Visiting Historical Sites

 Two weeks ago, at the beginning of October, my family took a trip to Japan to celebrate my mother-in-law's 80th birthday. We were originally thinking about going to Osaka, but due to the very good exchange rate between the won and the yen, prices for flights to Japan were really expensive over the summer. Luckily, the overnight ferry prices were unchanged. Rather than go to Osaka (there is a ferry), I saw that there is one to Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Shimonoseki is the southwestern-most point of the main Japanese island of Honshu. I'd been through it on the shinkansen, but never explored the city. So we decided to give it a try. 

Shimonoseki, or at least the area around the port and JR station, is fairly typical for a small Japanese city. And according to my research, there's more shopping/entertainment/stuff to do up around the shinkansen (bullet train) station in the north-central part of the city. But it was just as easy (maybe easier) to take the 15 minute train ride to Kitakyushu city, across the water in Fukuoka Prefecture. The d24 I posted about was purchased in Kitakyushu. In addition to all the shopping, we did visit Kokura Castle, which was pretty nice.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to go in the castle. But since it's been rebuilt, it's a museum inside and at least to me, not as interesting as when a castle has been (mostly) restored to what it was originally like. There is apparently an Augmented Reality escape room game you can play, trying to get out of the castle as it is burning down. But my mother-in-law was tired from all the shopping, my wife had more shopping she wanted to do, and we were all hungry. So maybe next time. And that was day 1 of the trip, for the most part. 

Day 2, we went around Shimonoseki to see some of the historical sites. And there are some important ones in Japanese history. 

First up, Dan-no-Ura, where 800ish years ago, the Minamoto (Genji) decisively defeated the Taira (Heike) in a large naval battle, allowing the Minamoto to set up the first shogunate at Kamakura. Additionally, in the 1860s, an armada of European and American warships bombarded Shimonoseki from the straits, until local officials were forced to open the port to international trade. There is a memorial to both naval actions in the same park. There's also a walking tunnel beneath the strait from the park to Kyushu, which my younger son and I wanted to take, but my mother-in-law didn't want to do that much walking. Again, maybe next time. 

 

 After that, we took a boat to Ganryujima, the small, uninhabited island where the famed swordsman Miyamoto Musashi fought his third famous duel against Sasaki Kojiro. The boat ride was fun, and the island was peaceful and relaxing. 

After getting back to the city, it was time to pack up and get back to the ferry terminal, but after the check-in, we had several hours before boarding. So I took the boys to the Kaikyo Yume Tower, which was just a couple of blocks from our hotel, which was a couple of blocks the other direction from the ferry terminal. 

One of the pictures from up in the tower. Dan-no-Ura is where the bridge crosses the strait. We got on the boat to Ganryujima at the dock just to the left of the ferris wheel (not that you can really see it in this photo). 

And here's Ganryujima, seen from the tower. 

Here's the tower itself, photographed the night before. 

I know there are a few people reading the blog who are also into Japanese history, so hopefully you found this interesting. 
 

The Eternal Question

 Well, not THE eternal question, but one that always comes up when I design a game meant for public consumption. 

 How much "introduction to RPGs" does a game need? 

I've immersed myself in these games for 80% of my life. I play them. I read them. I modify them. I write them. It's second nature to me. 

And, I'm in a bit of an information silo regarding them. I have some friends who are new to RPGs and some who have never played them at all. But most of my gaming friends know what they're getting into if they pick up an RPG. 

But I'm also practical. I write OSR games. Not quite what the OSR has become in the past 5 years or so (I feel narrative gaming is co-opting the scene but that's just the way things go, this is not a complaint about that, just an observation). But still, most folks who know about me as a blogger or game designer are OSR folks, and they, like me, already know RPGs. 

So my intended audience doesn't really need a lot of hand-holding text to explain just what an RPG is, or the basic concepts involved. 

BUT... 

There were people who complained about Chanbara not having the hand-holding sections to it. My little niche of a niche of a niche hobby game found its way into the hands of some people who were new to RPGs and would have appreciated a bit of intro to this style of game. And it is a big departure from most games people are familiar with, even if they're immersed in CRPGs or MMOs. 

Also, I feel like I've got a solid game in Missions & Mayhem. Something that is simple enough to play easily, but adaptable enough to fit lots of different genres. I have no illusions of it being able to fill every genre well, but it was designed as a tool box and it works as one. It has potential to catch on beyond my little corner of the OSR space. Not Shadowdark/OSE levels, but I expect it to be a lot more popular than Chanbara (Flying Swordsmen got a lot of traction, but it was completely free so I can't really compare it).  

 I'm not worried about space constraints. Right now, the M&M core book is 82 pages in draft form. And that is with me leaving some pages mostly blank to be filled in later. If I add a sample adventure or two, and a bit of hand-holding introductory text at the beginning, I'm probably still going to be under 100 pages. 

So I guess I should probably add some at least rudimentary "what is an RPG" text before the "what is this game" text at the beginning to help folks out. It never hurts to have it. Veterans can skip over it. New folks will appreciate it. 

 

Thanks for reading along as I debated this with myself. I was hoping to get at least two of the campaign modules ready for release along with the core book, but the way things are going, I could have the core ready to go before the end of the year (assuming the guy I found to do interior art can pump it out quick enough, and after the first order I gave him, I think he can). I may just release the core book this year, then put out the first couple campaign modules next year and the rest in 2028. 
 

Hairfoot Jousting

Yesterday, I got together with some friends to try Hairfoot Jousting, a tactical (sort of) miniatures game. It was a lot of fun. My son Flynn and I were a team against Justin  Alan, and James. We lost, but our dog-riding hobbit lasted a heck of a long time after he should have beed out! 

Dice For Cheap!

I'm visiting Japan again, to celebrate my mother-in-law's 80th birthday. At a Seria 100-yen shop yesterday, I found sets of polyhedrals for 100 yen each! And a single d24! 

I restrained myself to only the three sets in the photo, but would have gotten all the d24s if they had had more. 

And considering, i DID buy all the d24s they had in stock.

The Big Reveal (Missions & Mayhem Core Rules Cover Art)

 I think I mentioned before how I met this artist, but if not, I'll repeat myself. A few months ago, my wife started taking classes to learn watercolor painting to supplement her calligraphy art. The teacher, Lee Hyunjung, has a studio about three blocks away from our apartment. While I was looking on Fiver for possible artists to contact for cover art, my wife suggested we talk to her art teacher. So we did.

I hired her, gave her the details of what I wanted and some reference pictures, and she would contact us at each step of the process to make sure she was executing my vision. 

She knocked it out of the park, in my opinion. 

Then, with some advice from various friends, including Jeremy Hart who has a background in graphic design and my son Flynn who's artistic among his many other talents, I decided on the layout for the title text. After quite a bit of experimentation.

And now, without further ado, I present the cover page for Missions & Mayhem's Core Rules book: 

 

I've commissioned Hyunjung to paint the cover for Cryptids & Conspiracy next. 

Is there anybody out there?

 Looks like, about a week ago, Blogger's feed system went down. My list of blogs I follow hasn't updated in that time, and the last two posts I've made still haven't cracked 100 views. So I assume no one is seeing the links to my blog, either. 

I don't know if this is just one of those technical glitch things that happens sometimes and will get resolved soon, or if Google's actively trying to kill off the blog scene to get everyone onto who knows what (probably some AI assisted bullshit that no one wants but everyone will end up adopting because Google makes it impossible to do otherwise). 

 For the meantime, I'll be using Old School RPG Planet to check other blogs.  It's up to date as of the time of me posting this blog. 

Missions & Mayhem Cover Art is Done

 My artist, Lee Hyunjung, has finished the cover art for the Missions & Mayhem core rulebook. I'm still playing around with fonts and layout for the title, so I'm not revealing the picture now, but I'll build a bit of anticipation. 

I've shown it to quite a few friends and family, and everyone is impressed by it. Solid details, vivid colors, and it fits the 70s through 90s action movie vibe that inspired the game. Actually, it's also a bit reminiscent of modern video game cover art as well. Not that games technically have covers anymore, since they're just digital downloads for the most part. But you know what I mean.  

And two hours ago, I commissioned Hyunjung to start work on a cover for Cryptids & Conspiracy. 

Now I need to secure some interior art. There's a guy up in Seoul, Jeff Witty, who's doing a lot of work for Dungeon Crawl Classics these days. He likes the general idea I pitched for interior pictures, but he's too busy. So maybe I'll see if Hyunjung could do some black & white interior art (yeah, I'm going old school RPG style with this one). I've also scouted out a few potential artists on Fiver that I plan to contact. 

Oh, and I've gotten some art from Jeremy of course (that's Jeremy Hart, or JHIllos) for monsters/aliens/mutants in the various campaign books. 

There's also some decent free to use (Creative Commons) character art I've found out there that I can use for a few filler illustrations. 

So, time to start re-writing the rules in a way that will be easy for folks besides me to understand and run. I've been trying to keep everything as brief as possible for the play test, so I don't need to reprint a huge document every time I make major changes. I'll revise things and not worry quite so much about the space they're taking up. Unlike Chanbara, this is NOT going to be a mere 64 pages. Although I also don't expect I'll go over the 128 pages of Flying Swordsmen. At least not for the core rules. 

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In other M&M news, Sunday was another play test. Bughunts & Bedlam, we tried out giving everyone power armor and a lot of big guns, and throwing a bunch of bugs at them as they defend a colony complex. Getting everyone's power armor loadout/setup took longer than expected, so the colony defense will continue next session. And it showed me that I need to make a special character sheet addition for power armor management. 

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In other other news, print copies of the Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins Ruby Players Rules book arrived on Friday. On Saturday, I ordered small print runs (10 copies each) of the rest of the line, so I will have copies to sell at the upcoming book fair at Gwangan Beach (next month). The Korean PoD service I found is cheap and quick, so I expect to have the books this Saturday, or next Monday at the latest. 

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Oh, and one final note back to Missions & Mayhem: I'm working on the Urban Fantasy supplement, Hellspawn & Horror. Unlike d20 Modern's Urban Arcana, which had the conceit of D&D monsters living among us, this is more like Stephen King/Clive Barker/Jim Butcher/Anne Rice, Blade, Ultraviolet, Friday the 13th The Series (anyone else remember that one?), From Dusk til Dawn, or whatever modern monster-hunter (horror) fantasy you want to play out. So no bugbears working the register at 7-11. Just vampires, werewolves, fae, nasty demons, and the occasional dragon that you need to track down and shoot with your M-16 or battle with a holy sword you recovered from a ruin in Antioch.