Jim - Big Damn Gaming Page

Jim

"I'm so Old School, you were in preschool"

I am an old school gamer with over 40 years of gaming experience, mostly as a GM. I have run AD&D, 5E D&D, Traveller, Cyberpunk 2020, FASA's Star Trek, Star Wars D6 and Serenity campaigns. We did a mini-campaign using the Space:1889 setting with the Serenity/Cortex RPG rules. I have also run Cowboy Bebop and Hellboy games with the Serenity/Cortex rules. You can contact me through moc.oohay|1rihkcar#moc.oohay|1rihkcar

I play many wargames, OGRE and G.E.V. being my favorites and card games like Chez Geek, Hacker, Munchkin and dice games of Zombie Dice and Cthulhu Dice. In other words, I am a big fan of Steve Jackson games. I have written my own Chez games, Chez Zombie, Chez Convention, Chez Firefly and am working on two more. I have played many computer games, mostly first person shooters like Half-Life and Counter-Strike or strategy games such as Battlezone and Homeworld. I also played the Dark Age of Camelot MMORPG for three years.

As of Fall 2019, I am retiring my 1st ed. AD&D and running D&D 5E. I've got a lot of young, new players and I don't see any point in teaching them 1st ed. when they will probably never meet another 1st ed. DM. And 5E is more logical and consistent.

In addition to gaming, I enjoy hiking, nature photography (especially birds and on whale watches), backyard astronomy and I am constantly reading sci-fi and fantasy. I am interested in science from astronomy to zoology and military history and technology.
Jim's Book Log
Star Trek Notes
Short Stories

Becoming a Gamemaster

Writing Adventures

Running Games

Writing Backstories An old lecture I prepped for a DM's conference. But it needs updating and some expansion.

Getting along with the DM Another old lecture for players.

Individual Rewards- Old discussion about rewarding players and characters.

How to write adventure modules that don't suck Review of the GM's sourcebook

Assorted Quotes
"To paraphrase Sun-Tzu, no adventure survives contact with the players."
Playing Star Trek edition of Settlers of Catan. Emily pointed out that the symbol on the Food card looks like an old McDonald's styrofoam container:
"The Klingons have cut off my supply of Big Macs!"
"Non-alcoholic beer is just horse piss without the buzz"
"I don't kill player characters, PLAYERS kill player characters"
While playing Star Trek Panic, discussing what happens if the ship gets boarded
"We fight them! <sings> Da da da dadada" (fight music from Amok Time episode)
Jo "I'm just tired"
Jim "Just tired is still partially awake"
Jo "Don't go there"
Jim "All tired, there's only one thing to do. Give them a glass of warm milk and put them to bed. Hey, Mr. Tired, what have you got to look forward to? Com-fyyy pajjaammmaaass"
I just had to throw out a week of campaign notes, I usually write my stuff longhand on a clipboard
Jim "Back to the drawing board"
JoAnne "Or the clipboard, as it were"
Jim "I'm doing magical math" (Working on material costs for a magic item)
JoAnne "So you're doing Arithmancy?"
Discussing that 5E is often lacking in details, and you have to go back to 1st edition. For example, how tall is an ogre?
Jim, looking at the 1st ed. Monster Manual, in Inigo Montoya voice "Vizzini said go back to the beginning. This is where I learned to roleplay, so this is the beginning"
I had been doing lots of movie quotes since I spent two days at work talking with a much younger coworker about great old films. I was headed out to the grocery
JoAnne "Bye"
Jim "You don't seem too broken up that I'm leaving"
JoAnne <waves dismissively> "Take your quotes and go"