Forgive the SPAM.. But it's personal...

[Crazeyal]

Before I start, I'd like to stat that I have some personal issues with the creators and owners of Knights of the Dinner Table. I am no longer associated with that company in any form. The rest of THAT story is simply Internet Drama, and not worth your time.

An online friend of mine tapped me for a long standing project while I was still affiliated (loosely) with Kenzerco. The fact that a Professional writer and Photographer asked me not only for my opinion, but to collaborate with him on a project was an honor. I have exactly ONE professional writing credit to my name. He's written a Book, been published monthly for YEARS, and has a massive following online. The Author's name is NOAH J.D. CHINN and he creates the..



Here is the Blurb from his Wikipedia page: (And anyone who knows Webcomics KNOWS how delete-happy Wiki can get!!!)

Fuzzy Knights is an online comic created by Noah J.D. Chinn and published by Kenzer & Company. It stars stuffed animals who enjoy role-playing games such as HackMaster and Dungeons & Dragons. What started out as a simple one-shot tribute to the Kenzer gamer comic series, Knights of the Dinner Table, turned into a cult hit that continues to gain new fans. Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, is an admitted fan of the Fuzzy Knights and wrote a promo for the trade-paperbacks...


The Tournament Wars was his first long Story Arch. He wrote it like a movie, and it's what addicted me to his writing style.

He is now re-starting our Collaboration:



He also showed his SERIOUS talent and creativity in creating a promo movie for the LARP storyline HERE

There are YEARS of gaming goodness and geekiness to be had, for free. There is ALSO a Fuzzy Knights Roleplaying system available!!

PLEASE... Give the FUZZY KNIGHTS a try, and if you were already a fan..


IT'S STARTING UP AGAIN!! HUZZAH!!!

[Crazeyal]

OK.. 37 views and no comments.

No opinions or no likes?

[Plaidman]

Well, I'm doubtful alotta people here would know about B.A and Brian and the others.

While I wasn't a big fan of Fuzzy Knights, I'm curious as to what part of KOTDT you had....

[Crazeyal]

Just one of the rants in the middle of the book. I'll post it if there is demand. The feebs can sue me for the 3$ they'd lose from me reposting.

[Plaidman]

But I gotta know. I think I'd get in trouble if I make 5000 differnt alts posting that I gotta know the story.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

This is cute. I was a fan of KOTDT. Sorry you had a falling out with them. The strip is cute, but I find the site very difficult to navigate.

Friend of mine is doing a comic with captioned stills very similar to this called Twisted Kaiju Theater (I think I spelled it right), but most of his are not continuing stories. I think it's a real neat way to do a comic, staging photos and captioning them.

[Crazeyal]

That isSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO weird.

Guess who I'm working with?

A friend of a friend who does Twisted Kaji Theatre!! Emo Boy is actually represented in the strip according to him!

[RecoveringKinkoid]

You are KIDDING me!

Good grief, what a small small world we live in. Which one is he?

You wanna hear something even crazier? I went to a club to hear a friend's band tonight and ran into one of the Toxic Pirates (actually, ShinGoji's best man at his wedding) there and spoke to him a bit.

[BlaqueKatt]

um I'm the supervisor for Igor Olman* of dork tower fame-yay! Worked with him for almost 3 years now, and the artist John Kovalic used to work where I work-double yay!


*all the Dork tower character used to work where I work-only Igor is left though-and no his name is Igor

[Crazeyal]

Okay, looked at my hard drive and found the origional copy of my only published article. They liked it so much they printed it (and PAID ME) TWICE!!!

Once upon a time there was a young boy...

Ahhhh screw it!!!

Forget the pretentious writing carp. I’m a gamer. I’ve played since D&D was in PAMPHLETS,
and I’ve had my ups and downs in the hobby. I wasn’t just a gamer, mind you. I was a
stereotypical gamer. Very few friends, scared of women, looking for something to fill the gap.

I got “the” line from my parents. “If you’d study your schoolbooks half as hard as you do those
D&D books you’d have straight A’s!!!” They were right of course, but the books were boring,
and they SEEMED to give me nothing back (being an adult, makes me wish I’d gone into
computer science in the 70's and retired at 28 or so)

The reason that I think my version of “gamer doubt” is worthy of your attention is that I’ve had it
made VERY clear to me, just what roleplaying did for me, and what it does for me now. To say
I’ve had some mixed feelings about gaming in general is not just the understatement of the year,
it’s the basis I’ve had for giving the game up several times.

I left D&D when I got into the 11th grade, just because I didn’t have time anymore. The people I
played withwere either looking for women or college. Sometimes both! I graduated, went
nowhere, and joined the military. Military life can not only contain some long, boring empty
hours, but it attracts geeks like myself like a proverbial moth to a flame. The amount of people
in the military who belonged to the Society for Creative Anachronisms was staggering. The
amount of people who had, or were willing to try to play D&D was larger still.

I felt I had outgrown D&D so I bought a few other games, and Gmed for my group of Jar-heads
the likes of Twilight 2000, Shadowrun, and THEN D&D. T

When I came home, I was alone for quite some time. Adjusting to civilian life takes a bit of
effort. Gaming was there for me. I first tried learning Battletech, and that search led me to the
local gaming store, and then to the gamers in the basement of the store.

Again I was drawn into a tightly knighted group that had more stereotypes than actual people.
Goth chick with an attitude, gamer dork with no social skills, Scary thin guy with a temper..(oh
wait..that was me...) The games flowed and the hobbies promoted desires to find new challenges
and thrills. The new thrills invariably led to conflict, which led to one or more people leaving the
group.

New companies published games that people HAD to try and “master”. The group found out
quickly that certain people should not EVER be given responsibility, especially the title “master”.
New challenges came out in Live-action games. Boffer combat. Hell, we found a way to put
role-play into LASER TAG!

But a group of friends is as fragile as their age and temperaments allow it to be. We went our
separate ways by the early nineties, most of us choosing not to roleplay at all any more. Too
much baggage.

Where is this all going?

Full circle.

I found the reason I started gaming in an unsuspected place. The eyes of my best friend’s
daughter. Well... to be exact.. His SIX daughters, and one young son. My friend went to college,
got married, got divorced, got married again HAS A LOT OF KIDS!!! He’s looking for a cheap
way of entertaining them, as well as a way to relate. He pulls out the ORIGINAL player’s
handbook, and suggests teaching the kids how to play.

I start in by telling him about TSR printing 2nd edition, then 3rd , then screwing up, overprinting,
getting blind sided by MTG, getting sold, and THEN...

He stopped me. With two simple words, he stopped my bitter little rant.

SO
WHAT?

The game was fun back then, and the kids haven’t seen any of it. If they want to play the new
version, they can get the books as presents or earn it themselves. (Begging Nana wouldn’t hurt
either.. Hell, she and MY dad bought all the first ones anyway...)

So we sit down... My friend Mark get’s busy, and all of a sudden.. There I am... DUNGEON
MASTER again... 5 kids playing (with two really honked off kids, cause they’re too young!)
Between Mark’s son Hassiem playing the PERFECT cowardly thief (You hear combat in the
next room, what do you do? HIDE UNDER THE BED!!!) and the royally hilarious over-reaction
of the eldest daughter, Antoinette (You hear a rattle on the door. I GRAB MY STAFF AND
FLING THE DOOR OPEN, HITTING THEM IN THE FACE WITH FULL FORCE!!! ah.. Very
good, you’ve just critted the chambermaid!!!) I found myself repeating the children’s questions to
my friend.

WHEN ARE WE PLAYING AGAIN????

When I dropped the baggage of “this GM really screwed me over” or “I had such a bad time at
Vin-con that I don’t want to play anymore” etc ect ...The bad things about gaming usually come
from doing it too much. Gaming conventions, multiple games per week. trying to write games
professionally. All of them are an outcrop from simply playing the game I think I’d lost track of
that.

It’s hard to look at gaming as just a silly little hobby when you met your WIFE in a gaming store,
at a gaming table. When the girlfriend before that one was also a gamer, but she flaked and left.
Sometimes gamers can be idiots. Sometimes gamers can ruin the enjoyment and even the
MEMORY of a game because of the bad feelings that happened while a game was going on.
All it took was on small thing and I started remembering the REAL reason I started playing. Not
as a social substitute. Not as an acting exercise, and most importantly, not to try out the latest
mod and power level my character. I did it because people around me SMILED. I wanted it
because I had a little girl sitting in rapt attention for four hours and there WASN’T an ounce of
electricity involved!

THIS is why Hackmaster evolved from a parody game to a past-time. Part nostalgia, part tribute,
not taking itself too seriously... IT’S F-U-N!!!! I’ve been on the Kenzer boards for almost two
years, but I had played Hackmaster ONCE.

I’m currently on page 100 of the Hackmaster’s player guide, own the GM’s guide, and after a few
more sessions with a 30 year old game, I’m gonna show these kids some SERIOUS hacking. I
figure I’ll need the leeway of them having to learn a new system. They all followed their Dad
without knowing it. Clerics, Fighters, Mages and Thieves ... Not a good alignment in the
bunch!!!

God I missed this game. All it took was a young child’s smile to remind me why.

[lordlundar]

Ahh too true. The loss of innocence can only be recovered by seeing the world through the eyes of a child.

Very cool article.

[dreams305]

I love the Fuzzy Knights, and I will definantly check out the new stuff. I hate when people would write to KODT and complain about the Gamer's Rant at the Movies (www.spoonyexperiment.com) and fuzzy knights. If you don't like it, don't read it, but please don't take it away from me!

[Crazeyal]

Spoony was an ornery, mean and outright NASTY individual. He could write damn well and had some funny insights. Part of his schtick was to INSPIRE animosity amongst the readers. Being in the same forum as him was a bit.. interesting. I don't read KODT anymore, so I don't know if the fallout between the online forums and him ever resulted in his colums getting the boot from the magazine. JBB swore it never would. I don't think any complaints ever affected him negatively, as far as being a paid contributor (and he ALWAYS had a blast repeating his hate-mail)