Nostalghia* Is A Foreign Country.

 

 

 

 Nostalghia* Is A Foreign Country.

     (Do you have your passport stamped?)

  

  

File this under projects that took longer than I ever anticipated.  What am I 

talking about?  When I started my blog a DECADE ago, one of the goals I had was 

posting my campaign notes from the Year of the Goat Campaign that I began running 

in early 2015.  What prevented me from getting these game notes typed up and 

posted at the time?  Inertia, and an insecurity regarding running a one on one game, 

which felt weird to write about at the time.

This was primarily a one on one campaign I ran for my fiance (Vlasic and 

Brother Barton’s player), but I picked up 2 other players (Flavius and Bloodfart’s 

players) for a couple of sessions later in the campaign.  The campaign went on 

hiatus in 2020 as we both had a busy year, work on top of loss really slowed me 

down creatively.  Luckily we started a new campaign with a good friend over 

Thanksgiving weekend of 2021 (Flavius’ player) and that is the Ox—>Tiger—>Etc 

Campaign that I’ve posted the notes of the last several years.  It’s in the same 

campaign world, so I could reuse locations, NPCs, and lore.  And this current 

campaign has spawned two separate one-on-one games with a few of the players’ 

hirelings (Danika in the Ctyri Ctvrt Chronicles and Boy in Star Notch Stories).  It 

was satisfying to go back over the Year of the Goat Campaign notes to see how 

both my campaign world and my DM skills and style have evolved.  Starting the 

YotG Campaign in 2015, we were moving away from New World of Darkness 

(Chronicles of Darkness, after a rebrand) gameline Changeling: the Lost.  I was 

still adapting from our more story game style of gameplay, to Lamentations of the 

Flame Princess system.  This will be reflected in the more narrative presentation 

of YotG Campaign’s session notes.  I started worldbuilding quite slowly for sessions 

1-17, but after that I kicked into high gear for a few years.

The initial post is up and it is over on my Substack.  This series chronicling the 

original campaign will be exclusive to my Substack and free for everyone.  Look for 

an actual play session post of the Year of the Goat Campaign (original campaign) 

every Sunday morning (my time zone, USA Pacific).  For those of you who have 

been enjoying the Ox—>Tiger Campaign, Ctyri Ctvrt Chronicles, and Star Notch 

Stories, those will be posted to both here and the Substack.  Thank you to all of my 

readers over here!  I would love to see you over on Substack where there is some 

enhanced functionality for me as the “creator”.  And maybe more interactivity for 

you as well;-)  Either site you read on, I appreciate your time and energy in reading 

my blog, whether you be bot or human!  Catch you on the flipside.

*Every Andrei Tarkovsky movie is an influence on me.  I’m due for a rewatch 

of Nostalghia.

 

Scenic Dunnsmouth Prep Wrapped Up

I'm Excited to Run Scenic Dunnsmouth

I finished doing the village set-up yesterday.  Lots of pig farmers in the version of Dunnsmouth I rolled up, lol.  All that's left to do is get the village placed on the big campaign map.  I'm holding off on getting this and a few other things on the big campaign map because I want to do the southern part of the map all at once. 

In Other News

We resumed playing Year of the Goat Campaign last Sunday.  The PCs made it to Halwic encountering many refugees from the fire, plague, and mimics.  They spoke to the Abbess of St. Forsythia and learned what they could from her about where the mimic(s) popped up.  Next session they'll inquire with the head of the family that was victimized by mimic(s) to investigate further.  Material I worked on during #DIY30 was very helpful to me!  Fun session.

Pivoting Towards Scenic Dunnsmouth

Scenic Dunnsmouth notes and adventure module

Getting A Handle On Year Old Notes

I began prepping the adventure Scenic Dunnsmouth by Zzarchov Kowolski to place on my campaign map a little over a year ago.  Today I went back to the notes and map I started to see what I had left to complete before I need to run it.  After awhile of looking at the module, my notes, and the map I had made, I decided today's work would be to make a tidier map (I could barely read the numbers of the houses because my handwriting+sharpie=illegible scrawl).

Old Map

I scored a small roll of cool grid paper recently and thought that would be great for the new map.  The width of the new roll of paper was about a centimeter longer than the original map's length, so I could cut the perfect width for the map off the roll and have nearly the same dimensions!

New Map

I did a little bit of refining of the original by re-orienting the north south axis a bit and spacing the buildings out from each other where they had been really crowded before.  Also, I moved the time cube from the west of the boat house to the north east.  Next work session I'll get the notes completed, then I can check this off the to-do list;-)

#DIY30 Overflow & #MOCKORANGECAIRN100 Goals

Art from Warhammer Armies: Skaven 6th Edition

I Should Have Written And Posted This A Month Ago Or More, LOL

Instead of having to refer back to the wall of text known as my #DIY30 Goals blog post made back in late August, I'm regrouping the unfinished goals from that here and the goal is to get to 100 blog posts by December 31st, 2018.  That goal is somewhat arbitrary because when I finished #DIY30 I was at post number 83, so it seemed like a good way to stay motivated to keep working on RPG stuff and blogging about it. Four and a half weeks are left and 9 blog posts left to go after this one!  I made up a goofy hashtag for this little pet project of mine #MOCKORANGECAIRN100.

The list of stuff I'll be working on or that I completed in October and November are as follows:

     -Mapping for the G+ game I want to run
     -Answering the remaining questions from "20 Quick Questions for Your Campaign Setting"
     -Strange Bedfellows conversion DONE
     -Life During Wartime Part Two blogpost.
     -The Temple of the Fractured Snail- adventure location idea I had.      
     -The Seclusium of the Orphone- I started making a seclusium from this book and it was tedious af, lol, but I want to finish it so I can drop it in my campaign somewhere. DONE
     -Scenic Dunnsmouth- I think I got my SD local map finished, just need to figure out where to put it on my campaign map and set hooks/write a rumor table.
     -Curse of Strahd adaptation.

Rat my cat Porchy killed yesterday DONE

Putting a Pin in the Seclusium

Tower Map, Location Map, Some Notes

As In It's Done!

I finished my seclusium map and key today.  All that's left with this is to get it on the campaign map.  Since it's going on a part of the map we haven't adventured towards, yet, I'm going to leave that to be done later.  It will be going several hundred miles south of where the PCs are currently and there will be more mapping to do "down there" when the time comes.  Now I can move on to finishing up whatever I had left undone with preparing "Scenic Dunnsmouth."

Ground Floor and Second Floor

Third Floor and Fourth Floor

Fifth Floor and Basement

Wednesday's Seclusium Stuff

Drinking an Almond Milk Chai While I Work On Orphone's Seclusium

This My First Post Composed On Tablet

Typing this way sucks, maybe I should get a little keyboard for my tablet.... anyway brought my notebook to Starbucks and worked on the last questions of Section 6 of The Seclusium of Orphone.  Done with that, just need to finish up mapping and then I can move on to another project.

I've Lost My Compass

Canning Rings=Improvised Drawing Tools

I Needed to Draw Some Circles

But my compass was nowhere to be found.  I've done so much minimizing in the last two years that I don't know whether my cheap little compass was a victim of my purging or not.  So I brainstormed for a minute and figured some canning jar rings would make the right size circles for the tower levels I needed to make for Orphone's seclusium.  I was able to map out levels 1-4 , completing level 1 (or ground level) enough for use and roughing levels 2-4 out with the intent of adding more detail next RPG work session.  I still need to map a subterranean level (doesn't have to be round) and get those Section 6 questions answered; so maybe a work session or two away from getting this Orphone business behind me and on to finishing the prep for Scenic Dunnsmouth (maybe, we'll see what I really feel like tackling!)

Orphone's Tower Levels 3 and 4

Building A Seclusium

Building A Seclusium, Here We Go

Lingering Unfinished For A Little Over A Year

I have owned The Seclusium of Orphone of the Three Visions by D. Vincent Baker for about four years, but I didn't get around to trying to use it until a little over a year ago.  For those unfamiliar with this product here's the back of the book blurb,

     "This book provides the rules, guidelines, tables, and suggestions for creating wizards' seclusia for your own campaigns, and features three sample seclusia in various stages of completion, including the Seclusium of Orphone of the Three Visions."

For those of you wondering "WTF is a seclusia?"  the back of the book also gives these four definitions,

     1. A place to which a wizard withdraws from the world to pursue mastery.
     2. A place of magic and plasms and grotesques and horrors and treasures and doorways to other worlds.
     3. A place which, when abandoned by the wizard but with its treasures and dangers remaining more or less intact, is a terrible and antic catastrophe in process.
     4.  A place which makes for marvelous location-based adventures.

So last year I thought it was high time I bust this book out, make a seclusium and place it on my campaign map somewhere.  A combination of laziness and name preference led me to choose the most completed sample seclusium belonging to Orphone of the Three Visions.  By the way, this isn't a review, just an anecdote of my experience using the book as intended for the first time.  Once the PCs actually interact with this location, then I'll write up a review, as I don't want to review materials that haven't seen actual campaign or one-shot play.

I was able to complete five of the six sections of this seclusium last year, but stopped due to tediousness in the process and non-urgency (this encounter location wasn't going anywhere near where the PCs were at the time.)  I vowed to complete this back during #DIY30, but got bogged down with other projects and am just now picking this up again.  Today I was able to narrow the work left down to five questions in Section 6 and although I have a rough map of the island where Orphone's seclusium is located, I need to draw a map of the tower and key it.  Not sure how much of this I'll get done tomorrow, but after I get those tasks complete, I'll place this location on my campaign map.

"Strange Bedfellows" Conversion DONE!

Coming In Under The Gun With This Week's Second Blog

I'm happy to say I've completed my conversion and adaptation of the Swords & Wizardry adventure "Strange Bedfellows" for my Lamentations of the Flame Princess Year of the Goat Campaign.  I knew this was going to take me awhile, but I had no idea how long, lol.

Last Part of "Strange Bedfellows", The Silverblossom Tree Village

Chipping Away At My #DIY30 Overflow

Silverblossom Tree Village Ground Level

I wasn't nearly as productive with game stuff in October as I had hoped to be.  Probably a combo of being a little busy with other stuff and a little burned out from #DIY30 in September.  I'm nearly done with the conversion/adaptation of the Swords & Wizardry module "Strange Bedfellows."  Yesterday I banged through the ground level of the Silverblossom Tree Village portion of it.  My intention is to get the upper part of that village converted this week.  Then I can move on to the other undone projects from my #DIY30 goals. 

OSR Guide For The Perplexed Questionnaire

OSR Guide For The Perplexed Questionnaire 

By now you are probably aware of G+'s recent announcement to shut down by August of 2019.  As a response to that news, Zak Smith of Playing D&D With Pornstars Blog has written this questionnaire for those of us in the DIY D&D game scene to 

"explain, talk about, extend and preserve the breadth of what the DIY game scene has achieved and means by just talking to each other about it—and helping out any newbies who may just be stumbling on the scene now (there are a surprising number)."

(Clicking on Zak's quote above will take you to the questionnaire if you would like to check it out.)

Let me preface that I've wanted to read others' responses to these questions, but have waited to do so until I wrote my own.  So any unoriginal answers are authentically mine, lol.

 

1. One article or blog entry that exemplifies the best of the Old School Renaissance for me:

It's a tie between James Raggi's I Hate Fun blog post and Matt Finch's A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming.

The I Hate Fun screed really resonated with me when I first read it back in 2013.
  
Finch's Primer was useful for me to read as I was transitioning my gaming from New World of Darkness (now known as Chronicles of Darkness) Changeling the Lost to Lamentations of the Flame Princess and other OSR games.  I go back to it a couple times a year, usually as I'm starting up anew from a gaming/DMing hiatus or at the start of a new game, like when I ran Call of Cthulhu for the first time this year.   


2. My favorite piece of OSR wisdom/advice/snark:

Every once and awhile Zak Smith pops onto G+ with his "RPG Magic 8-Ball" and answers questions from followers about anything RPG for a limited amount of time.  So like campaign, monster, rules/mechanics, this vs. that, etc. queries get answered in useful, sometimes cryptic, and sometimes snarky ways.  Sometimes a combo of all three!  I hope he keeps doing those on another platform when G+ closes.
 
3. Best OSR module/supplement:

Fuuuuuuuuck.  This is like asking which is my favorite cat (out of the three I have.)  I'll try to narrow it down to three.  It pains me to leave out so many other gems, but here we go.

      1.  Vornheim -  It inspired me to go back to D&D style games and has been invaluable in presenting cities in my Year of the Goat campaign.

     2.  Yoon-Suin -  If you don't have this, you're missing out.  I love the setting, love the utility/toolbox design, and love the art.  It's on my campaign map, but the PCs haven't gotten over there, yet.  Can't wait to actually be running this! 

     3.  Red Tide -  I came to the OSR from running WOD Changeling the Lost.  I had run D&D back in my early teens, but I mostly played.  What I'm getting at here is that I needed help getting my shit together to run a sandbox style hexcrawl campaign.  Red Tide combined with Vornheim and Yoon-Suin and reading various blogs helped me run a game that has been the most fun of anything I've run to date!  It has a campaign setting folded into some great campaign generation tools and tables. 

4. My favorite house rule (by someone else):

I like the die-drop equipment tables from blog Dismaster's Den of Unfinished Thoughts.  They are a great way to streamline character creation if players have analysis paralysis during the buying equipment phase.
 
5. How I found out about the OSR:  

I'm not sure how I found out about Playing D&D With Pornstars, but it was my entry into the OSR in late 2012.  Soon after I purchased Vornheim.

6. My favorite OSR online resource/toy:

I have a couple of favorites.  Abulafia.  The D&D Web Apps by Ramanan S on his Save Vs. Total Party Kill blog.
 
7. Best place to talk to other OSR gamers:

G+ has been the best place for me to talk to OSR gamers.
 
8. Other places I might be found hanging out talking games:

Instagram and more recently I got a Discord account.  I'm on Twitch as well, but I haven't made good use of that account, yet.
 
9. My awesome, pithy OSR take nobody appreciates enough:

I am neither awesome nor pithy.

10. My favorite non-OSR RPG:

Changeling the Lost.  I haven't run it in 4 years, not sure when I will again.
 
11. Why I like OSR stuff:

It all mixes and matches quite well.  Lots of great imagination on display in the writing and art.  Creators who are trying to innovate and succeeding.  Usually a very high quality in the printed materials.
 
12. Two other cool OSR things you should know about that I haven’t named yet:

Again, I can't narrow it down to two!  How about these eight:)

The Midderlands and The Midderlands Expanded

The Dark of Hot Springs Island

Petty Gods

The Dungeon Dozen

Slumbering Ursine Dunes, The Misty Isles of the Eld, and Fever Dreaming Marlinko 

13. If I could read but one other RPG blog but my own it would be:

Playing D&D With Porn Stars

14. A game thing I made that I like quite a lot is:

It's rough, but I love my campaign map.

 

15. I'm currently running/playing:

I'm currently playing in a 5e campaign.  When it wraps up, I'll be running my LotFP Year of the Goat campaign again.
 
16. I don't care whether you use ascending or descending AC because:

I use ascending these days, but when I started playing in 1990 THAC0 was the way it was done.  The LotFP Grindhouse Referee Book has a conversion chart, so if I'm running a module that uses descending, no big whoop.
 
17. The OSRest picture I could post on short notice:

Purple Worm En Scene by Luka Rejec

This illustration and more can be found on Wizard Thief Fighter.

A Post Mortem of My #DIY30 Experience

I Could Have Done Better

I didn't complete as many of the goals I laid out for myself as I hoped.  I'm not disappointed in myself, I'm just seeing how I misjudged how much I could finish in the time allotted. 

Near the end, my blog posts were rather truncated and probably a bit boring to read.

As far as the spirit of the challenge, I did less DIY and more adapting and converting of pre-written modules.

I Could Have Done Worse

I worked on RPG stuff 30 out of 33 days from September 1st to October 3rd and every day I worked on RPG stuff I also blogged about it.


The area on my campaign map where we left off the campaign last year is much more fleshed out and three out of four cardinal directions (from where they are located) have something nearby ready for the players to stumble upon and interact with if they choose.

Although I had hoped to produce more original material, thus adhering more closely to the DIY nature of the challenge, I did the work that I thought would be immediately useful in my home campaign.  That just happened to be adapting/converting a couple of  modules I had previously chosen for placement on my campaign map near where the PCs are located and likely to explore soon.

Parting Thoughts On My #DIY30 Experience

Participating in this RPG blog challenge was beneficial to me in that I felt I had to do RPG work everyday no matter how I felt or how much time I had to write/map/design in a particular day.  Working on my campaign everyday illuminated some of my writing inefficiencies and time-wasting tendencies.  Although I didn't complete as much as I wanted to when I set goals at the beginning, I still accomplished a fair amount of work and when I go back to running this campaign, I'll feel more confident about the encounters and adventure hooks that are available to the PCs in this area of the map.  I would like to do #DIY30 again, maybe early next year!


New Mini-Challenge for Myself

The goals that went unfinished will be rolled over into a new challenge I've set for myself.  After completing #DIY30, my blog was at 82 posts.  So the challenge for me will be to get to 100 posts by the end of 2018.  That will require 1.6363636364 posts per week until the end of the year.  Lol, or two posts a week most weeks.  #MOCKORANGECAIRN100  There, it even has a fucking hashtag now!


If You're Reading This I Want to Hear From You

Did you participate in #DIY30?  What did you think of your experience?  Why are you reading my blog?  What are you getting out of it?  What did you eat as a snack at that last game you DMed or played?  No snacks?  Are you fasting, lol?

#DIY30 Day Thirty

Three Rooms Left...

I worked on level three of the Broken Hammer dungeon and got so close to finishing today!  I'll wrap it up tomorrow, then it's on to the Treeblossom Village.  This wraps up my blogging of my #DIY30 challenge.  In a day or two, I'll do a post mortem on my efforts, but in short I'm happy I did it and happy it's ovah!  Thank you to anyone who has followed along.

#DIY30 Day Twenty Nine

Penultimate

I'm nearly finished with #DIY30 and there are six rooms left to adapt/convert in the Broken Hammer dungeon level three.  After I finish up the dungeon it's on to the last part of the "Strange Bedfellows" adventure, The Treeblossom Village.  I knew it was going to take a lot of work to convert and adapt this adventure to my campaign needs, but I didn't realize it was going to dominate the second half of my #DIY30 challenge and then some!  I'm happy to have gotten so much done with this, though.  I'm making it my goal for October to do a little RPG work everyday, but I'm going to reduce my blogging to once or twice a week.  Still quite a bit of stuff to finish on the #DIY30 goals list I made for myself and I want to keep rolling with this momentum I have.  If you've read this post and any others, I would welcome your comments or questions!  Did you participate in #DIY30?  What did you accomplish during those 30 days?  

#DIY30 Day Twenty Seven

Operation Wood Pile Complete:)

I finished the last cords of firewood on Friday.  Then I was gloriously lazy Saturday.  Today I almost finished the conversion/adaptation of level two of the Broken Hammer dungeon.  Like I said earlier, I'll run my #DIY30 work into October as needed, so looks like I'll be finishing up on the 3rd.  The Broken Hammer dungeon has a third level, so I'll get started on that.  When I complete this challenge I took upon myself, I'll keep working on the projects I didn't get to, but at a somewhat reduced pace.  I'm thinking I'll work on stuff enough to write two blog posts a week.  We played D&D 5e this morning.  It was the second session of this arc of the campaign.  Early stages, but lots of fun!  The DM for that game is setting us up for some scary stuff, I think!

#DIY30 Day Twenty Six

Progress Was Made....

But not as much as I predicted yesterday, lol.  I got more done with the wood pile, but I chipped away at level two of the Broken Hammer dungeon a little, too.  I might finish the wood stacking tomorrow, but no promises.

#DIY30 Day Twenty Five

It's My Birthday

I turned 40 today.  I took the day off from wood stacking as a present to myself, but I worked on the Broken Hammer dungeon level two.  Only nine rooms left to adapt, maybe I can crank through it and the wood pile tomorrow.  We'll see how it goes.  My birthday celebration turned out to be an awesome BBQ.  We're having a warm fall, so far, here in my corner of the NW.  Soon though, the short gray days will have their reign!

#DIY30 Day Twenty Four

Same Shit, Different Day

Stacked wood, worked on Broken Hammer dungeon level two, rinse and repeat.

#DIY30 Day Twenty Three

Another Day Another Wood Pile And Level Two Session

More wood in the shed, more conversion work done on level two of the Broken Hammer dungeon from "Strange Bedfellows."  Probably gonna be the same story from me over the next two days.

#DIY30 Day Twenty Two

The Woodpile And The Dungeon

I started to stack wood today.  It's going to take a few days to get it all in the wood shed.  Also managed to get a little work done on the Broken Hammer dungeon level two.