Gen Con 2016: I Will Be There and so Will Some New Zines and Books and Wow

New Crawljammer Zines? What?

Oh, what is this? An update to the Crawljammer blog? Why now?

BECAUSE GEN CON IS THIS WEEK AND I WILL BE RUNNING CRAWLJAMMER THERE AND YOU WILL BE ABLE TO PICK UP SEVERAL NEW RELEASES THAT'S WHY!

Here's the lowdown:

Crawljammer: The Vault of Ash, written by Daniel Bishop and illustrated by Fred Dailey (with cover by Matt Hildebrand) will debut at Gen Con. This is the sequel to Daniel's Weird Worm-Ways of Saturn, and while that first adventure explored the surface of the worm-infested killer planet, this adventure takes us underground, where you will probably die a horrible death, let's be honest. The Goodman Games booth will have 30 copies of the adventure for sale, and after I get back from the convention, and after I ship out copies to folks who had subscribed previously (thanks for your patience!!!), I will put the remaining copies up for sale on this here blog. I still have a bunch of copies of Weird Worm-Ways left, and I will put those up for sale after Gen Con as well, if you want the set.

Crawljammer Most Wanted: A Gen Con 2016 Minizine, written by me, illustrated by Fred Dailey, and designed by Matt Hildebrand, will ONLY be available at Gen Con. Matt wanted to make a special giveaway for Gen Con (even though he won't be there -- how nice is that?) and he was going to make a minizine using some excerpts from previous Crawljammer issues. I said, "let's do something new. I bet Fred would be willing to do something new." And thus it came to be that Fred drew a rogues gallery for the Perilous League -- six vile villains -- and I statted them up for Crawljammer, wrote a bit of backstory for each, and Matt took care of everything else (including printing) and shipped them to CJ central. This is a FREE signed-and-numbered, limited-to-100-copies release. How do you get it: see me or Fred on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday of Gen Con. Tell us what you like about Crawljammer. Play in one of my games. Give us high-fives at Punjar 50K at the Embassy Suites. Share your snacks. Whatever! We will have copies as long as supplies last!

The Gongfarmer's Almanac 2016: Volume 6, Crawljamming and Other Stuff [not the actual title], written by a bunch of people (and including an amazing adventure by Julian Bernick). This is another FREE issue. It's huge. Like 48 pages or something. And like all issues of The Gongfarmer's Almanac, you can get it by asking for it at the Goodman Games booth. Marc Bruner is the champion who coordinated this year's almanac, so give him a huge hug when you see him. If the anticipated release schedule hold true, with two volumes released per day, then this Crawljammer-centric volume should be available on Saturday of Gen Con. Get there early!

...

That's a pretty huge chunk of Crawljammer!

Barako. Mysterious, hypnotic, deadly, wet.

But I am involved with some other releases at Gen Con as well!

The Purple Planet gang regrouped to help out Harley Stroh by fleshing out The Lost City of Barako, a companion locale for the brand new Journey to the Center of Aereth. For the Lost City, I created some cool monsters that will kill you, and a cool magic spell-song-ritual that will kill you or maybe save you. Do you dare to find out?

I also wrote up a couple of magical swords for the Goodman Games Gen Con 2016 Program Guide. If you have seen these Program Guides, they are a huge lie. They are not Program Guides. They are massive amazing Annuals filled with gaming material. This one is dedicated to Metamorphosis Alpha. And swords. And more!

See you at Gen Con!

Three Games for TotalCon 30!

I will be at TotalCon 30 next week, in historic Mansfield, Massachusetts, running three games and playing in a bunch more. Fellow Goodman Games writers Brendan LaSalle and Michael Curtis will be there too, along with Jeff Talanian of North Wind Adventures. Come along and join us!

Here's what I'm running:

Four Days of Undying: DAY FOUR -- THIS IS IT!

This is the LAST DAY TO GET 25% OFF YOUR FIRST MYTHOARD SUBSCRIPTION. (Use the code AGEOFUNDYING.) So here I am. Talking about The Age of Undying for the final time (before it's released).

As I have mentioned all week, the only way to get The Age of Undying in print is via a Mythoard subscription, so you should get on that. But I'm not here today to badger you into buying something you don't want. If you do want it, great! If you don't, then that's on you. You're the one who will have to pretend to smile when your players ask for a more vicious and nightmarish world that will test their characters. Or when they see their friends fighting corpse colossi and wonder why they never get to have such fun. Or die so gloriously.

But what I am here for today is to answer questions from the fans! From the readers. The askers. The whomevers. Here we go!

Julan Bernick asks, "What Silver Age supervillain would be most at home in The Age of Undying?"

The answer is...Lord Death Man! Created by Robert Kanigher and Shelly Moldoff, but more famously used in Jiro Kuwata's bat-manga from the 1960s, Lord Death Man is the perfect villain for The Age of Undying for multiple reasons. (1) He wears a costume that makes him look like a skeleton, which is really the only reason you need. (2) He fights Batman IN A GRAVEYARD! Fabulously Undying! and (3) He has died MORE THAN ONCE. In America and Japan! I think you should bring Lord Death Man into your game. Just a straight-up port. No changes needed!

Reader Chris Stenger asks, "How many pages is it? Will the other content in the Mythoard box be for DCC?"

The Age of Undying is 24 pages (2 of which are kind of useless, though the table of contents looks darn pretty and the legal jargon at the back must be fun for someone to read)...so 22 pages of good stuff! I tried to make it shorter, denser, but Matt Hildebrand, layout-master-supreme, was smart enough to give it some room to breathe. It's probably a bit more user-friendly than the Bizarre Tales book I put out last year (I'm using that one with a 5e group right now and though I'm having fun throwing things from Baulder at the PCs, I regret the font size and big paragraphs about 35% of the time), and though the first draft was more narrative in its approach, the final version is structured around the 10 principles I mentioned in my blog post the other day. So it's like having 10 chapters in 22 pages, which keeps everything quick and tight and easy to reference at the table.

The demigods at Mount Mythoard say that there will be a one-page mini-adventure set in The Age of Undying to going along with the digest-sized book, and there will certainly be plenty of other goodness in the February box (they always try to stuff about $40-50 worth of stuff in there), but no DCC-specific books outside of this one. For now.

David A. Powers comes in like a displacer beast, fast and furious, with a series of lightning round questions to finish up our Four Days of Undying...

(1) Does The Age of Undying change something about death for the PCs? Do people still die?
Yes and yes!

When a PC hits zero hp, they do NOT die. But there are other ways to kill PCs...and monsters...and everything in between. And once the body is destroyed, then things get even more dangerous!

(2) Do new opportunities for profit and pleasure await in the Age of Undying -- or is it one vast nightmare?
Possibly, though that is left in the hands of the judge! In my campaign, it was pretty nightmarish, but maybe your PCs will follow the path of the stitchermen and begin assembling an army of deadboys to find new avenues to exploit. Still...kind of a nightmare.

(3) Does this book lend itself to a mix-and-match modular toolkit approach?
Absolutely! You can adopt all 10 principles or ignore 8 of them and use your favorite 2. It even tosses in some ideas for how to get in...and out...of The Age of Undying, and you can customize that to fit your campaign world. Or, maybe you use all 10 principles for a one-shot that's all hacking and slashing and decapitations and desperation.

And maybe Lord Death Man rises from the grave. And you ain't no Bruce Wayne.

The Age of Undying is only available via Mythoard and subscriptions are 25% off until February 10th for new subscribers. Use code AGEOFUNDYING at the checkout. Go to Mythoard HERE!

Four Days of Undying: DAY THREE -- THE ARTIST SPEAKS!

Viking Warrior in The Age of Undying
Art by Nick Burchard

For the past two days I've been talking about The Age of Undying, the Dungeon Crawl Classics supplement that is only available in print via this month's Mythoard box. For this project, I wanted to do something a bit different with the art. I wanted to work with Nick Burchard, a high school student who had been showing me his drawings (and comics) for years and was getting better every month. He'd done some early work for Crawljammer but he didn't want to stop there. Since the project grew out of an after-school program at the high school, it only made sense for Nick to help conceive of the visual reality of The Age of Undying. So I shared an early draft with him and told him to draw whatever inspired him. He designed the covers and drew a handful of pen-and-ink illustrations for the guts of the project.

Nick is an actor first -- he was Nathan Detroit in the fall Guys and Dolls production -- but he's a heck of an artist too. He's just getting started on his career as his days at high school wind down. I threw some questions his way so you could find out more about his connection to this little project of ours:

How did you get involved in creating RPG art?
Ever since I was young, I've always been really interested in telling stories and creating characters in any way shape or form. As I recall it, Tim Callahan the Assistant Principal of the high school I attend (editor's note: that's me!) noticed me drawing a character from DC comics (I think it was Raven from Teen Titans, but it was probably Batman. Ha! I draw Batman a lot.) And he started up a conversation with me about his knowledge of the comic book world, and we became fast friends. Later on that year. he showed me a role-playing game book titled Crawljammer, I then found out that he was the creator of it, I asked to borrow the first issue and I got one look at all of the fantastic art that these artists were able to create for this unique platform of RPGs. It was super-fascinating to me and I came in to school the next day and said to Tim, "How can I get involved in this project???"

As sort of an audition piece he had me draw a character called the "Technomancer" (basically Gandalf meets Cyborg) and the rest is history!

What RPGs have you played? What do you like about them?
Aside from Crawljammer, and being the comic book nerd that I am, I've played the DC Comics version of Dungeons & Dragons (editor's note: the Mutants & Masterminds DC RPG thing from Green Ronin). I remember having a lot of fun playing that one! I think RPGs, aside from being really entertaining, can also be a really awesome tool for writing stories -- the creator of the game as well as the artist come up with the world -- but the players get to create the story, and that's really cool to me!

Who or what inspires you as an artist?
Oh! This question is always so hard for me! Here's what I'll say, as a young artist that gets to grow up in this amazing time for art and storytelling, what doesn't inspire me? First, I'm a huge film buff, the movie Mad Max: Fury Road was a huge inspiration for me while creating the designs on some of the characters in Age of Undying. The film was so off-the-wall and bold, it can only be described as a "symphony of madness." I think readers will definitely see how that movie inspired the artwork for this one. The people that inspire me artistically are Josiah Brooks who taught me how to draw, acclaimed local cartoonist (and mentor of mine) Howard Cruse, and Tim Callahan for being another fantastic mentor to me throughout the years! I'm a huge fan of Greg Capullo, Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Alex Ross, and Charles Addams!

How would you describe your style?
I'm really interested in the quirks that make certain characters pop, and I try to add every bit of their personalities into their designs. I would categorize myself as a comic book artist -- my style tends to focus solely on what the motivations of a character are. I never really care to "just draw" a character, I want to put them in a scene or give them something to do, whether it's a massive shark-worm exploding out of the surface of a moon (Crawljammer throwback) or a confident Viking Warrior standing atop a mountain of skulls screaming after a battle. I prefer there to be purpose in my illustrations.

What are you trying to improve about yourself and your art?
At the moment, I'm trying to improve my storytelling skills...aside from the art that I do, I am an actor, so storytelling is my passion. As of late, I've been wanting to better my coloring skills, I know that in the comic book business, the penciler normally does, specifically, the pencils, the inker handles the inking, and the colorist does the colors, but I would like to learn how to do all three of those things to perfection!

What other kinds of projects would you like to work on?
I've been doing a lot more writing lately, I'm in the scripting and concept phase of creating a graphic novel series. I'll be attending the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts in
New York City in the fall, and I hope to do more artwork while I am building an acting career. I love working in the RPG industry! I want to create many more characters in my lifetime and let their stories be shared!

...
The Age of Undying is only available via Mythoard and subscriptions are 25% off until February 10th for new subscribers (that's the date when orders close for the month!). Use code AGEOFUNDYING at the checkout. Go to Mythoard HERE!

Four Days of Undying: DAY TWO -- OKAY, BUT WHAT'S IN THE BOOK?

Yesterday I talked about how The Age of Undying came to be. Today I'll talk more about what it is.

It's not exactly a campaign setting, but instead it's a state of being that you would overlay upon your own campaign. The book describes what might cause this "state of being" to occur in the world of your own game, but basically this book changes the dynamics between the PCs and the creatures who inhabit their world. The "veil between the living and the dead" has been removed, so concepts such as "life" and "death" no longer mean what they once did.

Because of this -- and The Age of Undying is designed to explore these things in detail and provide rules and guidelines for play -- there are 10 "Principles" that describe the new game-state. And here they are:

1. Zero Hit Points does NOT Equal Death.

2. The Recently-Dead will Arise

3. Souls are the Life Force

4. Free Souls May Attempt to Possess a New Body

5. Critical Hits are Extra-Vicious

6. Spells have Weird Effects

7. Class Features are Altered

8. Traditional Un-dead Creatures are Still Traditional Un-dead Creatures

9. Most Gods Take Notice

10. New Monsters Emerge, Thriving in this New Age

You'll have to read the 10,000 word supplement to find out what that all means and what it does to the game, but there you have it!

Remember, this digest-sized book is only available via Mythoard and subscriptions are 25% off until February 10th for new subscribers. Use code AGEOFUNDYING at the checkout. Go to Mythoard HERE!

I'll be back tomorrow a look at some of the art and some of the reasons behind the art...

Four Days of Undying: DAY ONE -- WHAT IS THE AGE OF UNDYING?

The February Mythoard -- if you don't know about Mythoard, make sure you check it out HERE -- is devoted to The Age of Undying, an exclusive print release for Dungeon Crawl Classics available only to Mythoard subscribers.

Since subscriptions for February close in just a few days (on February 10th), and I want folks to know about The Age of Undying and what it's all about, I have decided to do FOUR DAYS OF UNDYING here on the blog.

No, The Age of Undying is not strictly a Crawljammer product, but as a DCC supplement it is fully compatible AND it features additional rules and information for using Crawljammer classes (in addition to the standard DCC classes) in the Undying world.

But what IS The Age of Undying? Where did it come from?

Basically, The Age of Undying spawned organically out of my home Crawljammer game last year. One of the PCs -- a cleric of Cthulhu -- sacrificed one of the giant greenstones on the Purple Planet in a climactic moment (one that shocked every other player at the table, since that was NOT the party's plan) and since his deity had visited him in a dream in an earlier session and told him to find a way to "remove the veil between the living and the dead," well...he was just doing what he thought was right. And how could he deny Cthulhu any request?

So...that session ended with the crazy sacrifice and the desires of the cleric amplified by the tremendous power of the greenstone. And I had a week to come up with what it meant to "remove the veil between the living and the dead" before our next session.

At first, I thought that it would be enough to have some un-dead rise from the Purple Planet and maybe an aspect of Cthulhu himself climb up from the great dead lake. But then I sat down to put some "ground rules" in writing. I thought I'd write a page or so that we could reference at the table. And over that week I continued to write. And write. And think about the craziness of the "ghosts" from the Gen Con Catastrophe Island games run by Doug Kovacs, Adam Muszkiewicz, and Wayne Snyder. And think about the novel I was then reading, by Gabriel Squailia (Dead Boys, a good one, like a Henry Selick nightmare of an underworld movie by way of The Odyssey). And the unforgettable colossus of corpses from the mind of Clark Ashton Smith. And all of that inspired the world that had come to be. And before the next session, I had 10,000 words of rules about what it meant to live (or try to live -- if you dare) in "The Age of Undying." It was the first draft of what would be revised and playtested for the remaining four or five sessions of the campaign before the school year ended.

After the revision, I sent it off to Joseph Goodman for approval as an official 3rd party supplement for DCC, and he approved. And then I asked the Mythoard folks if they'd want to include it in a box as an exclusive, and not only did they want to do that, but they wanted to name the whole box after it! So here we are. Four days until orders close.

And there's a 25% discount for new subscribers: AGEOFUNDYING. It's good until February 10th! Use it HERE when you place your order.

I'll be back tomorrow with Day Two of FOUR DAYS OF UNDYING with another little behind-the-scenes glimpse of The Age of Undying.

My Top 10 Role-Playing Games Played in 2015

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I played a LOT of games in 2015. At least 120 board games and role-playing games. It was, by far, the most board gaming I've ever done in one year, and it may be the most role-playing I've done within a calendar year as well. At one point in the fall of 2015, I was running THREE weekly games (Star Wars, DCC, 5e), and playing in ONE bi-weekly game (Rolemaster) and TWO monthly games (Star Frontiers, AD&D).

I also wrote over 50,000 words of RPG material for publication (some of which has come out already, and some is coming in 2016). I was busy! But it was all super-fun.

Anyway, here's where I ended up with my Top 10 Role-Playing Games Played in 2015. I organized it by system, rather than individual experiences, because maybe system does matter!


1. Dungeon Crawl Classics. When I started to write role-playing game material after I stepped away from the world of comics a couple of years ago, I wanted to work for Goodman Games. I was excited to run and play Dungeon Crawl Classics in a way that I had never wanted to run or play anything else. It seemed insane. And alive. And it was. It is. 2015 was a big year for me and Dungeon Crawl Classics. The Purple Planet boxed set finally came out. I wrote Advent of the Avalanche Lords. I contributed to what turned out to be a pretty thick book of madness for the d50. But that's not why DCC is my #1 role-playing game of the year. It's at the top because it was the most fun to run and play in 2015. Whether it was exploring Lankhmar with Michael Curtis, experiencing level 10 characters emerging from rags and nonsense with Marc Bruner, running an improptu session for Catastrophe Island 2 when Doug Kovacs grabbed me at the Embassy Suites and threw me to a table of 10, playtesting the Crawljammer dreamscape of the "Nightmare Beasts" with Fred Dailey sketching away like a courthouse artist, or making up a new subsystem for the "Age of Undying" after the cleric of Cthulhu rewrote the laws of reality, Dungeon Crawl Classic was there. And in NONE of those instances was the game played by the book. It was transformed, tampered with, stretched, expanded, overturned, and molested. It was a great year to play DCC. I suppose any year is.

2. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I worship at the church of Gygax and regularly misread the holy book (the 1e Dungeon Masters Guide). Not only did I run a few sessions of 1e, sort of, in my own sacrilegious way, but I played in a fantastic game at TotalCon in which we played Smurfs and Papa Smurf was corrupted by the elder gods. We had to destroy him to save smurfanity. It was great fun. And now I'm in a monthly game in which we are the chosen ones returning to a world gone wrong. Only it's AD&D, so we're not super-competent, and that only makes it better. I love Vancian magic, descending AC, and pole arms.

3. Marvel Superheroes. This is the classic TSR-era FASERIP system. I ran a game at TotalCon that was basically Secret Wars meets Mad Max, months before the new Secret Wars or Mad Max came out. It was so great -- Venom Zombie Galactus was spectacular, though Ant-Man and Dazzler held their own! -- that I started working on an original post-apocalyptic superhero game that should get some playtesting in 2016. But I can't get Marvel Superheroes out of my head. It is the second game I ever loved, after Moldvay D&D. And it is still a thrill to dish out Karma and watch what the players do with their heroes.

4. Metamorphosis Alpha. I played Bullwinkle at a ski lodge on a spaceship. Michael Curtis was the mastermind. It was a highlight of the year. I need to play this system more often.

5. Gamma World. James Carpio ran this using, I think, his memory of 2nd edition rules. It doesn't matter, because it's Gamma World and I got to play Misty Deth who pretended to be related to Steve Jobs and when that didn't work, blew up a whole lot of cyborgs.

6. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. I have an AS&SH adventure coming out in 2016, and I'll be running it at TotalCon this year, but in 2015 I yet again had a chance to play in a Jeff Talanian-run adventure, and he runs games like no one else I play with. I feel like he's the Crypt Keeper, but in his younger years. He's like a semi-sane master of horrific ceremonies. He almost looks serene as your character's life slips away into the void. I need to play this system more!

7. Torchbearer. I played this at GenCon in a game run by the designer, Thor Olavsrud. It's a fancy-looking book, full of what seems to be an excessive amount of rules for every little thing. I knew I wouldn't be able to run it without playing it first, because everything in the rules seemed like they were there for a reason, but they all felt counter-intuitive to me. Playing it, I didn't feel that way at all. It played a lot like the OSR games I have been running and playing, but with a bit more attention to the small details that are often waved away (like exact light sources and carrying capacity of sacks). It ends up making every decision more important, and therefore there are prices to be paid for every misstep. But the game moved along and didn't feel clunky. I like it a lot. Plus I got to play with Sarah Richardson and Mark Malone and they are among my favorite gamers in the world.

8. Rolemaster. Let me tell you about my character. His name is Jarn. He's a level 9 Ranger. He enjoys shooting things in the face and trying (but often failing) to climb out of ditches. He has only lost one arm and one thumb, but herbs have helped them grow back. He summons walls of wood and black bears. I have been playing this one Rolemaster campaign for over 3 years which makes it the longest RPG campaign of my life. Sometimes I want Jarn to meet a nice girl and retire. But the world doesn't want him to be happy.

9. Spirit of 77. I called the one-shot "Amsterdamnation" and the "poster" I created for this Powered by the Apocalypse game at the game day featured a day-glo Bootsy Collins. The PCs were Charles Bronson. Elliot Gould, Jim Brown, and other stars of the 70s. They needed to infiltrate a karate tournament to stop drug trafficking and/or the emergence of the serpent god. In describing this, I realize it should probably rank higher. But I think maybe it's best as a one-shot experience, hidden away where the ghost of Telly Savalas will never find us.

10. Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. I have mixed feelings about this game. I fell in love with it in the fall of 2015. I ran (and continue to run) it weekly. But the problem is that the weekly game is an after-school session and so it's limited to one hour. And this game really doesn't work on one-hour increments. The dice pool requires a bit more room to breathe. More room for creativity and interpretation and for one result to build toward another later result. That can happen, but the one hour time constraint makes it too condensed usually. When I ran a 5 hour session at a local game day, it was a spectacular success. I think once this mini-campaign ends in late January I will set this Fantasy Flight creation away for a little while and run Star Wars-inspired Crawljammer games instead. But there's a lot to like in this system, if you have creative players who can get into its nerve center and live with it a bit without caring at all about "official Star Wars continuity."

Okay 2016, I'm ready for you.

My Top 25 Board Games Played in 2015

By my count, I played 120 different board games and role-playing games in 2015. I played most of them more than once, and I know I played some of them ten or more times (Telestrations, Wrath of Ashardalon, Codenames, other classics), so we're talking probably 300 or 400+ gameplays in the past year. That is a crazy amount. I really tried to explore games this year and play as often as possible with lots of different people. It was a good year!

Anyway, here are the BEST 25 GAMES I PLAYED IN 2015! Only a few came out in the last year -- most are a bit older and one hasn't even been released yet -- but these are the ones I liked the most. These are the ones I recommend. Throw your Monopolies, Risks, and Cards Against Humanity into the basement and play these much, much, much better games instead:

1. Pandemic Legacy. My wife has been playing a Researcher named Barbara ("Don't call me Barb") and we have not yet let the world become overrun with the Chabola virus. We are heroes.

2. Seafall Legacy. I got a chance to playtest this with designer Rob Daviau early last year and even though it wasn't yet finished, it was my 2nd-best board gaming experience of the year. This one is more complex than Pandemic Legacy and far, far deeper than Risk Legacy (which we played through and found that, in the end, it's still Risk, which means its still kind of terrible), and I look forward to the real deal in 2016.

3. Imperial Settlers. Ignacy Trzewiczek is my favorite game designer and I will play this game any day. The Egyptians may be good at hoarding gold (and my daughter beats me by doing so), but I like playing the barbarians and making lots of babies and putting them to work. Life is hard.

4. Dead of Winter. Oh, what's that? We're supposed to be working together to survive the zombie apocalypse but the rescue dog is secretly a serial killer? Awesome.

5. Codenames. Vlaada Chvatil makes complex games that some people think are fun because they like to write boring computer programs or use Excel to chart their hobbies. But Codenames is a Vlaada design that actually IS fun. It's also kind of a word game, but not really. It's a spy game! With words. And assassins, so watch out!

6. Telestrations. This game is endlessly hilarious as long as you have players who will write what they literally see in the drawings and things get seriously out of hand. Also fun when recurring characters begin to appear in the drawings. Especially if they are offensive.

7. Carcassonne. I always feel tranquil playing this game. Unless other players are taking forever to make their decisions. Then I fantasize about sacking their cities with my little blue dudes.

8. Robinson Crusoe. Sometimes I say this is my favorite game ever. Maybe it is. Ignacy took the harsh living of Agricola and made you beg for the harsh living of Agricola as you try to survive on a deserted island that is trying to kill you. It is pretty awesome.

9. Rampage. Not-Godzilla will crush your buildings and eat your meeples. This game looks like it is for children. But it will make adults cry.

10. Splendor. I am pretty sure I have played this game about 20 times and I have won maybe once. Maybe. I change up my strategies, but wealth and prosperity elude me. Maybe I should learn from this.

11. Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon. My wife loves these D&D board games which are kind of like role-playing games against programmed moves by the monsters, but she won't actually play D&D. Weird. But we had fun going through all the adventures in this set, even though the Legion Devils are the worst and I will never be their valentine. Also, she played a Paladin as if she were playing a Rogue, and I was all like, "heal me up," and she pretended not to hear any of my words. We still killed that Dragon, though. We killed him up.

12. Netrunner. I love this game and rarely get to play it because it cannot be played casually. You need another obsessive player who really wants to explore the strategies and build decks and nerd it up. It is more fun than Magic: The Gathering, exponentially less popular, and yet...I cannot look away. If mirrorshades didn't give away my hand, I would wear them.

13. Colt Express. I don't even own this, but my brother does and sometimes when I play Django I punch the air and pick up no bags of money from the ground. Sometimes.

14. Abyss. This is the Star Wars Episode I of undersea civilization board games, except it's actually good and you get to recruit starfish to help you hire weird aquatic wizards.

15. Roll for the Galaxy. Build a cool civilization that you mostly ignore because you are trying to figure out what combos have emerged in your space tableau. This game is Puerto Rico for folks who find rockets and kryptonite reactors more fun than harvesting indigo.

16. Ticket to Ride: Europe. Ticket to Ride deserves its place as the game that should replace Monopoly as the go-to family game at gatherings, and it's always fun. I'm into the Europe map these days, mostly because it involves tunnels and weird geography.

17. Pandemic: The Cure. The dice version of Pandemic is better than the board game version once you've figured out how to beat the board game. Because the dice cheat you and make you want to crush them into submission. Can't stop. Won't stop.

18. X-Wing Miniatures Game. I finally got to put my X-Wing miniatures to use at the end of 2015 and it was great to pit Chewie vs. Boba Fett and have Biggs zooming around providing support. I will play this anytime too. Come over for a Netrunner/X-Wing evening of fun. Bring cookies.

19. Wits & Wagers. This is the default game of choice at family gatherings. (Though Codenames has dethroned it this year.) I should learn to bet heavy when I know the answers. But I don't. Don't bring me to Vegas with you.

20. The Resistance. I thought maybe Dark Moon would replace this game for me, because it is just like this game but it has stuff to do during your turn other than be suspicious, but no one else seems to like Dark Moon but me. So Resistance it is, where everyone is a liar. Even your allies.

21. Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot. All the board game experts on the internet have complained about how disappointing this game is. Listen: it's another Ignacy design, so I'm going to be inclined to like it. But I also like it because you can pimp your pirate ship and use your grappling hook cannon to shoot your friends' ships (their dice) out of the water (cardboard). I love this game, suckers!

22. Marvel/DC Dice Masters. I have no idea what the strategy should be for this game but I sometimes build teams based on who would make the coolest Suicide Squad lineup. It's fantasy baseball for comic book fans, but instead of just passively hoping your players have good at-bats, you get to roll Starhawk and say catchprases and taunt your opponent with your colorful fist of dice.

23. Camel Up. Sometimes the best simulation of betting on dog racing is this game with an upside down pyramid and some camels. Actually, I have no idea what it's like to bet on dog racing, but I imagine it is exactly like this, with oil slicks and chits.

24. Castles of Mad King Ludwig. You get to build the worst castle floorplans ever to win the favor oft the king. (Psst...he's crazy.)

25. Eclipse. This game is supposed to take 2.5 hours but it always takes 5 hours and the strategy everyone knows is to buy missiles or you lose. I always buy missiles, and I rarely win. Still, exploring space and conquering it is always fun, unless you go up against those jerky space civilizations who are all like, "I will form an alliance with you" and then they destroy you two turns later with their missiles.

Play some games!

Gen Con Bound!

I rolled my Patron Bond check and now I am in the debt of Joseph Goodman. I will save the Invoke for a more desperate time. Anyway, I'm off to Gen Con 2015 soon!

I will be at the Goodman Games booth on Thursday afternoon, Friday at 1 PM, and Saturday morning. At said location, you can buy every single issue of Crawljammer, plus all the great new Goodman Games products (I saw the list of new releases, and let's just say you will need to get some bigger dice).

Also: I'll be running Crawljammer: Dreamscape of the Nightmare Beasts at 7PM on Thurs, and otherwise lurking around playing in games after hours at the Embassy Suites whenever possible and maybe playtesting some secret things.

See you in Indianapolis!

Crawljammer 2015: What is Going On???

A few announcements from Crawljammer Central at Moon Dice Games:

1. The Crawljammer Zine officially ended with issue #6!
I didn't announce this at the time, because I wasn't sure if I would stick to the decision or not, but after releasing six issues of the Crawljammer zine in 2014, I decided that was enough of that particular format. Plus, Staples only has a few different card stock colors to choose from for those covers, you know!

2. But Crawljammer will continue!
Because I LOVE DCC and I love developing and running space-themed DCC adventures (and so do a lot of folks), I will continue to produce Crawljammer supplements and adventures, such as...

3. The Weird Worm-Ways of Saturn, by Daniel Bishop!
Part 1 of this is ALREADY AVAILABLE. It debuted at Origins and North Texas RPG Con this week! And you can order it over on the right side of this page EDIT: CURRENTLY AVAILABLE IN PDF FORM, AND PRINT COPIES OF ISSUES #1 AND #2 WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE AGAIN ONCE ISSUE #2 IS COMPLETED -- it's the first part of a two-part Daniel Bishop Saturn adventure (with a new character class: the Saturnian Ape-Man). It's amazing, of course, because it's Daniel Bishop. And Fred Dailey rocked the art on the inside, and that Matt Hildebrand cover is eye-scorchingly spectacular. (If you had subscribed though issue 7 or 8 of Crawljammer, this is what you'll be getting instead. I'm sure you will not be disappointed!)

4. More DCC/Crawljammer Stuff Coming!
In addition to part 2 of Daniel Bishop's adventure (the first part was a planetary crawl, and the upcoming part 2 will go down into the depths of Saturn), the plan is to release a few other things I have been writing for Moon Dice Games this year: a supplement for DCC called The Age of Undying, a Crawljammer adventure called The Thrall of the Space Gods, and a print version of what I'll be running at Gen Con -- Dreamscape of the Nightmare Beasts.

5. Plus THIS!
And, most importantly, I have a small cadre of writerly companions working with me to revise and flesh out Crawljammer and the Crawljammer universe and we plan to release a complete Crawljammer handbook/player's guide/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. This will likely be a Kickstarter project sometime later this year or early in 2016. I want to make sure it is written first, before we Kickstart its production costs.

What do you think about all of this??? Crawljammer will live on! For years and years! And more!

New Crawljammer Adventure Coming Soon!

Adventure by Daniel Bishop. Cover by Matt Hildebrand. Interior art by Fred Dailey. Published by Moon Dice Games. June 2015.

Games I Play: A Top 5 List for TableTop Day

It's International TableTop Day today, and though I don't really usually watch people play games on the internet, I do PLAY games like crazy, and one of my favorite things about playing games is playing NEW (well new-to-me) games and teaching new people how to play games.

When it comes to role-playing games, I'm usually the guy who hears something mention something geeky and I will slip in a casual, "do you ever play any role-playing games," and if they ever say anything like, "I've never had a chance," or "I don't know how to play those games," or "no," then I offer to run a game for them, and about 10% of the time I actually get a chance to do that, which is always awesome.

Obviously this blog is about role-playing games and Crawljammer specifically, but I also love all sorts of tabletop games, and this year I jumped onto Epidiah Ravachol's #51in15 challenge, which was all about playing 51 different tabletop games in 2015. I hope, I hope, I hope I reach 51 different games this year. I don't know how I'll make it. So many games in so little time!

Just kidding. I played 51 different games by March. My wife and kids play games, which means I get to play a LOT of games. It's pretty great.

Anyway, for the sake of the historical record, I'll list my 51 different games played at the end of this post, but I wanted to do a quick Top 5 list that doesn't include role-playing games (even though I LOVE role-playing games soooooo much) because I don't write much about board games and yet I play them all the time. So here you go:

TOP 5 BOARD GAMES I HAVE PLAYED THIS YEAR
5. Rampage
This game has since been renamed Terror in Meeple City because it isn't actually based on the arcade game where monsters destroy city blocks even though it's a game about monsters destroying city blocks. It looks like a children's game, and it would be appropriate for children, but it's also an amazingly fun game about flicking discs and blowing on cardboard stacks with meeple girders and using superpower cards and just generally looking ridiculous in the pursuit of that set of businessmen that you need to get the extra points at the end of the game. I would play this with anyone, anytime. Unless you don't like fun. Then I won't play it with you.

4. Eclipse
My son asked to play this, because he saw it on the stack of games I pulled out of the closet and I hadn't even busted open the shrink wrap since I bought it when it was on sale one time at Amazon. We opened it up, looked at the rules and all the cardboard pieces we had to punch out and the million little cubes and we hesitated...but I said, "I bet it's not that complicated once we set it up." And it's not. But it has some depth as you explore space and get your resources and then prepare to invade and attack your former allies. It is my favorite eurogame, wrapped in a cosmic package.

3. Seafall
This game isn't even out yet, but I knew designer Rob Daviau lived not-too-far-away and I told him I could pull together a group for playtesting, should he ever need one. And he did. So on a cold Sunday evening, we got together with a prototype of this game and played with what seemed to be the nearly-finalized rules. I can't say much about this game, but it has aspects of some of my favorite games like Eclipse and Robinson Crusoe and Puerto Rico and builds on the Legacy conceit of Rob's Risk Legacy game where the game board (and rules) change and grow as the "campaign" of the game continues. You might wonder how all of that can fit together (with plenty of new ideas and an evocative world) in one game. You'll have to see for yourself when the game comes out, but the version we played was pretty great.

2. Imperial Assault
I didn't have much interest in this when it was announced. Star Wars Descent? I didn't even understand why people would play Descent, when they could just play D&D or any other role-playing game. And it's not like there's a shortage of Star Wars RPG material. I'd play WEG d6 Star Wars right now if you asked me (please ask me!). But then I played Imperial Assault. And I bought Imperial Assault. It's just a smooth game of rolling cool-looking dice and working together to complete missions. It's the missions and equipment and customized upgrades and surprises that make the game so much fun to play. It's not going to have the depth of an RPG, but it has something that's just as entertaining in 2-3 hour doses: an efficiency and elegance of gameplay that makes you want to keep going. Another mission? Yeah, let's do it!

1. Battlestar Galactica
Oh, I didn't think this game would be for me at all. I tried watching that Battlestar Galactica stuff a few years back. I even picked up the whole series on DVD, assuming that I would love it as much as all the cool kids told me I would. But...unless Edward James Olmos was talking, I was bored by it. I just didn't care. I wanted the 1970's Cylons to show up and blast everyone. At least that would have been interesting. But though the board game is slathered with flavor from the reboot, it doesn't matter. You don't need to know any of the characters. You just need to be willing to play a simple cooperative game that has a traitor. Or two traitors. Or three. And the whole game is about building up that tension between the players. Paranoia abounds. It's the best board game I played all year. And, no, I am not a Cylon! (Yes I am.)

My #51in15 list, in chronological order of games played:
1. Splendor
2. Colt Express
3. Sheriff of Nottingham
4. Five Tribes
5. Dungeon Crawl Classics
6. Rolemaster
7. Battle at Kemble's Cascade
8. Takenoko
9. Carcassonne
10. Rampage
11. Smash-Up
12. Telestrations
13. Draco Magi
14. Ultimate Werewolf
15. Tsuro
16. Wits & Wagers
17. Love Letter
18. Agricola
19. King of Tokyo
20. Pandemic: The Cure
21. Seafall Legacy
22. Magic: The Gathering
23. Skull
24. Lost Cities
25. Hanabi
26. Witchcraft
27. Abyss
28. Forbidden Desert
29. Risk Legacy
30. Eclipse
31. Boss Monster
32. Questlandia
33. Nine Men's Morris
34. Zombicide
35. The Resistance
36. Metamorphosis Alpha 
37. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea
38. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Smurf Edition 
39. slash 
40. Mysterium 
41. Longhorn 
42. Gamma World 
43. Marvel Superheroes RPG
44. Call of Cthulhu
45. X-Wing Miniatures Game
46. Dungeon World
47. Imperial Assault
48. Machine of Death
49. Battlestar Galactica
50. Black Gold
51. Beowulf: The Legend

Three Updates: New Crawljammer for Sale, TotalCon, and Mythoard

Fred Dailey knows how to draw Sky-Scavengers like crazy!

THREE UPDATES for you, numerically arranged:

(1) Crawljammer #6 is FINALLY available for sale. I still have a few copies to mail out to subscribers, and that process has been sloooooowww...and I apologize for that, but I wanted to offer the issue for sale to everyone so that I can get all the orders done and everything mailed out by the end of this month. There's tons of good stuff in issue #6, like the Yolovar character class (the laser-pistol wielding fly-man), a zero level funnel on the moon, and space monsters that you will want to avoid on your travels, and more.

(2) I will be at TotalCon in Mansfield, Massachusetts tomorrow! Through Sunday! I will be running a Crawljammer funnel and a level 5 Crawljammer game featuring some Space Gods. See you there! Or, if you are reading this at a later date, I hope you had fun that weekend, wherever you were!

(3) And finally, I can't emphasize enough that Mythoard is a thing worth supporting. Jarrod Shaw has put together this Loot-Crate-for-RPGs and if there aren't enough folks to support it, I fear that it will be much shorter-lived than it should be. Matt Hildebrand and I worked around the clock in January to get Bizarre Tales done in time for the February Mythoard shipment, and it's definitely a stretch for Moon Dice Games, what with its color cover and professional printing, but it came out looking great. It's only available if you subscribe to Mythoard for February, but you can subscribe to additional months as well, or just February, or whatever! But, seriously, if you can afford it, please support Mythoard so that it can grow into something amazing and send us cool packages of mystery each and every month!

The Appendix N of Bizarre Tales

As I mentioned last week, Bizarre Tales -- exclusive to Mythoard in February -- was a challenging project to write, as I tried to condense as much adventure and a sense of a strange world in 20 OSR-drenched pages. I took inspiration from a variety of sources, and if Bizarre Tales had its own Appendix N, this is what it would look like:

Breakheart Pass, by Alistair MacLean and Tom Gries
"Dagon," by H.P. Lovecraft
Deadwood, Seasons 1-3, by David Milch
The Empire Strikes Back, by George Lucas and Irvin Kershner
The Folly of the World, by Jesse Bullington
The Fall of the Rebel Angels and Netherlandish Proverbs, by Pieter Bruegel
"The Slithering Shadow," by Robert E. Howard
Weird Tales, July 1948, by various

Bizarre Tales: The True Story of What it is and How it Came to Be

A Matt Fox painting from 1949 on the cover!

Bizarre Tales is done. 20 pages, full-bleed color cover. ONLY available in the February Mythoard.

Here's how it happened: I emailed Jarrod Shaw, Mythoard-master, after seeing the first beta shipment from December, asking if he was interested in having something from Moon Dice Games in a future Mythoard. He was willing to buy copies of the most recent Crawljammer issue and add them to the stack o' goodness for January or February. I didn't think that was good enough, honestly. I think Crawljammer is excellent, obviously, but I didn't think it was good enough for the Mythoard crowd because many of the subscribers of Mythoard, from what I have seen posted, already subscribe to Crawljammer. I thought it would be disappointing to include something most folks would already have or would be getting soon (sorry about the delayed shipment on Crawljammer #6, everyone!).

I proposed doing something original, exclusive to Mythoard.

Because here's the thing: I want Mythoard to become a huge thing. I personally want to get an amazing pile of gaming supplies and book and ideas every month, but I also want Jarrod and his family to become so busy shipping out Mythoard boxes that they have to hire an army of minions to meet the demands of tens of thousands of subscribers. And that's not going to happen if the Mythoard packages are filled with leftovers. Jarrod has bigger plans. Aspirations to put something out into the world that's special.

The Wanderer brings mystery, and Bounty Hunters follow.

I know Bizarre Tales isn't going to change anything on its own, but I think it turned out well. It's one of the most challenging things I've written, following from the setting established in Tim Shorts's beta exclusive and packing a weird town and about a dozen new creatures and various distinctive NPCs and two scenarios into 20 pages. With awesome art by Matt Hildebrand. I would buy it. And it's only available in print in the Mythoard February package.

Matt and I made it for Mythoard. And for you. Subscribe now, before they are gone!

THE DAY THE BOUNTY HUNTERS CAME TO BAULDER -- Coming in February

Crawljammer layout master and cover artist Matt Hildebrand and I are currently collaborating on a 16-page system-neutral OSR sandbox setting (for adventure!) that will be released in February of this year.

Here's the deal, though: It's a MYTHOARD EXCLUSIVE!

If you're not familiar with Mythoard, it's a monthly package of RPG goodness that you can subscribe to, and inside each month's super-sized envelope or box, you will get a bundle of dice, or gaming supplies, or adventure booklets, or whatever Jarrod and his Mythoard minions have compiled.

It all started in December with the Beta release to 100 initial subscribers, and it continues each month this year, with subscriptions now open to the first 200 folks who lay down their sweet cash.

Our release -- THE DAY THE BOUNTY HUNTERS CAME TO BAULDER -- will appear in your February Mythoard package. But the only way to get the February package is to subscribe!

So check out Mythoard. And watch out for those bounty hunters.

In Case I Never Mentioned it CRAWLJAMMER #5 IS NOW AVAILABLE!

I have this here blog to talk about Crawljammer, and I somehow neglected to mention that (a) Crawljammer #5 is available, and (b) you can buy it! (Multiple ways!)

This is the most unusual of all Crawljammer issues so far because while it still has the sci-fi-meets-fantasy flavor that you have come to love, it's a more tightly focused issue with some real practical use at the gaming table but maybe not as much random nonsense as you have come to adore. But what I LOVE about this issue, is that Sean Ellis and I really crafted the core of a new pantheon of Space Gods that you can invoke by your wizards or use as a deity for your Crawljammin' clerics, and I provided a new character class -- the Ecclesiast -- that gives you the best of both of those worlds and frames it around a package of inspirational Wayne Snyder artwork. (Oh, and 12 new spells! TWELVE.)

And Matt Hildebrand killed it on the layout and cover art for this one.

And Fred Dailey killed it even harder on his drawings of Garun and Sperato, the latter of which is some kind of Platonic ideal of Ditko meets Legion of Super Heroes meets Christopher Lee, and I could not be happier with how that turned out.

So! You can buy issue #5 over on the right of this page. Or you can buy bundles of previous issues or preorder the next few. Or you can head over to RPGNow and get yourself any of the digital versions of any issue at a bit of a discount. Whatever you're into. And let me know if you need any help with all that Jammin' that's happening before, during, and after your Crawlin'.

Narcosmos: Transformative Idea Generator

THIS IS WAR TO EXTERMINATION. FIGHT CELL BY CELL THROUGH BODIES AND MIND SCREENS OF THE EARTH. – William S. Burroughs

In Narcosmos, ideas are infectious and transformative. They are weapons that cannot be easily controlled, but those in tune with the psychosphere may channel ideaspace for unique effects.

The table below demonstrates the unpredictable power of such ideas. To use this table, the game master should roll 1d16 three times, generating a compound idea with an adjective, noun, and effect. This idea becomes a kind of verbal hypersigil, and if spoken aloud, the effect occurs. The ideas may come randomly to the PCs in their sleep, or they may be scrawled on the walls of dreamspace or in forgotten tomes found in the sewers of distant planets. Once used, each idea may never be repeated.

NARCOSMOS TRANSFORMATIVE IDEA GENERATOR
Roll 1d16	Adjective	Noun	Effect
1	Mental	Mantis	You grow a hunchback, purple and throbbing, and after three days of slow growth, it bursts into 2d8 mechanical beetles that obey your commands until the end of the day. The beetles attack as first level fighters and bite for 1d4 damage each, have an AC of 7 (13) and 1 hp each. Anyone bitten by the beetles must save vs. poison or fall into a delirious narcoleptic coma for 1d4 turns.
2	Love	Beak	A metal coffin appears beside you. You feel like it has always been there, but you have never noticed. It cannot be moved and only you can open it. Inside is a floating sphere of condensed time. If you hold this ball in both hands, you may transport you and your immediate companions 1d6 weeks into the past or 1d6 weeks into the future. The timesphere and the coffin disappears after that single use.
3	Hallucinogenic	Ladydactyl	Blood drips from the sky, as if the gods are slaughtered in the heavens. This lasts for 1d12 weeks and follows you wherever you go.
4	Opulent	Axeman	You transform into a 13’ tall floating head for 1d4 turns. While in this form, you may not use melee or ranged attacks, and your AC and HP remain the same, but you may cast magic and unleash psionic blasts dealing 1d12 damage to anyone within sight unless they make a successful save vs. death.
5	Laughing	Prison-Moon	You temporarily teleport yourself to a floating island in space where you must confront the six-legged jaguar woman who will neither attack nor defend but will ask you a single question: are you prepared? If you say yes you will be transported back with -2 to your Int and Wis and +1 to your Str and Con and a permanent hp gain of 1d6. If you say no you will be transported back with +2 to your Int and Wis and -1 to your Str and Con and the permanent ability to cast one randomly determined level 2 magic user spell, even if are not a spellcaster. If you say nothing you will remain on the floating island forever.
6	Shrieking	Flashback	A syringe gun appears in your hand and you immediately know how to use it. It can fire 1d12 times before becoming inert. Each time it is fired at a target, there is a 50% chance it will unleash a torrent of mind-acid dealing 1d12 psychic damage and a 50% chance that the chemwave emission will mimic the effect of a randomly-determined level 3 illusionist spell.
7	Invisible	Lobotomy	You understand. As the game master any one question about the current adventure or campaign and he must answer in one truthful complete sentence.
8	Guardian	Spacewhale	You gain a limited form of speak with animals that allows you to psychically communicate with felines.
9	Transcribed	Nucleon	Each day for the next 1d8 days, you gain a cumulate -1 penalty to all attributes and all rolls. After the final day, you awaken the next morning to discover that the penalties have disappeared – you feel healthy again – but you have given birth to a humanoid fly the size of a rat. If you discard or kill this fly-baby, you will take 1d20 psychic damage. If you raise this fly-baby, it will grow to adulthood in 30 days and vanish into the psychosphere where you will only meet it again in your dreams.
10	Blackhole	Androgyne	Your shoulder blades transform into a flesh and bone jetpack due to heretofore unknown nanomachines. This effect is permanent, giving you a movement of fly 60’. All armor is useless to you unless it is custom made for your new form.
11	Singing	Jumpsuit	You permanently gain the following psychiatric disorder (roll 1d6): (1) agoraphobia, (2) delusions, (3) fetishism, (4) narcolepsy, (5) paranoia, (6) insomnia.
12	Naked	Ray	You gain the ability to transform into a giant floating jellyfish that can sting at a range of 15’ with its tendrils as if attacking as a level 5 fighter, dealing 1d10 damage and the victim must save vs. poison or become afflicted with an itchy rash that causes a -4 penalty to all rolls until salt water is applied to the affected area. While in jellyfish form, your armor class, hp, attributes, and abilities remain unchanged, though you are unable to communicate and unable to cast spells with material or verbal components. You have is jellyfish transformation ability for 1d4 days.
13	Headless	Insect	1d4 giant orange rats with attached saddles and bridles arrive via the dreamstream, ready to be ridden. The dream rats have a movement rate of 60’ and may enter the astral realm or any adjacent plane. The rats will not attack, nor can they take damage. They will disappear in 1d6 days.
14	Frozen	Yellowjackets	Your belly grows bloated and your hair falls out. In 1d4 days, your skin begins to turn a tarnished bronze color. At that point, you permanently lose 1d6 hp and -1 Strength, but gain +1 AC, +1 Wisdom, and the ability to read the thoughts of anyone within 10’.
15	Perfect-Punk	Mouth	A warped mirror image of you appears. This mirror image duplicate looks identical to you, though his garb is all yellow, red, and purple and he speaks in an alien tongue. He will fight alongside you, as if another PC under the player’s control with stats and equipment identical to yours, for 1d8 turns before disappearing.
16	Technowarrior	Monad	A tattoo of a winged mass of mouths appears on your chest, and you take 1d6 damage per day and find yourself incapable of sleep. The only way to prevent this effect is to “feed” the tattoo drops of spinal fluid. If 8 ounces of spinal fluid are fed to the tattoo, you permanently gain +1 Int and the tattoo begins to glow green but has no other lingering effects.