RPGnet Chat with Dan Davenport

Last night I did a late night Q&A on the RPGnet Chat with Dan Davenport and others in the chatroom, discussing all things Conspiracy X, Doctor Who and WILD. Below is an edited and formatted transcript of the chat. Enjoy! (You can read the full unedited transcript over at Dan's site - gmshoe.blogspot.com)

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Dan Davenport: Alright! Dave, when you're ready, please introduce yourself and your games. The floor is yours!

Dave Chapman: Hi, I'm Dave Chapman. I've worked on lots of games for Eden Studios, including Buffy, AFMBE, Ghosts of Albion, Terra Primate and most notably I'm line developer for Conspiracy X 2.0. I was also system designer and lead writer on Cubicle 7's Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space and now I'm working on my own project called WILD for my little publishing name Autocratik.

Dan: Any questions so far, or shall I get things rolling?

nick3: Well  I guess I should ask if more Conspiracy X 2.0 stuff is coming out

Dave: Yes, there's the Paranormal Sourcebook (thanks to Kickstarter) which is hitting shops this week, the Conspiracies Sourcebook which is in layout at the moment, and Extinction (the future of Conspiracy X) is in the works at the moment too... There's been talk of another sourcebook (The Operations Sourcebook) as well, and there are other books on my harddrive from the classic game that never saw print, so there's plenty of scope for the future.

nick3: The Conspiracies Sourcebook? Mind giving us a bit of information about it .

Dave: Sure. Like the other books, it takes existing classic ConX stuff and updates it (in this case, Sub Rosa, Aegis and Hand Unseen) but it also includes a lot of unseen material from the fabled Area 51 sourcebook... There's also some new stuff in there that builds to the future of the line (Extinction) and takes the game in a new direction. It's been Kickstarted, busted through its goals, and should be finished in the next couple of months. It's all written, it just needs layout, proofing and printing. 

Dan: And do I recall correctly that the Paranormal Sourcebook includes info from the 1st edition magic, psychic, and cryptid supplements?

Dave: Oh yes, only updated and converted to Unisystem. Kickstarter backers could get Zener cards with it, they'll be available to retail soon as well hopefully.

nick3: Are you guys going to aid some more stuff about CAPS?  That was a curious omission in the Paranormal Sourcebook

Dan: CAPS?

nick3: Dan, they are Aegis agency that studies the directly supernatural elements of the Conspiracy X world.

Dan: Ah, thanks.

Dave: CAPS is Center for Advanced Phenomenological Studies. Try saying that with a mouthful of marbles as my dad would say... As they're part of Aegis, I do believe they're covered in more detail in the Conspiracies Sourcebook's Aegis section. I'll check... I did write it five years ago, but I have been doing some additional updates recently.

Dan: Without giving too much away, the supernatural has a unified explanation in the ConX universe... How (or do) the cryptids fit in?

Dave: No problem. The book gives multiple explanations for each cryptozoological phenomena. Maybe it's seepage, maybe it's Atlantean constructs, it's up to the GM to decide what fits the campaign best.

Dan: Ah, I see.

Le_Squide: So, is seepage no longer the assumed truth behind all the weirdness?

Dave: Seepage is the cause of 99% of it, but weird things like the Loch Ness Monster, or Yeti, have very different origins... just to keep agents on their toes...

Dan: I spoke a bit about this to George regarding Extinction, but how do you plan on keeping it interesting and not just a matter of "Oh, great, more lizard guys"?

Dave: It all sounds a bit epic, but CJ Carella (creator of Unisystem) wrote Extinction before he became a recluse and vanished (hoping to avoid government agents I think). It's a huge game, but I see it like TV's "Falling Skies" meets "Halo", on a near future Earth. The Greys and the Atlanteans are about, but have very different parts to play in the battle against the Saurians. Lots of cyberware, nano tech, body modification, and magic has become recognised and public. It's gonna be interesting.

Dan: Really? I didn't realize it was that far in the future. Or is the high-tech stuff a result of interaction with the aliens?

Dave: Not too far, but with the way technology is developing at the moment, and with the Atlanteans predicting the return of the Saurian fleet they're stepping up the game and encouraging technological advances.

Dan: Aha. Gotcha. Are there any supernatural aspects to the enemy, or is that a purely human thing?

Dave: It's more of a human thing. Saurians are (*spoilers*) assumed to be Voids (except for the Dreamspeakers), so they haven't really gone into magic... but the idea of a corrupted Gna-Tall is a scary thought...

Dan: As I mentioned earlier, we discussed Doctor Who quite a bit with Nathaniel a while back, but I would just like to say that the system is awesome... and bears a more than passing resemblance to Cinematic Unisystem. Any thoughts on the subject? (Nat ran a demo game for me. He's local.)

Dave: Cinematic Unisystem was a great influence, one of the first games I'd played that really balanced a powerful lead (Slayer) and a group of White Hats (Scoobies).  When approaching Doctor Who, you had the same problem with The Doctor, and Companions, though in the more recent series, the companions have just as much to offer the story as The Doctor most of the time. Ensuring the poor player lumbered with K-9 has just as much to do and is just as capable in their own way during an adventure is tricky, but hopefully the game balances that.

Dan: How robust do you see the system as being? Obviously, it's been adapted to a more action-oriented setting in Primeval... Can you see it getting as much use as CineUni in various games? (And just because my regulars will be surprised if I don't ask this... could you see it handling pulp?)

Dave: I know the adaptation to Primeval was certainly more combat orientated, and it seems to work really well. I know it's also being used for a number of upcoming games that Cubicle 7 have coming out, but I don't know if I'm allowed to discuss what they are. As River Song would say... "Spoilers!"

Dan: Really? Cool. :)

Dave: I know one of the up coming games is certainly "Pulp-y" so hopefully that'll please your regulars!

Dan: DWPearce mentioned that it's a bit on the deadly side, Story Points aside.  What's your take?

Dave: It can be dangerous. It was a problem that initially came from Doctor Who - most of the weapons in the series are one-shot-kills. Hopefully, the Story Points keep people alive, and if you're running out of them, you're not doing enough dramatic and cool stuff to get them back!! Do something exciting!! There's also systems in play to exchange Story Points with other characters, and to keep you alive and healthy, but the best way to tackle combat in any game is to plan ahead, avoid conflict if possible, and take cover!

Dan: I saw that damage tops out at 1.5x in Doctor Who... Does that stay the same in Primeval? I tend to like rewarding sharpshooters/swashbucklers.

Dave: AFAIK, though you'd have to ask Gareth R-H about that, I haven't seen the final printed copy yet. Keep meaning to buy it!

Dan: Ah, understood. He's currently negotiating with the wife for a Q&A of his own. 

Dave: Yeah, must admit, he's the go-to guy for info on Primeval and Who at the moment, I had to take a step back from it all for a bit this year.

Dan: Okay, so can you tell us about WILD?

Dave: Ah, WILD... well, it stands for Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming. It's an RPG that takes place in various levels of consciousness - from the waking world to many levels of dreaming. I like to think of it like Inception meets SuckerPunch.

Dan: What's the system like, and how does it handle what would have to be a wildly crossgenre setting?

Dave: It's even looser than anything I've worked on before. It's a new system, I've called "Rapid Die Movement". It's very fast and easy, and should handle anything. There's also an element of Tarot cards, and mandalas... Jung would be proud. 

Dan: How does the system work?

Dave: I can't give too much away, it's early days. There's only four stats, and five "skills", fairly simple dice pool. The depth comes from how dreams work, who's in control of the dream, how much you can alter them, and what happens when you lose control. In the real world there's a technology that allows dreamshare, built for medical and psychotherapy use but, then the military gets hold of it, there's black market copies for underground fight-clubs, dream recording, weirdness like that. Hopefully it should be good. And it may help with your real world problems and induce Lucidity too!

Dan: Are dreams potentially dangerous in the setting?

Dave: Dan, yes... think Nightmare on Elm St. And there's always an element that the dreams may escape. Just watch Paprika! 

Dan: (Oh, that's right... I do need to watch that. I bought it a while back...)

Snake_Eyes: Hello DaveChapman! what is your favorite Dungeons and Dragons module?

Dan: (Snake loves that question. :) )

Dave: Snake! Haven't played D&D since 1st Edition! Demonweb pits is the one that sticks in my mind. Dangerous!!!

Snake_Eyes: Awesome!!!

Dan: Yeah, I love that one. Even had a steampunk spider before steampunk was cool. :)

Dave: Oh, I may have played a 3.5 demo of Eberron about 3 years ago... Looking forward to seeing where 5th Ed goes though!

Snake_Eyes: What would you say is the best advice to give to an aspiring RPG writer?

Dave: Know the system, email the company, and WRITE! Write for free! Prove you can do it! My blog covers my attempts at getting into game writing since 1986, but I think the supplement I wrote for AFMBE is what convinced Eden to give me work. I wrote it on-spec, and it's never been used, but proved I could write for them... I became developer for Terra Primate from it, and the rest is history.

Snake_Eyes: :) Cool, nice to know.

Dan: Terra Primate is awesome, by the way. But you know that, because I reviewed it. ;)

Dave: Many thanks for that, dude. I didn't do much, just plugged the system into existing text, but it's a very underrated game.

Snake_Eyes: What is your favorite personal design you have created for rpgs, as a in rule mechanism?

Dave: Hmmm - I think the Initiative system for Doctor Who. That seems to go down well... allowing the Doctor to talk people out of a fight... I'm hoping the new system for WILD will surprise people too.

Dan: Would you mind saying a bit more about the initiative system, Dave? I've read and played it, but I'm not sure if Snake (or everyone reading the log of this chat) is familiar with it.

Snake_Eyes: Oh, yes I am a little familiar with the system, it allows the protagonist that wishes to engage in diplomacy a chance to act before violence begins?

Dave: Yes... basically, it breaks down into 4 phases. Talkers, Movers, Doers and Fighters. In that order. Gives people chance to talk their way out of a fight, to run away, to do something cool like open a door or trigger an alarm... anything rather than fight. You can fight, especially if you're in a UNIT style game. But in Doctor Who, the Doctor usually slides into a fight and gets them to lower their weapons - giving everyone a chance before the blasting and exterminating starts. I think it's that order... (it's been a while)

Dan: I'm told that there will be an alternate system for the UNIT supplement?

Dave: There's certainly mass combat rules in UNIT for when the troops are called in to fight armies of Cybermen, etc.

Dan: How would you describe the work of a line developer as it relates to the authors of individual game books?

Dave: It's not too different from just being an author, except when there's a line of books coming out, you're not expected to do them all yourself. So you call upon the people you know and ask them to help. Then you take their cool text, merge it into the format you need, and ensure the books have the same "voice"...

Snake_Eyes: What RPG books are you enjoying reading atm?

Dave: Just reading Nobilis (3rd) at the mo, as I loved (2nd) and wanted to see the difference. Leverage is amazing and highly underrated, and I'm looking forward to the Star Wars Beta making it to the UK... Speaking of being in the UK, it's 2:10am here and I've a dull day job tomorrow, I'll need to sleep soon!

Snake_Eyes: cool :)

Dan: So as line developer, is it your decision what comes out, and when?

Dave: Not really, it's usually when it's done, it's ready! Most of that's down to the publisher and the line developer's boss. They set the deadlines (if any)!

Snake_Eyes: well thank you very much DaveChapman, I hope you have pleasant dreams!!

Dan: No problem, Dave! We can call it a night if you need to hit the sack.

Dave: Thank you! I consider all dreams research - I'm cataloging some of them here for the game - http://wilddreaming.blogspot.com

Dan: Cool. :)

Dave: Thanks guys, it's been a blast. Anytime!

Dan: Thanks very much for staying up late to talk to us!

Roll Your Own Life (10) - Like My Father Before Me

After a tense couple of weeks, my wife has returned and I am once again able to write. There was something about her being the other side of the planet that meant that I just couldn't concentrate. I don't know whether it was the lack of sleep from sitting up to video-Skype with her, or just that fidgety restlessness you get when something isn't right with the world, but in the two weeks she was away, I hardly wrote anything.

I chatted with friends about WILD though, and some absolutely genius ideas came up. There are times when I'm describing what I have in mind for the game, and one of them replies with a simple "why don't you do this?" And I'm left wondering why I didn't think of that genius solution before? Maybe I'm just too close to it sometimes. I needed that break to "catch the big fish" as Lynch would say.

Before I continue with my bizarre history of the world as seen through my life in gaming, I just wanted to point people in the direction of a particularly wacky podcast called Bros and Cons, hosted by Bret and Tim (who, once again, I met through gaming). I recently appeared on Episode 5 - The Poo Poo Wizard episode, and it was a blast. Have a listen, the language is a little colourful, and there are in-depth discussions ranging from genetically grown organs, the legalisation of prostitute assassins, to catching Pokemon. Enjoy.

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Back to the tales of yore!

The West End Games STAR WARS RPG

After a brief stint of trying to write Price of Freedom adventures, I discovered an advert for the forthcoming Star Wars RPG in a magazine and I was immediately sold.

Star Wars was a life defining moment for me. I may get a little sad for a bit, but bear with me. The local cinema was 15 miles away from my home town, and Hull made a big deal about the release of the first real blockbuster. This movie was big, the reception in the States proved it, so Hull reopened one of its old cinemas, The Dorchester, especially for one film, and one film only. Star Wars was the only film shown in the big one screen cinema, and it showed it for about six months. The demand was so high that I remember my dad bringing home the tickets for the film and the earliest we could go and see it was at least two months away.

I have even earlier memories of Star Wars. I remember the page in British comic 2000AD that had some stills from it, saying "This film is going to be big, you should like it." Hell, if 2000AD told you something was going to be good, in the late 70's you darn well listened.

After that (and before seeing the film), I remember my dad had to go away for conferences/training maybe once or twice a year. He went away on one of these trips and when he returned he had a couple of presents for me - two Star Wars figures - Chewbacca and R2-D2. I had no idea who or what they were, but I remembered the 2000AD feature and those were the coolest toys I'd ever had.

When the fateful day of the cinema trip arrived, it was early 1978. I'd seen a couple of trailers on TV, but knew only parts of the story. There was a Marvel comics adaptation (which I still have) that was in two parts, but published HUGE, almost A3, but I'd only read the first half. But there we were, on our way to Hull in the car, with my mum and dad, about to go and see Star Wars.

We'd had a couple of cinema trips before. I remember vaguely the trip to see Michael York in The Three Musketeers, but I have a better memory of going to see The Man with the Golden Gun, and The Spy Who Loved Me (which obviously influenced my love of James Bond movies from an early age), but Star Wars would change my life.

We sat quite near the back on the ground floor as it was near the door and easier to get my mum's wheelchair into the cinema, but it meant that the balcony seating overhung above us, cutting a fraction of the top of the screen off from view. Not much, but enough to mean that when the rebel blockade runner and the star destroyer first appeared on screen in those opening seconds, my mum was convinced they'd flown out from the balcony.

It was like nothing I'd ever seen. I was glued to the screen. It was the most amazing thing in the world. I'd seen movies before, witnessed the way the stories worked, but when they escaped the Death Star I thought the film would end... but no, there was the whole attack on the Death Star which was the most jaw-dropping spectacle my young eyes had ever seen. I could feel Star Wars seeping into my very existence, and from that day there was nothing like it.

I saved up for the toys, my dad dressed up as Darth Vader at the town carnival (with me as Luke, and my friend Jinx as Han Solo). Even my mum loved the movie - sad to think that her last birthday this year, she asked me to get her the original trilogy of Star Wars on DVD (even though they're no longer available) because they didn't have a VHS player in the home where they were trying to nurse her back to health. She never did get to see it again.

Anyway, the Star Wars RPG was a work of genius in my eyes. It took the basic system of Ghostbusters which I already loved, and made it Star Wars-y. It was epic, you could do heroic and cinematic things, you could duel with lightsabers and use the Force. It was fantastic.

My GM's eye view of running Star Wars, with
Pete peering over the screen (1989)

The presentation was a revelation as well, with its fake adverts for the Imperial Navy and tourist guide to the planets. There was a humour there, and it brought Star Wars to life for me again, just in the cold times when there was no Star Wars to light the way.

I GM'd Star Wars for a while. A group of rebels lead by Deeko Smiggins, scoundrel and pilot of the Ballistic Wombat, who would roll 30D6 to out-fly those stupid TIE Fighter pilots. And for a while, it was great.

But my gaming group was mostly away at University. The few of The Eight left behind were busy having real lives, and I just kinda festered. My only real social life besides the Eight when they returned was hanging around with the people I knew from the Council job (and then the Archaeology Unit when I was transferred over to them).

There were a few gaming highlights (mostly Pete's creation called "Odyssey" which we played as a RuneQuest-y type thing, a superhero game and in its finest incarnation, recreating the worlds of James Cameron's Aliens and beyond), but things started to go quiet on the gaming (and the writing) front.

Looking back, now, I still have very fond memories of Star Wars, and I still have the RPG books (and I've bought the more recent incarnations, and eagerly await looking at the new Fantasy Flight Star Wars game), but Star Wars itself has become tarnished by endless recuts, remasters, re-edits, and a series of prequels that try to make you sympathetic to the stormtroopers and reduces Darth Vader to a sulky teen who didn't get his own way. To me, it'll never be as cool as it was that first time, sitting in the cinema with my parents, where all three of us were transported for the first time to a galaxy far, far away.

Roll Your Own Life (9) - Dice of Freedom

Been a while since I posted about my ancient gaming history, and it's a good exercise in getting back into writing again - WILD is progressing nicely, I know the backstory, know the system, worked out character creation, know how the book's going to look and the style of art and layout, I just need to actually crack on with writing the damn thing. I seriously think it's going to be a real experience to play and read, but I just need to get on with it. Maybe I'm just putting myself off, worrying that what I put on the page will never live up to the scope and madness that I've envisioned in my head.

Anyway, back to the "Entire History of Me," - a rather vain and ponderous reflection on my history in gaming. My way of revisiting the past, and getting all nostalgic for a slightly less painful time.

Last time I posted (in Roll Your Own Life (8) - Ghostwriting for the USA) I told you about sitting in my bedroom after I'd left school, typing away on the huge electric typewriter, desperately hoping to get a job writing Ghostbusters RPG scenarios. Well, as you can guess, I never did become a paid Ghostbusters writer, and there was only so long I could spend sitting around at home without getting a paid job.

Me at the desk in "Clerk/Tracer" mode 1989

Luckily, the job centre managed to point me in the direction of the local county council who were looking for what they called a "Clerk/Tracer". Yes, a job tracing. I can just imagine all the "Mallrats" jokes now about inkers being nothing but glorified tracers, but this was absolutely skill-less. It really was tracing. The job was working for the council's nature conservation unit, updating their ordnance survey maps for sites of scientific interest. In the days before doing it all on computer, this involved taking their big sheets of film with the map printed on it, and drawing and colouring in the areas of interest. If the area changed, the ink was scraped off of the film carefully with a scalpel blade before being re-inked to incorporate the alteration.

Tedious? Yes. Part time? Yes. But it paid well, got me off of the dole, and gave me enough spare time to continue writing, but we'll come back to that later.



How did I get the job? Well, I showed off my comic drawing that I used to do (the old Wormbusters stuff) which proved I could use a rotring pen, and I could type...  but the thing that clinched the deal, and got me the job?

I roleplayed.

Doug Smith at the Nature Conservation office - 1989

I was interviewed by two guys, one was the head of a department for the council (nice chap called Mark), and the other was the leader of the team I'd be joining, a guy called Doug Smith.

Doug told me after I'd been given the job that they had a few people apply for the post, and it was a close thing between me and some other guy, but the thing that swayed their decision in my favour was roleplaying. Doug had played D&D and thought that because I was a gamer I would know how to work as part of a team, could problem solve, had the imagination and self reliance to take the initiative, and could draw maps.

Obviously, Doug had never witnessed my D&D playing or he'd have probably thought differently!

It was a pretty easy job, I got on well with the team, although they vanished off doing surveys of the places I was drawing the maps of, driving all around the county in their little yellow council van. Gave me plenty of time to do the map work, and plot my next bit of writing.

I'd advanced onto using a word processor - wow, I know it sounds like nothing these days, but back then I didn't have access to a real computer. I had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum which was mostly used to play video games. In order to do word processing, certainly something I could print out and send to West End Games, I needed something a bit more professional. At that time, it was an Amstrad with a green screen that I could use at the town's "adult education centre". They saw it as me getting experience using word processors and writing, I saw it as a way to write.

The Price of Freedom RPG core boxed set

However, I'd moved on from Ghostbusters, but remained loyal to West End Games. I picked up a copy of "Red Dawn" inspired RPG "The Price of Freedom". A controversial game at the time, as it featured guerilla warfare in an America occupied after a Soviet invasion. Very Red Dawn.

However, I had two problems.

One was that none of my players wanted to play Americans fighting Russians. Maybe they saw it as being politically incorrect, maybe they just didn't like the idea, so I eventually ended up replacing the Soviet forces with Visitors and running the game as "V", based on the TV series.

The second problem I had was that I wanted to write for West End Games, but I had no ideas of a plot for an adventure to submit to them. I ended up taking the basic plot of Star Wars, having the vice president as a woman being captured by the Soviets, and the player characters attempt to rescue her from a fortified train that had some huge gun on it. Basically, it was rescue the princess from the Death Star before it gets within range of the resistance's base and it gets destroyed. I don't remember much about it other than the spell checker on the computer kept trying to change the name of one of the NPCs from Suzie Morgan to "Saucy Organ" which amused me to no end.

I never finished the adventure, I guess I lost enthusiasm after I couldn't find anyone to playtest it, but my interest in Price of Freedom was wavering after West End Games brought out their newest game... STAR WARS.

Trying to Be Positive

I said I wasn't going to do a blog post this week, as it's another tough one, but sitting at home, nothing good on TV, with just the cat for company, I really just needed to get into the swing of writing again...  this seemed like a good tool to get started.

I may be too tired for this, just spent over nine hours driving back to my old hometown for the burial of my mum's ashes at the "family plot" with my dad and grandfather. Exhausting, emotional, draining, but I couldn't have missed going. I'd have never forgiven myself.

Wife's flying at the moment, just about to enter Australian airspace on her first flight, leaving me home with a particularly grumpy cat, the trial month of Netflix (not finding much on there) and the sounds of powersanding/drilling echoing from next door depriving me of any sleep I could be having. You call it sleep, I call it research.

Not a lot to discuss at the moment. On the subject of dreaming and sleep, my other blog that's being used to record real dreams for use in my latest project is building. Check it out at WILD Dreaming to see what's there, and there's a link/email to submit your strangest dreams for inclusion on the site.

The game's progressing, and I know what I want the design/art to look like, so it's really just a case of getting started.

Meanwhile, I treated myself to a couple of t-shirts. I know, it sounds trivial, and bizarre that they are both the same, but the cool guys at Norwich Screen Art did an awesome job of them. Thanks guys! Handy in case I do any video things...  still pondering that (as you can imagine, my head's not in the right place to film anything).

And that's it. Sorry it's a dull one, but I'll try to continue my epic tale of game writing next time when I'm a little more awake.

Dream Journaling

Just a little extra post about Dream Journals. 

When I started working on Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space I had a core group of genius people who helped bash the game system I'd worked on into shape. It's no surprise that when I started working on WILD, I called upon some of them to fire some of the stranger ideas I'd been having for the game system at to see what they thought. As always, they've been an awesome help. 

One of these particular gaming gurus echoed a thought I'd been having about having a site that would compile real dreams that could be used to inspire adventures, encounters, and the just plain bonkers happenings that can occur in dreams for their games. Inspired by his suggestion, I've set it up. There's not much on there yet, but if you head over to WILD DREAMING you can see the start of it. In the future, I hope that players, DreamMasters and just those interested can submit actual dreams to me and I'll write a little bit to give DreamMasters some ideas to use in their games. There is a dedicated email address for this dreams@autocratik.com. In the meantime, I'll keep adding some of my own weird dreams, and the dreams of people I know, to get things going.

If you'd like to submit one, do bear in mind that it'll be completely anonymous, the names should be removed before you even send them to me, just use a single initial if you like. And also bear in mind that not only will it be put on the website, but I may include some of the cooler ones in the main rulebook when it surfaces.

Above all, don't try to make things up. Keep them real - dreams are usually stranger and more bizarre than anything you could make up. Just eat a banana before you go to sleep, keep a notebook and pen handy, and get dreaming.

Revisionist History

I wasn't sure if I'd be posting this week, Mum's funeral was last Friday and I wasn't sure if I'd be up to writing, but as with all things, I find writing keeps my mind occupied - distracted from any harsh realities.

Distracting myself did have a small advantage last week - I was back in mum's house, clearing the last of my stuff and I was trying to sleep. The house was empty, and my room was just about cleared - it had that horrible echo that empty houses have when they have been stripped of any clutter or personality. Sleep was not coming to me. I lay there in the bed that was too short for me, my feet hanging into the space where the old bookcase used to be, and I resolved that I should do something productive with my mind - solve a problem that had been bothering me for a few months - in order to keep the brain cells busy so that I didn't really think about the enormity of what was actually happening in real life.

The problem I'd been having was character creation for WILD. The game delves so deeply into the character's psyche and personality, where your hidden hopes and fears may bubble to the surface of your dreams, that the character creation needed more than just "I'll roll some dice". I needed a "Life Path" system to create the character, but I wanted to tie it into the rest of the game and how it works...

Then it suddenly came to me - WILD was going to use cards. Not traditional gaming cards, or playing cards. They weren't going to come into play often, just in those strange cases when the dreamers lost control of the dream and things started spiraling out of control. When logic went out of the proverbial window and the characters would find themselves in one of the many repeated dreams that everyone experiences - flying, being chased, finding yourself naked in public, at an exam you haven't prepared for, fighting giant spiders, driving a vehicle that's out of control.

These cards could be used to create the character. I won't go into great detail, and you'll probably think it sucks, but when you hear the full scope behind it, how the cards work, and how character generation works, I think you'll like it. The player is very in control of things, and should form the character how they'd like, but it also adds a small interpretive random element to spice things up, to ensure that every character doesn't end up the same.

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Anyway, the funeral went well. As well as funerals can. It was tough, but my family was there, my wife was by my side, and some of the Eight turned up. In fact, there were many tough and upsetting bits to the day, but I really filled up at the sight of some of my old gaming buddies turning up to help me and the wife through this. I hadn't seen some of them in many years, and some had travelled many miles to attend, and just the thought of the effort they'd put in to come and pay their respects to mum, and to look after Debs while my sisters and I went off to the crematorium for the second smaller service... well, it just proves what true friends are. Thank you guys.

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On the subject of the Eight, Pete pointed out that I missed an element to my previous post - about writing the Ghostbusters adventures. Spooky Science, the first adventure I'd written, I initially passed to Pete when it was finished, and he re-typed the whole thing, correcting my horrible grammar and fixing the typos before we sent it off to New York.

Pete was the DM for my first D&D, and ran Runequest, later writing his own gaming system called Odyssey (which produced some of the most satisfying games I've ever been in a player in). He also wrote a number of the comics I ended up drawing, including Ninja Secretaries from Beyond Dimension X, and the sequel to my original solo comic "Drowning in Darkness". So Pete was the first person I turned to when I thought about submitting my writing to a games company.

Pete must have gone off for his degree when I started on Back to Transylvania and the subsequent efforts, but I'm sorry I forgot about your involvement in the first one, Pete! It was over 25 years ago! I'm going to blame my age and leave it at that...

--

That's it for this post. I'd just like to thank everyone for their kind words of support over the last few weeks.

Roll Your Own Life (8) - Ghostwriting for the USA

First of all, may I just say thank you to everyone who offered their condolences and their offers of support after last week's blog post. I'm coping as best I can with plenty of writing distraction, but it's going to be a hard couple of weeks ahead, so this'll be a rather large post to tide you over until my return.

A little self portrait I did at the height of
my Ghostbusters writing in 1987

Onto happier thoughts, but still just as nostalgic, I left the history of my gaming with the decision to contact West End Games about writing for their awesome roleplaying game, Ghostbusters (see "Roll Your Own Life 6"). I was obsessed with the film, and loved the game. This was back in the time when VHS tapes of movies came out to rent before they were available to buy, and my copy of Ghostbusters was a new rental copy that my local video store let me purchase by paying them a little every week until I'd paid the mammoth £85 price tag.

I wrote a letter to West End Games and gushed about how cool and funny their game was, and they kindly supplied me the necessary release forms for budding authors. I saw this as a huge "Go For It!" sign, and promptly set to work.

The problem I had was that my life revolved around gaming and watching movies. So a lot of what I started writing was parodying movies in some way. Also, this was at a time that may seem alien to some... it was B.I. - Before Internet.

Writing was a laborious task involving a huge electric typewriter (not electronic, just electric) that had fans and stuff built in to keep it from overheating. It was about the size of a Volkswagen and when you needed to change the ink ribbon, the front lifted up like the hood of said car. Everything was typed up (double spaced), corrections made with those little Tippex Correction Strips, and then it was all photocopied and posted as a huge mass of A4 paper by airmail to New York to be read by those cool guys at West End Games.

So, what nonsense was I turning out?

The cover I did for Spooky Science.
This is a black and white photocopy
from 1986

I wrote two big adventures. The first was called "Spooky Science", a parody of Call of Cthulhu, Indiana Jones and Weird Science. 45,000 words of bizarreness where an automated computer system attached to the containment grid goes mad, a fitness cult open a portal to unleash their god, Yogurt-Soggoth, onto an unsuspecting New York, and the Ghostbusters have to escape from the Temple of Yogurt in an epic chase involving shopping trollies. I seem to remember the finale involving New York being flooded in yogurt, and the Ghostbusters arrive on the scene on wet-bikes.

Flicking through the photocopies of the manuscript that I'd recently uncovered, it isn't baaaad...  it's just filled with typos, and it's a little derivative. Mulu Pram, the high priest of Yogurt-Soggoth was an obvious rip-off, but it was a bit of a laugh, and a satirical dig at the fitness craze that was big at the time. I blame Olivia Newton-John. Hell, we all loved Olivia Newton-John at that time.

Anyway, I packaged it up, sent it off, then waited the expected three months for a reply from WEG.

I called New York, which in the days before Skype and Facetime was a costly and scary affair from the UK, and talked to someone at West End Games to confirm it had arrived okay. Then, a couple of months later, I received a reply. It was very positive, but explained that they'd already published a food-based adventure (with the first official scenario, Ghost Toasties) and I saw it as an encouragement to go ahead and write more.

The cover I'd supplied for Back to
Transylvania. Really, not good... (1987-8)

The second of the adventures I finished was "Back to Transylvania", a bizarre time travelling adventure where, through a freak accident in history, Dracula had started a vampire plague and the Ghostbusters had to travel back to 1859 in a time-travelling DeLorean to take on the dark master himself, to prevent the world becoming overrun by vampires.

Again, it drew heavily from Hammer movies, Back to the Future and even had a moment where the filming of the TV series Moonlighting was interrupted and Bruce Willis became a vampire (the scene that initially tips the Ghostbusters off that there's something strange in the neighbourhood).

The scenario also introduced new rules for having non-human Ghostbusters (mainly to include Scooby-Doo as a player-character) and a basic magic system.

Again, I photocopied it, and posted it off to New York, and eagerly awaited a response.

And again, I had a really nice response from the guys at West End. I'm sure it was Greg Costikyan who wrote to me (or it may have been Bill Slavicsek) to let me know what they thought. I have the letter somewhere (though it's in a pile of stuff that has moved since the "moving everything out of mum's house" thing happened), but I remember what it said even now, nearly 25 years later.

It said that "you can obviously write, but..." and then went on to explain that Bruce Willis and Scooby-Doo's owners may sue for using them in a comedy adventure like this. While I understood what they were saying, about not using real people or copyrighted characters, the key thing was that letter said I could write.

I'm sure it was Greg Costikyan (and if it wasn't I'm sorry, and this is directed at you) who wrote to me, and without that positive reply I would never have continued writing. I'd have just packed it in there and then, got a boring job in retail (this is called irony) or something, and given up. So whoever it was who wrote to me, thank you.

The cover to an adventure I didn't finish, based
on John Landis' fake movie title
"See You Next Wednesday" (1988)

Encouraged by this, I kept going, but I didn't get every far. I started work on a new scenario called "See You Next Doomsday" which was going to be a fairly basic zombies and "Evil Dead" inspired story, as I'd just seen Evil Dead II and the idea of a Sam Raimi style comedy-horror with the Ghostbusters sounded awesome to me. The title came from John Landis' "See You Next Wednesday", a non-existent movie that appeared in the background of a lot of Landis' films, which in turn inspired the RPG group's name.

I came to a grinding halt a handful of pages in, when I was inspired to do a different game... based upon the movie "A Nightmare on Elm Street" I ran a proper horror game (strangely, using the Indiana Jones RPG system from the original TSR game) which involved going into peoples' dreams and facing their night-terrors. It seemed to go down pretty well, so I thought about changing it and doing it a little more light-heartedly as a Ghostbusters scenario.

Again, taking its title from another John Landis movie, I started work on "Into the Nightmare", but real life interrupted, and I found myself a real job. It wouldn't be until many years later that I would go back to writing RPGs based on dreams...

Roll Your Own Life (7) - Family Values

Sorry I missed a blog post last week, when you read this one everything will become clear.

I wanted to take some time out of the usual chronology of my life in gaming to talk about family. My parents were always very supportive of my gaming habits - in fact, when it comes to "The Eight", I think most of our parents were incredibly happy that we were playing D&D or gaming. I suppose that when you're raising a teenager it is reassuring to know that we were simply at each other's houses, sitting around a table with cups of tea, stretching our minds with games of fantasy rather than hanging around on the streets, drinking and shouting at cars, or whatever the typical teenagers in a small coastal town do when there's nothing better to occupy their time.

Our mums were fantastic. Usually, in the middle of a game they'd pop their heads around the door to check we were okay and to take requests for cups of tea, cake or biscuits.

When I left school and signed on for a year, spending almost every waking hour hunched over an electric typewriter writing scenarios to try and get published with West End Games (more on that in a future blogpost), I never had any hassles about getting "out there" to get a job. They may have grumbled to each other, but I didn't have any hassles to my face at least - maybe they were just happy that I wasn't being a lay-about and was being creative.

Me, Mum and Dad at my graduation, 1995

As time passed, and I went to art college, they were proud that I'd continued to feed my creative drives, and although the comic publishing empire I tried to forge failed after a year, when I started writing RPGs again, they continued to be encouraging. As each book came out they attentively looked for my name in the credits. To them, it wasn't a game-book. It was a book. Their son had been published, and I'd heard tales of my dad showing one or two of them off to the unsuspecting townsfolk in my hometown.

My dad died just a week after I signed the contracts to work on the four books that would be the new edition of Conspiracy X. He never knew about it, as he was asleep for the last week after a long battle with cancer. As you can imagine, I was devastated at his passing. The core Conspiracy X 2.0 rulebook is dedicated to him. I spent almost every second of my time working on ConX as a way of dealing with the loss - I did the most unhealthy thing you can do I suppose, I just worked through it, focusing my attention on the world of Conspiracy X, the aliens, the conspiracies, the paranormal, because if I thought too hard about the real world, the harsh truth of losing my dad would hit home and I'd become a mess.

But I kept going. Mum was an inspiration. She was determined and stubborn, and kept going through every hardship. She was paralysed in the legs by polio at the age of 7, and met my dad (who was a medic in WWII) when he was assigned as her physiotherapist when she'd grown up. She could walk (with assistance) until after my dad died, then, despite being wheelchair-bound, she still continued to be one of the most positive and cheery people you could meet.

Me and Mum, at my Dad's 70th in 1992

Mum continued to be supportive of my work - both the day-job in the bookstore and the writing RPG books. When I started work on Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space, she was very excited, although she never watched the new series (not after Jon Pertwee left), just the tales my meetings with the BBC and travelling to Cardiff made her proud. I'm sure half of the time she was convinced I was actually writing the series itself, but a reminder every so often about "those games we used to play in the back room with the guys?" and she'd know what I was doing.

She was taken ill while I was at the screening/press conference for The Avengers (link to my blog post about it), so I've been taking every opportunity to travel back to visit. Even then, she was more concerned about me spending money to travel and taking time off of work to see her than in her own health.

Mum died last Friday, peacefully in the company of my sisters and me. I'm getting through it by doing what I did before - writing. Though even writing those last couple of sentences were hard. If it wasn't for the support of my amazing wife, my family, the Eight, and some very good friends, I think I'd still be a gibbering mess. At the moment, if I distract myself well enough I can get on with the day, but things still hit home when I least expect it and I just want to throw up, fall asleep or both in a desperate attempt to cope.

So, that's why I haven't been online for a while, and may not be as active on here as I was before, at least for the time being.

However, before I wrap up this post, I have a little request for you. When you've finished reading this, do me a little favour - if you're lucky enough to have your parents still with you, just give them a call. Tell them you love them. If you're not in this lucky position, but have someone close to you - family, spouse or dear friend - give them a hug and tell them how much you appreciate them.

Thank you.

The Resolution Will Be Televised?

"Bowel-shaking earthquakes of doubt and remorse,

Assail him, impale him, with monster-truck force."

- Cake "The Distance"

I know, this is a bit of a shock, an update that isn't looking back to the dim and distant past! Instead, we look to the present, and the future. It's been a while since I've updated regarding what is actually happening, instead of being reflective and pondering over nostalgic memories. So, what's been going on?

Conspiracy X

First of all, the Kickstarter for the 4th book in the Conspiracy X 2.0 line (The Conspiracies Sourcebook) finished with an overwhelming success. I was absolutely stunned and blown away by the response. While that Kickstarter was finishing, I frantically proofed George's excellent layout and setting of The Paranormal Sourcebook, the 3rd book in the line, and it has now gone off to print.

The Paranormal Sourcebook is available now on DriveThruRPG here and a fine addition to any Unisystem fan's library it is too.

The Kickstarter for The Conspiracies Sourcebook was so successful, it unlocked the chance for production to start on Extinction, the official sequel to Conspiracy X, a possible future of the ConX universe where the aliens have invaded and humanity must fight back. Think Falling Skies, or V meets the high tech near future of something like Total Recall or Halo. It's gonna be awesome. 

The first promo art for the forthcoming game - Extinction

Most of it is already written by the god of Unisystem himself, CJ Carella, I just need to bash it into shape and plug in the game system. Tricky, but doable. Should be very, VERY cool. I've made a start already, just need more hours in the day!

WILD RPG (Wake Induced Lucid Dreaming)

Things with WILD have been a little on the back-burner with Conspiracy X and Extinction coming to the fore. I'm still working on it, and recently a large chunk of the "meta-plot" or backstory of the setting has fallen into place. The system is just about sorted, the setting is there, I just need to get writing more of it. I've made a start on that too, it's early days yet, but I'm hoping it's going to be cool. 

Been discussing interesting new avenues for it as well, interactive character sheets and animated/interactive eBook versions of the rules... but again, it's early days.

Videos

It's been a while since I parted ways with Cheesemint (or Cheesemint Productions Ltd as they are now), yet both my wife and myself have had comments congratulating us on becoming a Limited Company. So, just to set the record straight, Debs and I are no longer involved in Cheesemint's endeavors, and haven't been for a while. I'm still proud of what we accomplished with Unlocked. Matt and Adam made that climatic episode more amazing than I could have ever dreamed, and there's more drama, comedy, action and geek references in the 90mins of that webseries than the whole series of The Big Bang Theory. And the end credits of episode one is still one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

But that's the past! This is about the present and the future! Unlocked has been rebooted, and Debs and I have moved onto other things.

However, I have a camera. 

I've been reluctant to free it from its case, and have been for some time. I don't know. It just feels odd. I've considered selling it, it'd certainly help go towards buying a computer that is from this century - one that actually works with Facebook, or Youtube. But part of me is concerned that I waffle a bit much on here to be interesting and that a little video here and there would spice things up a little. Not too often though, after all, it is a little time-consuming - one of the reasons why I left the webseries production thing behind in the first place.

It wouldn't be anything too complicated. Sure, I had this idea for a webseries called "Players" which was about 30-somethings who met every week to play RPGs. You saw them dressed in the outfits of their characters and talking both in and out of character but in the setting of the game, so they could discuss girlfriend problems or issues at the office while battling orc armies. It would have been like Friends meets the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. But that was over a year ago, and I think I've lost my motivation for that.

I was thinking about something simple - just a video every now and then about RPGs, maybe taking a closer look at a particular game, as a supplement to the text blog here. The first one I was thinking about was covering the original Ghostbusters RPG to tie into the retrospective I'm going through at the moment. Maybe once WILD is actually playable I'd film some of the actual play. I dunno...  what do you think? Should I bother?

The future is in your hands.

Anyway, I'll return to my nostalgia trip next week, continuing the tale of the Ghostbusters RPG and how it shaped my gaming future.

Until then, stay multi-classy.

Roll Your Own Life (6) - Who ya gonna call?

Part of a page of The Travellers
from Issue 55 of White Dwarf

Before I go onto the continuing story of my sad little existence, I do have a couple of things I want to share with you. Last week's post about The Travellers, the old comic strip that ran in White Dwarf in the UK, back before it just printed stuff about Warhammer - the comic that inspired the Wormbusters? Well, it turns out that a lot of it is online on Scribd.

The Travellers was a work of comedy wonder, mostly because you could read it, then go back and read all of the little jokes in the background - I'll always remember the ship taking off and the shot looked like the bit in Star Wars IV when the Millennium Falcon takes off from Mos Eisley, and you get another ship nearby and someone shouting "Don't bother to indicate, I'm psionic!" Fantastic.

However, that wasn't the only find that John pointed out to me. In that very issue is an advert that Milo posted in the classifieds looking to recruit new members...

The Classified Section of White Dwarf issue 55

I must admit, I'd forgotten that as a group we were initially called "The Rheinrhehm Travellers". Why "Rheinrhehm?" There seems to be a myth behind it starting in Digby's house, taking the name from a bottle of wine. Of course the name changed over time. We discussed being called "See You Next Wednesday" after John Landis' in-joke, and the fact that we used to meet on Wednesdays (and Thursdays, and Fridays, and Sundays, and...) but in the end, we're just "The Eight".

So... back to the story...

I'd already mentioned that I was rubbish at plots. The games I'd GM'd boiled down to "10,000 Sathar have landed on a planet, what do you do?" - cue a series of explosions, and Bragi the walking battleship wades in with guns blazing...

Cover of the Ghostbusters RPG
"Training Manual" (or Player's Handbook)
with thanks to www.gbfans.com 

That all changed with possibly the most influential game I'd ever played - Ghostbusters. I was obsessed with Ghostbusters (the movie that is) and I've already mentioned that I desperately wanted to be Venkman when I grew up, so hearing that there was a roleplaying game? I was sold before I'd even looked at the back of the box.

The only disappointment for my youthful brain was the lack of character sheet. Looking back now I see it was a revolutionary work of genius, but despite the character sheet problem (that I remedied with some homegrown efforts) I could tell even then that the game was something special.

I mean, look at the thing - it was a work of perfect simplicity. It didn't need to be full colour, it didn't need anything except that logo on the front, and some dice. And one of those had the logo on it as well.

The thing about it was how quick and simple it was. The rules were possibly the most minimal thing I'd ever seen. And it introduced "Brownie Points", something that I'd never encountered before, allowing the players to fudge rolls, to tweak the outcomes and to generally make the story funnier, better and cooler.

The start of the Rules Chapter from
The Ghostbusters RPG
with thanks to www.gbfans.com

And story was what it was all about. No longer was it a simple dungeon crawl, it was about telling a cool (and funny) story. There were investigation elements, working out who the ghost was, what its typical behaviour was like, and then there was the fun of blasting the place to pieces with Proton Packs. And there was no dying. Buildings could be destroyed (and frequently did) and your characters would stagger out of the rubble in their underwear with a Wile E. Coyote dazed look on their faces.

There were adventures published in the Ghostmaster's rulebook, and what was a revelation, dozens of Story Hooks. Short adventure ideas that could be expanded to complete adventures. Brilliant.

We played Ghostbusters continually, I zipped through all of the Story Hooks in record time. We had some of the most bonkers characters (Coop's character of note was Mr. Oook, an orangutan with a Proton Pack) and some of the craziest adventures ever (I do remember the published adventure "Hot Rods of the Gods" was particularly wacky!).

Of course, without adventures (we'd gone through all the ones published) I had to design my own. And so I did something I hadn't considered before. I contacted the publisher, West End Games...

Roll Your Own Life (5) - Story? What Story?

So, Star Frontiers. That was where things really took off for me. Free of the shackles of fantasy, and after being obsessed with Star Wars since it first came out, this was a great chance to fuel my need for more space opera.

I don't remember much of the initial party, it was probably the same craziness that always accompanies the first game - everyone wants to try a different race to see what they're like, even the six legged insect dudes or the sentient lumps of putty.

Milo was taken by Star Frontiers as well, running his own game with a group of Dralasites (the walking putty) who were part of a rock group causing chaos around the galaxy, calling themselves the Dark Judges. But my game was lacking something. A story.

I really never had any idea about plots. D&D was simple - go into the dungeon, kill nasties, steal their stuff. That was all RPGing was to me back then. Soon, Star Frontiers was little more than an excuse for the characters to don ridiculously oversized powered armour (yes, there's a "u", I'm British!) wading into impossible amounts of Sathars and kicking alien butt.

While this wasn't inspiring game-play, it did inspire other things. I'd started doodling caricatures of the players, adapting events in the game into little comic strips. Soon, we'd started playing these characters of ourselves within the game, building a bizarre mythology of "The Eight". The movie Ghostbusters had just hit the cinemas and I'd gained a new obsession (yes, I wanted to be Venkman when I grew up), and these cartoon versions of ourselves became the "Wormbusters" - dedicated to stamping out those pesky lizards wherever they appeared.

Me, years after all of the Wormbusters goings on, but the
same GM chair in my old backroom.
(1989 - about to run Star Wars) 

Libelously ripping off storylines from Howard the Duck and the amazing comic strip The Travellers that originally appeared in the UK's White Dwarf magazine, the adventures of the Wormbusters became a desperate attempt to gain attention from my school classmates as they demanded not only to see the next episode, but also to make cameo appearances in the strips.

Before you ask, yes - I do still have all of Wormbusters. Why? I dunno... it wasn't very good, my artwork was awful, and very little of it was original, but it was a little piece of history that evolved into bigger things - the characters became darker, more serious and contemporary. Milo started writing huge novels of their military and vigilante exploits, Pete wrote epic comic scripts and I started taking the drawing of comics more seriously.

But in both of these cases, I didn't have much input with stories. I was just plain rubbish at writing them, and my gaming remained in that state until I discovered what could possibly be called the first of the "story" games (at least in my opinion) - Ghostbusters - A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game. 


More on the awesome Ghostbusters RPG and how it inspired me to write RPGs next time...

Roll Your Own Life (4) - Zebulon's Guide to Gamemastering

Despite the merging of several gaming groups, the prospect of playing in three to five games a week wasn't enough for me. I've been told on a few occasions that I'm an over-controlling, domineering, bossy git... I dunno, maybe they're right. But when I was a teenager, I wanted to be in control. I wanted to Gamemaster.

It was a bit of a shock to me to discover that there were other games out there. When I started gaming there really was just the big three out there - Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (because Basic was just for kids), Traveller and Runequest. There was a bit of a rule the groups had which made perfect sense - if you were a player in AD&D you didn't bring a Monster Manual or Dungeon Master's Guide with you to the game. It stopped all that nasty meta-gaming where the DM announced something like:

"You open the door and find that you're in the main Orc guardroom. Three Orcs turn to see you and stand."

First thing that would happen is the players would open their Monster Manuals and look up their HP and it'd become a boring wargame. Restricting the player's book access made the game much more exciting, and gave the DM more control. We could, however, each have our own Player's Handbook. (Later this would expand to include the various expansions such as Unearthed Arcana, and bizarre books that seldom saw use such as the Dungeoneer's and Wilderness Survival Guide.)

Where I grew up, there was nowhere to buy these game books. It was almost like a cult that required some secret knowledge to join, and the town had no way of getting hold of these books. All of the gamers in the town had requested copies of these books at the local library, and they did their best to acquire them - postcards would come through the door six months later to say that they'd managed to get a single copy of the DMG that would be fought over by a dozen or so of us.

The nearest place to buy the game books (again, the secret society initiation trials continued) was in the nearest big city. Hull.

Even that was a task of legend. 

A ninety minute bus journey into the city used up a fair amount of pocket money, and used up a fair amount of your Saturday. Precious gaming time! The bus had a nasty habit of taking the most scenic route possible as well, starting at our town and working out in random directions, sometimes going in the complete opposite way to get to Hull. My father always said that the roads were built by council workers who always had to have their backs to the wind, which explained why it was one of the bounciest, twisting, life-threatening journeys you could take.

Once in Hull, the only place to get games was a place called the Kingston Gallery. From the front it was an unassuming picture framers and gallery. I remember the first time going there with Cooper, my ever trusty companion throughout 90% of my schoolyears. We looked at the place, disbelieving the stories of game books that lurked within. But, in true Douglas Adams bureaucratic way, the real information you needed was up a narrow staircase that looked like you were venturing into the framer's bedroom, behind a locked door, and having to be escorted by the one member of staff keeping an eye on the framing business. Instead of a bedroom there was an open room with a counter, and a wall filled with rulebooks. Spinners held the smaller titles, like the many Traveller "little black books" and minis on blister-packs. It was like Nirvana. This was my place of worship. A dealer for my gaming addiction. Books, and books, and books and books of it!

It was here that I discovered there was more to gaming than AD&D, Traveller and Runequest. It was here that Cooper and I discovered that TSR had a number of other games out. It was here that I discovered Star Frontiers.

Star Frontiers was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Just the cover of it... wow. I mean look at it. Traveller was a plain black cover, this had a crashed spaceship, a cool guy with shades and an awesome gun, a hot girl, and what was that winged monkey thing? I had to buy this!! I could play science fiction and I could GM. Everything was in it, dice, counters, maps, two books, and...  a wax crayon! Amazing.

It had everything I could want to play cool sci-fi. I could run Star Wars...  it would be cooler than Star Wars, it had Sathars that could be shot in their millions, strange rubber dudes, and big bugs. Only thing you couldn't do with it?

Leave the planet...

That would require another quest into Hull for Star Frontiers: Knight Hawks! 

 (Although Cooper now has my Star Frontiers collection, I still have those dice. My first D10s...  It wouldn't be until I reconvened with the other gamers that I would discover what the wax crayon was for...)