Wishing you happiness on the American holiday that happens today...

Thanksgiving is kind of a tricky one, eh?  I mean...I don't think there's anyone out there saying it's a bad idea to take some time and reflect on the things you're thankful for in life.  And obviously, celebrations of the harvest have a pretty solid standing in the history of humanity.  But...over time (and potentially right from the start of the modern tradition, since it was apparently a bit of a propaganda move on President Lincoln's part), we've built a mythology around the holiday that is undoubtedly problematic when placed in in the full context of the United States' first couple centuries (and especially its treatment of the land's native inhabitants).

Now, I actually think that this mythology can be helpful, as we can build on aspects of it that we hold dear with a modern perspective and lessons learned over many more decades of the "American Experiment."  And I'm definitely not looking to hinder the holiday vibes of anyone who wants to take the opportunity on this one Thursday every year to appreciate their blessings.  Unfortunately, it seems that another tradition has developed among many Americans, in which any attempt to place the story of the holiday within an honest historical framework is treated as a challenge to America's core values (about which we also seem to agree less and less by the day).

And yeah, it's weird that the holiday's most enduring symbol is the turkey, whose role in the festivities is to become the main course.

Lincoln was also the first president to pardon a turkey, a tradition that was later ramped up by Reagan and enshrined as an official presidential act by Bush the elder.  This image (swiped from Roadside America) shows a monument to Jack, the bird spared by Lincoln in 1863.  I could really get behind a holiday that was all about pardoning turkeys...

Despite the fact that I'll probably never be able to unlearn the things that force me to see Thanksgiving as a nuanced American holiday (not that I'd want to unlearn pretty much anything) rather than a controversy-free celebration of how God has Blessed America, I'll probably always have a soft spot for a lot of the day's traditional imagery.  This can almost certainly be traced, at least in part, to a specific memory from 1982 when...fresh off of Halloween and apparently of the belief that every holiday should be a reason to cosplay at school...I decided to attend kindergarten dressed as a "Thanksgiving Pilgrim."

Sadly, no, I don't still have this outfit.

(And speaking of being thankful, I should be forever grateful for having a family that indulged my ridiculous wishes enough to help me put together things like this costume...)

In a way, I guess it is sort of a shame that I can no longer have a blind appreciation for what I represented in that outfit.  But...I also guess that's an inevitable result of being open to changing one's opinion as new information and perspectives are encountered.  I'm good with that.

Now, to shake off the seriousness and potentially invalidate anything of value that I managed to articulate, here's a silly RPG class:

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The Pilgrim

Image source

Hit Die: d12

Alignment: A Pilgrim must be of lawful alignment.

Proficiencies
Weapons: Simple weapons, firearms

Armor: Light armor
Saving Throws: Constitution, Wisdom
Skills: Religion (INT), Survival (WIS)

Borne on the Mayflower
At 1st level, you gain advantage on all checks related to seafaring.

"By God's visitation, reigned a wonderful plague..."

Also at 1st level, you gain advantage on all rolls to resist disease.

Signature Smoothbore

Beginning at 2nd level, you get a +3 expertise bonus and +1 to damage rolls when firing a musket or blunderbuss.

Image source

Blessed
Starting at 3rd level, whenever you roll a 1 on a d20, you may choose to reroll that die.  You must use the result of the reroll.

Ability Score Increase
When you reach 4th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1.

Damn the Heretics and Horrors
At 5th level, you gain an enhanced ability to thwart the will of those who oppose your God.  This works as a Cleric's turn undead ability that affects not only undead creatures, but also creatures of any Witch or Warlock class.  You may use a cross or Bible as a holy symbol.  (As an action, you present your holy symbol and speak a prayer censuring your enemies. Each undead, Witch, and Warlock that can see or hear you within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw. If the creature fails its saving throw, it is turned for 1 minute or until it takes any damage.)

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Geeky SKAturday: Arcade Allstars

After posting a couple weeks ago that JER's ska rendition of the Ghostbusters theme was a no-brainer inclusion for the nearly random collection of items that make up this blog, I knew that this band would also make an appearance before long.  When considering what angle to take in presenting them, however, I realized that the Canadian band Arcade Allstars are a great match for all that is Monstrous Matters, on multiple fronts:

1.  Just look at that album cover!

I knew there were tabletop gamers in the band after one of the members responded on Reddit to one of my nerdy ska threads (about either the Rudie class or the Agents of SKA...and in which I learned that they refer to their D&D party as the Arcane Allstars 😂), but they really outdid themselves with the cover of their recent album Destined 4 Disaster.  The band members themselves as the miniatures being used in a game by fantasy characters is just...well, basically I hate that I didn't think of it, and now I won't feel like I should use it on the off chance I have an album in need of a cover at some point in the future. 😅

2.  They belong on a gaming soundtrack

I've been meaning to post at some point about ska songs that would make up a nice soundtrack for gaming in the absurd world of the Agents of SKA, where ska bands travel through the timestream preserving its integrity for future (and past) generations.  D4D has a track that definitely belongs in that group:

My assumption is that the title is a reference to the character select screen of a fighting game...and perhaps specifically some edition of Mortal Kombat...

...and it's possible, in fact, that this tune is actually a cover of some well-known video game theme that I'm just not familiar with (as someone who hasn't invested much in video games since 1995 or so).  I'm assuming (there I go again) it's an original, though, and it definitely captures the feel of 1990s video game action.  It would similarly be a great background track for the daring exploits of the Agents of SKA.

3.  Superman makes an appearance

There was a time when songs referencing Superman were a feature on this blog (as much as just about anything could be called a "feature" here)...and the Arcade Allstars have (at least) one as well!  Here's a live rendition of "Blue Collar"...

4.  They've influenced a spell...

...or, as I call them for the Rudie class, a sound.  Filling out the potential repertoire of the sound-wielding adventurers that take part in an Agents of SKA campaign is something that I have unfortunately neglected, even while writing this year about the exact sort of RPG campaign where they would make the most sense.  So...here's one to address that, along with the song it's based on.  (And truly...no disrespect is meant to anyone with mutton chops, 44 years old or otherwise...!)

Mutton Chops

1st-level Sound

Range: Touch

Duration: 24 hours

One creature gains mutton chops and advantage on Charisma checks for the duration of the spell.  The target may attempt a saving throw if they choose; if successful, they only grow one mutton chop, with the side of the face determined randomly.  (If the target creature doesn't have a face, the mutton chops manifest as whatever seems like the closest analog possible for a being of their physical form.)

5.  I'm sure there's more...

Truly, I'm certain there is.  This crew appears to have a solid nerd core (although not to be confused with nerdcore, of course), and based upon the pleasant interaction I've had with their saxophonist Cody on Reddit, it seems that they may also be nice folks to boot.  I'd be surprised if this is the last time the Arcade Allstars come up on this blog...

UNLTD: The somewhat silly acronym that wouldn't die in my imagination

I love a good organizational acronym...usually a backronym (maybe?)...in my gaming.  From SLOP, to the CROwN, to BADGER, to the Agents of SKA, to...well, probably some others I'm not remembering...there's definitely an argument to be made that I've spent too much time playing with letters in my head for the purposes of organizations that don't actually exist.

In addition, those who have paid close attention to the RPG settings that have interested me over the years (no, I don't expect that to actually apply to anyone) will know that I have had a long-running fascination with applying the portal fantasy trope to my games.  The earliest expression of this that I can remember took place at my bachelor party back in 2011 (celebrated at Con Nooga), during which I DM'ed a short adventure built on the premise of an Earth expedition into a dungeon on another world.  Because I'm a sucker for a good acronym, I started out with the plan that the adventuring team would represent the United Nations League of Terran Defense...or...♬dunh dunh dunh♬...

UNLTD

By the time I actually ran the adventure, the org had changed into the Unaffiliated League of Terran Defense, or UnLTD.  Because that's...more rebellious...?  I'm not really sure, and I was never sure how to feel about that lowercase N (especially when I thought about logos), and I always kinda felt like a "League of Terran Defense" sounded more like the human protagonists in a kaiju story than what I was using it for.

Anyway, this idea would ultimately see publication in Fight On! #14 as "Agents of the CROwN," as the fictional team was redirected to the Council for Research on Otherworldly Narratives...also featuring Kelvin's clean and distinctive artwork...

Now, the Stargate reference that Kelvin brought into the mix isn't really something I had thought of, but it made so much sense and would go on to influence my thoughts on portal fantasy gaming quite a bit in the decade-plus since then.  I eventually realized that some variation of Stargate + D&D is actually a pretty common idea to pop up in online RPG discussions.  (This will come up again, gimme a sec...!)

So then, quite a while (more than 2.5 years) ago, when I was in one of my phases of thinking a lot about gaming with 3.75-inch toy soldiers, I started tagging my posts with "UnLTD."  I think I was zeroing in on that as a name for the ruleset, as the whole "League of Terran Defense" idea kind of seemed to work, and the name could imply the unlimited possibilities of gaming with the huge variety of 1:18-ish scaled figures out there.  But...somewhere along the way I hit on the name People of Adventure, which could be a tribute to Fisher Price's Adventure People (one of the OG toylines in that scale) and could be abbreviated POA...almost clever as the name of a game with action figures.

Recently, though...I was thinking about some of the figures I need to stat up for the game.  These are some that I think my Mom found at Dollar Tree and kindly sent my way...

And I couldn't help but get Stargate vibes from these.  And then, at some point, it hit me: The absolute LEGENDS among 3.75-inch action figures (for a lot of us, anyway) are the G.I. Joe and Star Wars lines...and isn't Stargate kind of a wacky combination of those two?

For whatever reason, now that I'm thinking about the figures that way, the name UNLTD seems pretty good again!  Why wouldn't the United Nations put together a League of Terran Defense to protect Earth from fantastic invaders (and potential invaders) from other worlds?

Yeah, that gun is something else...I'm gonna have to have a post on that, I think...

I think that UNLTD lives on...!

(As I always write when I don't know how to end things...more to come!)

Geeky SKAturday: Ghostbusters!

Relative to the amount of time I spend actually sharing things on here, I spend way too much time considering whether or not I should blog about random stuff I come across on the web.  In doing this off and on for almost 10(!) years, I've managed to bounce around enough topics to have a blog that's kind of about everything, and kind of about nothing, and kind of about just whatever's in my head at the moment.

But occasionally, I see something that I know I should share...AND that 100%...no, 110%...fits whatever it is I blog about.  It is this:

I've featured the work of JER from Ska Tune Network before on here (for Sonic and Pokémon tunes, if you're keeping score).  And this certainly isn't the first time this classic theme has been given a ska makeover (it obviously works well with a third wave ska punk treatment!), but it's definitely worth noting when the immensely talented ska evangelist JER takes a crack at it...

ChatGPT seems to have opinions about the sort of games I want to play

I've been continuing my experimentation in using AI to code games/game aids by playing around with a character generator for the various threads of gaming that bounce around in my head.  The main games and settings I'd like to establish by the end of the year (fingers crossed but yeah right) are the Monstrous Matters setting, my own little fantasy heartbreaker (and an associated setting...?), and People of Adventure (POA), my take on skirmish gaming using action figures, with rules rooted in the RPG mechanics of the first two.  And then, beyond that, I'd eventually like to have something concrete in place for Agents of SKA, Underground Elemental Beastfighting, and probably 100 more that I wrote about one time and promptly forgot about.  Anyway, as I (use ChatGPT to) build the generator, those first three plus Agents of SKA are the campaigns I've included to form the skeleton to which I can add other settings later.

So, of course, in the midst of making adjustments and returning code to me during our conversation, ChatGPT decided these should be the campaigns I make characters for:

Classic Dungeons

Underworld

Skyward Isles

Vault Raiders

Mutant Frontier

Agents of SKA

Generic Fantasy

Post-Apocalypse

Science Fiction

Wha--?

Now, to be fair, I'm running with three different systems for the characters — 5e, my Monstrous Heartbreaker, and a system neutral option — so I think the really generic choices on there can be chalked up in part to the AI "wanting" campaign names that it finds very appropriate to associate with "5e" and "System Neutral."  Still, though...I truly don't get why chatbots will occasionally change things up like this out of nowhere (it's made a similar call for my species and class choices, as well as the general layout of the generator)...almost as if they think they know better even on matters of opinion, intention, and creativity.

And...well, maybe that's true, as when called out on it, ChatGPT first apologized(!), then went on to say, "That’s the version I included in the code above — these are your intended campaigns, right?"

Oh, okay...trying to tell me something, ChatGPT...?

We did get this little misunderstanding worked out, but it didn't take all that long for it to contribute some campaign options once again, with the choices becoming:

Agents of SKA

Underworld

Epic of Elaria

At this point, I started to wonder if maybe this AI has its own fantasy heartbreaker that it's looking for a chance to bring into being.  I asked it to create a cover for an Epic of Elaria RPG book and got this...

...so I guess it's pretty much generic fantasy, but the elves have one really long ear that they use for...making precise measurements...?

I'll post more here if I find out more about what happens in this Epic, or in any of the other campaigns toward which I'm being guided...

A slice of 1970s RPG life (IN SPACE!)

While I have unfortunately never gotten to roll dice with him, I knew that my uncle played D&D during its very early days. He suppposedly even wrote for an RPG fanzine, and while I had never seen any solid evidence of this before, my mother recently sent me some of his handwritten notes that she found in old papers from my grandmother's house. Apparently, we get a little glimpse here of what his adventures were like while playing with his acquaintance George as DM. No idea if this George fellow is anyone I've heard of otherwise, but it seemed like it'd be neat to type up the notes and share them here. Hopefully Mom will find more soon...

July 19, 1975

I was recently able to take part in a very unique campaign of Dungeons & Dragons. Because the setting has some really interesting differences from most of the ones I’ve played in up till now (more John Carter than Conan), I thought it would be worthwhile to write up some session reports for the fanzine, so that others can see just how flexible D&D is. I’ll try to remember the story as precisely as I can, but please remember that these are all “after action” reports, so I may miss some details here and there.

When I arrived at my cousin Joel’s house for a summer visit, he asked if I wanted to take part in a D&D campaign his neighbor George had been working on, that had been described to him as “a fantasy war in space” (I think he even said George just calls it “The Star War”). I thought this sounded amazing and, having just picked up the Greyhawk supplement, figured this would be a great chance to try out some of its options before returning to my own D&D group next week. So, we gathered last night at the home of another neighbor (Ted) to have an introductory session where we learned about the setting and created our characters. The adventuring party would be Ted, Theo (we were lucky that with two Theodores in the group, they use different nicknames!), Joel, and me, with George as DM.

George said it would be okay if we wanted to play nonhuman characters (even ones that are usually monsters), and that it would be easy to work them into the campaign world as aliens from one of the billions of planets in the galaxy where the adventures take place. I asked if I could play a Bugbear (from Greyhawk, described as “great hairy goblin-giants”), and George worked out some stats for it really quickly. One of the interesting things he worked into it is that my character (called Chewy by the others) can’t speak Common due to the way my vocal cords are shaped, BUT I can understand it, and there are many characters of other species who are able to understand my language when I speak it. This actually seems like it could make for some interesting roleplaying moments, so I’m excited to see where it goes. At first it seemed like it would get annoying really quickly, but that definitely didn’t happen in our short first session of play.

I also wanted to keep the faux-medieval fantasy theme typical to D&D going a little bit, so I asked if it would be reasonable for my Bugbear to have a crossbow as a main weapon. George said yes, but that it should be set up to fire energy like the raygun-type weapons the others are using. He said he would work something out about how those of the Bugbear species like using crossbows for some reason.

With the options being wide open, I don’t really know why Ted, Theo, and Joel all just wanted to play humans, but they did. Ted is playing an older spellcaster named Ben that George kept referring to as “sort of a space wizard who is also good in combat,” and Joel is this classic “farmboy who wants to be a hero” type guy with an amazing last name: Starkiller. (I actually can’t even remember what his first name is; I just called him Starkiller all night, because that’s just badass.)

Starkiller has some skill in flying, but the main pilot of the group (as George said we should have at least one in the party who owns and can fly a starship) is played by Theo, a pirate named Hans. I figured it would be cool if Hans and I had a history together, so we worked out this fairly elaborate story where he saved my life one time and now I’m completely dedicated to his protection and service. So, it was decided that Chewy the Bugbear is also a bit of a pilot himself.

After giving us a brief overview of the campaign world he has created (which honestly sounds absolutely amazing, and which I could never do justice by trying to describe it here – the key point is that in the galaxy, there is an evil Empire that is in control, and a group of rebels have been joining together to try to fight back against it), George had us introduce our characters to each other and jumped to an actual in-universe scene to make it all more impactful. You guessed it: We met in a tavern! I wish I had a recording of the way George described this “cantina” as he called it, and all the incredible species of aliens drinking in it.

The story so far is pretty straightforward. Starkiller and Ben were given what I assume is the key MacGuffin of the first adventure, some plans for a planet-destroying starbase which are being carried by one of the robots they have with them (both of whom were outside the tavern for our first meeting). So, they hired me and Hans to take them to the planet where they are supposed to deliver them. It was actually a pretty fun scene in terms of interaction, as Theo had Hans go on and on about how great he is as a pilot and how good his ship is, and he actually haggled with them on a price for the job (even though we all knew we were going to take it).

That was pretty much the end of the main story for the evening, and we’ll pick up next session as we head to a new planet on Hans’s freighter to deliver the starbase plans. There was a final little bit of roleplaying where George introduced this alien bounty hunter who wanted to capture (or maybe kill?) Hans. My first impression was that this alien (who I’ll admit had kind of a ridiculous name, Greed-O) was going to play a role in the unfolding adventure, but I hope that wasn’t the case, since Hans pretty much immediately killed him! George and Ted also talked a little about how Ben’s past is going to play a part in upcoming sessions, and apparently George gave Ben and Starkiller some sort of magical weapons that will come up again. I am guessing it’s the “blade of light” that Ben wielded during the tavern roleplaying scene, but we’ll find out more as the story unfolds.

I’ll be back to the journal tomorrow night with updates!

-HAG

From here

(UEB v2.0)

[NOTE: I didn't mean to put this here as its own post, but since it's already achieved more than most of my posts by getting a comment(!)😅, I think I should leave it here. Good luck in your beastcatching!]

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