Talking about Pokemon 2 Much: The Implied Setting of Kanto (Generation 1)

As mentioned in my last post, I have a lot of thoughts about Kanto - specifically as it is presented in the OG Red & Blue versions - and how that can help inspire our world building in tabletop settings.

And no, this isn't going to be some fanwank about how "pokemon is a post apocalyptic world where all the grown men died in a horrible war." Quite the opposite. But let me make a note before we proceed: I am going to take literally everything we are presented about Kanto in Generation 1. Cartridge limitations? Bad translations? That's world building baby.

Kanto is highly advanced

Pokeballs allow humans to capture and store monsters in their pockets. A computer system exists that can store these monsters digitally. Scientists are able to resurrect Pokemon from their fossilized remains and have no problem providing this service free of charge to an 11 year old boy.

Now we all know the genetic material of the rare ancient Pokemon known as Mew was manipulated by scientists to create the incredibly powerful Mewtwo. That's a pretty well trod piece of Pokemon lore. But I think we tend to gloss over the real technological marvel hiding out in the Pokedex: Pokemon #137 - Porygon, the Virtual Pokemon.

"A Pokémon that consists entirely of programming code. Capable of moving freely in cyberspace." 

Not only have the scientists of Kanto figured out how to digitize Pokemon, they've figure out how to create one out of code and bring it into the physical world! Naturally they give this scientific break-thru away as a prize to degenerate gamblers (who may or not be 11 year old boys.)

Oh and let's not forget that the massive technological conglomerate that produces Pokeballs also has teleporters in its office building.

Pokemon are the economy

Pretty much all science, commerce, leisure travel, entertainment and education we encounter is centered around Pokemon and Pokemon trainers. 

And by that logic, it stands to reason that the major antagonists we encounter, Team Rocket, would be a gang that uses Pokemon to commit crime.

Kanto is tamed

Despite Pokemon being seemingly abundant out in the grass and waterways of Kanto, they seem to largely not cause problems inside of cities.

I would posit that this is done through large scale population management of wild Pokemon (i.e. all the 11 year olds set loose trying to level their Pikachus) and technological means (repel barriers deployed around cities).

When I started looking at wild Pokemon distribution in Red & Blue I was struck by something I hadn't really thought about in years: Many evolved Pokemon you'd think could be foud in the wild, absolutely aren't. Despite how numerous Caterpie and Weedle are, there are no wild Butterfree and Beedrill in Kanto.

Honestly? Probably for the best. But it's not just them. Pidgeotto are restricted to three routes and there are absolutely no wild Pidgeots. Evolutions for the omni present Zubat and Geodude are similarly restricted to the Seafoam Islands & Victory Road - a far flung cave system in the middle of the ocean and a training ground restricted to elite trainers. 

Several dangerous and evolved Pokemon can be found in Victory Road and the Unknown Dungeon (located on the borders of Viridian & Cerulean Cities) but they appear to be well contained within these habitats.

Human activity impacts Pokemon

It does appear that there have been some downsides to Kanto's industrial and technologixsl growth.

Grimer's Red & Blue Pokedex entries tell us it feeds on industrial runoff. And it's entry from Pokemon Stadium (which is essentially the unused entry from Japanese Red & Green) states:

"Sludge that was transformed when exposed to X-rays from the moon. Loves sludge, industrial waste and other refuse." 

That raised an eyebrow when I remembered that Grimer is only found in one location in Pokemon Red & Blue: The Pokemon Mansion, aka the laboratory where Mewtwo was created. I don't think Grimer is simply the product of randomly mutated sludge - that sludge probably contained genetic material left over from the experiments used to create Mewtwo.

Then there's the fact that several Pokemon evolutions are only possible through human intervention. Some Pokemon inexplicably need to be traded to evolve while others have to be exposed to rare evolutionary stones. Raichu appears to be the only Pokemon who needs to be exposed to a stone to evolve who can be encountered in the wild (at Kanto's Power Plant and in the Unknown Dungeon.) 

Both the Power Plant and Pokemon Tower (a cemetery) seem to have the effect of attracting Electric and Ghost types to their locations. 

Pokemon such as Cubone are implied to be targets of poaching. Players cannot progress unless they utilize the SliphScope to identify the ghost of Cubone's mother, Marrowak, and lay her to rest (by defeating her in battle, duh.) But even though we're only told about this one specific Marrowak being killed by Team Rocket, Pokemon Tower is full of grieving Cubone. I think there's more going on here than just a random Team Rocket slaughter spree. As Cubone are not found anywhere else in Kanto, I suspect that Mr. Fuji was running a breeding project to introduce these Pokemon to the Kanto region and was then targeted by Team Rocket.

There's actually a video series I really like about the idea that many Kanto Pokemon are not native to the region. The existence of the Safari Zone kind of backs this up. As a real Gen 2 head I'm fully onboard with the idea that Scyther and Pinsir were imported from Johto's National Park.

Before we wind down I would like to take my wildest shot of all: MISSINGNO. is canon.

Yes we all abused the hell out this glitch duplicate rare candies, TMs and Masterballs..but everything we know about the setting of Kanto also tells me that Missingno canonically exists within the world of Generation 1. 

It's found on the coast of Cinnabar Island home to both the Pokemon Mansion where Mewtwo was cloned and Grimer mutated out of sludge, but also the Pokemon Lab where fossil Pokemon are revived by careless scientists. 

While I cannot recall ever encountering form 4, Missing no can appear as fossilized Pokemon and an unidentified ghost in addition to its iconic glitch body. Perhaps before the fossil revitalization process was perfected Cinnabar scientists attempted to recreate extinct Pokemon digitally and bring them into the physical world. 

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So what world building lessons can we actually learn from all this?

1. If your setting is defined by abundance, find opportunities to show that.

Advanced technology is freely given away all the time in Kanto. It honestly reminds me of accessing magical items and spells in 5e's Forgotten Realms. You walk into a city and you can bring your dead companion back to life no problem (assuming you've got gold and diamonds.) You want a spell or TM? You can can buy it.

Kanto obviously skews a bit more luxury utopian than most tabletop settings and it's a far cry from say, Vance's Dying Earth where magic is violent tlt hoarded. 

2. "It's the economy, stupid." 

There is something about your setting that defines how trade and commerce works. Maybe it is the massive dungeon underneath the seat of power and governance. Perhaps it is the space god corpse that crashed two generation ago that people are still harvesting. 

It could just be Dragons. Stealing their ancient hoards, draining their blood, turning their scales and hides into goods. You'll figure it out.

3. Towns, Cities, Routes & Dungeons 

Make it clear and unambiguous how these spaces operate and what types of encounters players can have in them. Let them know what is safe but make it clear where danger lurks. 

4. Teams, Gangs & Guilds

There are ideologically unified groups of people either working within the established economic system of your world, or they work outside of/against it. Make it clear who they are. Give them a uniform. Hell, give them a gimmick.

5. Make Power Careless

Put someone in your setting with access to an amazing power. Raising the dead, seeing through time, granting sentience to animals, turning lead into gold, etc. Now make them completely irresponsible. They don't have to evil or ill-intentioned (unless that's more fun to you)  just laissez-faire with their ability. Something interesting will happen when they run up against your players.

6. Show us what happens when nobody hunts monsters

What becomes of an island that's isolated because sea serpents block the only safe route to their shores? 

What happens when the villagers just let the Hag have the forest?

No one ever found the Lich's phylactery. He is well and truly immortal. He's reigned for 1000 years. Is anyone even afraid at that point?

7. This isn't even my final form.

If a monster kills one of your players or a named NPC, slap an evolution on that bad boy. Make it more powerful and really crank up the level of grudge between it and your table.

Perhaps consider Goblin -> Hobgoblin -> Bugbear as an evolutionary line for your table. It has always bugged me that these are just three different monsters instead one creature at different stages of power.

8. Old Man Glitch

At some point a player will exploit your game. They will break the math, they will find an interaction you didn't expect. Don't argue, don't stop them, don't worry. Simply make the world weirder in response, and crank it up every time they go back to the exploit well. 

100 ball bearings on that character sheet? Add two zeroes to that. That NPC shopkeeper who is always sweeping? Still sweeping, just upside down. A formerly intelligible language now just appears as gibberish.

Don't use this as punishment and don't be coy about what's happening. Use this to send the story off in a fun new direction. Anything that's broken can be fixed, until it's too late.

- - -

No random table from me this post. I've written too much and I think enough of it is gameable.

Go roll some dice!

Make Better Encounter Tables

Pokemon is 30 years old this week! It's also probably the 28th or 27th anniversary of a girl in my class giving me a Valentine's card that said "you're cool even though you talk about Pokemon all the time." 

But you know what isn't cool? Bad encounter tables! And Pokemon is loaded with them. I'm not going to wade into whether or not Pokemon is or isn't OSR - but both of these posts made think about a specific area that Pokemon has been lacking in for most of its existence. 

Let's take a look at the encounter table for Route 1, the very first place a new player would step into the tall grass and encounter a wild Pokemon.

Birds and rats. Okay, we're keeping it light as we ease you into the game. Let's check our next route:

A new type of rat. And another bird. We don't encounter a wild bug Pokemon until our third route! And that's still still less likely than running into one of those rats or birds you've already seen.

Things don't really heat up until Virdian Forrest where you encounter an evolved Pokemon for the first time (Medapod/Kakuna) and a maze full of bug catching weirdos who want to impede your progress. 

Lack of encounter variety is simply boring. There's only so many times you can throw your Bulbasaur or Rattata against hardening Kakuna before you wished you could simply fumigate Viridian Forrest. This is why (almost) every cave environment in Gen 1 is an absolute slog. It's just Zubat after Zubat (unless it's Digletts.)

But do these tables tell us something about the world?

So the first thing that stands out there is the presence of Pikachu, everybody's favorite little guy. But the next thing that leaps out to me is the lack of Rattata, Nidoran, Pidgey and Spearow. Surely they would be at home in a place like Virdian Forest? 

Unless an invasive colony of Pikachu's forced them out.

Pokemon distribution in Gen 1 (and 2 and 3 and...) has often been a sore point for fans. There's a reason so many Pokemon hacks take a crack at adding some variety or logic to where Pokemon are placed on the map. Just taking a look at what Routes have what Pokemon really makes you wonder both

A) Why some of them are only found in one (or very few) places

B) Why some of them are everywhere 

C) Why certain Pokemon are encountered later instead of earlier

It totally makes sense from a game design perspective why you'd place Paras, Jigglypuff, Clefairy and Jigglypuff after Brock: they all have abilities that would make that first gym battle incredibly easy for the dim bulbs who picked Charmander. But Ekans? C'mon. I should've been able to catch a snake as soon as I got my Pokeballs. 

I won't harp on this because I could totally fall down a rabbit hole of micro obsessing over Pokemon ecology and the implied state of Kanto into Generation 1...so let's just look at some lessons we can learn from Pokemon's handling of encounter tables for our own tabletop gaming:

1. Encounter tables should be diverse: If you're making a d10 encounter table and 3 of the options are the exact same thing, you done goofed. 

2. Encounter types should be varied: in 30 years the only thing we can do with Pokemon when we encounter them is run away or battle them. And Pokemon only respond one way to your presence - fight or flight. 

Give your players a little more than that! Encounters should respond to player behavior and other cues like their species, manner of dress, and languages spoken. I don't think we need full on reaction tables, just play it by ear.

3. Encounters should tell us something about the world and environment: If there's only of something somewhere, with a 5% chance to encounter it, you better know why. Is it endangered? Perhaps it's an alpha predator that doesn't like sharing territory.

4. They should be asymmetrical: Why should I let Mewtwo beat my Pokemons ass one by one? We are in a cave, just jump him. 7 v 1.

Encounters don't need to be fair they just need to be interesting. Did you know that in the OG Gen 1 games your opponents had infinite PP for their all Pokemon's moves? Stack the deck against your players and give them every opportunity to use their resources to do the same to the encounters you set up.

5. Make resources matter: Raise your hand if were out of Pokeballs the first time you encountered a Pikachu in Viridian Forest. It's not punishing your players if you put an encounter on your table that requires a resource they may not have - or might not want to give up. 

Do you give the wounded trader your potion of healing? Is a days worth of rations worth it for *that player* to befriend a Dire Wolf? Make them think about it, but don't make them suffer. There's nothing fun about truly unobtainable rewards.

That's all for me on Pokemon for now. 

POKEMON Inspired Encounter Table

1. Territorial Striges: 1HD. Carnivorous birds who prefer the flesh of young animals and small children. 2d20 appearing.

2. Jelly Siren Concert: 2HD, resistant to physical attacks. Gelatinous songstress who grows irate when it's magical song inevitably puts its audience to sleep. Constitution check to resist. 1 appearing.

3. Ember Elemental Traffic Jam: 2HD, fatally weak to water. A school of Ember Elementals cries out for help as a river blocks their path forward. Their tears are lava. 1d4 appearing.

4. Mimic Trainer: A Wizard (4HD, spellbook containing 6 spells, treasure: 3x capture crystals, 2d30 foreign coins, a small pewter badge) is struggling to help their pet Mimic (3HD) take on new shapes. To a passerby on the road, she looks like a madwoman arguing with a shoe. A Dire Rat (2HD) sleeps near her camp 

5. Napping Bear: A sleeping Bear (6HD) of massive proportions blocks the only easy path forward. 

6. Lucky Duck: A duck (2 HP) crosses the road carrying a bundle of scallions in its mouth.

7. Goblin Scytheman:  A Goblin (4HD) carrying an ornate Scythe challenges passersbys to a friendly duel.

8. Hungry Travellers: A trio of travellers - Hai (exuberant young boy in a hat), Ganjo (stoic but flirtatious young man), and Ame (Friendly young girl tending to mysterious egg) are prepping a meager meal of rice and pickled vegetables. 

There's a bunch of ways to connect the principles I laid out to these encounters. 

-Perhaps the Hungry Travellers will shsre information about the Abandoned Den where they found that egg if you share food. 

-The Sleeping Bear might but what diverted the normal migration of the Ember Elementals. Leave some pink jelly nearby too.

-The "friendly" Goblin has allies laying in wait nearby.

-The Duck might make great soup or be on its way to something interesting.

New Item: Capture Crystal  

Capture Crystals are arcane devices crafted by skilled artisans of a foreign region. 

An apple sized sphere carved from red and white crystal. When thrown at a creature rendered unable to fight but still alive, it has a chance of being captured. 

Roll 5d20. If the creature has 2HD or less, it is captured if at least three dice read under 15. For creatures with 3-4HD, 4 dice must read under 15. For creatures with 5HD all 5 dice must read under 15. 

You gain advantage on one dice roll if the creature is burned, confused, or paralyzed. You gain advantage on two rolls if it is frozen or asleep. A crystal shatters if a capture attempt is unsuccessful.

These crystals can only be used on non-intelligent, wild creatures. They don't work on anything they wouldn't be considered some sort of beast, animal or magical construct. 

Once captured, a creature can be easily transported and summoned at will. Capture crystals bestow them with a modicum of loyalty to their trainer and the ability to follow rudimentary commands and instructions. 

A crystal can only store one creature at a time. They can be reused if a creature dies or is released. 

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There, I nerded out about Pokemon. Here is to 30 more years! 

RIP Super Sentai

After 50 years, Super Sentai is officially over.

I'll be honest, I'm not exactly shedding any tears. Me and Sentai - hell, me and Tokusatsu as a whole - never really clicked. It's one of those things people generally assume I would be into because of how much superhero slop I consume.  I've tried - Sentai, Kamen Rider, Ultra Man, Garo - I really have attempted to give various series a shot at one point or another. It just doesn't work for me unless it's tickling my specific childhood nostalgia for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

But that doesn't mean seeing a pillar of the genre come to an end isn't a bit weird. It's like if DC said they were really gonna cancel Batman. It's just one of those things that is kind of hard to believe. But by all accounts it does seem like Super Sentai will return. Some day. I think it's admirable that they are willing to put the franchise on the back burner while they figure out how to make it relevant again. 

And I do think it's interesting that Super Sentai and Dungeons & Dragons are both facing public crises of relevancy as they hit their 50th anniversaries. 50 years is a long time to expect people to care about anything, much less something that has been kind of forced into walking a very specific tightrope.

I'm sure there's a scholar of both franchises that could probably dive into a deep explanation. I'm just here to chat shit.

One thing I will say in favor of Sentai is that I've always thought it was incredibly gamesble. The concept just lende itself so well to tabletop - color coded roles for your players, magical armor and weapons, power ups, monsters of the week and a big bad with a plan to takeover the world.

Sadly I've found the few Toku inspired games I've read through incredibly disappointing. And I'll give a particular negative callout to Renegade's Power Rangers Roleplaying Game. I was so excited to buy that book and then just gutted as I read through the poorly edited PDF. I could forgive it for just being a d20 system in a trench coat, but not giving you guidelines for creating monsters in the first release was just absolutely grimy.

So while the dream of a dedicated tabletop game is probably a little far (for me at least) maybe there are some bits that can be slotted into your general fantasy tabletop adventure.

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The Metalizer

A metallic, palm sized device containing a removable golden coin stamped with the image of a legendary beast. Known coins include The Griffin, The Auroch, The Dire Wolf, The Unicorn and The Dragon. Rumors insist that coins bearing a Scorpion, Sphinx and Oni have also passed through the hands of coin collectors and metallurgists.

When activated, the wearer gains access to an enchanted set of arms and armor. Without coins, however, the Metalizers are nothing more than fancy belt buckles. 

Metalizers and their coins sometimes turn up in bazaars and treasure caches, but almost never together. They are more likely to be passed down through family lines or from teacher to student at certain martial academies.

At least one known Metalizer is said to be in possession of a warrior known as The Green Hunter, who gained its powers after slaying its previous owner. His coin bears The Dragon and it is said he can breathe fire and has cut down 50 warriors. He has lain claim to the area known as the Wester Quarry ceasing all productivity in the region. The bounty for his defeat bears 4000 gold pieces.

Common weapons include: spears, bows, swords, daggers that are also flutes and axes that are guns 

All Metalizer armor functions as magical chain mail, while all Metalizer weapons function as magical (+1) weapons of their type. While a Metalizer is active its user gains an additional 10 HP. 

Metalizers are believed to carry 3 charges that can be activated to summon their armor and weapons. The charges replenish every 24 hours. Metalizers deactivate if the user suffers a critical hit from a sufficiently powerful enemy or force (the damage is halved.)

These devices and their users are frequently sought out by agents of the Solum Court, an interdimensional cult who believe the existence of life outside their home realn challenges their religious dogma. It is rumored that at some point in the distant past, a party of Metalizer wielding warriors fought off an invasion by the Solum Court but even folklorists have never verified these stories. 

      Eyewitness rendering of Solum Court agents

It has been claimed that other objects similar to Metalizers - collectively dubbed Changers by scholars of cryptomagicka - exist in various forms. Citing folk legends and cave etchings, these scholars have claimed these objects can appear as rings, bracelets, crowns, staves, blades, shields and orbs. Their alleged origins are as varied as their shapes. Cults, Divine Pantheons, Dragons, Shamans and beings from other worlds are all said to be responsible for their creation. 

Perhaps many such devices do exist. We can only hope they end up in the hands of just, responsible heroes. 

Dungeon Weapons

Hello dungeoneers and other assorted nerds. Back at you today with a musing of sorts. 

Finally started up a new job that gives me a lot of time for vibing out to music and podcasts, so I've been indulging in the absolutely fantastic BLOOD WORK. For those not in the know, it's a podcast about the economy of violence. There's a two part episode on the history of the car bomb that is particularly fascinating and was the impetus for this post. 

In the episode, the car bomb is described as "a weapon that evolved to thrive in the urban environment." And because I'm a huge fucking nerd I immediately wondered 

"Is there a type of weapon that specifically thrives in the dungeon environment?" 

I've been thinking a lot about dungeon based play the last year or so. After a West Marches style game that fizzled out (maybe I'll write about that one day) I started thinking about limiting the scope of the games I invited people to play. More one-three session scenarios, that sort of thing. But in the back of my mind there's a part of me that just wants to create a weird dungeon and invite various people I know to put parties together and attempt to defeat it. 

I even toyed with the idea of cribbing from the old TSR tournament scoring system and simply seeing what party had the highest score the end of a calendar year. Again, I'm trying to limit my scope here so that particular idea got shoved in a box. But thoughts about dungeons still remain.

When I think about dungeons it's usually in the context of "how can I make this kill my players?" Traps, wacky mechanics, wandering monster tables and the like. My mind never really goes to "how can the players take this dungeon?" 

There was a thread recently that asked the question of how an army could clear out a dungeon. The overwhelming consensus was that they couldn't, that the standard dungeon environment would essentially be a death trap from any large, conventionally operating military force.

But that's not what an adventuring party is. The standard adventuring party, competence not withstanding, is more akin to a group of special forces mercenaries or burglars. Your job is to get in, grab as much loot as possible or maybe kill the necromancer filling the countryside with pesky zombies. Hence me wondering about weapons evolved for this environment.

In OSR design spaces I see a lot of talk about ten foot poles and hireling management but I see considerably less about what, if anything, gives players a decided qualitative edge over the denizens or occupying powers of a dungeon.

Taking a look at the OG equipment list from Men & Magic by Gygax and Arneson, there's some stuff that immediately sticks out to me. 

Why not use that belladona to poison some wine and offer it to those Goblins instead of dealing with a fight. 

Rope is incredibly cheap! Snare, deadfall and bow traps should be standard ways to deal with wandering monsters in parts of a dungeon the party isn't ready to full explore. I'm sure they could be constructed with rope (or fishing line) ten foot poles, spears and some iron spikes.

If it'll work on a tank, it will work on some orcs marching through a dungeon

The story of Tucker's Kobolds is the stuff of legend now, and I guess what I'm saying is that players should attempt to be the kobolds. Oil is cheap and players could probably aquire barrels of it if need be. It shouldn't be out of the question to clear a dungeon floor by burning out it's inhabitants. My party used a similar tactic in a West End Star Wars session last year when negotiations with some Hutts went south. Won't come out of your swamp manse? Fine! We've got no problem repurposing our land speeder exhaust port into a flamethrower.

There's a diabolically upsetting combination of oil and animal companions laid out in this old Hill Cantons post. I would probably throw up a little if any of my players ever suggested it but I'd be hard pressed to challenge its efficacy against low level, generally disorganized enemies.

And that's to say nothing of 5e including Slings, Nets, Ball Bearings, Caltrops, Acid & Alchemist's Fire (aka a premade fantasy Molotov) as standard gear you can purchase right out of the Player's Handbook. There's some pretty filthy violence player characters in most D&D-likes can get up to without drawing a weapon. 

And then there are the tables and settings that are more permissive with access to black powder and fire arms....

I've always thought the classical old school hand cannon would make an amazing part of a party's kit. 

In all my musing I don't think I really found the car bomb of dungeon weaponry - short of just bringing a donkey driven cart carrying barrels of oil and alchemist's fire with you down into a dungeon (something just as likely to immolate your entire party as it is to help you clear a floor). Send this blog post to your players and maybe they will. And then you can hate me for it.

That's all from me today. 

Have fun, stay safe, look out for each other.

And listen to BLOOD WORK.

Blogwagon: Jay's Rule of Three

Sam Seer dropped an interesting challenge a few weeks back: Talk about three games that are important to you. 

Here are mine.

The New Mutants: An X-men based forum RPG I played in from the years 2004-2011 or 12. I legitimately couldn't tell you a thing about the mechanics (I think it was based on GURPs?) but it was incredibly fun. I have a lot of strong memories of that period because this was essentially the internet community I ever became deeply embedded in. 

There are two people from that game I'm still friends with after all these years. Sometimes we still text about memories from that period of our lives.

I won't say who, but recently I saw the name of someone who played on that forum in the solicits page for a mainstream comic book. It made me so happy to see that they had made it! Like damn, they really did that they set out to do all those years ago.

And there have been many times where a player in a game I'm running or playing in creates a character that just vividly reminds me of a wacky mutant someone rolled on that forum. 

Last year I ran my regulars through at least three X-men themed sessions and I can't pretend it was for any reason other than trying to recapture that old feeling.

The Legend of Zelda - Link's Awakening: There are a couple of games that could fight for this spot; the Gen 1 or 2 Pokemon, Ocarina of Time, Skyrim, Perfect Dark; but I have to give it to the first game I truly fell madly in love with and still adore to this day. 

I'll never forget the time I spent in the back seat of my dad's car, on the couch at my cousin's house, huddled up against a rack while my mom was shopping, face in my Gameboy trying to collect those instruments and free the Wind Fish.

Now that I'm old enough to have seen (most of) Twin Peaks, I just have a completely different appreciation for Koholint Island and its wacky inhabitants. 

I've also been lucky enough to re-experience the game a lot in the last few years. First in the form of a much improved GBC experience thanks to some great quality of life patches made over the years. And then watching my wife play through the fantastic Switch remake during the pandemic. Something about seeing all those puzzles and dungeons through her eyes just made fall in love with the game all over again. 

I've failed more than succeeded but whenever I try to create a setting for a tabletop game, Koholint Island is what I'm striving for. 

The Black Hack: 2016 was a weird year, wasn't it? It was essentially the end of politics as we knew it as we were dragged into a fully post-truth reality. And The Black Hack hit the Google+ streets like a ton of bricks. 

This was the game that introduced me to the world of ttrpgs outside of 5th Edition. It was the game that made me feel comfortable being a GM. And it's the game that inspired me to create my own content and throw it out there to the world. It still really tickles me when I get Google Drive requests for some class or hack I created back in the day. 

I kinda cringe at a lot of what I wrote now. The idea of playtesting it never really crossed my mind, but it was so fun just being in community with people who were inspired to use this game as a jump off point to create their own stuff.

Maybe one day I'll turn The Hero Hack into the fully fledged game it was meant to be. But I'll never forget a friend of mine introducing to me their friend who played in a campaign as a Batman pastiche whose parents were killed by a car (so they were an anti-car instead of anti-gun vigilante.) Knowing that someone was out there having fun with something I wrote to disassociate out of grad school still makes me happy. 

Sometimes I even forget that my regular weekly-ish game started with a TBH session on Twitter Spaces in...2020 or 2021. The Black Hack has been a stalwart companion for years. It's not flashy, it's not perfect, but it does exactly what you need it to do.

And don't get me wrong, I fully mean 1st edition.

Running the 2nd edition has truly never appealed to me (and I don't understand how it has an even worse armor system) but this is really my favorite way to run some quick and dirty dungeon crawling adventures. 

But I'm not sure I'll be able to say anything about The Black Hack that isn't covered in this fantastic post.

And I quote:

"When later games like Knave, Cairn, and Bastards emerged, they all owed something, whether consciously or not, to that little black booklet that proved you could reinvent the old school without betraying it. It’s no exaggeration to say that The Black Hack laid the groundwork for the NuSR movement, those games that embrace OSR principles but dare to experiment with tone, mechanics, and format. It’s the missing evolutionary link between Moldvay and Mörk Borg." 

Damn. 

My 2026 Gaming Wishlist

Welcome back, gang!

For today's post I would like to lay out my humble desire for 2026: I want to run 12 new games. 

For a lot of you that's probably a cakewalk - but I'm not sure I've ever cracked 6 different games in one year. You'd think a game a month would be pretty doable...but I envy you if you know a bunch of adults whose schedules remain consistent and open without any weird dramatic happenings in between.

Without further ado, my wishlist for the year:

1. Star Borg - We got off to a good start running this game the same day it was purchased. See my first blog post for more information. One of the players in that game wants to run a few sessions so I expect to commit some war crimes in the name of the Rebellion.

2. CAIN - I've wanted to run this since 2024 but life got in the way pretty hard. I know some rules updates have been dropped but I like of enjoyed the jank of the first version. We'll see how it goes.

3. Slugblaster - This game seems so rad but I absolutely do not understand the rules. We might just vibe it out.

4. Aether Nexus - I'm a big fan of Matt Click. My regular group loves The Mecha Hack and I backed the kickstarter for this game (something I never do.) It's been collecting dust in my office and I plan to fix that. I really am. I've even been watching Escaflowne!

5. His Majesty the Worm - Just a beautiful beast of a game. I want to run it for my regulars (a virtual group) so I need to figure out the best way to handle the tarot cards. 

6. Mythic Bastionland - My copy arrived the other day and I'm truly blown away by it. The book is beautiful and truly gives you everything you need to run a session or campaign, including detailed, well arranged examples of play. I also just love the idea of a game where you're actually noble knights instead of feckless murder hoboes. 

Especially these days.

7. The Whispering Vault - Someone on Reddit last year described this as "Clive Barker's Superfriends" and I hit eBay for a copy immediately. It is missing somewhere in my house but I swear I'm going to find it before Halloween.

8. Feng Shui - I think I love the concept of this game more than the execution but I truly want to give it the old college try.

9. Jukebox - My white whale. I have exactly one friend down to play a karaoke game but I really will make this happen 

10. GRIM - I just think the concept sounds neat 

11. Ride or Die - The minute this game drops I'm going to run it. I love those Fast and the Furious movies so much it hurts.

12. ???? 

The final spot on my list is wide open. Will that Godzilla game everyone fell in love with PAX drop before the end of the year? Not a clue. I hope it does. 

I'm not a big fan of Invincible but I'm pretty curious about the game. Mostly I think it would just be cool to get a bit superhero game released that was actually playable. 

If there's a game you're looking forward to sound off in the comments.

I definitely plan to revisit some old favorites: Mausritter, The Black Hack, Stay Frosty & EXTINCTION which might be my favorite game from the last few years. I've inflicted several flavors of it on my players, from murderous sexbots to a gnarly riff on Exiles

Poor Cap. He didn't deserve what my players did to him and his reality. 

That's all for this week, folks! Keep your eyes open, your head on a swivel and watch out for each other. 

2026 Game 1: Star Borg

 

Star Borg by Kyle Latino & JP Coovert

 

Some time around breakfast I decided the first game I ran in 2026 had to be a Star War. Don't ask me why. I'm not the biggest fan and I've tended to do a hard bounce off the rules for most tabletop editions - and yet I wanted to run a Star War. I think there's just something about the setting that fundamentally appeals: an evil authority to rebel against, faceless goons you don't need to negotiate with, crime bosses who keep monsters for pets, etc.  

I've always kept Hack Wars in my back pocket in case of this specific emergency but I'll be real with you: the more time goes on the lazier I become as a game master. I want short rule books, and I want to do as little work possible to get a game running for my friends. Without a random table to generate an adventure or some enemy examples, Hack Wars was not going to do the trick. One quick Youtube search later and I stumbled across a great video by JP Coovert about his game, Star Borg.

This felt like algorithmic synchronicity. Far too often videos about tabletop games are either "reviews" by someone who hasn't even run the game or multipart, multihour actual plays I'm absolutely not going to watch. So to find a creator showcasing their game and how it can be used to get a session running? *Chefs Kiss*

That video was all I needed to see to be convinced to purchase and run a session of Star Borg using its starter adventure The Legion's Foil. 

It's a simple system: 1d20 + ability score to beat a Difficulty Rating (DR) for most skill and combat tests. 12 is Normal difficulty. I didn't use a single DR over 15 for the session and that felt fine, my players failed enough to keep things dangerous and interesting. 

The quick and dirty of this adventure: The Not-Empire has been mucking about with planet scale teleportation. Our Rebel heroes must infiltrate their lab that been zapped across the galaxy into a binary star system. 

My players came through with a fun group of Rebels: Aster! Jaded smuggler, searching for lost Rebel twin brother. Snarl! Grizzled not-Wookie who just wants to retire to a moisture farm. And KN! The amoral trash compactor bot that somehow ended up being the party face.

Things were pretty urgent for our group from the start. Aster learned from their info-broker, Boomer, that her twin brother Sammie had been sent on a recon mission to the Legion base on Nemus 4 they were attempting to infiltrate before he was declared MIA. But a recent signal from that same base - somehow 10 parsecs from where it should be - gave them hope he might still be alive. 

Thanks to some very bad rolls, our hero's and their ship, The Aluminum Hawk, had a hard time making it through the debris field surrounding Nemus 4. It was full of corpses and buildings that had become dislodged from the planet. One ship disabling crash-landing later, they were infiltrating the Legion base. 

Here is where Legion's Foil really shines as a starter adventure: there are some great NPCs and enemies to encounter in the ruined base. My players pistol-whipped and data jacked a maintenance bot, played rodeo with a big space rhino and ended up in a Mexican standoff with a crew of space pirates who'd arrived to loot the base before they did. 

This all lead to a pretty fun negotiation between the party and the adventure's villain, Legion scientist Ado Thorsh. She needed the data they'd stolen on her quantum teleportation experiments. And the party wanted to secure the rescue of Aster's brother, Thorsh's prisoner and test subject. 

In a pretty heroic compromise, KN stuffs himself with explosives and agrees to be traded for Aster's brother as the rest of the party waits in the hangar bay. Sammie, all Jeff-Goldblum-in-The Fly'd, after being used as a teleportation test subject begs for a mercy kill. KN delivers it without a second thought before detonating himself in Ado Thorsh's lab. Aster and Snarl escape the base believing Thorsh killed her brother. 

Our mission ends with Snarl retiring to that moisture farm, Aster taking up her brother's mantle as a committed rebel, and the Rebel alliance getting a sterling recommendation to continue repurposing trash compactor bots for field missions. Also a post-credit tease of the sole surviving space pirate plotting revenge on Aster and Snarl. 

Overall Thoughts: As someone who is not really a fan of Mork Borg, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed running Star Borg. It's a breezy, readable package that gives you everything needed to generate some Star Wars style adventures. Light enough to use for a quick pick-up again, with enough options to run a campaign. 

I really love that every Rebel archetype gets a thing they are working towards when they are done fighting - if they make it to the end of the war that is. RIP KN5B.

This game pretty much checks all of my boxes: the mechanics were easy for me to learn, it was easy to run, my players were able to make their characters quickly. And most importantly, we got a ton of laughs out of the session. Not only was this a great first time run, but I think I would gladly add it to the table rotation.