Gamma World Drawn by Thirteen Year Olds.

Here are some old Gamma World related pictures drawn by my friends who played in a particularly long running campaign inspired by Dune and Robotech and Heavy Metal magazine and anything else we happened to be into at the time. These drawing would have been done (I'm guessing) in 1985 when we all around thirteen.

This last one was drawn by Yours Truly. I don't totally remember who the Gathian tribes were, but I do remember they has a cool looking city. I'm thinking they were some kind of cross between Logan's Run and the Robotech Masters.

Old School DMs: How Do You Prep For Running a Game?

The blog has been fallow recently, but I'm back and so here's my initial return post. Hopefully some people are still paying attention. Anyway. . .

I'm interested in hearing about how old school DMs prep for their games. In the comments please answer the following questions:

1. How much prep do you do for a typical session? How much time?

2. What materials do you have in front of you at the table?

3. How much do you actually have written down vs. what's floating in your head?

4. Have you found this changes over the course of a campaign?

Edit: Added the "How much time?" part to question 1.

1970s Fantasy Art: Philippe Druillet

Philippe Druillet is, along with Moebius and Caza, one of the founding visionaries of the movement that took french comics by storm in the 1970s. This movement found its locus in the magazine these artists founded known as Metal Hurlant. The American Heavy Metal magazine was the version of this material that manifested in the States, but Heavy Metal as a magazine lacked the artistic and idealogical vision of its progenitor. Metal Hurlant was about taking comics where they had never been while Heavy Metal seemed caught in an adolescent fascination with the "adult material" it featured. Now I retain a certain fondness for Heavy Metal as it was the first place I ever saw work by Bilal, Moebius, Druillet, and many others, but I also can see its limitations as compared to the creative vitality of Metal Hurlant.

I had largely forgotten about Druillet in particular until several years ago when I stumbled upon a copy of his Lone Sloane/Delirius collection at a used bookstore. This was roughly translated edition put out by Heavy Metal in the mid-seventies, but that didn't matter: my brain was already smashed all over the insides of my skull. The comics in this book were a fever dream of what every Heavy Metal album cover tried to be and failed. Here was the Heaviest Metal of them all.

Few artists have captured the same infernal imaginative ferocity that fills the work of writer's like Lovecraft, Clark Aston Smith, and William Hope Hodgson but Druillet has. His work evokes a demonic universe of howling gargoyles, beastial cyborgs, and satanically designed interstellar warships. Well you don't need me to TELL you. Just look at what this man puts down on paper.

I'm uncertain of the dates of many of these pieces, and Druillet has continued to work up until the present. Its entirely possible that some of these are from the eighties or even later, but I'd argue that his work retains a certain resonance with the decade which birthed D&D.

Here's a youtube video featuring more of his work:

Pendragon Images

I've been thinking a bit about Pendragon recently.  In 2008 we ran a Pendragon campaign where we played out the Uther period in The Great Pendragon Campaign.  We're thinking of playing Pendragon again in a few months when our 4E campaign comes to a good stopping place.  I did a review of the game a while back which you can look at HERE.  So here's some classic Arthurian images for you:

OD&D One Shot (Part I)

Last month, I ended up running an OD&D game for my weekly group that was very enlightening. We’ve been playing 4E weekly for a while now, and while I’ve enjoyed it-the combats do take quite a while. I’ve likely mentioned this before but here’s our situation: the group meets for around three to four hours and in that time it’s difficult to get through more than two encounters. Sometimes we only get through one! That said, the combats are quite nice in that the monsters create different tactical situations based on their particular abilities. This aspect of 4E’s monsters is one of the best innovations to the game. Combat is fun and is really the primary focus of the game.

One of my regular players wasn’t able to attend, so I thought we’d try a one-shot of OD&D as a change of pace. After having played in some great games at the So-Cal Mini-Con III, I was inspired to let the players have a free hand in making stuff up. I explained as per the OD&D rules you could play a fighter, a magic-user, a cleric, or anything else that you wanted to play. I was determined to let them play whatever they wanted.

I had them roll 4D6 in order (AD&D style drop the lowest) as I was feeling generous. I probable didn’t have to do that because my first player right out of the gate rolled some of the best stats I’ve ever seen on a character. AD&D style stat rolling certainly makes a big difference!

I also started them at third level as per Gygax’s OD&D house rules which were floating around in various places on the web a few years ago (I think I first saw them was at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse). Weapon damage was 1D6 with an additional +1 for two handed weapons.

One of the players arrived before the others and so we were discussing what he might like to play when he asked, “Can I be somebody from Earth who’s trapped in this world. What if he’s a gamer. He’s survived because he knows quite a bit about D&D monsters from his gaming days.”

“Okay. That’s fine. What sort of abilities do you think he might have—is he more of a Magic-User type?”

“No, I want him to be more of a regular guy. So I’ll basically make him a fighter.”

“But he’s from another world and he’s got this fantasy gamer knowledge?”

“Right.”

Thus was born Tom Prosec. Trapped in a world he never made! His special ability was eventually settled on as “Planar Weirdness”, and we were off. Tom also acquired a few henchmen. He asked at the last minute if one of them could be an Ewok.

“Fine, one of your henchmen is an Ewok. He’s got leather armor and a spear.”

Another player rolled up a Chaotic Elven cleric named Darkwood Fiddlestix who was a worshipper of Gozer the Gozarian (“The Destructor”). I only gave him some of the Elven abilities as he was varying from the typical model of the Fighter/Magic-User Elf character. His henchmen were two dwarves named Tomax and Zamot.

Rounding out the group was a Dwarf Wizard. Okay, so I decided she must be from an offshoot mutant race of magical using Dwarves rather than one of OD&D’s “true” Dwarves. Her name was Kore, and she had high charisma and five henchmen including a Lizardman who was named “Bob”.

With all that they were ready to descend into the dungeons of Castle Dragonscar.

Part II coming soon.

Music From Another World

I'm currently on an Arthurian kick and so here's a song from another world: France in 1300 A.D.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN-jTlDx9BI&feature=PlayList&p=9B20E40BC97DCC4D&index=0

Marvel Super Heroes Campaign Wiki

Here's a link to the campaign wiki for the Marvel Super Heroes game that our GM has put together for the game. He assembled it our the last few weeks, and he's got quite a lot of good stuff there including some incredible artwork he's assembled from across the interwebs. We're playing the children of various heroes who've belonged to the Avengers of this alternate Marvel Earth. For example my character, Archon, is the child of Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell) and Ms. Marvel.

We ran our first session of the game on Friday and it was a total blast. Tempest, the son of Thor and another one of our PCs, got a grandslam and knocked Ultron a whole city block. I figured out how to get Avengers Mansion's defenses back online by smashing a gizmo in one of Ultron's vehicles. The system did a great job of giving the feel of a Marvel comic book. We've added a couple of tweaks to the combat system, but we're mostly playing it by the book.

The link for the wiki is HERE.