Happy Birthday Gene Wolfe!

It has come to my attention that today, May 7th, 2011, is the 80th birthday of Mr. Gene Wolfe. Mr. Wolfe is one of the finest American writers of all time, from the four-part Book of the New Sun to The Knight and The Wizard, from his short story anthologies to his quirky and unsettling novellas.

Mr. Wolfe will tell you things you do not want to hear. He will tell them to you in a friendly voice, and he will tell them to you in such a way that you do not fully understand just what it is you have been told until he is done. By that time, of course, it is far too late, and you will find yourself thoroughly trapped. You were warned!

(Notice! No jump here! Why? Because this is the most important thing you will ever read in your life. Really!)

If you are not familiar with Mr. Wolfe's work, then let me offer at once my sincerest condolences and state my utter and total envy. My condolences because your life up to this point has been a dreary, bland and facile existence lacking in any redeeming quality whatsoever. My envy because you exist in a state of pristine ignorance, like a small child who has never tasted chocolate, and a wide world of awe now awaits you.

My first contact with Mr. Wolfe's work was The Shadow of the Torturer (the first volume of his signature work, the Book of the New Sun), which I picked up from a used bookstore when I was in high school. After lumbering through the story to its finish, I was confused. I was not sure just what I'd been reading up to that point. I knew that I liked it... sort of. The story was intriguing, disturbing and exhilarating all at once, yet still carried a weight of solemnity to it.

I purchased the remaining 3 volumes of the Book of the New Sun and tore through them all, and upon completing the last word of the last sentence of the last paragraph of the last page in the last book... I was no less confused.

A year or so passed before I returned to the series for a re-reading (this is what we did in the era before TiVo and YouTube, we read things and then, when we ran out of things to read, we re-read them). Upon finishing the series a second time I felt somewhat wiser, but still confused.

In the ensuing two decades I have re-read the Book of the New Sun no less than 4 times, and each time I find something new, some new nuance or perspective, some cleverly revealed unspoken truth or hidden meaning buried within the chronicle of Severian's travels. The same is true of most of Mr. Wolfe's work; I find more value upon each re-reading. This is my testament and my promise.

Proceed therefore posthaste to your local library, bookstore or other vendor of literary thingamajigs - virtual or otherwise - and procure at once any or all of the marvelous tomes Mr. Wolfe has penned over the last six decades. They will change your life.

Remember, you were warned.

Villain Sourcing

Disclaimer: This is not a rant about overseas tech support.

Villains! Where do they come from? How do you handle them? It's easy to fall into the trap of throwing together a nameless, faceless NPC party that walks up to your players' characters and starts beating faces; Lord knows, I've done that plenty of times. It's not that satisfying, is it? No, what your players need are personalities to vent their hatred on.

But what about when your finely crafted - nay! - exquisitely crafted villain goes down in the first round? That's not good either. I've certainly experienced that, too.

How do you create memorable, recurrent villains that seem like they are a part of the world? How do you do it in a way that makes it seems like the players and villains are connected beyond their simplest tropes; "Hi! You must be Player Character. I'm Recurrent Villain! Nice to meet you, now DIE! MWAHAHAHAHA! O! I am slain, forsooth!" Juggling villains is more art than crunch; there are rules you should follow to do it effectively. 

Obsidian Portal (Ascendant!)

Hi folks! I went Ascendant yesterday, I just thought you should know that.

If you are not familiar with Obsidian Portal and you are a detail-oriented game nerd like me, then you need to head over there right NOW. It's really a one-stop online shop for any DM trying to put together a fairly organized campaign.

SORD PF: The Pathfinder rules in a nutshell (or at least a PDF)

I recently heard about the "SORD" from the Know Direction Pathfinder podcast; a single reference containing all the rules of Pathfinder, stripped of pretty pictures, flavor text and other crunchless data bits.

I immediately sped over to DrivethruRPG site and purchased it. Hving downloaded it and had a chance to peruse it, I am ready to submit my judgment...

Dundracon 2011: T minus 3 days and counting!

After a hard weekend of moving all my family's worldly belongings, I'm really looking forward to the con! This is a convention I go to every year along with a rampaging horde of friends.

Pathfinder Bestiary 2 Review

I mean, come on! The name of this blog is "Send More Monsters!" How could I look at myself in the mirror if I didn't review the latest monster book from my favorite RPG product?

My Expectations: I'll admit, I wasn't that excited about this book when it popped up in my Amazon suggestions list. I believe my firs thoughts were "Oh gee, just what I need, a Pathfinder version of the Umpleby." My experience with Wizards of the Coast's  Monster Manuals was uh not impressive, to say the least. In general, most monster collections are sub-par; either the monster CRs were too high, the concept was stupid, or too similar to existing creatures elsewhere. There may be one or two monsters from each of Monster Manuals I through V that I would consider using, but the balance of the creatures presented were unusable.

Sigh... I'm being unduly kind. For the Fiend Folio and MM II thru V, 95% of the content was F-----G GARBAGE. Yes, I just used profanity, and no it wasn't gratuitous.

So how does Bestiary 2 rate? Let's see...

History of a DM, part 3

I was thoroughly disheartened by the way the Betland campaign ended. It was several years before another campaign idea took firm root in my mind. By this time 3rd edition D&D was out and I had run across yet another crowd of new players interested in learning about the game.

I now considered myself warned. In previous games I'd failed to balance my new creations with the overall rules and content, overestimated the party's belief in the lethality of the world and underestimated their capriciousness. If they were going to get themselves captured or killed, I'd at least be able to tell myself the warning signs were there.


I decided to use a mix of custom and canned content for adventures. I like building my own adventures (though it's a big time commitment, particularly if you have kids of your own). I started with some ideas that had first formed in my head during a trip to Japan. I wanted to use some of my impressions of Shinto and the localization of beliefs found in Japan without it being fully Japanese or Asian in flavor. It's not that I don't like the Asian theme, but I wanted to make something different, to challenge players to find a niche in what was a strange new world. I didn't want to give them an easy out; "Oh I get it! This is Japan. I'll play a ninja." That leads to assumptions, to boredom, inattention and ultimately the death of the game.

After working on the basic concept of the campaign for a good six months, I was ready. This world was a post-apocalyptic wasteland, ravaged by the forces of Chaos long ago (I decided that the failure of the party in the Betland campaign allowed the Cthoi plan to succeed, inundating the planet with raging tides of chaotic energy). Small sanctuaries of stability allowed civilization - and religion - to rebuild and rediscover itself. Gods were now localized entities, present and active in the lives of their worshippers, supported and in some cases guided by the actions of the faithful, and vital to the preservation of life. Travel between these zones of stability was possible and lucrative for those with the ability to forge a path through the rapidly evolving landscape (thank you Horizon Walker!), but the term exploration took on a new meaning.

I had a big group, and a nice mix of new players and veteran gamers. The first few games were a lot of fun, and the group shifted and expanded to include around 10 semi-regular players. As individual players dropped out due to relocations, personal differences (I am a mean DM and rules are rules!) and other unalterable facts of life. The campaign is still active, though we play only once a month (and less during the summer and holidays). After 7 years the current players have achieved a respectably high level and have finally bought into the main plot line of the campaign!

I should mention at this point that most of the players that I've had the pleasure of running games for are either new to RPGs or new to D&D/Pathfinder. Noobs are the lifeblood of these games. Veteran players and DMs spend their entire lives trying to rediscover the excitement that they felt when they first started learning how to play. The learning is part of the hook.

When you sit down to create a new campaign, one of the things you have to ask yourself is "How does this campaign/design cause the players - and myself - to learn?" Learning is interesting, exciting, and sometimes quite painful. It's all fine and good to sit down and play a boxed campaign setting - these boxed campaigns provide a good lingua franca upon which players from diverse groups can get together and still have a reasonable understanding what's going on with the game and with each other- but my experience tells me that the richest games are those where the players participate in the creation of that world and its history in some way.