Waifu vs. Zombies: The Soundtrack

Here's a "just for fun" blog update about the ideal soundtrack for a game of Waifu vs. Zombies and given the 1970's-inspired style of the game, I figured it would be appropriate that such a soundtrack would consist largely of hits from the 1970's (with a few songs from the 1960's as well) and without further to do, here is my picks for the soundtrack to Waifu vs. Zombies.

1. King Harvest: Dancing In The Moonlight
2. Edison Lighthouse: Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes
3. The Archies: Sugar Sugar
4. Elton John: Crocodile Rock
5. Brewer & Shipley: One Toke Over The Line
6. The Stampeders: Sweet City Woman
7. Creedence Clearwater Revival: Bad Moon Rising
8. John Denver: Take Me Home, Country Roads
9. The Steve Miller Band: The Joker
10. Stealer's Wheel: Stuck In The Middle With You
11. David Hess: Wait For The Rain
12. The Dillards: Copperfields
13. Dusty Springfield: Son of a Preacher Man
14, Jim Croce: Bad Bad Leroy Brown
15. The Who: Pinball Wizard
16. Seals & Crofts: Summer Breeze
17. Simon & Garfunkel: Homeward Bound
18. Lynyrd Skynyrd: Sweet Home Alabama
19. The Allman Brothers: Ramblin' Man
20. Queen: Fat Bottomed Girls
21. The Bee Gees: Jive Talkin'
22. Don McLean: American Pie
23. Blue Oyster Cult: Don't Fear The Reaper

Waifu vs. Zombies: A New RPG Project

Wow! It's been a very long while since I've posted anything on this blog at all. I figured it's about time to remedy that right now.

Anywho, real life kept me somewhat busy during the months of June and most of July and I sort of forgot about this blog. But I am now returning to it. And I figured I'd announce a new and ambitious project on my part. A new project that at the very least, would be a nice campaign to run and at the very most, an actual published OSR RPG, albeit one of  a different sort.

The game is titled Waifu vs. Zombies and it is an homage to both old-school anime and old-school zombie fiction. The two main zombie works that this game is inspired by are George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Shinji Mikami's Resident Evil (1996) although I am taking influences from other zombie works as well, including Night of the Living Dead (1968), Day of the Dead (1985), Resident Evil 2 (1998), High School of the Dead (2010), DayZ (2013) and the cheap Italian zombie grindhouse flicks of the 1970's and 1980's such as the Zombi series.

Another major inspiration for the game is the classic Stephen King post-apocalyptic epic The Stand, as well as the original 1974 version of Dungeons & Dragons.

The premise is that the game is a survival horror sandbox RPG where the PC's are survivors of a slow-moving zombie apocalypse in the United States circa the late 1970's and early 1980's, with a focus on the Eastern United States, specifically the Mid-Atlantic and Central Appalachia, though your campaign could be set anywhere within North America to be honest.

The initial goal of the game is to explore and survive, with an endgame scenario of rebuilding civilization and managing a domain or settlement, similar to the endgame scenario of OD&D.

If I can save up enough money to commission artwork, I would have anime-style artwork. But it would resemble the anime of the 1980's rather than more modern anime franchises. Think along the lines of the general art styles found in stuff like Saint Seiya, Vampire Hunter D, Robotech, Angel Cop, Ranma 1/2, and the original Mobile Suit Gundam,

It would be a very dark and violent game, but also a hopeful one. Because if your characters manage to survive long enough against the zombies, bandits, and the elements of nature, then maybe they can rebuild society and make a fresh start of things, Rebuilding civilization and rescuing civilians would be emphasized heavily alongside survival.

The mechanics are another question. It would be an OSR "clone" system under the OGL, but rather than use an old TSR-era version of D&D, I am thinking of heavily modifying the open-license Anime SRD for this game. For those not in the know, the Anime SRD was released alongside the d20 System version of Big Eyes Small Mouth back in the early 2000's.

Waifu vs. Zombies would be an OSR game of a different sort.

Because when there's no more room in Hell, the weebs will walk the Earth.

The Renaissance Fair's In Town!

I apologize for the long gap in between blog posts, but hopefully this one will more than make up for the delay, because for this post, the Renaissance Fair is in town!

Now, let me preface this post with the statement that my interest in Renaissance Fairs and the culture surrounding them is very much a newfound one. I've only ever been to one Renaissance Fair-type event ever in my life, and it was a very small Medieval Fair event in Salem, Virginia back in around 2012 or 2013. The venue was okay but very small and mom-and-pop, not like the large carnival-like events that most people associate with the Renaissance Fair and the subculture surrounding it.

Mainly it was a bunch of small vendor tents and some people in period costume, not that much in terms of events or grandiosity. Now, that's not to say I didn't have a good time at the event, because I did. It's just that it was a small and localized affair, that's all.

Though I did buy a cool Tarot deck from there that day, so that is always a bonus.

But I mention the concept of the Renaissance Fair because I am interested in the scene as of late, and I do want to discuss how it is tangentially related to the main subject of this blog, which is role-playing games, of course.

The early history of Dungeons & Dragons has always been fascinating to me, it is what drew me into the OSR movement after all, and I really like the game as it existed in the 1970's and early 1980's. It is sort of worth mentioning that according to Gronan of Symmeria, an RPG Pub user and one of the surviving playtesters of Original Dungeons & Dragons back in the 1970's, D&D was apparently never meant to be an accurate simulation of Medieval society or even "Medieval-Authentic" fantasy, which should be obvious to anyone, but the interesting part is that D&D was supposedly partially influenced by the early Renaissance Fair culture of the 1960's and 1970's, taking on the more idyllic and whimsical view of Medieval and Renaissance Europe and combining it with the more obvious influences of High Fantasy and especially Sword & Sorcery fiction. And that caught my attention.

Most Renaissance Fairs fit into one of two categories. Either they are devoted to a very specific and idealized view of Elizabethan Britain, usually basing their aesthetics and culture off of 16th Century England or Scotland, as opposed to Italy or France, where most of the great innovations of the Renaissance actually took place.

Or they are a generic blend of Medieval, Renaissance, Elizabethan, Jacobean, and sometimes even fantasy tropes put into an idyllic and whimsical setting that is primarily focused on entertainment. In these Ren Fair settings, you may find a hodgepodge of Medieval and Renaissance archetypes, a collection of anachronistic stuff such as Vikings, Pirates, Belly-Dancers, Knights, or even fantasy archetypes such as Elves, Faeries, and Wizards all in one place, where fun and enjoyment is placed before adherence to historical accuracy.

I'd assume that any influences that Ren Fair culture may have had on D&D probably came from the latter category.

I wouldn't mind running a D&D game in the near future with the whimsical and idyllic view of Medieval and Renaissance archetypes often found in Renaissance Fairs, along with the slew of anachronisms blended together and of course, the fantasy elements as well.

Ideally, the best system for this type of game would be Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, either First or Second Edition, at least in my opinion.

Battle Century G and the Mecha Anime Genre

I apologize for the brevity of this post, but I have had a long day and I don't have much time this evening. But despite being busy, I promised a friend of mine that I would do a post about this and so i will.

Despite being a huge fan of anime, I'm a total newbie to the Mecha genre, even though that is one of the more popular anime genres out there. My only real experiences with it are the timeless classics of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gundam Wing,the latter of which I recently began to rewatch on Hulu.

See, overall, I know very little of the genre and its conventions and tropes.

However, a good friend of mine has introduced me to a tabletop role-playing game called Battle Century G and I've skimmed through the System Reference Document and I like what I see. Thanks to this friend, I have even got a chance to talk to the creator of Battle Century G, who has since given me free PDF copies of the full version of his game, which I will be giving a full and in-depth review of in a later post. For now, I will be discussing the base system and my first impressions of it.

The SRD is just the core mechanics and does not contain the setting fluff of the main game itself, but that is fine with me because I generally prefer to make my own settings anyway. From the first impressions of the game, it seems that Battle Century G is primarily focused on Mecha, but can be used for nearly any form of Military Sci-Fi. You could use the system not just for Mecha battles, but also for infantry, tanks, vehicles, and the like. Overall, I like that sort of potential.

The system itself is a point-buy system that has provisions for both pilot characters and the giant robots that they pilot. According to the game's creator, the goal of Battle Century G was to create a rules-medium system that had enough crunch to be a decent combat simulator and not just some story-game, but not be so heavy that the game becomes needlessly complicated.

In that regard, I'd say that he succeeded in creating a solid rules-medium system. Now, I have not gotten a chance to actually test the rules out myself, but based on what I have read, it seems good enough for me.

I'd personally love to use Battle Century G's mechanics for something along the lines of either a general Military Sci-Fi game involving an Alternate History where the Cold War never ended, or use it for an Army Men-themed campaign where the PC's are sapient toy soldiers, complete with tanks, vehicles, helicopters, and even more sci-fi stuff like robots and Mecha. I'm picturing something along the lines of a cross between Small Soldiers and Gundam Build Fighters in terms of style and theme.

While I currently have no plans for a Military Sci-Fi or Mecha themed campaign for the time being, if I ever get that urge to run something along those lines, then I would definitely use Battle Century G as my main system for such a thing.

Once I do an in-depth read of the full book and play the rules for myself, I will make more in-depth posts for both of those things.

Boot Hill: Prologue

Ah, Friday nights were always best. Or that's what Kakashi Hatake thought to himself as he worked alongside his friend Kurenai Yuhi on putting the finishing touches on a massive role-playing game campaign that the two of them had been planning for over a month now. The two elite ninja masters were extremely excited to introduce their pupils to this new tabletop game. Well, it was actually a very old role-playing game, in fact it was one of the oldest ones ever published. But the kids hadn't played it yet, so it was new to them! Kakashi quietly hummed the tune to Marty Robbins' "Big Iron" under his breath while Kurenai finished drawing the last of the campaign world maps that she and Kakashi had so meticulously planned out on many sheets of graph paper.

"So, Kakashi, how many of your students are going to be playing in this campaign?"

"All three of them. Normally getting Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura to all three agree on anything is like herding cats, but getting them to agree to play a tabletop role-playing game was surprisingly easy. How about you, Kurenai?"

"Well, Hinata and Kiba are definitely playing. Hinata's never played any RPG's before, but she is definitely interested in getting into the hobby and while Shino does play D&D, he said he had no interest in the Wild West as a game setting and decided to sit this one out. Shino is a very good role-player, but if he doesn't enjoy tales of cowboys and the open frontier, I can't fault him for wanting to sit this campaign out."

"Alright, that gives us five players. I can work with that. Do you know what time they'll be getting here? I told my students to be here at 4:00 PM, so they should be here pretty soon."

"I gave them the same time you did, oddly enough. So we should have the full group together within the next ten minutes or so."

"Excellent."

After Kurenai and Kakashi had laid out the maps and set the tables for their prospective players, suddenly a knock was heard on the classroom door.

"Come in."

In walked Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto, with Kiba and Hinata following closely behind. The five of them immediately grabbed some chairs and sat down at various places among the plain gray gaming table that had been set up by the two ninja masters.

"I'm so excited to play this game, believe it!" said Naruto with an upbeat air of excitement in his voice.

"We know, Naruto. You wouldn't shut up about it for the last fifteen minutes!" replied Sasuke begrudgingly.

"Easy now, Sasuke. Naruto is just excited to be playing a new game, and there's nothing wrong with that. As a Game Master, I appreciate that kind of enthusiasm at the table."

"Sorry, Kakashi-sensei. As annoying as Naruto can be at times, you do have a point."

"Yeah, the gaming table is one of the few places where Naruto shines." said Sakura.

Hinata raised her hand and nervously spoke up.

"Kurenai-sensei, what kind of game will we be playing and how do you create your characters in this? I'm new to all this stuff, although Kiba did explain Dungeons & Dragons to me and how it is played. But I was told we're not playing that game but a different game instead."

"Correct. We are playing a game called Boot Hill, specifically the Second Edition rules released in 1979. It is a Wild West tabletop role-playing game and it is a very easy and simple system when compared to the newer editions of Dungeons & Dragons, and indeed many other role-playing systems. You play as characters in an Old West setting and play through interactive fictional scenarios. You can be a cowboy, a lawman, a rancher, settler, a miner, a gambler, a Native American, an outlaw, one of the townsfolk, or for this particular campaign, you could even be a member of Caesar's Legion. The specific setting of this campaign is the frontier town of Promise City, located in the vast El Dorado County, located at an unspecified area in the territories of the American West."

"Neat. I always loved watching Westerns on TV with my grandparents." replied the nervous girl with a sigh of relief in her voice.

"Then you will love this game a lot, Hinata. Character creation and game mechanics are largely based on percentile dice, which we have already provided for you in case you need them. All we need from each of you is a basic character concept and then we'll roll the stats for your characters."

"I shall play a cowboy who has just arrived in Promise City after a long cattle drive." said Naruto.

"I want to play a gentleman gambler seeking his fortunes in the West. Sort of like Doc Holliday." said Sasuke.

"I'll be a saloon girl who is also the partner-in-crime of Sasuke's character. She'd be the Big Nose Kate to Sasuke's Doc Holliday." replied Sakura.

"I'll play one of the spies for Caesar's Legion, disguised as a simple miner in Promise City." said Kiba.

"I want to be a pioneer homesteader woman living in Promise City, a reluctant hero of sorts." replied Hinata.

"Excellent, I like all of the character concepts that the five of you have mentioned. Let's get this show on the road then, shall we?"

As Kakashi set up the GM's screen and readied his campaign notes, Kurenai guided the players in creating their characters.

This would be a campaign that they would not forget.

Coming Soon: A New RPG Fan Fiction Project

So I have decided to write some RPG fan fiction. Earlier in this blog, I had mentioned the project "Dead Dungeons", a crossover of Dungeons & Dragons and the Dead or Alive video game series, but development on that project has led me down a different creative rabbit hole and I have decided to write some fan fiction about the classic Wild West role-playing game Boot Hill and it would involve characters from the Naruto anime franchise.

That being said, you don't need to be all that familiar with the Naruto franchise to understand this fan fiction. I'll explain the initial premise in this quick blog post.

The fic is a story within a story. The first chapter consists of some of the main characters from the Naruto anime getting ready to play a long campaign of Boot Hill, and it serves as a framing device for the main story, which is the actual in-character events of the game. Character deaths can and will happen and the story will be written partially on the fly.

The fanfic itself will be given the simple title of Boot Hill. named for the game being played in the story and I should have a prologue chapter up fairly soon.

Boot Hill and the Western Genre

Saddle up, because for this blog article, we're heading out West to talk about one of the earliest RPG's ever made, the legendary Boot Hill, published by TSR and created by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume in 1975.

I've been a fan of the Western genre ever since I was a little kid watching old Westerns with my grandfather, and from the day I began playing RPG's, I desired an Old West-themed role-playing game. My very first D&D character that I played when I was thirteen may have been a Sorcerer, but he was dressed like a cowboy from the Wild West with his boots, broad-brimmed hat, and long duster coat. However, it wasn't until I was much older and started to get involved with the OSR and began delving deeper into the history of D&D and the greater RPG hobby that I learned about Boot Hill, TSR's second RPG after Dungeons & Dragons and one of the earliest role-playing games ever.

I briefly played in a forum-based Play-by-Post Boot Hill game that used the Second Edition rules from 1979, and I enjoyed the fuck out of it. Sadly, I had to bow out of the game due to real-life complications taking precedent.

To put it bluntly, the Easter holiday and severe weather delays threw me off and I could no longer follow what was happening. But it was fun while it lasted and I would love to play another game of Boot Hill one day.

I do not own a hard copy of the rules, but I have read scanned PDF's of both the First Edition and Second Edition rules online. I doubt that the scans were fully legal, so I'm not going to link them here or anything like that. I realize that there was a third edition of Boot Hill released in the early 90's during the heyday of Second Edition AD&D which introduced an entirely different set of game mechanics, but I have not read nor played that version of the game, so I can't really comment on it.

However, I do like the Second Edition of Boot Hill, originally released in 1979 (the first edition came out in 1975, and the third in 1990) and while I am not used to percentile-based systems, I did enjoy playing the game online and the system itself seemed fairly light. Boot Hill is notorious among gamers for two things.

One of these things is that Boot Hill is rather obscure compared to D&D and the other is that it is extremely lethal compared to D&D, with character deaths being a common occurrence by comparison. The lack of classes and levels probably adds to this reputation.

Many people give Boot Hill a lot of flak for not having as detailed of a setting or premise as other games like Dungeons & Dragons. But to be fair, the Western genre is so ingrained into our pop culture that one could make the argument that it didn't need to explain the premise of the game all that much. You could easily just watch a Western movie or TV show, or read one of those paperback dime novels.

I get the feeling that Gygax and his buddies at TSR didn't feel the need to explain the premise of Boot Hill, especially given that the Western genre was a lot more prominent in the 1970's than it is today in the 2010's.

I personally love the game, despite its sparse material and highly lethal combat system. I would love to run some campaigns or write some fan fiction based on Boot Hill in the near future.

I've also considered doing crossovers with Boot Hill and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (there's even material covering such a concept in the First Edition Dungeon Master's Guide for AD&D) and I will be covering that specific concept in another future blog post.