Splendid Isolation

(My original Judges Guild Judge's Shield (1977), DM view.)

Almost always I have used a dungeon master shield. 

• In 1978 I picked up the original first published Judge's Shield by Judges Guild. This was really made for OD&D using the Greyhawk supplement, but it worked for our D&D gane until the Dungeon Masters Guide was released around the summer of 1979. (I made a canary yellow Advanced Labyrinth Lord screen in honor of my old and worn Judges Guild screen.)
• During this period of the late 70s through the 80s is was also common for Dungeon Master's to just use gatefold record albums. This did not provide any helpful tables, but did hide the DM's notes and often the record albums were chosen for their trippy art.
• Later (not sure when) I acquired or most likely shared the T$R AD&D (1st Ed.) Dungeon Master's Screen. This is probably the most classic and well known screen, even had a separate 2-panel screen just for psionics!) 
• When I restarted our game with new rules in 2004 I used the Ver. 3.5 D&D Deluxe Dungeon Master's Screen which was my first landscape paneled screen (my older screens basically had panels in portrait orientation). I really enjoyed being able to see over the screen better without having to stand up.
• When I developed a 3rd Ed./AD&D hybrid rules we used in our game starting in 2012 I found the original 3rd Edition DM screen from 2000 and just clipped a whole bunch of alternate tables on top the screen.
• During 2018 when we switched to a modified 5th Ed. I used Dungeon Master's Screen, Reincarnated (2017) which was the first landscape-panel screen I used in game play and was hardbacked instead of cardstock (4th Ed. had the first landscape/hardback screen I ever purchased, however we never ran our campaign in 4th Ed.) I ended up over time covering this screen in stickers.
• When we switched to Advanced Labyrinth Lord retro-clone in 2019 I made the aforementioned canary yellow Judges Guild tribute screen.
• I also created homemade ref screens for Arduin games I've run for Green Hell in 2022 and a more generic Arduin screen in 2023. And also made a little mini-screen for Lamentations of the Flame Princess off of art for a future screen that hasn't yet been published.
• During 2024 we first started our new 5th edition campaign I used the 5e screen from the 5e Wilderness Kit (the screen art is very cool), then when the 2024 revision books were released switched to the 2024 standard screen.

So what is the deal? I often have DMed without a shield, in particular by the 1990s when I knew the AD&D (1st ed) rules like the proverbial back of my hand. We also did a lot of "theatre of the mind" style games without miniatures and adventures were built out of imagination in real time improvised off simple maps and small sets of notes.

For me at least I enjoy having a wide variety of tables and notes for situations that might come up during a game. I am also often translating scenarios from different rules editions so want to make adjustments on the fly. Also cool and provocative player-facing art on a screen helps set the vibe a little.

And I guess I do like DMing from the far side of the table, away from the door, where a screen provides some privacy when I get up to pee and still have my maps and notes somewhat hidden. Unless someone wants to obviously sneak a peak.

Ha. mostly though, if I am being honest, when I am furiously going through a variety of materials trying to find that note or rules section or piece of a dungeon I am hacking for my campaign, it really is best for my players not to see that.

Attuning Fork (or I Almost Started Loving Myself Again)

But, nah, so probably the most significant 5th edition rule that grates on my OSR sensibilities is magic item attunement. 

The idea that certain magic items and their wielder to "form a bond" before the creature can use the item's magical properties is just a little to cozy. I can close my eyes and see Cyberpunk cybertech. (Should there be magic attunement psychosis?) And, as others have noted, the rules are pretty vague on what actually happens during the 1-hour short rest required to bond with such items - the time must be spent "focused on only that item while being in physical contact with it..." This takes away an opportunity to secure a magic item requiring attunement and using it during the battle during which the item is acquired. A total buzz kill.

The universal rule of a 3-item limit, for all creatures (except Artificers), seems inherently meta pox. Ugh. I understand that the 3-item rule only applies to certain magic items and for particular reasons unrelated to an items power, multiplicity of effects, or how interesting the item is (See Sword of Spirit's exhaustive look into the 2014 5e attunement, Reverse Engineering the Real Rules of Attunement, on EN World). 

The 2024 revision Dungeon Master's Guide no longer deigns to disclose a basis for when a particular magic item should require attunement. We can look back at the original 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide which informs (DMG, 2014, pg. 285):

Decide whether the item requires a character to be attuned to it to use its properties. Use these rules of thumb to help you decide:

1. If having all the characters in a party pass an item around to gain its lasting benefits would be disruptive, the item should require attunement.
2. If the item grants a bonus that other items also grant, it's a good idea to require attunement so that characters don't try to collect too many of those items.

Number 1 can be dealt with in other ways such as limits on the number of uses or the time between uses, or having the item be restricted to certain classes, species, etc. This is kind of silly as a reason because even with attunement items granting "lasting benefits" could be passed around.

That makes the reason that makes sense is to prevent stacking which we all know was quite out of control in 3rd edition. Which means keep attunement, but without being needlessly cumbersome.

Here are what I've culled as modified rules of attunement:

Attuning to a magic item that requires it may be by an Action that is not automatically successful.

The consequence for failure is you can perform attunement via a 10 minute Ritual-like focus and contact with the item. (You may always perform attunement via 10 minute Ritual-like focus and contact with the item.)

When an attempt is made to attune to an item, you must make a difficulty check according to the item type where bonuses to that roll correspond to your character attribute most closely related to the item's function and the check adds your proficiency bonus.

The DC is 10 for common items, 12 uncommon, 14 rare, 16 very rare, 18 legendary, and 20 artifact.

If the check succeeds, you attune to the item. However, if you fail, you must perform attunement via 10 minute Ritual-like focus and contact with the item. Some magic items (e.g. Artifacts) may present unique consequences for failure. 

NOTE: If you have already attuned to 3 items or more there is disadvantage on the check. Your successful check with 3 existing attuned items results that a random pre-existing attunement (that is not a cursed item) ends.

Attunement ends if:

• You no longer satisfy the prerequisites for attunement.
• The item has been more than 100 feet away from you for at least 24 hours.
• If you die.
• If another creature attunes to the item.
• If you voluntarily end attunement by a 10 minute Ritual-like focus and contact with the item unless the item is cursed.

To Touch the Annulus

(Matrox Lusch and Sick Rick bookend newcomers' viewing "The Annulus")

I finally dug into the "End of the Multiverse" scenario which was where our New Old Weird World campaign left off in 2022 (and the site of where our Blipping #2 campaign left off). The scenario is a hack from Dawn of the Overmind by Bruce R. Cordell. 

Ha, most everyone said the night vibed like an old Blipping game as yes we pretty much followed Ye elder game anatomy:

1. Drive: 2 hours each way from the Bay Area to Mountain Ranch up in the Sierra foothills.
2. Jam: We did have a pretty fun set, plus had our Geo Pigs singer Sumerled for a couple of covers "Last Days of May" and "Guns of the Roof."
3. Feeding Frenzy: Jeez, 3 flavors of BBQ chicken, steak, salad with homemade dressing (Thanks Michelle!), 2 different sorts of cheesy bread, etc., etc., etc... 
4. Pre-Game Business: So J.A.S. daughter visited with her beau and she hadn't gamed regularly with us since the ver. 3.5 "High Fantasy" days. They ended up playing Grady, the plane and time-hopping techno-barbarian from the 20th century. Then also, because the last time we played this party was in 2022 there was a bit of clean up like folks who couldn't find their current character sheet, what happened last time, stuff like that.
5. The Game: It was actually very exciting considering there were only a couple of encounters (well, 3, except the party purposefully avoided one). I did good when I mixed up the stats for the Grimlocks with another critter and gave the Grimlocks 4x damage from their claws due to their bodies producing a corrosive enzyme. Har, Plus I rolled 3 natural 20s on J.A.S.'s Pixie. (The Grimlocks use echo-location by emitting a soft clicking noise, to the Pixie's invisibility was nullified.) Fortunately I wasn't using the Arduin critical hit table or the Pixie would have been toast. On natural 20s I use exploding max damage, then if a character drops below zero then Zak Smith's Death & Dismemberment table. Raspatan the Elf cleric-assassin shifted himself over to the Astral Plane along with "7" the half-orc, Elf cleric mage Darrius, and the mercenary Sando Brech. It was Brech who grabbed the Annulus, and the characters also spotted not one, but two Mind Flayer "Engine Consummate" adrift on the Astral waiting to travel through time...
6. Interlude Journey: Was there? I am not sure. 
7. Stacking: Unfortunately no, we do not all drink nor as hard for most of those that do. 
8. Wind-Down: Indeed we chowed more sugar and discussed where to play the next session.
9. The Ride Home: Some did stay for breakfast. Me and a couple others headed back home at 1:30am, barely making a gas station in Mountain Ranch for a 12-pac of Budweiser just before 2am.

It was a good OSR-style game, at least our version of that style. Advanced Labyrinth Lord with my New Knights of the All Mind (Conventional Edition). Since all my other games are running 5th edition it felt good to have at least one intermittent old-style game hanging around. Although there is that pesky ending of the Multiverse thing. And the game finished as the Astral Travelers your see the destructive blot consuming the Multiverse had intruded even onto the Astral plane.

Party Like It's 1979

 

(Art by Cynthia Sims Millan, 1978)

I've got my half-round combat and floating seconds initiative for the low-rollers. What else from golden games of yore can I cram into the most modern version of D&D?

We had fun using in our game the critical hit table from Arduin which, as often mentioned in many commentaries, is daft because over time odds are your PCs are going to suffer many more double natural 20s than any individual monster they are presently fighting. What happened over time is crit tables became more watered down (no more having a spine severed in one blow).

An excellent replacement is the Death and Dismemberment table by Zak Smith of Playing D&D With Pornstars. Basically, the Death and Dismemberment table is an alternative to death saves in 5th edition. Once a character falls below 0 hit points, a single roll is made with a variety of modifications against a table ranging from the very bad (hey, my spine can be severed again!) to characters getting that second wind and single hit point that comes with it.

The fairness of a Death and Dismemberment Table is that someone has to already drop to zero hit points before it's rolled on. To get there you use the standard critical hits of double damage (although I am experimenting with an exploding damage die on crits). This method is more fair to PCs, but still leads to broken bones and scars.

Another thing, that I am somewhat on the fence about, are divine intervention rolls. These used to be pretty common back in the day as a last ditch before character death or TPK, although it doesn't seem to be very common in the same way nowadays. The latest edition asking for divine intervention and expecting results is limited to 10th level clerics receiving a free cast of 5th level or lower spell or a 20th level cleric getting a free wish. And looing like RAW the cleric can call upon their deity as often as they meet the rest requirements.

I kind of like the idea that only the divine magic practitioners may call upon their personal deities, I had several religiously ne'er do well characters who asked for divine intervention without even listing a deity on their character sheet. But I still thing there should be some rules a'la the 1st ed AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide (pgs 111-112) that deities may refuse or even be angered by excessive requests for extra special boons. I have a table that expands on the original olden rolls, and will be working on something to make the clerical divine intervention interplay a little more robust. And perhaps offer some kind of an expansion to any character that regularly practices their religious faith.

What other gems have I tried to maintain over the years...? Ha, I do like weapon to-hit mods by armor type (although I've become attached to Anthony Huso's idea of tying the modifications to numeric base armor class sans dex & magic modifiers). I noticed character's age, height, and weight tables are missing from the latest versions. Ditto for eye and hair color. I mean, you could just pick an abnormal color - but those special Arduin tables were fun too. 

Half-Round Combat

Using half rounds for combat can add granularity and tension to combat encounters in your 5th edition D&D campaign. 

A standard round is 6 seconds, and each creature acts once per round in initiative order (a creature’s turn). Half rounds divide that round into two 3-second phases:

    • Phase A and Phase B
This allows for two opportunities to act per round with a movement and possible bonus action or by taking an action. How a creature may act is limited per phase dependent on the choice of which opportunity to act is taken first.

Mechanics
1. Initiative
    • Roll initiative as normal. 
    • Each round is split into two phases. 

    • Each phase is taken in initiative order.
2. Action Economy Per Phase
Generally split actions like this:
Phase Allowed Actions
   A Movement + Bonus Action
   B Action or Reaction Setup

Or:

Phase Allowed Actions

   A Action or Reaction Setup

   B Movement + Bonus Action
This motivates players to plan ahead, creating tactical depth.

Creatures move or take an action in either phase, but if movement is split before and after an action, the action will start in Phase A, and occur in Phase B.
3. Spellcasting
    • Spells with casting time of 1 action occur at the end of a Phase/3 seconds. 
    • Concentration checks and reactions can occur during either phase. 
4. Reactions
Reactions still occur outside a creature's turn during any phase of an opponent's subsequent turn, or during a subsequent phase of the creature reacting.
5. Status Effects
    • Effects like “stunned until end of next turn” now last two phases. 
    • Conditions should be clarified to specify which phase they end on. 

Pros
    • More tactical combat: Players must think in smaller increments. 
    • Faster pacing: Movement and action separation speeds up decision-making. 
    • Cinematic feel: Feels like bullet-time or split-second dueling. 

Cons
    • Complexity: More tracking for DMs and players. 
    • Balance issues: Some classes (e.g., monks, rogues) may benefit disproportionately. 
    • Longer combats: More phases can mean more time per encounter. 

Options
    • Legendary Creatures: Give them actions in both phases to emphasize threat. 
    • Initiative Time Drift: Shift a creature’s turn to start 1 second later per each 5 points of initiative less than the highest initiative score. 
    • Environmental Effects: Trigger hazards or changes between phases. 

Portal to Adventure OSR Bundle - Kickstarter Live!

 

("Portal to Adventure" box art by Roland Brown)

A new collection of Old School Renaissance-style gaming products opens the "Portal to Adventure" Kickstarter campaign October 1st that runs through October 31. The Kickstarter is organized through Emperor's Choice Games & Miniatures who team with with Matthew Tapp of Barrows & Borderlands and Griffith Morgan from The Fellowship of the Thing project dedicated to the original TTRPG fantasy campaign - Blackmoor.

The interesting hook from the project is developing a set of ideas for blending different, albeit related, games together for running a single game. The history for this is super applicable for Arduin rules from Emperor's Choice because historically the players (myself included) used Arduin as supplements to D&D.

Arduin fans will appreciate the original trilogy of Arduin Grimoires being published in the original 3-booklet format which Emperors Choice has not published for over a decade, and all the books come with premium covers and paper. From Fellowship of the Thing is a soft-cover version of an original mega-dungeon, Tonisborg, by Greg Svenson in Dave Arneson's first fantasy campaign. The final contribution of Barrows & Borderlands I hadn't heard of, but is a 4-volume new OSR game based in Od&d, Holmes Basic, 1e AD&D, and Metamorphosis Alpha.

The set also includes new dungeons for both Arduin and Barrows & Borderlands, continent maps for Arduin's Khaas, character sheets, monster and treasure cards, and more.

There are a number of unique Arduin miniatures offered as stretch goals. The fulfillment date in February 2026 seems to me will be accurate as the writing work on all these products is completed. Emperors Choice on their last Kickstarter of Arduin products also met their fulfillment goal no problem.

I encourage folks who haven't experienced the sci-fi and fantasy blend of Arduin or those who need a new copy of the original trilogy to check this out, with the dungeons and extras this is a terrific collection. 

Binding Combat Turns With Time in a Round

(J.A.S. 15th Level Paladin "Alancrost" by J.A.S.)

"But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this — we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws."  

Whewell: Bridgewater Treatise.

 

The abstraction of time in a 5th edition combat round reared it's ugly head when the Reaver intended to blow a horn sounding alarm and J.A.S. wanted to know how much time his PC had to stop it. 5th edition combat rounds combatant turns (apart from a reaction) each fully occur prior to the subsequent actions of the next combatant's turn in initiative order.

On the one hand a result of taking full-round turns sequentially in order, rather simultaneous turns, is that game play is easier. The counter-intuitive abstraction is that there is potentially an infinite amount of time within each 6 second round bounded only by the number of combatants taking turns that round (i.e. in our combat with the Reavers the first combat round there were 13 sequential 6-second periods, 6 PCs + 7 Reavers, in total 78 sequential seconds of combat turns had elapsed). The rules abstract the turns as simultaneous, however there is no simultaneous effect.

I have been working on assigning time duration to actions/movement/bonus actions/extra attacks using 3-second half-rounds to reintroduce a combat round being governed by time and the idea of simultaneity to combatants' turns within a round.

Below are my ideas I was intending to introduce first in my in-person Wilderlands game, but since these ideas were briefly touched on by J.A.S. during our combat Saturday night, perhaps we'll attempt the  new rules first in Psychedelic Deadlands / Dreamer of Dreams campaign (or not, Dr. John PhD is DMing the next 2 sessions for October and November).

Tony "Hawklord" in his blog "The Cryptic Archivist" writes how ideas for D&D to abstract time in combat have been a source of debate between Midwest and West Coast D&D from since the earliest days of the game.

"D&D evolved from wargame rules by members of the Castle & Crusade Society, founded by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz as a chapter of the International Federation of Wargaming, itself founded by Gygax, Scott Duncan and Bill Speer in 1966. These gamers got together around a sand table (usually in Gary's basement) ordering miniature armies into mock battles. Abstract combat was simple and made sense.

"Conversely, the [Society for Creative Anachronism] was founded in Berkeley in 1966 with armored members going outside to fight mock battles with padded weapons. Their point of view was not that of a military commander with a bird's eye view of battle, but as a common soldier who has felt the heft of their shield and the sting of a (padded) sword. Combat seems abstract if you aren't the one fighting. The reenactors saw something missing in abstract combat and created their own rules and games to fill those gaps."

(from California Gaming Part I - Steve Perrin's Conventions, "Conclusions" ¶¶ 2-3.)

Anyhow, here is my take thus far...
----------------------------------------------------------

Rounds are an abstraction of 6 seconds.

During combat in the 5th edition (2024 revision) of the World’s Most Popular Role-Playing Game here is how a 6-second round of a combatant’s turn is divided:

• Action (cost is 3 seconds)
• Movement (cost is 3 seconds)
• Brief Communication (cost is 0 seconds, duration is less than 6 seconds)
• Interact with 1 object or feature of the environment (cost is 0 seconds)
• Ready Action/Movement (cost is 0 seconds)
• Bonus Action (cost is generally 0 seconds, duration is 1 second or less)
• Reaction (happens outside of your turn)

We can discern that within a round an action and a movement are each equal to a duration of 3 seconds. This is because movement permits you to move up to a distance equal to your speed in 3 seconds, and the action "dash" permits you an extra move up to a distance equal to your speed in 3 seconds.

However, movement is different than an action such that while you can take an action for additional movement, a combatant cannot substitute an additional action from not moving.

There is a quality of reconnaissance to movement.

During the movement phase of your round regardless whether you are actually moving, you are also making an effort to locate enemies (and allies) and to ascertain strategic features of the combat. Even if you do not move at all, it takes 3 seconds from within a round to a round to evaluate your strategic situation within a combat round.

Dividing 6 seconds generally into a 3-second movement and a 3-second action, we must consider what happens to that time when bonus actions and extra attacks occur.

I suggest that a bonus action takes 1 second at any time during the 6-second round while the gaining of an extra attack takes 1 second from the 3-second action phase.

Inserting a bonus action into a 6-second round requires some additional time, but seems would overlay movement and action rather than interfere with them. I considered many different bonus actions to arrive at this conclusion.

Some classes permit extra attacks at higher levels which historically would fit within that same amount of time for an attack action, with the inference that you attack faster.

Each individual combatant rolls for initiative on a d20 (an exception for a group of identical monsters who roll one d20 as a group), then adds their Dexterity Modifier.

The number difference between the highest initiative score and the lower scores determines the second in the initial round when each combatant begins their particular turn. Each 5 points a combatant’s initiative score is less than the highest initiative score results in beginning their turn 1 second later that the highest initiative score. (For example, at 5-9 points below, that combatant begins their first turn 1 second after the combatant with the highest initiative score; at 10-14 points below, begins their turn 2 second later; at 15-19 points below, 3 seconds later; etc.)

Where multiple combatants can act in the same second, compare actual initiative scores and the highest acts first. If actual initiative scores tie, the combatant’s dexterity ability score is the tie-breaker.

Rounds would be managed in 3-second half-rounds, rather than full 6-second rounds.

By breaking down the round by seconds, and then assigning a staggered starting second based on initiative, combatants actions can be arguably more simultaneous. The order of turns in a round is actually bound by time as overlapping sequential rounds instead of time having been bounded artificially by all the sequential turns in the round.

In their given 3-second half round a combatant may:

• Take an action (with or without a bonus action or extra attack); or
• Make a full movement (with or without a bonus action); or
• Make a partial movement and begin or conclude an action (with or without a bonus action or extra attack). 

However, because of staggered starting seconds within the initial round, a combatant may not have a full 3 seconds in their initial half round (or even, if a combatant rolls particularly poor versus the highest initiative score, lose the entire first half round and perhaps seconds from the second half round). 

This would be similar to "surprise" (ha, especially if a combatant rolled very poorly on initiative), but more accurately could be assessed as the amount of time for a combatant to react in an attack.

A Cascade of D&D

Ha, so all our games were not drug and alcohol infused debauchery.

Technically speaking, our first game system was from the Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set by J. Eric Holmes. Holmes uses a very simple weapon speed system - Daggers get 2 blows per round, long swords 1, and 2-handed swords 1 every 2 rounds. When the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook came out the summer of 1978 we naturally assumed the 'speed factor' of weapons indicated the number of segments within a round it took to wield any particular weapon.

There was no AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide until sometime during the summer of 1979, and I don’t believe I ever read that book straight through. We just began using the updated to-hit and saving through tables, magic items and such, but never got into the nitty-gritty for what we thought we already knew. (Ha, except Dr. John PhD may have tried to explain the DMs Guide version of speed factor, lo by then the drugs were beginning to kick in.)

Pre-Blipping Campaign Dr. John PhD ran our 8th grade Greyhawk campaign from the formal dining table in John's family’s front room. I began to DM some when we hit high school and at the same time began branching out into the Wilderlands of High Fantasy City State of the Invincible Overlord campaign and started integrating the Arduin Grimoire original trilogy into our rules. (We also I think never played at John's again, his mom had a better nose than mine for weed!)

Our D&D combat was FAST, segment by segment actions with multitudes of attacks per 1-minute rounds. Often decisions had to be made in half a melee round or less.

Post Blipping Campaign we never quite attained our old style of play. Ha, #1 was because previously we were not plying rules-as-written (the DMs Guide strangely only used speed factor for initiative). But also, #2, because 3e, 3.5, and 5e (including most all of the reputed “Advanced” retro clones) were based on a style of play where AD&D was cropped onto the Moldvey/Cook BX D&D or the Mentzer BECMI which did away with segments of melee rounds and used only gross action and gross movement.

Rather than our simulation where actions were subjugated to TIME, i.e. the clock would be ticking and the PCs and monsters had to fit their possible and variable duration-based actions within the confines of the passing seconds, the new versions has time subjugated to the ACTIONS of each participant, i.e. everyone gets their move and their attack and at that moment 6 seconds (or 10 seconds depending on the version) duration had passed.

A rundown of our main campaigns pre-Blipping Campaign were:

    • Dr. John PhD’s “Greyhawk” (1977-1982) – Pretty much centered in the Pomarj, we went through most all the classic AD&D modules: Hommlet, the Giants and Descent into the Depth of the Earth series, White Plume Mountain, Tomb of Horrors. This campaign ended after we graduated high school when Dr. John headed of to UC Santa Barbara to become a chemist.

    • Matrox Lusch & Others “Wilderlands of High Fantasy” (1979-1984) – I piggy backed several T$R modules like the giant series, but also ran Tegal Manor, Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor, Dark Tower, all 3 city states (Invincible Overlord, World Emperor, and Tarantis) as part of my main campaign. I also ran the some of the Judges Guild one-offs like Citadel of Fire, Sword of Hope, and Under the Storm Giant’s Castle. The Wilderlands was somewhat of a shared campaign as my brother Sumerled ran Modron and Verbosh and our friend Spacin Jason would run the Arguin dungeons there. In 1982 Judges Guild lost their license to publish “official” AD&D materials and started to use this “Universal” format which was a pain in the ass. Plus a lot of Judges Guild had been disconnected from the Wilderlands setting and sort of silly even before they lost the license.

    • Matrox Lusch “Krull” (1980-1985) – To fill in the gaps of the Wilderlands I would just make things up, ha, with the problem being the monsters would usually “cry uncle” when I was too tired to carry on. So I was accused of “making things up” (true) and also railroading (somewhat true when I was falling asleep in the wee hours). I had written up a dungeon during probably 1979 or so based on the “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride at Disneyland (one of my favorites), and began to spread out from there into other regions of my game world “Krull” (well before the 1983 movie of the same name). Ha, the problem was I still made shit up – I mean it’s D&D and I loved a sandbox and would do these on the fly all the time.

    • J.A.S. “Drow Mag-Tec” (1986-1987) – This is seriously as close as I got to the 80s “Satanic Panic” (our group was so insulated we never heard of that at the time). J.A.S.’s wife watched the 700 Club (Jim Bakker & Tammy Fay Bakker) who did a show on the evils of D&D. So his wife wanted J.A.S. to stop playing that evil magic game immediately. John compromised by developing a setting with no other religions besides the Mycretians (a Wilderlands quasi-Christian-type religion) and the main enemies were the Drow who used something called “Mag-Tec” which was basically sci-fi technology. All the characters were fey (our party was a brownie, a pixie, and a leprechaun) so we had a bunch of innate magical abilities, but no spells. Ha, we were all technos.

By the time our Post Blipping campaigns began in 2004 I had sobered up and wondered what happened to all the friends I used to have, so toward the end of 2005 corralled everyone into version 3.5 by anonymously sending them copies of the new Player’s Handbook. (Also, since Dr. John PhD had moved off to Oregon with his Physician wife I was the de facto DM.)

    • Matrox Lusch “High Fantasy” (2005-2011) – This campaign was set in the Wilderlands, but the party did travel around the planes quite a bit. Timewise I don’t think there was any time travel, but I did have the party visit other settings such as Grayhawk and Arduin during different time periods than when campaigns in these settings typically started. Tragically in 2011 we lost our long-time 30-year gaming friend, Postman Bob (and a friend of J.A.S. longer than that). This sad event resulted in the campaign ending as we decided to roll up new characters rather than carry on without Bob. In addition to Wilderlands products, among the other published works I leaned on for this campaign were Red Hand of Doom, City of the Spider Queen, Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, “The Lich-Queen’s Beloved” three-magazine Incursion event featured in POLYHEDRON #159, DRAGON #309, and DUNGEON #100. The overarching plot was an attempt by Tharizdun to free itself from Prime Material chains.

    • Matrox Lusch “Blipping 2” (2012-2019) – In this campaign the characters were unstuck in time and space, but it was due to a mysterious orb they discovered (or possibly revealed itself to them) on Sigil, and the orb transported the party around. We also did not rotate DMs in this campaign, but I visited many of the locations and NPCs from our Blipping Campaign. I also developed a set of rules for this campaign that was a blend between v3.5 and AD&D. Fast forward to DunDraCon in 2018, I ran an “official” game where players could bring in any D&D version of a character they wished, hoping folks would bring out some old high-level characters they hadn’t played in years. However, every single player in that game brought a 5th edition character. Then, at our regular game that Saturday night at the Con the group was short a cleric and advertised for one – every interested person brought a 5th edition cleric. The writing, I saw, was on the wall that 5e had settled in as the standard. I put together a hand-crafted 5e adding some modifications such as critical hit tables and psionic abilities and we ran this modified 5th edition for almost 2 years.

    • Various “New Old Weird World” (2019-2023) – I was fortunate to run a character in a scenario Jeff Rients was testing out and had this realization I had not run a character since I became sober 15 years earlier! I kind of overreacted and told my group I wasn’t going to run the campaign solo any more, that I was going to run a character, we were going to rotate DMs, and we were going to run an AD&D retro-clone (we ended up using Advanced Labyrinth Lord with some of my collected mods). This was more truly a Blipping 2 campaign, although we used only single DMs for 3 sessions each. After the campaign surviving through Coved that campaign took a hiatus when we had all kinds of troubles getting the group together, and were missing some fun players like Sumerled and Random Addison who were extremely opposed to online D&D games. These are the characters I am running (in-person) my End of Time Extravaganza for up at J.A.S.’s mountain abode next October 27, 2025. 

And now I've ended up co-DMing and DMing two 5th edition (2024) campaigns: The Psychedelic Deadlands / Dreamer of Dreams campaign online with Dr. John PhD, and the new "5th Iteration Wilderlands" in-person campaign.

My next task is to understand how I can break down the variety of things folks can do in a 5th edition melee round, and to see if I can get the game subject to time again rather than time subject to the actions. Perhaps it's a difference with no meaning - but I am digging in. It has been almost 15 years since we all last played an official Dungeons & Dragons RAW. Until next week I hope you go easy.

Anatomy of A Grown-Ass Dysfunctional Dungeons and Dragons Game: The Movie

***This Video has been corrected to meet YouTube Standards***

 

A portion of AC/DC's "Back in Black" is in the background during a segment of this video. The song is globally blocked by SEM Entertainment Group in unofficial videos on YouTube. The offending audio has been replaced with an excerpt from my original music: "Teacher Summertime Blues"

The Blipping Campaign, Saturday July 27, 1996

Magic Item of Note: Star Trek Armored Space Shuttle (The “Agencourt”); Jump Drive A = Jump 2; Movement Drive A = 2 Gs; Power Plant A = 40 tons fuel; 2 staterooms; Mod. 3 Computer (CPU = 5, Storage = 9); 2 low berths; 20 point force field; 10 ton cargo area; Triple Turret = Beam laser, Sandcaster, Beam Laser; Computer = (1) Jump 1 – 1, (2) Jump 2 – 2, (3) Library – 1, (4) Navigation – 1, (5) Target – 1, (6) Gunner Interact – 1, (7) Auto Evade – 1, (8) Return Fire – 1, (9) Launch – 1, (10) Anti-hijack – 1, (11) E.C.M. – 3.

Game Background Music: Yes, (?), U2, Queensryche, AC/DC, Neal Young, Mr. Bungle, Jethro Tull.

Anatomy of Grown-Ass Dysfunctional Dungeons and Dragons Games

 

("How it started" by Sumerled)

As my gaming group hit the 1990's and individual players our late 20's into our thirtysomethings, we left a trail of alcohol bottles, cigarette butts, vomit, hanger heads, stacked and painted people, and fucking hellacious games. 

Our DunDraCon game sessions were so renowned we designated them with proper nouns: The undercover Flower People ('92), Pee-Wee Herman's genie-inspired Jambicon ('93), methamphetamine-fueled Jitterycon ('94), insanely drunk dungeon mastering Revenge of the Son of Greg ('95), and the Wild Turkey 101 extravaganza Executive Decision ('96). 

Now I wouldn't recommend drinking, drugs, insanity to anyone. And eventually they exact their pounds of flesh. As these epic games progressed through the decade I entered the Dark Times from 1997 through 2004, coming out of that for our group to begin running some things where sessions were more, say, congruent?

However, while reviewing another one of our old videos, this one from 1996, I remembered we did have a rhythm to our games that sat on top of whomever was running the game and whatever the details were of the adventure. I always said our sessions were like poker games where you didn't lose any money. All night affairs to avoid imperial entanglements. In general if you were there for the game you were there for the night.

We generally ran about 6-8 games each year rotated to different locations, including annual games at DunDraCon and a variety of camping locations for our annual camping trip. 

Each game had distinct parts that recurred each session...

The Drive: Since by this decade of the 90s most of us had jobs and were raising families there was some dispersment around the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California. Unless you were hosting there was often a 1-3 hour beer-fueled freeway trip to get to the game location.

The Jam: Many of the folks in my gaming group were either presently or formerly in bands together so there were electric and acoustic music jams to kick off the event (much to the chagrin of our non-music playing friends). 

The Feeding Frenzy: Most often BBQ, but for sure some kind feast either hosted or pot luck before the game. So everyone started the night with a good meal in their belly - sometimes with disastrous results. (pickles)

Pre-Game Business: Who was here last time? How many experience points were awarded? Was there time to train and level up? What the hell is even going on right now??? We rotated DMs after 3 sessions for two co-DMs and after a single game for solo DMs.

The Game: This is it, the game session where all the action happens either connected or not with the prior session or any sort of campaign arc. (Our characters became unstuck in the Multiverse and could end up virtually any place or time.)

The Interlude Journey: This most often occurred around 1-2am involving Sumerled and whomever he could drag along for the alcohol/cigarettes/snacks/candles/etc.-run. That magical time during the Witching Hour when a previously bare fridge would become amazingly restocked to the brim with Budweiser.

Stacking: Did not want to be the first to pass out at our games. We practiced a parlor game we called "stacking" which was basically to see how many pizza cartons, paper plates, dog masks, candles, etc. we could build on top a dozing player without causing them to move and have the entire structure come tumbling down. Extra points for the number of empty beer can layers, the record was at least 4 and maybe 5 cans high. This might involve face painting.

Wind-down: As the sky turns from black to purple and then the Sun begins to peek our game is wrapping up, early sleepers are waking up and the hardcore beer-drinkers are still drinking beer. Might involve a little quiet acoustic guitar, baseball catch, or hurling in the corner of someone's yard.

Breakfast/The Ride Home: Some games, like DunDraCon and the camping trip, J.A.S. would break out his gas grill for pancakes. Otherwise it was some kind of fast food breakfast sandwich on the drive home, which often also involved more beer albeit not consumed quit so vigorously as the previous night's trip.

If we had an agenda for each games session this would be it. The lack of sleep and overabundance of alcohol was not sustainable, recovery time from each game increased as the years went by. Most of us are on the proverbial wagon now, and even those that still imbibe generally are not pulling all-nighters.

Amazingly, with most of the original group in their sixties now, we only lost one of our friends - Postman Bob, RIP, who passed back in 2011.

What did we earn from all of these games? Ha, one thing is we kind of do whatever the fuck we want within the context of our careers. (OK Boomer.) Another is that when emergencies occur and late or all night hours are required we laugh when other more normal folks are whimpering. 

("By Crom" by Shel Kahn)

The Astral Asshole

 

The Blipping Campaign, Friday November 29, 1996

Magic Item of Note: Mithral Torch (+1 to Wisdom, True Sight line of sight, it burns twice as bright as a normal torch (80 feet). Once per month everyone within the light has protection from evil and undead within the light are effected as if by sunlight.)

Game Background Music: Old Dick Dale (I think), Ministry, and the Steve Miller Band.

So from where J.A.S. is indicating in the Deities and Demigods we were battling Cthulhi Mythos, namely Nyarlathotep in this session. Plus it seems to have some friend with him. It seems creatures from the Far Realm (called the “Aberrant Realm” in my game) are fleeing from something even worse – The Old Ones.

In my pre- and post-End of Time scenario then the New Old Weird World adventuring party (or parties) could encounter two Illithid time-traveling starcrafts, one from the Illithids preparing to travel backwards in time to escape the End of Time event and the second the first Illithids’ ancestors who traveled forward in time to escape the Githyanki. Both are aware of the impending End of Time event and presumably would be aware of involvement by the Old Ones.

The Cthulhu connection from the Blipping Campaign is interesting because the New Old Weird World campaign also intersected with some Cthulhu mythos after escaping from a future Sigil. We departed from the besieged Cthulhu lands by way of resetting the mysterious “Great Portal of Broya,” ending up in an unstuck, time and space-wise, Tegal Manor.

Now I have a couple tricks to play with:

1. One is my thoughts of using the Decanter Room extradimensional space broken through to the Shadow Plane (a colloquial name, not any “official” Plane of Shadow); and

2. How the Old Ones intersect with the End of Time even and their essential indifference to the rest of reality.

More Slippery Time ...

I have 2 D&D campaigns running post-End of Time event: Wilderlands 5th Iteration and the shared Psychedelic Deadlands / Dreamer of Dreams (co-DMed with Dr. John PhD), both running 5th edition 2024 rules. The new Wilderlands game incorporates 5e recreations of the original Judges Guild by Goodman Games (Caverns of Thracia and City State of the Invincible Overlord) and Frog God Games (Tegel Manor) with plans to very loosely lay "Tula, City of Mages" over the 5e Historica Arcanum "The City of Crescent" (Victorian-era Istanbul with magic) from Metis Creative. My Psychedelic Deadlands piece of the shared campaign is set in a nascent Outlands centered - again very loosely - around Monty Cook Games 5e version of Ptolus, City By the Spire and surrounded spreading outward, among other things, with hacked bits from the Ultra Violet Grasslands (2nd Edition) by Luka Rejec and Numenera, also by Monty Cook.

My longtime gaming and jamming buddy J.A.S. has moved to a big piece of property waaaay up in the higher foothills California side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The makes it quite a hoof to journey up there for D&D and playing music. After our first visit there we had an idea that we could re-enact anew one of our old gaming traditions: the annual camping trip (albeit with the comfortable situation of electricity, running water, and no Park Rangers).

We had left our New Old Weird World campaign hanging just at the time our heroes were on the the Mind Flayers' home planet of Penumbra searching for the Annulus psionic nullity device with pursuing Githyanki warriors barking at the party's collective heels. I thought a great idea would be to have an overnight affair up there with the gang for guitar jam and a tournament-style session of gaming to resolve the mess of the Mind Flayers traveling back in time to re-enslave the Gith origin peoples.

However... it seems the New Old Weird World campaign must have started before the end of time event, although definitely far in the future of the campaign multiverse and seemingly near the end of time event itself.

During the seminal sessions (heh, heh ... he said “semen”) of the New Old Weird World campaign the party met Sick Rick’s old PC “Ranger Rick” from the Original 90s Blipping Campaign. At the time Ranger Rick had been for “hundreds of years” magically kept in an undying state deep in a dungeon designed to keep something in (Deep Carbon Observatory by Patrick Stuart). When he encountered the party he offered a warning, “They’re here from the shadow,” then used the dispel magic ability from the Blipping Campaign’s Amethyst Throne to remove the magic keeping him “alive” and permitting him to die.

Now I’ve looked back to see where we left of the Blipping Campaign PCs. This was before we rolled characters for a “less good” Blipping Campaign in December 1997 when I began to have other priorities... I don’t have any notes from the last session we gamed with the original Blipping PCs, but there is a video (oh god yes) from the second-to-last session titled “The Astral Asshole” no less.

This also happens to be the last video from our classic AD&D 1st Edition period of gaming which lasted from December 1977 through February 2005. (Out of preservation for our battered original rule books and to have some welcome updates to the somewhat confusing original Gygaxian rules, whenever we’ve played “AD&D”-style since we’ve used some retro-clone.)

Now that I am getting closer to the End of Time event, I'll also note (again) the New Old Weird World Campaign wasn’t the only party of PC adventurers who had reached the Mind Flayer home world of Penumbra. Our “Blipping #2” campaign from a far-future Wilderlands had discovered in undead caverns on Ghenrek IV an Illithid Spelljamming Nautiloid ship which had an autopilot taking that party to Penumbra.

So there are two parties on Penumbra as the Illithids attempt to flee. Could there be two sets of time-traveling Illithids? There are for sure the Illithids planning to escape the End of Time event by time travel to the past. But there are also the ancestors of those Illithids fleeing the past back to the future. Should they meet, hmmmmmmm...

Slipping Time in Dungeons and Dragons (Another Essay Wherein It Is Good Players Do Not Read My Blog)

I have devoted lots of hours (weeks, months, years, decades) toward the Dungeons and Dragons game, right up there with jobs, and only essential compensation having been companionship with my fellows of the game. (There is also a distinct possibility based on personal and family history I am somewhere on the spectrum for autism and that D&D helped me build self-esteem and rewrite my personal narrative, ha, so there is that too.) The campaigns I run I attempt as best I can to all fit together in strange and wonderful ways into a single overarching setting. This banks time I can re-use to construct narrative background and provides great rewards forming common existential bases for the variety of adventuring party settings and events.

However, several campaigns over the past 5 years have reached a point where they have begun to approach and even wrap around an “End of Time” event where I feel the need to at least make an observational leap to what happens at the “End of Time” for my game.

The caveats are that my observations must be somewhat in harmony with how the still-developing adventuring campaigns have already “wrapped” around the end of time. And also be as best as I can manage philosophically consistent with the game Multiverse which in various magic and lore has already co-signed time travel itself as a thing. That said, I am not too much worried about specific outer plane Gygaxian metaphysics because what I imagine is a moment where time and space do, or at least seem to, cease to exist – temporal movement, the Multiverse, and all related planes are gone… or perhaps almost gone. Of necessary the event itself is beyond experience for any planar and extra-planar beings or spaces.

****NOTE: I have used in-game the apocalyptic description for the “End of Time” reckoning from Star Rovers RPG, co-written by David Hargrave, which I loosely pasted over some Judges Guild Traveller background… 

For Time has begun to run out. The Hurrakku — they who would gnaw their way through a starcluster and leave nothing in their wake — had already starswarmed. And even though they were still more than forty galaxies away, they were headed in the Empire’s direction.

But they were only the messengers of a great doom. What goaded the Hurrakku onward was the fear of impending annihilation. There loomed behind them an expanding, starless, blackness — A rift in the Space/Time fabric grown so large that it consumed the Past, the Present, and the Future. This was the Final Darkness that Would Cancel Everything!

And also the description from the 3.5 supplement Lords of Madness that Illithids existed “… at the end of time.” “Facing annihilation,” Illithids “… traveled to the past, arriving roughly 2000 years before the present in any given D&D campaign.” Mind Flayers are almost always lurking in the background of my campaigns.

Otherwise, without so far having researched in any depth folks smarter than me on the subject, either in a game sense or our own “real world” physics, I am attracted to 4 possibilities that might fit given I’ve already gamed adventuring parties whose adventures at least seem to have wrapped beyond the end of time relative to parties prior to the “End of Time” event.

Full Stop / “Dead End”: The Multiverse “births” then events unfold in a singular routine. Time travel past and forward is unable to change events because appearances in the past/future have or will have already happened or deigned to occur. This is Robert A. Heinlein’s “The Door Into Summer” version and how I generally structured time travel in my game without having yet added the “End of Time” epistemological considerations. But with time travel another possibility arises for perpetuating the game Multiverse...

The Loop / “Roly Poly”: The existent “wrap” in my game may indicate time folded back on itself as characters or beings head back in time before the “End of Time” event, but appear early in the generation of the Multiverse such that it only seems new. Yet ultimately, given “The Door Into Summer” the Multiverse unfolds exactly the same as a result of no change with the inputs (i.e. anything that happens in the past has already happened). A game could have new characters and delve deeper into incidents for how this or that history actually occurred – but characters would have no agency to change actual events that are “known,” either in game or meta–game. That is sort of a bummer given my sanboxxy sensitivities, which leads to my next possibility…

Re-Birth / “New Big Bang”: Something nature to the “End of Time” event, or perhaps some interruption or alteration or missing/hidden piece of the Multiverse re-births into a new multiverse, sort of a new Big Bang with new possibilities, and explains the formation of a Multiverse some ways similar to, but not exactly same or maybe very different than, the former Multiverse. There is also a possibility of entities from the old multiverse to jump through time over the “end” and “bang” events into the new Multiverse.

Of course, it could be that “The Door Into Summer” set history is not the nature of the Multiverse, leading into the 4th possibility I consider…

Temporal Branches / “Time-Stems”: This is a William Gibson-esque infinite multitude of potential universal timestreams where time travel does not change the source Multiverse, but rather produces an alternate branch of time. While it is not possible to physically pop over from one time-branch to another, characters would still meet beings from their origin Multiverse altered only in the sense of their contact with different branches. Potentially an infinite number of Multiverses from which, as a result of cross contamination through time travel, it would be virtually impossible to discern which is the “real” Multiverse, or even if that really matters. 

Anyhow, that is a long explanation being the good news is that I do not need to answer any of these questions quite yet. I can preserve a timeline of my campaigns to date (below) to set some parameters, then just see what direction where go the present campaigns.

I have 2 campaigns on hiatus that both are approaching near the “End of Time” event that some of the players are encouraging me to run “tournament style” and the remaining campaigns I feel are post-”End of Time” event, so possibilities 1 & 2 seem to be excluded and I am leaning into possibility 3.

CAMPAIGNS TIMELINE

The years are 1st Year 0 relative to the High Fantasy campaign (where the time stuff began to loosely cohere), 2nd the Wilderlands Balozkinar’s Corrected Commoners Calendar (“BCCC”), and 3rd Greyhawks Common Year calendar (“CY” and “BCY”). Note that many dates are approximations.

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-47,733 / -43300 / -47,158: Uttermost War comes to an end.

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-35,000 / -30567 / -34,423: During Century Wars of Domination Agent Smith arrives from early 21^st Century Earth and is transformed into cybernetic unit 718552.

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-2,000 / 2433 / -423: Future Illithids arrive in past.

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-200 / 4233 / 376: Githyanki uprising, future Illithids disappear from past & Astral Plane.

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0 / 4433 / 576: High Fantasy Campaign begins in the Wilderlands, Blipping #2 Campaign begins in Sigil, Wilderlands of the Torment Nexus Campaign begins in the Wilderlands and a cursed scroll from the ancient Markab ruins in Ashenshaft and found in the library of the Wizard Korpauntarl transported the adventurers through time and dimensions in space to Cube World.

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1 / 4434 / 577: Blipping Campaign begins in Arduin. High Fantasy thermonuclear-like explosion resulting from Tharzadu'un traversing portal escaping to Arduin - Artaban/Codex of the Infinite Planes intervenese saving party; throws Blipping Campaign to be "unstuck" in the Multiverse.

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2 / 4435 / 578: Baron Uther of Blackmoor activates the “secret weapon” from City of Gods in Valley of the Ancients, unwittingly a massive terraforming device, and the planet Ghenrek IV is forcibly tilted from its axis.

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4,000 / 8433 / 4,576: Blipping Campaign #2 arrives in future Comeback Inn.

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16,345 / 20778 / 16,921: Blipping Campaign #2 arrives in late 20^th Century Earth.

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16,355 / 20788 / 16,931: Blipping Campaign arrives in late 20^th Century Earth.

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16,565 / 20998 / 17,141: Blipping Campaign #2 arrives in late 22^nd Century Demonic Earth.

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20,000 / 24433 / 20,576: Space/Time Rift approaches Imperium, Blipping #2 Campaign arrives in future Ghenrek IV/Ghostring to discover Illithid Spelljammer which carries them to Illithid origin disc-world “Penumbra.” New Old Weird World Campaign adventurers also end up on Penumbra after visiting future Sigil and future Illithids depart the future to the past. 

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Out of Time and Wrapped Campaigns

• New Old Weird World Campaign: A flat disc planet (on the back of a turtle?) on pocket plane (post “End of Time” event) but passes through a far future Sigil to Penumbra prior to Illithids fleeing (pre-"End of Time" event)
• Wilderlands of the Torment Nexus: Wilderlands of High Fantasy on Prime Material Plane (Pre-"End of Time" event), sent to Cube World on pocket plane (Post “End of Time” event)
• Psychedelic Deadlands / Dreamer of Dreams Campaign: On Outlands and Prime Material Plane (Post “End of Time” event)
• Wilderlands 5th Iteration: Wilderlands of High Fantasy on Prime Material Plane (Post "End of Time" event and pre-"End of Time" event???)