Not Quite Useless Trash

Got a trash heap in a sci-fi world? Maybe something in there is kinda useful. Roll a d100 and find out!

How Did I Get Here??

We established in the last blog post that this blog and (the coming??) YouTube channel are being built out of overwhelming boredom, a need to play RPGs and a wistful hope of becoming a full time gamer. But, this particular project went on a bit longer of a journey - I thought I would share that with you here…

I started by looking for people running solo games on YouTube. I was shocked to see how little of that kind of content existed. Lots of crafting videos by one creator, lots of groups playing games, almost no solo players. In fact, I really only found one: Me, Myself and Die.

Voice actor Trevor Devall makes for quite entertaining viewing. I can not recommend his channel enough. He gets very excited about the games he’s playing, you can’t help being excited with him.  If, after you watch his channel, it appears I am entirely copying him, well, it’s nearly true. His work was a big inspiration and I only hope that if mimicry is the truest form of flattery, that indeed he is flattered.

I started off not looking to create a YouTube channel, I was merely looking for ideas on how others were playing solo games. After watching just about everything on MMD, I convinced myself that it might be an extra fun kick to share what and how I’m playing with the world.

At first, I wanted to find a way to play something like Star Wars. I wanted to play a lone padawan trying to learn the ways of The Force. I thought I would use my preferred ruleset, the Revised Rulebook from Wizards of the Coast (it coincided with the D&D 3.5 rules.) Right about the time I thought about playing that on YouTube, Hasbro, who knows less about roleplaying games than they do about good Star Wars toys, forced WotC to start messing with the latest Open Gaming License (OGL), which pissed off the gaming community as a whole and forced a great deal of creators to rethink their association with Wizards and the D&D brand. It occurred to me that Disney now owns the rights to Star Wars and Hasbro owns the rights to the d20 ruleset, these are two of the most litigious companies around. I don’t want to ruin my life messing with either of them, thank-you-very-much.

I looked at GURPS, my old friend, frankly the best system ever made. (Fight me!) I looked around their website to see if there were any rules about running a game on YouTube. All I found was a FAQ, written in 2012, that mentioned running a GURPS game on a BBS… that’s what page they are on at Steve Jackson Games. I must admit I’m very disappointed. I read through their Facebook page, post after post about Munchkin. I must have looked for at least a half hour, I saw one, a single lonely post that mentioned GURPS. It’s as if they don’t care about their product anymore. Just another dead, abandoned RPG - I guess. The current market is clamoring for D&D alternatives - I hope they find a way to capitalize on it soon.

I wanted to stay with Sci-fi, and at this point I wanted to try something very new to me. Especially since most of the things I was comfortable with were disappearing fast. I had long been curious about Mutant Crawl Classics and its predecessor Dungeon Crawl Classics, both from Goodman Games. I found a nice bundle on Drive Thru RPG for MCC and I tucked into reading the book. It took me a couple of nights, but now I’m hooked. I’ve not only purchased the third party produced Star Crawl but have also purchased the DCC bundle. I have been listening to the Glowburn podcast and will likely add Spellburn to my podcast list soon. I’m really excited to be playing this game and sharing my fun with the world.

Boredom Genesis

Being an adult sucks. There just isn’t enough time to do all the things you want to do. Trying to gather other adults together to pursue shared interests just increases the difficulty.

The Mighty Red Box

I've been playing Role Playing Games since I was a wee laddie. For Christmas 1985. I received the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, a.k.a. The Red Box, and I have never looked back. (Thanks, Mom!) I’ve played RPGs in grade school, in high school and in college. I’ve played games on the road, over the phone, on the internet, at home and at work - I even played D&D, on my lunch break, when I briefly worked at Wizards of the Coast - how’s that for geek cred?

But, as the years have gone by, as I and my circle of friends have grown older and our days were overtaken by jobs and responsibilities and “real life” - it’s gotten harder and harder just to find a group to game with, much less find a day and time that’s open on everyone’s schedule. We’ve all tried, and tried, and failed and got together once, and tried again. Add to that the complex subtleties of group chemistry and finding game genres and gaming styles that agree with everyone - it can be a real undertaking. Role playing, especially D&D, might be more popular now than it has EVER been, but somehow that hasn’t helped.

Layer on a three year global pandemic, and, well… it didn’t get easier.

I literally NEED to play RPGs. I need to write adventures, imagine scenarios, roll dice and re-re-re-erase my character sheet. Call it an addiction if you will, but if I don’t play now and then, I get cranky, depressed and, I hate to admit it, unpleasant to be around. I don’t need to play every day or something, but every few months is about enough to maintain me. No, I don’t want to play a board game! If a board game has a rule book that’s longer than an RPG, why wouldn’t I just play an RPG?

So, like any addic… gaming devotee… I turned to YouTube. I watched others play RPGs. It’s okay, but it didn’t really scratch the itch, ya know? I thought back to the old days, in my teens and twenties, TSR and others were doing anything they could to keep gaming going. There were Choose Your Own Path books, and books where you had a real character sheet and rolled dice and full sized solo adventures. Magazines (remember those?) often had short solo adventures. I remember using the random dungeon tables in the back of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide to build a ten level dungeon on the smallest graph paper I could find. Surely solo RPG play must still exist… ?

Sun Tzu said: If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by. (He probably didn’t say that, but what do I know? Nothing is real.) In answer, I say, if you put enough keywords into YouTube, you can find anything you are looking to find. I’m still looking for the right keyword for this week's lotto numbers, but I was able to find some neat solo wargaming and RPG games and YouTube creators. I attached my face to the screen and binged all I could! There is some amazing content by some incredible creators. I was hooked!

Now, in all my years of playing RPGs (does the math… ‘85 to ‘23… 38?!) I’ve usually been the one running the game; the Dungeon Master, the Game Master, the Storyteller (I soon get to add “Judge” to that list - more on that soon.) In the last 20 of those years, I’ve wished I could somehow make my living running games for others. Twenty years ago, that was a Fantasy! But, with the advent of the internet, social media and content sharing sites like YouTube and the new found popularity of D&D, a full time game runner can indeed make a living. Watching those creators got my creative juices flowing. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could be a full time paid gamer, too?

It’s a nice dream. For the moment, I’m a working stiff. I have a good job with a good paycheck. This new creative outlet will hopefully allow me to run and play games. Roll dice and erase character sheets. I’m even taking up miniature and terrain painting because… why not? I want to share this all with an audience of friends, most of whom I haven’t met yet. Give back to the community and to the other creators who have inspired me.

I think this is going to be a lot of fun!

My First Minis

I have just finished painting my first wargaming miniatures!

My first regular troop!

My first fully painted units!

My unpainted Pile o'Shame!

I'm so very Proud!!

Welcome to the Party Pocket Dimension!

Oh! I do love this joy! The beginning of a new blog - so exciting!

I have been thinking about this project for months, wondering what I would do and how to proceed and here we are with the first concrete actions. This is so much fun for me, you have - no idea!

So, welcome all! I am going to be putting in a bunch of work and changes over the next few days, don't get attached to anything just yet! But do say "Hi!" if you see this!