You know, if I could just focus on one thing, I bet I’d be pretty decent at it.  Sadly, that’s never been the case for me.  On the plus side, though, I’m almost never bored.

Case in point, Jerry and I started out making novelty ukulele songs, then we got distracted by Minecraft, then we got distracted by our Youtube Gaming channel, then we got distracted by our nerd band Critical Failure, then we got distracted by our Weird Paul cover band (The Paulettes).  Now we are distracted by role-playing games.  Well, I guess Jerry has been distracted by roled-playing games the whole time.

You see, Jerry has been playing role-playing games with the same crew for about 6 years or so.  They play Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Savage Worlds, Action Movie World, you name it.  Sometimes Bill (remember him from our Towerfall and Castle Crashers episodes?) was their GM.  Other times it is Frank (Frank is also in our nerd band, Critical Failure, with Jerry and Bill).  Anyway, the name that kept coming up was Dan.  Who the fuck was this Dan character I wondered?  At each Critical Failure band practice I would hear stories about Dan and how hilarious he was and I have to admit to being a little jealous.  I’m the funny one, you guys.  It’s supposed to be me.

Then I’m hearing stories about how Dan once rented out a local movie theater and he and some friends did live riffing over the movie a la MST3K.

What?!  I can’t compete with that.

Then I’m hearing that for a few years in a row Dan ran the classic D&D module, The Keep on the Borderlands, as a drinking game?

What?!

Oh, what’s that?  You say Dan is also an amazing fantasy writer?

Well, fuck that.  I’m out.

Fortunately, I was finally able to meet Dan and in just a few weeks I managed to finagle my way into one of their weekly gaming sessions where we played Action Movie World.  This is an RPG where you are all actors/characters in shitty/amazing 1980s action movies.  I got to be a smartass character  (think Kurt Russell) and it was a total blast.

Well, some time later Dan starts telling us all about this system called Dungeon Crawl Classics.  It’s like old school D&D where dungeons are brutal, shit is confusing and your characters are fragile.  Also, it has this concept of 0-Level funnel where you start with 2-4 level 0 characters who have literally no skills with weapons or magic.  Basically you have a bunch of bakers, farmers, urchins and barbers running around facing cosmic foes who are WAY out of their league.  Hopefully you still have a character alive at the end of the session.  And, if you do, he’s now LEVEL 1!

We ran the funnel Sailors on the Starless Sea and I managed to keep Largo Goodcloak (Halfling haberdasher) alive until the end of the game.  So, we all met up again for part 1 of Doom of the Savage Kings.  It’s a level 1 module and we’ve only just started.  But, before we could jump in we had to level up our characters and pick actual classes.  That was easy as a Halfling, but wizards have all sorts of wacky tables to roll on.  First they have to determine their spells and then they have to determine the mercurial magic effects tied to each of their spells.  These mercurial magic effects can be fucking amazing or just goddamn awful.  You roll percentile dice and hope like hell that you don’t roll really low.  Definitely don’t roll a 1.  That would be THE WORST.

Guess what Bill rolled?

 

https://shaneorjerry.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/rufus-mercurial-magic-thumbnail-1024x576.pnghttps://shaneorjerry.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/rufus-mercurial-magic-thumbnail-150x150.pngShaneRPGVideoBill,daniel swensen,dcc,dungeon crawl classics,goodman games,mercurial magic,rpgYou know, if I could just focus on one thing, I bet I'd be pretty decent at it.  Sadly, that's never been the case for me.  On the plus side, though, I'm almost never bored.Case in point, Jerry and I started out making novelty ukulele songs, then we got...Mostly Shane, Very Little Of That Other Guy...