Menagerie of Exiles Review

Menagerie of Exiles is another Gen Con 2019 exclusive adventure I picked up this year. Unlike More Than Meets the Eye, there are no penis-y tentacles, though there are still aliens inhabiting other forms. For one reason or another, the party find themselves on a pirate ship known as the Sultan's Pleasure. The captain of the ship and several crew members are inhabited by extra-dimensional beings (which appear as slug things on Earth, but pure light in their home). The captain leads the ship to a small village inhabited by more of these creatures living in human hosts. They must confront  one of their number that is guarding a machine that will take them home and either help keep the machine from operating or defeating the guardian and allowing the beings to home.

While there are only 32 pages to this pdf, there's a lot here. There's a nice discussion of the ship, it's crew, layout, and even piracy in the 17th century. In addition the authors have done a great job of considering how spells in the Rules & Magic book would affect this scenario. I really appreciate this foresight and kind of wish other authors would consider this when putting things together.

Overall, this seems like a great roleplay heavy Lamentations adventure. I enjoyed it because more than many LotFP, this adventure wouldn't seem too out of place in a regular campaign. Yes their slug/light creatures are weird, but they aren't silly or campaign breaking.

More Than Meets The Eye Review

More Than Meets The Eye is one of four Gen Con exclusives from Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It was written and illustrated by Kelvin Green (of Fish Fuckers fame). It's a short adventure that's an homage/parody of everyone's favorite transforming robots. This isn't his first time mixing LotFP with Transformers. He had a contribution to Slugs.

The basic premise is that there are aliens that can disguise themselves as objects on earth. There are two factions, which the author refers to as group A and D. Both groups are from a far away planet and need access to the Primal Matrix. The adventure is full of Transformers references, even taking place in the village of St. Michael's Bay. The major difference is these shape changing aliens are big penis-y tentacle things and pump their foes full of alien reproductive goo. Actually one of the larger aliens has an attack with one of it's penis-like tentacle appendages that actually requires the victim to make a save vs poison or burst open with an overflow of "love juice."

So yeah, if you can't tell, this adventure is weird af, but also a fun tribute to a geek favorite. While it seems too out of place in a super serious game, I think it would still be a fun side trek.

There is a chance the players might get access to a living space ship thing, but hey that's not going to unbalance a game, right?

Gen Con 2019 Recap

This isn't going to be super detailed and I'm sure I'll forget to mention things, but here's an overview of my Gen Con experience and some photos to accompany it.

Sadly this isn't all of the DCC/MCC swag I wanted to buy.

Wednesday

We left the day before the con started. Indianapolis is about 3.5-4 hours from home. I rode and stayed with some of my oldest friends, Wirty, Amanda, and Chris. We stayed at the JW Marriott, which was pricey, but also connected to the Indiana Convention Center. Tim Brannan was staying at the same hotel and I ran into him gaming with his family in the executive lounge. It was really cool because Tim is the reason I started blogging. That night we had reservations at an expensive, but delicious steak house, St. Elmo's.  I ordered the Dry Aged New York Strip and it was hands down the best steak I have ever had.

Thursday

I started my day out by playing Sparkle*Kitty. It was a lot of fun and I won two of the three games I played. It's kind of an advanced version of UNO, but it makes you say ridiculous word combinations out loud and would be a great party game. I also attended a Tabletop Gaymer panel, which was a lot of fun. I ran into my gaming muse, Dave, and he gave me a copy of the Buddy O'Burger issue of Crawling Under A Broken Moon. The last game I played that day was Mantic's The Walking Dead: All Out War. I'm not normally a fan of war games, but this was really good. The starter is reasonably cheap and I've thought about picking it up. I didn't spend much money in the exhibition hall, but I did pick up a set of DCC nunchucks for Matt Kelley and myself.

Friday 

Friday was rpg day! I started my day by playing my first game of QAGS. For Lucha Beach Patrol, I made a character named Silver Starfish. He was a honorable high flyer, and the de facto voice of reason for his group. After this I played in a session of of DCC Lankhmar with Thorin Thompson. Our session was No Small Crimes In Lankhmar (which is a part of the boxed set). It's a great adventure and was fun because our characters were shrunk down to the size of mice. Thorin was a great judge and I picked up his third party adventure, Sky ov Crimson Flame, after we finished. That night I also did an after hours game at the Embassy Suites. I am excited that I was in the first play group for Joshua Burnett and Leighton Connor's Leopard Women of Venus DCC. Josh ran the session and Leighton, Eric Bloat, and I ran through the 0-level funnel. It got late and we didn't get to finish the funnel, but it was fun. Seriously y'all, you definitely need to back this project when it goes live. I'll review the pre-Kickstarter preview Josh gave me later today. I also met Eric's lovely wife Jamie. She's a really sweet lady. Friday also ended in the best possible way. I finally got to meet Diogo Nogueira in person. Diogo and I have been online friends for a few years and he really seems like the nicest guy ever. After meeting him in person I can confirm that he actually is a living saint.

The Wholesome Trinity of Gaming

Saturday

I didn't do any on site gaming on Saturday. I met several folks for the first time in person, among them Bradley K. McDevitt, Alan Bahr, Matt Orr, and Brandon K. Aten. It was particularly cool to meet Matt and Brandon, because I worked on their project, Never Going Home.  I spent a majority of my time in the exhibit hall and relaxing. My feet and back were really hurting so I called it a day early and took a nap. I did wake up to go play board games and drink with the gents I came with. It was a good evening and Champions of Midgard is a pretty decent worker placement game.

Why yes,that is a Lamentations of the Flame Princess branded condom...

Sunday

We only hit the exhibit hall for an hour or two on Sunday. My feet were aching and I sat down at a demo table. I played Bahamas by Z-Man game which was a fun dice and cards screw-your-neighbor kind of game.

Pre-last day breakfast selfie with fam

Final Thoughts 

• For the love of all that is good and holy, do no pick you badge up Will Call. Just pay the extra cash and have it shipped to you. 
• It was great to go with old friends and see many online folks I've known for years. 
• I loved getting the con exclusives. I'm going to try to not kill myself with the nunchucks. Also I bought the Lamentations of the Flame Princess ones, despite telling myself I wouldn't.
• There were nearly 70K in attendance. This didn't seem as bad as I expected because the convention center is huge!
• That is actually one of my major issues with it. The events and exhibit halls were too large for my taste. I'm two days removed from the con and still sore. Pretty much every point A to point B trip I made required a 5-10 minute rest break. Yes this is because I'm really out of shape, but it still affects my opinion of the experience.
• While I had an absolute blast, I think I'm skipping Gen Con next year. I really like the size and scale of Origins (which has about a third of the attendance). It's also only an hour from where I live and though I moved away from it, I love Columbus. Both conventions are fun, but I prefer the latter (even if it means missing out on things like nunchucks and LotFP exclusives).
• I think I've caught Con Crud. I've been sniffling, coughing, and had a sore throat since Sunday.
• I'm actually looking forward to Con on the Cob even more now. I think it will be interesting to go from biggest tabletop gaming con in the world to a really small one. 

The Wrassler (DCC)

I've created another mini-zine to give out at GenCon. This one was written for my fellow DCC lovers. I love wrestling and have since I printed 20 of these little guys. They are three pages of content and a page featuring me gushing about wrestling. To protect the double sided pages though, I created this nifty cardstock cover featuring one of my favorite all-time indie wrestlers, my uncle, Trik Nasty.

Eventually I will include this in a Lone Bard DCC product. I can guarantee that the version won't include my tribute to Joey Ryan (another of my favorite indie guys). If you are unfamiliar with Joey Ryan, here's a scientific look at his particular wrestling style.

Vigilantes Files Con Exclusive 2019

I just finished printing, folding, stapling, and hand numbering 50 copies of The Lone Bards Vigilante Files Con Exclusive 2019 for Gen Con. These ten page zines, designed for Bloat Games Vigilante City and other OSR supers games, feature three previously released Lone Bards classes: paragon, amazon, and sentinel. It also is the only place you will be able to find the Super Fan class (a support class that uses their pop culture knowledge to help vigilantes). If you're attending Gen Con and want one, find me. If you aren’t already Facebook friends with me, message the Lone Bards Facebook page and we can meet up.

Vigilante Files: 2019 Con Exclusive

I am happy to announce that I will have something really cool to bring to Gen Con with me. Josh and I are hard at work putting together the Vigilante Files: 2019 Con Exclusive. This short zine will contain the three Vigilante City classes we've made (Paragon, Amazon, and Sentinel) as well as a brand new, only available in the zine class... the Super Fan.

I originally had planned on calling it the Fan Boy. Then I decided to go with Fan Boy/Fan Girl. Finally I decided Super Fan would be the best name because it's the most inclusive term. The class will be able to use their vast knowledge of pop culture and vigilantes to aid their allies.

We will be printing 30-50 copies of the zine and the only way to get one is to find me at Gen Con. We are also working with Sticker Man to get Lone Bards bumper stickers printed.

The layout is partially done and the writing of the first draft is done. Josh just needs to create art for the new class and we need to right our forward.

If you can't make it to Gen Con and are in Ohio, I will have a smaller print run that I'm taking with me to Con on the Cob.

Con-ventional Wisdom

My dude, Wirty, shared these with me a few weeks back because this will be my first GenCon. They're really insightful and I wanted to pass them along to others who may be new to gaming cons (or at least the big ones).

GenCon Hype Is Rising!

Three weeks from now I will be at my first GenCon! This will also be the first time I've taken an overnight trip out of state in five years or so. I'm going with fam on this one and we'll be staying at a con-connected hotel, which is awesome.

Josh and I have talked about con-exclusive material from The Lone Bards. I'm thinking maybe it will be an adventure? I will also definitely be printing copies of Slashers & Victims to give out to folks that want it.

I'm really stoked to meet several of my online gamer friends, especially the sweetest man in the world, Diogo. I plan on having a few drinks and doing some impromptu gaming with folks, so look for me.

In case anyone's curious, here's my schedule.

Sparkle*Kitty looks like a blast. If I enjoy it, I will definitely by a copy to play with friends and the kids at the library. It will be really nice to attend the two Tabletop Gaymer events I have planned. Looking forward to relaxing in a free and open space with other gaymers. Mantic's The Walking Dead games look cool, so I figured the Walker Challenge would be a cool way to test drive the rules. Shuffling Horrors is a B-movie inspired card game I've been wanting to try. I've never played QAGS, but y'all know I'm a big lucha fan. I might even get a luchador mask to wear while playing. I'm always stoked to play DCC and had a great time doing a DCC Lankhmar game at Origins last year. Finally the Gamer Dice Jewelry just seemed like a fun thing to learn how to make. I have so many gamer friends, it'd be a cool way to make geeky gifts for them. 

I can't wait. Still have some LB prep work to do, plus pickup a messenger bag, borrow mom's suitcase, and figure out what I'm taking with me, but this should be an awesome trip and I can't wait to make some amazing memories.

#PamphletJam

Recently I discovered that Nate Treme of the Highland Paranormal Society has created pamphlet adventures.  This is a really brilliant idea. He sent copies Exalted Funeral. Order something cool from those awesome folks and they'll include one for free.

He's created an event, Pamphlet Dungeon Jam, over at Itch.io. Josh and I plan on taking part, so The Lone Bards will be taking part. I think all of my rpg creator friends should participate too. And keep the idea going. Having a con-exclusive pamphlet adventure that can only be obtained from meeting up in person is a really cool idea. I plan on having one ready for Origins and Gencon.

GenCon 2019

I want be able to get my badge until pay day (so next Friday), but I'm officially going to GenCon this year. I've talked with my friends and our hotel room (which is connected to the convention center) has been booked. I've already requested and had my vacation approved for that week.

Despite my anxiety with crowds, I'm really excited! I will finally get to meet the man, the myth, the all around awesome human being, Diogo N.  There are several other folks it would be cool to meet in person that I'm hoping will be there, like Tim from The Other Side. It will also be cool to hop into some DCC games with the Goodman Games crew.

Obscene Serpent Religion 2 Review

Obscene Serpent Religion 2 is another Lamentations of the Flame Princess GenCon release. It's not connected to the first one, other than both focus on snake cults.

I've said this to a couple of folks but this book is just plain mean. It's divided into two sections. The first half of the book is devoted to a quiet little town. The major residents are presented and adventure hooks are provided for most locations. The town, Nonsbeck, is meant to serve as a regular stopping point or home base for the party. In addition to plot hooks, prominent npc's are given stats.

The second half of the book totally nukes it. While the party is away doing adventure things an evil serpent demon is unleashed. This demon has the power to alter the history of those that shed blood with it in combat. When the players come back most of their allies are dead or changed. The new monstrous versions are given stats too. The book ends with stats for the snake demon who's quite frightening. She can literally go back in time and potentially write the character out of existence (meaning the player will be playing a different character). It has several other interesting and nasty things it can do to foes.

If anyone has played the Diablo series this makes me think of how Tristram is your home base in the first game and when you return to it in later games it's full of undead and monsters. This might be one of the reasons I liked it so much. However, I will reiterate that this adventure is mean because not only will the GM corrupt and change a (hopefully) beloved location for the characters, there's no treasure in this one. That being said, this is really well written and I can't wait to use it in my games.

You can purchase the pdf here. Also, if you never read Obscene Serpent Religion you can snag the pdf here.

She Bleeds Review

She Bleeds is a player supplement for Lamentations of the Flame Princess and other OSR games. The supplement is only 24 pages long, but it's well worth the pdf and original GenCon price (though not the secondary market mark-up). If you couldn't tell by the cover and title, menstruation is one of the primary focuses of the book, which means this definitely isn't for everyone. There isn't much artwork. I would say only one fits the classic gory LotFP style and there's one sexual one.

Essentially this book (which is wonderfully written in character) presents a mystical parasitic infection that binds one or more players (male or female) to an entity from another dimension. The player must either complete several rituals throughout the various phases of the moon or die. They are presented with different options for these rituals and each one changes the character. This grants new abilities and weaknesses and ties their menstrual cycle to the phases of the moon. I know what you're thinking, "but you said this is available to male and female characters." It is. If a man has been affected by the infection and goes through the rituals they slowly turn into a biological female as their genitalia rot off and transforms into a vagina, they grow breasts, and their features soften. Yes this is a way for male pc's to get a hold of the spells featured in Vaginas are Magic!. The character must do this ritual for the rest of their lives, though for actual play purposes I'd probably only roleplay the initial go.

Though it's short this is my favorite book of the GenCon print exclusives. It's the perfect blend of witchcraft and Cthulhu mythos content and is a nice addition to the Lamentations lines.

My GenCon Haul

As I mentioned yesterday, Dave snagged some goodies for me at GenCon. They were waiting for me when I got home there were some extras. 

In addition to the 4 for 30 exclusive books, he snagged one of the catalogs, which features some great artwork. I'll review the books throughout the week but here's a breakdown of each with links to the pdfs (which are available in case you missed the print copies at GenCon and don't want to pay Noble Knights crazy prices. 

• Going Through Forbidden Otherworlds - The party enters another world where reality is much different. Honestly of the four exclusives, this is the one I've not read yet, so I can't say much more.
• Sounds of the Mushroom Kingdom - A fun monster/race guide in the vein of  Slügs!, though much grander in scope.
• Obscene Serpent Religion 2 -  This supplement adventure is particularly mean and I love it. Introduce your party to a settlement, get them invested and connected to it, then fuck it up with a demon snake.
• She Bleeds -  This supplement written for characters is a mix of Cthulhu mythos and witchcraft. It's my favorite of the four.

 Dave also surprised me with four DCC zines! Here's a rundown of each and where you can pick them up. Again, expect full reviews soon.

• Crawling Under A Broken Moon #16 - More monster goodness for your Umerica or MCC game.
• Night Soil #0 - This fun zine takes art from the DCC Core Rulebook and turns it into gaming content. 
• DCC RPG Reference Sheets - This has all the charts (with page references) you need for DCC. Note the link I shared is for the fancier revised version.
• Working Class Alphabet (Glitched Edition) - This presents the first three levels of three classes from a project Dave started (and I've contributed too). 

I also wanted to highlight this pic. In the CUABM issue Dave had a couple of contributors sign it. I don't know Anna, but we have several mutual friends, including Dave. The second signature is from Diogo, one of the coolest dudes in the OSR (and I'll fight via table top rpgs anyone that disagrees with that). We will roll dice together at GenCon next year!

GenCon Lamentations Books

Glad my brother, Dave, snagged these for me at GenCon. At the con the books were 4 for 30. They should be waiting on me when I get home from work and I can't wait to check them out. Expect reviews this week. Did anyone else pick these up? If so, what are your thoughts?

Also, I'm making a promise to myself. Next year I'll be at GenCon to pick books up myself.

Knight Owl GenCon Bundle

Knight Owl Games releases some interesting looking material. Now through the end of Gen Con they have a special pdf bundle of OBS. I've not fully read pdfs enough to fully review them, but I did give them a good casual glance and I like what I saw.

You can snag the following pdfs for just a bit more than 50% off:

• The Vanilla Adventure - This adventure gives us all the familiars and is great for new players. There are also some moral quandaries that make it entertaining for experienced players too.
• Monsterarium - This is a pretty unique monster book filled with creatures that are suitable to be stars of their own adventures. 
• Invasion of the Tuber Dudes - This B/X Essentials compatible adventure is, as the author describes it, a mix between The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. If that doesn't make you want to buy it, nothing I say will. Of note, the titular tuber dudes are given the B/X race-as-class treatment at the end of the pdf.