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es baked in that you and your players might have been blind to at the time you may realize that a character monster culture or other setting element is insensitive time to make the necessary adjustments restock if you were running a megadungeon or similar environment odds are that a decent chunk of the dungeon had been cleared out by the pcs and hadn t yet been restocked you could leave it that way but it will probably be more fun for the players if you replenish those areas with monsters and treasure they re not going to remember what areas they cleared out and a reunion game that starts off by wandering through empty room after empty room may feel like a disappointment extend this may not apply to more organized or diligent dms for my part i often flew by the seat of my pants and stayed just ahead of the pcs in building out new levels and sub levels of my megadungeon now i m rusty and i no longer have any idea where the pcs will go next so i ll need to find the blank spots on the map and fill in a few more rooms around the edges in case the pcs go there resurrect you ll want to check with everyone in advance to make sure they ve found their character sheets and figure out what to do for players whose sheets can t be found online backups are often out of date stats may need to be rerolled unless you feel comfortable guesstimating or it might be time for a new character though that s a last resort much of the charm of a campaign reunion comes from bringing back everyone s old characters for a last hurrah inform now that you ve got the campaign sorted out in your mind you need to get everyone else on the same page refresh everyone s memory by summarizing what s happening in the setting as of now fill them in on what s lined up for the reunion session s be sure to get their input on what they want to do as this will heavily inform your session prep advance you may want to start the reunion game exactly where the original campaign left off but there are advantages to doing a timeskip your players won t have clear memories of the old status quo and pushing the timeline forward a few years means their characters can be equally fuzzy on the details and using a timeskip to tweak characters stats and add a bit of history helps get the players re engaged play self explanatory i ll be putting together some random tables for the timeskip letting the players roll to see whether their characters have picked up stat reducing battle scars or cool magic items and whether they ve gained new hirelings or lost hard won noble titles letting them tell the story of how these things came about should help everyone immerse themselves in our glantri setting again once my tables have been assembled i ll post them here see you then 27 may 25 getting back in the worm s saddle by eric minton 4 comments categories crass hucksterism his majesty the worm and indie filth tags campaign hmtw old school wow so it s been checks notes 12 years since i last posted here that s as many as four threes and that s terrible during that time i was heavily invested in writing and development in exalted third edition a game that is vastly different from the osr play space i found that i didn t have the energy to devote to both game development and my d d campaign and ultimately my glantri campaign collapsed over the past couple of years i ve been pulling back from my exalted work during that time i found myself missing the camaraderie of my old group and after putting out feelers i discovered that most of them were still in or had returned to new york and were interested in a new game so after reading a tantalizing review of his majesty the worm on rpgnet i decided to pick it up and give it a try it s been going well session 6 of our new campaign is scheduled for tonight and as usual i feel somewhat underprepared which is the nature of the beast so far i ve been having a great time and the old camaraderie is back in spades while my life is currently pretty busy i hope to start occasionally blogging again to address osr related topics that arise in the course of the campaign i will also be shilling wares from the curio curia the magic item collection that i wrote for his majesty the worm because that s what you do when you have a blog see you next time and may the dice cards be ever in your favor 24 jan 25 prependix n by charlatan 1 comment categories uncategorized tags bibliography prependix n a mere 10 months ago hot off the presses by what james refers to as our shambolic standards the problem with appendix n over at grognardia lamented yet for all that appendix n suffers from a very clear problem one that has limited its utility as a guide for understanding dungeons dragons as gary gygax understood it it s just a list gygax unfortunately provides no commentary on any of the authors or works included in the list stating only that those he included were of particular inspiration he later emphasizes that certain authors like fritz leiber robert e howard and h p lovecraft among others played a stronger role in help ing to shape the form of the game beyond these brief remarks gygax says nothing else about what he found inspirational in these books and authors or why he selected them over others he chose not to include great news when gygax was promoting a scrappy young game called dungeons dragons to science fiction fantasy faans in swords sorcery is a game too published in the sf f journal 87 22 february 1976 he included some brief annotations for context in no particular order i mention some of the authors who most strongly influenced its creation a merritt fantasy and super science lovecraft horrible alien gods howard the super hero leiber the adventure on parallel earths de camp pratt treating myths and mythos as ad venture poul anderson the heroic quest tolkien the complete epic vance magic and imagination burroughs the pit adventure as well as brackett farmer st clair fox haggard petaja and saberhagen the astute reader will pick up on some genre drift in this list gygax will go on to clarify it is also worth noting that the very flexible guidelines of d d allow it to be mixed with virtually any historical period or created history thus games can be moved backwards to the ancient integrated with modern technology placed upon a post atomic war earth peopled by mutants or sprinkled with true science fic tion in this regard it is a true fantasy game rather than a strict swords sorcery one i am tempted to go into why someone in 76 would have a caveat regarding strict swords sorcery but i think that s another post to refresh our memories the hoary appendix n says that the most immediate influences upon ad d were probably de camp pratt reh fritz leiber jack vance hpl and a merritt if we can assume that d d and ad d were influenced in similar ways looking outside gaming to fiction fandom provides some interesting context for those authors and a couple besides hello again to poul anderson and to john ronald reuel tolkien 20 jan 25 kirbsday reprise by james nostack leave a comment categories uncategorized tags comics james kirby politics by joe simon and jack kirby published december 20 1940 this is the official position of the mule 19 jan 25 everything s going great in siddim plus a game jam by james nostack 2 comments categories uncategorized tags blogging james not dead yet spelunking systemless underdark zine so the thing is i kinda forgot that we had this blog once a year or so i would remember it and sigh thinking of happier or at least more dice filled times and get too overwrought to post anything but thankfully charlatan s commitment to exploring the by ways of gaming history here and here momentarily roused me from the sleep of ages to tell you about a game jam it expires on january 31 2025 details are here https itch io jam tiny world ttrpg jam the short version is make up a tiny li l setting no more than 8 pages i m guessing foldy zine pages not 8 5 x 11 but what do i know not a full game not a big complicated thing describe only a room if you want no previously published material no ai generated stuff i did not create this game jam and literally know nothing else about it do not ask me questions about it i forgot how to log onto wordpress and spent forever trying to figure out my password i d been looking for away to get around some writers block and this seemed like a fun painless way to do it my entry is based on two posts from like 14 years ago keep your rough drafts my friends you ll never know when they might come in handy anyway here s my system neutral micro setting for anyone who wants to tangle with horrible slime monsters cormac mccarthy influenced slime priests demons and gibbering llms intruding into the caverns where all life began i was going to include the pdf here directly but i can t remember how to do so go to the link also submit your own little micro thing and tell us about it in comments ps i ve basically been fine this whole time it was honestly a shock to realize my life has barely changed at all in the last ten years then again part of my lifecycle involves gorging myself on nectar then regurgitating it to form a life preserving chrysalis 07 jan 25 the illustrator jane sala by charlatan 1 comment categories uncategorized tags roleplaying history in the first female gamers 2014 jon peterson identifies three decidedly female names in the of the december 1959 subscriber list of jack scruby s war game digest before considering the trajectory of women in war gaming and the early fantasy role playing games of the 70s virginia esten of hammond indiana a jane sala of bolton massachusetts and a jean murray of chicago peterson goes on to discuss jean murray s brief subsequent presence in war game digest a previous post here on the mule compiles some information about the wargaming adventures of virginia esten perhaps if you are like me a tiny voice is whispering to you even now what about jane sala of bolton massachusetts you ask trying to buy enough time to find a distraction in your household obligations or your real job or the refrigerator obviously yes the voice says undeterred the june 20 1958 edition of the lowell sun reports two relevant changes to the personnel plan of the littleton school system littleton is just about a 13 minute drive from bolton and they re both about mrs jane sala she is a departing fourth grade teacher after one year of service and the incoming art supervisor for the littleton school system this position merits a brief curriculum vitae art supervisor mrs jane sala of bolton mrs sala has attended the university of california university of texas university of southern california choinards art school in los angeles this is probably the chouinard art institute and art center school in los angeles she is presently enrolled at the boston university art school mrs sala has spent four years as a fashion illustrator in seattle washington has had sketches published in atlantic monthly and has illustrated children s books mrs sala has had five years of teaching experience four in california and one in littleton it s no surprise to see that about a year earlier the august 14 1957 edition of the lowell sun reports that a mrs sala of harvard was starting as a grade 4 teacher in littleton so for what it s worth does the acton beacon on august 22 scooped again beacon right now you are probably in one of two camps those who note that fine virginia esten was also an educator but this is a lot of words to get there or those who think this is a lot of words and has gone nowhere at all bad news i m just getting started what was mrs jane sala doing before she started teaching in littleton her cv says that at some point prior she had spent four years teaching in california on july 13 1957 the morning union of springfield massachusetts about an hour from littleton and bolton reports that mrs jane sala and her son jimmy of san mateo cal visited with mrs sala s cousins mr and mrs a r goodlatte wait don t leave mrs sala and jimmy weren t traveling alone they motored from california a long haul with a guest her niece miss judith scruby of visalia cal it s possible that there s more than one mrs jane sala getting started in a teaching career outside boston in 1957 and it s possible that there s more than one miss judith scruby of visalia there is one judith scruby from visalia however who was the daughter of john edwin jack scruby miniatures legend and editor of the war game digest and jack scruby had a sister jane elizabeth scruby i thought about arranging this differently to play that thread out longer but because of the esteem in which i hold you dear reader and because there are some other surprises i ll just say that there s a pretty strong hypothesis that the jane sala of bolton massachusetts who was subscribing to jack scruby s war game digest is jack scruby s sister back in 1957 merle montgomery who might not have a decidedly female name but appears to have nonetheless fallen victim to wikipedia s gender bias published sight sound a sight reading instruction book illustrated by jane sala is this in the view of the littleton school system a children s book we may never know but at the end of 1956 jane sala illustrated a piece in the atlantic describing the arab shadow play a genre whose archtypical characters international pastiche general ribaldry and magical personae will be familiar to d d players the plots of the shadow plays are flexible and freely improvised usually they pit karagöz archetype of the rogue against his foil the pseudo aristocratic hajivad the arab shadow play is truly international in spirit some of its grotesque and ribald elements go back to the tradition of greek mimicry which the turkish conquerors preserved from the days of the byzantine empire there are also traces of influence from the chinese shadow play which was brought to the borders of the arab world by the mongols scenery is suggested by set pieces such as a ship a bathhouse or a brothel the puppets can mimic the mannerisms of foreigners the lurching walk of a drunkard opium smokers are favorite subjects of amusement while miraculous jinn and bellowing dragons especially delight the children in the audience arablit tells us that in one of these plays elegy for satan philandering bums stand around the pyres of burning hashish shedding tears to try to put out of the flames gandalf is on his way over sala s line drawings depict the articulated leather puppets of the genre but looking back now it is easy to imagine them as an editorial approach to fantasy illustration the disarticulated pieces overlapping in the drawings are very evocative in 1956 sala was exhibiting art annual art show scheduled san mateo times 1 13 1956 and teaching san mateo times public schools week edition 4 23 1956 in san mateo but she had not been there long she had been teaching in modesto ca since 1953 prior four years in california for those keeping score at home and fourt...