Resistance Is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated.

 Over the past couple of years, I've slowly been drifting into the headspace where I don't want to play the currently popular rules lite RPGs. Black Hack derived, PbtA games, Into the Odd, etc. I mean, for a one-shot or a short arc, they aren't bad. But they don't capture my interest that much. There's enough system to handle individual encounters, of a wide variety of types. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of staying power. Even the ones that have levels or some other advancement mechanics, like PbtA milestones/achievements just aren't holding my interest. And even if you do get to level up or improve every so often, the games usually don't have a campaign advancement system. You don't get to "grow up" and evolve to some sort of end game. It's still more monster hunting in dungeons, or another mystery/monster of the week, which is the biggest weakness of WotC versions of D&D in my opinion. 

And then we get into the art-punk stuff. I've mentioned before that Mork Borg may be a perfectly cromulent game, but the clashing fonts, disjointed layout, and purposefully garish art suits the genre it's going for, but makes it a pain on my old man eyes to read. 

Yet, if you've gotten the connection to this post's title, I did indeed try out Mork Borg a couple of weeks ago. Keith (who ran Cyberpunk Red at our game con last fall) ran a couple of sessions, running the same adventure for two different groups on consecutive days. I was in his Saturday group (the second game, the first obviously being on Friday). 

And honestly, the mechanics made sense when he explained them to me, they worked well for the adventure, and I sure had a ton of fun with it. Of course, it helps that my PC was the last one standing, after Scott backstabbed Martin, Craylin's PC died, then I backstabbed Scott's PC. :D Yeah, it was that sort of game. 

We did mostly randomized character creation. Keith let us pick our class and name (we could roll for that if we wanted), and if we didn't like a random roll result we could reroll once.  Or maybe it was twice? Anyway, being a one-shot, I wasn't super invested in making a bespoke PC, so I just went with my random rolls for my dirty old lives under the bridge hermit. 

Yes, I enjoyed it. As a more beer-and-pretzels or event (con) game, it seems really good. I don't see the long-term play aspect of it, although with just a one-session designed as a one-shot, I honestly can't judge it yet. But if it's like most of the other rules-lite OSR offerings of the past 10 years or so, I doubt it does lasting campaigns well. 

Of course, I'm becoming the old fuddy duddy who wants open campaign sandboxes that eventually turn into either a domain game, a plane-hopping series of grand adventures, or both. The way Gygax intended! Harumph! 

Jesus, I'm only 52 and stared gaming in 1984. Yet I realize I sound like those dudes who were already well along in their 20s or early 30s back in the 70s when the game debuted. 

But don't fear, loyal readers. This Saturday, Justin is running a one-shot of Mythic Bastionland. And I'll be playing in it. I don't have time to organize and run a game of Pendragon right now, so this is probably the next best thing. 

And Scott has invited me to a one-shot centered Discord server. I haven't joined it yet, but I might. We'll see. I'm not craving these rules-lite games per se, but one-shots or mini-campaigns (3 to 6 sessions and done) seem to be what's popular these days. 

Anyway, since I'm going on and on about evolving a game to a different endgame state, I should probably think about what to do with Missions & Mayhem at higher levels. How could I adapt domain level play to a modern or near-future setting game? Shouldn't be that hard. But that's either another section of game to create for the core rules, or another supplement to produce for the game. 

Well, that was a headache

 Yesterday, the KakaoTalk Open Chat (Kakao is Korean WhatsApp) discussion started with a simple question: "Which do you prefer to experience, true improvisation from your DM, or a well thought out, well planned dungeon experience?" 

Very quickly, the conversation took this to extremes and began debating: "Which is better, 100% planning or 100% improv?" 

But yet most people claimed they wanted something in the middle. "Planned flexibility" was what is best (yeah, surprise surprise, the answer is somewhere in the middle of two extremes).  

And some folks claimed story-centered gaming needs to be prepared, but they're not gonna prepare two or three whole stories just in case the PCs go off track. Other folks wanted that pure improv experience, never plan anything and just go with the flow.  

And somehow, they got into discussing quantum ogres (to not waste what you'd planned), narrative vs gamed out travel, and the need to provide characters with arcs. 

It was my birthday, so I mostly stayed out of it. And honestly, I couldn't be bothered to read every post that was made, because I also had grading to do. But I read enough to see that several people's feathers were getting ruffled. 

And everyone seemed to miss the point of the original question. Not whether you should prepare or go improv, but what makes for a better or more memorable game experience? Those moments when the GM is forced to improv to react to player actions, or those games where everything is so well prepared that the game runs smoothly? 

There are too many GMs (or people looking at it as a GM) in the group chat, I think. 

The thing that really stuck out to me were the people suggesting that preparing "two stories" was too much work. Well, yeah. Preparing ONE story is hard work. That's why you shouldn't prepare stories, but prepare situations and scenarios. I can say from experience, having first done it when I was young, it's not that hard to prepare a "choose your own adventure" style adventure for a game. 

Unless your goal is to put PCs through narrative arcs and a five act structure, that is. 

Anyway, it's best I mostly stayed out of the conversation. I know people can and do have fun with the more story-centric games, and with having their protagonist go through their pre-planned arc, and I'm perfectly happy to let them have their fun. If I'd stated my preference to not do those things, those folks seem like they would have felt I was telling them they're doing it wrong (that's how they reacted to others). 

They're not wrong to play that way. But that type of game is wrong for me.  

Another year gone by!

 It's my blogiversary yet again. Seems like not that long ago that I was posting last year's blogiversary. 

Well, I guess I didn't get all that many posts up in the past year. I've been a bit more productive in the past few months, but most of this year I just didn't have that much to talk about, game related, other than occasional posts about Flying Swordsmen 2E. 

Speaking of that, I still don't have anything ready for play testing. Lots of other stuff going on. And the urge to work on other projects is strong. The Chainmail/Gauntlet table top skirmish dungeon crawl game idea of mine is chief among them. And part of me wants to scrap my current TS&R Jade campaign to run Gamma World instead. That's not gonna happen, but I may put the Jade game on hold to play test FS2E. It may be the only way to force myself to prepare content for it. 

We should be planning the Busan Tabletop Gaming Con soon, too. Scott needs a bit of time to recover from the Online SummerCon, and Justin said he's got some stuff to take care of that is keeping him busy for a few weeks. But we should get to that in the near future.  

Oh, and I should check DriveThru to see if my last post actually did lead to some sales, or if all the extra hits I'm getting the past couple of weeks are just bots.  

TTRPG in Korea Online SummerCon is Finished

 So, the Online Summer Con is over. I think the game I was in Sunday evening closed out the event, since we went about 30 minutes over the end time (and the new semester started yesterday so I was introducing my courses on not enough sleep). I wasn't involved in the start, though, since I didn't play anything Friday evening. 

The games I was in were all really fun, although the three I was a player in all had different styles. 

Saturday morning, my friend Justin ran a Monster of the Week/Jinkies! mix game (both are PbtA games, so he used MotW on his side, but we used Jinkies! playbooks for our PCs). It was called The Coffin Nails, and was a mystery game. 

I played Jimmy Switzer, a college dropout and loner (The Tough One playbook). A player with the online nickname Mildew played Cal Whitmore, the local newspaper editor (The Leader playbook). A third player named Kojak played Antoine Pier, the university librarian (The Smart One playbook). We made our PCs before the game.

The mystery involved a pair of researchers at the local university trying to cover up a failed insomnia experiment that led to people acting violently. There was also a ghost involved. We managed to solve the mystery, but unfortunately, not in time to stop the researchers from getting away and getting a lucrative contract with a defense contractor. 

It was a fun, goofy game, with us mostly laughing our way through the tense moments our PCs found themselves in. 

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Saturday afternoon, I was in a Mothership game run by Michael (first time meeting him). He ran a module called Gradient Descent that Justin told me was pretty good. And it was. It was also a mystery game, but with more action and also very much a Philip K. Dick style mindfuck. Sorry, some spoilers in this game description follow.

I played Mifune, a Marine. Michelle played Blaise, a Scientist (botany specialty). LP played Emmanuel, a Teamster (pilot). Carly played Bianca, a Scientist (surgeon). Kinsella played Amirah "CIB", also a marine. CIB stood for "Cast Iron Bitch" and she really played that up! We also made these PCs before the game started.

The jumping off point was that we were going to an abandoned space station to loot it, but just as we board, we get knocked out and wake up in a trash heap deep in the station. We've got some good loot, and need to get to the top of the station where our hired ship is waiting for us, but the station AI thinks we're all androids and its property so we can't leave. 

We managed to get to our ship in time, without loss of PC life (we lost an android friend we picked up along the way), but one PC was suspected to be an android replicant and our crazy Russian pilot wouldn't let her board. So that PC volunteered to stay and the rest of us got away...but with lingering doubts about whether or not we had also been replaced and didn't know it, or if the one we left behind was actually human or not (there was evidence that she WAS human, but also evidence that she'd been replaced). 

This game was fast paced, tense at times, very funny at times, and required some lateral thinking along with some gung-ho bravado. 

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Sunday afternoon was the game I ran, Into the Dragon's Den. I had revamped an old dungeon from 20 years ago, and used my TS&R rules but with BECMI style race-as-class demi-humans. This was a fairly straight dungeon crawl, with a variety of challenges to exploration, combat, and puzzles but the party bypassed quite a few of the puzzle type encounters (which is totally fine, I made quite a few paths through the dungeon). 

Richard (my CoC Keeper friend) played Grimsteel the Dwarf. Ian (who plays in Richard's CoC game and I met IRL in Seoul last week in the Perils and Princesses game) played Peralay the Elf. Kinsella (CIB in the Mothership game) played Aleena the Cleric. Zen played Morgan Ironwolf the Fighter. Ren played Ismene the Thief. Yes, these were pre-gens I made, and yes, I stole names and art from the BX, BECMI, and other TSR books for the pre-gens. The players had selected their PCs before the game started.

I gave each PC a different set of rumors, including rumors about the various ways into the dungeon. The town wanted them to either slay Kelek the Wizard or Grimflame the Dragon (or maybe both). They decided to try the wizard, and started exploring the most difficult way in first, but then decided to move to the easiest way in. They found a hidden passage in the first room which led them to Warduke (Kelek's captain) who they defeated, then up to find Kelek who they also just managed to defeat without losing any lives. They also found Kelek's stash of anti-dragon magic items along the way, so maybe I'll see if these players want to have a second go at it and try their luck with the dragon some day.

We went over time, because no one wanted to stop until Kelek was dead. I think everyone had fun. I definitely had a great time running it. 

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Sunday evening, I was again a player in a Dungeon Crawl Classics game, run by Marley. This was the first time I've had a chance to play DCC, and it did not disappoint. Marley's DMing style was a bit different, though. She had us pick pre-gens at the start of the game, asking us each to run two or maybe three. We all picked two, then she asked if anyone wanted to run three. I said why not, and picked a third. Then two other players picked third PCs...so we kinda had too many PCs in the game. Should have kept my mouth shut, maybe. 

I played a Thief named Jinx, a Magic-User named Alexy, and a Fighter named Torgo. I didn't write down all the other PCs names/classes, but Dee played a Dwarf and a Thief. Zen (Morgan Ironwolf in my game) played a Cleric, Magic-User, and Thief. Gheist played a Dwarf, a Cleric, and an Elf. Marley had a bit of characterization to each PC for us to use, but we got to pick names for ourselves. 

The adventure we were sent on was that a bunch of low-level losers were sent to stop a world-ending bad guy from destroying the world by solving the mystery of the dungeon. The dungeon itself was a big puzzle, and we spent way too much time in the second room with the primary puzzle, trying to figure it out, before Marley clued us in that the rest of the dungeon had clues to solve the primary puzzle. Of course, we failed to stop the demon thing from emerging, and almost all of the PCs died in one hilarious way or another. 

Marley's DMing style was interesting. After a very exposition heavy start, she just sat back and waited for us players to do something once we got plopped into the dungeon. And she had an assumption of incompetence for our PCs. For example, if we wanted to light a torch, we had to roll to see if our PC knew how to do that. It was interesting. Very different from the assumption of competence I give PCs in games I run. It did suit the game style, though, were we were supposed to be in over our heads, and likely going to fail anyway. 

As I mentioned, this game also went about 30 minutes over the limit since we all wanted to see how the last few PCs would die or escape screaming from the dungeon. My PCs all died. 

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Final thoughts? Next time, I will probably DM more and play less. And not the late night slot on a night before I need to go to work the next day. It was fun to try one game I had never tried before (DCC), and to get to play a few games I had played before but in different styles. And Justin, Scott and I will probably be meeting soon to plan a face to face Busan game convention. Since I'll be one of the organizers, I'll also probably run a game or two but likely not play in anything, so I can be available to manage things at times when Scott and Justin run or play something. 

Malaise and Movie Directors

Not much posting here the past month or so. I've been busy. My father-in-law lost his 6+ year battle with lung cancer two weeks ago (the doctors had given him 6 months when diagnosed almost 7 years ago, so it's not like it was unexpected). My older son has three separate health issues (orthodontic work being the most expensive, but the others pretty time consuming with hospital stays and doctor visits...thank God for Korean universal national health insurance, and low cost no-fuss supplemental private insurance for what the national system doesn't cover!). I have two academic papers under review at the moment, both submitted mid-October -- so revisions from peer review coming up later in the month most likely. And planning/researching background info for the next paper. Oh, and teaching classes and doing a weekly radio show and general husband/father duties.

Despite all that, I've been tinkering away at both East Marches and my Star Wars d6 game when I've got some time. The newest SW adventure, based on feedback from the end of the previous session, is more or less ready to go. I could run it as it is now, but adding some detailed stats for a few NPCs that could be encountered will save me from having to wing it in the game. But I could easily wing it. Smuggler? Sure, he's got...5D in Space Transports. But having some of that stuff already on paper before the game will make me more consistent. This weekend, though, most likely I won't have time to run it. Or rather, I have some time Sunday afternoon, but my older son will be at his Python coding class all afternoon so he'd miss the game, and he's into his Mando character just like my younger son is into his Jedi character (who did a lot of shopping between sessions, including a new C1 series astromech droid companion/sidekick -- yes, we've been watching Rebels). 

I skipped the previous scheduled session of my West Marches game because of the funeral. I could schedule a make-up session this Saturday night, but I'm not really in the mood. I feel like re-tooling some parts of it, especially the areas where I dropped classic D&D/AD&D modules into it. They've found  or had solid rumors of a few of them (Caves of Chaos, Quasqueton, Xak Tsaroth all explored, The Moathouse partially explored, and rumors of White Plume Mountain & the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief have been heard). I've actually placed a couple other modules that they haven't heard about or found clues to yet, and I had plans for even more even farther out. Now, though, after the long slog in Xak Tsaroth that in the end wasn't super fun for me (although the players seemed to enjoy it a lot), I'm thinking of stripping out these modules they haven't encountered yet. Maybe replace them with similar themed but smaller dungeons of my own. I've found that for West Marches style play, small dungeons of a dozen or fewer rooms work best. But again, not much will to get cranking on modifying that stuff at the moment. Real life has drained me. 

Anyway, enough personal blather. What about the movie directors? 

I've mentioned before that when I was gaming in Tokyo, Steve and Pete dubbed me the Mel Brooks DM (to Steve's Quentin Tarantino and Pete's Terry Gilliam). I think it's an interesting shorthand to let players know what sort of games to expect. NOT that I think RPG play should try to tell stories the way a movie does, just that in my games, expect plenty of humor and tropes stood on their heads. In Steve's games, things could go from conventional to very bloody on the turn of a dime. Pete had lots of whimsy but also a dark undercurrent to his games. 

I've been reading and enjoying Alexis's recent series of posts on how to create a more compelling, deeper campaign world and use that in play to make D&D play more meaningful. Some of the advice he gives matches things I do now. Some match things I used to do but stopped somewhere along the way. Some are things I've never tried. Part of me wants to really up my game (I think my Chanbara campaign burned out quickly because I wasn't doing enough of these things, and it made the game feel cheap to me). 

But another part of me, the part with malaise from all the real life stuff I'm dealing with mentioned above, is just like, fuck it. There's room for deep, epic Oscar contender films, small, personal Oscar contender films, big damn roller coaster blockbusters, scrappy independent films, avant-garde art house films, cheap comedies, and endless remakes and reboots and continuations of old IP in cinema. 

Sure, a game by Alexis is going to be pretty awesome, the way watching a finely made film is deeply satisfying. But you know, I still enjoy the MCU movies despite them being fairly formulaic. I could watch Dazed and Confused or Aliens or Austin Powers for the 100th time and still enjoy it. Nothing wrong with some sometimes campy special effects in a John Carpenter movie. Kevin Smith is working on Clerks 3 and I'm actually looking forward to it despite most of his recent films not being so great. 

I hope Alexis, if he's reading this (and he probably will get around to it eventually), understands what I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to knock what he's been doing. I admire it a lot. And I don't doubt him when he says his method has elevated his games and could elevate mine as well. I want to give something like that a go. But honestly, right now I just don't have the mental energy to commit to that sort of game. I'm doing fine with my Mel Brooks West Marches and my Star Wars game that is a bit more Spielberg to be honest. Maybe after they've run their course, and life has settled down a bit more, I'll be ready to take on a Kurosawa epic of a campaign. I think my players could really dig into it.

New Direction? (JOESKY Tax at the end)

I need to find some new blogging inspiration.

I've got a great face-to-face game going on (The West Marches).

I continue to play in Dean's 5E Eberron game, plus occasional games run by others via Hangouts.

I run two play-by-post games (my Megadungeon and a newer Isle of Dread game).

I'm playing in multiple play-by-post games on the same site that hosts the two games I run.

I've run some Caverns & Cowboys play-tests via Hangouts, and the system seems solid so far.

Chanbara continues to make a handful of sales every month, with occasional paper miniature sales as well. Definitely not going to get rich from DriveThru ever, but the little bit helps.

The only area of my gaming life right now that doesn't seem to be engaged is my desire to write stuff for the blog.

I could just continue to write posts about my actual play experiences, and posts to try and get more people to buy the stuff I'm selling. But that's not the most engaging, for me or the reader. At least for the play report stuff, Dean awards everyone bonus XP.

When the blog started up, I was writing all sorts of posts. Gaming nostalgia. Riffing on ideas in the OSR or other gaming circles. Creating content (Beast of the Week). Spitballing ideas and getting feedback on house-rule ideas. Discussing all sorts of gaming inspirations.

Then I started working on Flying Swordsmen, and promoting it. That led to working on Chanbara and promoting it.

And I had some serial posts, like my re-reads and reviews of TSR's Endless Quest books. And my Mentzer Basic Cover to Cover series.

I tried to get into game design theory discussion here, as it dovetailed with some academic research I was doing. But until I get back on that academic horse, I doubt I'll be doing much blogging about that stuff.

I need to figure out what to do with the blog relative to my current gaming situation and non-gaming interests, and time constraints. I'll keep you all posted. And when that inspiration hits me, I'm sure all my regular readers will know!

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And since you sat and read through that navel gazing, I'll pay my JOESKY tax (is that still a thing?) and give you some juicy tidbits of Caverns & Cowboys.

Based on the classless, d% resolution Star Frontiers system, C&C (yeah, Castles & Crusades already cornered that acronym, I know) divides skills into three Primary Skill Areas: Interaction, Combat, and Magic.

All characters choose one of the three PSAs for their character. They then start play with three skill-sets. One skill-set must be from the chosen PSA. One must be an Interaction skill (so Interaction PSA people must have two from that group of skill sets). The final skill-set can be anything.

Interaction skills are the most varied, as they cover pretty much anything outside of magic or combat. Each skill (really a skill-set) grants access to three or more subskills, each with a % chance of success that improves with more skill levels (from 1 to 6). Interaction skills are the cheapest skills to raise levels in.
Interaction Skills: 
Culture Lore
Dastard
Drover
Influence
Law & Justice
Mechanic
Medicine
Trailblazer

Combat skills are mostly for improving chances to hit with various sets of weapons. Only one, Fisticuffs, grants a few subskills (Rasslin' for wrestling, and Wallop for more frequent knock-outs) in addition to increasing chances to hit (and is the only one that increases damage).
Combat Skills: 
Archery
Artillery
Fisticuffs
Hurling
Long Arms
Melee
Pistols
Scatterguns

Magic skills are the odd-balls, not conforming to the standard Star Frontiers rules. Gaining a level in a magic skill grants access to four spells. Spell points are determined by an appropriate ability score, as is the chance of casting the spell -- which does not increase with level. Instead, gaining levels in the magic skill increases the potency of the spells. Magic skills are the most expensive skills to raise levels in.
Magic Skills:
Faith Healing
Mesmerism
Kabbalah
Shamanism
Voodoo

My play-testers really like the evocative nature of the magic skills, and say that they think the interaction skills cover most things they'd consider important in a Western themed RPG. Combat was also praised by them, since at low levels it's hard to hit your opponent (fairly realistic in that regard) so our shoot-outs in the games we've run have mostly been ended by clever use of Mesmerism from Dean rather than battles to the death.

It's coming along. I just wish my schedule made it easier to run more pick-up games (actually to plan for sessions so I can run the game) more often.

Gaming as an Ex-Pat Part 3 (Final)

Here it is, the final post I made on Facebook, when asked by an acquaintance to describe how different it is trying to play/run games in Korea compared to back home. Yeah, I blathered on for a long time before actually answering her question. She dug it, though, and then wanted to take a look at Flying Swordsmen, so I consider that a win.

I arrived in Korea and in less than a month was a new father (my wife wanted to be close to her family when she gave birth, and she's a Busan native). So for that first year or so, I didn't get any gaming in. Soon, though, I met some guys named Josh, Alex, Pat and Steve who were interested in playing board games. We'd meet once a week or once every two weeks in Seomyeon to game. After a year or so, we started occasionally playing RPGs instead of board games. A few more people were interested, so we ended up with more players including a few Koreans, and running several short campaigns.

I ran Classic D&D. Josh ran 3E. Dave tried to get a d20 Conan game going, but it didn't gel. Alex tried the same with RIFTS. Eventually Pat got the 4E books, so we gave that a try. Josh picked up the 4E version of Gamma World, and we gave that a try.

During this time, I was working on my Dragon Fist retro-clone, which I titled Flying Swordsmen. Eventually I had it ready, so we played some Flying Swordsmen too. It's an odd feeling to run your own game at first. I felt this pressure to "get it right" since it was my own game. Presidents of the Apocalypse was just this little goofy game where everyone tried to be as silly as possible, but Flying Swordsmen tries to emulate Chinese wuxia fantasy martial arts using essentially D&D rules. I think I pulled it off well, but there were a few little things about it that bugged me (mostly because it was a retro-clone copying another game, so some design choices were out of my hands).

Then, as happens in ex-pat circles, people moved away. New people came in. I found myself next in a Pathfinder group run by a guy named Brian, along with one or two other people from the first group. Around the same time, Pat and Bill were putting together the Busan Bored Gamers group, so I feel like that group is a direct descendant of our Seomyeon group.

When the PF game finally finished, I ended up without a face-to-face group to play with, but through Google+ Hangouts (popular with gamers, especially the OSR), I ended up in a group run by Justin in Pohang. Thanks to the power of the internet, we've got members in other places besides Korea. A few Aussies played early on, and a Scottish guy has been a regular in our various G+ games ever since. Justin ran Labyrinth Lord (BX D&D clone) for a long time, then tried Stars Without Number (BX D&D rules for sci-fi gaming) for a while.

I ran a few Classic D&D games. Jeremy ran a wide variety of his home-brewed games he was trying out. Dean started a 4E game, which attracted a few different players, who aren't really into the OSR stuff. Now Dean's game is 5E, and still going strong. We've tried a few other things here and there over the years, too.

Because Flying Swordsmen got good reviews but I wasn't satisfied with it, I started working on my current project, Chanbara (fantasy feudal Japan set to basic D&D rules). I've been play-testing it now and then with this online group, and it seems to hold up pretty well. I'm hoping to release the game soon (real world concerns have delayed it, though).

As far as gaming supplies, I haven't really found much I need to buy anymore. I've got tons of dice and minis. Rulebooks can be downloaded in pdf form or ordered from Amazon (and sometimes Whatthebook). Since most of my gaming takes place online, there's not a lot of need for extra stuff. Also, I'm primarily a player instead of primarily a DM these days, which also reduces my need for stuff. All those minis I collected in Japan are locked in a cabinet where my baby can't get to them.

In a few years, though, I plan to be gaming with my boys, and putting all those gaming supplies I don't use now to good use!

Gaming as an Ex-Pat Part 2 Addendum

I originally was going to post both this and the main "part 2" post together, then decided not to. Somehow, I just saw, Blogger posted the draft backdated. So if you've already read this, apologies.

Gaming in Japan Addendum: Miniatures

I forgot to mention this part, which was one of the cool things about living in Japan. I mentioned that in my first location, there weren't a lot of places to get gaming material. In the second place I lived, Yamanashi, I was able to amass a sizeable miniature collection in interesting ways.

As I mentioned, Yellow Submarine in Tokyo had Reaper Minis, so I did buy a small number of minis there. But Japan has so many other ways to get fantasy/sci-fi minis that work for gaming.

First of all, there are random collectible miniatures that you can buy in many stores, including most convenience stores. In the years I was there, they had several series of mythological creatures, both Western and Eastern. So I have rubberized plastic minis of dragons, griffons, chimera, unicorns, pegasi, and Greek/Norse gods that work well for giants from the Western mythology series, and bakemono, tengu, oni, and so on from the Eastern series.

There are also series of figures based on games like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy and Pokemon, comics like Devilman, and things like that that I picked up over the years. You can find them here in Busan, in limited numbers, at places like Art Box.

Then, there are the cola promotion figures. Every now and then, there are promotions to sell Coke or Pepsi, where they have a randomized figure in an opaque cellophane package around the neck of 500ml bottles of soda. Back when the Star Wars prequels were coming out, I collected lots of Star Wars bottle toppers. The ones in the stores were from the Prequels, of course, but if you collected enough of the inserts and payed a small fee, you could send away for sets from the original trilogy (which I did, although I wasn't able to get all of those sets). In other years, there were Final Fantasy VII and VIII figures, Lupin the Third figures, Dragonball characters, and even Lego minifigs. I collected many.

If that weren't enough, in my town there was this resale shop. They'd buy just about anything for pennies and then sell it for dollars. Clothes, books, CDs, sports equipment, toys, games, and of course they had a section devoted to all of these sorts of little collectible minis I've been describing. I'd go there fairly often and add to my gaming collection.

I also got into HeroClix, and would buy lots when I was home on vacations, so if I ever want to run a Marvel or DC supers game, I've got the figures for it!

Oh, and one more thing! Daiso (those of you in Busan are familiar with the chain, it's from Japan) in Japan sells (or sold, at least) little green army men, and also similar sets of pirates, knights, cowboys & Indians, ninja, construction workers, police/fire/rescue figures. Have sets of all of them, as well. They work great as NPC figures.

So while I don't feel like minis are a necessity for RPGs, I do enjoy using them, and Japan was a great place for collecting a variety of minis for gaming.

Gaming as an Ex-Pat Part 2

I lived in Japan from the summer of '98 to the spring of '08. I didn't get into gaming until 3E came out, though. That's when I found some other teachers were also gamers, and we picked up the new rules and gave them a go. This was in Toyama prefecture, pretty far from the big cities (about 4 hours by train to Osaka, 5 to Tokyo). I picked up the brand spanking new 3E PHB when I was in the States over the summer, and used my 2E books until I was able to order the other core books from Amazon. There wasn't anywhere to get stuff locally, although some boutique shops sold polyhedral dice. I'd occasionally check in second-hand bookstores for Japanese RPG books, but never found any.

Oh, and there was this little bric-a-brac shop that sold airsoft equipment and collectible figures and stuff. I found a pack of vintage Grenadier "Knights of the Round Table" minis there and snatched them up. Still have them. For the most part, we were limited in what we had to game with to what we ordered from overseas or could access via the internet. One of those internet goodies was a free pdf game WotC released called Dragon Fist (fantasy martial arts RPG using the 2E rules). We played that a few times in addition to 3E.

In 2001 I moved to Yamanashi prefecture, just an hour and a half outside of Tokyo. Again, it took me a little time to get into the local gaming scene, because I wasn't sure who gamed and who didn't, and people were still kinda reluctant to bring up gaming in casual conversation. But gamed online with some of the Toyama guys about once a month. We tried d20 Modern and the d20 Star Wars rules, along with D&D 3.5.

Then, I got invited to a group playing White Wolf's Trinity around 2003 or 2004. After the Trinity game ran its course, some of the same gamers ended up playing D&D with me. We played a 3E OA game that I ran for a while.

Through the WotC message boards, I came in contact with a couple of guys in Tokyo and we formed a group. One of the Toyama guys was now living in Chiba (also near Tokyo) so we invited him, too. A few other players came and went. We'd meet once a month for marathon 6-10 hour sessions, mostly of 3.5, although I ran a successful d20 Future game set in the Aliens/Predator universe.

Gaming in Tokyo was great, because there's a chain of hobby shops called Yellow Submarine. They had minis, dice, rule books, modules, Dragon and Dungeon magazine, plus board games and other related stuff. Whenever I had time before or after the sessions, I'd usually stop by because the bus or train from Yamanashi pulled into Shinjuku station, and a Yellow Submarine was just around the corner.

One of the Tokyo guys was trying to develop his own Story Game RPG, so we play-tested many versions of it. And from the Forge message boards (once the home of story gamers online), he got interested in playing Classic D&D again, which got me interested. And so I discovered the OSR (Old School Renaissance) just as it was kicking off.

Before Steve got transferred back to the States, we played a few games of old school D&D. And I got my Yamanashi group to play it, too. And it was pretty fun. I also tried a bit of Star Frontiers with them.

Oh, and my buddy Paul and I developed our own "story game" type rules light system, Presidents of the Apocalypse. This became our "someone in the group is leaving, let's go out with a fun game" game. We're still not 100% happy with the rules, but eventually we plan to publish it in some form or other.

The OSR back then was all about making "retro clones" that were rewritten versions of the classic games, released under the d20 OGL. So OSRIC is basically AD&D 1E, Labyrinth Lord and Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game are Classic D&D, and Swords & Wizardry is original D&D. I remembered having fun with Dragon Fist in Toyama, and started thinking about how I might make a retro-clone of it. But then my wife got pregnant, and we decided to move to Korea to be near her family...

Gaming as an Ex-Pat Part 1

A friend of a few friends (she used to live in Busan and play board games, but I never met her) was asking on Facebook about RPG gaming in Korea. She's now in Cambodia and has a gaming group there, and was curious as she only ever played board games while here in Busan. One of my friends tagged me in the post, and since I'm the sort of guy who will ramble on about this sort of stuff, I did. And I figure I might as well re-post it here on the blog, because it might be interesting and also because I'm curious about your experiences, if you have any, as a gamer living outside of countries with big gaming communities.

Glaiza's question that set this off:

Out of curiosity, are any of my friends in Korea playing or have played in tabletop roleplaying games (like D&D or games like it) while living in Korea?
Like is their a dedicated group that you know of that meet on a regular basis? What was your experience in that? Did you DM or where you a dedicated player?

 I decided to break my responses into three parts:
1) my gaming experiences in the U.S. which also had some issues with gaming not so different from those I've experienced overseas
2) my experiences gaming in Japan (which actually I ended up writing two posts, because I forgot to write about how great living in Japan was for collecting gaming minis, but I'll combine them here on the blog)
3) my experiences gaming in Korea (which at the time of writing this blog post, I still need to write...)

Here's my gaming background in the U.S. I know I've covered a lot of this before on the blog, but it's been years since I did so, and I don't expect all of you to have kept notes, so I don't mind reposting.

Gaming in the U.S. in the 80's/90's

I'm from rural Illinois, so growing up, access to RPG stuff was sort of limited. Our local bookstores stocked mostly D&D and other TSR stuff, but I remember seeing Palladium and some other RPG stuff as a kid. Toy stores and big box stores like Sears or JC Penny (this was before Wal-Mart came to the area) also had the D&D box sets. For extra dice, minis, etc. we were out of luck. We had our rule books and the dice that came in the box sets, plus extra six-siders scrounged from old board games.

We mostly played Classic (box set) D&D. Some friends had AD&D, and we'd mix stuff in from there if the books were available. When we weren't playing D&D, we mostly played Star Frontiers (also a box set with its own dice). My best friend got the TMNT game (not sure where), so we played that a bit, too. And WEG Star Wars a few times. But mostly D&D.

When I got to college, I had access to a great comics shop that had plenty of RPG stuff (and Magic: The Gathering), and I ended up getting involved with a group of AD&D (mixed 1E and 2E) players through my part-time job. I picked up the 2E books at a discount because I worked at Waldenbooks. Also, back home, a hobby shop had opened up, and I could get dice cheap there. Cheaper than the comics shop in my uni town, anyway. I started playing Gamma World and tried a few other games in those years. At home or at school, though, my groups were limited to friends of members already in the group. Not a lot of cross-pollination of gamers going on then.

Occupied

Well, posts have been slow, and I'll show you why...

Yep, we've got a new baby!  And yes, I'm reading him The Hobbit even though he's not even a month old yet.  Never too early to start.  I actually wish I'd done this when our first son was born, but in the moves from Japan to Korea to the U.S. and back to Korea, I got rid of my old paperback copy, and by the time I finally got around to ordering the hardback edition seen above, my son didn't want anything to do with a story that didn't have big bright pictures on every page.

Anyway, I'm not sure when I'll get back to work on Chanbara (I've got ideas, just not much time to work on them) or to running the Isle of Dread game.  Especially since I've got the final semester of grad school classes starting soon, and then a dissertation to tackle. 

I also came up with an idea for a Flying Swordsmen set of adventures using the 5-Room Dungeon format, thanks to using some of them for the Hi/Lo Heroes game I'm running with one of my private English students. 

Anyway, enough blathering about me.  If you're also on Google+, check out +Jez Gordon's Anti-GenCon events this weekend.  Lots of online games to play (and not just OSR stuff) this weekend.  I won't have the time, I figure, but hey, you might!

That urge to tinker

What's going on inside my brain?  Not exactly sure.  With three more weeks to go to finish up my Masters of TESOL (read, final projects/papers to prepare/write), I'm in the middle of the Busan Gamers' storm of character creation for potential games (Dean's looking to run 4E or maybe his own take on Jeremy's "Super Simple d20" game - and with Dean at the helm, I know it won't be 4E as just a series of tactical battles one after another, it'll be about story and consequences with the battles serving a purpose other than having them because someone wrote them), Jeremy had a zombie-hunting 40k inspired session of another system he calls Para Bellum that he'd like to continue, Justin just had us redo our Ur characters as Stars Without Numbers characters, and um, well, there is a Pathfinder game that I don't have time for as well but would like to get in on if I did have the time.

Add to that the fact that I've got work to do on Presidents of the Apocalypse.  I've also got the title for the first adventure I'll run with it (although other details of the adventure are rolling around in the back of my mind and haven't coalesced yet).  The title shall be either "Assault on Castle Hasselhoff" or "Escape from Castle Hasselhoff."  Maybe I'll do both as a series?

Oh, and Flying Swordsmen could use another editing pass if I ever want to release it in physical form.  A module or two for it wouldn't hurt either.  And there's the RPOL game I created and have recruited players for, but haven't done much beyond that yet thanks to the above mentioned grad school.

Yet what was it that I decided I should do last night, and am tempted to start working on tonight? 

Go through the AD&D 1E and 2E PHBs and start making some notes about how I'd do separate race and class in my "D&D Mine" rules.  I'm not planning on using them any time soon (want to get that RPOL Flying Swordsmen game running smoothly and also playtest PotA).  Yet the urge is there.  Dwarven Fighter/Thieves.  Human Paladins.  Half-Elf Rangers.  Gnome Illusionists.  Yeah, I could just use LL's AEC, but where's the fun in that, when I could do it myself instead?

I think there's something in the back of my mind that really wants to get back in the DM chair of a good old fashioned D&D game, instead of being a player (although as a player, I could really go for some space opera or supers gaming).

And I'm writing this blog post instead of writing the other Ur session report.  Oh well...

The post you haven't been waiting for

So, it's finally time for me to talk a bit about the 5E/Next playtest documents.  I've got them.  I've read through them.  I've found a few interesting things, a few things I don't like, but in general, nothing really horrible enough to make me NOT play the game and nothing cool enough to make me WANT to play the game.  Of course, this is just an early playtest, and things will change. 

I still think it's important for myself and other old schoolers to take part.  If nothing else, we can show that we're not just haters to WotC, and maybe get some more perks like the AD&D reprints thrown our way in the future.  And maybe some of the old school vibe will remain in the new edition, which will make it that much easier to recruit the kids who start on 5E into our OSR games.  My biggest problem (OK, time is the biggest, but if I weren't working full time/in grad school/teaching private lessons/raising a trilingual son/etc. it would be the biggest problem) with me getting an OSR game going here is that most of the player base in Busan want to play 3E/Pathfinder or, to a lesser extent, 4E.  Or some other game than D&D.  If 5E comes with more of an OS philosophy behind adventure creation, GMing advice, and all that, I think it would be much easier for me to get people to try Labyrinth Lord.  And this is in no way intended to be a slight to Justin, who's running an awesome game via G+ Hangouts, but there's just something better about a face-to-face game.

Anyway, enough blather about my gaming woes.  What did I think of the first public unveiling of D&D Next? 

The basic "universal" mechanic is that of the d20 system (3E).  There are a lot of places where the text has just been cut-and-paste from their 4E documents.  Hopefully they'll clear some of this up.  For a game that patently DOESN'T rely on a grid/battlemat, to say that moving in any sort of non-standard fashion "costs an additional 5 feet of movement" makes my brain do funny things.  I noticed a few of the 4E powers have become either "feats" or spells.  Laser Clerics, Fighters who do damage when they miss, Wizards who shoot mini-fireballs all day long like the one in Gauntlet -  all still there from 4th.

Advantage/Disadvantage is interesting.  Having run into "disadvantage" in the short-lived 4E game I played last year with one of the Paizo adventures, it can be a real pain in the butt.  Advantage is basically just the standard "luck" bonus that's been around for several editions. 

Hit points?  Mook monsters are alright.  Any sort of "boss" monster or "tough" monster, though, looks WAY too high.  We'll see how it goes in play, though, as damage dealing capacity looks fairly high (although the playtest Fighter does have one of the highest damage weapons in the game - switch out that great axe for a longsword and we may have a different story).  Now, this may have an unintended benefit.  Those who like 2 hour tactical combats can really enjoy finding the correct puzzle to whittle down each big beastie.  Those who like combat-as-war will want to find ways to circumvent having to grind those big monsters down.  But still, an ogre or troll shouldn't have 100+ hit points.  How many will dragons and giants have? 

And healing?  Don't like it as written.  I've always been of the "high hit points mean you're just that hard to kill" school (too many Schwarzenegger movies as a kid, perhaps?), rather than "it's all luck and reflexes and getting tired out" school. 

Backgrounds and Themes - Backgrounds seem OK.  Basically 2E kits that give you a few set 3E skills and maybe a feat or two.  Themes are basically just the 4E roles (from the five they've listed) given a makeover.  I don't hate either, and could see maybe using Backgrounds but not Themes if I were to run a game of 5E beyond the playtest phase (which I'm admittedly not likely to do at this stage of the rules).

General tone of the rules - I like it.  Give a solid set of mathematics to run the game, but give plenty of advice and use a tone that makes those numbers not so set in stone.

Making all sorts of checks keyed to ability scores is good (and Old School).  Making the saving throws tied to ability scores means that lots of people are still gonna want to run "super-charged" characters where an 8 (-1) represents "a significant flaw" and DMs will be hounded if they don't allow point buy or some ridiculous rolling scheme to insure high ability scores across the board. 

Finally, monsters.  Lots of them seem to have some sort of "tactical" special ability for no other reason than to have a "tactical" special ability (in other words, 4E leftovers).  And several of them are what Justin Alexander terms dissociated mechanics. 

We've got a couple people interested in giving it a try.  I've been nominated to DM.  After I finish my grad school stuff, I'll be happy to do so.  Then we'll see how it plays when the rubber hits the road (or the shit hits the fan, depending on how old school I take it).  I'll go ahead and just run it the way it is, to get the most accurate depiction of how it plays.  If I had my druthers, though, I'd scrap the healing mechanic (or at least heavily modify and tone it down), scrap the monster tactical abilities (the whole point of the move to ability score based actions was to be able to do improvisational stuff like in Flying Swordsmen, right?), and keep Backgrounds but drop Themes for the characters.  Probably a few other changes here and there.

So nothing to hate in 5E for me, but nothing to love either.  Some interesting ideas, some things I don't think are good for the game. 

Score so far: C+

Gaming IS my social life

Interesting post by Zak S. about how RPGs are a social activity and Forge-type games are more or less specifically designed to limit the social aspect in the name of "guaranteed fun."  I do agree with what he's saying, but while reading it, I just kept thinking about how different my situation is from the typical gamer.

I live in Korea.  I'm married (to a Korean), and have a son.  I don't go out drinking on the weekends at the foreign English teacher hangouts.  I'm not playing in any sports leagues or in a band.  After work, I go home and spend time with the family.  On weekends, we go shopping, or take our son out somewhere fun.

And I game.

Obviously, as an expat, the people I game with here in Busan are people I met here in Busan.  I've become friends with them.  When I do go out and have a few drinks or whatever, it's with my gaming buddies.

I realize I may well be an exception to the norm, but seriously, gaming is what keeps me social these days!

And yes, we've had our difficulties keeping everyone happy.  We come from varied backgrounds (gamer-wise and otherwise), and it can be hard to find a nice, even, common ground for our games.  But it does happen.  And we've yet to play one of those indy/Forge type "story now" games to do it, with the single exception of the one-page RPG All Outta Bubblegum, which I don't think actually qualifies as a "Forge/GNS" type game anyway.  I wouldn't peg it as one, at least.

Anyway, nothing really to say, no big amazing revelations or anything like that (wouldn't want to disappoint my fans by turning all serious and insightful, now, would I?).  Just my personal observation about my situation as a gamer, and how it may well be contrary to what's expected.

Firefly/Serenity

Caught part of Serenity on TV this morning.  We'd just gotten to the part where the Reavers have attacked Sheppard Book's settlement when my son changed the channel and didn't want to give back the remote control.  (He's 3, he wins at that sort of thing, because he just can't be reasoned with.)

Anyway, it's now got me wanting to rewatch the entire damn thing.  And that will likely get me wanting to play some Star Frontiers or something. 

And there may be some gaming tonight, but it's another new guy wanting to run 4E.  Will my troubles never end?  [If this new guy gets his shit together, though, I'll play.  Not my preferred game, but I'll take it over nothing.]

Hang in there, True Believers!  We'll get Josh's Gamma World game going again, and I'll get some play-tests done on Flying Swordsmen RPG, and maybe even get some Star Frontiers or something worked in there, too!

Bum ending to a bum week

So there's no games going on this weekend.

We were scheduled to play Gamma World, but Pat and Alex were out, so Josh didn't want to run it without Pat, since we're nearing the end of the module.

I suggested we do some playtests of Flying Swordsmen, and Jeremy is now wanting to put together a RIFTS game so he wanted to just discuss options.  I'm not so sure I wanna play RIFTS, but I'll hear him out.

Anyway, then Josh's hard drive crashed so he's got to get all the data retrieved.  And my son is now running a fever.

Jeremy is hoping to put together some board games or something now, it looks like, but there's not many left to play with.

Oh well, assuming my son goes to sleep early and sleeps soundly, at least I can get some writing done tonight, and maybe watch some more of the Sarah Connor Chronicles (two episodes into the first season now).

Got some gaming in yesterday

As often happens with our Board Game Group, we had invited plenty of people, and lots of them had said they'd come out.  But only a few of us managed it.  Some of the guys had gotten together on Saturday to play Axis and Allies though, then were out drinking till the wee hours, so only Pat made it from that group.  Steve, Hong and I were the other players early on.  Joe showed up late, just after Hong left and shortly before Pat and Steve had to go.

Despite the low turnout, we had some good games.  We had a couple of false starts, as well.  We played a round of Medici which I almost won (getting better at that one), We tried Torres (for the first time for everyone but Steve, and he'd only played it once or twice), but something seemed wrong.  We only had the Korean instructions provided by the board game cafe, so we stopped the game after the first Phase and decided to look up the rules and make sure we were doing it right.  Definitely plan to give it a try later.  We played Pueblo next, which I lost spectacularly.

When Hong left, we started a new game of Steve's, Red Dragon Inn.  We didn't get a full game in because Joe showed up and we had limited time before Pat had to go and Joe wanted to give Dominion another whirl.  But Red Dragon Inn was a nice little game.  This is also the sort of game that I'm sure most of my readers would enjoy, as the premise is each player is an adventurer back from the dungeon with gold, and are drinking and gambling it away in the inn.  There are a couple different versions out there.  Steve's copy has a half-ogre, bard, dwarf and um, forgot the other one instead of the ones listed in the link above.

We got our game of Dominion in, then Joe and I played a game of Blokus (the only game I won all afternoon).

We all want to get back to gaming regularly.  One problem though is that everyone's hoping they can pick a time where I'll be able to attend all the time.  Unfortunately, with my schedule that isn't gonna happen.  Hopefully they'll just pick a time, stick to it, and I'll show up as often as I can.

Virtual Tabletops? I could be interested...

I don't play any MMORPGs.  The only online (addictive) games I've played were all free (Utopia and its more open cousin Dystopia, and Kingdom of Loathing to be exact).

I don't have the time or patience for the 'grinding' anymore.  I tried playing Final Fantasy 6/3 on my NES emulator about two years ago, and gave up shortly.  Spending all that time beating slimes with sticks for a few coppers just to buy a dull knife (one step up from the stick!  Then I can save up for the padded vest instead of my tattered dirty jerkin faster!) isn't what I want out of a video game anymore.

The monthly subscription thing isn't too appealing, either.  I'd rather buy a game once, and then have it to play at my leisure. 

The virtual table top, if properly constructed, could possibly interest me.  Being in Korea, there aren't that many gamers I can find.  And I think I've documented thoroughly enough with my current group why RPGs don't seem to work well with us.  I've tried PbP games such as those on RPOL.  They usually don't work.

I did have good experiences years ago using OpenRPG combined with Yahoo Voice Chat (back around 2001/2002) to run some games with friends in other parts of Japan.

I think in my case, having something like a good, stable, VTT with plenty of people checking in and playing all sorts of games would be great for me.  I could play with people I know that live far away, or with strangers, or a mix of both, despite being on a different continent.  And I could find a group of players who want to play the same style of game as myself much more easily, I'd imagine. 

In the end, though, monthly subscription costs will likely keep me away from WotC's offerings, but if someone else came up with something similar and free, or pay as a one-time fee to download the software, I'd be on it.

Nothing beats a good face-to-face game with your friends, but this VTT idea might not be a bad one.

Board Game Group back?

Tonight, despite the fact that none of the regulars besides myself were able to attend (Dave and Pat were busy, Alex sprained his ankle, and Steve was sick and enjoying the medicine doctors had prescribed him), we had a good board game night.

Three of the students at the adult English school where I work weekends came, as well as one friend from the radio station.  So we had 5 players, 4 of them new to Eurogames.

We played Catan twice.  No surprise, I won the first game.  Everyone picked up on the strategies quickly, though, so in the second game I was mostly shut out.  No one would trade with me if they had another choice on their turns, and nobody would trade with me on my turns (mostly).  And it was a neck and neck game.  At the end, Min-gu had a Development Card that he could play for a point plus nine points already, so it was a race to shut him down.  Just before he got that last turn, Rob improved one settlement to a city and built two roads, taking the Longest Road card from Mingu and putting himself at 10 points to win the game.

Lots of fun, and they're all up for more in the future.  Now we just need to worry about scheduling...

Back to Basics

I've spent quite a bit of time in the past couple years designing some versions of AD&D classes for use with Classic D&D that I'm happy with and think play well with the others. I've got a Barbarian, Bard, Cavalier (Paladin), Druid, Illusionist, Ranger, and Half-Orc in addition to the standard 7 (which have some house rules attached to them to a greater or lesser extent).

When I first started up this blog I was often blogging about them, but I lost steam somewhere around the time I'd gotten past the classic 4 character classes.

I think it's partially because in the back of my mind, I've realized that these extra classes are sort of pointless.

Sure, the Cavalier allows a Fighter type to cast some Cleric spells, Druid allows the Mentzer Druid spells to be availabe, Illusionist allows some AD&D illusion spells to be ported over, Half-Orc works as a Fighter/Thief or Assassin stand-in, etc.

But maybe I don't really need all that.

Give any character with a high Int and Cha a musical instrument and they can be a Bard. Give any character woodscraft and they can be a Ranger. A Barbarian is just a character from a more primitive area than the main campaign focus.

I'm sure you've heard it all argued before on Dragonsfoot, Knights and Knaves Alehouse, or some other FRPG website.

Anyway, I think I'm gonna scrap those extra classes as player options (at least at first) and only use them as NPCs from time to time.

Back when we were trying to get the Korean gals to play D&D, they really got in the way. Too many choices, and they had no real way to judge them. It also leads to the line of thinking among a lot of players a few years younger than me who think everything should have an effect on your character sheet.

Back in the day, we used to just roleplay out differences. My main character, Gwydion, was a Fighter who I modeled after a knight. Heavy armor, two handed sword, war horse (later griffon) and lance. My best friend, who goes by the internet alias KillingMachine, had two of his secondary characters named after the protagonists of the cheesy 80's swords & boobies B-movie "The Barbarians" but mechanically they were no different from Gwydion. They were just roleplayed as barbarians, and we rolled with it.

That's what I think I need to bring back to my games to make me happy. Players can be anything they want through roleplay, as long as they use one of the 7 basic classes for game mechanics.