19th Level

A few weeks ago, my older daughter Victoria and I paid a brief visit to Manhattan. Vicki's been giving some thought to going to New York's Fashion Institute of Technology (still a few years to go for that) but one thing we wanted to make certain of was that she'd be comfortable with the city itself - she'd only been there once before, and that almost ten years ago. Overall it was a great trip. She fell in love with the city. I got to meet someone from my virtual gaming group for coffee - it's always nice to really meet with people I initially get to know via email, social media, and webcams. I'm looking forward to meeting a number of people next June at North Texas RPG Con. One thing I wanted to make certain we did was spend some time at the World Trade Center. For Vicki  (and her younger sister, Jasmine, who chose to stay home in Massachusetts with mom), 9/11 will always be a matter of history. We first found out Vicki was on the way on the Saturday aft...

The most amusing thing is it's actually still under development. The version I'm working on actually has rerouted some of the lines and given some thought to peak hours service. And I'll need to come up with street names. This probably isn't something that'll actually get any use in our campaign, it's more a function that I'm (1) having fun making a fictional city; (2) have a bit of break between game sessions; (3) love maps; and (4) had a career ambition of being a subway motorman once upon a time. One of my favorite things was going on trips to all sorts of interesting places with my grandfather on the New York City subway. I thought it was so amazing how we could walk a few blocks on Avenue W, take a right onto East 16th Street, a left onto Neck Road and we'd be at the subway station which could take us anywhere in the city. On our walks to the station my grandfather would tell me all sorts of interesting things - bits of what the city used to ...

I was looking for some good inspirational material to help me with a Call of Cthulhu adventure set in 1890s New York City. One book suggested to me was the late Jack Finney's Time and Again . To be honest, I was altogether unfamiliar with Mr. Finney's work, though a quick bit of research revealed he had written the novel The Body Snatchers , the work upon which the various Invasion of the Body Snatchers films were based. Time and Again tells the tale of Simon "Si" Morley, an artist employed in advertising who receives an unusual offer which turns out to be part of a government time travel project.. Si is from the early 1970s, the time when this book was published. I found it interesting that in addition to getting a glimpse of New York of the 1880s (more on that later), I also received a view of New York City of the early 1970s, a time period which saw me as an infant and toddler. It's interesting to see how things have changed in the 40+ years since then - ...

Broadway, 1890s Having gotten together a small group for a Fantasy Grounds Call of Cthulhu  game we settled on a Gaslight-era game set in London of the 1890s. Being a history buff I did all sorts of research, read my Sherlock Holmes and H.G. Wells. The research proved useful and the first adventure, though hindered by busy schedules and Murphy's Law, went pretty well over three sessions. In the last session our heroes survived, albiet a bit less sane, and had angered an apparently pretty powerful cult. With that in mind they decided the best course of action was to cross the Atlantic Ocean and set up shop in New York City. Alrighty then. So glad I did my homework. Actually, in all honesty, I was thrilled. To let you in on a not-so-dirty little secret, I love it when what I planned goes up in smoke - at least if it does so as a result of players going off the beaten path (vs. an adventure just going lousy). To the way I figure it, I'm not a writer of fiction. I'm co...