Category Archives: Tabletop Gaming

Atlantean Exodus Update – What’s In a Name?

I have been working on character names to be used in the Atlantean Exodus RPG setting. For the duration of the playtest, I’ve been handwaving names. Now that most of the mechanics for the game are done, I’ve been turning my attention to this important detail.

Why are names important? In my opinion, naming a mesolithic hunter-gatherer “Bob” or their tribal leader “Grug” would be lazy, would do a disservice to their descendants, and would hurt immersion into the setting.

What is the setting about? To sum up:

“North Africa, 7000 B.C., when the Sahara was still green—a caravan of survivors, who fled the destruction of the once great civilization of Atlantis, travels east. Their aim: to cross the vast savanna to reach survivors on the other side of the continent, and there establish a New Atlantis. They face many dangers—wild beasts, restless spirits, and strange peoples. But the caravan’s sacred task drives them on, even if it takes generations. You, brave explorers, lead the way.”

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“Seek, above all, for a game worth playing. Such is the advice of the oracle to modern man. Having found the game, play it with intensity – play as if your life and sanity depended on it.”
– The Master Game, Robert S. de Ropp

Perennial RPG: Scale and Spirits

Giant versus Human

Giant versus Human

A Problem of Scale

A new problem appeared during playtesting. During mid-tier play (4th-6th level in this system), player feedback was that adversaries they thought should have felt harder to fight were too easy, and I agreed.

To address this, I returned to the perennial principles the game is based on, in this particular case, scale.

The perennial idea transmitted by G.I. Gurdjieff is that we live in a universe of scale.

“…the lines of development of vibrations are divided into periods corresponding to the doubling or the halving of the number of vibrations in a given space of time.”

– In Search of the Miraculous

The example given in this passage relates to music, that each scale up or down is a doubling or halving of the vibration. The whole universe can be regarded this way, starting with the universe as a whole, down to the scale of galaxies, to the scale of solar systems, to the scale of planets, to the scale of our planet, to the scale of humans, to the scale of micro-organism, on and on, each a world unto itself on its own scale.

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Gurdjieff and Games: How D&D Has Changed

In Beelzebub’s Tales, in the chapter on Art, Gurdjieff wrote about an ancient form of art called “mysteries”, devised to transmit important knowledge to succeeding generations of initiates. This art, we are told, degenerated into what is now merely theater performed by actors, conveying mostly entertainment and little knowledge. 

In his Third Series, Gurdjieff wrote that ancient literature was written and read for the purpose of perfecting one’s reason, and this, we are told, also degenerated into mostly entertainment with little meaning transmitted to the reader.

There is a striking parallel to how Dungeons & Dragons began and how it is today. Recently there has been much heated discussion about what is changing and has changed in the hobby.

So what has changed since D&D made its appearance almost fifty years ago?

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Atlantean Exodus: Perennial RPG, Playtest Report 1

I have enough material to start playtesting what I’m calling Perennial RPG (the system) and Atlantean Exodus (the setting). Previously, I had run two sessions with a couple players using Cha’alt. Now we were going to use a system conversion of the Caves of Chaos from B1: The Keep on the Borderlands.

Setting Summary

To start the session, I summarized the setting for the players:

“Atlantis, the greatest continent in the world, has sunk beneath the waves. Forewarned of the impending catastrophe, you have escaped to a strange land with your lives and with the seeds of civilization, if you can keep them.”

I told the players that their characters belong to a remnant of Atlantis that survived and reached the shore of an unknown continent. This remnant has formed a caravan that is exploring the new land.

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Giving Thanks for Games

Games have been a universal cultural phenomenon for thousands of years and possibly longer. Senet. Mehen. The Royal Game of Ur. Backgammon. Pachesi. Mancala. Go. Draughts. Chess. Dice. Cards. Dominos. Marbles. Hide-and-Seek. Stop-and-Go. Tag. Word games. Trivia games. Wargames. Resource management games. Railroad simulation games. Roleplaying games. Video games. On and on.

Games have histories, some remembered and some lost. One story tells of a Chinese emperor Yao who had his couselor Shun design the game Go for his unruly son. In 11th century Persia, it is said that Burzoe invented nard, a variant of backgammon. Albert Lamorisse, a French filmmaker, invented the strategic board game, Risk. From its tabletop wargaming roots, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson invented Dungeons & Dragons and rediscovered roleplaying games. Allan Alcorn, an American engineer and computer scientist, invented the video game Pong. Richard Garfield, an American mathematician, invented the trading card game, Magic: The Gathering. Klause Teuber, a German dental technician, invented the strategy and negotiation board game Catan. 

Games can serve as a leisure activity to relax and pass the time. While a variety of vices can attach themselves to games, playing games is not a vice in itself.

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Playtesting a Homebrew System in the Black Pyramid of Cha’alt

An Unusual Game Night

Since two members of my usual gaming group weren’t able to make it to game night, I invited those who could make it to playtest the homebrew system I’ve been working on. I decided to playtest the system using the Black Pyramid, the megadungeon found in Cha’alt—the gonzo, eldritch, science-fantasy, post-apocalyptic setting book by Venger Satanis. Since Cha’alt is fairly game system neutral, and more-or-less compatible with OSR/5e and Venger’s own Crimson Dragonslayer d20, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to get it to work with this new homebrew system.

The homebrew system I’ve been working on is based on something older than Dungeons & Dragons.

“What?!” you exclaim. “No roleplaying game is older than D&D!”

Ah, but as the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun. Perennial ideas are often lost and rediscovered. The principles were there all along, waiting. But that’s enough philosophizing. On to the playtest!

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