Unfiled
You'd better be good
Dec 25th
Here’s a reprise from Christmas Past: a story from my Grey Scribe alter ego from Christmas Eve 2005. Ho. Ho. Ho!
We ran. The car lay abandoned in the ditch, and I remember scraping my feet along the roadside as we jumped before the car had even come to a full halt. Behind us in the darkness, I knew it was following us, impossibly flying through the air tracking our every movements. We had to hide, though we knew it would find us. Just like it did last Christmas time.
Ahead lay an old house, boarded up after a fire had gutted the inside and taken a sleeping old woman with it. We used to play in there a few years ago, and I hoped we could still fit through the hole in the rotten wood covering the back door. Being fifteen, I’m a different size to when I was twelve. I could tell Zep was thinking the same. He’s filled out a lot more than me.
“Come on!”, I yelled at him, grabbing his meaty arm and pulling him along. I didn’t want a repeat of last year. I wasn’t going to lose another friend.
Grown-ups never tell you the whole truth. They tell you about Christmas, and how exciting it is. They say Santa brings presents to the good little boys and girls. That’s only half the story though. They never tell you everything, do they?
I’d tried to be good, all year. We all had, after what happened last Christmas. By Summer though, it all seemed to be a bad dream. The heat didn’t help; no fair having the hottest Summer on record when there’s so damned little to do. We got heat crazy, and started carjacking, throwing stones at windows as we fled past. I was driving, lobbing stones with the rest. How could I have seen her in front of me? How? She shouldn’t have been on the road, just walking across like that. Stupid bitch. I couldn’t see her, and couldn’t stop either.
We didn’t jack any more cars after that. I lay awake for weeks afterwards, scared that someone had seen us.
Now, we’re running because Santa is coming.
I could hear him, high above us, circling to land. I let go of Zep’s arm, and made it to the door. The rotten board was still there, and the hole was much smaller than I remembered it. I pushed my arm through, then my shoulder. I heard soft thumps of hoofs on snow, and screamed. Somehow, I made it through the gap, and collapsed in the darkness, tears running down my face.
Zep hammered at the board, “C’mon man, get me through this. Stu, help me!”
I could see his face, pale and terrified through the gap in the door. There was no way he was going to get through, and no way I could get the board off in time. I took hold of his arm through the hole.
“Sorry, man.”
I saw the huge red shape behind him, blocking out the moon’s glow. A voice whispered, “Ho. Ho. Ho.”, and Zep was pulled from me like dust being sucked by a vacuum cleaner. I could see Santa dragging him along effortlessly, Zep screaming and tugging at his huge red arm as he was pulled along. It made no difference.
I watched as Santa threw him in front of his sleigh then unhitch his reindeer. They circled Zep so I couldn’t see him at all. Santa’s voice boomed out, “Feeding time, my beauties.”
The screams ended soon after that, though the noises I could hear now were much worse. One of the reindeer looked up and stared directly at me, it’s nose soaked blood red. Grown-ups don’t tell you how Rudolph gets his red nose. I knew then, and wished I didn’t.
They tell you that Santa gives presents to good boys and girls. They don’t tell you what he does to the bad ones.
There was no sign of Santa outside. It grew quiet, and I started to hope that Zep would be enough for him. I promised – promised! – that I would be good next year.
It was then that I heard the thump above me. Something was on the roof. I heard the bang of footsteps on tiles. Soot and snow fell onto the grate in the hearth. Black and white. That’s what it’s all about.
Santa was coming down the chimney.
Comments on Jumping Sinking Ships That Pass In The Night
Aug 5th
Let me know if you need help transmogrifying an existing Oddmuse wiki to static HTML.
– AlexSchroeder 2008-08-04 23:35 UTC
Thanks, Alex.
I’ve decided that I’m going to export the wiki as full RSS (full=1;rsslimit=all;days=9999 is my friend 
)then import it into a clean WordPress blog for my blogging. Then, I’ll set up a new, clean wiki for campaign logs, etc too. I’ll work out how to link the two later, methinks.
And I’ve looked around at the current state of wikis out there – and oddmuse is still the best around The rest seem to be too intent on being Web 2.0 CMS engines, and failing miserably. Ah well.
– GreyWulf 2008-08-05 00:15 UTC
Comments on My Secret Plastic Love
Aug 3rd
Damn you, now I want to buy those rules! But then again, I have a copy of Squad Leader from a good friend, and I recently bought Battle Lore and Tide of Iron… And none of them are seeing much play. I tell myself that these rules will still be there in a few years. And I bookmark the pages. sigh
– AlexSchroeder 2008-08-03 01:10 UTC
Hah! I suggest you download a copy of the The Unofficial Guide to DBA and start with that. Like many wargames rules, the writing style of DBA is pretty terse, and the Unofficial Guide serves as a great intro to the game. If the bug still bites (and it will!), DBA itself is ridiculously cheap for the amount of enjoyment you will have from it.
– GreyWulf 2008-08-03 08:44 UTC
Update: Looks like my soldiers are these guys from Amazon. Bargain!
– GreyWulf 2008-08-03 10:36 UTC
Comments on The Legend Of The Dawn Princess
Aug 3rd
I like this story, and love the picture! The short but sweet bard interactions have always been a favorite of mine as a DM. I always try to have an extra story on tap just in case my players are looking for one
– Storyteller 2008-08-03 07:51 UTC
Thanks! I loved the old 101 Patrons module for Traveller for just that reason; if you need inspiration, or the players turn left instead of right, it’s simple to pull something from there and run with it. Oddly enough, products that try to do the same for D&D never seem to succeed. Strange, that.
– GreyWulf 2008-08-03 08:38 UTC
Comments on Fourth Edition Druids Rock And We Have Them Now
Aug 1st
That… that is a really good idea. I’ve been really liking your assessments of D&D 4e and the conversions you’ve suggested for certain classes. And the cat-folk ninja has me having a major jones to play it. 
Hi! I’m a first-time commenter, some months time reader. I’ve known of Microlite20 for a while, but I didn’t discover your other sites until I caught you leaving comments in ChattyDM?’s blog.
Keep up the imagination and creativity. Heaven knows I’d like you as my DM. 
– benpop 2008-08-01 03:50 UTC
Hail and welcome benpop, and thanks for your kind words
I love me some Catfolk Ninja (4e stats) too.
– GreyWulf 2008-08-01 10:39 UTC
Comments on Does Fourth Edition Meet The Dungeon Masters Creed
Jul 31st
Just out of curiosity, as I’m new here
Where did 2nd and 3rd editions fall on this list?
BTW, nice lair!
– Donny_the_DM 2008-07-31 15:57 UTC
“Oh boy did they deliver on this one
4e is MUCH more GM friendly; it’s possible to create monsters in minutes and entire encounters in seconds. Gone are the bad days of CR, EL and head-scratching over XP tables. Oh yes!”
Very true! They certainly did deliver on simplicity. For some reason this bothered me though. I guess some of us 3.5 zealots have masochistic tendencies… We’ll be the ones ten years from now saying “In my day we had to use calculators and experience tables! And the CR had nothing to DO with the ECL. And we had to hike ten miles to the tavern every morning without shoes!”
– Storyteller 2008-07-31 18:11 UTC
Thanks, both.
@Donny – good questions. I’ll have to think on that and get back to you!
@Storyteller – Heh. I know what you mean! It takes a mindshift to go from having to spend 3-4 hours a week planning a scenario to spending 30 minutes, including working out the stats. You end up wondering what to do with the rest of the time…… Mind you, Microlite20 has trained me well in this respect
– GreyWulf 2008-07-31 19:19 UTC
Comments on The Dungeon Masters Creed
Jul 31st
I like it.
– AlexSchroeder 2007-12-10 10:14 UTC
I Agree and will repost in it as is on my blog (with link to here for signatures).
– ChattyDM 2007-12-10 11:18 UTC
I put my sign under this.
– Gokce Ozan Toptas 2007-12-10 15:12 UTC
Posted on my blog and Alephgaming… I’m pushing hard on this…. It’s that good.
– ChattyDM 2007-12-10 15:22 UTC
Posted on Dungeon Mastering dot com. I agree with everything in there.
– Yax 2007-12-10 16:40 UTC
I’ll put my name onto this.
I get that you are aiming a lot of this at DND, but why not Game Master’s Creed? There are a plethora of games out there that do some of this, but could still use improvement. This is good advice for any game system out there.
– John Arcadian 2007-12-10 17:01 UTC
Wow. I’m one of those folks who are amazed when people agree with me even slightly. so it’s very gratifying to see so many people nodding in unison.
John, all the current noise about 4th Edition D&D is what sparked this post in my mind, so yes, it’s clearly intended to spell out exactly what I would love to see as the next version of D&D. Heck, I’d be happy (and more than a little amazed, considering what we’ve been told so far) if they even hit 6 out of 12 of the points.
I’d guess there’s at least half a dozen systems which “score” 8 or 10 out of a possible 12, only falling at a handful of hurdles. That fact that they consistently fall at different hurdles suggests that such a system would be possible though. Maybe 5th Edition D&D, eh?
In the list of “so, so close”, I’d put Mutants & Masterminds, Savage Worlds Explorer Edition, GURPS 3rd Edition, the D&D Rules Cyclopedia and d20 Modern, FUDGE/FATE, MERP and Over the Edge, among others that my caffeine addled brain can’t recall right now. Each of them a Systems of Merit one way or the other.
I’m sure y’all can think of more.
– GreyWulf 2007-12-10 20:57 UTC
I completely agree…
– Erol Can Akbaba 2007-12-13 14:15 UTC
Great idea and I completely agree with it.
– Mentat 2007-12-13 18:38 UTC
i’m supporting this, perfect creed…
– Ertugrul Ozturk 2007-12-13 22:21 UTC
? agree!
– Absurdia 2007-12-18 12:46 UTC
Well said.
- Nicephorus
– Anonymous 2008-07-30 14:26 UTC
I see this has resurfaced after yesterday’s post on my side…
Nice to see it re-distributed… I still disagree with the 1 Core book thing but hey live and let live.
– The Chatty DM 2008-07-30 14:41 UTC
Works for me!
– Delthrien 2008-07-31 12:26 UTC
Comments on Dear Tiscali
Jul 25th
Comments on Random Heroes
Jul 20th
oh man, the memories are flooding back. I used to spend so much time obsessing over this game. When I was a kid the stores around me didn’t have the rules, so I just bought the supplements and tried to reverse engineer the game rules from what I saw.
When I finally got the rules, I saw that I was about halfway there on what I found. By the time I had the game though, all that energy spent trying to re-create the rules burned me out on it, and I didn’t play the actual system that much.
Wish I still had my notes.
– gamefiend 2008-07-18 13:24 UTC
Thank you, thank you, thank you for paying tribute to my all time favorite RPG. The MSH system by Jeff Grubb is still my favorite RPG mechanic system, and I think it can be adapted to any type of campaign, not just superheroes. You can set the power level in the Advanced Game and devise a gritty fanatasy game, a no powers pulpy or spy game, or crank it up and go full on god-like and cosmic. The rules are straight forward and easy to learn, and any situation you get into between the Judge and Players, just use the Universal table and d% and problem solved!
Buying the Advanced Gamed boxed set was one of the highlights of my childhood. I saved up the then titanic sum of $15 plus tax to buy it a local hobby store. I remember cracking that box open, the smell of fresh ink, the cardstock counters, the gigantic map. I still have the game and I love to pull it out and read it sometimes. If only I had a few nostalgic friends now to play it!
Thanks, Jeff Grubb, for making such an awesome game.
– Joshua Perdue 2008-07-18 16:39 UTC
Thanks guys
Good to see I’m not the only one who still loves this brilliant, underrated game. It served our superhero gaming needs admirably for about four years before we moved on – and arguably that was a mistake as we switched from Marvel to DC Heroes and completely munged the power levels. Ah well – lessons learned and all that!
– GreyWulf 2008-07-20 12:49 UTC
