roxxorz-suxxorz

The Big List of RPG Links

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 05:07:34 GMT

Updated:-

Talking online

How to use semantics to avoid defending your weak ideas
How to post on rpg.net and not get banned. Requires registration on the site to view. Note that this post would get me banned if I posted it today; those were the old, less lawful days.
Flame Warriors Home An illustrated guide to the many types of flame warriors found online. Like astrology, you can't diagnose yourself, someone else has to pick which one matches you.

Getting a game group

NearbyGamers, where you sign up and appear on google maps, able to see other gamers near you.
GameCircle.org, a campaign wiki, forum and contact service for Australasian gamers.
Wham-bam player recruitment - just go to a cafe, and drag the people at the next table into it.
"What is roleplaying?" and why can't I get a group, boohoo
Why it seems hard to recruit new gamers
Recruiting gamers (rpg.net version, few comments)
Recruiting Gamers (sjgames version, many comments)
A small circle of friends. Instead of game groups, game circles. Bill Stoddard, rpg authour and generally switched-on guy, talks about "What I've done... is to come up with an idea for a campaign, and then pick out people who might fit into it and invite them to play. There is no preexisting group of players: the group is created by the individual players accepting my invitation to play, and lasts only as long as that campaign lasts."
Building a Player Network. "You can call it a club, organization, cabal, or other such name, but ultimately if you want to play more often and play with people who more closely match your gaming preferences you will need to join or form a player network."
Really long discussion on specific things to do to better include women in gaming - zdashamber talks about... you guessed it. Don't ask boys or even men about women in gaming, ask a woman.

Keeping a game group or, Running an interesting game

Uncle Figgy's Guide to Good Gaming. A good general discussion of roleplaying, types of gamers, how to make a campaign, and so on.
An example of sex and relationship as themes in an rpg, talking about some people's campaigns with lots of sex, and others with none, and all in between and why...
A long thread talking about player vs GM power/responsibility. Notable for flames, but also interesting.
Another one about player control vs GM control, it has "protagonization" in the title, but is interesting anyway.
Gnome Stew, articles by GMs about GMing.
Rules light games: what's the infatuation? A long discussion of rules light games, but with most of the discussion focused on freeform vs focus, GM vs player power/responsibility, etc.
Sexism and game settings, and (for my post) whether GMs bother talking to their players.
When campaigns jump the orc, important to know when there's no more hope.

Free rpgs and discussions - you don't need a wad of cash or bitorrents to game or get good gaming advice

John Kim's list of free rpgs, links to over 500 free rpgs, many of very good quality, and almost all with some interesting ideas
Chris's compendium of free rpgs, another link list
1,000 monkeys, 1,000 typewriters, a host site for free rpgs which tend to the thespy side
RPGNow.com's free rpgs, a website of mostly for-money rpgs, but with an extensive free section.
YourGamesNow.com's free rpgs, another paid-for site with some free rpgs
rpg.net, the largest rpg discussion site - avoid the non-rpg subforums as they are a crowd of communist perverts
thefreerpgblog, a blog dedicated to the discussion and promotion of free rpgs, hosted by the maker of one of the most professional of them, Icar.

Gaming resources or, making a more interesting character and game

Treasure Tables' GMing wiki, an excellent series of articles on running game groups, preparing campaigns, and so on - also, they're written by different people so you get different points of view.
The Big List of RPG Plots - sitting there munching your cheetos wondering what to run your group through, and it's ten minutes before the first ones are showing up, half an hour late? Use this!
Roleplayer resources, a page linking to many articles about character creation, development, working with other players and so on.
Gamer Chick articles, including how to roleplay (well) the other gender.
Postapocalyptic media, a site looking at books, movies, roleplaying games and computer games with a postapocalyptic setting; also a forum.
Rules for Party Creation.

Games under construction - under development, and inviting input

MARINER - "Modern-Day Adventure on the High Seas". "... dedicated to the brainstorming and development of a modern-day roleplaying game using the classic roleplaying rules set, Traveller."

Character Sheets & Fonts & Names & Images & Maps

RPG GM tools, HexMapper, DiceRoller, RandomCityGenerator, all sorts!
Autorealm, a freeware program for making fantasy maps; it does not offer a random map creator, and is about 3Mb.
Mad Irishman Productions, page of different character sheets. The focus is on d20, but there are sheets for Ars Magica, Rolemaster, James Bond, all sorts. Also many other gaming resources, such as maps of Russia for Ars Magica.
Fonts of various kinds, good for getting just the right font for that character sheet for this campaign.
Wasteland: the postapocalyptic photo series. Very inspiring...
Onamastikon, Kate Monk's big list of names of people of different cultures and times.
Wikipedia's list of public domain images online, spice up your webpage or rpg pdf with images without shafting anyone's copyright!
Mike's Images, a big site with screencaps from Xena, Hercules, Firefly, Aliens, Lord of the Rings, etc etc etc. Great for getting just the right character image.
Maps of the Ancient World - even if you're not running anything in the ancient world, you can at least steal the place names for your own game world.
Topoquest.com, Free USGS topographic maps of the US and parts of Canada
UK's Defence Image Database, all sorts of militaria

Soundtrack music - free downloads of public doman or Creative Commons music

Celestial Aeon Project
Project Divinity
Frozen Silence
Roomful of Emptiness
Warehouse of Distant Dreams
Sounddogs - sound effects, mood music - worth paying a bit for, but there are 30+ second samples of everything, which should be enough for lots of moments in games.

Historical resources - for those who like historically-flavoured games

Armour Archive, a page about armours of history with the aim of making modern examples for reconstruction or SCA.
Warrior Clothing in Ancient China. Better than those anime.
Levantia, site about the late Roman Empire in the Near East. Byzantium is a great place to adventure.
Timeless Myths - about Celtic, Norse and Arthurian myths and stories, very good for getting that flavour to a campaign.
Roman army re-enactment, Legio XV in Germany, and Legio XXX in Italy. The Italian site links to many others.
English Historical Recreation, images from modern-day recreators of the Anglo-Saxon era. Very good, many images and authentic
Wychurst, a project to build a reproduction of an old English village of Saxon times.
Viking re-enactment and information
Late medieval re-enactment in Norway, focusing on 1397-1434, with a particular focus on mounted combat (page in English).
Resources for the Suzerain Roleplayer, another big list of links to stuff about Asia Minor and the Middle East in ancient and early history
Streets of Shanghai - webpage of Shanghai in the 1920s, from a roleplayer.
Snowshoemen, a recreation group focusing on late colonial North America. Pop on that Last of the Mohicans soundtrack and grab your dice.
Action Squad. Real life "adventurers" exploring strange old building, tunnels, closed asylums, etc. Good images for a post-apocalyptic or horror campaign.
Military unit organisation, a thread here with discussion of and links to... well, that.

e-zines Since magazines are all company-specific now, it's a good thing we have the web

The Iridia Zine - a general roleplaying zine, with a common focus on GURPS and D&D, publishes in pdf and print weekly - over 40 issues now.
Knowledge - Current Events. A zine taking current events and converting them into stuff for campaigns. Though it focuses on d20, it's of general interest.
Places to God, People to Be. ...devoted to role-playing and role-playing games. It is put together by gamers, for gamers and contains what we believe to be the highest quality material about our games available. It is dedicated to gamers everywhere, and in particular to those in Australia and Brisbane. Irregularly publihsed (last issue June 2005), but with lots of old issues available.
The Oerth Journal, a zine dedicated to keeping the old World of Greyhawk going.

Campaign & setting webpages
Reading "actual play" usually suxxorz, but NPCs, maps and so on are great.

Tiwesdæg Clíewen, Dark Ages low fantasy campaign. Where magic is magical, and monsters are monstrous.
Northenden, a medieval low fantasy game.
Saduria, "I like gritty campaigns where the players and characters are challenged by their lifestyle, geography and society as much as by huge monsters. Saduria is very much a reflection of that philosophy. Magic is a rare thing and not to be taken lightly..." A very detailed set of pages.
Gehennum, a fantasy world that breaks the pseudo-European-Tolkien pattern, set in something rather like Polynesia.
John Kim's Buffy campaign
Fallout 3 files. From an abandoned version. May help you run your own Fallout campaign. Docs and so on, not the code stuff.
David Icke, not a roleplaying page, but good conspiracy-horror-scifi campaign material. This guy thinks that the ruling classes of the world are actually all alien blood-drinking reptilians.
Alien abductions - like Icke's webpage, also not a roleplaying one, but with many articles on alien abductions of humans and their plans to create alien-human hybrids to take over the world. Good for a Delta Green campaign, perhaps?

Crazy shit relating to The Forge and other RPG loons

How we gamers are all brain-damaged. Why I Hate Ron Edwards #1
How we gamers are like child sex abuse victims. Why I Hate Ron Edwards #2.
Coming RPG Releases. WHy I hate Mike Mearls #1 - because he hates every game ever made.
IndieGamingSceneBlog. The posts mock the Forge, the comments mock the mockers.
GNS Suxxorz, a Socratic Dialogue, in which I thoroughly and unfairly diss Ron Edwards.
Theory Wars, a play-by-post game in which you take on the role of a wannabe god/guru or roleplaying game theory.

Funny shit about roleplaying

The roots of roleplaying, in which David Wesely talks about how he invented polyhedral dice. Then here is described "The Secret History of Roleplaying" (scroll to about the middle of the long page). And then the dungeon crawl is described by the sole survivor of the TPK. They even LARPed a little bit.
CHEETOISM, the original thread!
Roleplayers as dancing monkeys. This thread depicts different types of players as... monkeys.
"I wear the Viking Hat!" - in which Moochava describes how GMs should deal with argumentative players. He goes on to describe how sometimes it's good for the GM to "just pin the player to the table and hump his hams."
RPG Theory I learned from rpg.net - examples of stupid shit people say about rpgs
The infamous Creepy Gamer thread on rpg.net, now locked after a thousand days with 5,169 sanity-draining and credulity-challenging posts
The Gaming Stories of Al Bruno the Third - links to a heap of stories of El Disgusto, Psycho Dave, and other crazy people Al claims to have gamed with

[rpg development] SixLetterSystem

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:25:47 GMT

After some experiences playtesting the SixLetterSystem, I have a couple of ideas for changing it. The first is to extend the skill list (though not to GURPSian levels) and the second is niche protection by skill defaults.

Skill List Extension
One thing I'm considering is extending the skill list. 36 skills - 33 in a realistic-themed campaign - but in practice we find that in any particular campaign, perhaps only half the skills, 15 or so, are regularly useful. Thus, it resembles less a skill system and more a character class system. Which is fine, but not what I was aiming for, I want a bit more individuality in PC abilities.

So first I thought to extend the skill lists, from 12 groups of 3 skills to 9 groups of 6 skills, or from 36 to 54. The list has what J_Arcane disparagingly refers to as "hydra" skills - "Craft: choose any craft" and so on. But here it is, with skills requiring specialisation having an *.

Athletics
Acrobatics
Climbing
Jumping
Running
Sports*
Swimming

Combat
Blunt
Bows & thrown
Brawling
Edged
Firearms
Wrestling

Communication
Artist*
Diplomacy
Intimidation
Languages*
Speech
Writing

Knowledge
Admin & law
Culture & history
Interview
Research
Science*
Search

Driving
Aircraft
Landcraft
Riding
Seacraft
Ski
Spacecraft

Gadgeteering
Armoury
Craft*
Electrics
Engineer*
Mechanic*
Scrounging

Intrusion
Deceit
Filch
Lockpicking
Observation
Stealth
Traps

Medical
Alt medicine
Pharmacy
Physician
Psychology
Surgery
Veterinary

Wilderness
Foraging
Hazmat
Hunting
Navigation
Survival
Tracking

Without quibbling over individual skills, what do you guys think of extending the skill list?

Niche Protection by Default Skill Levels
A second thing I thought of was niche protection by default levels. Currently, the default level for all skills is 0 - which means anyone can give anything a go, especially if they have decent relevant attribute or related skills. This is good if there are not many players, but when you have several players they can get annoyed at some skill 0 guy doing as well as the skill+2 specialist, stealing their thunder. This also discourages PCs from specialising, because what's the point? So I thought,

The default of skills depends on the size of the game group,

0 for 1 player
-1 for 2-3 players
-2 for 4 players
-3 for 5+ players

This protects each character's niche, while ensuring a good balance of skills in the party. In every case, the first level bought brings the skill to +1.
Thoughts?

Why I was disappointed with...

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 03:54:37 GMT

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy - all the characters started off as 250 points. This is described in GURPS Campaigns as

Larger-than-Life (200 to 300 points): Leading roles in kung fu movies, fantasy novels, etc. Typical of the professional adventurer who has already made a name for himself.

which entirely misses the point of classic dungeon adventurers. You adventure to make a name for yourself, you don't make a name for yourself and then adventure.

A lot of people don't get that. In the age of saved games and cheat codes it's hard to get people to sit still long enough to enjoy zero to hero. Having a character in a dungeon crawl start off at 250 points makes about as much sense as having a Supers character stuck at 50 points. Sean Punch - GURPS line editor, and authour of the DF series - is on record as saying he prefers campaigns where the PCs can confidently approach difficult tasks, where they have several skills mastered. And that's fair enough, but it's not what dungeon crawls are about.

Dungeon crawls are not about being confident, but about taking risks and being afraid, about learning from your experiences and growing in power so you can take on tougher challenges - not in the artificial way presented by D&D3.5 with the DM presenting challenges which have been measured precisely to use X% of the party's resources, but simply by virtue of PC choice. When you're low-level you choose to clear out the local kobold raider's cave, and avoid the red dragon's lair; when you're high-level, you choose differently.

But whether high or low level, the PCs shouldn't be confident of being able to take on whatever task presented them. That's not what it's about.

Some people just don't get it.

Best version of Beowulf ever!

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:29:49 GMT

The Six-Letter System

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:46:52 GMT

The Six-Letter System (that's a wiki) is a roleplaying game harking back to the simple days of gaming. All you need is a pencil, some paper, and five six-sided dice per player.

GAMERS [600k pdf, 8 pages] is the generic version of the Six-Letter System, a series of games with the same mechanics, only the names of the basic six attributes changed, and all given six-letter titles which are mnemonics for those attributes.

Basically it's the approach old Classic Traveller took: tasks are 2d6 + skill vs some target number, and in combat there are no hit points, you just take damage directly to your attributes. You can have physical conflicts and lose from the physical stats, or mental conflicts and lose from the mental stats.

There are six attributes, optionally six "features" (to cover the Dis/Advantages of many systems), and thirty-six skills. You can have specialties in each, you just get +1 to that specialised area.

At the moment, the only character generation options are random, and I may keep it that way.

I've not yet playtested it, but I've playtested Risk Dice which has the same 42 attributes/features/skills, so I think that number works, your character can fit on an index card and it's quick to roll them up; Risk Dice also has the same "lose attributes, not hit points" thing, and that works though can be a bit abstract.

The playtesting would then be of the character generation, and parts of the combat system.

Any thoughts? Anything you think is missing from the basic GAMERS rules? Any obvious problems?

JimBobOz
Army 1 term, Common Scum 3 terms
976758
Brawling 1, Fire (Rifle) 1, Handicrafts (Cooking) 1, Liberal Arts 1, Speech 1, Survival 1, Tracking 1, Writing 1

Teamwork & Tension

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:02:36 GMT

Teamwork and tension are things which I find fun to have in a game session. It's why I prefer the old Mission Impossible tv series to the modern movie series - in the old series, each specialist contributed a bit to the mission as a whole. What was impossible for one was possible for them as a group.

That sort of teamwork, driven by or done under some external threat, I think that's great fun in a game session.

But I find that many gamers create real "individuals". I've been quite successful as a GM at getting them to connect their characters together, but they still don't act as a team. Some of you may be familiar with the basic infantry tactic of "fire and movement" or "mobile overwatch" - one group stops and gives covering fire while the other moves forward, then the second group stops and gives cover while the first moves forward. That's about the most basic kind of teamwork you can have.

But many game groups can't even manage that - players get impatient and have their characters all rush forwards at once. Obviously you can have them just get wiped out or captured, but I find that sort of thing isn't good for encouraging teamwork. It just pisses them off.

I've tried to help things out with game mechanics. Whatever the system, I say that there are "complementary traits" - your Maths helps your Physics, Jim's Strength can help Bob's Agility as he's trying to wriggle out of his bonds, that sort of thing. This is meant to encourage players to think "how can my guy help the other guy?" which is basically all teamwork is.

But I find I have to prompt players a lot. Everyone wants to be a one-person party.

Any thoughts? I'd love to be running military, police and espionage games, or games with elements of that in there - but they fall on their arse without teamwork.

Deodorising books

Thu, 08 May 2008 06:05:46 GMT

Heading into the city for my weekly lunch with my friend and old gamer buddy, I was a bit early, so I stopped by the game store. Looking at the second-hand shelf, I saw that someone had cleared out their early 80s collection. There was RuneQuest, old D&D modules, the lot. And there was also Aftermath, which I happily snagged for $15.

On getting home and sliding the books out of their plastic covers, I found that the previous owner had been a chronic smoker, the books have a real stench of old, stale, dead tobacco. There's also a hint of body odour - just a hint, the dead tobacco dominates.

I find myself looking over at the bookshelf at the scented oil burner and thinking of giving the books a good splash in the inside spine. Any suggestions on deodorising books?

Just Speculatin'

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:52:21 GMT

And so it begins...

Having finished Fourth Tiwesdæg, it was time for a new campaign. Last night we settled on Just Speculatin',

"Humans are the only aliens."

GAME STYLE Cinematic (1 part) vs Realistic (3 parts). Space is dangerous.
Hack (2 parts) vs Thesp (2 parts). Entirely up to the players.
Schtick (1 part) vs Drama (3 parts). The universe is a dangerous place.

WHAT HAPPENS Action & Fights (2) - frequency depends on player choices
Building (1) – The characters are unlikely to have a lot of effect on the universe.
Character (3) – Who you are matters.
Character Power (1) – Character advancement isn't a big thing here.
Destroying (1) – As for Building.
Exploration (4) – The universe is not only dangerous, it's also big and mysterious.

HOW IT'S DONE
Combat, Communication, Driving, Gadgeteering, Medical, Persuading, Scholarship, Wilderness

"The year is 2037, and humanity has reached the stars. But they took their problems with them, and the only aliens we have met are other humans. A warp drive was invented in 2007, and it didn't cost much – if you could get 48km up, you could get to the stars. Coming back is up to you.

"With warp travel practical and relatively cheap, the one billion citizens of the West decide on indifference to resource depletion and climate change. There are always more worlds to get resources from, and more to travel to if this one becomes a mess. They leave seven billion poorer others behind.

"The characters will be freelancers. A lot of people went up, and didn't take all they needed. So there's good money to be made getting them what they want. Sometimes the jobs mightn't be quite legal, but there's not much law out there anyway. What kind of work do you do? You're looking for good trade, little jobs here and there, you're just speculatin'."

For a system, we're using Risk Dice 0.2, with random character generation - if you don't like what you roll up, you can roll another character, but only after character generation is finished. As old Traveller did, 10, 11 and 12 are marked as A, B and C, so that you can write your character as a string of numbers very briefly.

Phill rolled up

Roland de Thame
Str8 Agl9 Fit6 Edu5 Per8 Con6
Lic9 Pep6 Psy5 StaB TecA Wel5
Skills:- Acrobatcs (Uneven bars) B, Brawling (Boxing) 9, Fire 3, Hunting 5, Psychology 7
Roland is the main financier of the ship, and a bit of a toff.
Gear:- starship, shotgun with walnut stock and engraved barrels in fine mahogany case, extensive wardrobe

Aron rolled up

JJ Junior
Att: 4C7967
Fea: 4677A5
Skills: Acting (pantomime) 5, Aircraft 7, Climbing 6, Navigation (Astro) 8, Tracking 6
Gear: Vacc suit, marijuana seeds in "tarragon" jar, memory stick of "75 years of Playboy magazine, 1950-2025", fake pilot's licence in the name Ron Schneider.

Matt rolled up Troy, a thug, and took his character sheet so I don't have his stats. I do recall he said, "Like Jayne but with knives."

The party has need of an engineer, technician and/or medic, since at the moment they're relying on reading the manual. "Hey we put the engine back together but there's this part left over, does it need that?" "Dunno, I can't find it in the index."

In choosing the ship, they had 21 points to spend on: Speed, Size and Flash. They chose SpdC Siz8 Fla1. It's extremely fast, of a decent size (64t), but inside was stripped bare, only an empty metal space. The engines took up about two-thirds the ship, and are very noisy. Then Roland sacrificed 6 wealth, and JJ and Troy 3 each, to improve the interior somewhat. Now Roland has a cramped stateroom for himself - "I'm the Captain!" - while JJ and Troy share a communal area... well, the upper cargo hold with some bunks in the walls. They acquired a proper navigation computer, some classified ex-RAF sensors, and some decently ranged comms with okay encryption. Nav6 SensA Comms55. The sensors will get them in trouble if they're ever pulled up and inspected.

They have advertised at the Isle of Man spaceport, and are planning to voyage to the safari planet in the Arcturus system, taking paying passengers on an adventure.

I wonder what it's like to have an impartial media?

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:39:04 GMT

No use asking the USA, apparently :)

Courtesy of the Daily Show, the hard questions asked of McCain.

Geeks who really need a father figure

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:18:25 GMT

... who can say "NO!" and whack them on the back of the head.

As seen here, a lonely geek goes up to chixxorz at cons and asks to squeeze their boobs. Some, perhaps high on too much Mountain Dew and late-night CCG games, say "yes". Dude starts a whole "wear a button" thing at the Con.

Seriously, this is a boy who was not beaten enough as a child.

Creepy fatbeards. Helping the gamer image at your local con!

Adventure!

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:01:18 GMT

"What boy has not sighed for the good old days of wars, revolutions, and riots; how I used to pore over the chronicles of those old days, those dear old days, when workmen went armed to their labors; when they fell upon one another with gun and bomb and dagger, and the streets ran red with blood! Ah, but those were the times when life was worth the living; when a man who went out by night knew not at which dark corner a "footpad" might leap upon and slay him; when wild beasts roamed the forest and the jungles, and there were savage men, and countries yet unexplored."

- ER Burroughs, The Lost Continent (1916)

And this is why we roleplay. But no authour would scribe such words today.

Gygax Memorial Game

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:14:01 GMT

The game was played, and much beer (thanks, Colin!) and pizza and junk food (thanks, everyone!) was consumed.

We had as best I remember,

Colin playing Jack the Thief, then Perrin the Fighter, and lastly Snipe the Thief
Phill playing Llihp the Elven Magic-User
Emil playing Eric the Communist (Lawful Evil) Magic-User, then Son of Eric the Communist (LE) Fighter/Magic-User/Cleric, and lastly MacEric the Communist (LE) Assassin
Shane playing Fang the Inconsequential a half-elven Fighter/Cleric
Matt playing Biffo the Meat Shield, a Half-Orc Fighter, then Durin the Elven Fighter
everyone was 1st level, and apart from Emil's communists was Chaotic Neutral. Only Durin was female, the rest male.

The PCs found themselves in the Village of Bob. Naked but for loincloths and their coinpurses and sharing a free ale - "First ale free to adventurers!" they met in the Inn of the Welcome Wench and decided to adventure together. They went next door to Marx the Moneychanger, who was also Marx the General Store Manager, and got clothes, armour and so on. They were surprised to discover that Engels used a different exchange rate from one type of coin to another than that they were used to (the book said 20SP = 1GP, 10GP = 1PP, while Engels said it was all 10:1), but Moneychanger Marx explained that the people own the means of production anyway so they shouldn't worry about it.
Then they went back to the inn and started drinking, and were met by Mayor Engels. He explained that outside the town was a cemetary, and a great old mausoleum where the notables of the town had been buried for centuries. "But recently a great evil sorceror moved in and set up shop, he's started animating the dead and even invited in some kobolds and reckons he'll build an empire. Apparently he thinks that he's reached "lord level", whatever that means, and wants to build a stronghold and clear the surrounding terrain of peasants."

"Why doesn't your own village deal with him? Marx the Moneychanger has heaps of weapons."

"We tried. This village of 150 people used to be a town of 600. Sometimes people have gone in and then a day later their swords and stuff appear out the front entrance, as though the dungeon - er, mausoleum - ate them and belched up their stuff. Also sometimes we see old family members as zombies and we think it's them as skeletons."

"What do we get if we wipe him and his minions out?"

"Well, the dead are often buried with much treasure. Normally if you take it you defile their graves and are cursed by the Gods, but they're already hopelessly defiled since they're his undead servants, so whatever you find you can keep. Also you will have the everlasting gratitude of the villagefolk, and will be famed and glorified."

"We're not so keen on the everlasting gratitude, but fame and loot sound nice."

So off they went, and into the mausoleum...

But since nobody ever reads these play reports, I won't go on, except to say that five PCs in one session is four more PCs than I've killed as a GM since all this Game Circle business started a couple of years back. Mad stuff.

Kickarse Play of the Day probably goes to Emil, who with Eric the Commie Mage slain by a skeleton, returned with Son of Eric the Commie Fighter/Mage, arriving as the PCs were meeting the mummy, turned the mummy - since he was Lawful Evil, he was thus befriending him - but then on finding the rest of the party was hitting the mummy, flung a flask of oil, then cast Burning Hands, the 1 hit point of damage of which did not do much by itself, but set the mummy alight. Enranged that his "friend" would set him on fire, the mummy swiped at Son of Eric, crushing his chest and breaking his neck. But then the mummy fell over and burned down into ashes. Thus Son of Eric had a short life but an effective one, he gave his life so that others might loot.

[A|State] A daft evening with a half-brick in a sock

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:46:41 GMT

So! Last night with Olive absent due to having got in from his flight at some ungodly hour of the morning, and Matt absent due to being on the phone with a real estate agent to buy a house in some dreadfully bleak part of the country (Mildura), it seemed better to set aside Tiwesdæg for the session, and play a one-off instead.

Colin had with him on his little memory stick A|State (light version here) an rpg of a Dickensian cyberpunk world - though without much cyber.

I think there were more dogs and old newspapers

This ridiculous system was point-buy, but we made it random to get into it quick. Aron played Johnathan, ill-educated thug, gas fitter, amateur theologian and thug. Also a thug. I played Jack, the spineless academic armed with his wits and a half-brick in a sock, though brilliant he was horribly disfigured by looking as though he were a Down's Syndrome sufferer and worse, with a mullet!

Johnathan was clad in a shiny ankle-length dogskin coat, and disappointingly carried not twins but only one katana, but also had a small revolver. Jack was clad in a cheap dogskin coat and cheap clothes and one shilling tie, looking like a pimp.

They ventured forth to pay Jack's library fine so he could graduate from university. Along the way they enjoyed a breakfast of dog kebab. They took the train, which was smelly and dirty, someone left the train door open, Johnathan rose to close it, and was accosted by a mugger who demanded his money. Jack approached with his half-brick in a sock and smacked the mugger over the back of the head, who reacted by collapsing with a groan. The two friends then removed the mugger's coat while the train patrons pointedly looked away. As they got off at the next stop, they tossed five shillings to the crowd to make them accomplices and keep them quiet. The coat proved to contain many shillings from less bold mugging victims and some lint.

They changed trains and arrived at the university about lunchtime. There they bumped into their friend Micky, who was sweating and worried because his old man a fisherman had been smacked over, "who could have done this? Help me find him." Astounded by the irony of fate, that a plot hook would come from a fisherman, the two set off to help out. They took the barge this time, and disappointed the bargeman by not engaging in witty repartee with him. They snooped around the fisherman's shack and found that a fancy strongbox was missing, and that the whole interior was visible from a spot across the canal.

"Does he have any enemies? Anyone out to get him? Perhaps from across the canal?"
"Only that crazy old man Jerry, rants and raves. We haven't seen him about for a bit though."
"Where can we find him?"
"Dunno, ask Terry, he sells watches and things over there."

The two went across the canal and found Terry, who told them old Jerry had died a few weeks back. They asked if he'd seen a strongbox, he said, "Oh yes I bought one and then sold it, I bought it from a guy with a hat and this coloured blanket over him, you'll find him in the market."

They went to the market and saw no such bloke, on returning to Terry they found him having legged it with all his dodgy merchandise. They grabbed a kid passing.
"You know Terry?"
"Yep."
"He's buggered off. Where does he live?"
"I don't know, guv. But I know someone who might know, I can point him out to you."
"Show us, then."
"I'd like to, guv, but thing is it's rather cold and I've got no shoes, I've got to find myself some new shoes."
"Would two shillings help keep you warm?"
"That they would, guv," he said, quickly pocketing them.

Off they went to the market again, and the kid pointed out a curly red-headed bloke. They thanked the kid and went and accosted the redhead.
"Hello there," said Johnathan, "We're looking for something - a strongbox?"
"A what? Er, I suppose I could get one for you. I'm someone who gets things."
"So we heard. We're looking for a particular one, though. One that went missing from a humble fisherman's shack recently."
"What? Oh bugger, this is about Terry, innit? He's the sod you want."
"Take us to him." Johnathan gestured with his pistol in his pocket.
"Alright, alright. But what's that in your pocket? You don't look glad to see me. We can make this a business arrangement."
"Just show us." The PCs had a strange urge propelling them forward to deal with these events quickly, perhaps it was because their guiding spirits saw that it was 10:30pm already and the GM wanted to go home.
"Look, I've got two of my blokes here in the crowd watching us, so don't try anything. Now we can do this friendly, or -" he raised his fist to strike at Johnathan, and quick as a whip, Jack knocked him in the goolies with his half-brick in a sock. To everyone's surprise the redhead stayed standing, though he was crouched over a bit and not happy.

A general melee ensued, scrappy and messy, which was resolved by Johnathan drawing his sword. The redhead's two goons backed off, and the redhead said, "there's no need for that, let's go," and off they went to Terry.

They found Terry in a scungy little dosshouse with all his stolen goods, which they promptly stole from him at swordpoint. All up the takings were thirty-five pounds, and a big stash of drugs. "And don't nick nothin' from any of our mates again!"

All-in-all, a fun session. The details of the system remain vague to us, I think it was percentile, and that a half-brick in a sock is the most deadly weapon known to man. Colin did very well, put on the spot like that, but came up with the goods - that's the true spirit of being a GM.

Apparently, LJ is changing some rules and procedures...

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:06:36 GMT

...and some people have said this is grotesque and intolerable oppression.

When they came for the Jews, I said:

Shabbat shalom, motherfuckers!

That's the Hebrew Hammer, to you, LJ drama queens!

Gygax Memorial Game, 1200h 06Apr2008

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 02:11:36 GMT

I'd already been planning an AD&D1e game around 1st April, as that's my quarter century anniversary of roleplaying. So as I just told interested gamers in my town, this is what we have,

game on Sunday 6th April, from noon onwards
for players, we have as definites:- Aron, Colin, Emil, Kiwinik and Matt. Room for more! It's Old Skool, remember.
the rules will be AD&D1e.
house rules are

random rolls taken in order for character generation

a large team of grey faceless adventurers waits outside while the PCs go in, so if your character dies, roll up another one and they walk straight in

play continues until a TPK or the adventure is completed!

as a scenario, either S2 White Plume Mountain or C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness - please tell me if you're planning to come, and have played either of these.
around 6pm we order pizza
bring munchies!

Also, as Melan of therpgsite said,

"How many people could say that they impacted the lives of millions without bloodshed, political power or a global marketing machine - just a small game of gelatinous cubes, strange dice and 10' corridors? Gary did it just like this, and he did it out of his humble game room in Wisconsin. The context makes it all the more remarkable."

Intro to my next campaign, maybe

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:33:29 GMT

[Report] GameCircle.org Autumn 2008 Geektogether

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:24:48 GMT

And now we've had the Autumn Geektogether for 2008

First up, a big mazeltov to Ben & Elizabeth, who are expecting a baby.

We had a good attendance last night. We didn't crack 20 as I'd hoped since two of the people who were likely to bring some of their group couldn't make it. But still we got up to 17 people in all, from six different game groups, with 3 groupless gamers seeking a group, and 2 groupless not seeking, just socialising. Everyone was able to meet at least a couple of people they'd never met before - including me, who was delayed by crappy public transport and was rung up and asked "where are you?" by someone he'd never met before...

Nobody got drunk this time, I think some are still recovering from the last Geektogether. I s'pose they need a couple more before they forget the suffering of last time and let loose again.

Those in game groups,

From Oakleigh's weekly Fourth Tiwesdaeg:- Kyle (GM), Aron, Matt
From Blackburn's fortnightly AfterWorld:- Dave DG. This group is GMed by Matt, and also played in by Kyle and Mike (leave)
Northcote's weekly Tuesday Knights:- Phill, Dave, Peter
In Carlton, an unknown weekly campaign (I was too distracted by their real life news to ask them about gaming!):- Ben, Elizabeth, and Jeff.
In the inner city, a fortnightly GURPS Banestorm (no webpage, slack of the GM, eh?): Graeme. This group is GMed by Wilfrid (absent), and also played in by Aron and Chris (AWL).
Fitzroy's Burning Esgaroth:- John. This group is GMed by Russ (AWL) and also has Richie in it.

Groupless gamers,

Aidan - coming to us via GameCircle.org, fresh out of school and ready to do some "real gaming", he says.
Colin - also from GameCircle.org, hoping to run an A|State campaign.
Dominik - generally keen to game, things a bit in suspense while he waits to see if his Aussie contract is renewed, if he goes overseas or what.
Emil - formerly of me and Wilfrid's groups, on a break from gaming
Martin - mate of KiwiNick, works odd hours (4 days on, 4 off) so misses out on gaming.

Leave granted to,

Darwinik, KiwiNick (of Kyle's group), Ian, Jeff Z., Mark M, Mike (of Matt's group), Shane (of Wilfrid's group)

AWL

Chris P, Damian M, Russ, Wilfrid

I'll always remember this as the Geektogether just before Gygax died.

Combat and Hit Points vs Attributes

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:42:25 GMT

When I was developing DAM Risk Dice, one of the original ideas I had was to make the combat system like old Traveller was (assuming I remember it right) - you don't have hit points, you just lose amounts off your physical stats. So if someone hits you, rather than saying, "you lose 1d6 hit points", it's "you lose 1d6 Strength" or Fitness, or Agility.

For mental/social conflicts you'd lose Perception, Education or Confidence.

When all three reach zero, you're out of the fight. So as the fight goes on you start stumbling around breathlessly barely able to hold up your weapon, or you become a stammering, half-blind, forgetful wreck.

The end effect is the same as hit point and hit location systems - for example, if you take more than half your hit points in a leg in GURPS, then you fall down, which is the same as losing all your Agility, really; or if you take that damage in an arm, you drop your weapon, which is just like losing all your Strength. But it doesn't feel the same. Most systems have the effect described, and the numbers second. But if you had attributes reduce like that, it'd be the numbers first, and then figure out the effect afterwards.

I like it because it's simple, but it can make things a bit abstract and you don't really feel it the way you do if someone says, "I aim at his leg" or whatever.

What do you lot reckon? Did I remember Trav right, and did any other systems do this?

Fighting the machines

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 05:52:53 GMT

From the ABC here,

Killer robots 'a threat to humanity'

There are more than 4,000 US military robots on the ground in Iraq.

Increasingly autonomous, gun-toting robots developed for warfare could easily fall into the hands of terrorists and may one day unleash a robot arms race, a top expert on artificial intelligence says.

"They pose a threat to humanity," University of Sheffield professor Noel Sharkey said, ahead of a keynote address before Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

Intelligent machines deployed on battlefields around the world - from mobile grenade launchers to rocket-firing drones - can already identify and lock onto targets without human help.

There are more than 4,000 US military robots on the ground in Iraq, as well as unmanned aircraft that have clocked hundreds of thousands of flight hours.

The first three armed combat robots fitted with large-calibre machine guns deployed to Iraq last summer, manufactured by US arms maker Foster-Miller, proved so successful that 80 more are on order, Professor Sharkey said.

But up to now, a human hand has always been required to push the button or pull the trigger.

It we are not careful, he said, that could change.

"[Military leaders] are quite clear that they want autonomous robots as soon as possible, because they are more cost-effective and give a risk-free war," he said.

Several countries, led by the United States, have already invested heavily in robot warriors developed for use on the battlefield.

South Korea and Israel both deploy armed robot border guards, while China, India, Russia and Britain have all increased the use of military robots.

The US Government plans to spend $4.28 billion by 2010 on unmanned technology systems, with total spending expected rise to $25.7 billion, according to the Department of Defence's Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032, released in December.

Human-robot ratio
James Canton, an expert on technology innovation and chief executive of the Institute for Global Futures, predicts that deployment within a decade of detachments that will include 150 soldiers and 2,000 robots.

The use of such devices by terrorists should be a serious concern, Professor Sharkey said.

Captured robots would not be difficult to reverse engineer, and could easily replace suicide bombers as the weapon-of-choice

"I don't know why that has not happened already," he said.

But even more worrisome, he continued, is the subtle progression from the semi-autonomous military robots deployed today to fully independent killing machines.

"I have worked in artificial intelligence for decades, and the idea of a robot making decisions about human termination terrifies me," he said.

___________________________________

"... decisions about human termination," he says. Ominous!

Who's run a setting where robots try to exterminate humanity? If you were going to do it, what's a good way to start? I think robots make good villains in an rpg setting - they are emotionless, therefore menacing, and just machines, so that PCs need feel no guilt at killing them - indeed, at wiping them out. Roboto genocide?

But how would you go about it, how would you start it? The rise of the robots? Begin it as postapocalyptic with robots in place of zombies and mutants? Or what?

PS Yes, Koltar, I know that GURPS put out Reign of Steel

"We need five good people..."

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:42:56 GMT

From part iii of this rather long entry.

Earlier this year, I was privileged to go “on tour” with Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales, the founder and public face of Wikipedia, as we crisscrossed the nation, talking to educators in Adelaide, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. Everywhere we went, people asked the same question: why is Wikipedia such a success, while my wiki languishes? What do you need to achieve critical mass? The answer, Jimmy said, is five people. Five individuals dedicated to an altruistic sharing of collective intelligence should be enough to produce a flowering similar to Wikipedia. Jimbo has learned, through experience, that the “minor” language versions of Wikipedia (languages with less than 10 million native speakers), need at least five steady contributors to become self-sustaining. In the many wikis Jimbo oversees through his commercial arm, Wikia, he’s noted the same phenomenon time and again. Five people mark the tipping point between a hobby and a nascent hyperintelligence.

I wonder if that applies to discussion forums, social networks and so on - get five dedicated people and it'll take on a life of its own?

Certainly I've seen plenty of occasions when there were less than five dedicated people involved in a site and it went kaput... What do you lot reckon?

I think I have a fanboy

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:20:02 GMT

From therpgsite, here.

Koltar: Whats that make Kyle?

David R: He is supposed to be Australian. Nobody believed he was real. That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

One story the guys told me - the story I believe - was from his days in RPGnet.

There was a petty gang of theorist that wanted their own cult. They realized that to be in power you didn't need logic or reason or even numbers. You just needed to out rhetoric the other guy. After a while they come to power, and then they come after Jimbob. He was small time then, just bashing America in his free time , they say...

They come to his favourite gaming forum in the afternoon looking for him. The theorist knew JimBob was tough. Not to be trifled with. So they let him know they meant business. They start deconstructing his favourite game.

They tell JimBob they want this forum. JimBob looks over the meek posts of his fellow posters... Then he showed these men of rhetoric what rhetoric really was. He starts to talk about cheetos. He tells him he would rather see his favorite game remembered with a chuckle than with any links to so-called theory. He lets the last theorist go and he goes after the rest of the cult. He mocks their methods. Their games. People who play their games. Friends of people who play their games.

A dark and looming figure of a man walks in front of a wall of fire - a black shadow blurred by waves of heat.

He engaged them in Socratic dialogue. He post links to their discussion, to mock them on other sites. He calls them cocksmocks and bitter non gamers. And like that he was gone. Underground. No one has ever seen him again. He becomes a myth, a spook story that gamers parents tell their kids at night. If you talk theory to your mom & pop, Jimbob will get you.

Sales "tricks" for rpgs

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:24:15 GMT

... you won't get any of them from me :) This post is about something else.

Over in a thread on story-games about rpgs getting poor sales, Clinton R Nixon, Forger Extraordinaire, said,

Promotion - in the sense of it being a separate activity than just being excited about what you made - sucks. It's a soulless exercise that either doesn't work, or works because you had the stomach to sell somebody something they didn't want. It is antithetical to the creative process.

Good old GMS flipped out about this on his LJ, and of course RPG Pundit weighed in, too - basically each said that you have to be a cocksmock not to want to sell your rpgs.

Well, now it's my turn for my opinion!

Clinton R Nixon is full of shit, and has obviously never worked in retail.

He imagines that actively trying to sell people things means selling them things they don't want. Well, that may be inevitable when we're talking about Forger rpgs, but in general it's not so.

I worked in retail for a few months, and what I found was this: if you're persuasive and persistent enough, you can get just about anyone to buy anything. BUT - the ones who didn't really want it won't come back, and won't be happy with their purchase. It's much wiser, and more decent and humane, to focus on the ones who do want to buy it. So we have non-buyers, and buyers. There are all sorts of non-buyers, like Dreamers (poor or unemployed), Shoplifters and so on, but we're not concerned with them here, we'll just assume that you're decent and leave them alone.

There are two types of buyers. There are the people who want to buy something, anything, and then there are those who want a particular something. They're the Spender and the Searcher.

The Spender it's the salesperson's job to give 'em something, and make them feel good about having spent money - they're the ones saying, "I really shouldn't, but..." and they want you to tell them it's okay.

The Searcher is where the salesperson should have some knowledge of their products, so they can match what the customer wants with the available products. If the salesperson is dishonest, this will be "oh really this will do exactly what you want," if they're honest, it'll be "these products best fit what you said you're after, they do X and Y." Yes, you can direct them to another store - the Searcher will be grateful, remember the honesty and come back.

If you're both creator and salesman of a product, you're more invested in its success or failure. If it's "I just work here, man" then if Doohickey #2,035 sells or doesn't, or #1,891 sells better, I won't care. So that'll let me be nice and impartial while deciding whether the customer is a non-buyer, or which kind of buyer.

But if I created #2,035, well then that's pretty hard. Suddenly I'm going to be a bit confused, my own self-esteem and/or arrogance will come into it. So you get some creator-sellers who give you the hard sell, trying to sell to non-buyers, and others who don't even want to pitch things to Spenders and Searchers.

So old Clint is showing an ignorance of what an honest salesperson does, or more likely assuming they're all dishonest, and that everyone is a non-buyer naturally, thinking that the purpose of marketing and salesmanship is to trick all the non- buyers into buying. Which is of course bollocks.

It's quite possible to be an honest salesperson of your own products. "This is what this does, so if you're looking for that kind of thing, you'll like it." Clash Bowley is an excellent example of this approach. He doesn't hesitate to recommend his own games to people who might be interested, but he's also honest and says when he thinks they mightn't like it, and if they might like something else he's heard of. And so he gets decent sales, but isn't "soulless", nor does it interfere with his "creative process".

In fact, I would argue that interacting in a sales role with customers helps the creative process, because you talk to people and find out what they like and dislike. If all you do is talk to your half dozen drooling fanboyz, that's not going to help the "creative process", you'll stagnate. You want a variety of views from lots of different people. And going out and being a salesperson for your products is good for that.

If you think that people have to be "tricked" into wanting your products, then you should not produce them. Go out, get feedback and interact with customers.

What do you lot reckon?

a quarter-century of being a crap roleplayer

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:21:50 GMT

On Monday April 1st will be 25 years since I first picked up dice to roll up Jim Bob the Luckless, my Strength 9 fighter in AD&D1e, who struggled up to 3rd level only to perish ingloriously fighting a Gelatinous Cube.

I was thinking that sometime around there I'd like to have a special anniversary dungeon crawl with AD&D, to celebrate a quarter-century of my being a crap roleplayer, but having fun anyway.

Or is there a better way to celebrate, what do you lot reckon?

Session the First of Fourth Tiwesdæg

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:33:11 GMT

The campaign is here.

A good though somewhat slow session last night. But that's the way first sessions of new campaigns often are, as the players and system are all new to one another, they feel their way slowly...

The group are all members of the household of the Ealderman Ecbercht and Ealderwoman Gerda of Tiwesdaeg. Aesc the hunter took his two friends Alric the seneschal's assistant and Cælin the huscarl to the tavern and expressed a wish to go into the hills of the Rethes searching for his father. Truly he is discovering his Wyrd, for that evening the seneschal Redwald told them they were to see Ecbercht and Gerda, and when they did these sent them on a mission into those same hills.

Gerda's old father Godmund is dying, and she wishes to bring his son Robert, last seen among the Reþes, back to Tiwesdæg to reconcile with him. Years ago Godmund had married a savage woman from the mountains, Gail. When he married her, he swore to uphold her people's laws as well as his own. Born to them were Robert, and sixteen years later, Gerda. The Brondings inherit from man to nephew, and Gail's people from man to first son; so Robert expected to inherit the Eorldom, but Bronding law said he would receive nothing. Only the Cyning Berchtwald could change the law with his Witan, and he would not. Godmund had no heirs (nephews) under Bronding law, so the land should revert to the Cyning, to dispose of as he sees fit.

Robert worked with Gerda to try to unite the mountain tribes called by the Brondings the Reþes, to march on Tiwesdæg, and force Godmund to acknowledge him as heir. He marched, but Scop Aldfrid and Huscarle Coenred, along with Angus of the Bear Clan of the Reþes, had brought from the capital Egbert, son of Cyning Berchtwald, to be granted the Eorldom, marry Gerda and together rule the land. The Reþes were driven away, and Robert retired to parts unknown.

So now Gerda wants her brother back and living with them in peace before her father dies. The team readily agreed to this, and visited their families and friends, who were to the last one wary of the "savages of the hills" and foresaw great danger.

Without the knowledge of the other two, Alric was summoned to see Ealderman Ecbercht privately, who said, "My wife is usually very wise in the ways of ruling the land, but this time her love for her father and brother obscures her wisdom. If a man who once led Reþes in violence against Tiwesdæg to claim the land against his father now comes to see him as he is dying, that is a great danger to the land. For even if Robert himself should be honest now, there may be many among the Reþes who will use his name to rally others. And so I think it is better that Robert should never be found, or if found that not come, and if found and he will come... if a terrible accident were to befall him, then that would be his Wyrd."

Alric said that he understood and agreed, and went away to ask his master the seneschal Redwald if he had any poisons. Redwald was shocked and asked Alric what he was up to, Alric muttered something about dangers in the wilderness and scuttled off. Needless to say, Alric has not shared his orders with his companions.

And that is the story. Matt said he wanted "intrigue" in the campaign, though in Osere he said, "I won't be happy unless we get to assassinate at least one high-level politician!" and when given the chance turned it down, so maybe it's the old "careful what you wish for..." Aron wanted to explore the game world, and Nick wanted "high adventure"; they should get that, too.

First campaign this year...

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:47:54 GMT

... will be Fourth Tiwesdæg

again we journey to the land where magic is magical, and monsters are monstrous

Setting & rules

The game will be using HarnMaster, and set in a realistic-themed fantasy world, beginning with a culture something like Anglo-Saxon England, when paganism was being replaced by monotheism. The people are the Bronding people, and the village will be Tiwesdæg (Tee-wez-dag). Through taking a mythic and not purely historical approach to the setting, it's hoped to gain an appreciation for seeing the world as the Anglo-Saxons saw it through their own stories.

The story takes place twenty years after the events of Tiwesdæg Clíewen 2, which in turn were twenty years after those of Tiwesdæg Clíewen, and those stories are the history of this one.

Sessions
The game will be played in Oakleigh on Wednesday nights. Each of us will bring something to eat, with Kyle bringing dinner, Aron something sweet, Matt chips, Nick dips, and Ian drinks. Dinner will be supplied at 7pm, and the game will begin at 7:30pm, and keep going until 10:45pm. Play will begin and end at these hours regardless of what time players appear.

The campaign will run from January 9th - May 28th, 21 sessions in all.

Background story

The story of Tiwesdæg:- Forty years ago the evil sorceror Fælsian threatened the land with his magical deceit and violation of women, and stealing of their children. His schemings and those of his daughter Aelwyn brought the ceorls into conflict with their Ðegn, and the wrath of the Cyning upon the Shire. The rightful Ðegn Osric was mortally-wounded in a battle, and named his Huntsmaster and bastard son Godmund as his heir. Godmund then travelled with his companions to the west seeking the Mæstgold, and returned after sixteen years.

In his absence Fælsian's son Osric the Younger came to inherit the Shire, but Osric was defeated and driven away by Gwynæth, while Godmund slew Aelwyn and then became Eorl of Tiwesdæg, and with his help Berchtwald overthrew the weak old Cyning and took his throne for himself.

The story of Tiwesdæg 2:- Godmund had married a savage woman from the mountains, Gail. When he married her, he swore to uphold her people's laws as well as his own. Born to them were Robert, and sixteen years later, Gerda. The Brondings inherit from man to nephew, and Gail's people from man to first son; so Robert expected to inherit the Eorldom, but Bronding law said he would receive nothing. Only the Cyning Berchtwald could change the law with his Witan, and he would not. Godmund had no heirs (nephews) under Bronding law, so the land should revert to the Cyning, to dispose of as he sees fit.

Robert worked with Gerda to try to unite the mountain tribes called by the Brondings the Reþes, to march on Tiwesdæg, and force Godmund to acknowledge him as heir. He marched, but Scop Aldfrid and Huscarle Coenred had brought from the capital Egbert, son of Cyning Berchtwald, to be granted the Eorldom, marry Gerda and together rule the land. The Reþes were driven away, and Robert retired to parts unknown.