Variety is the spice of life, or so the saying goes, and I've found that rings very true in my line of work. Because while I am more than happy to keep working on popular game lines, or to write series of stories and books, there comes a point where the brain needs a break. Even if you've been eating finely-cooked steak, you can only have it for so many meals in a row before you start craving some pasta, pizza, or chicken tacos just to shake up your status quo.
While I had my palate somewhat limited a while back (and I talked about it in Why I Will Have Fewer Community Created TTRPG Products Coming Out), I recently decided to step outside my comfort zone and try something new. I've had a real itch to step into some grimdark storytelling, and Mörk Borg really hit that sweet spot for me. Which is why I wanted to talk about 100 Prophecies and Proverbs From The Black Basilisk, as well as what I'd like to do in the future, if folks wanted to see me keep walking down this road.
As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
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There Are Dark Winds Blowing...
While I've been aware of Mörk Borg for some time now, I first gave it a full read about a year ago when I wrote my review The Unrelenting Cruelty of a Dark and Dying World: Looking At Mörk Borg. I was aware of it by reputation, of course, but it wasn't until I read the full text that I realized that for all its darkness and doom, the game's tongue is (at least as written) planted very firmly in its cheek. And while I can certainly appreciate those efforts, I wanted to err more on the side of the darker lore, and to provide some serious resources for Game Masters who wanted to lean more toward the dark aesthetic of the game.
To that end I wrote 100 Prophecies and Proverbs of The Black Basilisk. While I encourage everyone to go take a look at it, the basic idea behind the supplement was to provide some of the supposed prophecies spoken by Verhu, the forward-looking head of the basilisk, and to offer some history and interpretations of those prophecies in the event players wanted to build their backstories around them, or a Game Master wanted to use them as the plot for their game. Because even though you may be days away from utter extinction, there are plenty of prophecies in this list that might prolong that inevitable darkness... at least long enough for your characters to enjoy a few more sunrises.
Now, this isn't the first release from Azukail Games for Mörk Borg. The company has also put out the class The Morbid Bone Picker, as well as Expanded Tables For Mörk Borg in the past. And while Adrian was willing to let me push forward with this latest release, he'd also pointed out that this game wasn't exactly a big seller in terms of numbers... but I had to try for myself to see what kind of results it would net.
So, if you'd like to see us put out more Mörk Borg stuff going forward, consider checking out any of the three lists I've linked in this post, and stay tuned for an audio drama for a grimdark tale from this dying world that will soon appear on the Azukail Games YouTube channel! Also, I have an idea for a campaign for this game that takes inspiration from the game Fear and Hunger... so if that's something you'd be interested in seeing me create, let me know in the comments so that I can figure out whether it's something I should pursue, or if it's something I should put up on the shelf for a rainy day.
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That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!
It's that time of year again! Every July, Drive Thru RPG has a sitewide sale that gives us as much as 40% (and sometimes more) off of the games we've been looking into, and been telling ourselves we were going to get one of these days. I wanted to remind you that, in case you've been going through my catalog, and earmarking things for when there's a sale, 150 of my current titles are on-sale right now!
And that's something that only happens... well, basically once a year.
So come get your copies before the sale is over!
As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!
So... What's On-Sale?
Like I said in the intro... 150 of my titles are currently on-sale! This includes offerings from most of the gaming companies I've worked for over the years, and it runs the gamut from my old work to my new. Given that my total titles are 178 at time of writing, that's a majority of my catalog currently marked down for you!
But what if you're more of a World/Chronicles of Darkness player? Well, now would be a great time to pick up some of the pieces I've done for those games, too. Whether it's stuff I wrote for Azukail Games like 100 (Mostly) Harmless Goblin Fruits and Oddments To Find in The Hedge or 100 Mediums, or you'd prefer to grab some of the titles I wrote for High Level Games that appear in my 100 Kinfolk Bundle, now is a good time to get your hands on those, too. There's more than 30 titles with my name on the byline, and I've covered Vampire, Changeling, Werewolf, Mage, and even general use WoD titles like Deadly Country: 100 NPCs of Central Florida.
Additionally, all of my Sundara: Dawn of a New Age supplements are available right now! So whether you want to start off with something like Towns of Sundara (which provides 10 smaller towns and villages complete with maps, notable NPCs, histories, etc.), or Merchants of Sundara (which provides snapshots of 10 different merchant brands and unique operations in the setting) or even one of the city guides for places like Ironfire, Hoardreach, or Archbliss, now is the perfect time to see if my unique fantasy TTRPG setting is for you!
For those who are interested, I should note that Sundara is (at time of writing) only available for Pathfinder's first edition, and DND 5E. Other system conversions have been discussed, but the wheels are turning slow on that.
But what about older stuff? Stuff that might have fallen through the cracks over the years that you haven't seen, that you've forgotten about, or that you might not even have known I was part of? Well, I've got some of those for you, too!
If you're a fan of chaps and six-shooters, then you should definitely check out both 3Deep in The Wild West, and Devil's Staircase: Wild West Roleplaying. If you're a fan of Dungeons and Dragons 5E modules, and you didn't pick up the three I wrote for TPK Games, then I would highly suggest grabbing copies of False Valor (a murder mystery), Ghosts of Sorrow Marsh (a horrific battle in the bogs with vile monsters), and The Curse of Sapphire Lake (the love child between Beowulf and Friday the 13th)!
Look, I could keep going, but 150 of my 178 total titles available on DTRPG right now is a lot of stuff to talk about. Not only that, but because I've worked for so many different companies over the years on so many different settings and games, there's not really a clean way to categorize a lot of my work. So follow this sale link, and go take a look for yourself! The sale is only going on for 9 more days, so don't let it slip through your fingers.
Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!
That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!
In the days of ancient Rome, the massive highway system allowed the empire to be traversed with relative ease when compared to rough overland travel where roads didn't exist. These highways also allowed for rapid deployment and movement of the Roman legions, which were the strong right hand of the empire. This also facilitated one of the empire's policies, which was to ensure that legionairres would never be deployed to the areas of the empire they were from. This helped ensure unit loyalty, but it also meant the legionairre would never be asked to stand on the other side of a shield wall against their friends and neighbors, thus helping to remove that conflict of interest from their service. One of the interesting effects of this strategy was that we had legionairres of African and Middle Eastern descent stationed in what would eventually be Great Britain.
While this is a relatively small historical factoid, it illustrates a much bigger point... that imperialism, commerce, and cultural exchange can have huge, wide-reaching effects on any world. And if you're going to be designing a fantastical setting, you should really keep things like this in mind.
Piracy, on a large enough scale, can also become a cultural force!
As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
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Lines on a Map Mean Almost Nothing
I talked about some of these ideas back in De-Coupling The Idea of Race and Nation several years ago, but I wanted to take an even bigger view of things this week. Because when we look at our worlds and settings we have this habit of coloring inside the lines of particular nations, and forgetting that these settlements, countries, and cities aren't completely isolated from one another. As long as there are wagon trains, merchant caravans, shipping lines, tourism, wars, and imperialism, there's going to be exchanges between different groups of people. Some of these exchanges will be good, and some will be bad, but they should always be present in your setting in order to make things feel organic and believable.
Our real world history is full of examples of these kinds of exchanges, good, bad, and otherwise. For example, consider that tomatoes are not native to Europe. Neither are potatoes, for those who are curious. Both of these were brought back by expeditions to the New World, and they were adapted into many European cuisines and dishes so that, after a few centuries, we couldn't picture Ireland without spuds, or Italy without tomatoes. This simple exchange, spurred by imperialism, led to a massive shift in culinary culture. Then when U.S. troops were deployed to Europe during the second World War, particularly those who were in and around Italy, they developed a taste for pizza. This led to a boom in demand for pizza that started in New York, and which less than a century later meant this was a food that was readily available not just across the country, but around the world in many cases.
It's all connected!
The effects of cultural exchange can happen rapidly, or they can happen over the long-term, and they can be caused by all kinds of different exchanges. For example, the American film industry exports all over the world, and so it is our narratives and stories that end up in so many other countries (for good or for ill). Before that, books written by British authors were often read by people throughout their area of influence, exporting their culture, language, and ideas. You can see remnants of this today in that British fashions, slang, and even customs are still practiced in places thousands of miles away from their tiny island even though the empire crumbled some time ago.
So when you make your fantasy world, and you're asking what sorts of things people are going to experience or run into, consider the following categories:
- Commerce: What goods get traded between cultures and nations? Who is most known for trading, and what reputation does that give them? What kinds of exchanges has this relationship led to, whether it be those who are used to seeing the dragon prows of northern sailing ships, or the tents of impromptu markets set up by traders from the distant plains, this can shape the experience, and which culture people tend to associate this experience with. Trade languages and so-called lingua franca often emerge from this kind of exchange, as well.
- Imperialism: When a nation establishes a colony, or occupies another country, one of the major strategies they use is establishing cultural norms (for good or for ill). Did opera and theater become more commonly available after an annexation, using the entertainment of the occupying force as a way to imprint their culture on those they hoped to rule? Did they force a particular religion to be practiced, while outlawing more traditional faiths and practices? Was military conscription more common, hoping to create loyalty and integration through service? Was a new language made mandatory either by law, or simply because it wasn't safe to be able to communicate with the empire? This can often decide what the "common" tongue is in an area, even if the empire that established it has fallen.
- Cultural Exchange: When people meet peacefully, and learn about each other, there is often some kind of cultural exchange taking place. Whether someone is a tourist, a traveler, or two nations have established a friendly relation and are encouraging the mingling of their subjects, this can often lead to a more widespread exchange of norms, ideas, etc. For instance, if tattooing is an art form with a long history in one culture, and enough outsiders and visitors participate, does that create a craze back home that leads to an expansion of that art form? Do certain fashions become trendy, whether it be for clothing, makeup, hairstyles, etc., thousands of miles away because they're seen as exotic and unique? Do students attending foreign universities bring back the knowledge they gained, disseminating it in their own country like planting a seed of foreign ideas that adds to their own culture and capabilities? Or does a natural disaster lead to an influx of refugees, who end up bringing their culture, ideas, language, etc., to their host nation, sharing a bit of themselves with their new home?
All of these issues are complex in a world without fantastical creatures and reality-altering magic... but when you can add in all those extra elements, you can end up with some truly interesting ripples in your world.
For example, do certain dwarven nations or guilds have particular methods of crafting enchanted items? What happens when human apprentices try to mimic those methods? Can they master them, or must they change and alter them, keeping the core of the methods, and imprinting many of these ideas into magical manufacture methods the same way certain architectural styles can shape the entire look of a city for centuries to come? Was slavery widespread enough that the trade led to entire ethnic groups (or even entire diaspora of a particular species) being displaced, and having to rebuild their culture from the ground up once they were freed? And has that experience, even if it was generations ago, left marks on the society that enslaved them, leaving them treated as second-class citizens, and facing unique struggles? Is there a particular job associated with a particular ethnicity, nationality, or species because they're the ones who have traditionally done it, with their unique styles and methods carving out a niche in a particular culture?
So consider whether traditional, elven cuisine is popular among the kingdom of Hartur, and ask why that is. Ask yourself why a particular language became the local common tongue, and whether it was through mass education, trade, imperialism, or for some other reason. Are there slang terms from a local dialect spoken by a particular orc clan or diaspora that have woven their way into common parlance, and if so, why? All of these questions can have interesting implications on the history of your world, why cultures exist the way they do, and it can make your setting feel that much more real... even if it does make it a lot messier.
And for those who are looking for some inspirations to add to your game (along with potential cultural implications) consider some of the following:
- 100 Fantasy Tattoos (And The Meaning Behind Them): Tattooing is not universal to every culture, but this art form tends to spread the more cultural interaction one has. And if you need inspirations, consider some of these tattoos, along with their histories and meanings.
- 100 Fantasy Foods: Whether you're looking for the kind of street food found in a dwarven hold, or asking what sort of cuisine is considered highbrow among elves, this supplement is full of ideas for you!
- 100 Superstitions For A Fantasy Setting: What becomes a superstition can often say a lot about a culture, and how its prejudices and stereotypes form. So consider some of these to plant as seeds in your world!
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That's all for this week's Fluff post. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!
Every person that has gotten bit by the GMing bug has had at least one idea for a campaign that feels like a white whale. Either it's too big for them to realistically make it happen, they can't find players enthusiastic enough to see it through to the end, or it's just so bizarre that it would take a huge amount of brain juice and willpower to convert all the ideas and options into math and stats so the game could actually be played.
For me, this campaign is something I'm calling Steps of The Dark Tower: Chasing The Black Rainbow, and I thought that since this is Monday I'd share some of my thoughts, and see if this is something someone out there would like to try if they're a madder lad or lass than I am.
Did someone call for a ka-tet?
As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
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All Things Serve The Beam...
The basic idea behind this campaign is that the PCs are among the hundreds (if not thousands) of small events taking place in the background of the central quest of Stephen King's Dark Tower universe. Roland and his ka-tet seek the room at the top of the tower, and they are being opposed by the Crimson King and his servants. They walk through realities the way you or I might step through puddles, and there are a thousand times a thousand reverberations that fill the worlds. Ancient wizards and corrupt technologies seek to stop them, as do common thugs, vampires, orders of mystic bugs, rad mutants, invisible men, shapeshifting monsters, and so, so much more!
And that's just a sample of some of the nonsense that exists!
When I originally conceived this idea, it was inspired by some of the plot of the novel Black House, where our protagonists' actions set the scene for the gunslinger and his companions to complete their own quest. In Chasing The Black Rainbow, our protagonists are drawn to the last remnants of Gilead. Consumed by civil war and death, the place is a smoldering ruin, much of which has been destroyed or abandoned. There are things left there, however, to test the mettle of those who have the spirit, if not the blood, of the Eld. Once our protagonists fight past the shades of the old order, besting the undead remains of Cort, they find themselves before the shattered throne. The last vestiges of the old king sits there, refusing to move on, using the last of its strength to assign a quest to those worthy. The remnants of Maerlyn's Rainbow have been scattered across the various levels and worlds of the tower, and for reasons beyond his understanding, the party are the ones who have been selected by ka to track it down.
The characters could be drawn from any world attached to King's Dark Tower series, with the exception of 2. Characters could not be from Keystone Earth, where Sai King writes all these books, and they could not be from Roland's world. Any other world, no matter how mundane or how absolutely terrifying, was fair game as long as there was a definite connection to the Dark Tower from that story and world.
And depending on which stories and worlds the players picked for their characters, the Game Master should distribute the remaining spheres of Maerlyn's Rainbow so that at least a few of them were found back in the PCs' home worlds.
For example, if a PC wanted to be from the world of Salem's Lot, then they might find the Crimson orb in possession of a vampire like Barlow. Alternatively, they might have to hunt through the wreckage of the world of The Standin search of the Pink ball, as that was where Randall Flagg had it last. Is the Yellow ball in possession of the strange government entities that may be coralling psychics in Hearts in Atlantis(separate from the Low Men and the Beam Breakers, as Ted revealed himself to the U.S. government before his mysterious disappearance)? Is the Green ball lurking in the burnt out ruins of the world of Cell, and the players have to find it while avoiding the bizarre zombies and irrational humans who still wander that world? Is the Pearl Gray ball somehow connected to the bizarre gunk in the story Gray Matter found in Night Shift?
All of these are options, and that doesn't even touch things like time travel, killer clowns, evil hotels, aliens putting domes over towns, and all the other bizarre stuff that takes place in King's sprawling Dark Tower setting! The key is to decide which balls are still around, with a low number of 6, and a high number of all 13. And since so many of the balls' powers are left undefined and vague, the Game Master could use each of them to give the party some kind of boon, and to point the way to the next piece of the quest.
No matter which version of the quest one does, however, the end goal is always Black 13, and it's always located in the same place... the hellish darkness of the world we see in The Mist. Maybe it was messing with the ball that split the barriers between worlds, letting in the monstrous things from the outside to run rampant over earth. Maybe the event was manipulated by servants of the Crimson King. However, whatever the case is, the PCs need to get to that last ball before the Crimson King uses it for his own ends.
Now, we all know that Sai King receives a lot of crap for his terrible endings. So the thought I had for the end of the campaign (though I don't actually recommend anyone do this as it is deliberately anticlimactic) is the following.
As you all close the bowling bag over the shimmering, malignant surface of Black 13, you breathe a sign of relief. You have it, now. Your quest is done, but for the epilogue. Five shots ring out, a deadly salute that sprays blood, bone, and brain matter everywhere. Bad luck manifests as a single set of footsteps approaches the circle of corpses. As he lifts the bag in the hand not holding a smoking gun, the Man in Black smiles, and speaks a phrase as simple as it is nonsensical.
"Bool, the end," he says.
My Recommendation For Running This
Now, if this absolute madness is the sort of thing that fires your imagination, and gets you interested in giving it a whirl, far be it from me to stop you. However, I've had a lot of thoughts about this game over the years, and there's a recommendation I'd make for turning this thing into a reality.
Namely that you should really consider using the Savage Worlds system for it.
I don't make this recommendation lightly, either. Because while it's true that this RPG system is flexible enough that you could make all of the things the universe of the Dark Tower might boast, there's also enough existing content that you can fold into the game with a few little changes here and there that you don't have to do all of the work yourself.
No matter which part of the Dark Tower your party ventures to, or what decisions they make, this is the game I'd say is flexible enough to provide you all the options you could want, while making sure the playing field is level enough that you won't have all your players choosing to be from the same part of the King-verse.
So go forth, and may ka be with you should you attempt to walk this path!
Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!
That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!
When we think of combat encounters in TTRPGs, we tend to think in terms of specific numbers, strategies, and environments. This is only natural given that so many times it can be tough to balance out what kind of encounter is a challenge for your players, versus what is going to be a cakewalk, versus what is going to be complete overkill... and that's before we take into question experience points, gear and loot if they win, and so on.
However, because we so often have tightly-scripted encounters, we forget that sometimes it can be extremely fun to face a combat situation that's full of total chaos where players can really cut loose with a lot of their abilities, but which still rewards smart strategy and tactical planning.
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
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They Just Keep Coming!
Even if you're not a Starcraft player, chances are good you've heard the term zerg rush before. It comes from the insectoid zerg faction, creatures reminiscent of both the tyranids of Warhammer 40K, but also of the bugs of Starship Troopers. Some players would build up as many warrior units as they could, and mass rush them over the enemy lines. While individually these creatures were weak, en masse they were a serious threat that would take stiff resistance to stand against. Over time the term grew to refer to basically any game where a mass frontal assault using overwhelming numbers was the strategy employed.
The reason I've had this particular strategy on my mind is that I've been sitting down and planning short-form missions for my RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic. Some of those missions involve tracking down enemies out in the wild, some require getting hold of particular documents, and others require kicking in the doors and going in guns blazing! At least one or two, though, are going to deal with the squad of troopers being given a location to defend and hold.
And when that happens, a zerg rush is a great way to keep things feeling tense, and to keep your players on their toes.
You can use practically any enemies you want for this...
Now, it doesn't matter if you are using the vespoinds in Army Men, goblins in traditional Dungeons and Dragons, or you want to send hordes of undead at your survivors in All Flesh Must Be Eaten, there are several key things to keep in mind in order to make defending against this kind of assault a thrilling encounter, rather than a tedious or frustrating one.
- Firstly, the players must have some kind of location to defend. Even if it's just a set of interlocking trenches on one side of No Man's Land, or a tumbledown castle with a wall full of holes, they need to have some kind of defense to make up for their lack of numbers.
- Secondly, the enemies need to be relatively weak as individuals. A single zombie, a single goblin, or a single Vespoid is not a great threat... but a dozen of them? 50 of them? A hundred? These are the sort of numbers that can make players sweat when they start closing the distance.
- Thirdly, players need to have the resources to fight this battle. If there are only a dozen arrows between all the bowmen, and there are 75 enemies approaching, that is not going to be a fun time; it's just going to feel unfair. You don't need to give them infinite ammunition along with rocket launchers, the ability to constantly replenish their spell slots, etc., but make sure that your players have enough tricks up their sleeve (whether it's calling in air support or artillery fire, or the sorcerer has a handful of fireballs and lightning bolts) to make a big show of things, but not so many that they can drop those big bombs every turn with impunity.
- Fourthly, the rush should be dynamic. Even if the enemy you're facing isn't known for strategy, it's important to divide the PCs' attention at least somewhat. For example, if they're guarding a fort, and the rush comes from two fronts, they now have to weigh the odds of which direction to focus more of their attention and firepower, redirecting and moving organically as the battle develops. If part of the rush breaches a gate, they have to weigh defending that position and stopping other gates from receiving the same treatment, and so on. If the party is just holding a narrow cave mouth, then it's just going to be a martial in the gap, bowmen and casters behind, and that can get boring quickly because it isn't changing. If the rush loses momentum it becomes a slog, and no one finds that fun.
- Fifthly, and this one is optional, consider doing a zerg rush in waves. Keep a counter in front of you as a GM, and every X number of rounds, bring in fresh numbers, or a force from a different direction. This keeps your players on their toes and helps stop you from getting too overwhelmed moving such a massive force as one. And, as a final piece of advice, it helps if the rush has limited ability to actually hurt the PCs from a distance. This allows the PCs to at first attack with impunity, but as the enemy draws nearer, and starts to press them, suddenly the threat becomes much more real than it was a few rounds ago!
There are a lot of different ways you can go with a zerg rush encounter. For example, you can have the rush continue for a certain period of time, requiring players to simply hold it back until a ritual is complete, the dawn breaks over the horizon, an air strike can swoop in, etc. Alternatively, the rush might be stopped by destroying a particular figure, such as the necromancer commanding the undead, the hobgoblin generals directing their troops, or the hive mind of a vespoid force. Or it might simply end when enemy morale breaks, and too many troops from their side have been lost.
With that said, it's important to make sure you budget the time for running something like this, and that you have some kind of loss condition if the rush does actually overwhelm the PCs. For example, can they withdraw to a narrow retreat that will save them from the foe, but put them in different danger (like retreating through underground tunnels haunted by other, dangerous creatures)? Will they be captured instead of killed if the rush overwhelms them (such as if the necromancer has plans for them that would be upset by them getting mostly eaten by a horde of zombies)? Is the rush more focused on retrieving a hostage (like a bandit leader being freed by his gang) than it is on actually fighting the PCs?
Sometimes the rush actually goes the way the antagonists want, which is something you need to plan for before you do it so that it doesn't just spell game over if the dice go against your players.
As a final reminder, if you're a fan of tactical tabletop games, and you want to try a ridiculous setting that evokes that gung-ho, anything goes feeling of a backyard game of make believe with your entire toy chest, then consider picking up your copy of Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic, along with the two supplements that have been released for it so far, Army Men: Threat Assessments, and Army Men: Medals of Honor!
Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!
That's all for this week's Crunch post. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!
I had planned to write this up over on my sister blog The Literary Mercenary, but I know that this blog gets far more eyes on it, and this is a topic I feel quite strongly about. Not just because it affects my life, but because it is the way the entire publishing and entertainment industry works, and so I feel it's important for as many people as possible to really understand this struggle, their place in it, and what the creators they love need from them in order for us to stay out of the grave for one more day.
In case you haven't heard the term, we're all stuck in the Attention Economy... and it's drowning a lot of us.
As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!
The Attention Economy: What It Is, And How It Works
The short version, as Coursera explains, is that the attention economy is just that; attempts to get people's attention (their engagement in social media parlance). There are only so many hours in a day, after all, and there's only so much content someone can consume in that time period. With millions of books, thousands of TV shows, decades of archived films, and untold hours of uploaded videos on the Internet, there's only so much that people can look at, and be engaged by before they run out of steam, and give-a-damn.
This is not, strictly speaking, a new phenomenon. It's the same basic principles that were used by TV and radio stations, as well as by movie studios and publishers in days gone by. People only have so many hours in the day, and with all the things they could be doing with what free time they have, how do you make them engage with what you're making? Especially since that engagement is what determines whether you have enough to eat this month, or if you have to pack it in?
After all, if you sell more copies of a book, then you make more royalties. If you can prove you have more people listening to your radio show, or watching you on TV, then you can sell more advertising spaces and get more sponsorship. The concept isn't new... but like so many things in our day and age, it's been pushed to such an extreme that the magnitude of it can feel insurmountable.
Gimme, it's mine!
That last part is important. Because your attention has always been a resource... but now it's more limited than it's ever been before, and there are more people using more tricks to try to get it through means that feel like something out of 1984. You receive notifications for every app you use, social media blasts you every day, advertising blares before nearly everything you consume, and there is so much happening so fast that you can only absorb a small part of it before you're utterly spent. Add to that all the misinformation, cickbait, and out-and-out bad actors stirring up drama solely because more eyes on them means more money in their pockets, and it's like being at a rave, in a concert, being held inside an active combine harvester.
Your attention is valuable, and this economy turns every minute you watch a video, every click of the Like button, every review you leave, and every follow on a page into a transaction as you signal what you want to see more of... but at the same time, that economy moves the goal posts for creators, and makes it even harder for us to reach our perpetually more tired audience. Because it also refines your searches, your feeds, and what you see and hear based on your previous activity. So if you don't take control of your own behavior, you're only ever going to see and hear the same things over and over again, because that's what this modern media landscape (and the algorithms that power them) are designed to do; keep feeding you whatever it is that will keep you reading, watching, or playing.
Attention and Exposure
I've said this before, but creators are like gladiators. If the audience isn't watching us, and isn't cheering for us, then no one cares what we do, or what happens to us. The more you cheer for us, and the more you follow our careers, and talk about us, the more successful we become. Your attention, your raised voices, make or break whether we live to fight another day, or whether we die on the sands to the indifferent silence all around us.
And that is true... but it's not the entire story.
There is no signalling for mercy in this economy.
Take a moment, and think about the creators you follow in the TTRPG space. Maybe they're bloggers, or YouTubers, or podcasters. All of those watched hours of content, all those reads, all those listens, as well as the likes and comments on social media, those are worth something in the attention economy... however, it is often not worth as much as you think.
It is, to use a dreaded word to every artist out there, exposure.
Consider that Weird Al Yankovic, arguably one of the most accomplished musicians of an era, was paid $12 for 80 million streams on Spotify. Consider the fact that, according to Descript, YouTubers need to get hundreds of thousands of people to subscribe to their channels, and to get hundreds of thousands of views on those videos before they make anything approaching a living wage. And that's on top of the fact that YT doesn't pay creators at all until they have at least 500 subscribers and 3,000 hours of watched content on their channels... until you hit that point, the only person making money is them. Over on Vocal, if you're a Vocal+ member, it takes 90,000 reads on your articles just to make $500. And that's the good rate.
We are competing for eyes and ears every day, yes... but to add insult to injury, even if we get the input and attention from people that the platforms and publishers want, that's still no guarantee that we actually get anything out of it. Because unless that attention is mystically transformed into dollars through ad revenue, sponsorship deals, or merch sales, it's the same as getting a million upvotes on Reddit.
Utterly useless if you need to pay your rent.
As I said in Writing Isn't What Makes Writers Succeed, this is a two-pronged problem for us. Because we need a sizable audience to know about us, and our work, and to give us all the things that make social media happy (clicks, follows, likes, etc.), because when that happens it means we get promoted by the algorithm. Which means that more people will see us, which means more people will find out about us and our work. But even if you manage millions of shares and a huge following, that exposure is no guarantee of income... and it's exhausting pursuing fame, but then having the powers-that-be refuse to give you fortune to go with it.
Which is why, as a consumer, you need to know the value of your attention, and your power, but also its limitations, and the reality creators you love are dealing with. Because as I've said, your actions are all tallied on the board by the machines that run the media landscape. They count your likes, your follows, your retweets, comments, and all those other social transactions. At the same time, if the 700 and change people following my Facebook author page all gave me $5 a month on my Patreon page so I could keep doing what I'm doing, I would never need to bother with social media again.
Just saying.
I want to end this with some words of commiseration. Because I know it is frustrating as someone who just wants to play a game, or just wants to watch videos or listen to podcasts that you are constantly bombarded with the knowledge that your support is what determines whether or not a creator can afford food, and pay their rent. You are often more interested in whether a novel is entertaining, or a comic is funny, than what your impact on the creator's life is going to be.
I get it. Feeling responsible for other people, even if you have a parasocial relationship, is exhausting. However, this is the unfortunate reality we live in. If you want to see creators you like keep making games, videos, podcasts, music, art, or whatever other product you want to see from them, they need your support in order to make that happen.
It is your decision when it comes to what kind of support you want to give, and what you are comfortable with. But there is no secret hand of fame and fortune that will pluck only the worthy and the talented from the dirt and ensure their success. 50 Shades of Gray isn't a bestselling record-breaker because it was an amazing work of literary brilliance... it got where it is because people bought copies, talked about it, left reviews, and supported it. The same is true of Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, and every other rich fraud, dodgy host, and terrible person who made fat stacks of cash.
It wasn't the quality of their art. It was the support of their audience, plain and simple.
On that note, if you haven't heard about the changes of on the Azukail Games YouTube channel, a fairly recent update talks about some of the things you can do to help support us if you want to be sure we keep making videos going forward!
Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!
That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!
Folks who have been enjoying my fiction releases recently have likely noticed I've been putting together a lot of short vignettes and flash fiction series when it comes to my audio dramas. And while the ones most folks see are taken from the introductory material in my TTRPG supplements, there are some longer, more in-depth stories out there. Some bigger, complete tales that are just waiting for you to come check out.
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!
A Few Examples From "The Rejects"
Most of the audio dramas I've put together, like the one above, are only a few minutes long. Typically they're dramatized versions of vignettes that set the scene for a supplement, but even when I put together a series of these little shorts they can feel more like eating several small, bite-sized candies instead of a meal.
However, for folks who don't know, I write more than just TTRPGs. In addition to the nearly 200 supplements and games with my name on them, I've also written several novels, and even a few collections of short stories. And in my free time a while back, I started dramatizing some of the short stories from my collection The Rejects, which is a book that features all the short stories I wrote that kept almost getting chosen by publishers, but which were ultimately passed on.
The first story that received this treatment was Dead Man's Bluff, a weird Western tale that was inspired by the TTRPG Deadlands. The story features a traveling gambler using his winnings to pay his way home, until one night when a ghost from his past steps out of the darkness for what might be his last hand of cards. This short story is one of the oldest in the entire collection, and it was first published years ago on Yahoo! Voices before that site went down, and I decided the tale belonged in a real book rather than just sitting on the Internet somewhere.
The second story is Suffer The Children, which gives us a glimpse into the dark underbelly of a modern fantasy setting subtly unlike any other you've come across before. We meet Malachi, an angel walking the shadowed back alleys and nasty streets of Los Angeles, as he attempts to stop a cult of child stealers. This is, technically, the second story featuring Malachi and his adventures, but it gives readers a glimpse into the sort of hard, nasty choices he often has to make. While I haven't added to Malachi's world since this tale, there were plans for more stories (as well as a few novels) featuring additional cases that he had to handle. If it turns out more folks are interested in Malachi's saga, though, it's something I could squeeze in if folks wanted to hear/see more!
What Other Stories Would You Like To See?
My original plan with these tales was to give my readers (and potential readers) a little taste of the stories that could be found in The Rejects. However, I would like to dramatize at least half of them, leaving the other half as a mystery for readers to uncover for themselves... but which stories would you like to get this treatment?
Would you like to hear the tale of the young boy, his uncle, and the dark, dangerous secret no one else would ever believe that we see in Bloody Bones? Perhaps the gritty, sword and sorcery tale Champion For Hire is more your speed, with weaving steel and dark plans in a city desperate to avoid a bloody war of succession in its underworld? From the steampunk gruesomeness of Eyes, Hands, and Heart, to the strange, harsh reality of The Mark of The Legion, there are a lot of options in this book... but which ones would you like to hear?
And, lastly, if you haven't left a review of this book yet, please consider dropping by Amazon and leaving me some stars and a review so more people can find these stories!
What's Next on Table Talk?
That's it for this installment of Table Talk! What would you like to see next? I'm listening for your comments and votes!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, as well as on Pinterest where I'm building all sorts of boards dedicated to my books, RPG supplements, and greatest hits. Lastly, to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little donation can have a big impact.
For the past year and change I've been putting out regular episodes of the show Discussions of Darkness over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel. However, while I've spent 27 episodes talking about the setting and giving advice for how to breathe life into it around your table, I recently got a bee in my bonnet over a particular topic. Rather than just holding forth in my traditional format where I talk to the camera, though, I wanted to do something a little special. A little different.
That was why I sat down, wrote out an actual script, and made a video essay entitled The Liminal Horror of Changeling: The Lost... and judging from the reaction some folks have had, this is a direction at least folks would like to see me take more in future releases.
As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!
Where Would You Like Me To Explore Next?
While the video has just over 160 views at time of writing, there have also been a surprising amount of comments left both on the video itself, as well as on social media regarding it. The response has been pretty positive overall, and while I'm hoping the views keep climbing on the video, I did have a couple of other topics up my sleeve in the event the audience wanted to see more stuff in the same vein.
So, what can you look forward to if I expand some of this?
One of the ideas I've been mentally combing through is something I'm tentatively titling, "The Problem With Pentex, And The Historical Figure That Could Fix It". As folks know, Evil Incorporated: 10 Pentex Subsidiaries is something I put a lot of work into, and while I was doing research for that supplement I went back through the canon origins for Pentex as an antagonist... and found that it only goes back to the 1800s. This seems to be a uniquely American phenomenon, where to us a century is a really long time, but in a setting as old as the World of Darkness, I feel this overlooks a lot of additional juice you could add into this antagonist. Which is why I'd like to go through capitalism as a force of evil (in the game, of course), its origin, some other mercantile atrocities that feel like they should have been added into Pentex's history, and finally taking it back to a figure that I feel would make a truly bizarre addition to some of the historical persons that have become supernatural members of the setting.
Two of the other ideas, which are more in-line with the format of the first video (and may receive preference as a result of that), deal with viewing these particular games in ways we don't often think about, or which can fade into the background. For example, one video would be The Existential Horror of Vampire: The Requiem, and how the undead are largely left with no hard answers as to why they exist, what their purpose is, and how they're staring down the barrel of eternity... a condition that the human mind was never meant to grapple with. The second idea in this format is The Cosmic Horror of Mage: The Awakening. Given that the game brings many aspects of gnosticism into the setting, and it deals with the hubris of mages themselves, it can stretch the mind in directions it was never meant to go, and leave mages changed after their experiences. This can lead to them losing their humanity in ways that are very different from other characters in the setting... especially given how powerful mages can be, even in the throes of their madness.
What I Need From You, As Viewers
A lot of you know the drill by now, but if you don't it goes like this:
- Watch The Liminal Horror of Changeling: The Lost if you haven't. Leave comments and upvotes on it if you have! Bonus points for sharing the video on your own social media to boost the signal.
- Leave comments on this post (or on social media) regarding which topics you'd like to see me cover in future videos. If you'd like to see something other than one of the three options I mentioned, make sure to include that in your comment!
It's a simple, three-step process. The content I make (and which is accepted/put out by Azukail Games) is driven by you. Your views, your purchases, your likes, upvotes, comments, and follows all have an effect on what I work on, and what gets released... so use your power, raise your voice, and let me know what you want to see more of!
That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!
