Batman V Superman: The Dark Knight Doesn't Return

   I have stated before that Hollywood is like a wood chipper – throw any source material in there, good or bad, and it’s instantly turned to crap. Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, you’re up.

   Haven’t seen Batman V Superman yet, but I will. I just wanted to post something about it right away, and maybe I’ll write a second post on that same topic after I have actually seen the movie. For now, here are my preliminary impressions.

   They seem to have rubbed out my favorite character: Carrie. Why? It makes no sense. Look at all the Millennial stuff out there: The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Shannara Chronicles – new trend now is to have strong female heroines. You even have Cinderella in Space, a.k.a. Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I’ve got nothing against Girl Power, but why scrap the one strong female character that’s already present in the source material? Carrie is right there, DC, she’s right under your nose!!!

   Good God almighty, this is painful.

   I loved Carrie since I first read that book. She is awesome, and the only “hopeful” character in an otherwise grim and depressed world. Come to think of it, The Dark Knight Returns is kind of her story. Parts 1 and 2 make up her origin story. In parts 3 and 4, you sometimes get the impression that Bruce keeps going simply because Carrie is looking up to him and he’s the only decent father figure she’s ever had in her life. And that’s beautiful.

   They’re deleting all that, and throwing Wonder Woman in the mix just to be able to check that “strong female” box.

   When there is no strong female character in the source material, they go ahead and invent one, like Tauriel in The Hobbit. And when there is a strong female character in the source material – well, they ignore it. What a damn shame.

   The second thing I love in The Dark Knight Returns is the passage of time, as Alan Moore put it in the Foreword. Ten years have gone by since Batman retired. Bruce is fifty-five. Jim Gordon is seventy. Alfred is eighty-something. Clark haven’t aged a bit, but he’s the only one.

   Having seen the trailers, I can say that the “passage of time” is not an element here. We are suddenly back in the heyday of superheroes: Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor, in “the perpetual limbo of their mid-to-late twenties”, to quote Alan Moore again. In one of the trailers, Affleck says he is “old”, but he’s not fifty-five, no way. More like forty. And Alfred is certainly not eighty.

   The “big blue boy scout” ain’t big enough or blue enough for my taste. And where are Two-Face and the Joker? And what the hell is Zuckerberg doing in there?

   It is NOT really The Dark Knight Returns, anyway. I can see that now. They just borrowed the book’s main premise – two heroes squaring off against each other in quite a dramatic way – and threw out the rest. Superman might still intercept a nuclear missile, yes. Batman and Superman might fight for a while, sure. But they’ll become friends soon enough and unite their efforts to rid the world of a greater evil: Facebook.

   How come the source material never seems to be good enough for the big screen? Hollywood cut out the huge “alien” monster from The Watchmen. Hollywood replaced Galactus with a big black space-smudge in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. That is like those big studios saying to comic books in general, “You’re no good. You’re not screen-worthy. We will use you as raw material – but you need some fine-tuning.”

   Fuck the source material. That seems to be Hollywood’s Prime Directive these days.

   No Boy Wonder because it’s kinda gay. No Carrie alongside a hunk like Affleck, because that would be creepy. Let’s stick Wonder Woman in between Batman and Superman – between the bad boy and the clean-cut dude –, just like Bella, you know: will she choose Edward or Jacob? Mainstream. Recipes. They work.

   What do Katniss, Tris, Princess Amberle and the other “Millennial” heroines have in common? They’re all ass-kicking teenage girls. But now, you get a VINTAGE ass-kicking teenage girl from way back in ’86 – and you just pass on that?

   Bummer.

   I’m still gonna do something I didn’t do for any of the Hobbit movies or the new Star Trek movies or Indy 4 or The Force Awakens – I’m going to actually walk into a theater and see Batman V Superman. Then (maybe) I’ll come back here and blog a bit more about all the hoohah, whether I liked or hated the film.

Arneson & Saint Paul (not the city)

   There is bad blood between Team Arneson and Team Gygax, that’s no secret. The sad thing is: it didn’t have to come to that. Not at all.

   You and I are partners and we write a game called Cobbles & Creeps – and we make a lot of dough. Then I go my separate way and write Advanced Cobbles & Creeps and keep making a lot of dough without you because, if you’ll understand, Advanced Cobbles & Creeps is “an entirely different product”, so I don’t need to share its profits with you, buddy.

   What does it mean?

   Anyone could start a company and call it “Advanced Apple” or “Advanced Google” and that would be legal.

   Absurd, right?

   Still, that’s what happened back in ’77. So yes, there is bad blood between Team Arneson and Team Gygax. But then again, Gygax lived by the sword and died by the sword: ten years after he’d screwed Dave Arneson, the Blume brothers and especially Lorraine Williams screwed him over and booted him out of his own company. You know what they say about karma––

   These two guys created Dungeons & Dragons together. Role-playing games wouldn’t exist without both of them. The analogy I’d like to make is this: Arneson is Jesus, and Gygax is Saint Paul. Bear with me here...

   Jesus didn’t write anything down. Jesus just spoke to the people – and he was good at it. He was spontaneous. After Jesus’ death, a man named Saul, who would later be known as Saint Paul, decided to jot down some things and “organize” the new faith. He worked tirelessly, he traveled a lot, and founded many early Christian churches. He gave that newborn religion a fighting chance against the Roman gods and against Zoroastrianism. Without his texts and his energy and his travels, who knows what would have become of the unofficial, unpopular, underground “sect” of Christ?

   It seems there’s always a Jesus and a Saint Paul. There was Tesla and there was Edison. There was Einstein and Oppenheimer. There was Wozniak and Jobs. There was Bob Hunter and Patrick Moore...

   One man is not enough to “give birth” to any grandiose thing. It takes two – sometimes even more – to do it.

   Dave was spontaneous. Gary was an organized writer and worker. Without Dave, Gary couldn’t have written Dungeons & Dragons, or any role-playing game for that matter. Without Gary, Dave’s clever invention couldn’t have made it out of his circle of friends. Both geniuses were needed to really accomplish what was accomplished.

   That unofficial / unpopular “sect” can be equated to Arneson’s original Blackmoor campaign. Publication of the OD&D White Box can be equated to Saint Paul’s Epistles. What came after can be equated to the four Gospels.

   But then the “Advanced” thing happened.

   It’s like if Saint Paul had somewhat managed to modify Christianity just enough to call it his own – and not have to pay Jesus any royalties. But royalties didn’t exist back then. And Jesus was already dead, anyway. And Jesus had no heirs or widow (sorry folks, it’s not The Da Vinci Code).

   Gary Gygax once said: “Dave Arneson was running a game up there, using my Chainmail rules, and I believe he called it Blackmoor.”

   Seriously, Gary?

   You “believe” he called it Blackmoor? You played that game yourself in November of 1972 when Arneson and Megarry drove down to Lake Geneva and showed you both their games – Blackmoor and Dungeon! It was your first RPG session ever. Your son Ernie was there with you, and both Rob and Terry Kuntz. Everybody saw how this new game was NOT Chainmail.

   It’s almost tragic – this great man trying to fool himself and everybody else, again and again, by changing the story. Such awkward denial, and for what? Is E. Gary Gygax less of a giant for not actually inventing RPGs?

   I hear that John Kentner’s documentary, Dragons in the Basement, is delayed still because of Gygax legal issues. We don’t get to hear what Dave Arneson and Professor Barker have to say about the origins of RPGs... because of legal issues?

   Kentner must obtain a permit in order to use the name “Gygax” in his film – but I’m also told that Mrs. Gygax was very pleased when she discovered she didn’t need any permit to erect a Gary Gygax monument in Lake Geneva. Isn’t that a little bit twisted, or is it just me?

   Solution #1. Every time Gygax appears on-screen, call him Mordenkainen. When someone else says his name out loud, bleep it over and put a little “Mordenkainen” sign on that person’s mouth. Even in the end credits, just put: Mordenkainen. Everybody will understand perfectly – and Mrs. Gygax doesn’t own the name Mordenkainen, does she?

   Solution #2. Cut Gygax out of the doc completely. Gamers of the world still want to hear what Professor Barker and the three Daves have to say. Gygax is not our only “founding father”. I’d rather see and hear Washington + Franklin + Adams + Madison, without Jefferson, than not see or hear any of them.

   Pick Solution #1, John. It’ll work. But I digress.

   If Jesus himself had written a Gospel, it would probably confuse today’s religious scholars just as much as The First Fantasy Campaign confuses most of today’s efficient / practical DMs. Dave Wesely said, “Arneson had favored a wide-open system that put a lot of burden on the ingenuity and style of the ref.” Strangely, that is also what Jesus had favored: he replaced all the complicated rules with one simple, overriding rule. But that proved, well, too simple. So Saint Paul stepped in shortly after Christ’s death and created a bunch of new, sharper rules.

   Role-playing games wouldn’t exist today without both Arneson and Gygax – just as Christianity wouldn’t exist as we know it without both Jesus and Saint Paul. Jesus alone is not enough.

   And by the way, I am not a religious nut. Again, this was just an analogy.

   Amen.

  

Next Gen

   We were fourteen years old. Our hair was long but not yet too long. Each of us drank half a can of beer and nothing else, because we couldn’t risk stealing more than 2 cans from the fridge without some parent taking notice. And we played AD&D while listening to Iron Maiden and Dio (in my opinion, Sacred Heart remains the best dungeoneering song ever). Good times – hell yeah!

   But hang on. What’s gonna be the Millennials’ mind-blowing good memories? Instead of that D&D / metal combo, Millennials had a Masquerade / grunge deal. And what about those kids who just turned fourteen this year? What’s it gonna be for them?

   This post is a collection of tidbits, thoughts and observations about the younger players, typed in no particular order, because winter is making me lazy.

*

   Twenty-year-old gamers have bizarre misconceptions about 1E. Two of them recently said to me: “You play with THAC0? Are you crazy? It’s complicated! You have to calculate Armor Classes in the negatives???” What did they mean by that? There is no calculating involved. You’re a fighter, level 7, monster is AC -2, you need 16. Do they think it works like the To Hit roll in Ashardalon?

   They probably didn’t give AD&D a single browse, that’s what I think.

*

   Everybody also seemed to freak out because they didn’t get a list of all the monsters from the new Monster Manual “by challenge level”. What’s the big fuss? You just look at the monster’s stats, like we did. Beholder: that’s strong. Kobold: that’s weak. Wight: that’s in between. Easy enough. What do you need lists for? I never used any “lists” of monsters in any of my campaigns; I went in prepared, always, and regularly play-tested my shit beforehand, with copies of the PCs record sheets, to adjust things.

*

   The old Retreat & Recharge strategy was already in use back in the day, before Fallout and Halo and the rest of it, but I don’t remember players ever abusing it, retreating & recharging after every single room / encounter, systematically. It’s annoying and it feels fake. In a novel, that would be completely unpalatable: you’d tear out a whole bunch of pages from the book while yelling at Elric or Caramon or Fafhrd, “Come on, dammit! COME ON! Storm the place already!!! Quit doing this!!!!!!!” But Elric never retreats & recharges, thank the gods. Neither does Caramon, or Fafhrd. They’re heroes. Now, why can’t most modern players do the same? There is an evil sorcerer in the cave ahead – get him, or die trying. Don’t come back 6 times over a period of 48 hours!?

*

   Something new appeared about the time Millennials really hit the gaming scene: the “exceptional” characters. You are a vampire, but the basic humans don’t know about it. You are a werewolf, or an exalted, and the “rest” of the population is just normal, dull people. Your power sets you apart. You’re a vampire: you’re glorious, you’re sublime, you’re beautiful, you are indeed a superior species!

   Of course, characters in Dungeons & Dragons, Tékumel and even Cthulhu sometimes got very, very powerful, but they were not “set apart” right from the get-go. Any level 1 D&D character who got struck by a wight still had to temporarily downgrade to level zero ordinary human.

   Millennials think very highly of themselves. Gen X, not as much: you had to become exceptional, but were not born exceptional. Two distinct philosophies. Games like Mage: The Ascension and Masquerade and Exalted came around in ’91 or ’93... it could be a simple coincidence, but I doubt it.

*

   I don’t like Elder Sign as much as I do Arkham Horror, with as many supplements as you want. But the younger generation – late twenties and early thirties – prefers Elder Sign because it’s “light” and “shorter” (those are the adjectives I’ve heard).

   There is absolutely no lovecraftian atmosphere in a game of Elder Sign. It’s just math. Players don’t even bother to read the flavor text on the various quests available; they just look at what you can gain if you succeed, how much Stamina or Sanity you lose if you fail, and what dice rolls you must make in order to nail it. Then it’s merely strategy. “This one’s too difficult for me – I’ll leave it to you, because you have the yellow die and your special re-roll ability. We get two more Elder Signs: it’s worth it.”

   It’s quicker all right, but you really can go through an entire game without “feeling” anything remotely Cthulhu, and that’s sad. The monsters themselves kind of disappear in that big equation: one more dice roll in Quest #3 (it got a bit more difficult). Monster tokens are thumbnails, nothing more. I’ve seen players draw them up from the cup and not even look at what they are. Ghoul? Dhole? There’s a huge difference! But no: it’s one more challenging dice roll, that’s all.

   If Arkham Horror is a blog, then Elder Sign is Twitter: everything’s tiny in there, every token, every card – and the texts on the quests are about 140 characters, yes, and you can play the game without reading them...

   Thirty-year-olds say they don’t have the time for a full game of Arkham Horror with Bokrug as the Ancient One. Too bad, guys. You are missing out on a really terrific thing.

*

   I played several games of The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow with my cousins and their boyfriends – Millennials again – and I made the effort to role-play just a bit because there is not much role-play going on in that game. For example when I got the Lord, I talked like some medieval count or baron: “Ah! My good subjects! my loyal villagers! Certainly you won’t suspect your beloved Lord and Master of being the werewolf, will you? That would qualify as peasant treason indeed...”

   One guy then told me I’d be an excellent LARPer. Well, I don’t know. I could have said, “I sat at tables and ran campaigns before you were even born, and long before LARP was ever a thing, so yes, I suppose I can role-play a baron off the top of my head.” But the guy didn’t know about RPGs at all. He knew the words Dungeons & Dragons of course, but he thought it was a board game – and seemed to think LARP had just appeared outta the blue one morning, without any previous base or mechanics. That’s like saying the iPad appeared on its own, and computers didn’t exist before: no VIC-20, no DOS, nada.

   Oh, and one of my cousins believed Star Wars first began as a series of books... and then was made into those first three movies. Her boyfriend added, “Like Harry Potter, y’know?”

   Anyway, I still love Next Gen. They’re OK – as long as you keep your list of Elder Sign monsters sorted out by challenge level, and LARP without THAC0.

Role-Playing Games are 45 Years Old

   Role-playing games were invented 45 years ago today!

   Depending on exactly when you’re reading this post, it could actually be the truth.

   Fact is, we simply don’t know the date. All we know is that the very first Blackmoor game session occurred sometime between December 1970 and April 1971. That’s the sweet spot, ladies and gentlemen – and we are right in the middle of it right now.

   We also know for a fact that this “first game” took place on a Saturday, because Arneson’s group always met on Saturdays for their Napoleonic kriegspiels. So just for the kick of it, I went and found a 1971 calendar. There are not that many Saturdays between January and April:

• January 9 – 16 – 23 – 30.
• February 6 – 13 – 20 – 27.
• March 6 – 13 – 20 – 27.
• April 3 – 10 – 17 – 24.

   Let’s add maybe December 12 and 19, 1970. (The guys couldn’t have pulled it off on either December 26 or January 2.)

   There you have it. Chances are, the real honest-to-goodness date of the first Blackmoor session is up there, right under your nose. Those 1970 / 1971 Saturdays match our 2015 / 2016 Saturdays perfectly, except for March and April. Because the March / April dates fall on Sundays this year. I just drink a shot every Saturday (starting on March 6, I’ll switch to every Sunday), so I’m absolutely sure to catch the right one. Before each shot I say, “Cheers, Dave!”

*

   Why don’t we know the exact day of that elusive first game? Beats me. For years I have looked all over the Internet and found zip. Arneson himself never said, “It was on that day.” Maybe it just didn’t seem important / groundbreaking at the time. Most of these players are still around, but none has ever given us a clear date. Why is that?

   I conducted this fun little experiment.

   Over the holidays I saw my dad and most of my uncles, and they are about the same age as the original Blackmoor players. I asked my dad about that big A-Frame Swiss Chalet they’d built with my grandfather way back when, in ’69. My dad was more than happy to talk about it, and my uncles too. But then I wanted to know about the bulldozer and when it came up to dig those foundations – what was the day, the exact date when work actually got underway. My dad couldn’t tell. None of my uncles could tell. They argued about it for a while. Was it on a weekend? “Yes it was; I never went up there during the week!” “No it wasn’t; that bulldozer guy didn’t work weekends – who was he, anyway?”

   I didn’t get anything. They just don’t remember, that’s all. It was around May, or possibly early June of 1969.

   My dad and my uncles are not senile, far from it. But they just can’t recall that specific day. The thing we know for sure is that my grandpa and his sons built a two-story Swiss Chalet up in the mountain, and that house still stands today, although it was sold in ’86.

   Megarry, Svenson and the others played lots of Blackmoor before Dave Arneson ever drove down to Wisconsin in November of ’72 – they simply can’t point out which Saturday was “The First One”. February 6? March 13?

   Take your pick, history buffs.

   And Happy Birthday, RPGs!!! Here’s to another forty-five years!

  

Urban Warfare

   Your home turf is being overrun by ferocious orc tribes? Who do you want to put in charge of the capital’s defenses and militia? Do you want an experienced general, or do you want, let’s say, Tom Waits & Willie Nelson? Me, I’d like Waits & Nelson, please! It’s gonna be a huge clusterfuk, crazy and fun, with defenders awaiting the arrival of the orcs in various bars and taverns, and comedians masquerading as orcs, and pike wielding beggars hidden in every trash pile of every side street.

   One of my friends ran a big game like that. Two guys played the orc tribes while me and three other players took charge of the city’s defenses. I wanted to sprinkle units and barricades all over the different neighborhoods and main avenues, but the other players all believed it would be suicidal. For sure, they were right. So we ended up cramming everything we had into that central, secure, walled part of the city, leaving almost no one outside except for a few skirmishers and a whole lot of pretty huge unmanned barricades.

   “Strategic” and “efficient” easily won over “crazy” and “fun”, and I’m not surprised – that’s a generation-old dilemma you come across in so many RPG situations. Like I said in a previous post, the real-life medieval battle of Calais was a terrible, utter mess; it’s a gripping read (especially in novel form, by Michel Peyramaure), but it would be boring as hell if the battle had been run by experienced EverQuest or Warcraft players.

   And that’s the paradox. Whenever you’re watching a movie or reading a book, you want crazy and fun, but when you are playing a battle simulation, you do not want crazy or fun – you want efficient.

   I had fun anyway. But my magic-user didn’t happen to be stranded in some back alley with the battered remnants of Citizens’ Brigade #3 and eleven feisty prostitutes and two dogs and only one leaking cask of wine while two hundred Uruk-hai waited at one end of that fateful alley, and sixty orc outriders advanced at the other end...

   Our DM had his computer generate exponential damage scores for the entire armies outside our own “personal” units. Hold on to your hats, here... In one single evening of gaming, this besieged city saw a staggering 26K+ Hit Points of damage!!!!!!!!!!!!

   It was a cool game. The map was insane. Those pics look great. But if I ever run such a large-scale thing myself, I won’t let the players decide. I’ll say: “This is what your dear old city’s defenses now look like; here are the various units / platoons / chokepoints. You guys just select which unit you want your character to personally take command of, and then let’s get this show on the road right away. Can’t let you waste 90 precious minutes debating initial placement. Sorry. It is not your fault if the head of the City Council is Lord Willie Nelson and the captain of the militia is Master Tom Waits!”

Lightsabers

   Lightsabers were white, at the beginning. Alec Guinness: white. David Prowse: white. Then Lucas thought: why not have different colors for “good” and “evil” lightsabers? Heaven is blue. Hell is red. Okay. Fine.

   Then, a green lightsaber appeared during the shooting of Revenge of the Jedi, because you just couldn’t make out the blue blade against that perfect blue sky above the Great Pit of Carkoon.

   Then in 2002, a purple lightsaber was introduced, because Sam Jackson is a diva and wanted his own color – but you can’t say that to your 7-year-old nephew, you need an explanation that actually makes sense. So, I told a big fat lie. Mace Windu incorporated a tiny shard of Sith crystal into his Guardian blue lightsaber. Blue + red = purple. Mace Windu did that because he is very wise and wanted a constant reminder that Jedi and Sith are linked through the Force, for better or for worse...

   But that’s bullshit, of course. Bantha shit, even. Real reason is: Sam Jackson is not wise, and a real diva.

   What’s next?

   We’re gonna see orange lightsabers, fuschia lightsabers, yellow, pink, beige, and whatever color you could think of.

   Disney won’t start messing things up right away: you can expect Episodes VII, VIII, and IX to be crowd-pleasers for the forty-ish old school fanbase – Tatooine, Millennium Falcon, TIE fighters, X-Wings, and the rest. But then there’s gonna be Episodes X through XII, and the “Disney Factor” will start to kick in. And then, old fans like me will slowly begin to pass away “in their late fifties, with a heart full of pastrami” (Howard Wolowitz). Lucas will be gone, too. And one day, Disney will be completely free to do whatever the hell it wants. There’s gonna be a polyhedral Death Star, several cloned Darth Vaders – a blue one, a red one, a green one –, winged Wookiees, and a giant 80-foot-tall astromech overlord...

    I don’t understand what this #BoycottStarWarsVII thing is all about, and I don’t need to boycott the movie. I’m just saying: Disney being what it is... the entire Star Wars canon is bound to become a gigantic mess, in the long run. Mark my words.

   Episode VII is gonna be a fan movie. The biggest Star Wars fan movie ever made. Because, for the time being, Disney put this franchise into the hands of old fans – people who loved A New Hope when they were eight. But it’s not always gonna be the case.

   Substance was important, back in ’77. Execution and looks, not so much.

   Now, it’s the opposite: execution and looks are very important, and substance... not so much.

Dungeon Lottery Winners

   Ancient calcified doors were discovered by miners, deep underneath the Mountains of the Dwarves. Instead of sending elite troops right away to investigate this, the Dwarven King decided to organize a “Dungeon Lottery” to celebrate his birthday. Eighty-two teams of adventurers registered, and the PCs group won the draw, of course! So, into that new unexplored dungeon they boldly go, where no man (probably) has gone before... But there is a Dungeoneering Tax: 25% of everything they’ll find belongs to the King!

First room filled with water. “Guys, we’ll have to swim...”

   They reach a large rectangular room packed with lots of weird things. There’s a ridge near the entrance, but then it’s cold water, getting deeper and deeper. Strange crystals / coral reefs can be seen here and there in the gloom. Rough-hewn stone stairs, too. And a stone portal that doesn’t lead anywhere. Plus, there are two magic mouths high up on the southern and eastern walls. And, last but not least, water elementals arise as soon as someone approach any one of those crystals...

Stairs! portals! magic mouths! crystals! water elementals!

   Experienced players never split the party, that’s true. But I’ve learned that when you put them in big open areas with many different things to investigate or touch or look at, they kind of scatter around in all directions, and that’s quite funny. I call this the Toy Store Effect. As long as they still see each other, it’s okay.

   So, all the characters get into the shallow-water part of the room. One PC is looking for secret doors. One is poking the nearest crystal. One lights lanterns. One splashes towards the stairs, thus activating the first magic mouth. Another undresses and swims into the deeper section, to hear what the second magic mouth has to say...

   First magic mouth says: “You can access the arms quarters by speaking the true name of the prophet Wergobymoïn.” Bard makes a Lore check, comes up with zip. Second magic mouth says: “You can access the temple by trusting the water breathing virtues of the blue stones.” Thief dives, searches around, and locates an underwater passage in the south wall, right underneath that second magic mouth.

   In the meanwhile, a water elemental attacked and had to be destroyed by the Dwarf and the ranger.

   Then they give the “water breathing virtues” a try – and it seems to be working fine. So they begin to make plans in order to go underwater carrying plate mail, splintered mail, four hammers, a two-handed sword, two live familiars, three spellbooks, cubes of incense, and a musical instrument.

   Kids, don’t try this at home. Especially if you like animals, incense, books, or music.

   After a 10-minute dive they reach a large cavern filled with real air: there’s no other way to go. The Dwarf immediately starts putting his plate mail back on, and hears a bloodcurdling growl while he’s doing so...

   An otyugh comes out of that big pile of rocks and bones in the middle of the cavern. Dwarf has to fight this monster alone for the first two rounds; he’s lucky, and doesn’t get typhus! That damned magic mouth lied through its magic teeth – it doesn’t look at all like a “temple” in there.

They didn’t expect a second otyugh, that’s for sure...

   Two of my players are married. I mean, not to each other. They have wives, at home. Anyway, I don’t know if there’s any link to be made here, or if it’s just a coincidence, but the two married guys started to spew a litany of disgusting puns about glory holes and taking an otyugh “from behind”. It was hilarious. Bards and thieves – what can you do about them?

   But it also boosted the party’s morale, and soon enough everyone was “taking” the remaining otyugh from behind, or “full frontal”, or whatever. The 59 HP male was already down, and the 45 HP female was now surrounded... But I know girls – human girls – who only have 5 HP, and if you piss them off real bad, they’re gonna rip your eyes out of their sockets. Hell hath no fury... Hit Points have nothing to do with it. Female otyugh defended herself better than her defunct companion and scored more damage, too. (But still no typhus – damn those Saves.)

Desperate Otyugh Housewife.

Utter carnage in big final pile-up.

Otyughs Lair and only exit.

Thief Climbing Walls towards “glory hole”.

   The otyughs were most probably dropped through that chute when they were smaller, and they grew up in that cave, eating cadavers and shit that came down the chute. That climb is not a long one, and then the PCs find themselves in a dark building with no furniture nor features except for two archways leading out.

   Thief goes out one arch, carrying the torch. Bard takes a peek outside the second arch, without a torch. Five other PCs stay inside, and suddenly a stinking cloud spell is cast upon them. A throwing knife also misses the thief by a hair’s breadth...

Drow Elves... and something else...

   Those who failed to save against the stinking cloud are helpless for one round. The others scramble out only to find three other identical structures with Drow Elves perched on the rooftops – and a Handmaiden of Lolth!

   Dwarf and thief both advance on a male Drow, while the bard targets the only female with his sling. Magic-users fire magic missiles at the yochlol, but this creature has 50% magic resistance, and one missile out of two is wasted. This fight may well be the most challenging they’ve had since we started playing AD&D again!

That darned Handmaiden of Lolth kept creating stinking clouds...

   Since this is a spell that remains in place for several rounds, I needed a way to indicate where the nasty things were, but I didn’t want 2D markers, I wanted real 3D clouds. I bought beauty salon cotton coils and dipped them in green dye for four or five seconds, no more. The result is a light shade of green: perfect! But the camera flash makes ‘em look almost white. We’re losing that sickly green taint. Damn. I loved my stinking clouds...

   It was an epic fight. Two characters were out cold, and two more were down to 1 or 2 HP, but the cleric had three cure light wounds in his Ring of Spell Storing, each one with maximum effect (8 HP) thanks to the Incense of Meditation – well done, padre: it made a big difference.

Frantic + Dramatic = Climactic.

   Fourth building was a shrine to Lolth herself, and it held a pretty decent heap of loot, including a Robe of Useful Items and a Necklace of Prayer Beads. Christmas came early for the spellcasters! But don’t forget your 25% tax...

   All characters are now 3^rd level, except for the cleric who is 4^th. Now they have to wait several months before they can use those new spells, prayer beads, or pull out wasps nests from that Robe of Useful Items...

   Three months ago I gave them the Horn of Blasting, but they didn’t use it at all in this game. Bummer. That is like finding some giant double-headed dildo, and not using it in a fight (yes, I saw DEATHGASM last month, and I loved it).

   The bard already have access to some druid spells because we use the Dragon magazine bard instead of that tedious Players Handbook bard. He chose shillelagh and speak with animals, and then asked if he could somehow cast shillelagh on his musical instrument instead of a wooden cudgel. My first reaction was to say no, but now I think I’m going to gladly allow it... because it would be so fucking funny. “Playing the axe” wouldn’t be a metaphor anymore: it would be literal and real.

   Again, DEATHGASM influencing me. Imagine a delicately carved instrument suddenly morphing into a fat axlike magical two-handed weapon inflicting 2-8 damage instead of 1-6 with that short sword the poor bard currently uses!

   Consider it done. Help support the arts... right?

Gaming Room looks lonely when the performers aren’t there.