Rusty and Co. Crossover, Part 5/5
I’m afraid that’s it, my friends. We’ve reached the end of the Handbook of Heroes / Rusty and Co. crossover. Like Gunslinger waking from his alt-text dream, we must bid adieu to our webcomic colleagues, waving farewell to the cheerful land of comic-mashup reverie. Deprived of all these fun guest characters, it looks like we’ll be back to making “Fighter is a jerk” strips for the foreseeable future. Happily, there ain’t nothing wrong with that.
How about we get on to the topic at hand though? As I look at poor Gunslinger, so overjoyed to finally find a partymate willing to adventure with him, I can’t help but think back on my earliest gaming memories. Is it time for a precious childhood anecdote? You bet your bag of beans it is.
So no shit there I was, up bright and early for the most exciting Christmas morning of my young life. That was the year I got a new bike. A gently-used Atari. A sweet-ass plastic ornithopter which immediately drowned in the neighbor’s pool. None of these lesser treasures mattered though, because my eyes were only for the magnificent jewel gleaming atop the treasure hoard. It was a copy of DragonStrike, the RPG-in-a-box which was destined to become my gateway to a lifelong passion for adventure games.
I spent that Christmas morning pouring over the double-sided game boards. The 38 magical treasure cards. The 24 plastic figurines (the dragon was by far the coolest). But it was the VHS tape that did me in. You can still watch it on YouTube in all its cheesy glory, and seven-year-old Colin was instantly hooked.
Unfortunately, there was a problem. This wasn’t the kind of game that you could just pick up and play. You needed something called a DRAGON MASTER™. And being slightly shy of “Ages 10 to Adult” at the time, becoming a DRAGON MASTER™ wasn’t something my friends or I could cope with. The horror! The agony! Without this obscure and semi-mystical figure (presumably a floating head if the VHS was anything to go by), there would be no game!
“Hey Mom? Could you read several dozen pages of game rules so that I can pretend to be Malibu from American Gladiator?”
“What?”
At least I’m pretty sure that’s how the conversation went. She did it though. She read the rules, prepped the scenarios, and ran me and the neighborhood kids through at least half a dozen sessions. My mom was my first dungeon master, and it’s something I’ll always be grateful for. Of course, I’m slightly less grateful that my copy of DragonStrike was somehow “lost” during a move. I can only presume that Mom was suffering from an acute bout of DRAGON MASTER™ burnout. Either that or she was tired of entertaining a roomful of shrieking seven-year-olds shouting “magic missile” at one another.
The point is that, like Gunslinger in today’s comic, I know the feeling of jonesing for a game. It was actually my first experience in the hobby. Wanting to play, but not having that group to play with, is straight up torture for a geek. So for today’s discussion, why don’t we share stories of our dry spells? How do you cope when your gaming group is MIA? Do you start prepping your own campaign and recruit new players? Find an actual play podcast? Disappear into genre fiction? Sound off in the comments for your strategies to survive a gaming drought!
ARE YOU AN IMPATIENT GAMER? If so, you should check out the “Henchman” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. For just one buck a month, you can get each and every Handbook of Heroes comic a day earlier than the rest of your party members. That’s bragging rights right there!
Poor Gunslinger. Finally get someone to adventure with and he blows it by fainting.
Truly, whatever beings govern his fate in this world are cruel beyond comprehension.
You know life is bad for someone when it’s kinder to tell them they didn’t mess up a chance for their life’s ambition then encourage them to go out and lfg.
The phrase “Gunslinger fainted!” makes me wonder what his reaction will be when he wakes up in a Pokemon Center.
…Okay, now I want a Pokemon fangame with all 40-something Pathfinder 1e classes in place of Pokemon.
I’m not sure about that, but if you’re looking for a Pokemon tabletop game I would recommend Pokerole. Did uses a dice pool system and is in a far greater stage of completion than any other fan made Pokemon ttrpg.
He’d probably faint all over again since he’d have a trainer and likely a full party. Then when he woke up again, he’d wonder why he’s missing some money.
My first (and so far, only) drought in gaming came after my first experience, as well. My first group, for the most part, only played two games every school holidays, and I had joined in for the second; as such, I had my first game of D&D, and had to wait months before my next. It wasn’t long before my friend, who was also new to D&D, was setting up a game for his family. I joined in, and later on brought in another friend, who happened to be into Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and acting. As such, no matter what happens, those two have always ensured that I have a table to play at. (Save during high school exams. I have no idea how I survived the two-month breaks we’d take each year).
I just recalled that there was a second gaming drought; we had managed to finish the first campaign with the friend’s family’s group just before school exams, and I was going to run the next campaign. We first had the drought of exam prep, of course; but after that, the holidays brought great woe when it was discovered that our schedules rarely aligned. This gave me plenty of time for campaign prep and “How to be a Great GM” videos. This was extremely helpful because it gave me time to review my first adventures, and create new ones. I ended up creating three 1st-level adventures for the party, discarded the first two, and started my DMing career with a simple, but well-rounded, goblin dungeon crawl.
My PC friends were also able to survive off D&D. One friend started listening to podcasts, while the other was changing his future character every few weeks.
I’m actually really happy for Gunslinger. ^_^
He finally got to be in a party, and it was with an utter badass like Stabs, too.
Mostly I’m amused that no one will believe him.
“She’s really cool! You’ve never met her though. She goes to another webcomic.”
Coping when your RPG groups are MIA?
Breaks down emotionally
For reals though, usually, there’s videogames when the whole session gets skipped. Or mini-sessions of board games when there’s one or two people missing for big plot events – usually the stuff you can play on Tabletop Simulator, or the online version Cards Against Humanity.
MIA is actually less of a problem at the moment though… with society in lockdown, nobody has any of the usual distractions keeping them from gaming. So we’ve actually had a larger than usual group lately, since all the people who can’t normally do weekly sessions are able to attend… and since it’s all online, we’ve even gained an extra player, a friend from out of town.
So where we usually work with five people and look for fallback options on four, we’re currently at seven players…
Oracle clearly needs to brush up on her knowledge (planes). Not only are dreamscapes a real thing, there’s also the other, more obvious option of trans-dimensional travel into the Rusty & Co. universe. Or creating a mindscape (which has the benefit of being permanency’able)
https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Dreamscape
Wizard: “So let me get this straight… You want me to… What was the term you used… Isekai you?”
Gunslinger: “Don’t worry, I already have a Reincarnation, Plane Shift, True Rez AND a Interplanetary Teleport scroll ready if necessary.”
Dreamscapes might be a real thing in general, but Oracle only has a limited list of known spells. Thus it is plenty reasonable that while someone out there somewhere might know a “dream into reality” spell, she in particular do not
You know, given how Gunslinger hasn’t had an adventuring party in… Some time, plus the circumstances that going solo on adventures would have, I’m figuring his current life situation fits between three places:
a) He’s obscenely rich and overleveled/decked in magic items, due to going on successful solo adventures where he gets the lion’s share of the loot and exp, which in turn makes him even more rich & powerful for further solo adventures (and less likely to find a lower-level group).
b) His lack of adventuring forces him to do profession checks and/or shady practices to sustain himself and maintain his expensive gun/ammo supply (1gp per shot takes a toll on one’s finances!).
c) He’s forced to go on solo adventures, with moderate success. Anything he earns from such adventures is spent on rez scrolls or ammo, leaving him on the brink of poverty or in constant debt with the local temples.
there’s this thing called „social diss dancing“ which hit just before session one of the new campaign… House mate of the host beeing a co-worker of a confirmed covid19 case. So we’re on ice till this shit blows over.
I get to play plenty, but I sometimes I get the itch for NOT being the man behind the curtain. This usually manifests in convincing one of my players to start a campaign, which only works for a handful of sessions before I have to don my robes and magecap once again. Lately though, something wonderful has happened. My wife DM’s now, too! There isn’t as much focus on combat, and I think we’ve been level 2 for like 13 sessions now, but I love every minute of it!
As I’ve said my history with the hobby is interesting. I was inducted into 2E by a guy who ran a 20-person game at my afterschool/summer camp, which was complete clownshoes.
In high school there was an attempt to get into 3.5, but that fell through, which in retrospect was a good thing.
In late-high school 4E came out and we managed to get a few sessions in, but eventually the group fell apart. Next summer we tried again. The group lasted a bit longer, but fell apart at the end of the summer.
In 2016 I re-connected with the friend who was going to be running the 3X game. She wanted to try again, and we were going to do 5E this time. She wanted to DM Curse of Strahd. During the process I found a game store when I was grabbing paraphernalia such as spell-cards for the party. That game store happened to host open game nights, and I thought it would be a good idea to get a feel 5E as a player.
The game with my friend-group never took off, and I don’t think one ever will be sustainable, but my friendly local game store is working out great. The group I’m DMing had to transfer to Discord due to the plague, but apparently they like me as DM enough to follow me online.
I miss meatspace gaming.
When I hit a drought, I read gaming blogs and play more video games.
Right now my group was just introduced to http://www.dominion.games (online Dominion card game), so it’s filling some of the hole in our disrupted gaming schedule.
At the moment, having more free time in the evenings suddenly (social distancing) I’m getting back to working on my next GURPS Dungeon Fantasy/Gamma World game… don’t excited though, I’ve been pushing words around on the page for the last five years, so this meal ain’t getting eaten anytime soon.
I haven’t had an actual D&D group in years. I HAVE however…
*Played through the official computer adaptation of Temple of Elemental Evil (plus the Co8 and Temple+ mods) over
*Played the Castle Ravenloft and Temple of Elemental Evil boardgames
*Tried to play Baldur’s Gate but then ragequit because the melee characters kept walking into the path of the wizard’s spells.
*Ragequit from the realtime combat in Planescape Torment
*Bought Pathfinder Kingmaker when I heard there was a mod that makes it turnbased (but haven’t tried the game yet due to drivespace)
*Read all the Discworld books
*Hang around on the Giant In the Playground and ENWorld/Morrus forums
*Read this comic and “Rusty & Co” and “Out of Placers” and “Order of the Stick” and “Dungeons and Denizens” and “Fortissima Treasure Hunters”
*Watched every episode of “Fairy Tail”[sic] and “Seven Deadly Sins” available on Netflix
*Watched almost every episode of “Puffin Forest” and “Dingo Doodles”
*Tried to play Baldur’s Gate but then ragequit because the melee characters kept walking into the path of the wizard’s spells.
Ha, if you think that only happens in CRPG’s… Meet Hans. We’re playing RQ3, and we have this dwarf who has a hairtrigger croosbow. Basically he can shoot in Strike Rank 1, which is before anybody else, and then he can shoot another two times in the same melee round. Hans is our melee fighter. And he wants to get close to the enemy asap. So wheneever there are enemies, he just charges! Nine out of ten times, right in the line of fire from our dwarf…. So after this happend a few times, the dwarf gets to just shoot Hans in the back. As this is RQ, he usually goes down. So free line of sight, and thus fire, so next one down is the enemy. Do some healing and\or Resurection, and on to the next fight. After about four to five combats with this occuring, Hans finally wised up, and managed to get to the enemy without blocking the line of fire.
In my group, we are having stuff happening when rolling critical misses (nat 1).
We have come to acknowledge a fact of the universe: whenever someone is using a crossbow, and the party’s Cleric is in front of them, they will roll a ‘1’ and shoot the Cleric.
It happens, whoever is DMing and whoever are the shooter and the Cleric.
Well, currently my group stay grounded for the plague. When we miss a member of the group we may distribute the work among ourselves. But this situation has forced us to take a rest for now. Recruiting new people is out of question, i like my group too much and still if i got new victi… em… victirious companions in dice we can’t play still. Preparing the next campaign was what i was doing before this. More than anything i have been keeping myself at home and busy with Warframe and waiting some days to get money to buy the Federations DLC for Stellaris. Other people in the group is doing their stuff. Watching tv, playing video games, petting pets, looking through the windows of their homes, writing ominous diaries to chronicles the ruins that has befall their lives, normal stuff. Even in healthier times we would either keep going even when one person down or cancel things until things get back right. Even if a don’t play games like Warframe, Stellaris of Cultist simulator i would probably grab some RPG game rulebook and read it to activate my imagination and start making something like a new setting or campaign or character. Refining the setting i have made for us i something i usually do. Expanding the lore and frontiers is a good way to creatively use my time. I am currently working on the False-Gods and the Void. At least compared to other people i am not walking thought the walls and use my time to do stuff i really like 🙂
Some time ago there was a time when we got constant delays. One week one player was missing, other was missing the next and so. We just waited and in time the stars were right again for us to unleash our fury upon a defenseless world. All depends of your options, which ones a person has and which he wants to take. We may not have a group to play right now, but at least i still got the Handbook, other webcomics and other things to do. I am even playing Doomlord while writhing this 🙂
And to everyone here reading the Handbook and specially those up in US, stay safe, keep healthy and my best wished to all of you 😀
I haven’t played any TTRPG in a while now and I honestly don’t miss it. To put it simply, I looked for groups and clubs and I only went from bad experience to bad experience. First I played D&D 3.5 with a group of friends (only one of them is still a friend to this day), with a condescending and hypocritical GM who imbalanced the game on purpose to make it “realistic” and bent over backwards to his powergaming little brother and his depraved girlfriend, he later ruined a Pathfinder campaign in which he was a player because he couldn’t get his way; then I tried a small club with a Pathfinder GM who simplified the rules so much the game was barely recognizable and utterly depthless; then another club with the most railroady GM I’d ever witnessed, going as far as deciding for a player what his PC wanted to do or not (without any magic involved); then I tried joining an online Pathfinder community on a Discord server and got scolded by their main admin for daring to point out a glaring inconsistency in their way they applied their own rules.
The tabletop gaming community is utterly terrible and I want nothing to do with it anymore.
So when I was NINE, my friends older brother, for reasons that baffle me to this day, asked if we would like to play RoboTech. I was floored. I had no idea how to play, but if it meant giant robots, I was SO IN.
We played on and off for maybe a year. Stuff happened, we saw each other less, you know. I proceeded to be be stuck not getting to play another table top roleplaying adventure until The Internet. I made so many characters and played with so many ideas. I almost got the neighborhood kids to play one time!…but they didn’t get it and I had no idea how to GM.
So in 1998, we got an iMac, and just for the hell of it, I decided to see if Palladium had a website. It turned out not ONLY did they have a website, but they had multiple chatrooms, in which Palladium players were encouraged to run and play Palladium games in.
I won’t get in depth about it… The community was in constant need of GM’s, so I stepped up and ran…random stuff. For a while, I was considered one of the better GM’s in there. I don’t feel I was particularly good, but I could spin together a quick story and make encounters and address some of Palladium’s innate issues in ways that were fair to everyone.
I wanted to play so bad I gave up playing and GM’d for total strangers in the wilderness of the internet in the ’90s. I wasn’t especially good at the time, but its inspired me since and I’ve become QUITE good since, at least in my own way.
I think maybe you win the thread. O_O
“Deprived of all these fun guest characters, it looks like we’ll be back to making ‘Fighter is a jerk’ strips for the foreseeable future.”
I don’t know, as a long time reader, sometimes I feel like you’re just trying to trick us… I do see you agreeing with Fighter’s complaints a lot.
To be fair, everyone in Handbook-World is a jerk. Just… ya know. Some more than others.
Well as you know, I play a lot of play by post games over on the Giant in the Playground forums.
I also run a 5e game on another forum for some old internet pals.
And a Blades in the Dark game on Discord (still text based though).
And sometimes when I have the free time/am not feeling like engaging in any of my other hobbies…. I run myself through one of the 5e pre-made campaigns. So far I’ve finished Lots Mine of Phandelver, gotten about 1/8th of the way through Princes of the Apocalypse, about the same length (I think?) through Out of the Abyss, and 4/1ths* of the way through Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and 1/10th of the way through Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage before I realized it was actually just 100% a dungeon crawl without any semblance of a story and I mentally checked out even as “low story mode” as running a game for yourself is.
*This module isn’t really designed for you to try and play all the content in it in one campaign. I did that anyway.
I like to sit around and concept out character ideas. It never hurts to have a few dozen basic ideas for characters in your back pocket, and it can be surprisingly useful even outside the realm of TRPGs.
I always worry about finding appropriate games for my big folder ‘o ideas. Like… They’re fun to noodle with, but I kind of like to know what the setting and campaign theme is going to look like before I start noodling with characters.
Now that I think about i, I never had a drought. I was a (board)wargamer first, who came to this (then new) games club, where they played these other kind of games, called RPG’s. As The Netherlands is a small country, and I lived in this one town, but had to ride my bike for an hour to get to the town with the club in it, that was not much of a sacrifice. And there I met other players, who invited me in their group. And I met this girl that was into RPG’s who then became my girlfriend, and eventually wife. And we had kids together, who also like RPS’s, so we can even play when we’re in lockdown (which we totally did just yersterday). And I also was a manager for a time for a FLGS in our town, where I also met, and played with, and continue to play, with friends and (former) customers. So essentially I have never had a drought. Even when our kids where little, either friends came over for a game, or one of use would babysit, and the other would go out and play.
Man, I loved Dragonstrike as a kid, just wonderful. I must’ve watched that VHS at least a dozen times
I had a beginners set of AD&D at one point too, that also came with some media, was a CD if I recall.. that had a sorta acted out session of the adventure included in it, but you could also use it to play the DM bits of the scenario.. that was pretty cool. Can’t seem to find it anywhere on the internet though unfortunately.. had like a silver dragon on the front I think
I have rulebooks for no less than a half-dozen completely different system, could probably fill a notebook with half-built ideas, and three actual campaign stories. Despite having geeks for friends, getting people together was torture. Jumping into potential games for anything (all of them D&D, because nobody seemed willing to even entertain other systems as possibilities, despite some being loaded with so many houserules and variations it might as well have been a different system), and more than one involving 12 or more players. Continuing to try even after the ST scripted TPK into session two in my first game ever in World Of Darkness wasn’t enough to make me stop, because I just wanted to play with people.
I’ve gotten far more hesitant to play with people without meeting the group first, because of reasons like that.
Scripting the TPK is a “genius idea” that a lot of first-time GMs start with. Just had a buddy talking about doing something similar. I think you can get away with it if you go “cut-scene mode” and narrate a nuke dropping or some such. But if the big pay-off is, “You wake up in Hell,” or, “You come to in your Quest Giver’s infirmary,” then I’m not sure that’s enough of a reason to fire up the ol’ railroad. I mean, why not just start the session or the campaign like that rather than giving players the illusion of “we can win this one?”
Any dang way, negative experiences were the reason I became a forever GM. It was a full-on Thanos moment: https://tenor.com/view/thanos-infinity-gauntlet-ill-do-it-myself-marvel-villain-gif-16087834