All the Pluses

At the first GaryCon I went to (VII, so I guess that would have been IV years ago?) I was in the bar talking to some new people from this wider world of gamers I had just found when I heard the voice of my friend and player J, who had come with me from New York, above the general din: “No yeah, that’s him over there, my Dungeon Master—the one who gave out the plus-zero sword!”

It became a running joke, especially among the other AS&SH players and refs that we met—Handy, that stingy bastard. All he gives out for magic items are +0 swords and lucky hats. He’s so hard, you better know how to chew your way out of a dungeon.

It was a larf.

But the thing is, I loved that +0 sword. I thought it was one of the coolest items I had ever come up with. Its magic just let anyone use it. In AS&SH, somewhat like AD&D, there’s a stiff penalty for using weapons that aren’t favored for your class. The +0 Sword of Competence let any magician or illusionist or whoever use the sword without penalty. It addressed a mechanic and expanded the capabilities of a character and opened the door for characters getting into situations waaaay beyond their on-the-sheet capabilities, all of which scratched itches that I didn’t even necessarily know were on me.

We had switched from AD&D to AS&SH the year before. Around the same time I started discovering the blogs and creators that you can label OSR or DIY or well, you probably know all about that since you’re here anyway; odds are you’re one of them? But I was seeing that things could be different, that some of the things that had bugged me about our game could be handled and were being handled in lots of other ways.

I think (mists of time; fog of war; and so on) one thing that immediately struck me was a post from GusL on Dungeon of Signs, which, as with many things from Gus, just instantly showed that other ways open.

So see you in hell, sword +1. Get bent, frost brand.

Which, trust me, I know how small the scale of the revelation here. This isn’t a burning bush. It’s barely a warm patch of grass.

But doors opened. Gus was a gateway drug into all other people doing interesting stuff and forming whatever, a movement, a scene, a party where most anything goes except don’t invite the suits from corporate because they don’t know how to get down.

Use images to break up text!

Mostly, though, I read and lurked. I got into G+, and it was the first social network of my life, and now I’m on a couple of others but only to hang onto some of the relationships I made on G+. I didn’t post much. Certainly not as much as the creators I was following, whose output and drive generally left me shocked and exhausted. But I chimed in on threads and more and most of all cultivated a network of people whose creativity left me in awe and whose regard and conversations I came to treasure. But still, I knew I was never going to match or even vaguely approach either the volume or quality of creative output that filled my G+ stream.

Someone recently said this was OK. I want to say it was DIY and Dragons, but I couldn’t find the reference in a quick search so I’m not certain. But said that scenes like this need noncreators, too. Need consumers, appreciators—fans. Which I think is really what I have been. Awed and appreciative and taking it all in and transmuting and digesting and chymically marrying and excreting in conversation and, especially, in my game. Which, I don’t know. I hope it’s good. My players keep coming back. And when we go to GaryCon or experience other games, they keep giving me one of the highest compliments I can imagine: that they’re too spoiled by our game and that playing with someone else makes them appreciate what we have.

Which just kills me from the inside out with joy and pride.

But.

The point here is that what I bring to them and our game carries in its genes all that I have absorbed from this community of gamers, writers, bloggers, creators, players, obsessives, and endless tinkerers. And many of you now I think of as my friends (and hope you do the same).

And then with G+ at -9 HP and bleeding out, Greg from Owlbear Hugs somehow tossed out the idea that I should start a blog and Bombasticus grabbed it and held feet to fire with his overwhelmingly warm regard and somehow, somehow . . . this.

I’m terrified. I don’t know what this will be. I am trying to let it develop without putting any pressure on myself because I know I will dodge it. I have thoughts. But the world is excellent and finding reasons not to express those. And softball and canoeing seasons are starting up and drinking season is just rounding into form and and and and and.

But I want to give a little small something back for all I have taken and to express, in a small way, the deep respect I have found for so many of you.

So listen. Thanks, G+ers. Thank you for all your wonderful thoughts and nonsense. Thanks for making me participate by being too wonderful to ignore. Thanks for MICROHOUND and Lulu discounts and Absurdism and endless hidden Ram talks and applying the damn +1 to what really needs it, not the first sword in the progression of always building the build but a mark of I SEE YOU and I DIG YOU and THIS. KEEP DOING THIS.

So +0 swords for you all. And all the pluses. It’s been a wild ride. Let’s see what happens next.

Awesome power!

Some not +1 swords in our game:

• The Forge: Warhammer, +2 to hit metal armor, +1D6 fire damage on 19-20
• Slate: Two-handed sword. Petrifaction (w/save) on 19-20
• Death-Soldier's Muster: Falcata: in the hands of a fighter/necromancer, any human killed rises as a zombie that serves until the next dawn
• Reflected Glory: Long sword. Casts mirror image 1/day.
• Shield Hand: Med. shield made of human hands, still bloody at the wrist. First melee attack with a weapon that would hit, shield grabs the weapon and tosses it away.
• Long Alexander: Great spear that can cut through anything (from the Gardens of Ynn)

(Also: I don't know how to do stuff. If you have any thoughts on how to make this look any better, please feel free to share! I am rushing because I want to get this up before G+ fails its system shock roll and is irrevocably dead.)

(Oh god here we go.)