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.

– AlexSchroeder 2008-08-04 23:35 UTC

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

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– benpop 2008-08-04 22:38 UTC

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– AlexSchroeder 2008-08-03 01:10 UTC

– GreyWulf 2008-08-03 08:44 UTC

– GreyWulf 2008-08-03 10:36 UTC

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– Storyteller 2008-08-03 07:51 UTC

– GreyWulf 2008-08-03 08:38 UTC

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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

– GreyWulf 2008-08-01 10:39 UTC

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Where did 2nd and 3rd editions fall on this list?

BTW, nice lair!

– Donny_the_DM 2008-07-31 15:57 UTC

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

@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

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– AlexSchroeder 2007-12-10 10:14 UTC

– ChattyDM 2007-12-10 11:18 UTC

– Gokce Ozan Toptas 2007-12-10 15:12 UTC

– ChattyDM 2007-12-10 15:22 UTC

– Yax 2007-12-10 16:40 UTC

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

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

– Erol Can Akbaba 2007-12-13 14:15 UTC

– Mentat 2007-12-13 18:38 UTC

– Ertugrul Ozturk 2007-12-13 22:21 UTC

– Absurdia 2007-12-18 12:46 UTC

– Anonymous 2008-07-30 14:26 UTC

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

– Delthrien 2008-07-31 12:26 UTC

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– Thwack-o 2008-07-25 12:35 UTC

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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

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

– GreyWulf 2008-07-20 12:49 UTC

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