve deep into the bowels of what Twine can do. I present to you:

This is my idea of what a text-adventure-version of Resident Evil is like. I made my own story with my own main character for it but the beats are there: A mansion full of zombies. Combat that always puts you at risk of injury. A handgun, a shotgun, a close-combat-weapon and the almighty magnum for weaponry. Inventory-juggling. Finding secret items and keys. Lots of optional content.

If you play, do so mindfully: It's unlikely, you'll make it on the first attempt. There are several routes one might go and they are centered around what weapon you get second. There is also a speedrun you could try, killing only a few zombies. It is risky though. I recommend, methodically killing nearly alls zombies. You do not have to fight the bosses though. Avoid if possible. Draw a map. Study movement patterns of said bosses. Be smart. And

Have fun!

How big does a dungeon need to be?

 When it comes to dungeon sizes in games, the differences are vast. From a design perspective, the bigger of a dungeon you create, the smaller the level of detail you can put into each room. I've been experimenting a lot with world sizes in my games. The trick is to make a few rooms seem a lot bigger. But how do we do that?

Three Horror Game Scenarios

Pen and paper horror is ideally made in one-shots. Two of these I have GMd before, using my crad-drafting little pnp-system. It's possible I'll make some of these into one page dungeons or something similar at some point. For now:

The Drillhole Trilogy

1. Oilfield

• You are the survivors of a plane crash. The engine of the passenger jet just cut out.
• Clinging to floating seat cushions the high waves carry you towards a darkened oil rigg.
• Inside, everyone is dead. There are weird symbols scratched into the walls.
• There is a shoggoth in the main tank. It's angry.
  
• Twist ending: The world has ended. You are among the few survivors.
• You must stop a second event. The source of the mass death is on this oil rigg.
  

2. Abyssal Entrance

• You are a group of urban explorers somewhere in the Russian hinterland.
• An old research installation is legendary among your ilk. It is completely abandoned.
• Radio picks up scratched transmitions. They turn out to be coded christian prayers.
• The bore hole that was used to explore the depths is at the bottom of a strip mine.
• Down there there is a record of a prayer powered by a radionuclear battery.
• In the 60s, the Soviets accidentally drilled a hole into hell.
  
• The record needs to be replaced. If it isn't or if it is turned off, hell will invade earth.

3. Icy Prison

• You are political prisoners in a penal outpost all the way out on Pluto.
• Every day you get to suit up and do geological exploratory digs.
• One of your fellow inmates catches something from the hole and goes insane.
• He infects some staff. They start killing people.
• You team up and try to survive.
• Can you fix up a space craft? Wait for help in several months time?
• Or do you stop the transmission of this mimetic disease before it spreads to other worlds?

10 Sapient Aliens

Dan over at Throne of Salt posted 10 sapient aliens for Mothership. I figured, I'd join the fun. Some of these I have actually used in roleplaying, others are brand new.

Note that in my games, the word "alien" is derogatory when talking about a sentient being. Aliens are animals. People are Xenos.