Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Characters & Combat, Page 5

I'm going to add the specific book that I'm going through in the post title, since there are three in the whole set. Don't want to confuse people, do we? On to Page Five.

Okay, so now we’re told that new characters are basically useless, with no survival skills…and to get the skills they need, they’re going to have to join a service. The six mentioned are Navy, Marines, Army, Scouts (the suicide squad), Merchants, and ‘Other,’ which I guess is a catch-all for anyone who didn’t get their experience from one of the first five. No air force, which makes sense in a space-society; that would be the Navy’s purview, most likely. The inclusion of ‘merchant’ as a service is interesting; are merchants going to have some ties to the military? Or is it just a convenient way to lump it in as a career choice?

Okay, so you get to choose your service…or do you? They might not want you, because the very first thing you do after rolling ability scores and naming your character is find out if you actually get into the service you want. The roll is modified by a relevant characteristic, with the Navy being used as an example. It looks like getting into the Navy requires brains and education, which makes sense; the Navy today is a very technical service, so a star-spanning Navy would be even more so. The Navy’s enlistment roll is 8+, which means that unless you’ve got the brains and education, you’ve got less than a 50-50 chance of actually getting in.

If you fail on your enlistment roll, you don’t get a second chance; instead, you’re going to be drafted into one of the six services…which could very well be the one you tried to get into in the first place. The only difference between enlistment and drafting is that draftees can’t be commissioned in their first term of service (but can later). I wonder how you get drafted in the Merchants. Press-gangs are usually military-oriented; I suppose a big merchant conglomerate might feel the need to draft people into service, but it seems counter-productive. On the other hand, that could very well lead to merchant ships being taken over by a mutinous crew full of draftees, who then turn it into a pirate ship or something. Hmmm…

A term of service is 4 years, whether you’re drafted or you volunteer, and regardless of the service branch you’re in. And subsequent re-enlistments are also for four years. Maybe there’s some social significance to a four-year term. Or maybe it just takes that long to learn the basic skills needed to do the job. Or it’s just a convenient short-cut to give characters a base level of experience.

Of course, as we all know, there’s no guarantee that your character will actually survive the experience, as the next roll is for Survival. Throw the dice, and if you roll too low, your character is pushing up the space-daisies. And so we get Traveller’s infamous ‘die in character generation’ segment. There’s no ‘raise dead’ in Traveller, either; roll up a new character, because this one is toast. Well, at least it doesn’t take long to roll up the stats for a new guy.

Of the services listed, I think either Marines or Army would be the best fit for Jamie Rollinson, since the book mentions that Intelligence and Education are important stats for the Navy, which might leave JR in the dust. I’ll see what these careers entail later, before I make any final decisions.

Okay, so what do we see so far? Half the characters will have military experience, while the scouts and merchants make up a third of the adventuring population (with ‘Other’ being the catch-all, miscellaneous group). The idea that you could be drafted suggests a long-term, military conflict of some sort, or that the services are all chronically short of personnel and need to find warm bodies, so the government (or the conglomerates) grab them off the street. I can see characters of high social standing getting more of a chance to avoid the services they don’t like, or that are too dangerous; maybe the roll for drafting might get a modifier depending on Social Standing, so you can have a better chance at something less dangerous. A logical order might be the following: Scouts (too dangerous for noble scions), Army (not very glamorous), Marines (better than the Army), Navy (the aristocratic service from time immemorial), Merchants (where the money is) and Other (Nobles have more important things to do). Then modify the roll from there. Maybe even a negative modifier for the lowest classes.

Anyway, I’m not rewriting the rules yet; I still don’t know them. I might even be anticipating what actually is going to happen. Mostly, though, it’s just some spitballing going on. Next up, Commissions and Promotions.

We Have Lift-Off!

When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut. I read science fiction about space-bound heroes, read books and articles about the early space program and the race to the Moon, watched movies and documentaries on them as well. It was my dream.

Obviously, that dream didn't come true. But I've never forgotten that feeling or that desire to go where very few people have ever been. And it really isn't that far away; the International Space Station is only a couple of hundred kilometers up in the air. My parents live further away than that. Of course, horizontal travel is a bit easier than vertical over that distance.

Still, it was exciting to see the Space-X launch today, a launch that had been delayed due to weather a couple of days ago. I watched it live, and it was an exciting feeling, a thrill that I remember from watching Space Shuttle launches when I was a kid. Including the worst one, the Challenger lift-off in 1986. I saw that one live, too. Not a pleasant memory for a teenager dreaming of the stars.

But there was an aspect of this launch that I enjoyed even more: My son's reaction. He's twelve, and the last time there was a manned launch in North America, he was a toddler. So, for him, this was the equivalent of watching John Glenn lift-off, or watching the Eagle land on the Moon. We turned on the NASA livestream about half an hour before the launch, and he was riveted. He watched the interviews, the shots of the astronauts waiting for launch in the capsule, all of it. And as the countdown began, he was practically bouncing in his seat.

I've heard and read people talk about how this isn't a big deal, we did this fifty years ago, it doesn't mean anything, blah blah blah. Well, to that twelve-year-old boy, it meant the world. Literally. He watched that rocket fly up, saw it enter orbit, and watched the edge of the earth going by a couple of hundred kilometers below. He was riveted from start to finish.

When we're older, we forget the impact that seeing something for the very first time can have on a child. We're jaded, cynical, world-weary. Even the most upbeat, optimistic of us can forget that sense of wonder, of something beyond our limitations. That's when we need to see through the eyes of a child, a fresh perspective that can jolt us out of our complacency and same-old, same-old.

I wonder how many other kids watched that launch, a new generation of starry-eyed gazers. Maybe this will spur their interest in science and space exploration. Maybe they'll be watching documentaries about this launch and what it means for the future of space travel. Maybe one of them will be strapped into a launcher twenty years from now, taking the first steps on a long journey to Mars.

There's enough misery and anger in the world right now; it's time to look at something wonderful, awe-inspiring, and fantastic. Let's go explore the stars again.

In other news, The Devil's Playground is available in paperback format as well on Amazon! Check it out, and get your copy today!

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, page 4

The next section starts off with a note that generated characters “will continue to live and adventure until killed in action, or too old to keep up.” Then it starts us off with an untrained, unskilled, fresh-out-of-high-school 18-year-old blank slate.

Six characteristics, which seems to be a standard for a lot of early RPGs. Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Education, and Social Standing. I like that Intelligence and Education are considered separate; I know from first-hand experience that one doesn’t need to be educated to be intelligent, and vice versa. Social Standing suggests that the game involves a social stratification, but it doesn’t necessarily mean ‘kings and nobles’ lording it over the peasantry. The United States has social stratification without an explicit nobility, so this can go in a lot of different directions.

Characteristics are rolled on a straight 2D (I’m going to have to get used to not including the 6), so 2-12, averaging 7; but they can be modified to get between 1 and 15; 15 is the human (or at least PC) maximum for any stat, while anything below 1 puts you either in the nursing home or local VA hospital.

Rolling a straight 2D means some characters will have low stats, but these can still be playable, assuming the character can stay in a service long enough to gain skills (and modify some of those low stats). Then we’re told that if a character really sucks, put them in the Scout service, where they might…die. Yes, the first mention of the lethality of Traveller character generation, and apparently the Scout Corps is accident-prone, and deadlier than being in the military. So the Scouts are the adrenaline-junkies and extreme-sports enthusiasts, risking their lives to do their scouting.

Great…now I am picturing Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze hanging ten as they fly straight at a new planet, daring each other to pull the ship’s chute.

Anyway, let’s start creating a character, because don’t we all do that at this point? That’s not a rhetorical question; I’ve never been to this point before with this game.

So, here’s what we have, rolled on 2D 6 times: 5, 9, 10, 7, 6, 9. What do we know about this person so far? Below-average strength, but otherwise in really good shape, with high Dexterity and top-notch Endurance. Intelligence is average, education is just below average (a high-school dropout?), and he’s from a well-respected, if not noble, family. Without knowing anything else at this point, I would venture to say that this guy would probably make a decent soldier, with his strength being the only limiting factor. Maybe a naval career, but nothing too intellectual. We’ll see what we get next.

Next up, naming your character. A few suggestions are given, such as just naming the character after the player. This makes some sense in a futuristic, sci-fi setting; after all, people have had similar names for centuries, so there’s no reason why someone 500 years from now wouldn’t have the same name as someone today. So, in that spirit, I’m going to name this character Jamie Rollinson, just ‘cause.

Titles are mentioned as well, being hereditary for families with high Social Standing scores. ‘Sir’ and ‘Baron’ (or von) are both specifically mentioned, so now there’s some sort of explicit nobility in place. More details come later, but it looks like we’re going to see the return of feudalistic nobility in the future. And here I was hoping for social progress…

Ranks are also mentioned, in a military context (commissions and promotions), so we can look forward to a lot of military stuff in character creation.

The Devil's Playground

Here it is! The Devil's Playground, the next book in the Chronicles of Meterra! I'm very excited, and I hope you are, too. It's my second fantasy publication, and my second short-story anthology, too. Here's the back cover print:

********************

Under King Eadric, the new Kingdom of Meterra has undergone significant changes since the Arrival of the European crusaders. The wild land is being settled, and the countryside is being reclaimed from the monsters that plagued the land. But peace is always a temporary state in a land of magic and monsters.

From a lonely shepherd to the mightiest of knights, the people of Meterra find themselves under siege from creatures unimaginable that emerge from an underground labyrinth so chaotic, so horrifying, that it can only be named...The Devil's Playground.

This anthology of short stories takes the story of Meterra out of the wilderness and into the realm of pure chaos. In these seven stories, the inhabitants of Meterra will discover how different their new home is, and how even the greatest of warriors are not immune to the horrors that await them within the Devil's Playground.

********************

This one is a bit weirder than most fantasy that's out there these days. It's certainly not on the level of Lovecraft or C.A. Smith, but they were definitely influential. The original idea came from, of course, gaming; the Devil's Playground is a megadungeon that takes a different tack than the typical 'insane wizard built it centuries ago' background. This one is just pure chaos, where nothing is the same the second time around. I hope you like what you read.

The paperback will be available shortly; right now, it's only in e-book format. It takes Amazon a while longer to release paperbacks, I guess. But still, it's available for you right this minute. What are you waiting for?

Oh, you didn't read the first book yet? Well, by all means, jump on over to Amazon and pick up a copy of The Chronicles of Meterra: Arrival, the first book in the series.

Let's Read: Traveller 1977 Edition, Page 3

And now, dice. The Traveller standard is 2d6, rather than D&D’s 3d6, so that will take a bit of getting used to. Die modifiers will be much more significant, too; a +1 on 2d6 is a lot more valuable than on 3d6 or 1d20.

We’re also talking about saving throws right off the bat, but the mechanic reminds me of 3E’s ‘target numbers’ and ‘DCs.’ Roll the exact number required, more, or less, depending on the circumstances. Simple enough. Die modifiers are pretty straightforward, with an example of how they work.

Next up, the section on the referee. His job is simple: Play God, and everyone else. Create the universe, and populate it. The creation of the star map is the ref’s first job, but we get to that much later in the book. And of course, the ref doesn’t just hand the players his notes; instead, he gives cryptic clues and hints, and lets them figure the rest out through exploring and play. Which is how it should be; unless you’ve got the computer from the Starship Enterprise on board, you’re not going to know everything there is to know about everything. Otherwise, what’s the point of exploring?

The referee should also indicate ‘possible’ quests for the characters. So this is definitely a sandbox-style system, in which the PCs get lots of options as to where to go, with as little railroading as possible (which is good, because it’s really hard to build a railroad across light-years of empty space). And it’s only going to be as good as the referee’s imagination makes it, so no pressure.

The referee is also, literally, a referee; he adjudicates rules questions and disputes, but has a lot of freedom in doing so. The rules, after all, are not set in stone; they are a toolbox, and can be modified to suit the needs of the campaign and the setting. And, as I said before, he’s basically playing God, except that Einstein was wrong; this version of God DOES play dice with the universe.

The mention of ‘creatures and societies’ suggests that there will be aliens somewhere to be found, whether they be intelligent species or dumb animals. And of course, ‘societies’ can mean a whole bunch of different things, so it’s going to be really open-ended.

So that’s the introductory material. Interesting note: Not one syllable about ‘what an RPG is’ anywhere to be found. I guess that back then, it was just assumed that if you were buying this in the early days of the hobby, you already had the RPG part figured out (through D&D, most likely, since it was already the dominant force in the hobby).

So next up, we start with character generation…

Amazing Stories #7, October 1926

It's another Amazing Thursday, which means it's time once again for a review of Amazing Stories! This was another jam-packed issue, even though there are only five stories in this one. We know what that means, of course...longer stories! Two serials end, two begin...and there are no short stories this month.

So, without further ado, the moment you've all been waiting for...

Amazing Stories, Issue 7, October 1926

COVER

So, we've got what looks like a shipwrecked man standing in a field of grass, being overlooked by two insectoid creatures. In the background a third creature is inspecting what appears to be a cigar-shaped spacecraft. In the distance are some snow-capped mountains. This could be two possibilities. First, the insectoids are aliens that have landed somewhere where they've encountered a shipwrecked human. Of course, mountains like that don't normally appear on small, shipwreckable islands, do they? Second, the human is the visitor to their world, but why he's wearing torn clothes instead of a spacesuit is beyond me. I'm sure one of these stories will explain it, though.

Once again, Wells, Verne and Serviss make the cover, which certainly would have drawn attention. That makes four straight issues where Garrett P. Serviss gets cover-billing. I wonder how popular he was back in the day to merit being mentioned along with Wells and Verne so frequently. And then I wonder how he ended up being so utterly forgotten today.

EDITORIAL

The title for this month is 'Imagination and Reality,' and Gernsback name-drops Alexander Graham Bell as an example of someone who sought to design one thing and ended up creating something entirely different. He equates this to writers coming up with wild, scientifically 'plausible' ideas that inspire an inventor to come up with the actual version of whatever the writer was thinking of. He also suggests that the writer, in such a case, would be entitled to the ownership of the patent, since he came up with the idea in the first place. Fortunately, it doesn't work that way. We get paid royalties for the stories themselves; that should be enough.

BEYOND THE POLE, Part One, A. Hyatt Verill

This is an original story, a serial in two parts, that gets the pole position this month.

Okay, that's the last cheesy pun for this review. Maybe.

Verill had a distinguished career as a zoologist, explorer and inventor, as well as writing a whole bunch of books: 115 of them, in fact. Most of them were non-fiction, but he was also prolific in the pulps as a story-teller. This one uses a device that Edgar Rice Burroughs used a few years earlier in the first book of his Caspak trilogy, The Land That Time Forgot. Both stories are written as something that was written by someone else and dropped into the sea in a bottle, to be discovered some time later by the 'author.' In this case, the story is about the cover picture; Verill combines my two ideas, so I was right on both counts. The hero is shipwrecked down near the South Pole, and goes through some similar (though condensed) situations as Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. However, he ends up in a part of Antarctica that is warm and surrounded by some seriously high mountains. He scales them, and winds up on the other side with his provisions exhausted and his clothes tattered (hence his appearance on the cover). It's not really a spoiler that he encounters the creatures from the cover, who are intelligent and treat him as a strange new animal, albeit one they are able to communicate with in a rudimentary fashion. Oh, and they aren't insectoids; they're evolved crustaceans. The crustaceans have a truly alien but plausible society; Verill did an excellent job here. The first part of the story ends on not much of a cliffhanger, just a note that the crustaceans' greatest enemies are the ants.

Gernsback says this is the best scientifiction story of the year; I can't really disagree, since there haven't been too many stories in Amazing that haven't been reprints, so the field of new scientifiction stories for the year is somewhat thin. It runs fifteen pages, including the full-page introduction (and, in a touch of verisimilitude, footnotes from the 'discoverer' of the manuscript). There wasn't much action in this first half of the story; I hope that changes in the second part. The thing that stands out is, as I said, Verill's world-building. Being a zoologist, he obviously had some informed opinions on what such a society would look like.

A COLUMBUS OF SPACE, Part 3, Garrett P. Serviss

Ah, here we go. The conclusion to a great space epic, albeit one with a bit of a surprising ending. After recovering Princess Ala from her abductor, Edmund and his companions end up in yet another aerial chase, although this time the bad guy has stolen their own spacecraft that they used to get to Venus. I won't give a synopsis of the whole thing, but more bad things happen, along with more heroics, and plot threads tied off and resolved. Juba gets to return to his people, while Ala and Edmund are betrothed, of course. However...

Nope, not going to spoil it. Suffice it to say, the narrator returns to Earth, but he's the only one, and the spacecraft is lost forever. Or, until someone thinks to dredge the swamp in the Adirondacks.

Alright, so the third installment does have some repetitive scenes, not only from the second installment but also within a couple of chapters here. But it's still a rip-roaring adventure on another planet, and it's a lot of fun all the way through. While this installment didn't reach the heights of the first two, it's still a great story, and I'm still maintaining that Burroughs read it before he wrote A Princess of Mars. Just shy of twenty pages long, it makes for a great story, one that I highly recommend to anyone who has an interest in the proto-pulp science fiction genre.

THE PURCHASE OF THE NORTH POLE, Part 2, Jules Verne

So, this installment concludes the Vernian tale of a group of armament and explosive enthusiasts and their attempt to reorient the earth's axis to melt the polar ice so they can access the coal. As Gernsback says, Verne is a very skilled writer who knows his science and knows his math. Unfortunately, this story falls short in the 'adventure' part of the 'science fiction adventure' label. The majority of it is spent with people scared of what will happen when the Gun Club does what it says it's going to do. And sure enough, they build another humongous gun, this time in southern Africa, and fire it off, expecting the recoil to push the earth on its axis. Obviously, that didn't happen, and again, that's not really a spoiler.

I enjoyed A Trip to the Center of the Earth, and even Off on a Comet was fun, though it was a bit out there for Verne. But this one...no. I can't help but think that Gernsback could have gotten the rights to better Verne stories if he hadn't been the cheapskate that he is known as today. You get what you pay for, though, and this time, he didn't get anything near Verne's best effort. This installment runs nineteen pages.

HAIL AND GOOD-BY, Leland S. Copeland

A surprise here, as at the bottom of the last page of the previous story, there's a short poem, which I will copy verbatim here:

Where counter star-streams meet and blend,

  Where suns and comets fly,

We wake at last in human form

  To ponder whence and why.

A billion billion ages lapsed,

  A trillion worlds went by,

Ere we could rise from light and dust

  To labor, love, and die.

Far out within the Milky Way

  Our pellet Earth is cast,

Whose children dream that mind will live

  When all the stars have passed.

We cannot glimpse the future's gift,

  But one thought holds us fast--

To think, to try, is good, and then

  To vanish in the Vast.

I somehow missed Copeland's previous entry, another poem in the August issue. I'm not good at analyzing poetry; it's always been a weak spot in my creative writing efforts. I'll just leave it to the reader to decide what to think of it. This is, by the way, another original writing appearing in this magazine (as was Copeland's first poem in August, his first pulp-published work). He will appear in this magazine again, and again.

THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, Part I, H.G. Wells

Ah, this one is a classic. Surprisingly, I've never read it; I've never read much of Wells, to be honest. I've never even gone all the way through War of the Worlds, though I know the story well enough. This one I don't know, but a lot of people do, so my review of it will be brief, focusing more on my own thoughts on the work. This one was originally published in 1896, but never reprinted until now. The installment runs to just under twenty pages as well.

Again, this one is written as a 'found' work, albeit this time it's found in the narrator's papers after his death rather than in a bottle floating in the sea. It's definitely science fiction, dealing with experimentation on animals to make them more 'human.' Moreau is a serious creep, and there's a lot of psychological horror in this one. It's definitely a page-turner, and I'm curious to see how it ends up.

Oh, and at the very end is another poem by Leland Copeland, called 'Lullaby'. I won't copy this one, but suffice to say it's...different. It's a lullaby, as the title indicates, but it's not a lullaby for a child; it's a lullaby for a baby nebula that will someday turn into a star. As I read it, I'm singing along to it with the tune from 'Hush, Little Baby'. You will, too.

BLASPHEMER'S PLATEAU, Alexander Snyder

Another original, this one is also self-contained; it's a novella, the only one by Snyder that was published in the pulps; the rest of his oeuvre is a few short stories. It's only twelve pages long, easily the shortest story in this issue.

But boy, does it pack a lot in those twelve pages. The scientist in this story, Dr. Santurn, is the absolute epitome of the 'mad scientist.' His goal is to disprove the existence of the human soul, thereby abrogating the need for religion and a belief in God. He's already creating animals when the other main character (there really isn't a hero in this one), Mason, arrives to visit his old friend. Santurn goes so far as to create a human being, an experiment that Mason disrupts, causing Santurn to use his magic 'Neo Rays' on Mason to regress him to the mental level of a toddler. In the end, Santurn ends up contracting cancer and thus commits suicide by really big lab explosion.

This one has a lot of religious overtones, with Mason repeatedly referencing Sodom and Gomorrah (the biblical cities that God nuked in the book of Genesis for their immorality (if you don't know what they were doing, the name of the first city should provide a big clue). In the end, the plateau on which Santurn's lab sits does get wiped out, although not from any heavenly action, but rather Santurn's own insanity and self-destruction. It's an interesting story, definitely thought-provoking, but not one that holds up for repeated readings.

CONCLUSION

No short stories here; it's all novella-length stuff, and all but one of the stories are installments in longer serials. I don't know if this is going to be the theme going forward, but I'm looking forward to finding out. I still liked the Serviss entry the best, and with two original tales, a classic of science fiction and a lesser writing from a grand master of the field, I'd say this is one of the stronger issues thus far.

Let's Read: Traveller 1977 Edition, Page 2

Page 2: Playing the Game

Alright, we’re getting some interesting information here, as right off the bat we are informed that Traveller can be played either solitaire, or in a one-off scenario or campaign style. Solitaire play consists of handling the whole thing on your own, so I guess create the setting, then the scenario, then the characters, and…play? I suppose. It’s not like I didn’t do that before with D&D when I was a kid. But this is the first time, outside of programmed adventures like B3 or the invisible ink/magic viewer modules of the early '80s that I’m seeing an explicit mention of solitaire play. Now that I think of it, this predates those modules anyway, so this would be one of the first mentions of solitaire play in RPGs.

Scenarios are one-time affairs, as the book states, using the example of a sci-fi novel, where the goal is stated, and the idea is to reach the goal. End of story, move along. This would definitely be suitable for tournaments, or just teaching others how to play. An interesting scenario idea is mentioned: going to Sirius in search of huge diamonds. Which means there’s a habitable planet around Sirius, which had dinosaurs or some equivalent (diamonds from coal, coal from dead prehistoric critters) way, way, way back. Or, they could just be some other kind of mineral that looks like and is just as valuable as diamonds. Either way, it’s a clear hook to hang an adventure on.

This leads directly into the notion that players get attached to characters, which in turn says ‘campaign!’ So instead of Starship Troopers, it’s On Basilisk Station, and the story will continue. I use that example specifically because I know that quite a few characters die in that series, and old-school RPGs were not into the tender feeding and care of PCs, unless they were referring to the tender feeding of PCs to some nasty, hungry beast.

So, the campaign. The book expounds on the ‘novel vs. ongoing series’ concept, mentioning the referee’s duty to create the setting (basic facts of the universe, as the book says) before playing. Or, for solitaire play, or just a group without a ref, use the world-generation tables in Book 3 and figure it out as you go. That harkens back to the random dungeon and wilderness tables from the DMG. Fun stuff! You literally have no idea what’s coming next, so get out there and find it! Just don’t get lost…

And the game is written primarily for ongoing campaigns, which makes sense; random single scenarios are great for tournaments, but campaigns are more satisfying, at least that’s been my experience.

The next section bleeds over into the next page, so I’ll continue on in the next post.

More Treasures to be Found...

Remember that flood we had a couple of months ago? I certainly do. Our crawl space looks much cleaner now, for one thing. But I'm still going through stuff I had sitting on various CD-ROMs and such. Man, I had a lot of crap saved up.

Some of it is duplicates of what I already have on my computer; old RPG books, texts I had downloaded for various purposes, music from my favorite artists. But there's stuff that I'm very, VERY glad to have found, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to salvage it and get some of it ready for publishing.

Yes, I found some of my old writing. Now, some of it isn't on CD-ROM; it's on old 3.5" floppy disks, and if I can get either mine or my wife's old computer up and running, I'll hopefully be able to recover the most important files, including one complete novel, a fantasy novel set in a far-Eastern land.

Then there are the old games, like Sid Meier's Pirates! and Pool of Radiance. I know, people don't play those anymore, but they're still classics. And, best of all, I don't have to pay anything for them (see yesterday's post). So, if I get the chance, and I can get those old computers running again, I might just go back to swinging a sword on the decks of a Spanish galleon for old times' sake.

I even found some silly stuff I once did online; back in the day I participated in some 'e-wrestling' federations, and being the Obsessive Compulsive that I am, I saved the posts. I was reading some of them over for the first time in over fifteen years last night, and there was some seriously funny stuff in there. Ah, memories...

It helps that I'm cleaning out this old stuff, because a lot of it really is just junk that's taking up space. Sure, it takes time to go through these disks, but the recovered treasures make the slog worth it.

If I find anything else interesting, I'll make sure to mention it in future posts. In the meantime, I've also started my 'Let's Read' on the Traveller game books; check that post out if you're so inclined. Or, if you prefer something more complete and full to read, there's always a book to read. I recommend A Universe of Possibilities, a short-story anthology that is sure to provide you with some entertainment.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition

Okay, so I’m a newcomer to Traveller. I’ve been gaming for nearly 40 years now, but up until now I’ve given Traveller virtually no attention. I vaguely remember trying out the BASIC program in an old Dragon magazine for character creation, but that’s as far as I ever got with the game, as I was focused instead on D&D and Star Frontiers as my primary games. Now, with my son showing an interest in astronomy and science fiction, I’ve been looking for a game that will inspire him the way D&D inspired me with fantasy. So, I’ve acquired the original (1977) books 1-3, and I’m going to go through them page by page, learning the game myself and then passing it on to my son when he’s older.

I’m sure most people have read ‘Let’s Read’ threads before, and pretty much everyone reading this will already know the books very well. However, as I said, I’m pretty much totally new to Traveller, so while I’m aware of the Third Imperium, the OTU, and some of the other trappings, I don’t really know the game itself. I look at it the way I looked at my son’s Star Wars journey; unlike me (who saw the original movie in the theater in 1977), he started with Episode I and worked his way through the series chronologically. So, in my case, the prequels were (poorly) filling in backstory; for him, they WERE the story. Maybe my experience with Traveller will be the same sort of thing, a fresh perspective for people who haven’t thought about these things in a long time.

Anyway, I’ll stop meandering about and start with this project.

BOOK 1: CHARACTERS AND COMBAT

Alright, we start with the Table of Contents, which tells me that this book will, as the cover says, focus on Character Generation and Personal Combat. There’s the usual ‘defining an RPG’ section. Instead of a Dungeon Master, we have a Referee. Character generation will involve retirement, mustering out, aging, rank and service (sounds a lot like a military game; Star Trek influence, perhaps? Or Starship Troopers; that was an awesome book. They should make it into a movie). Personal combat topics include basic concept, surprise, range, escape and avoidance, then we get to movement and resolution, followed by characteristics, expertise, weight, morale, equipment, and antique equivalents, which suggests a less high-tech option (modern-day, or early star flight, perhaps).

Looks good so far; let’s dig in!

The first page introduces the concept: faster-than-light travel, but communication is limited to the speed of space travel; no Star Trek-style subspace radio here. I’m a big fan of the Honor Harrington series, so the concept is familiar. I like the idea; it gives an old-style Age of Exploration Age feel, where mail takes time to get from place to place. It also suggests pirates, which is always cool. Every RPG is made better with pirates.

We are also informed that the game isn’t limiting itself to ‘space opera’ sci-fi, but it can go in virtually any sci-fi direction. So, I guess a post-apocalyptic setting could work, maybe a sci-fi variation on the ‘fallen empires’ theme, where an ancient empire has collapsed in on itself, and suddenly there’s no central authority, sort of like a ‘Dark Ages in space.’ Or, you know, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation…That could be interesting, too. What other genres are there? Sword-and-planet, steampunk, cyberpunk, hard SF…lots of options, some of which will work better with the implied technology than others. I wonder if there will be different types of FTL travel available. There’s a big difference between Star Wars hyperspace and Star Trek warp drive. Well, there’s a difference, anyway. Babylon 5 handled things differently, too.

Solitaire play? Interesting. Sounds like a fun way to learn the game, or to just pass the time when there’s no one else to play with. These days, that seems like a common complaint; not enough people to game with around. Traveller was clearly forward-thinking. Six-sided dice only? Good; my wife is suspicious of dice with more (or less) than six sides. Everyone’s got a board game with six-siders in it, so they’re easy enough to find. I’m fine with cardboard counters; miniatures aren’t happening. I’m not made of money, after all.

40 PLAYERS MAXIMUM?! Good Lord. I shudder to think of how long it would take to get anything done in a group that large. ‘Roll for initiative. Okay, you got a ‘1’, you’re going to have to wait a while…’ Three to ten players is optimum; that sounds reasonable. So, you’ve got enough to crew a small ship, or captain and officers for a larger one (lots of red shirts handy). Was 40 players at a time a normal idea back then?

Required Materials: The usual; books, dice, pencils and paper, plus hex paper, minis, and calculator. How quaint. Spreadsheets are the name of the game now, or cell phones, depending on whether you’re the ref or a player. Nothing special here.

And that concludes page 1 of Traveller Book 1.

Entertainment on a Budget

Keeping from being bored isn't that hard in the age of COVID-19 if you give yourself options. And you don't need a lot of money to do so, either. The internet makes so much stuff available for so little money, so all you really need is an internet account. And with websites like Project Gutenberg, YouTube and the like around, everything you could ever ask for is free. YouTube even has old classic movies, uncut, available for the low cost of nothing whatsoever. Sure, they're black-and-white and silent, but they're still entertaining even to today's jaded audiences. Charlie Chaplin is timeless; his comedy still works today. Douglas Fairbanks did action as well as anyone today, and did his own stunts, to boot. He was the first Zorro AND the first Robin Hood, as well as dozens of other famous roles.

And for reading, Gutenberg has thousands of free books available. They're all long past their copyright date, and thus are public domain, which means you can read them without worrying about fees or book costs. Even the used book store can't match that. And they're not open now, anyway. So, you can read old classics by authors such as Mark Twain, Henry Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs...the list is virtually endless.

Not only that, but for those who are interested in the pulp stories (and Hollywood is no match for your own imagination), you can get more pulp magazines than you could read in a lifetime on sites such as archive.org or luminist.org. Action-packed stories for the boys, romantic stuff for the girls. Again, it's all free.

Of course, I wouldn't dream of suggesting pirating sites, because those are bad. Besides, most of what you can get for free is of better quality than the stuff you could obtain illegally. So, stick with the free and legal, because it's more fun.

There are plenty of games available for free, too. Old video games can be found on abandonware sites and run using emulators and the like; whether it's text-based Infocom games or graphic arcade-style stuff, you can pick up almost anything you want and get hours and hours of free entertainment from it. Some of them can even be used for multi-player, so you can introduce your kids to the great stuff you used to enjoy when you were their age.

So, there's plenty of options out there, all of them legal, and all of them free. Who's got time for boredom when there's so much awesome out there that you've never even seen before?

I've decided to start that Let's Read series of posts, but I'm going to do them separately from my regular blog posts, which means that I'll be posting twice a day for the duration of this. I'm going to do what I mentioned yesterday: Read through the original 1977 Traveller rule books, which I've never played or read before. I want to see how the game looks from a neophyte's eyes, and what kind of implied setting or expectations can be gleaned from it. Those who have played the game before might see things they hadn't noticed before, and newcomers will get to experience the ride along with me. It should be fun, and I'll probably start it tomorrow.

Until then, if you're looking for something new and inexpensive, you can always check out my first published book, Final Exam, available now on Amazon for the low price of $0.99. It's worth a shot, don't you think?

Random and Sundry Thoughts on a Monday Night

Well, that was a different kind of day. Compared to the last two, anyway. No manual labor, no heavy-duty sun exposure...we're almost back to normal now.

I've been thinking about doing some sort of game review series like the one I'm doing with Amazing Stories, but I'm not sure that it hasn't all already been done. I mean, every D&D module, rule book, supplement and even magazine has been reviewed to death by dozens of bloggers and reviewers. I doubt I could add anything to that, and my wife wouldn't care for it, anyway.

There are some other games that I've played that I really enjoy, but again, I'm not sure how many of them have been reviewed before by better people than me. Of course, a different perspective isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm inclined to do a 'Let's Read' series on a game I've never actually played before, Traveller. I mean, I've read about the game, and I have the original 1977, pre-Star Wars rule books sitting on my hard drive. That might be a fun thing to do in addition to my regular blogging. Reading through a game I've never looked at before and giving my honest opinion about it would be an interesting project.

In other news, homeschooling is back up and running after nearly a week of crazy-busy stuff, and we're getting ready to start the youngest on his first homeschooling work. That should be an interesting project as well. It's something we've been delaying because of his autism, but he's going to be eight in December, and we need to get going. He's got the tools, he just needs the direction. The twelve-year-old, on the other hand, needs a lot of direction. He's quite the handful, but we'll get there.

I'm slowly closing in on the 100-post mark, and I like that there are a couple of people reading me regularly so far. A comment or two would be nice, but I can't expect everyone who reads to comment. Someday, but not just yet. I'm not sure what I'll do when I actually get to 100, but that's a milestone that really should be marked.

I've finished reading Abraham Merritt's The Moon Pool (the original, short version, as it first appeared) to my twelve-year-old, and I only have one question: WHY WAS THIS NEVER MADE INTO A MOVIE?!?!?!! I suppose the original story, while it has a serious creepy vibe, isn't exactly dripping with action and excitement. There's some phenomenal special effects just waiting to happen, though, and the sequel (Conquest of the Moon Pool) definitely has the action part going for it. It also has an army of frog-men long before Lovecraft penned anything about half-human fish-people. That is a visual that would look great on a big screen. Someone has to make this happen.

The weather is turning toward summer now, with temperatures breaking the mercury here at home. Thank God for air conditioning. I did my annual ritual today, standing in front of the A/C with my shirt off, just letting the cold air blast over me. Man, does it feel good. I was foolish enough to walk the dogs around lunch time, with a heat advisory going on. What was I thinking? Even the dogs though I was insane, panting the whole way and drowning themselves in the water dish when we got home.

I've been considering what I could write that wouldn't require expensive cover art so I can reach my goal for publishing this month. I'm inclined to look at the Adventure genre. Not fantasy, sci-fi or anything like that, but pulp adventure in the Indiana Jones vein. That could be a lot of fun to write. I'll have to think about it some more, but there's got to be some kind of pulpy adventure I could handle. Maybe something to do with Egypt; I like Egypt. Or something more along the lines of the early days of American colonization. That could be interesting.

I'm rambling tonight, but there's nothing particularly pressing to talk about, and I don't feel like ranting about the latest COVID-19 news. Tomorrow will be a new day, so we'll see what happens, and what inspires me.

In the meantime, you could always take in a mystery; check out my second Cameron Vail book, The Missing Magnate, available on Amazon. And please, support indie publishing, because it's where the best stories can be found.

Sitting on the Deck of the Bay

I'm writing this just after coming in from sitting on a brand-new, 30x12-foot deck off our back door. Man, that was a lot of work. I'm aching in places I didn't know could ache. I'm also ready to star in one of Jeff Foxworthy's 'redneck' jokes. But the smile on my wife's face made it all worthwhile.

Our help showed up this morning unannounced; we weren't even dressed yet, and hadn't had breakfast. So, we naturally got right to work, with food coming a bit later. By lunch time, we had about a third of the deck covered; by supper, the deck was all but finished, and we started on the privacy wall. Well, it's primarily a movie screen, but it helps keep the nosy neighbor from watching our kids. Creepy as heck, believe me.

So, we just need to put the steps up, get one more deck board for the top of the movie screen, and finish skirting the rest. After that, we're having our friends back over to inaugurate the movie screen. Screw social distancing; we're having dinner and a movie with friends.

I was planning to do more stuff tonight, but that's not happening just now. Bed is going to be wonderful tonight, even with two dogs between my wife and I. I plan to sleep until six. In the evening.

Of course, there's more stuff to do; I've got kids to homeschool, for one thing. Our youngest, despite his autism, is showing quite a bit of progress, and we're going to be starting him on a learning program now. He's already got a good grasp of the alphabet and counting, so we're going to move into phonics and the like. He's also asking me to read him stories at bedtime now, which is awesome.

So, another short blog post tonight, and tomorrow we're going to be furnishing the deck. And I'll get the teenager and his buddies to move the rest of the heavy stuff, because I'm going to be in traction for a while.

All Hands on Deck!

God, I'm tired.

I'm talking bone-deep exhaustion, my feet are on strike, my brain is foggy...Holy crap.

I, along with my son and my best friend, spent the day building a deck where our back step used to be. It's nearly 31 feet by 12 feet, extending along the entire back wall of the house up to the basement steps. We're not done, but the frame is almost complete; we've got eight joists left to go. My friend's coming back tomorrow so we can get it done.

There's a reason my dream job involves sitting at a computer all day and making stuff up. Manual labor just doesn't fit in that scheme. Some people, like my son, are built for manual labor, both physically and mentally. He's just a shade under six feet tall, and has been into tools, trains and heavy machinery since shortly after leaving the womb. I, on the other hand, stretch out to 5'7 1/2" on a good day, and have a pronounced allergy to tools. More accurately, they're allergic to me. My father-in-law installed a rule board in his workshop a few years ago. It says, 'Rule 1: Glen is not allowed to touch any tools. Rule 2: If you need Glen to get one of my tools, see Rule 1.' I think that was right after I broke two hammers and three screwdrivers on one job. What can I say? I have a gift.

We actually didn't do too badly today, though; I didn't break anything. The only screw-ups on the day were when we put the supporting patio stones too close together and had to move them out further, and when my son cut a board an inch too short. Fortunately, neither screw-up was irreversible, and we took care of it. I actually wasn't responsible for any of the screw-ups, so I'm calling that a win.

My wife participated; we needed her to go buy a couple of things that we were short on; lag bolts and washers. She came back with those, and with a new patio furniture set that just happened to be on clearance. A ten-dollar shopping trip turned into over five hundred just like that. I knew there was trouble when she came back and said those famous words: "Guess how much money I saved, Honey!"

My wallet weeps.

Anyway, I'm cutting this one short today, because I'm going to bed early. And tomorrow, we get to do it all over again. We're going to get the deck and the privacy screen up tomorrow; it's going to be great. But first...sleep. And pain-killers. Especially pain-killers.

The Joys of Random Rolling

As a writer, I appreciate a well-written plot and an exciting story. Books and television shows can provide great tales of adventure that are a lot of fun to experience. But there's something about that experience that doesn't translate to role-playing games.

When RPGs began, people were expected to come up with their own adventures and settings. Most campaigns began with a twenty-minute character creation session, then jumping right into the adventure. Some DMs didn't even prepare very much; they just dropped the PCs at the nearest dungeon entrance and away they went, making it up on the fly.

Old-school games, especially D&D, are great for doing things on the fly. There's no need to do a full month's work to set up the game, because the game has tools built into it to not only make that job easier, but more fun, as well.

See, being a Dungeon Master is a lot like being a writer; almost every author has tendencies and habits that come out in their writing. Maybe it's a particular way of writing dialogue, or characteristics common to the story's hero or villain. Heck, the pulp writers were notorious for writing formulaic stories that had the same basic plots; Lester Dent wrote a famous piece on how to write a story in 6,000 words using a particular formula. And it works; the pulps were enormously popular for decades, and we still, as human beings, crave that style of writing. If you don't believe me, I present Star Wars as the most obvious example; it's 100% pulp, and when it came out it became a world-wide sensation.

But with role-playing games, that formulaic feeling doesn't always translate well. DMs have their particular patterns, just as writers do. Some DMs use certain monsters all the time; others regularly use traps at key points. There's nothing wrong with that, but the worst thing for a game is predictability. Adventurers shouldn't be able to guess what's coming up next just because they know that the 'gods' (the DM) repeat themselves constantly.

Now, it's not that you can't disguise those patterns or minimize their appearance; any halfway-decent DM can do that well enough. But the problem with those patterns is that people will often overlook options, simply because their thought process goes toward A or B, but rarely ever notices F and G. That's where randomness comes in.

When D&D first appeared in 1974, the original boxed set included tables for stocking the dungeon, and for random wilderness encounters. Drawing the map was up to the DM, but you could use the tables to randomly determine what would be found within. So far, so good. But you still had to draw the map, and people have patterns there, too. Again, it's not that patterns are bad, but there's a good chance certain options will be missed.

Then, in the very first issue of the Strategic Review, the first periodical ever published, Gary Gygax provided the solution to that, as well: Random dungeon design tables. Draw your starting room, then start rolling. What's behind the door on the west wall? Roll and find out. Oh, there's a corridor that ends in a chamber. How big is it? Roll and find out. What's in the chamber? Roll and find out. It might be a pit trap; it might be a pool of water. There might be a chasm cutting through the chamber that you have to cross to get to the other side.

Now, I'm not saying that just rolling randomly is going to make a great adventure; it's not. But what it will do is stimulate the imagination, and get the DM asking, 'Why?'. Why is that chasm there? Was there an earthquake a long time ago? A magical accident? A subterranean digger made it? Who knows? But that's where the imagination comes in. And it applies to more than just map design, too.

Here's a brief example of how this could work. I have a spreadsheet that I made for first-edition AD&D that is specifically designed to stock a dungeon, or to provide wilderness encounters, or treasures in a monster's lair. It uses the Frequency rating I mentioned in yesterday's post, and it's designed to mimic the Dungeon Masters Guide's 'Dungeon Random Monster Level Determination Matrix' on page 174 of the 1e DMG. So, depending on what level of the dungeon you're on, you'll encounter creatures of various power levels. On the first level, you've got a 1-in-20 chance of encountering a level III monster, such as an ogre, a gelatinous cube, or even a baby dragon. Most of the things you meet on the first level, however, will be things like goblins, kobolds, and skeletons, things that low-level characters can handle reasonably well.

So, since it automatically does the stocking for me (it saves a ton of time), here's an example of what might be placed on the first level. There's a room with eight orcs who have no treasure other than what they're carrying (a few silver pieces, perhaps). But next to them is a room with a dire wolf, which is guarding three pieces of valuable jewelry. So, why don't the orcs have the valuable treasure instead? A couple of easy answers come to mind.

First, the dire wolf is a pet or guard dog, trained by the orcs. If someone shows up and starts a fight, the orcs open the door to the wolf's room and out it comes, making the intruders' day rather rough. The orcs keep the treasure with the wolf because they can't split the treasure evenly among eight of them, and they don't trust each other with any of it.

The second option that I thought of was to have the orcs separate from the dire wolf; in fact, they want nothing to do with that horrible, nasty beast that will eat them as readily as it will human adventurers. So, they've got the door bolted, and won't open it for anything. As for the treasure, well...the orcs haven't ever been able to get into that room, so they don't even know the treasure exists, and neither does the wolf (nor would it care). The treasure was left there many years ago and forgotten, long before the orcs or wolf ever showed up.

Now, could I have thought of those scenarios on my own? Sure. Would I have? Who knows? Giving the dice free rein to come up with wild and crazy ideas makes for an interesting adventure, though. Here's an example of a more 'out-there' idea.

Lower down in the dungeon (on Level V), my Stocking Matrix put together a set of three rooms near each other that all contain exactly six cockatrices, none of which are guarding any treasure. Not too far from them, there's an adult red dragon. Interesting. What can the enterprising DM do with that situation?

Obviously, the red dragon is running a cockatrice farm, breeding them for some nefarious purpose. And when the cockatrices do their thing on unsuspecting intruders and turn them into statues, the dragon collects them for his own little museum. Certainly, a dragon can carry a man-sized stone statue in its claws, right? So, one of the rooms nearby will have a bunch of statues in it, all petrified adventurers who ran into the cockatrice kennels. And the dragon might have some magic that allows it to separate precious metals and magic from the statue, so it can add them to its hoard. I like this, even though it gives the dragon a kind of magic that doesn't technically exist in the game rules. I can do that, since I'm the DM, right? And it doesn't really affect game play, so it doesn't make the dragon more powerful than it should be.

So, random design can be just as fun as meticulous plotting, and best of all, it doesn't take nearly as long, especially when we can have the computer automate the process in seconds. Which leaves more time for the fun part, too.

While I didn't use random stocking to create Meterra, the upcoming anthology, The Devil's Playground, is based on a dungeon I created a long time ago that does use random stocking. While you're waiting for that, check out The Chronicles of Meterra: Arrival, available now on Amazon in either e-book or paperback.

Amazing Stories #6, Sept. 1926

So, it's another Amazing Thursday, and time once again to review an issue the first science-fiction pulp magazine. This is the sixth issue, dated September, 1926, and we've got quite an interesting collection of five stories today. That, of course, means longer stories. So, strap on your rocket-belt, grab your ray gun, and assume a heroic pose as we venture into the future! Or, at least, a really old version of the future.

COVER

Well, we've got an interesting cover of a lizard-like humanoid trying to stab a man with a spear. The man, however, is in some kind of chamber or ball with a window, so he can point and laugh at the futility of the lizard man's attempt on his life. Looking at it more closely, it looks like it's underwater, so it's a submarine or a bathysphere. Good to know that sci-fi doesn't have to go out into space to be exciting.

EDITORIAL

Gernsback tells us that people have been writing asking that the name of the magazine be changed to 'Scientifiction.' Wisely, Gernsback chose Amazing Stories instead, and explains why: Because a name like 'Scientifiction' would scare off the average reader, while Amazing Stories holds a promise of wonder, adventure, and the fantastic. Circulation numbers seem to justify his decision, as the magazine is already at 100,000 copies printed a month., and still growing. He also lets us know that the majority of readers want the magazine to go semi-monthly instead of monthly, and he's planning to do that eventually, probably by the end of the year. Well, that sucks.

IN THE ABYSS, H.G. Wells

Well, the first story is the one that provides the cover; on the title page we see a similar scene, with no fewer than nine lizard-men surrounding the bathysphere, including three on top of it. Their spears still can't penetrate the glass, of course, since if it can withstand the pressure of the ocean floor, it's not going to even get a scratch from a spear. At just over five pages, it's the shortest story in the magazine.

First published in Pearson's Magazine back in August of 1896, it also appeared in Short Stories magazine in June, 1908, before being reprinted here. It tells the story of the first successful attempt to descend to the depths of the ocean and return safely. Of course, since this is Wells and this is science fiction, there's going to be some interesting discoveries down there. Sure enough, the adventurous Elstead (no first name is given, unless I missed it) descends in a sphere of his own design and doesn't return for several hours. When he recuperates from his adventure a week later, he relates the story of an underwater civilization peopled with bipedal frog/lizard men, who begin to worship his sphere as a deity. Eventually he does get to leave before he loses breathable air, and returns to the surface. Eventually, Elstead goes on another undersea trip, but never returns.

I like that this story goes somewhere Amazing hasn't gone yet: Under the ocean. It's a ripe environment for exploration even today; we haven't explored very much of the ocean bottom even today. Sure, we've mapped it out and know the contours and such, but there is a LOT of ocean that we haven't ever touched. So, this story is one that resonates with me, at least. One hundred and twenty-four years after it was written. Good stuff.

A COLUMBUS OF SPACE, Part II, Garrett P. Serviss

Here we go with the second part of this fascinating story. This is easily my favorite entry in the entire run thus far. Having read Burroughs, I'm struck by the parallels in the two stories; I still stand by my belief that Burroughs was familiar with this story, first published three years before Under the Moons of Mars.

Alright, so we start off with a reception in the capital city of the humanoid Venusians, where Edmund, the intrepid engineer/explorer, is catching the interest of Princess Ala. I forgot to mention in the last review that Venus has a warm side and a cold side; the first people they encountered were on the cold side, and of course there were glaciers and ice caves to contend with, as well as Juba's people. Juba is, of course, the humanoid they picked up and brought along with them, and it's a good thing, because he saves their bacon here.

The story takes some exciting twists and turns, and there's a daring escape from prison, lights that substitute as music (the atmosphere of Venus is thicker, remember, so sound travels through it with a lot more power), and aerial chases galore, not to mention exotically beautiful scenery and wildlife, and an even more exotically beautiful Princess. This story has everything you could ask for, and it's a crime that it's not better known. This would make an absolutely killer movie. This installment is nineteen action-packed pages long. I can't recommend it enough.

THE PURCHASE OF THE NORTH POLE, Part I, Jules Verne

Another serial entry here, we have another of Verne's scientific romances. This one doesn't have much in the way of action or adventure; it's basically a book-long discussion of groups of people attempting to, as the title says, buy the North Pole. The eventual winners are old friends to Verne readers: The Gun Club, the American firearms enthusiasts who built the world's largest cannon and shot a capsule to the moon, just to say it could be done, nearly twenty years earlier. You can read all about that in Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon, if you like. This time, though, they're planning to do something a bit...crazier.

See, they are convinced that there's coal under the North Polar ice caps, and they're going to get it. How? After all, at that point in time the North Pole was still virtually inaccessible to humanity; it would be another twenty years after this book was first published (1889) until Robert Peary reached the Pole, and that's still under some debate. So, how is the Gun Club planning to dig up this buried coal?

By blowing it up, of course! That's what the Gun Club does! Actually, they're not really interested in coal; they're just going to set off a gigantic explosion up there that will reset the Earth's axis so that the pole is pointing straight up. This will, of course, eliminate seasonal changes in the climate, not to mention completely screwing up the world's ecology, but that wasn't really a major consideration in the 1880s like it is today.

Running seventeen pages, this installment ends with the revelation of the Gun Club's plan. It's mostly discussion and humor; as I said, no action to speak of, so it's a bit disappointing, especially compared to the previous story.

STATION X, Part III, G. McLeod Winsor

The concluding episode of this story takes us to the wonderful world of naval combat, as a task force of British ships seeks to stop the psychic invasion of Earth through the Martian-controlled Macrae. The goal: Blow up the island and prevent any chance of the Martian infecting anyone else on the planet. It takes just over 26 pages to finish the story, the last third or so of which is highlighted by the aforementioned naval battle.

The first part of the serial deals with the political fallout from the revelation that there's an alien psyche possessing a man on a military installation island, especially after a naval vessel lands there and is similarly possessed. Professor Rudge now has to work fast with his Venerian allies (that name still makes me chuckle) to contain the outbreak of Martian-itis, which culminates in a wild battle that involves alien technology being countered by good old-fashioned naval artillery. In the end, Rudge leads humanity to triumph, and since Macrae is out of the picture, he even gets the girl in the end.

This one was definitely action-packed at the end, and Winsor had some very creative alien tech (for 1919) with which to plague the Navy. The shift from Macrae to Rudge (who barely appeared in the first installment) as the main character takes a bit away from the story, but it's realistic that someone getting possessed by a murderous alien psyche isn't going to walk away from that experience. I liked it, though I don't know if I'll go back to it as I will A Columbus of Space.

THE MOON HOAX, Richard Adams Locke

This...is an interesting piece. It's not a science fiction story; it's actually a hoax that was printed in newspapers back in 1835, purporting to be relating astronomical discoveries on the Moon using super-powered telescopes. It was featured in the New York Sun in August of that year, and the result of it was to increase the small paper's circulation to over 50,000 within a week of the first installment being published. The whole thing was made up, however.

The alleged discoveries are described in detail, and whatever Locke's faults with honesty were, he certainly made up for them with imagination. This is way out there; seventeen full pages of description of the most fantastic and absurd things on the moon. Well, sixteen pages; the last one is simply a collection of quotes from contemporary newspapers about how astounding the discoveries were. It's quite amusing.

The first five-and-a-half pages of the story describe the telescope and the observatory it was supposed to have been built at. In 1835, not too many New Yorkers ventured down to the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, so it wasn't much of a risk to set the fictional observatory there. The invented observations include trees, inhabited valleys, magnificent gemstones much larger than those found on Earth, wildlife...and even a mention of how cloudy weather obscured the view on some nights. Islands surrounded by bodies of water, extinct volcanoes...and winged people flying around in what must have seemed like Eden to people reading it at the time.

This one is tough to judge, since it's obviously fiction, but it was originally presented as fact. It's an entertaining read in terms of world-building, but there really isn't anything going on. It's basically a long, drawn-out verbal illustration, rather than a story with a plot. So, I'll give it a thumbs-in-the-middle.

CONCLUSION

Well, this issue is full of big stories; only one short story, three serials, and a full novelette. The quality is still a bit uneven; I've already waxed enthusiastically about Garrett P. Serviss, while the Station X conclusion is also satisfying. The other three...not so much. The ideas are definitely wild and out there, but they weren't so much stories as they were scenery. Wells at least had a bit of story there in terms of things actually happening, but Verne, and of course Locke, didn't. So, overall, I'll say that while I would recommend this issue to anyone, there's only a couple of stories worth reading. But they make up for the others in a big way.

Why Old School is the Best School

I've talked about writing for the last few days, which of course is my priority, and tomorrow night I'll have another Amazing Stories magazine review up. Those will, apparently, be a regular Thursday thing. Hey, it works for me. If pulp fans find my blog, they'll have something to look forward to on Thursdays.

However, I have other things I like to talk about, things which my wife isn't as keen on...I think you know where this is going, right?

That's right, it's a gaming post.

I'm an old-school gamer, just like I'm an old-school reader and an old-school writer and an old-school pretty much everything you can think of. I've even thought about getting my old desktop computer back up and running as a writing machine; it ran Windows 95, but if the hard drive's degraded and I have to reinstall, I've got DOS and Windows 3.1 on 3.5" floppy disks, as well as Microsoft Works. Yeah, that's old-school. It died shortly before I moved in with my then-fiancée, and has just been sitting under the house ever since. And it survived the Great Flood of two months ago, so that's a bonus.

Anyway, back to gaming. I'm firmly of the opinion that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st Edition, is the greatest game ever created in the history of mankind. Controversial in some quarters, I know, but I'll stick by it, and here's a list of reasons why:

1. Heroic characters, but not super-heroic. Even high-level characters are going to risk death going into a dragon's lair, because a well-played 1E dragon is just nasty. The 2nd edition dragons are frightening to even look at, because they're about twice as tough as their 1e counterparts. Third edition? Forget it; you're not even killing a baby dragon in that game, unless the DM is helping you. Of course, from what I've seen lately in games, that's exactly what a lot of DMs do; PCs in more modern RPGs have a likelier chance of catching COVID-19 in the game world than they do of getting killed.

2. Following up from the first point, mortality is a thing. There's actual risk of your character dying in 1st edition. It's not quite as lethal as Moldvay/BECMI at low levels, since clerics actually have healing spells at 1st level, but man, it's no walk in the park. Beginning players will learn quickly that pretty much everything you run into underground is likely to kill you, including the walls, floors, ceilings, and furniture. And your character doesn't have healing surges or a 15-minute workday to make it easy. If you leave, when you come back there will be something there to replace whatever you were fighting before.

3. It doesn't take long to get started. A 1st edition character can be rolled up in less than fifteen minutes. Maybe a wee bit more if you're a magic-user, but even then, you're just seeing a few extra dice rolls to determine your spells. A fighter can be done in five minutes if you know what you're doing. No feats, no optimization tactics, and no complicated backgrounds; just roll the dice and git 'r done. A character creation session can be part of the first adventure. And then you meet in a tavern and talk to the mysterious stranger who has something for you to do...

4. Sandboxing. No, I don't mean punching the beach. A sandbox, as pretty much every old-school player knows, is simply a setting where the characters have a lot of free rein to go where they want and do what they want. It's a big switch from the modern style of 'adventure paths' and long, plotted-out campaigns that use railroad tracks to get the players from one adventure to the other. In a sandbox, the DM gives you a few hints as to what's out there, and you decide what your characters are going to do. Do you want to go explore that ruined castle and its environs? I hear there's a lost treasure buried there. Or, you might be feeling brave and go to that village that is complaining about ogre raids. For the experienced and foolhardy adventurers, there's a rumor that a dragon lairs in the mountains to the north, sleeping on a Smaugian bed of treasure.

5. Game balance? What game balance? In an old-school game, don't assume that you can take on anything you encounter. Sure, your group of rag-tag beginners can handle a small squad of kobolds, but that carrion crawler is going to mess up your day, because half of you are going to be paralyzed by the time you take it down...if you got lucky. And you can bet that waiting around for your friends to start moving again is going to bring the wrath of something nasty down upon you. Old-schoolers learn the very important adage, 'He who lives and runs away, lives to fight another day.' Someday your characters will be tough enough to take on a band of marauding ogres, but that is not this day. Step back, and find some giant rats to kill instead.

6. The game is complex enough to satisfy the more detail-oriented gamer, but it doesn't bog down into endless rule-checking. Much of what a game needs is in the core books; the rest can be just ruled on at the spur-of-the-moment, if you don't have it at hand. That's another skill that old-schoolers develop, the skill of just ruling on the fly instead of arguing about how the rule is worded in the Complete Psychopath's Handbook compared to how it's written in the Dungeon Master's Guide to Arguing with Rules Lawyers. Just get on with the game, because the point is to have fun.

7. Realistic ecology. "Realistic? In a fantasy role-playing game?!" Yep, I said it. What do I mean by realistic? Obviously, I don't mean that it's exactly like our own world in medieval times. We didn't have magic, dragons, or dinosaurs running around in 12th-century Europe. No, what I mean by realism is that monsters are given a frequency rating: Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare. Some are also classified as Unique, but I'm not discussing them just now. Those frequencies are very, very important. Why? Because some creatures simply don't appear in large numbers, or else the world population would have been reduced to zero from everything getting eaten.

Here's an example of this: I've put together a spreadsheet that includes every monster I could find for 1st edition from the first boxed set to the advent of 2nd edition in 1989. If your characters are wandering around a wilderness forest, and your DM rolls an encounter, there's a 65% chance that you're going to run into something like a bear, a giant beetle, giant centipedes, wild boars, rats, birds, wolves, large spiders, giant toads, ogres, orcs, and even a werewolf. Those are the common critters. There's only a 4% chance that you're going to run into something really exotic, like a cockatrice, a red dragon, gargoyle, ghost, or a vegepygmy (I still remember them). And since there are so many more monsters that are ranked as 'very rare' as opposed to 'common' ones, the odds of encountering a particular very rare creature is less than 1 in 90 at best. And that's if you get the 4% chance to encounter one in the first place.

So, what does that mean? It means, quite simply, that most of the 'very rare' creatures are going to end up, essentially, being unique. The odds of encountering more than one of them are slim at best, and Slim's walking out the door. So, unless an encounter is planned out by the DM, random determination isn't going to favor finding the really out-there critters. And I like it that way; it makes for a more sword-and-sorcery game, where you encounter more mundane opponents most of the time, making the very rare encounters more exciting and challenging.

One of the reasons I like writing fantasy so much is, of course, because of this game. It's inspired me for nearly four decades now, and I'm going to keep writing it for as long as I can. If you want to see how I was inspired, check out The Chronicles of Meterra: Arrival, on Amazon, available in e-book or paperback format.

What You Love

Starting out to be a prolific writer means that certain decisions have to be made. One of the most obvious ones is, what are you going to write about? It has to be a topic or genre that you love, that inspires you to let your imagination run wild and come up with all kinds of fantastic and wonderful ideas. Ideas that you can share with the world, and have them want to come back for more.

In my case, that is adventure fiction, specifically in the fantasy/sci-fi bracket. I have a dozen ideas for adventures that span the galaxy, or the wilderness of a world no one has heard of before. I have ideas for epic tales that span a dozen books, and stories short enough to be read in a sitting. Stories of fantastic magic, epic heroes, stalwart space marines, and all points in between.

But here's the rub: It's easy to write these, but not as easy to publish them. Why?

Cover art.

I mentioned the issues I had with my fantasy anthology and getting a decent cover. Fortunately, I'm rectifying that problem now, and while the book might not actually be released by the end of the month, it will at least be ready to go by the 31st; Amazon takes a couple of days to release it.

So, I've written three mystery novels* and a multi-genre anthology of short stories in addition to my one published fantasy novel, The Chronicles of Meterra: Arrival. The four non-fantasy books had an advantage that Arrival didn't have: I can do those covers myself, using stock photos found for free on the internet.

As I mentioned yesterday, however, it's difficult to find photographs of knights fighting made-up monsters in an underground forest on the internet. So, that sort of thing needs to be commissioned, which costs money.

Now, in these glorious days of COVID-19 mania, money is both easy and hard to get at the same time. Easy, because the Canadian government is handing it out to anyone who asks for it. Hard, because I can't go out and work to earn it myself. And since I'm a new author, sales aren't where I would need them to be to finance further covers from worthy artists. It's a Catch-22. I need to make more money to buy cover art and pay for editing for new books, but I need the new books out to make the money.

And so, I feel that I'm forcing myself to write things I don't really feel all that jazzed about in order to reach my publishing quota. And that's not a good thing, because quality suffers when the passion isn't there.

Don't get me wrong; I like Cameron Vail and Bill Potts. It's just tough to get inspired to write them sometimes, especially when my subconscious mind gets way out there and goes off in directions that aren't even on the compass. It's like my mind is trying to turn these into a different kind of story. That might not necessarily be a bad thing, but I'm not quite sure how to take it at this point.

Anyway, while nothing is going to stop me from writing, I do need to be more selective and careful about what I'm writing, and how I'm going to reach my goal of 20 books this year. Once the fantasy anthology is finished, I'll be at six, with fourteen to go...and seven months to do it. Yikes. I hate putting that kind of pressure on myself, but I seem to do it all the time.

I could publish three other books tomorrow if I had covers for them. And that would be a lot of fun, because they are different kinds of stories. That's what drives me as a writer: Different ideas, a synthesis of what I've read and written before, coming together into something new and wonderful. Ideas that have been percolating in my head literally for decades.

Including the mystery idea that just came into my mind, one that I came up with a long time ago. Hmm...Maybe I can do the mystery thing for a while longer after all.

* Those three mysteries are, of course, Final Exam, The Missing Magnate, and Best Served Cold. Check them and my other books out at Amazon today, and spread the word about indie publishing.

Doing it Right the First Time

I was hoping to have my new anthology ready to go by this week. Unfortunately, I've run into a snag. The stories are edited and ready to go, but the cover art isn't there. I did commission a piece, but it wasn't what I wanted. Or rather, it was. Unfortunately, what I wanted wasn't what I needed.

The cover artist for The Chronicles of Meterra: Arrival, Alex Lechev, did a great job, in my opinion. Naturally, I went to him first, but I saw that his prices are higher than they were three months ago. Almost double, in fact. So, I went somewhere else, because I was thinking in terms of budget and what I could 'afford' to do.

Now, that's not an unreasonable thing to consider, especially when sales are rather slow so far. I mean, social media isn't my thing, and neither is marketing, so it's tough for to get the word out to people about the books I've written. So, I feel I have to pinch the pennies. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for. This is a lesson I've learned many, many times in the past, but it obviously didn't stick. So, I went cheap, and that's exactly what I got.

It's just not going to work, not for the book I wrote, at least. So, instead of getting the right guy to do the art two weeks ago so I could release the book now, I have to hope that he can do it in less than two weeks so I can have it out by the end of the month. If he'll even take the job. And I'll still have to pay the price, on top of what I paid for the cheaper cover.

Lesson learned. Quality isn't cheap, and for a new writer who wants to be taken seriously, cheap covers aren't going to cut it. Sure, for my mysteries I can do the covers myself; find a free picture online that fits the book's theme, and I'm good to go. But it's not easy to find a free picture online of a group of knights fighting weird monsters in an underground forest. Essentially impossible, actually. Trust me, I looked.

So, once again...lesson learned. If you want it done right, don't cheap out. Some things just can't be done that way. And cover art for fantasy novels is included in those things. For those of you who can't wait to read it...sorry about that. I promise, it will be worth the wait. But for now, I want it to look right, since that's what's going to get people's attention first if they come across it.

I linked to the Meterra novel earlier, but I should also mention my latest published book, Best Served Cold, the third Cameron Vail mystery. Check it out, and tell your friends, too. Support indie publishers, because we offer something the traditional publishers don't: Fun.

Life's Chapters

My wife found a sweet deal on a sale site she frequents; we got a big plastic tote full of someone's homeschooling materials for only 50 bucks. Considering how much stuff was in there, we got a major bargain. Manipulatives, flash cards, tons of books on all kinds of subjects...it's quite the haul.

One of the books in the tote is The Well Trained Mind, by Susan Wise Bauer, a long-time homeschooling mom and advocate. It's about teaching kids the way kids used to be taught before the 'progressives' got hold of education and turned it into something completely dismal. It focuses on the old trivium method of teaching, which means you stuff the younger kids' heads full of facts, the middle-schoolers learn how to analyze those facts, and the high-schoolers learn how to take those facts and understand them and what they mean in their lives.

I'm oversimplifying it, of course; you don't teach six-year-olds calculus and trigonometry, or have them memorizing passages of Plato and Aristotle. But you give them the solid foundation they need so they can master those bigger things when they reach that age.

One of the things in that book was a brief 'note from Jessie,' one of the contributors to the book. As soon as I saw it, I made sure my wife read it. The thing that really resonated with her was Jessie's discussion of how life has chapters, and we can't live them all at once. That's something a lot of people don't understand; they want it all, and they want it now. Well, life doesn't work that way. If you're going to do one thing, something else isn't going to be done right away, or at all. If you're going to homeschool your children, you're not going to be taking a round-the-world cruise in the middle of it, pandemic or not. Some things simply have to be put off until a later time.

My wife and I have both struggled with that notion, as I expect a lot of others have. I want to write a crap-ton of books and sell them on multiple platforms, and I also want to read a huge pile of books, as well as homeschool my kids, and maybe take a round-the-world cruise at some point. But that's not all going to happen at once. So, since some things can be put off, they're going to be. Some things, of course, can't be put off; homeschooling is not something I can wait to do until the kids are in their teens. So, that's priority. Feeding the family is also a huge priority, so that means working full-time. Which, unfortunately, will cut into the writing time, so I'm going to have to get as much of that done as I can while we wait for this stupid virus nonsense to go away so we can get back to work.

So, the reading takes a back seat to the priorities (although I still make a point of reading every day; I'm just not reading full novels on a daily basis). And the cruise...well, we can always hope for it. But that's a want, not a need, and it can wait forever if necessary. If my kids are well-educated and have successful careers, and I've got a bunch of books out on Amazon for people to read, then I've accomplished something much more important than a world cruise.

On the writing front, my editor just returned the last of the short stories for my next anthology, so I'm just waiting for the cover art before I publish it. It's a fantasy anthology, set in the same place as The Chronicles of Meterra: Arrival. So, since it's nearly here, you might want to pick up a copy of the first book, in e-book or in paperback, before reading the anthology. Just a suggestion.

Falling Behind

Well, I was hoping to have another book published by now, but I'm behind. I still have one more story in my anthology for my editor to go over, and I'm waiting for my cover art. But, as long as I get it published before the end of the month and get the next one ready, I'll still be on track for my 20 for the year.

I know, it's a crazy goal. Nobody writes that many books! It's just not possible!

Actually, it is; full-time writers do it regularly. And in the world of indie publishing, anyone can do it if they're committed to it. It sounds insane, I know. But I'm going to prove that it can be done. Besides, we're still stuck at home with nothing to do; I might as well write, right?

The thing about writing is that it's just like any other skill, or job, or career. You have to work at it to succeed, and the more time you put in, the better you'll do. I worked out the math, because that's the sort of thing I do. Math is great, because it lays everything out in stark detail.

So, what does the math say? My average writing speed is between 2,000 and 2,500 words per hour at the moment. And I'm working on improving that. What does that mean? Again, math: If I treat writing like a job and do it for eight hours a day, I can spit out between 16,000 and 20,000 words per day. Now, I have to really know what I'm going to write about, and at least have a pretty solid outline in mind to put forth that amount of work and feel like it's quality material. But still, that's a significant amount of work. Especially when you consider that unless you're writing door-stopper epic fantasy, a novel is about 40,000-50,000 words. So, if I'm focused and on task, I can complete a novel in two or three DAYS.

That's unthinkable, isn't it? But really, it's not. As I said, it's the math. And if I can push out a novel in less than three days, I can complete two of them in a single work week. Not a month; a week. So, publishing two in a month isn't that far-fetched after all, is it?

Of course, that's assuming I can devote that amount of time to this on a daily basis. And it's not easy to do; there are a lot of distractions when you're working at home and don't have a private office that you can just close a door and hide away from the world. But now, with COVID-19 still making our lives boring, now is the time to experiment with this. I won't be able to do it next week; if the weather's nice, we're building a deck. And making that much of a jump would be a shock to the subconscious, too. But if I work up to it, devote three hours a day instead of the slightly-under-two that I've been able to do...that would be nice.

Now, the more important problem is that it doesn't do a lot of good to publish if nobody's buying, but that's something I hope to change. And if you're reading this blog, you can help by going to Amazon and picking up one of my books to see if you like it. I recommend A Universe of Possibilities, which is the anthology that will give you a sample of various genres that I write in. Then you can look at my other works that might interest you.