Beyond the Black Gate

Go to Hell!

2012-01-29T07:06:00.000-08:00

I can remember at least two campaigns in ye old high school days which culminated in journeying to the Nine Hells and taking on all the big devil-bosses in a big melee.

Also, occasionally someone would pull a bad card in the Deck of Many Things and we'd have to go rescue them.

But, this is not something I've played or run since - Hell, that is.

I kind of miss it.

Ever adventured in your campaign's underworld?

Some more 5E tidbits

2012-01-27T08:43:00.000-08:00

More intriguing bits from here. I have to admit my curiosity is growing, despite my natural skepticism (though its amusing to see someone describe a game like below as if it were an alien experience. Which, perhaps, if you've never played an earlier edition, it very well may be).

"There was a LOT of talk at the table. In character at times! I’ve never been at a D&D table where players were more invested in figuring out their next move.

On that topic, your next move isn’t on your character sheet. You don’t go paging through all your stuff thinking, “Well, I could Bluff this guy.” Nope. We were doing what we thought our characters should do, even if that involved our very NOT charismatic half-orc fighter trying to be a charismatic leader of a band of skeptical savage orcs. Multiple times. In other games, it’s “Okay, who has the highest Charisma? You? Okay, you go talk to those orcs and get them to help us.”

Everything was fun and fast and fluid. I didn’t feel like the game got bogged down at any time during our session, even when we had a few rules questions for Monte. Things just happened and they flowed with the story and the story was awesome because we made it that way."

Pic from the 5E demos at DDXP

2012-01-26T13:02:00.000-08:00

Keep on the Borderlands with no battlemat/mini's?

Sweet, sweet, Vanguard

2012-01-25T19:34:00.000-08:00

Man, I used up a lot of quarters on this bad boy back in the early 80's.

A few bullet points

2012-01-24T06:50:00.000-08:00

- Have you been by the Warriors of the Red Planet blog lately? Thomas has posted an example page of how the book is looking, which is simply amazing!

- Have you been paying attention to the open beta of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG? Since I had a chance to playtest the game, I've been cautiously optimistic about this, and it is definitely growing on me. To the point that I'm thinking about running a one-off with my group to try it out from a DMing perspective. There's plenty of nice old-school nods here, like race-as-class and level titles, but one of my favorite elements is what they call the character generation "funnel".

In a nutshell, the "funnel" means everyone rolls up 2 or 4 0-level characters to start, and (if any survive the first adventure) you pick your favorite to move along to first level. While my kneejerk reaction was that this was just a way to let everyone enjoy a meatgrinder adventure without fear of ending up character-less five minutes into it, the implications are actually a lot more interesting. Its actually a clever way to avoid the d20 rabbit-hole of min-maxing - you aren't carefully crafting a bonus-master PC, you're picking an average joe that you have an emotional and time investment in. Character development through actual play, rather than number-crunching - how can I not love this?

- Also on the DCC RPG front, Joe's been posting some artists galleries showing off the awesome art for the game, and the latest feature is Erol Otus, so check that out.

- Have you been watching all these movie trailers? 2012 is looking like its going to be a banner year for genre movies: John Carter, The Hobbit, Prometheus, Avengers (to name a few). Lets just say I was less than impressed with the last couple of years worth of cheap remakes and knock-offs (I think Tin Tin was actually the best adventure film of 2011), and I'm looking forward to something with a little effort put into it.

- One movie we won't be seeing, though, is Elfquest. Because someone at Warner Brothers decided its the exact same thing as the Hobbit. Wtf Warner Brothers? Did I mention the last couple years of cheap remakes and knockoffs? Maybe this will free up some cash to work on that remake of Soylent Green with Seth Rogen and Jennifer Aniston.

- Lastly, I once mentioned ( a loooooong time ago) talking a bit more about health: "...we all joke about "Gamer's Disease", and it's no secret our hobby doesn't involve a lot of healthy eating/exercise, and many of us are soon-to, or have long-since, passed the dreaded, evil, forty-mark. There have simply been too many health-related tragedies in our hobby in the last few years to pretend there's not a problem. Is there a way to effectively promote healthy living hand-in-hand with gaming?"

I still think health is a huge concern in the gaming community - diabetes, obesity, and depression, especially, seem to have a constant (but politely ignored) presence. If I put together a "Healthy Gamer" resource page, would any of you be interested in that? Or if I were to post monthly "guest columns" from readers about exercise, recipes etc, would you be interested in reading or contributing? Please let me know in the comments below.

The Player Driven Campaign

2012-01-23T06:47:00.000-08:00

It seems to be the nature of gaming blogs that they are largely DM-oriented. We do a lot of dissecting what makes our games work best, the ideas we have for making them better, campaign setting details, houserules, and, especially in our old-school corner, the "lost secrets" of how the first DMs and game designers made things work. What's often given short shrift, however, is the player's role in all of this.

Is it simply a given that the player's in everyone's groups are just as involved in the development and growth of a campaign's setting and houserules as the DM is? I kind of doubt that.

Personally, I've found that players that are more interactive than reactive are pretty hard to come by. I've DM'd at more than one table where I've felt like some sort of performing monkey, doing my best to provide an engaging game while being met with blank looks and bored expressions while players just wait for me to tell them when to roll some dice.

The best groups I've played with or DM'd have not just been the games that were run the best, or offered the best adventures or settings, they were the games wherein the players were just as interested in developing the game as the DM. My current group, for example, is primarily writers and artists, and the effect they have on the game is profound. They are not shy about expounding on the possible uses of weird magic items they find, they're specific about the things they look for in cities and settlements, they tend to think outside the box when it comes to defeating powerful foes and obstacles...

It makes me wonder if there is a way to quantify what makes the best sort of players - would this help make bored or reactive players more involved in the game? Or would it be seen as an affront to a particular player's creativity? It seems like having a way to briefly describe the players' role in the development of the best campaigns would be a good thing - just as important as providing a good setting, good adventures, and the best suited ruleset.

In the notes or on your own blogs, please tell me a bit about what you like best about, or expect from, the players in your game.

What works in D&D - part 4

2012-01-19T07:09:00.000-08:00

So we've looked, separately, at some interesting elements I think make D&D "work": a solid baseline, an experience point system that rewards play beyond the realm of combat, and an achievable "end game". As most of folks reading this particular blog will already know, the gradual erosion of these elements over the later editions of the game led some to keep playing, or return to, the older editions, or produce retroclones or variant d20-based games like BasicFantasy RPG and C&C.

An interesting alternative to that mindset was proposed, back in 2007, called E6. What this did, in a nutshell, was to take the existing 3x rules and pull them in nice and close to the baseline - characters topped out at 6th level and gained only feats from then on. This had a neat effect on the assumed universe of an E6 campaign; everything was at a power level much closer to what we would think of as "normal" in a sword & sorcery setting - the scary monsters like dragons and giants stayed scary rather than becoming mere stepping stones to get at challenges of an ever increasing power level ("Epic!"). This approach holds a lot of appeal to me - it acknowledges the strengths of a later ruleset (which I think we in the old-school community are often too reticent to do) while finding a clever and effective way to reign in the obvious problems with that ruleset. It neatly recreates a more traditional rpg experience by having a period of dungeon crawling followed by a period in which more high-concept campaigning will come into play.

But, I would be remiss if I concentrated solely on rules when it comes to "what works in D&D". As the revolving door of editions spins increasingly faster, something extremely important tends to get forgotten. If you've been following the whirlwind of 5E newsbites, you've probably noticed some familiar names keep getting mentioned: "Keep on the Borderlands", "Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth", "Tomb of Horrors", and so on.

Yes, I'm talking about Adventures!

One of the biggest things that is simply missing, from late 2E on up, is memorable adventures - the kind that everyone you know who plays D&D has played, the kind that becomes a part of the whole gaming vernacular and a measuring stick to gauge other adventures by. Since WotC's acquisition of the brand, only three titles come to mind as having any lasting impact on the collective mind of the gaming community (Sunless Citadel, Red Hand of Doom, and Keep on the Shadowfells), which over a course of 10 years is a stunning failure. The best adventures have a way of making players not care a whit what ruleset they are using. Companies like Necromancer Games, Goodman Games, and Paizo were able to step into this gigantic hole left by the game's official publisher, and build a nice business around giving folks what they needed - great adventures. While many like to blame 4E's perceived failure on its rules, I tend to lay the blame equally on the fact that WotC didn't pursue an aggressive publishing schedule of consistently engaging adventures, and at the same time refused to add their new ruleset to the open license that enabled third parties to produce adventures to go along with it.

As 5E begins its open playtest (you can sign up for this here, btw) in a couple of months, I am hoping that the discussion of rules does not completely crowd out a discussion on what players will get to do with these rules - will there be a renewed emphasis on adventures?

SOPA

2012-01-18T05:00:00.000-08:00

Wikipedia and other sites are blacking out today.

Why?

Because if SOPA passes, any complaint of copyright infringement (and yes, I said "complaint", not "violation", much less "proven violation") means your site gets shut down, no questions asked, until you feed enough money into the legal system to maybe be allowed to speak again some day.

Can anyone think of any particular niche genre of adventure games fan sites that might be easy prey for such a witch hunt? Hmmm? Yes, the OSR will be SOPA's bitch-boy, no free cigarettes or lube recquired.

As per Wikipedia:

"Call your elected officials.

Tell them you are their constituent, and you oppose SOPA and PIPA.

Why?

SOPA and PIPA put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won't have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn't being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won't show up in major search engines. SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.

In a world in which politicians regulate the Internet based on the influence of big money, Wikipedia — and sites like it — cannot survive.

Congress says it's trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the "cure" that SOPA and PIPA represent is worse than the disease. SOPA and PIPA are not the answer: they will fatally damage the free and open Internet."

What works in D&D - part 3

2012-01-16T06:08:00.000-08:00

Just as older editions of D&D had a firmer baseline, they also had a more defined cap. I hate to use the word "cap", because its not exactly true, but the way the experience point system is set up, there is a point when character development stops having such an emphasis on leveling up, and more of an emphasis on how the character influences the game world (we'll call it a "soft cap"). There comes a point, typically between 200k-400k xp, when a character reaches "Name" level. The actual level may vary (9-12) but this is when a character stops rolling Hit Dice, and is presumed to have reached the upper limits of power, with further advancement being a lot more incremental in terms of hit points and armor class. From this point, goals become more obscure and narrative-driven - establishing and maintaining strongholds, attracting followers, carving demesnes from the wilderness, researching more obscure and powerful spells, and so on.

This could also be seen as a time to let those name-level characters essentially retire, fading into the background of campaign setting politics and such, letting players start new characters and reserve those high level PCs for only the most earthshaking missions. In a way, successful players "win" the game by getting to this point, or by tapping some later resources to poke a finger into the strange waters of attaining demi-god or "immortal" status.

Later editions would remove the "soft cap" of 10th level and push it up to 20th (or 30th in "epic" play). To facilitate that, the options of the game would have to get so far from the baseline as to become nearly comedic. Where once an armor class of "0" (or 20 in ascending terms) was a watermark only breached by the toughest dragons (or high-dex elves in magical plate mail), armor classes in the 40's (or -20's in descending terms) had to become commonplace. To challenge a party of say, 18th level characters, who are now presumed to continue regular dungeon crawling, you have to have dozens and dozens of extremely powerful (yet mundane and common) monsters to stock those dungeons, begging the question of how any lowly orcs, beggars, or 10th level paladins for that matter, can even exist in this nightmarish apocalyptic world.

In case the implications of the removal of the soft cap are not immediately obvious, this basically means that, no matter how powerful your character gets, there will always be a multitude of more powerful foes out there. Not one or two, mister 12th level ranger, but hordes of stuff designed to make much higher level characters wet their pants. In eight years of running and playing 3x, this seemed to convey to the players and DMs (in my experience at least) a growing feeling of "nothing's ever good enough". There was no built in mechanism like Name Level to attain, no gradual high-level power curve to ride gracefully into a well-deserved retirement and notorious spot in tavern tales and the epic poetry touted across the realms by any bard worth his salt.

The term "grind" is one often used to describe later edition combat - hours of PC bonuses and modifiers striving against heaps of monster hit points and star-trek-spaceship-force-field-level armor classes until one emerges the statistical victor. But its not too much of a leap to describe an entire 20 or 30 level 3x or later campaign as a grind - when does it all end? In my experience, these campaigns ended when everyone got fed up with the needless complexity of high-level play.

If I had to pick the best publisher of contemporary edition adventures out there right now, I'd pick Paizo, hands down. Their Adventure Paths are consistently well-thought out, entertaining, with high production values and interesting plots that make you not mind the odd railroad car so much. Yet, scanning message boards out there, you will find a whole lot more "just started Adventure Path X!" threads than you will "Just finished Adventure Path X!". Actually, I couldn't find any of the latter, but I'm assuming there must be some, just harder to find maybe. What do you do when the rules themselves are the biggest challenge to overcome for even the best adventures?

To be continued...

What works in D&D (continued)

2012-01-12T06:58:00.000-08:00

The next item I'd like to cover is experience.

The experience point system is something I think had a greater effect on the play style of older editions than is immediately obvious. Not only did it emphasize a different type of adventuring than newer editions did, it also had a built in balancing effect.

In older editions, experience points were awarded primarily for the successful acquisition of treasure and, to a much lesser extent, defeating monsters. For example, a group of 6 orcs might be in possession of a gem worth 500gp. In terms of experience points, this would, altogether, net the party about 590xp; 500 for the gem and 15 or so apiece for the orcs.

That's a huge difference there, the gem is obviously worth a whole lot more to the party than killing the orcs would be. Effectively, it changes the whole goal of the encounter - simply fighting with and defeating the orcs is not the point, getting that expensive gem is the point, the gem is what allows the party to increase in power, and gives them funds to spend on carousing and training. Killing the orcs may simply not be worth the risk of getting killed.

Realizing this suddenly opens up a world of new options to the players - getting that gem by guile, stealth, or cunning may be safer and even easier than going toe-to-toe with the orcs.

This sort of experience system became another baseline of older edition games - this was a game of exploration and player skill as much as, if not more than, it was about kicking in doors and killing orcs. And yet again, future editions would erode this core concept.

Beginning with 3E, a new experience point system was introduced. It was mathematically coherent, followed a progression, a formula, and would largely turn the game into Fantasy Fight Club. Experience from this point on was awarded almost exclusively for killing monsters. Now, the encounter with the six orcs holding a 500gp gem was worth 900xp, 900 for the orcs, and butkis for the gem. Getting the gem through guile, stealth, or cunning now had absolutely no effect on advancing your character's abilities - killing orcs is what makes you level up.

There is a "story" xp award for 3e, by the way, but it was largely small and arbitrary, and did little that I could tell to emphasize exploration (or even story) over combat.

Experience also had an effect on how characters progressed. In older editions, the experience total needed to advance a level basically doubled at each level - for example a class might need 2000xp to advance to 2nd level, 4000xp for 3rd, 8000xp for 4th, and so on. An interesting effect this system had was that, if a player lost a PC, their new character was likely to "catch up" with the group fairly quickly even starting all over at 1st level. While those surviving fourth level characters need 8k over the next few adventures to level up, the new 1st level character can use his 8k share of those adventures to advance all the way up to 4th (provided he survives, which is much easier to do in an exploratory game than a combat game).

3E introduced a more algorithmic advancement - characters needed 1000xp total for 2nd level, 3000 for 3rd, 6000 for 4th, 10000 for 5th and so on. What this meant was that, as the party average level increased, a new PCs chance of ever catching up with the rest of them decreased. Not only did a 1st level replacement for a dead 5th level character stand very little chance of survival, that disadvantage would remain with the character for the rest of its career. What this did was pretty much force DMs to either allow players with dead characters to bring in new characters at the same (or close) level to the rest of the party, or risk either killing off the new characters over and over, or worse, lower the challenge level for the rest of the group.

By the time characters reached higher levels in earlier editions, say 9th or 10th level, there was no question of newer characters catching up with the group - when the rest of the party needs 100k or even 200k to level up, even the lowest level characters are going to catch up before that happens.

Which brings us to another interesting artifact of older editions, "Name Level".

Next time.

5E - What works in D&D

2012-01-11T06:44:00.000-08:00

With all the speculation floating around about what 5E could possibly look like, or what folks would like it to look like, its interesting to ponder what exactly makes D&D work in the first place. The simple fact that people are out there still playing the earliest iteration of D&D means that there are some definite "core" elements that keep this game alive.

One of the first things that springs to mind is the Hit Die. This is, I think, the most important baseline of the game, and what everything else is built off of. Starting with OD&D, the baseline is this: a creature has 1 HD, or 1d6 hit points. An attack against it with, say, a sword, does 1d6 points of damage.

This is deceptively simple, but its an important reason why D&D works. Starting with this baseline, a regular sword has a chance to kill a regular guy in 1 round. The randomness of tossing dice to determine the regular guys hit points, whether or not you hit the regular guy, and how much damage you do if you do hit the regular guy, means nothing is predetermined, nothing can be taken for granted, and there will always be an element of risk.

As a baseline, this means you have something to measure against when someone gets better than the average guy (or "levels up"). More hit points, a better chance of hitting, etc. Or maybe your magic sword gets better than the regular sword. It lets you quantify tough concepts in a simple way that doesn't take hours to figure out, or bog down your game resolving simple combats so you can get on to the rest of the session.

For old school gamers, this can be taken for granted. Subsequent editions have gradually eroded away this essential baseline. 3E emphasized things like ability modifiers for monsters. A sword still did 1d8 points of damage against an orc, but that orc was now likely to have a Con modifier to its hit points and do a whole lot of damage, often more than that 1st level character could withstand. This created the expectation that in order for one's 1st level character to survive and succeed, its player would need to do some serious min/maxing, arranging scores and abilities for the optimum number of high modifiers to boost damage and hit points. Characters became a lot less randomly generated, and lot more "built", carefully constructed to counter an increasingly spiky baseline.

4E further eroded the baseline. Some might argue it practically washed it away. Orcs and PCs alike start out with 20+ hit points. Yet that sword is still doing 1d8 points of damage. The simplest element that made D&D work was removed: in one attack, a sword has a chance to kill you. No longer. In this latest edition, in addition to min-maxing a character, now groups had to min-max adventuring parties! It was necessary to have the best combination of striker, defender, controller, etc, so that those four or five PCs could carefully coordinate their attacks on the game board to kill that one orc.

The farther you get away from the 1 Hit Die baseline, the farther you get from quickly resolved combats, abstract resolutions that lend themselves to imaginative interpretations and descriptions, and sessions that emphasize goals and explorations over the minutiae of combat.

We'll look at another element of what makes D&D work tomorrow.

Reading the 5th edition right now!

2012-01-10T04:21:00.000-08:00

With all the buzz around the internets lately, I figured I should track down a copy of this. Its just as well-written as I expected, and the maps are fantastic! Best of all, it includes a lot of the author's own original artwork. I highly recommend that you track down your own copy. It'll be interesting to see how closely the film follows this book.

Lost Castles of England

2012-01-06T04:45:00.000-08:00

This is one of the best documentaries on castle construction and use I've seen. It focuses primarily on the early original wood-structure construction of English (Mott & Bailey) castles, and gives a great breakdown of their evolution into the great stone edifices we still see today. Seeing how they functioned in everyday life, how people lived in the little villages they defended, is certainly all useful for your gaming experience, especially in "howling wilderness" settings like WoHF.

Fun with word verification

2011-12-30T06:45:00.001-08:00

Happy Holidays - Compendium 2011

2011-12-26T09:07:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays everyone!

Be sure to grab your free copy of Beyond the Black Gate Compendium 2011.

This year's compendium features new magic items, monsters, abilities, class, adventure locales, random charts, and an all-new, never-before-seen adventure set in the Wilderlands of High Fantasy.

Be sure to print it "booklet" style for maximum old-school effect.

Hope you all are having a great holiday season - see you in 2012!

~Al

Help!

2011-12-23T17:51:00.001-08:00

I need music!

To listen to while making the traditional Christmas Lasagna.

Please post your 10-song Dream Playlist in the comments and hook me up.

Thanks!

The Hobbit Trailer is out

2011-12-20T20:20:00.001-08:00

Enjoy

Email hacked!

2011-12-20T07:38:00.000-08:00

My apologies if anyone received some weird email from me yesterday, my account was apparently hacked. The problem should be fixed now.

The bad emails probably say "no subject" in the header; just delete without reading if your spam catcher didn't dispose of them already.

Its amazing the lengths some folks will go to for an extra buck or two...

Old School Power

2011-12-19T08:12:00.001-08:00

It was interesting to note over on EnWorld today that their number one most read "list" article was the one featuring retroclones. Check it out here.

I'll leave it to you folks in the comments sections to ponder what that says about our little niche of the gaming webiverse.

Great winter morning reading

2011-12-17T06:40:00.000-08:00

Yes, the snow is falling briskly outside right now. Later I have to venture out into it for a Christmas Party at the Casino and it will be cigars and chips and 7&7's but right now its coffee and Wilderlands.

It's criminal this boxed set is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to obtain. Had I been psychic, I would have bought five of these back when they first came out (and done much better at past Casino Christmas Parties, just saying).

I'm sure there are licensing (and printing cost) issues, but wouldn't it be nice to see this re-released for S&W / OSRIC?

I think so.

The Secret of Kells

2011-12-12T07:02:00.000-08:00

Available on Netflix, I watched this with the juniors this weekend and was very pleased with it. The animation is amazing, and the story magical. Its a bit dark in places, but those parts are more than balanced by whimsy and scenes of the magical elder forests. It handles both Pagan and Christian mythologies with reverence, which is nice as I more often see one favored and the other vilified.

Best of all, no dick or fart jokes, guest rappers, contemporary references, or celebrity voice-over shenanigans, all of which seem to infest so many kids' films these days. The best kids films (imo, at least) are the ones that are timeless, and this one definitely fits that bill.

OSRIC Insanity

2011-12-10T06:42:00.000-08:00

I'm still enjoying reading through the massive OSRIC tome. After 30 years or so, I think I'm so familiar with the original 1E DMG, that I tend to gloss over large portions of the original work without really paying attention to it. So what tends to happen is I read something in the OSRIC book, say to myself "is that how it worked in the DMG?" and go grab that book to look up what ever irritating little thread of a rule or concept I've gotten snagged up on.

Coming across Insanity (OSRIC p126) was one of those instances. Some little differences come up. OSRIC has 16 forms of insanity detailed, whereas the 1E DMG has 20. Among the missing are Dipsomania (a favorite of mine, where a character, once a week or so, is compelled to drink until they pass out), Melancholy (an Elric and Conan prerequisite, leading them to brood in the shadows at the back of the tavern despite the comely wench seated upon their knee), and Sado Masochism (a guaranteed way to make every hp of damage rolled at your table an interesting experience).

Actually "missing" is not a fair term, as OSRIC and 1E both have their own separate insanities listed.

Frustratingly, what both tomes lack is a system for duration, treatment, cure, and degeneration for these diseases. So this is now something I must create and post on the blog here someday :)

To be honest, I don't remember encountering a whole lot of Insanities back in the days, really it only seemed to come about as a result of psionic attacks, as far as I can recall. Though I do remember Multiple Personality coming up on (ahem) multiple occasions, mostly, I fear, as a rule-bending way of getting an additional suite of class abilities for "free".

Friday Frazetta

2011-12-09T05:10:00.000-08:00

Quit monkeying around, you big ape.

Awesome New Star Wars Trailer (never before seen footage)

2011-12-08T04:55:00.000-08:00

I still just don't care much for cgi. Maybe it will look better on the big screen.

An interesting OSRIC "rule".

2011-11-28T16:37:00.000-08:00

So I'm doing a little prep for my soon-to-begin all-new campaign (more details on that in the days to come). We're using OSRIC as the "base" ruleset (and I mean "base", those of us with the original 1E AD&D stuff will be using those books too), so I'm scanning through the OSRIC book, mostly because its a good mainline extrapolation of the various interpretations of AD&D's idiosyncrasies.

At any rate, on page 118 is an optional "Random Experience Variable" rule, which basically states you adjust the xp needed to gain a level by plus or minus 1d20 x the level to be gained. So, if I'm reading this correctly, you're headed toward 5th level, and you roll a 12, the xp you need to to level is plus (50%) or minus (50%) 600 xp. That's an interesting optional rule.

Does anyone know the origin of this rule? Was it a common houserule that I never heard of? When do you figure out what your variable will be, at the start of a new level?

Interesting stuff, so anyone familiar with this please chime in.

Anne McCaffrey

2011-11-23T04:18:00.000-08:00

Its very sad to hear Anne McCaffrey has passed. I had no idea Anne was born in 1926, which means she was already in her 50's when I discovered her in the late 1970's. Not a "surprising surprise" however; her writer's voice was certainly that of an ageless person, untouched by cynicism or snark and full of wonder, whimsy, and a love of the fantastic. I read the first three novels of her Dragonrider series, full of the sci-fi fantasy admixture I still love to this day, multiple times back then, usually accompanied by my cassette-playing, eleven-or-so-pound first-generation Walkman :)

Class: Musketeer

2011-11-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I love Musketeer movies.

The Musketeer, in the most basic form, was an infantryman with a matchlock musket. The version detailed below, however, is more closely modeled on the version made popular by literature and film, the French Musketeer. This Musketeer, rather than a basic lineman of the infantry, was typically a member of some lower noble house who served as one of a unit whose mandate was the direct personal protection of the king. While known for their fighting skill, they were better known for their elan, personality, and panache. Eventually, they became popular enough to become a threat to the King's rivals, and the position would eventually be drummed out of existence under the guise of budgetary cuts.

For our purposes, the class is somewhat of a swashbuckler, a rogue, a bon vivant, and romantic sensualist, albeit with a heart of gold, and a code of honor.

Musketeer
Primary Ability: Dex and Cha (13+ in both adds 5% xp)
HD: 1d6+2 hp / lvl
Armor / Shield: Special
Weapons: Any
Save as: Fighter of equivalent level

LVL - XP
1 - 0
2 - 2250
3 - 4500
4 - 10000
5 - 20000
6 - 40000
7 - 75000
8 - 125000
9 - 250000
10 - 500000

Special Abilities

Nimble Fighter - The Musketeer relies more on his agility than brute strength in combat. Consequently, the Musketeer uses his Dexterity modifier for to-hit and damage.

Cutting Repartee - Known for having a tongue equally sharp as his rapier, the Musketeer can goad enemies into reckless attacks. At the start of the round, the Musketeer taunts his enemies. If they fail their save (negatively modified by the Musketeer's Charisma modifier), they automatically win initiative, but suffer a -3 penalty to Armor Class for the rest of the round. If they succeed at their save, the initiative order proceeds normally.

Artful Dodger - When lightly armored, or not armored at all, a Musketeer adds 1/2 his level (rounded down) to his armor class.

Main-Gauche - A Musketeer may wield a small light weapon, such as a dagger, in his off-hand in place of a shield, to receive the standard +1 bonus to armor class. At the referee's discretion, improvised items such as table legs and candelabra may be employed for this purpose as well.

Special Equipment

Rapier (30gp) - This is a narrow-bladed long-sword with a protective basket-hilt that well-suits the Musketeer's agile combat style. It typically does 1d6 points of damage, but on a natural roll of 18-20, a hit on some vital spot has occurred, and damage increases to 2d6.

Leather Doublet (50gp) - This stiff doublet has not only been designed to offer a Musketeer the greatest range of mobility and arm movement, it is also made with the most desirable latest fashion trends in mind. It offers the same protection as Leather Armor.

Steel Breastplate (110gp) - This is an ornately etched breastplate of the lightest steel available, designed for both mobility and protection of the soft vital organs. It offers the same protection as Chain Mail.

Musket (35gp) - The musket is a match-lit projectile weapon. It is devastating at close range (060' or less), being +1 to hit, and doing 3d6 points of damage. At further ranges it is much less effective, being -3 to hit, and doing only 1d6 points of damage. Ammunition is expensive (5gp for 1 shot worth of ball, powder, and stuffing) and in some areas, hard to come by.

Overwhelming Odds

2011-11-02T07:19:00.000-07:00

Musing a bit about the map above (from Arneson's Temple of the Frog), you can see its a bit different from a lot of site-based adventures. Mainly because its smack-dab in the middle of a city full of Bad Guys.

Stuff like this adds a whole other dimension to dungeoneering, and shouldn't be underrated in terms of the quality of experience it will offer your players. At face value, it presents the adventuring group with overwhelming odds. Unlike the dungeon, or the wilderness trek to get there, there is usually no question of taking on opposition the magnitude of a city or town with basic sword and spell. A similar scenario is set up in Vault of the Drow. There is much more than just a hack-and-crawl to contend with.

As a Referee, its vastly entertaining to me to see what sort of plan players come up with to overcome such obstacles. Subterfuge? Stealth? Amassing a mercenary army? Buying a traitor to assist them?

Sadly, i don't see much of this in contemporary adventures. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places?

What are your experiences with dealing with overwhelming odds?

Torgo will be take care of the place...

2011-10-07T04:08:00.000-07:00

Its looking like its going to be a busy October, so Torgo will be helping out with the blog for a few weeks. My apologies in advance.

Sword and Sorcery Greyhawk - The Isle of Green Stones

2011-09-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

Don't bother looking for this mysterious isle on your map - it is rumored to be somewhere near Midbay in the Nyr Dyv - no one who has gone looking for it has been able to accurately pinpoint its location. This is, in part, due to the thick, moving fogs which usually enshroud the isle. There is also the issue of the questionable sanity of those who claim to have visited the isle.

The isle itself is only ten miles end-to-end from its northernmost point to its southernmost, and roughly three miles across at its widest point east-to-west. It is choked with gnarled, ancient trees, vines, and heavy undergrowth. The isle's moniker comes from the tumbled green stones found all across it. The stones are worked, and seem to have once been part of some ancient city or temple complex. Some stones still bear weather-faded runes and reliefs depicting savage humans, often engaged in salacious acts, lorded over by a race of vulture-headed humanoids. Whether these inhuman beings are an actual race or meant to depict some sort of gods is ambiguous.

What is tempting about the isle to treasure hunters is the rumor of great wealth to be found on the isle. Old legends around the Nyr Dyv, particularly found among the old tribes of Flan descent, place the isle at the center of a lost empire, millennia old. According to these legends, this decadent empire fell into ruin not through the actions of some outer agency or slow decline, but due to a horrible curse that brought them to a sudden, apocalyptic end. A further rumor insists that the broken city sometimes appears as if it had never fallen, on nights when the moon is full.

Visitors to the isle, obviously, risk falling prey to that very same curse.

Random Encounters (d12)
1. Bat, Mobat (2d3)
2. Bird, Dire (1d4)
3. Coatl
4. Vulchling (2d4)
5. Jackal (2d6)
6. Ape, Carnivorous (2d3)
7. Lizard, Giant Monitor (1d4)
8. Amber Creeping Vine (1d3)
9. Basilisk
10. Zombies, JuJu (1d4)
11. Toad, Giant (2d6)
12. Spider, Giant (1d3)

Vulture Helms
These ancient helms may sometimes still be found on the Isle of Green Stones. They are powerful, but convey a great curse. They appear as a gem-encrusted full helm of light, steel mesh in the shape of a vultures head. When worn, they impart a +1 bonus to armor class, infravision, and allow the use of charm person up to three times daily. Due to their curse, however, each use of the Vulture helm's charm ability carries a (cumulative) 5% chance of the wearer transforming into a Vulchling of CE alignment. Only a wish or remove curse may reverse this transformation, and the Helm is lost in the process. Each helm is worth 4500 gp for its value in gems alone.

Spider Knives
These odd weapons may also be found on the Isle of Green Stones. They feature a 9" curved blade with a hilt shaped like a spider. It is held by entwining one's finger among the spider's legs. It functions as a Knife +1, and on a natural roll to-hit of "20" injects a powerful poison into the victim's wound (Save at -1 or die). Unfortunately, these weapons have been influenced by the Isle's curse as well, and on a natural roll of "1" inject the same poison into the wielder.

NPCs

Hrek Maluk (Thief 6, CN) - Maluk has been stranded on the Isle for 2 weeks now since he and his group of treasure hunters landed. He is the only surviving member, and has been without sleep for three days now as he is being stalked by a group of 3 carnivorous apes. He carries a bag of ancient jewelry worth 3000gp he will gladly offer in exchange for help driving off the apes, though he will, of course, try to steal it all back eventually.

Captain Shurc (F4, N) - Shurc has been living on the Isle for six years. He is quite mad, and claims he can speak to the "great spirits of the Isle". His motives are unclear, as is the veracity of his claims, but he will refuse to leave the Isle to the point of physical aggression. He knows the location of a deep sinkhole filled with bones and jewelry.

Lazy Blog Post - Shogun Warriors

2011-09-26T07:44:00.000-07:00

Some of the best toys ever. For maximum fun, battle them with your Micronauts!

Facelift! and a brief tour.

2011-09-23T11:03:00.001-07:00

I tweaked the blog's appearance a bit today. The new scheme should hopefully reflect two of my biggest inspirations: Weird, pulp fantasy, and hex maps!

Let me know what you think.

If you haven't noticed them before, there's a Bag of Holding's worth of resources down the right side of the blog there, including:

"The Shoulders of Giants" - links to postings and ruminations made by folks like Gygax, Arneson, and Bledsaw. There's some valuable stuff to read there if you're a fan of the roots and history of RPGs.

"Get Yer Old School Here" - links to some of my favorite blogs (which is in need of an update / additions, but still lots of great stuff there).

"Download Yer Old-School Games" - links to some of the best free old-school RPGs and retro-clones available on the web.

"Beyond the Black Gate Resources" - includes free mapping tools and lots of Megadungeon stuff.

By the way, the new header art is a classic piece by the inestimable Hannes Bok, master of the weird and wonderful!

Warriors of the Red Planet in layout

2011-09-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't been following the WotRP blog, this long-rumored, OD&D-inspired, Sword & Planet RPG is in layout, courtesy of my artistic partner Thomas. I've seen some early page drafts and new art, and I have to say, they look fantastic!

Stay tuned for more soon....

Knockspell #6

2011-09-20T07:49:00.000-07:00

Knockspell #6 is out - get yours today.

It includes a first for this magazine; a piece of short fiction by yours truly.

Do you think short fiction has a place in OSR mags? I'd appreciate any critiques or comments on the piece, whether you like it or hate it, and if you think I should continue to submit stuff like this.

Thanks!

Jane Birkin

2011-09-16T09:33:00.000-07:00

Corringa, Seven Dead in the Cat's Eye

Evil Characters

2011-09-14T06:32:00.001-07:00

There seems to be a stigma out there against running "evil" characters or parties.

Why is this, exactly?

Looking at the roots of the hobby, it seems like running an "evil" character was not uncommon. Flipping through the AD&D Rogues Gallery, which details many of the "house" characters of the folks involved with TSR, a good portion of them are evil, and as many neutral. Storied characters like Robilar (Rob Kuntz), Erac's Cousin (Ernie Gygax), and Lanolin (Lawrence Schick), were all evil.

Changing the "goal" of the game might be one reason. As the game metamorphosed from "treaure hunt" to "fulfill epic quest", it quite possibly became easier for a good-aligned party to cooperate toward a more charitable end. Evil and neutral aligned parties (or, more likely, a healthy mix of alignments) was probably actually more effective with the treasure hunt scenario, such as plumbing the depths of Castle Greyhawk. There would be plenty of situations where someone of low scruples could be an advantage to such pursuits, as well as a variety of "aligned" situations to take advantage of, such as shrines or magic swords.

Another reason might be a trend I saw in the 90's, which was bringing in an evil character to essentially "screw" the party. The player's character would steal, backstab, and otherwise work against the other players, all under the aegis of "playing my alignment", when really it was just kind of dickish. Or maybe just odd concept of player competition?

If you consider the overall main goals of fantasy RPGs to be character development, imaginative immersion, problem solving, and even cooperative storytelling, there doesn't seem to be any need for an evil character to be so disruptive. After all, even a character with intentions of taking over the world someday, founding a dark empire, or whatever, is going to recognize that the quickest path to accumulating wealth and power is through cooperation, not just being a sociopath and getting immediately killed by the rest of the party (as I've seen happen time and again to evil characters).

What are your experiences with evil characters and/or parties?

2011-09-11T05:43:00.000-07:00

Um...

2011-09-09T04:19:00.000-07:00

Apparently there is a new cover to add to the ones below.

Lazy Blog Post - Dungeon Crawl Classics

2011-08-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

Long ago, in the 3x doldrums of the early to mid 2000's, a group of stalwart gamers, relics from the golden age of D&D, the Company of the Crucible, were slowly drowning to death in a sucking mire of splat books, skill trees, prestige classes, and railroady adventures. It seemed like every time we reached out for some hint of those good old days, we suffered an attack of opportunity. Then, out of the mists, Dungeon Crawl Classics appeared like water in the desert. Casting off the chains of endless thankless hours of trying to design my own stuff in the morass of inscrutable rules, these adventures did all the math work for me, with none of the preachy do-this and go-there most published adventures at the time were rife with.

Set in the wonderful Wilderlands of High Fantasy, which was easy to do considering the site-based nature of the adventures, the campaign lasted a long time, until 3x rules-fatigue and player attrition finally won, and the Company of the Crucible was forced into retirement. Thanks to these adventures (I ran all the ones pictured) we had a good time along the way.

As an interesting side note, the last one there, #51.5, was one of my first forays into the OSR, and I converted the adventure for 1E, the notes for which can still be found here on Dragonsfoot.

Deleted scene from LotR

2011-08-26T13:11:00.000-07:00

I don't know why they cut this out.

Lazy Blog Post - Things I learned from Erol Otus

2011-08-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

Yes, Virginia, it can get weirder.

Vegetables are bad for you.

Green and Purple are the colors of crazy.

Three-headed people are always hungry.

You're screwed.

Stay out of the pool.

Something is always watching you.

Ah, so that's why the girls got better grades.

Next time, bring cupcakes or the troll will eat you.

There's always a dragon at the bottom of the dungeon.

Lich got Jazz Hands!

Kermit is awesome!

Han always shoots first

Gnomes keep Ancient Elder Beings in their basements.

Girls are awesome!

Froghemoths are pretty awesome too!

Erol's character is cooler than yours.

Elf fighter-magic-users are cooler than your character, too.

Drow lady is always happy to see you.

Did I mention vegetables are bad for you?

Bugbears will mess you up.

Bad guys have social clubs too.

Ruuuuuunnnnn! Oh, too late :(

Fast Leveling?

2011-08-24T06:07:00.000-07:00

As my Omegea campaign nears its one-year anniversary, I'm struck by the fact that the highest level any character has seen in this game is third. It really shouldn't be that surprising, considering the following facts:

1. Its a bi-weekly game, just 4-5 hours twice a month, and
2. The players are all busy writers, artists, and entrepreneurs, and we often have to skip a session due to schedule conflicts, and
3. Much as we hate to admit it, we aren't kids anymore, and can no longer devote entire weekends to gaming, putting in hours and hours whenever we feel like it.

Still, I can't help but think that after a year, the players should be high enough level to really spread their wings and enjoy the more challenging aspects of the setting. You can only go so long, I'm thinking, before the charm of death-by-falling-into-a-10-foot-pit wears off. It would be nice for them, I think, to get killed by a dragon or nuclear device once in a while instead.

So I'm considering some sort of fast-track leveling system.

It seems like the obvious way to do this would be to just hand out more xp arbitrarily, or even halve the xp needed to gain a level, but I worry that if the characters are leveling up every session or so, the thrill of advancement will become somewhat banal or anticlimactic.

I think an alternate way to do this would be to develop a system wherein the characters still only advance in level every 3 or 4 sessions, but advance more than one level at a time. Maybe I should cut out the "even" numbered levels altogether, so that a character would hit level 3 when they would normally hit level 2, for instance. Level 5 when they would normally hit level 4, and so on. This way, leveling would still be a rare and precious occurrence, but the gain in character "power" would be even more significant.

The thief's level advancement, for instance, would look something like this:
1 - 0
3 - 1250
5 - 5000
7 - 20000
9 - 50000

The advantage here is that I don't really have to change much, rules-wise. The players just advance their characters two levels every time they level. They roll 2 HD instead of one. Magic users always gain access to a new tier of spells each time they level.

A lot of new implications open up with this system. The first time a character levels (from 1st to 3rd), it becomes a lot stronger than with 1st to 2nd. This means if you survive your "initiation" period of 1st level, you come out the other side of it one tough customer, reminiscent of Spartan youths going out into the wilderness alone and those who survive coming back as warriors.

As a referee, I get to be a bit more creative as well, as I am getting a bit yawny designing low-level challenges for the players, and would like to bring some of the higher-concept, and higher-power, elements of this game setting into play. I mean, Omegea is setting where gods walk the earth and psychic overlords command hordes of mindless minions - kobolds are starting to get lame, fast.

Another interesting side-effect is that long-term campaigns like mine will see more clearly defined "chapters" as the players will be able to take on greater challenges at each step, rather than easing into more gradually difficult scenarios.

I'm not yet sure if I'm going to adopt this system or not. It certainly has its appeals. If nothing else, its an interesting experiment.

What do you think?

An alternate way to generate magic weapons

2011-08-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

This is a fun way to pillage all those pesky "new edition" Feats for use in your old-school game. Simply roll first on the weapon table, then roll on the corresponding Feat table (checking the online SRD for specifics if you're not generally familiar with what the Feat does, and modifying it for your system of choice), and presto, you've got a near-endless supply of interesting magic weapons, such as the Halberd of Cleaving, or the Mace of Toughness. Generate your own tables for wands or clothing, etc, and Feats that mesh well with them!

Table 1 Weapon* (3d12)
3. Long Sword
4. Axe
5. Crossbow, light (table 3)
6. Halberd
7. Spear (table 2 50%, table 3 50%)
8. Pike
9. Knife (table 2 75%, Table 3 25%)
10. Mace
11. Sling (table 3)
12. Scimitar
13. Short Sword
14. Flail
15. Hammer
16. Greatsword
17. Scythe
18. Battle Axe
19. Long Bow (table 3)
20. Short Bow (table 3)
21. Dart (table 3)
22. Stone Axe
23. Flint Knife
24. Dagger (table 2 50%, table 3 50%)
25. Javelin (table 3)
26. Lance
27. Pick
28. Club
29. Kopesh Sword
30. Trident
31. Crossbow, heavy (table 3)
32. Broad Sword
33. Morning Star
34. Glaive
35. Guisarme
36. Shield

Table 2 Feats (2d10)
2. Tripping
3. Dodge
4. Toughness
5. Alertness
6. Iron Will
7. Lightning Reflexes
8. Arcane Strike
9. Blind Fighting
10. Bull rush
11. Cleave
12. Power Attack
13. Weapon Finesse
14. Sunder
15. Critical, Stunning
16. Critical, Bleeding
17. Disarming
18. Spellbreaker
19. Improved Initiative
20. Quick Draw

Table 3 ranged weapon Feats (1d8)
1. Rapid Reload
2. Point Blank Shot
3. Far Shot
4. Many Shot
5. Quick Draw
6. Improved Initiative
7. Critical, Crippling
8. Deadly Aim

*Roll Percentiles for item strength
01-24 - no plus, but magical
25-68 - +1
69-84 - +2
84-94- +3
95-99 - +1, roll two Feats
00 - +2, roll two Feats

Retros featured on front page of EnWorld

2011-08-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned in the past how prevalent old-school gaming discussion has become over at EnWorld, arguably one of the most popular D&D-related news and message-board sites around. Which still surprises me, given the site's more traditional role as a place to preview forthcoming current-edition material and/or argue which Barbarian/Monk "build" does the most damage-per-round.

It was interesting (and pleasant) to note today's front-page feature on retro-clones, pointing fans of older editions to their respective retros.

What is this?

2011-08-22T06:12:00.000-07:00

On my summer travels, we stopped in DC for a day of sightseeing, and my most junior Ravyn noticed this peculiarity adorning a bridge crossing the tidal basin near the Jefferson Monument. Blow the picture above up nice and big, so you can take a good look at it. Anyone know what this could possibly be?

You, know aside from the obvious: a maniacally grinning fish guy with a contemporary haircut and a mass of cthuloid tentacles suspended over some sort of clamshell bowl.

Does this strike anyone else as weird?

Are we meant to put something in the bowl? Or take something out of the bowl?

Obviously, DC has a reputation of being filled with obscure symbolism, much of it masonic or pagan in nature, but this one seems more sinister and over-the-top than usual somehow.

A quick search online didn't result in any revelations, other than a 1974 incident when House and Ways committee chairman Wilbur Mills was cornered by police nearby having a bit of fun with notorious stripper Fanne Foxe, whereupon he jumped into the tidal basin in a futile attempt to escape, but I don't think this is related.

If you'd like to see this on Google Maps, just enter the coordinates 38.880185, -77.040174 and zoom up to street view, looking toward the Washington Monument.

Here's a little description of the bridge, but nothing about the statues save to call them "ornamental gargoyles".

Fantasy Gaming Tables Contest

2011-08-16T08:01:00.000-07:00

I was flattered to place second in Fight On's Fantasy Gaming Tables Contest recently.

Pictured above are two very nicely painted giant minis I received as loot!

I'm looking forward to the compilation issue with all these random tables - random tables are a ref's best friend.

Box! (Logan's Run)

2011-08-03T12:20:00.000-07:00

"Fish! and Plankton! and Sea Greens and Protein from the Sea!"

Originally stationed in his ice cave to preserve all the seafood goodies sent his way, Box got a little... weird... when the shipments stopped showing up. So now, he preserves people instead! Every Megadungeon deserves a Box, don't you think?

Box
HD: 8 (hp 44)
AC: 1[18]
Attacks: 2 Metal Hands (1d6), Ice-pick hand (2d6) or Freezy Spray (special)
Saving Throw: 8
Special: Freezy Spray
Move: 9
Alignment: Neutral (Insane)
Challenge Level/XP: 9 /1100
Box's Freezy Spray causes 2d6 points of damage in a 15' arc and the victim(s) must roll a saving throw. Any who succeed are affected as if by a slow spell, and those who fail are frozen alive until they are somehow thawed out.

Pick a character, any character

2011-08-02T08:01:00.000-07:00

OK, maybe not that paladin you played in 6th grade, but this gadget here does uncannily well at guessing what character you're thinking of.

My first pick was Anasurimbor Kellhus (of Bakker's Prince of Nothing books) which it got in 20 guesses, and my second was the gygaxian archmage Mordenkainen, which took about 35 guesses.

.

Brave, from Pixar

2011-08-01T11:54:00.000-07:00

Looks like it could be fun.

Lazy Blog Post - Edward Gorey

2011-07-28T07:37:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite artists. If you've never read his stuff, Amphigorey is a great place to start.

Planet of the Vampires

2011-07-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

Not just a surprisingly entertaining movie, but features, without a doubt, the coolest space-outfits ever. If NASA had fashion sense like this, the shuttle program would never have been cancelled.

Dave Arneson and Impartiality in the Temple of the Frog

2011-07-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

When it comes to the perfect role model for the impartial ref, I need look no further than my experiences with Dave Arneson. As some of the comments of the linked article would indicate, impartiality can be associated with a "ref vs. players" mentality. I probably made similar associations myself in the past, but gaming with Dave dispelled the notion.

Being, for the first time, in a game run by Dave was a bit disorienting. When your character interacted with Dave's world, he became very animated, as if pouring every bit of his personality into making the game come alive. In between those parts, though, he seemed aloof, even detached. To clarify that a bit - if you happened to be talking to one of the elven guards watching the causeway to Castle Blackmoor, he was completely in character, and you could almost smell the salt spray from the bay behind the castle. However, if the players were discussing how best to proceed across Loch Gloomen amongst themselves, you could expect absolutely no reaction from Dave whatsoever. He would sit, stonefaced, not reacting to anything anyone was saying. If a question was put to him as DM rather than as an NPC, he would simply shrug and look bored.

If you've ever watched a court trial on TV (a real trial, not a show), you've seen this same behavior - from the judge.

"Judge" would actually be a better description of how Dave ran his games than "Referee". The difference being one of rules vs. rulings. Dave was firmly in the rulings camp. If you ever got a chance to sit in one of his convention games, he would pull out a pile of pregen characters - a hodgepodge of sheets from different editions and versions of editions. At one session, I received an 8th level D&D 3.0 Cleric, and the fellow next to me had what I am pretty sure was some sort of OD&D ranger. When one of the players, obviously confused, asked him what edition we were going to be playing, Dave grinned at him, held out his hand for a shake, and said "Hi, I'm Dave Arneson."

That particular session would have been in 2002, I believe, and just a couple of years into the rules-intensive environment of d20 gaming. It was interesting to watch players who were very much into rules-mastery and character-builds interact with a DM who could really give a shit about an opposed grapple check or what a particular monster supposedly could or could not do. Dave had exactly two ways of resolving dilemmas or challenges. 1) Make an absolutely impartial ruling, or 2) if an absolutely impartial ruling was impossible, roll the dice.

He would go so far, sometimes, as letting the players roll the dice for both sides of a conflict. Once, when the party's boat was a attacked by a horde of lizardmen, he told us how many there were, their armor class, their hit points, what they needed to hit us, and so on. They were stupid, he explained, and fanatic, and would fight to the death, so we should be able to take care of that ourselves, and he was going to go get a coke and he'd be back in a few minutes to check on us. Half of the players grinned at his audacity (me included), while the other half looked around for the hidden cameras or waited for the punch line.

To say that Dave was completely impartial with regards to the game was not to say that Dave was completely impartial with regards to players, often with hilarious results. Once, while the party was being attacked by some sort of flying machines over the swamps near the Temple, a player whinged a bit that, since he had been paralyzed, he had nothing to do while everyone else got to fight the machines, and how unfair that was. Dave regarded him quietly for a moment, then handed him a d6, and said "here, roll that every round." The player, confused, asked why. "That," Dave said, "is how much damage you take every round. That should keep you busy." I don't believe anyone else complained about anything for the rest of the session.

It didn't take long in one of Dave's games for the players to realize that we were on our own, completely. There would be no hints, subtle or otherwise, no clues dropped in our paths when we happened to go off-track. No mercy when we stumbled into overwhelming odds. No poison types fudged when we failed our saving throws. It was up to us to search, scout, research, prepare, plot, and react with some sort of competence. If not, characters died, or we as players would simply be informed that we had completely failed in our mission and that the session was over, better luck next time. Victory or defeat was our responsibility, never, respectively, a hand-out or a punishment. It was never ref vs. players, nor was it ref working for players. Dave was there to bring the world alive for us to explore, and to make sure we were engaged, entertained, and, most importantly, challenged. He did this magnificently, and when we won, we were actually proud of ourselves.

Impartiality of this magnitude was something I pretty much forgot about for years after that. For one thing, I moved away from Dave's neighborhood. For another, I got into a long-running 3x campaign, and didn't much concern myself with the "old ways" for a long time. Lately though, as I run older editions and their clones bi-weekly, I've been spending a little more time going over my memories of how things were done by one of the game's creators, and trying, admittedly against my own soft-hearted nature, to capture a bit of that magic myself.

Ref Impartiality

2011-07-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

Probably the only tough thing about running my bi-monthly Omegea campaign (unless you count trying to stand upright after a growler of Ommegang Abbey) is my commitment to remaining 100% impartial.

100% impartial.

Now, this is not the "mostly impartial" school of refereeing that seems to be most common in RPGs. I've certainly been guilty of it myself over the years, allowing godly intervention to "reboot" a tpk, fudging a roll now and then for the sake of the "story", even simple DM fiat just to nudge things in the "right direction".

No, I'm talking about complete, merciless, let-the-dice-fall-where-they-may impartiality. No breaks, no fudging, no second chances. Brutal impartiality.

This is especially tough in a game like mine, I think, because we have so many novice players. Out of a revolving corral of 8 or so players, only a couple are what I would call "veteran" gamers, and the rest are all artists and writers. These folks bring an awful lot of creativity to the table, which I love, but not a whole lot of dungeoneering experience, which is where the whole impartiality thing gets particularly... challenging.

Imagine biting your tongue as as a cleric throws (expensive) holy water on a Gelatinous Cube. Or the party stumbling into the same 10' pit for a second time (!) because they still haven't figured out what that optional 10' pole I offer with the standard starting equipment package is useful for. All to often these missteps can result in swift and spectacular deaths. I cringe as PC after PC blow themselves up, stick their faces into holes to have them chewed off by centipedes, and so on. Impartiality means watching them walk past secret doors without saying a word. Its watching them leave an "empty" room, which happens to have the most valuable treasure in the dungeon concealed under a loose floorboard, and not even blinking an eye. Its trying not to chuckle while they get ripped off by merchant after merchant because they haven't really tried to haggle much.

When we ended last session, the players had all decided to stuff their packs with 10lbs of oil flasks each. So that's how they'll be headed back into the dungeon next time. With 10lbs of combustible fluids on each of their backs. Did I mention blowing themselves up?

Now, as I mentioned in a previous post, everyone seems to have a real hoot as character after character dies, but I still worry about players getting discouraged. It hasn't happened yet though, and hopefully never will.

As tough as it is to maintain my "DM Face" (there are some who call it a "poker face"), I'm beginning to realize this no holds barred approach to impartiality is becoming one of the things that keeps me on the edge of my seat session after session. And, by the time these guys are running 4th or 5th level characters, they're going to be DAMN TOUGH! Because they learned it all the hard way.

What's your opinion of, or experience with, impartiality?

Elric - End Game

2011-07-19T05:53:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of discussion on the old-school blogs about D&D's implied "End Game", or what high level characters do when they're too big and powerful and important to go sneaking around robbing graves anymore. Typically this "retirement" means building a castle, clearing the wilderness around it - rendering it monster-free, and slowly entering the political power games of the region.

If you're using the Melnibonean books as campaign inspiration, however, they offer a drastically different End Game.

(I suppose I should warn you away from ***SPOILERS!!!*** if you haven't read the books yet and are planning to do so)

Moorcock's anti-hero was, of course, doomed from the beginning. We know early on that he is quite literally damned, his soul bargained away (as with most Melnibonean royalty) to the lords of Chaos, specifically Arioch in this case, in exchange for power. Adding to this doom is Elric's dependence on the dark sword Stormbringer, self-described as "a thousand times more evil" than Elric. As the series winds ever closer to its finale, Elric finds himself, often against his own will, acting as both an agent for and a foil against Chaos. Over and over, he saves his friends and loved ones from danger, only to watch helplessly as his own dark sword eats their souls. The conflict between Law and Chaos eventually heightens to the point where the entire world is consumed by their conflict.

Against all the odds, Elric proves to be a greater servant of Fate than of Chaos, and he manages to plant the seeds of the recreation of his world. There is no living happily ever after - Stormbringer inevitably claims its last and greatest victim, Elric himself.

(***SPOILERS ENDOS****)

What this all offers to the inspiration-seeking GM is a completely different set of possibilities for the big "End Game". Why not start planning the PC's demise from the very beginning - foreshadow it here and there, drop hints, insert tragedies, play up every curse and omen of doom.

Another possibility is the end of the campaign world itself. Plenty of adventure stories and games feature heroes attempting to avert the end of all things - how about making that end inevitable, but letting the player's have a hand in what comes after?

Food for thought.

John Carter trailer review

2011-07-15T08:23:00.001-07:00

Stop by the Warriors of the Red Planet blog for my comments on the John Carter trailer.

Our Star Blazers!

2011-07-14T07:54:00.000-07:00

We're off to outer space
We're leaving Mother Earth
To save the human race
Our Star Blazers

Searching for a distant star
Heading off to Iscandar
Leaving all we love behind
Who knows what danger we'll find?

We must be strong and brave
Our home we've got to save
If we don't in just one year
Mother Earth will disappear

Fighting with the Gamilons
We won't stop until we've won
Then we'll return and when we arrive
The Earth will survive
With our Star Blazers

Elric - Deities and Demigods

2011-07-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

While the original "little" book, Gods, Demigods, and Heroes (1976) was technically the first official D&D product to include statistics for Elric, it was really the 1980 hardcover, Deities and Demigods, that would become the most notorious reference containing the albino anti-hero. Notorious because, by the time the third printing was released, two of the more popular pantheons had disappeared from the book: that of HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, and that of Moorcock's Melnibone.

Finding a copy of the rare first two printings became a sort of quest for the holy grail - it was pretty good gamer-geek cred to own one, and be able to reference Pyaray or Shoggoths when needed.

The story behind the disappearance of the two pantheons is an interesting one. For many years I assumed, apparently along with many other people (who would frequently state this), that the reason was that TSR had been busted for copyright infringement and been forced to remove the offending pantheons. The truth of course, was much stranger.

In fact, Cthulhu was already, by this time, public domain (though the contemporary publisher Arkham House would sell licensing rights), and TSR was pretty much free, within reason, to reference the material as they wished. The Melnibonean material was very much not in the public domain, but TSR contacted Moorcock directly, and he graciously gave them his permission to publish the material. So, legally, everything was fine.

Except in the eyes of a competitor of TSR's: Chaosium.

It just so happened that RPGs based on the Cthulhu and Melnibonean stories were this company's bread and butter, so they made kind of a stink when TSR released a book containing stats for what they look at as being their "territory". Not an unfair opinion, considering they were actually paying licensing fees for both properties. After some negotiation, Chaosium agreed to let the matter lie, provided TSR agreed to print a small "thank you" to Chaosium in the credits of the book. Not a bad deal, really, getting some advertising in your chief competitor's book. So that's what appeared in the second printing of Deities and Demigods.

However, by the time a third printing was due, TSR decided it was not worth advertising for a competitor, and the pantheons were yanked altogether.

Elric - the Decadent Empire

2011-07-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

One of the most compelling parts of the Elric stories, to me, was the world Moorcock created for his tragic albino anti-hero. Elric is the 428th (and last) emperor of Melnibone, an empire which once dominated the entire known world. Conquest and rule was the natural order of things for the alien Melniboneans; the pacts they had made with the lords of Chaos, as well as their command of dragons and sorcery, made them far more powerful than the mud-grubbing "normal" humans of the world.

But their 10,000-year rule eventually led to complacency and indolence. The dragons tired, retreating to their caves for ever-longer periods of hibernation. The Melniboneans were content to indulge in the pleasures the wealth of their empire provided. Slaves, drugs, and horrific arts became their world, and their capitol of Immryr became known as the Dreaming City.

When the mud-grubbing humans of the outside world began to form empires of their own - slowly chipping away at the edges of Melnibone - it was too late for the debauched dragon lords to do anything about it; their race had sunk too far into decline. The so-called Young Kingdoms were rising, and Melnibone was becoming a relic of the past.

Of all his people, only Elric was able to truly see this. While his mad cousin Yrkoon would envision Melnibone somehow rising from its torpor to subdue the world once more, Elric would instead see the futility of this, and act to hasten the Dreaming City's demise.

To the north of Melnibone lay an isle which was unique among the Young Kingdoms for, rather than reviling it, seeking to emulate the decadent empire: Pan Tang. From their city of screaming statues, Hwamgaarl, the dark sorcerers of Pan Tang had a dream of their own: to replace Melnibone as the heart of a world dominating empire, a dream they would take extraordinary and tragic steps to attempt. The island would also produce one of Elric's chief nemeses: the sorcerer Theleb K'aarna.

Elric of Melnibone

2011-07-11T04:47:00.000-07:00

Just as it would be true, in many ways, to say that LotR led me to gaming, it would also be true to say that gaming led me to Michael Moorcock's doomed hero, Elric. The albino emperor of the debauched Melniboneans, as well as his black, soul-stealing sword Stormbringer, were often brought up at game tables, but at first, I admit, I was a little leery of the character. For one thing, Elric was often spoken of with the same evil grin and "hail satan!" irreverance as the big, dark metal groups of the time, like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden.

Lets just say that, at age 10, I was more of a Yes and David Bowie kid than a Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden kid. And that, to me, to the ultimate hero was Aragorn son of Arathorn, returning from the Wilderness to save his kingdom from the dark lord with a reforged sword from ancient days, and eventually marry the hottest elven babe around.

Elric was not exactly cut from the same mold.

Yet, slowly, I became more and more intrigued by this guy everyone kept talking about. And his sword, too, the one that not only cut enemies to pieces, it fed upon their souls! And, well, it was mentioned in the DMG's Appendix N, so it can't have been all bad, right? So eventually I borrowed a book from one of my gaming buddies, a slim volume titled "Sailor on the Seas of Fate". It wasn't the first book of the series, but as it turns out, it was an excellent introduction to the character and the world he wandered.

What a journey.

Many of the books in the infamous Appendix N were influential in our gaming, but I'm not sure any set the tone of the game so closely. The dark, edgy quality of the Elric books was like a constant storm brewing on the edges of our campaign worlds, reminding us that tragedy and pathos were just as likely to befall a fantasy setting and its characters as victory or apotheosis. The books added a whole new dimension to our games - it was no longer unthinkable that an entire world could go down in flames, after all. A certain sword in the depths of White Plume Mountain became a sought after relic, leading us to replay the module again and again, at least once a campaign.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to devote a little space on BtBG to the exploration of this character and his world.

And I'm going to listen to some Black Sabbath while I do so.

Wishes

2011-07-08T07:06:00.000-07:00

It sometimes seems like an emphasis on lower-level play is prevalent in the OSR, or old-school play in general. Now, I don't recall a whole lot of extremely high level campaigns back in the 70-80's (which is not to say I don't remember any, there were certainly a couple), but I do seem to remember lots of wishes being thrown around.

Wishes popping up in generally lower level campaigns makes me think this must have been the result of one of two things: monty-haulism, or frequent random treasure generation. Their apparent absence, nowadays, from many of the contemporary campaigns I play in or read about, I'm guessing is caused by one of two things: not-so-frequent random treasure generation, or an infection of the 3x-era ethic of "balance". I could be wrong, these are just my best guesses.

Now, back in "ye awld days" of gaming, wishes served a lot of purposes. They were an excellent way to get your character some sort of "power up", for one thing. A wish could mean an ability score bump, a sweet magic item, a level for your capped-out demi-human PC, an immunity, a special ability, or any number of other "power ups" not readily available through dungeon crawling or the RAW.

Wishes could also be used as the ultimate utility spell when adventuring. Heal the entire party all at once. Teleport everyone to safety all at once. Bring back the dead/diseased/petrified/etc/etc. I mean, they're wishes, so you can do pretty much anything with one, right?

Not necessarily. Wishes came with a pretty heavy risk factor back then. You had to be extremely careful how you worded a wish. I don't remember if it was implied in the rules, or just some sort of mass-DM-consciousness thing, but it seems like DMs were actually encouraged to try and corrupt a wish into something tragic if at all possible.

I am reminded of a time, after losing all of his extremely awesome magical loot, one of our players wished for "all my shit back".

I don't recall whether we actually dug his body out of the pile for revivification or not.

No, when wishes were stumbled across, and typically, if I recall correctly, these came in the form of a ring, wish-granting monster, or a deck of many things, everything stopped. Right then and there. It was time to take a break while everyone very carefully wrote out specifically how they would word their wish! So the DM couldn't screw us. He'd still find a way to, sometimes, though.

Despite all the havoc, I kind of miss all those wishes. I think I'll be dropping a couple of them in my players' laps at next week's session. Just to see what they'll do with them. I'll let you know what happens.

Got some cool wish stories of your own to share?

Do not feed.

2011-07-06T06:32:00.001-07:00

Seriously, guys?

After "always clear your browser history after viewing midget porn", it's the oldest law of the internet.

Poke them, taunt them, laugh at their antics, but please, please don't feed them.

Thieves' Guild, by Gamelords

2011-06-30T05:07:00.000-07:00

As delightfully baroque as an early 80's Gamescience AD&D character sheet, Gamelords' Thieves' Guild products were one of the few series of third party products that accurately captured the tone of early AD&D: dark, mysterious, dangerous, and a little dirty. I always tried to grab their stuff whenever I spotted it - usually cheaply, as most gamestore owners didn't seem to really understand what it was, and would drop it into the "dollar box" with all the cheap traveller knock-offs and weird furry animal rpgs.

The rules, of course, were very similar to OD&D/AD&D, which makes these products very easily compatible with those systems. A glimpse at it, crossposted on the OD&D forums:

Thieves Guild occupies a space between being an AD&D hack and being its own game; it is obvious that the creators built it by expanding on the core AD&D framework, and there are innumerable artifacts of this heritage (e.g. the ability of thieves to use scrolls). The system occupies 33 pages in the initial TG installment, with the understanding that later products would fill out unexplored areas, which they did - if you buy an installment, it is going to be a grab bag of optional rules, modular encounters and small scenarios (usually around a common theme). For example, Installment 2 adds more weapon types (with adjusted damage ratings), combat rules, guidelines for hiring and maintaining hirelings, bandit and highwayman encounters, and The Tombs of Shale-Chuun scenario, which combines the mini-dungeons of Keep on the Borderlands with the traps of The Tomb of Horrors, and is a cool, flexible set of adventures. The approach to the rules is extremely modular, and it would be relatively easy to rebuild them to one's liking.

Ability scores include Strength, Dexterity (subdivided into Coordination and Reflexes), Stamina (also used to derive Magic Resistance), Intelligence (subdivided into Discretion and Talent) and Attractiveness (subdivided into Appearance and Magnetism). Abilities are rolled on 3d6.
Races are a mixture of tolkienesque and fairy tale: humans, elves, half-elves, dwarves, hobbits, kobolds, orcs, uruk hai, half-orcs, goblins, pixies and centaurs are all playable. Additionally, random social background, modified by race, is a part of the game, influencing starting wealth, as well as weapon and non-weapon skills.
Damage uses the contemporary 3rd party abbreviation HTK (Hits To Kill); however, HTK is not a function of class, but an average of Strength and Stamina further modified by a table based on the total of these two attributes (e.g. if the total is 10 or less, the character gains +1d4 HTK; if it is 10-19, it is +1d6 etc.). There are separate saving rolls, which are actually roll-under ability checks rolled with 2d12; they are also used for non-combat task resolution.
Combat: the game uses HAC0 (a precursor to AD&D's THAC0, which was listed in the DMG but left unexplained until later) to resolve hits; weapons have different HAC0 ratings, daggers being easier to use than maces or larger swords. Combat actions take place simultaneously, and there is no initiative, so a character who suffers a death blow may still strike back. There are critical hits and fumbles resolved with a relatively simple chart, and thieves are given additional combat maneouvres (backstabbing, coshing (KOs), poison use and striking from concealment. Armour works as in D&D, but the base value is 0 and goes up, so quilted cloth is AC 2, leather AC 4, chain AC 6, scale AC 8 and plate AC 10. Additionally, armour absorbs a small amount of damage (1-3).
Skills: there is a wide range of skills associated with social background; characters must spend double skill points to purchase skills above their social standing! The skills of Thieves Guild are much more socially oriented than D&D's, and include a loving attention to roguish pursuits (which are treated separately, so any social class can learn them without penalty).
Magic: a full magic system is absent from the initial installment, but subsequent modules add it gradually - in the scenarios of installment 1 and 2, there are example spell lists which work on a spell point basis, and are probably more mundane and less interesting than the exoticism AD&D occasionally went into.
Experience: experience is awarded for combat, the sale of stolen goods (very cool!), successful ability rolls and success during encounters (with success conditions set by the DM). Gaining levels results in the occasional extra hit dice (e.g. one is gained at 3rd, 5th, 7th, 10th and 12th level), hit probability (+2 per 4 levels), dodge bonus (to AC, +1 per 3 levels) and the increase of thief abilities. As a neat way to treat NPCs, Thieves Guild stat blocks classify them as Green (LVL 1-2), Intermediate (LVL 3-5), Veteran (LVL 6-7) and Elite (LVL 8+).
Further guidelines focus on fields thieves may find interesting - these are separate subsystems for disguise, fencing, traders, a treatise on guild membership and structure, a justice system (with a huuuuuge chart to determine outcomes; however, Judges Guild's similar guidelines are more colourful).

There are allusions in the books to parts of The Fantasy System that would be presumably released later (and might have been - I only own the first two installements) - classes such as Archers, Centurions, Healers, Mages, Priests, Priestly Mages, Illusionists, Assassins, Troubadours, Traders Hetearae etc. are mentioned but not detailed.

An NPC stat block for Thieves Guild may look like this:

Quote:

Torban the Turbulent: VET HU FTR [Veteran Human Fighter]; ST 18, CO 16, RF 16, SM 17, MR 11; Weapon BDSWDe [broadsword wielded with expertise] HAC0 4, Damage 3d8, L BOWe -2/2/6 1d6, Spear 3/6 2d8; AC C/S [Clothes/Shield]; HTK 44; WRHOR [Warhorse].

In conclusion, it must be added that the scenarios and playing aids of Thieves Guild are done with obvious care and understanding, although they are not typical D&D fare - better suited to a game with more emphasis on social simulation and social encounters than improbable dungeon crawls. For example, the first installment has very detailed encounter modules with merchants, locales for cat-burglary (one set in the Street of Silk Veils, a red-light district; another in an area of magic and curio shops) and random encounters.

The production values of Thieves Guild are spartan; first printswere supposed to be three ring-bound, and were laid out on some primitive computer (most likely); reprints are in the shape of small booklets. However, they are also extremely dense with material and more material. Secondly, the artwork by Janet Trautvetter, if amateurish, is full of character and a human warmth that is missing from RPG art; her depiction of sensibly dressed fighting women is a particular plus.

Troll Hunter!

2011-06-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

I wonder if they regenerate?

Looking Forward

2011-06-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

In the old-school blogosphere, we tend to devote a lot of energy looking backwards, deciphering the often "lost art" of old-school gaming, and bringing that energy to our contemporary game tables. I, at least, often forget (or just don't care) that our hobby continues on. Not, all that often, as I would like it to, but it continues nonetheless.

The picture above is from a local museum which has a large exhibit going about video games and their history. The most popular cooperative online game being WoW, they devoted a window to its history and inspiration, and there sits a old original D&D boxed set!

Recently, Bill Slavicsek has "left" his post as lead R&D for D&D after twenty years with TSR and WotC. This, inevitably, has started a flurry of speculation that "5E D&D" now looms on the horizon (as if Bill was somehow standing in the way of that, like Gandalf on the bridge in Khazad-dum).

I have to admit, it is fun to speculate, sometimes, on what a possible 5E could look like. If I had my way, it would be a sort of "D&D Classic" somewhere along the lines of the rules mechanics of B/X with all the flavor and options of 1E.

That, of course, will never happen.

Simply because the hobby is not popular enough anymore to support a company on the sales of single (or even triple) rulebooks alone. If the hobby shrinks to a tenth of its former fan base, the financial solution is apparently to try and sell ten books to every customer instead of one. If it shrinks to a hundredth, well...

4E and 3E (or Pathfinder, as it is now called heh) are brilliant money makers! Where once a DM bought a book and an adventure and players developed their characters according to ingame development, 4E and 3E characters are "builds". This means they are a framework that players can hang all kinds of compartmentalized options off of. Like a christmas tree. Actually, more like an iPhone, because few of those cool "apps" you want your character to have are free - you must buy splatbooks to get them all.

Some of you may be surprised I've included Pathfinder in the above observation; they have a reputation as "the People's Game". But I offer you the "Advanced Players Guide" and the new Arcane characters splat, and the forthcoming Martial characters splat and so on. A recent Paizo adventure I flipped through described a monster, instead of with a stat block, as "Bestiary 2 pg.33". Not even the successive monster books are optional! You must purchase everything to "fully experience" the game.

Now, please don' t take this as an indictment of 4E or 3E - lots of people love playing these, I've enjoyed them both myself. My point, as in the title of this post, is Looking Forward. My point, is that, in most ways, RPG development in the future will continue to be largely revenue-motivated, with actual play experience taking a back seat to financial concerns. Like WoW, we will always be able to trace a game's "roots" back to the original boxed set of D&D, but I suspect future products will resemble that game less and less as the years go by, as opposed to more.

What do you think?

Gygax Spellcaster Houserule

2011-06-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

Thanks for a very interesting post over at Risus Monkey - be sure and read this today!

This in particular caught my eye, which appears to be a house rule, or even clarification, for Magic Users and Clerics (I'm guessing for OD&D per the combat tables) suggested by Gygax:

"The "Spells Table" gives the maximum number of times a Magic User or Cleric can cast spells of the indicated levels during an expedition. This means that a third level MU (conjurer) can cast one second level spell once and three first level spells once (or one first level spell three times). The particular spells need not be selected in advance, but can be chosen during the expedition as circumstances require. This will balance the game more and will make the expeditions even more interesting."

As this is apparently from the mid-70's, its an interesting example of how fluidly Gygax approached OD&D, which is very different from the attitudes he seemed to express by the time AD&D was ascending.

Makes one wonder: what changed?

Or were they simply appropriately different opinions for different versions of D&D?

Cool houserule, at any rate, and would be great for open games with lots of new/circulating players.

What's your inspiration?

2011-06-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

As a GM, I have found that, since I first entered this hobby, books have been my primary inspiration. As a voracious reader since age 5 or so, it's only natural that this would be the case, and RPGs are a very adaptable framework to hang those inspirations from.

But I can't help but wonder: if I were, instead, primarily a movie buff, historian, video gamer, or so on, if those would have influenced my games more, and how much different would they have been.

What's your primary gaming inspiration, and how do you think that affects your hobby differently from other inspirations?

How badly do I need another D&D?

2011-06-10T04:56:00.000-07:00

Unless you've been hiding under a Galeb Duhr, your blogrolls have likely been pummeling you in the face with the previews and early reviews of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. I took a quick peak at it, but felt strangely empty. Good and bad things jumped out immediately. Good - holy crap lots of awesome art! Bad - hey you creative GMs: you are never, ever, ever (did I mention never?) ever going to be creating your own spells. Ok, you might try it one time. But you'll never do it again.

The empty feeling I mentioned, though, is certainly not Goodman Games' fault. I've played the system, and found it to be enjoyable enough. No, the problem I think, is that I'm just not interested in any more versions of D&D. I've got quite enough of them already, thanks. $#!%, I've got a different one of choice for every occasion, I think.

My regular bi-weekly game is Swords & Wizardry. It is just rules-lite enough that the group of artists and writers I play with can be just as creatively involved in the game as I am.

My Forsaken Halls Megadungeon demos use B/X (or its nearly identical retro Labyrinth Lord), because, well, its the best and clearest dungeon crawling system ever designed.

If I was ever to get into a regular weekly game again, with long sessions, I would just dig out my old AD&D books. If you have the hours to put in, I think its still the king of all iterations of D&D, the perfect combination of undeniable flavor and rules complexity, and I don't even play it anymore.

"The Vault" (otherwise known as the closet my wife will not go near for fear of being crushed to death beneath an avalanche of decadent geek hoarding) contains at least another half dozen versions of D&D, as well as another dozen RPGs of various sorts. That will probably never, ever, ever, get played. I would probably give them all away to charity or something, but I'm still holding out hope that I'll spend my dotage in the coolest retirement home ever.

So, I fear the DCC RPG will just have to be happy with no more than a cursory glance from me. At least for now. I just don't have room in my life for another D&D. Maybe when we were younger, before I was so set in my ways, when I could start and end passionate romances with an endless stream of RPGs, running whole campaigns in less than a month deep in the bowels of USF's Business Administration building. But not now. Besides, what would the kids say if they found out?

No, definitely, no. Not happening.

At least not until my Gamer ADD kicks in again next week.

Something the OSR is missing?

2011-06-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

One of the new players in my S&W game brought his 1E (Tramp cover) PHB with him, and was flipping through it during character generation, finding stuff he liked and then looking for its closest approximation in the S&W books. He kept in front of him throughout the session with his dice, sheet, map, etc.

It reminded me of how much I enjoyed my 1E PHB, and the seemingly endless possibilities it presented. It not only included all the class and race info, but lots of adventuring advice, lengthy equipment lists, and so on. A lot of content, but not a single combat chart or stat block, and was a constant means of engagement with the hobby. All the number crunching and magic items were a mystery.

It made me wonder: could this be something the OSR is missing? The three "big" retros at least, S&W, LL, OSRIC, are all a complete game in one book. But no Player Handbooks.

I'm going to assume this is due to expediency: one book is a lot easier to produce than three. I'm sure it also has some roots in the original point of the retros, which was not to replace the original games they were modeled on, but to facilitate the publication of new supplemental materials for those original games.

But now I have a nagging feeling that there is at least one cool aspect of the hobby that retroclone players are missing out on. You either don't get your own book at all, or get a book with all the game's statistical mysteries revealed.

My first instinct is to just print up some home-made PHBs, maybe the character and spell sections of the S&W rulebook .pdf with Matt's Primer for Old School Gaming thrown in, but I can't help but think there could be more to do with this.

I spotted a stack of five or so 1E PHBs at a local game store a few weeks back. I'm thinking I might go back and buy them all, so I have them if I ever decide to play 1E again, and want everyone to have their own PHB. The secondary market supports their fairly easy acquisition right now, but who knows what the future holds?

What do you think? Would you like to see some retroclone PHB's? Do you make your own already?

Character death = Fun!

2011-06-06T06:18:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if the difference between old and new rpgs can ever be rammed home (if you'll forgive the pun) as effectively as when characters die.

Last Friday's game saw a new bunch of 1st level characters spend about 3 hours of a five hour session rambling around the frontier town of Hullford trying to find rumors about, and directions to, the Tomb of the Iron God. Once they finally got there, exploration began.

Which was fun, but really only moderately so. They investigated a couple of rooms, kicked a talking goblin head around, started mapping the place. Then the thief fell in a pit and died.

Suddenly everyone was laughing, cheering, nervous, engaged. While they were greedily divvying up the thief's possessions, a small group of goblins came to see what the fuss was, and attacked. One of them ripped the dwarf from neck to groin with a rusty shortsword, killing him instantly.

We played an hour longer than we planned on.

The players of the dead characters? Well, they had new characters rolled up in five minutes (this helps character creation time stay short, btw) and were back in game shortly, as the adventure was a site-based dungeon in a sandbox setting, another old-school icon, which means there can be lots of adventurers wandering around at any given time.

I still haven't forgotten what a miserable thing it was to have a PC die in a linear, "story based", 3.x game. Spending half the session building a new PC; waiting for time the story allows a new character appear.

So thank you, you poor crushed, mangled, looted, old-school thief.

Swords & Wizardry tonight

2011-06-03T06:39:00.000-07:00

If you didn't already know, there's a new, updated version of Swords & Wizardry available. This is the "Core" game, as opposed to White Box or Complete. I don't see too many changes per se, more a lot of additions, such as encounter tables and thief class being added to the "standard" roster. Looks like demi-humans and ability score modifiers might have been tweaked a bit. Check it out right here.

I'll be looking at it more closely at tonight's game. I'm keeping the "Complete" version handy in case someone desperately wants to play a monk or ranger, etc. Three new players tonight!

It looks like Frog God Games is starting to catch up with their production schedule. I've been waiting for a look at their Hex Crawl Chronicles, which are purportedly out this weekend.

I've picked up a couple of their Swords & Wizardry offerings to date, and they seem well done. I believe Mythmere has a pretty active hand in their development / conversion, so why shouldn't it be. I'm surprised not to have heard more buzz about these products in the OSRosphere, but perhaps other folks, like me, have been waiting for these cool-looking hex crawls to come out before buying a ton of adventures to go with them.

We're starting a new campaign, a little more straightforward / traditional than my usual Omegea campaign (still Omegea, but a more "traditional" area of it, the Westlands), which should help accommodate both the easy entrance/exit of players, and my busy writing schedule. The usual Omegea campaign was very demanding both on my creative well and on players being at every single session to help grow the storyline. The new campaign will be more sandboxy, and with more short-term objectives.

Don't Panic! Its only Towel Day.

2011-05-25T07:08:00.000-07:00

Don't forget your towel today.

Old Miniatures Catalogs (Grenadier, Ral Partha, etc)

2011-05-24T14:28:00.001-07:00

Check out this link to Mini Mag's History page, where you can download .pdfs of some ancient miniatures catalogs, like this 1982 Grenadier catalog.

Talk about nostalgia!

Nice to see pics of some of these, many of which I had (unpainted and painted) but have been lost to the vagaries of time...

Gopher Moat

2011-05-18T13:21:00.001-07:00

I think we've all learned a valuable lesson.

The Democratically Elected Blog Post

2011-05-13T11:53:00.000-07:00

Blogger ate this really cool blog post I did!

No, not really.

I haven't been posting much lately, due to being immersed in writing for two projects at once over the last several weeks. But they are coming to a close, finally.

In honor of this blog's very awesome readers, let me know what kind of post you'd like to see next on BtBG, and I'll either roll one randomly, or let majority rule, whichever makes more sense, and put up the Democratically Elected Blog Post early next week :)

Breaker's Blade

2011-05-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

How one of these relics of the ancient Old Country came to Northaven is anyone's guess. Until this one appeared, scholarly consensus was that all of them had been destroyed in the Apocalypse. The swords were crafted by the legendary swordsmiths of lost Gilgaroone, a hundred of them all told, and given to the staggering forces of good in the early days of Apocalypse. They were designed specifically to break the magical shields of the chief agents of Apocalypse: the towering, earth-shattering Dohlem and their enslaved sorcerers. In practice, one sword bearer would accompany each sorcerer on the side of Man, and use the blade to render their genocidal opponents vulnerable.

A Breaker's Blade is a two-handed sword of approximately 5' length. The blade is crafted from steel that appears liquid when examined closely, and is etched with words and phrases in the lost tongue of Gilgaroone that slowly change. The sword is a +3 weapon, and destroys any active sorcery it touches, including illusions, wards, walls, shields, and other ongoing effects. The sword's +3 bonus is also applicable to saves vs. offensive magic. The sword is treated as a +5 weapon against constructs or summoned creatures of any sort, and does double damage against these foes.

The Politics of Pictures

2011-05-09T07:07:00.000-07:00

Recently, I added a little gadget to the ol' blog here that puts up a few "You might also like this..." links. Each link has a little thumbnail pic related to the article. One very unusual image caught my eye the other day. It was a blank white image with some red writing across the top. So I clicked on the link, and was a bit miffed by what I saw there.

This was my blog post, by the way: "Al Harron has posted a great article at the Cimmerian about the many and surprising similarities between Howard's Cimmerians and Tolkein's Dunedain. Its a very nice piece, and there's plenty of gaming inspiration to be found!"

Up at the top I had linked a cool Angus McBride pic from the article. That pic had been replaced with a giant white image that read "I STOLE THIS IMAGE FROM THE CIMMERIAN".

Seriously?

Lets sum this up. I come across a great article, and want to let others know about it, so I do so. I don't even copy/paste the text, just put up a link directing others to the Cimmerian blog. Instead of just select/copying the McBride piece, I just link the image, so anyone blowing it up will get a Cimmerian address, send even more traffic their way. And what do I get for that?

"I STOLE THIS IMAGE FROM THE CIMMERIAN."

A website which I am assuming is using McBride without permission, without even doing Angus the courtesy of acknowledging him by name. Al Harron's article is still cool, so I'm leaving up the link, but the whole picture thing is baffling.

So, what gives?

Can anyone explain this behavior? Is this some vestige of the 90's when bandwidth was hard to come by, and servers had less capacity than gameboys? Is it some autobot attack mindlessly assuming any link back to the Cimmerian is a dastardly attack on its IP? Or is it just dickish?

Mjolnir

2011-05-06T09:44:00.001-07:00

Thor starts today, so its possible you may be enjoying some Asgardian hammer-slinging tonight.

Taking a look at Marvel's wiki entry of the storied giant-smacker, it appears Mjolnir has enough special powers to make even the Hand of Vecna twitch uncontrollably:

"Mjolnir itself is already extremely durable and nigh invulnerable like the Earth metal Adamantium or the Olympian metal Adamantine, and combined with the various enchantments placed upon it by Odin, is for all intents and purposes, indestructible. It has survived heat as extreme as the heart of Suns, blasts powerful enough to destroy planets, and it has contained energy sufficient enough to destroy an entire Galaxy and even energy sufficient enough to destroy one fifth of the Universe. Mjolnir also grants its user, such as Thor, countless mystical attributes and powers such as manipulation of the fundamental forces of the Universe such as the electromagnetic spectrum, gravity etc. Mjolnir can be used both offensively and defensively. Thor often uses the hammer as a physical weapon, with almost nothing being capable of withstanding a hammer blow or throw. It has been described as impacting with sufficient force to "destroy mountains" and has proven capable of shattering the armor of a Celestial. A rare exception is primary admantium.

A few other examples of the countless abilities Thor has shown with Mjolnir are:

Transformation: At first, Thor, in his secret identity as Don Blake, could strike the handle on the ground once and become Thor, twice and become Blake again. He lost this enchantment when he gave up his Donald Black persona.

Worthiness Enchantment: This enchantment surrounding Mjolnir prevents it from being wielded by anyone save those who have been found worthy or anyone Thor deems acceptable to wield Mjolnir for a time; certain Asgardians, such as Skurge, have successfully lifted its handle from the ground, but not entirely lift Mjolnir itself. Thus far, this includes Thor, the Awesome Android, Odin, Tiwaz, Red Norvell, Beta Ray Bill, Bor and Captain America. To anyone else, Mjolnir cannot be lifted from the ground nor wrested from Thor’s grip. The only person shown to be able to lift it with pure strength is The Hulk.

Mystical Link: Mjolnir obeys Thor’s commands as though it were alive, and if Thor’s will is strong enough, the hammer can pass through nearly any barrier to reach him should he so desire; Mjolnir will even carve its way through the very center of entire planets to get back to Thor. Mjolnir can also transform Thor into his civilian guises. When Thor is a civilian, the hammer most often becomes an old wooden cane. While employing a mortal guise, Thor would transform back into his mortal form should he be separated from Mjolnir for more than sixty seconds. The sixty second enchantment no longer applies.

Weather Control: Mjolnir grants its user Thor's ability to command the weather. Although Mjolnir's true wielder Thor, can command the weather just as well without Mjolnir, Thor uses Mjolnir to channel and focus his ability. He uses his powers to control the base elements of a storm, ie. rain, wind, thunder and lightning. While he can do so without Mjolnir, he almost always channels the energy through it, which grants him greater control over the energy. He can create giant raging electrical storms complete with thunder, lightning, hurricane-force winds, tornadoes, tidal waves, exploding volcanoes, earthquakes and torrential rains across entire planets at a moment's notice. He can also create any of these phenomena individually. Another aspect of this power allows him to stop any of these weather conditions instantly as well. Thor can create storms on a planetary wide scale, as Thor once did at Spider Man's request to spread a chemical agent around the world to counteract another set of chemicals released by Doctor Octopus that risked destroying the ozone layer. and is not limited to the normal limits of Mother Nature and can go beyond what natural weather can do. Thor can also channel the storm's fury, and magnify it into extremely powerful energy blasts capable of destroying objects of high durability, such as Adamantium etc.

Undead Lethality: Also a former religious relic, Mjolnir is lethal to undead. Thor once threw Mjolnir at a vampire, with contact causing the vampire to burst into flame and crumble to dust.

Resurrection: While channeling his power through Mjolnir, Thor was able to ressurect a man he had wrongly killed, Union Jack and also endow the hero with electric generating powers.

Life Force Absorption: Thor used this ability on the supervillain the Presence, who was forced to surrender before being reduced to a lifeless husk,

Illusion Detection: Mjolnir distinguishes images and holograms, differentiating illusions from reality: Thor once commanded the hammer to strike the meta-physical villain Mephisto, who was hiding amongst false images of himself.

Alpha Particles: Mjolnir can harness Alpha Particles from the atmosphere and could use it to atomize any weaponry.

Negation of Mystic Energy

Energy Sensing: Mjolnir can detect practically all types of energy. It reacts particularly strongly to evil psychic energy.

Cosmic Energy: Mjolnir allows Thor to produce and control Cosmic Energy to an unknown limit for a variety of purposes.

Matter Manipulation: Mjolnir is able to manipulate matter on a vast scale, allows him to create other configurations and even allows him to transmute the elements themselves. This ability was evident when he transmuted the Absorbing Man's wood and iron body to the gas helium.

Thermo-blast: Mjolnir has the ability to produce a Universe shaking thermo-blast capable of decimating even entire planets and beings as powerful as Ego the living planet.

Electromagnetic Spectrum Manipulation

Invisibility and Intangibility: Its wielder can use Mjolnir to turn themselves or others, completely intangible and/or invisible. An offshoot of this ability is that Thor can use Mjolnir to completely disrupt the phasing abilities of super humans such as the Vision, Shadowcat etc.

Barriers: With Mjolnir, Thor is capable of creating powerful barriers, force fields and vortexes that are impenetrable. These vortexes and barriers are so immensely durable that Thor was able to completely contain the explosion generated by a life bomb, which is so powerful it would have completely destroyed a fifth of the Marvel Universe, without the vortex even faltering, meaning that Thor literally contained a blast that is capable of annihilating millions upon millions of Galaxies.

Energy Absorption and Redirection: Mjolnir is able to absorb, magnify and return any type of force, directed towards its user. Once the energy is absorbed, its user can redirect it back towards the source and/or use it as a weapon of his own. Mjolnir has been able to reflect the vast and hazardous amounts of energy being emitted by the biological weapon implanted within the Wasp's body by the Skrulls back at her while all of Earth's other super humans were helpless (though possibly aided by Thor's weather abilities). Mjolnir's ability to absorb energy is so powerful he managed to absorb, contain and redirect the entire energy of the Null Bomb, which was powerful enough to destroy the entire Galaxy.

God Blast: An Immortal such as Thor is capable of channeling different amounts of his Godly energies through Mjolnir for a single massive blast known as the God Blast. His Godly energy is so vast and powerful, that even when reinforced with the Belt of Strength, which should double Mjolnir's fortification and durability, when Thor channeled his Godly energies into Mjolinr to destroy the Brain Dome of the mighty Celestial Exitar, the hammer shattered from the amount of power Thor channeled(This is a testament to the power Thor wields as Mjolnir has been able to contain blats powerful enough to destroy an entire Galaxy without so much as cracking.) The God Blast is so immensely powerful and destructive that it has proven capable of destroying beings as large and as powerful as the Midgard Serpent and even causing such a great degree of damage to a being such as Galactus that he was forced to flee for his life. Thor has used this ability only a few times.

Anti-Force: Mjolnir is capable of producing an indescribably powerful blast known as the Anti-Force which is capable of annihilating entire planets. This blast is so powerful that with just a single emission, Thor was capable of putting down and seemingly killing the powerful entity known as Mangog himself.

Transmigration of Souls: Mjolnir hammer has the ability to manipulate and transmigrate souls.

Interdimensional Messaging: Thor has used Mjolnir to send psychic messages from Earth to Asgard while sending requests to Odin.

Image Projection: Mjolnir can project images, as Thor shows a glimpse of Asgard to fellow Avenger Iron Man.

Flight: Thor is capable of hurling Mjolnir with great force and, by holding onto the leather thong, is capable of flying through the air at tremendous speeds. While in an Earth-like atmosphere, Thor generally flies at roughly the Speed of Sound, roughly 770 miles per hour. However, he is capable of achieving speeds far faster than light. He can use the winds to hover and has shown the ability to fly without the aid of Mjolnir. Once airborne, Thor can cahange direction, speed and altitude.

Teleportation: By grasping Mjolnir by the leather thong and rapidly swirling it, the wielder of Mjolnir can channel energies for the purpose of opening gateways which he and others can pass through. He can open gateways which allow him to travel across locations no matter how great the distance within moments or even across entire dimensions, as he does when he travels from Asgard to Earth and vice-versa. The hammer can also be used to create portals to travel great distances within the same dimension, a feat beyond the power of Odin himself. Mjolnir formerly possessed the ability to enable Thor to travel through time and even turn back entire events through the generation of chronal displacement inertia, but the temporal energies of the hammer were drained when Immortus, possessing mastery over time exceeding that of the Earth deities themselves, asked Thor to use Mjolnir to save the planet Phantus and brink it back out of limbo and into the spacetime continuum, though Thor, as part of the Avengers, has been shown to be able to stop time with Mjolnir.

Immunity to Other Forces: Even without activating the powers of Mjolnir, Thor's hammer, enchanted by Odin, is impervious to nearly all forms of change, as he himself claimed that no power in the universe but the All-Father's could affect Mjolnir, shown when Amora's magical efforts during her first confrontation with Thor to change it into a deadly serpent availed her naught."

Whew!

Killdozer! Never forget.

2011-05-02T08:09:00.000-07:00

Karen Gillan

2011-04-29T09:05:00.001-07:00

Amy Pond, Doctor Who

Northaven Bestiary - Armorol

2011-04-25T07:27:00.001-07:00

Another of the huge fauna of the valley, the Armorol is a normally peaceful giant that forages the wilder areas, feasting on giant leopard grubs and tubers. Its a voracious eater, and leaves swathes of deep holes in the areas it passes in its search for food. It only has one known predator, the increasingly scarce, sword-toothed cave lions of the upper Fringes. It is well defended against predation, though, due to its thick, armored shell and a mace-like, spiked tail.

Like the Behemoth, it also possesses a rudimentary psychic sensitivity, though whether it has any abnormal level of intelligence is unknown, as the beasts are largely solitary and extremely shy.

Armorol: HD 4-7; AC 2[18]; atk tail; dmg 2d6; Save as: F4-7; Special: psychic sensitivity, AC increased to 0[20] if Armorol takes no offensive action.

Northaven Bestiary - Behemoth

2011-04-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

When the fugitives of Apocalypse first landed at Northaven, one of the first native fauna they encountered were the Behemoths, giant land mammals that lived in the marshes of the River delta. The remaining psychically sensitive individuals among the exiles quickly discovered these creatures were mildly sensitive themselves, and possessed an unusually high intelligence level as well a culture of sorts. The exiles being desperate for a reliable food source, and lacking the population size to perform the manual labor required to maintain large crops, the Behemoths quickly became that source of labor (their massive claws being perfect for furrowing and reaping large areas in a short time), overseen by what would become known years later as the Guild of Foremen. This Guild consists of men just psychically sensitive enough to control and direct the beasts.

Despite the protestations of the more environmentally-minded exiles, the fragile, formative culture of the Behemoths was destroyed to accommodate the needs of Northaven's new human population. Some vestiges of that culture remain, however, and the Foremen have learned to stand aside during the annual mating season in late summer, when the largest male Behemoths engage in almost ritual combat for harem privileges.

While these herbivorous creatures are normally docile, when roused to anger they can be frightfully destructive, as when an overzealous Foreman instigated a rampage near a sizable local farming village that ended up being destroyed by just four of the angry creatures before they could be put down. In the four hundred years or so of Northaven's human occupation, there as not been a single recorded instance of a Behemoth dying of what could be termed "old age", which has led to local sayings such as "may you live as long as a Behemoth", or "a memory longer than a Behemoth's".

More still may remain of the Behemoth's primeval culture than most people suspect - last year there were rumors of some sort of religious gathering of Behemoths in the deep marshes.

Behemoth: HD6-10; AC3[17]; atk 2 claws; dmg 1d10 each; Save as: F6-10; Special - mild psychic sensitivity, communications, and resistances.

Random Table: Things you find in an Abandoned Post-Apocalyptic Outpost

2011-04-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

Travel the radioactive, horror-filled wastelands of the post-apocalyptic world for very long, and you may stumble across abandoned outposts, shattered cities, mysterious domes, sand-covered military bases, burnt-out homesteads, dusty bunkers, and ominous basements.

What lies within them?

Random Table: Things you find in an Abandoned Post-Apocalyptic Outpost (d100)
1. A charred book of solar water-pumping engine diagrams.
2. A pull-string, talking doll that recites a message of warning.
3. An infra-red flashlight with a little over an hour remaining in its battery.
4. A dubious package of foil-sealed sandwiches.
5. A water-damaged oil painting of a horse. Tear it from the frame to reveal a map.
6. A black metal box with no adornment or apparati save a slowly blinking red light.
7. A metal sign depicting a fat, smiling, white-bearded man in a red snowsuit holding a voluptuous bottle of some dark fluid.
8. A yellow bottle of some elixir labeled "Sunny Days Insta-Tan".
9. A gray carrying-case with metal bars on one end containing a tiny canine skeleton.
10. A tattered metal arm that lashes out at anyone who tries to touch it.
11. A case containing thirty-three bizarre and unsettling carnival masks.
12. A silvery body suit with an attachable fishbowl-shaped glass helmet.
13. The diary of a madman obsessed with exotic, radioactively mutated flowers.
14. A living room with formally dressed mannequins arranged as if at a dinner party.
15. Some sort of control chair surrounded by shattered video screens and hanging wires.
16. A small ceramic jar filled with a powerful numbing agent.
17. A battered, solar-charged walkie-talkie. If activated, someone answers!
18. A small framed picture of three smiling children, smeared with fingerprints and dried tears.
19. A ridiculously ugly stuffed cat, crawling with lice.
20. A locked, faintly buzzing safe, filled with angry bees!
21. A dark room with all the necessary fluids and implements for developing pictures.
22. A case full of maps depicting the underwater topography of a now-dried-up seabed.
23. The scale model of a military base.
24. A small, radio controlled, toy helicopter. Needs some repair.
25. A 9' tall, writhing potted plant with glowing purple fronds.
26. A jar of human eyeballs suspended in some sort of fluid.
27. A sealed locker containing a magnificent wedding dress.
28. A case of fine, single-malt whiskey, the labels bleached away by time.
29. A hideous voo-doo doll.
30. A fortune-telling machine with a sinister robotic assassin in place of the normal turbaned fellow.
31. A row of slot machines that periodically light up and whir before falling ominously silent again.
32. A normal-looking closet door that opens into a tiny elevator leading down to a secret bunker.
33. A carved stone idol of a grinning, six-armed demoness.
34. A velvet-lined case containing six long hypodermic needles containing fluids of various colors.
35. A brass hookah inscribed with fanciful characters.
36. An oil-filled lantern that explodes when lit.
37. A tattered suitcase containing a human skull.
38. A metal beverage-dispensing machine that still works if coins can be found to put inside it.
39. An electric camera high in one corner tracks your every movement.
40. Seven fashion mannequins come to life late at night to kill, kill, kill!
41. Every time a certain door is opened, an angry dog can be heard barking somewhere in the distance.
42. An elaborate candle-lit shrine has been erected around the fading photograph of a silver-eyed woman.
43. A small garage contains a four-wheeler in working condition.
44. A working set of drums.
45. A set of books filled with hateful and racist dogma.
46. Webs hang here and there. In them, strange yellow spiders sing high-pitched wordless songs.
47. A smashed jewelry box still contains one charm bracelet with obscene charms.
48. A locked blue police box contains only dust and a long, tattered macrame scarf.
49. A battered television cuts on loudly and unexpectedly.
50. Giant poisonous sand-lobsters attack from below!
51. A silvery metal book of poetry recites the poems within it as the pages are turned.
52. A curious mummified hand with six fingers.
53. A fresh corpse lies curled, foetally, under a table, covered in tiny cuts and slices.
54. A pot of water boils merrily on a lit stove.
55. A threatening and vaguely horrific sex toy.
56. A set of nine, intricately painted, eggs.
57. A tin of lozenges that impart a temporary resistance to radioactivity.
58. A set of "Life" magazines with moving pictures depicting the apocalypse.
59. An inflatable punching clown.
60. The mold and ooze in a broken-down refrigerator lashes out with paralytic tentacles!
61. A bloodstained barber's chair and shears.
62. A set of reflective disks containing sensitive data if a computer can be found to read them.
63. Pigeon shit, everywhere, ankle-deep.
64. A stack of religious pamphlets warning the end of the world is near.
65. The room is overgrown with weirdly beautiful, pungent smelling fungi.
66. Coffin-sized tanks of water fill the room. Something moves within them.
67. The mildew stains on the walls here forms vaguely humanoid shapes.
68. A set of gleaming razor-sharp scalpels in a small leather case.
69. A toy truck stops and goes unexpectedly.
70. A ghastly white hand punches through the wall near your face as you walk past!
71. Farmer's Almanac 2134.
72. A package of spicy crackers.
73. A snuff box filled with strange white powder.
74. Each room mysteriously lights up as you enter, then darkens as you leave.
75. A ghostly voice from hidden speakers above chants "failure... failure... failure..."
76. A stack of photographs depicting women with bizarre mutations.
77. A pair o f white boots with strong magnetic soles.
78. A flare gun with six cartridges of varying colors.
79. A fancy, pearl-handled umbrella.
80. A swarm of ravenous beetles that emit a nauseating sonic disturbance.
81. A matchbox containing an immortal, intelligent cockroach that recites Plato.
82. A gleaming, fresh-smelling lavatory with a nice assortment of soaps and body fragrances.
83. A 1979 JP Penney toy catalog.
84. A desk calender with a new torture device depicted on each page.
85. A polished glass egg that lights up when held.
86. A small statue of Buddha with fresh flowers and a small bowl of rice laid in front of it.
87. A set of multi-colored permanent markers.
88. A treatise on various fish-drying methods.
89. A package of water purification tablets.
90. Robbie the Robot has gone mad and wants to decorate himself with your entrails!
91. A laminated chart of the local subway system.
92. The owners manual from a 1989 Ford Tempo.
93. An inflatable yellow raft with lightweight plastic oars.
94. A backpack containing dried biscuits, a water bottle, and a human leg.
95. A warm, full-length fur coat.
96. A gleaming bowie knife with a compass in the handle.
97. A scented candle.
98. A 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide signed by Gary Gygax.
99. A brain with tentacles suspended in a liquid-filled green jar.
00. Radioactive zombies arise!

Torgo Tuesday!

2011-04-19T08:01:00.001-07:00

Haven't done one of these in a while. Please allow Torgo to blow your mind. It's all he really has to live for...

Tell me about the heroines in your game.

2011-04-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

Celebrating Jirel of Joiry after a recent re-reading of "Black God's Kiss" (nice review here).

In the comments section, please tell me about the heroines in your games present or past, PC, NPC, or even player.

BtBG Reader: James Enge, "This Crooked Way"

2011-04-12T06:51:00.000-07:00

Last Summer I picked up a book of Sword & Sorcery short stories, "Swords & Dark Magic", which I reviewed here. Now, I have lots of books full of Sword & Sorcery short stories, but most of them were published in the 70's or earlier. As a literary form, Sword & Sorcery had languished a bit, from what I can tell, while "epic" fantasy took center stage. Something happened as the last millennium ended though, and suddenly all these great writers are appearing on bookshelves. "Swords & Dark Magic" is a great starting point if you want to discover what these guys are up to (in addition to some new works from some older torchbearers that never stopped like Cook, Lee, and Moorcock). One of my favorite "new" writers in that book turned out to be James Enge, whose drunken, morbid, anti-hero Morlock Ambrosious is more than deserving to rub elbows with the likes of Elric, Conan, and Cugel.

I picked up Enge's three published novels and devoured them.

My favorite has been "This Crooked Way" which I've devoured twice now. This is old-school picaresque fantasy in the style of Jack Vance; Morlock basically spends the whole book traveling from one point to another, and has a series of interesting encounters, tests, and trials along the way. To add to the mix, Enge has an interesting way of taking traditional fantasy elements and standing them on their ear, such as one fantastic encounter with a troll and a bridge. Also, Morlock is the son of storied wizard Merlin (though the connection between our earthly world and the world of Morlock is not discussed in any detail), who is not exactly a doting father - he plots to trick, thwart, or even kill his son at every opportunity (and he gets several in this book).

Magic plants, supernatural tricksters, witches, sorcery, thieves, golems, inscrutable alien intelligences, there's a lot to absorb here. With so many stops along Morlock's way, the book almost has to be read twice to take it all in.

Like most good Fantastic fiction, the journey is the highlight of the story, not the ending. If you're a fan of old-school Sword & Sorcery, journey along with Morlock for a while. I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Maren Jensen

2011-04-08T06:53:00.001-07:00

Athena, "Battlestar Galactica"

Lazy Blog Post: The Battle of Crecy

2011-04-06T06:40:00.000-07:00

Per Wikipedia:

"The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 near Crécy in northern France, and was one of the most important battles of the Hundred Years' War. The combination of new weapons and tactics has caused many historians to consider this battle the beginning of the end of classic chivalry."

A few notes and a quick poll

2011-04-02T03:58:00.000-07:00

1. Thanks to everyone for being good sports yesterday, I know it must have been disappointing (but what's a trap without good bait?). I also know (hope?), that someone, somewhere, has been inspired to create the real thing, so we all win! ;)

2. Check out ChigoWiz's RPG Blog, where Michael has turned my own Round Table questions back at me. And yes, despite the timing, those are actually my answers and not Michael's April Fools' Day prank!

3. My favorite April Fools posts this year include Akratic Wizardry and Hill Cantons. BtBG posts from the Fools of Aprils past are here and here.

4. If you haven't been following Frog God Games, now is the time to pay attention - anyone in love with those hex maps and guides Judges Guild put out 30 years ago may be interested in their line of "Hex Crawl Classics" mods - each is basically a big hex map with lots of hex descriptions, and there will be 9 or 10 altogether. These are also by John from the excellent Land of Nod, and the first is due in print this month.

5. No, I won't be participating in the A to Z project sadly, too many other pans in the fire this month. But I will be following everyone else's with interest, especially James' Dwimmermount-focused A to Z, mainly for ideas to shamelessly steal for my own Megadungeon!

6. Quick Poll - Do you prefer MORE or FEWER classes in your old-school RPG, and why? OD&D had 3 classes; B/X had 4 (not including the 3 "race-classes"); 1E had a dozen. Which is best?

Cool new mapping resource (and free!)

2011-04-01T05:11:00.000-07:00

Fellow old-school blogger Yul has kindly posted an online version of his "Overlord" mapping utility, which lets you generate your own Judges Guild "Wilderlands of High Fantasy"-style maps. It includes all the original fonts and terrain fills like Hills, Mountains, Forest, Swamp, and so on. It also makes the cool, blocky little town and village indicators.

As an added bonus, there's even a "Name Generator" you can click on which will randomly generate names like "Jigle" and "Foxelfglove" and so on, which I think is pretty cool.
You can generate the maps in either the original 17" x 22" format, or in 4 normal sized sheets that can be joined together to make the whole thing. "Black and White" color setting is easiest on your printer, but "Vintage" setting not only generates the entire map in that warm sepia/brown hue so recognizable to the original maps, but distributes the ink in such as way that it very nicely recreates the "dappled" or "goosebumped" feel of the originals.

There's also a "Full Color" option, which is eye-poppingly amazing, its almost too much!

Anyway, Yul will only have this available for free until the Beta testing is over, so be sure and grab it right away here as soon as you can!

More Megadungeon Equipment

2011-03-31T07:51:00.000-07:00

More Megadungeon Equipment

While plenty of adventurers make do with the mundane equipment available at the general stores common in most towns and villages, some enterprising entrepreneurs have made a cottage industry of providing and designing items specifically targeted at explorers and adventurers. While not available in every small village and hamlet, most larger settlements will have at least one merchant specializing in gear like the items detailed below.

Owl (15gp)
An Owl is a strange contraption consisting of a glass bowl filled with about a half pint of oil, a waxed wick, and a balsa and gossamer set of wings and levers. When lit, the heat from the lamp causes the wings to beat, and the Owl hovers at the end of a string (tied to an explorer's backpack, for example) and illuminates an area of about 30' across until the fuel is consumed. While useful for hands-free illumination, Owls are fragile, and should be stowed securely when not in use.

Troll's Blanket (5gp)
The so-called "Troll's Blanket" is a wool blanket that has had random patterns of stiffening resins and natural stone coloring added to it. If thrown over an individual or object it can camouflage them to appear as part of the natural surrounding stone.

Bladder Pack (15gp)
This is an otherwise normal backpack that has been oiled and sealed to make it airtight and waterproof. When necessary, it can be emptied of gear and inflated via a thin leather tube to make a handy flotation device.

Explorer's Belt (20gp)
This is a double-looped belt (typically 5'-7' long) of extremely sturdy, fireproofed, leather with a hook and ring instead of a buckle. It can support the weight of two grown men, and makes a handy tool for climbing and swing short distances, pulling heavy objects, hooking and pulling things out of holes, binding captives, and so on. Several of them can even be linked together to form a strong rope.

Prayers of Hwyl (5gp)
These are small rectangles of white papyrus with a single black rune inscribed on them. If placed upon an object or creature that is evil, or a container that contains something evil, the papyrus slowly curls into char and crumbles away. The albino hermit, Conspectuous, is known to sell these more cheaply (2gp), but his are not so reliable.

Phoenix Eggs (5gp)
The are small white marbles that, if thrown forcefully to the ground, explode into ten cubic feet of white smoke that dissipates after 1d4 rounds. The possession of Phoenix Eggs is illegal in the local capitol, where they are known as Cuckold's Eggs, due to reasons that are entirely unrelated to Megadungeons.

Iron Sentry (10gp)
This is a foot-long wedge of two pieces of iron with a spring-loaded mechanism between them. It can be rapidly shoved under a door, where it will spring open and effectively jam the door until its broken free.

Thumper (30gp)
Rumored to have come from a far-off desert place, this metal-and-membrane tripod contraption may be set upon a solid floor. A plunger in the middle is raised and released, and will then thump onto the floor repeatedly, making vibrations similar to heavy footsteps. This is useful when it is necessary to summon or distract denizens of the Underworld.

Water of Ylalla (150gp)
This small vial of spring water has been blessed by the Goddess of Fertility. If poured upon seeds, they will achieve a year's worth of growth in just ten minutes.

Scrimm's Bottle (100gp)
This is a bottle of heavy green glass that has been etched with holy epitaphs and comes with a silver stopper. If presented in the presence of a ghost, phantom, shadow, or other such incorporeal undead, the spirit must save or be drawn into the bottle. The spirit will remain trapped in the bottle until such time as the stopper is removed. Each bottle may hold one spirit.

More Megadungeon Equipment here and here.

Game Bloggers Round Table - pt 2

2011-03-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

Continued from here.

BTBG: We all employ a game system that, in its root form, has been around for 30 years or so. Where do think these games will be in another 30 years? How about 90 years?

James M: I think the games will still be around in 30 years, thanks to the retro-clones, but they'll likely be played by even fewer people than they are now. In 90 years? Who can say? I'd be amazed if anyone outside of academia will even know what table RPGs are 90 years from now. I think the hobby in its present form is slowly dying and while “roleplaying” will continue to exist in some fashion, it'll be quite removed from what we know today.

James R: … I’ve got nothing. It’s probably going to be a very different landscape next year, let alone in thirty or ninety.

Thomas: I'm an oddity. I am a devotee to the original D&D game, yet I love and admire modern indie RPG's. The more "cutting edge" the better. My favorite RPG of the last few years was Mouse Guard. Using the Burning Wheel system it cleverly incorporates modern ideas of roleplaying with good old fashioned gameplay. Mouse Guard was truly a cross-over product that bridged the gap from the rpg crowd and the "popular arts" (the young comic book crowd). It seems like the old RPG industry is dying and it is fascinating to watch as they wither away with no clue what is going on in the world. It is the most exciting time for RPG's ever, with new technologies like the Kindle and iPad making it possible for a gamer to carry her entire RPG collection with her - and the biggest company in the traditional RPG industry: Wizards of the Coast, isn't even in the game (in the stupidest move ever, they actually pulled all their PDF's from sale!). The future of RPG's is your entire library on your eReader of choice, fully indexed with instant access to any text in your collection, along with dice rolling, character generation, NPC generation, and Adventure generation software instantly available. People will still gather around the gaming table to play because we humans are social creatures, they just won't have to tote around a dumptruck load of dead trees to do it.

Zak: I think that the most likely thing is, like wargames, they'll be around, largely unaltered in the basics and played by small groups of fanatics, though there'll probably be a few technological advancements in post-skype technology along the way. Maybe someone'll devise a multi-use digital gametable where you can download all kinds of games, like Monopoly or Risk or whatever as 'aps' and so tabletop D&D'll migrate onto that. And in 90 years probably programming will be so easy and widespread that people will all be doing their own little avatars and maps and programming the sprites to talk and what-all and that'll be what GMing largely is, programming the table. My guess is the pizza will actually arrive slower, at
least here in LA.

Michael: I honestly don't know. We as a species are headed for some turbulent times and changes as we deal with an uncertain energy future and the possibility of climate change of some sort. I think that as a species, the oral tradition is strong and still vibrant. I think that as long as we can imagine and share that imagination, some sort of group fantasy adventure will happen.

BTBG: We haven't heard much widely-publicized outcry against D&D lately from the right-wing religious community in a long time (which we all know was great publicity). What do you think you could do to help get people outraged again?

James M: Me personally? Not much. I'm a pretty boring guy.

James R: Dude! Doing all I can!

I commissioned art depicting sex and extreme violence – sometimes in the same piece. I’m probably seriously on the line of obscenity laws in some territories. My game has boobs on the front cover, for crying out loud. I’m releasing Carcosa in a big deluxe format and the past controversy is going to be part of the marketing.

I just hope it gets into the right hands. I want to be on 60 Minutes, damn it, just so I can agree with everything that everyone says about me. “Do you agree with the critics that say role-playing games harm children’s minds, making them join Satanic cults and commit suicide?” “Yes.” “Are you a Nazi Child Molester from Mars?” “Yes.”

But I “consume” this sort of “media” anyway, so it’s not just a crass attempt at exploitation or antagonism – it’s a reflection of what I like.

Thomas: D&D long ago caved in to the zealous religious community by removing all references to devils and demons, besides there are bigger fish to fry nowadays. BTW. I consider myself to be a basic Christian, and I see no conflict with playing D&D and my faith. Any more than using an axe to cut wood, where an axe murderer might use an axe for other, more nefarious purposes.

Zak: Be a video game.

Michael: Walk naked while carrying AD&D books. Open to the page with the naked women.

BTBG: Obligatory Game-geek exercise: Describe yourself in RPG terms - Class, abilities, etc.

James M: In D&D terms, I'm probably a Sage with Humankind as my Major Field (History, Legends & Folklore, Philosophy & Ethics, Theology & Myth) and the Supernatural & Unusual as my Minor Field (Metaphysics). I'm Neutral Good with a tendency toward Lawful Goodness. My ability scores are all pretty mediocre except whatever one it is that represents having a good memory, in which I've probably got a 15 or 16.

James R: Normal Man, only stat possibly above average is Intelligence if I’m lucky, but no more than 13 or so.

Thomas: This is actually hard since my profession, artist, doesn't map well to D&D classes. But let us say an artist is like an illusionist which is like a magic-user: Thomas Denmark, Human CL 3 MU 5, S 9, I 13, W 12, D 10, Cn 10, Ch 8

Zak: I am seriously too hungover to handle that question right now.

Michael: Pass. :)

BTBG: Gygax said "The essence of a role-playing game is that it is a group, cooperative experience". How important to do you think this is, and why?

James M: I think it's very important, although I'm not sure I'd agree that it's the “essence” of a RPG. To me, the essence of this hobby lies in imagination, though it's a shared imagination, so, in that sense, Gygax was right. It's the act of entering into a shared fantasy that separates roleplaying games from other types of games and it's such a powerful idea that it's spread far beyond tabletop RPGs into books, movies, video games, and elsewhere. I may be pessimistic about the likelihood that our hobby will survive into the future, but I have no doubt that the core ideas laid down in those three little brown books in 1974 have very long legs indeed.

James R: For me that’s not the most enjoyable part, but it is the payoff and the justification for the parts I most enjoy. The best part is the creation of a world or adventure location, putting it together and making it work so that it feels like an actual place. The RPG context sets a boundary, and I find such parameters helps me be coherently creative. But all that is useless without real people to make use of it, to muck around, and to see if it breaks, and to see if they enjoy the process.

Thomas: Who am I to argue with the master? He summed it up pretty well.

Zak: That's the most important thing, to me. A lot of people rattle on about the integrity of the Game or the World or the whatever, but if I just want to be a creative little snowflake--well, I'm a painter, I get enough of that at work. For me, D&D is like a party, and the DM is throwing it, and all the arts and crafts are wasted if it's no fun and everybody isn't better friends afterwards.

Michael: It is the utmost important thing. Without a group, without cooperation, the game doesn't reach its potential.

BTBG: What's the most ridiculous thing anyone's ever said to you or asked you about RPGs?

James M: It was probably a teacher in the 9th grade (that would have been 1984) who genuinely believed that D&D was the work of the Devil. Fortunately, none of the other teachers I had at the time agreed with her, which, even at the time, suggested to me that the people who were “bothered about Dungeons & Dragons” were few in number but very loud in expressing their displeasure.

James R: “You mean the entire point of the game is to roll dice?”

Thomas: It was how he said it, more so than what he said, that disturbed me when I was 13. My dad asked, in fearful tones: "are you a...Dungeonmaster?" It was obvious by the way he asked the question that he had heard horrible things about D&D and feared that the answer was yes. It was.

Zak: Oh sweet jesus. The mail I get is like...Ok, probably the most persistently ridiculous reactions are the people who--despite massive documentary evidence in nearly all media yet devised by mankind--do not believe my gaming group exists. Yeah, dipshit, it is all an elaborate scam, because blogging about playing D&D and twittering "Hey @BobbiStarr, what about Friday?" pays so much better than making porn and selling paintings for five figures. Because really girls can't play D&D. Because of how it's rocket science. And only boys like rockets, or science.

BTBG: What's the biggest difference between a rock star and an old-school gaming blogger?

James M: I have to discard all the blue M&Ms myself since I don't have any toadies willing to do it for me.

James R: Rock stars have to travel to do their thing. Bloggers can get free stuff, women, and fans without leaving the house.

And rock stars are probably skinnier on average.

Thomas: Old-school gaming bloggers have really hot chick groupies? Oh, wait, I got that backwards.

Zak: In the local case, the difference is that we sleep with exactly the same women, only I do it first. Except Maynard, who likes them young.

Michael: Millions of dollars.

BTBG: When I sit down to run a game, I have to arrange my books, dice, etc, in a very particular way before the session starts. Do you have any pre-game rituals/habits you observe?

James M: Not really. I always sit in the same spot at the table and place my dice there, but, other than that, I don't really have any rituals I regularly observe.

James R: I “prime” my dice. I take all the dice I will use that session, and roll them as a big mass. I separate the ones that come up on their highest value, and then reroll the rest. Repeat until they’ve all come up their maximum value. If the d20 is the last to come up high, then I predict a bad session. If something else comes up high first, then I predict a good session.

Thomas: Brandy. Several shots of brandy.

Zak: My traditional opening mantra is..."Where the fuck is my orange notebook? Mandy, have you seen my orange notebook? Does everybody have their character sheet? Well why not, they're right there? I do not know where your dice are, can't you just use...WHOA, SORRY, ok...Alright, we'll start as soon as Kimberly is done texting" And she goes "No, I'm ready, I'm just..." and I just kinda look at her until she puts the iphone down.

Michael: Sort my dice. Roll the wandering monster dice (with the skull representing the 1 pip) and see what comes up.

BTBG: What's the sexiest piece of art in a pre-1984 gaming book?

James M: Gee, there are a lot of good candidates, but I'll confess to a certain fondness for Sutherland's illustration of the succubus from the original Monster Manual, although Jeff Easley's illustration of the slumbering Drelnza from The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is another worth considering.

James R: This is rough, since I don’t look at any of that art and think “mrowr!” But that succubus at the back of the DMG has that soft body and looks to be in need of some reassuring....

Thomas: Everyone knows that it is the succubus by Dave Sutherland III in the original Monster Manual. Duh!

Zak: I have no choice but to go with the infamous busty Succubus, but that's only by default. "Sexy" really took it on the chin in early game art.

Michael: I guess I don't see any RPG art as "sexy"? That's why the whole debate on sexism kinda passed me by. After seeing what's on TV, movies, etc... a huge chunk of mass media culture is aimed at sexualization and extreme stereotypes... and I just don't seem affected by it. Now whimsical... I love old school art for the whimsey.

BTBG: How about the most frightening?

James M: Again, there are a lot of good candidates but I think Erol Otus's illustrations of Lovecraftian beings and gods from the early printings of Deities & Demigods are among the most personally frightening I can think of -- his depiction of Shub-Niggurath, for example, is the stuff from which nightmares are made.

James R: Not much of that stuff scares me now, but based on what I used to think, Monster Manual – Night Hag.

Thomas: The cover of Eldritch Wizardry always disturbed me.

Zak: Mmmmm...Fiend Folio--Needle Man.

Michael: Uhhh... none? I don't find any of it frightening?

BTBG: Blogs and games can be largely private affairs. What's the "geekiest" thing you've ever done in public?

James M: When I was a teenager, I appeared in public as the Peter Davison version of the Doctor from Doctor Who. Mor recently I dressed up as Cosmo from The Fairly Oddparents for Halloween -- I even dyed my hair green!

James R: I’ve gamed in restaurants, made little amateur comedy videos in public.

I keep finding out about local zombie walks after they happen, and that’ll probably be the geekiest once I find out about one ahead of time.

Thomas: Um, this interview? No seriously, in high school I once asked the hottest cheerleader to go out with me. It didn't go well.

Zak: Well we did that TV show. That's kinda public. My paintings are sometimes arguably geeky--like the picture for every single page of Gravity's Rainbow or this thing I drew last year which as like a 12 foot wide D&D labyrinth. And, y'know, I've been seen in public with Keith Baker.

Michael: LARP'ed.

BTBG: Thanks guys!

What should you blog about today? Roll D10

2011-03-26T05:36:00.001-07:00

Now, I like Zak's chart here, but it fails to address some of the intrinsic realities of the Wild World of RPG Blogging. So take off your rose-colored glasses and roll d10 on this chart to find out what you should really blog about today:

1. Why I hate (insert edition/clone/opinion of choice here) so much, and why you should care.
2. James Maliszewski is wrong. And pompous too.
3. Girls in camo bikinis with swords and guns.
4. Nineteen pages of my new house rule for determining the migratory patterns of my campaign setting's rabbit population, the genetic predispositions of their fur color and tooth length, the impact that has on tropical weather patterns, and why this is revolutionary.
5. WotC is raping my childhood. Please somebody call the authorities. Ow.
6. "Shut up Mom I'm trying to blog!"
7. New Monster: "Cockasaurus".
8. Something innocent doomed to draw the wrath of Your Dungeon is Suck.
9. Spiderman.
10. "Sorry, the blog at ThingsIputinmyClericsAnus.blogspot.com has been removed."

New Ability: Morality

2011-03-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

Now and then, I enjoy adding new abilities to the standard roster of Str, Int, Wis, etc. Comeliness was used for a long time, and, after a long stint of MERP, another ability called Perception. Thinking along the lines of Alignment as Allegiance, I thought it would be interesting, from a role-playing perspective, to add an ability called Morality.

Stay with me for a moment: What if your allegiance to Law or Chaos could be chosen, but not your overall natural disposition toward good or evil? Its an interesting, and not unrealistic, idea. Some people seem to have just been born "bad seeds", while others are just goodhearted to a fault. There is even some compelling evidence out there that criminal or sociopathic tendencies are genetic predispositions, as opposed to wholly being environmental conditioning.

So roll 3d6, and see what your character's Morality score is:

Morality
3 or less: You are a hopeless sociopath, everything you do is aimed at harming humanity.*
4-5: Bad to the bone, you can't help yourself - even with the best intentions you still end up hurting people.*
6-8: While not wholly evil, you are wholly selfish. Your own interests always win any moral debate.*
9-12: You tend to make moral decisions based on your mood, whim, or what sort of day you're having. While you see evil acts as extremely distasteful, you have also never believed that honesty is always the best policy.
13-15: You are decent person, and like to keep the best interests of others in mind, but you're not giving everything away to charity either.**
16-17: You are honest, upstanding and reliable. Helping others gives you more pleasure than helping yourself.**
18: You are a paragon of virtue. You couldn't tell a lie to save your own life. You give as much to charity as you can, and would take a knife for the lowliest criminal.**

*Able to use "evil" aligned items and spells without harm.
** Able to use "good" aligned items and spells without harm.

Oh my, Forsaken Halls, how Big you've gotten!

2011-03-24T04:48:00.000-07:00

Still compiling part two of the Round Table. In the meantime, here's a peek at how BIG my Megadungeon, the Forsaken Halls, is getting. I'm going to try to get to some cons (as well as my local D&D Meetup) this summer and run the Halls a few times, sort of a Megadungeon Missionary project, so folks that normally play newer editions can see what a Megadungeon with Old-school rules is like.

I'm putting together a pack of 10 pre-generated characters for the project I'll post on the blog for others to use as well.

Game Bloggers Round Table - 20 Questions with your favorite bloggers.

2011-03-23T07:19:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be fun to interview several of your favorite old-school game bloggers, so here's a Round Table with James M. of Grognardia, James R. of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Thomas of Original Edition Fantasy, Zak of Playing D&D with Porn Stars, and Michael of Chicago Wiz's RPG Blog.

BtBG: Introduce yourself and your blog, and what its about.

James M: I'm James Maliszewski and I write a blog entitled Grognardia, which is about old school roleplaying games, with a special focus on those published prior to 1984 or thereabouts. I also spend a lot of time examining the literary inspirations of the early hobby.

James R: My name is James Edward Raggi IV and I write the Lamentations of the Flame Princess blog. The focus of the LotFP blog is promoting the publishing work I do (under the name Lamentations of the Flame Princess) and put forth my views on various game-related things. I have this two-headed goal with this gaming stuff - to be able to say what I feel without compromise and get people's pulses pounding. This is imagination! Fire up! Get excited! Go! Go! Go! Of course some people consider that abrasive, but I'm OK with being human sandpaper.

Thomas: Thomas Denmark, artist and game designer. I've illustrated for the top publishers in the game industry: Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: the Gathering, World of Warcraft. And I've designed games (www.dungeoneer.net). But my heart is with old-school RPGs. Original Edition Fantasy is a place where I can express my admiration for pre-80's RPGs (and Original D&D in particular).

Zak: Well it (the blog) says "I'm Zak, I live in Hollywood. Most of the people I know in LA I know from work - so they're porn stars and strippers. So that's who I play D&D with." Which is all true. If I had to describe the blog itself, I'd say its a little more often about DMing players who aren't D&D veterans than, say, Grognardia.

Michael: Hi, I'm Michael and I'm a father, granddad, Classic D&D gamer, miniatures painter, ex-amateur stock-car-racer, geek guy. My blog is pretty much a reflection of the gaming I do - centered around OD&D, AD&D, my miniatures hobby, my ongoing solo OD&D campaign with my wife, my ongoing AD&D campaign with a group of people in the Chicagoland area and other stuff that my d30 tells me to write about.

BtBG: Briefly describe the first time you were introduced to RPGs.

James M: In the summer of 1979, D&D was all over the news thanks to its supposed role in the disappearance of a college student, James Dallas Egbert III. My father was very interested in this "strange game" and so my mother bought him a copy of the Holmes-edited Basic Set to look at. As it turned out, my father never even opened the box and it sat in a hall closet until shortly after Christmas that year. That's when I returned home from a friend's house, who'd gotten the boardgame Dungeon!. I cracked it open and tried to make sense of its rules. It took some time (and some instruction from a friend's older brother) but I eventually wrapped my mind around it and have been playing RPGs ever since.

James R: My mother for some reason wanted to paint minis. Being a single mother of two, i think she didn't feel justified starting a new expensive and time-consuming hobby. I already like things like Savage Sword of Conan (I was eight years old, somewhere around there), and she heard about this D&D thing, so we went to the hobby shop and we got some figures and endless quest books.

No clue that this wasn't D&D, no idea what the figure were for in these game books. I got a couple of modules (Keep on the Borderlands and Village of Hommlett, since they were low level!) at my elementary school book fair(!), but still had no rules and no clue. I was gathering friends, setting the Caves of Chaos map out and moving pieces around like board game ("Damn these spaces are too small for normal playing pieces!").

I got the Mentzer Basic box soon after, and oh boy did that clear some things up.

And then soon after my mother found out about D&D causing suicide and blah blah blah, so she made me watch Monsters and Mazes like it was a documentary.

Damn you Tom Hanks!

Thomas: It was in math class when I was in junior high school in 1982. The kid who sat in front of me brought the original DMs Guide to class every day and he let me look at it. It, quite literally, changed my world. I immediately asked my mom to get me "D&D", I got the red box, then Fiend Folio, Deities & Demigods, DMs Guide, and Player's Handbook - in that order. Yeah, a weird order to get them in, but I suspect most people's introduction to D&D was similarly erratic.

Zak: It was birthday. It was before my 12th birthday and my dad gave me this book that was for people who were "12 & up". I was flatterd.

It was Unearthed Arcana, though, so it took a little back-engineering to figure out what the hell the book was.

Michael: I bought the Holmes Basic box set from either Rinks (a long defunct discount store - competed with KMart) or from KMart and was instantly transported to a world that I never wanted to leave. From there, I bought the AD&D core books (or 5 finger discounted in the case of the DMG) and my journey was complete. I stayed with D&D till the mid80s when I started playing Battletech/Mechwarrior.

BtBG: You're all GM's; why? No one else wants to, you like the creative outlet and/or the power;)? Do you think GMing so much affects how you play characters on those rare occasions you get to?

James M: I'm usually the GM because, yes, it's a role most other people don't like to take up, but also because I enjoy creating a world and situations and then turning players loose on them to see what they'll do. There's nothing quite else like it. I'm not sure that being a GM has had a huge impact on my playing style, although I do have a tendency to play quirky and/or humorous characters, perhaps because it's something I wish I saw more of from my own players.

James R: I was the first person I knew to get into gaming, and within my own age group growing up didn’t really trust the others to provide good setting/adventure environments (not that I did at that age either, but…). I was the one recruiting and trying to play. I had some good experiences with older GMs in those days though.

Now that I live in Finland, it’s a bit different. Finding RPG veterans that are experienced and mature is no problem (although I get a lot of newbies in my groups as well), but there’s a language thing going on. If I run and host the game, I can say, “This will be run in English,” and nobody can really argue. If someone else is setting up a game, it is totally unreasonable to demand it be run in English. I can read a bit of Finnish but I absolutely can not keep up with it when it’s spoken. Swedish is an official language here too, but it’s spoken by such a minority (6%?) that I haven’t considered it worth putting in the serious effort to learn it… yet I still understand it better than Finnish due to its similarity to English. Point is, I can’t sit in on someone else’s game without being an Ugly American Who Demands English.

I don’t get to play much but I fear I’m a killjoy as a player. I tend to play Thief/Spy/etc type characters so I can identify “the mission” or the goal, try to break it down step by step and make a plan to “win” with as little in-game conflict as possible.

Other players don’t seem to like that because they want a bit of action going on and sometimes want to do “what they’re supposed to do” instead of blowing up the tracks, and then GMs tend to change their scenario to introduce added complications on those occasions where I am being a bit too successful in my goals.

Thomas: Interesting, as much as I love playing I find that I end up being DM most of the time because few others want the job. I can understand, it is a lot of work, but I love the ability to create - and control worlds. Though the DM only has so much control because I find players tend to do whatever they want despite a DM's best laid plans. It is this collaborative experience that makes it so rewarding.

Zak: I hate power. Or, more accurately, I hate responsibility. I try to pawn off GM duties at every opportunity. But my friends want to play and since most of them are from the West Coast, they're too flakey to organize it themselves and I, being originally a New Yorker, pick up the slack.

As for how I play my characters, I think it makes me a little more relaxed about them, since I can kind of see the scenario from both sides. I think I'm a little more willing to
let it go when they fuck up or die.

Michael: I like creating the worlds and presenting them to the players and discovering it with them. I also have not found anyone who GM's the way I like worlds to be presented/ran. So I do it myself. :) I'm sure it does affect me to some degree, but I try to forget about being a GM and just do what the little voices in my head tell me my character should do. :D

BtBG: Youre off to a desert island – what’s the one RPG book you’d bring and why?

James M: Well, if I'm going to be on that island alone, I'd definitely bring the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide.

No matter how many times I read it, I always find something new. If I'm not going to be alone, I'd probably bring The Traveller Book, because that single volume contains everything you'd need to play for a lifetime.

James R: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing is a box with multiple books, but since it’s one package, so it counts.

Or if it doesn’t… hmmm… HERO System 5^th Edition.

Thomas: D&D Cyclopedia. It is the most complete D&D RPG TSR ever made. Though I think the text is tremendously tedious and too often redundant, it is still the best RPG book written. I dream about someday writing (and illustrating) it's equivalent for the "OSR".

Zak: Warhammer, Realms of Chaos, The Lost And The Damned. Because the art is sublime and it will soothe my troubled soul. Though maybe it'd be smarter to bring one of those Top Secret or Cthulhu supplements with Morse code in them. Be Romantic or be Rational? Always a tough call...

Michael: Rules Cyclopedia - although it has a lot of Moldvay'isms and Cook'isms, it is still the best presentation of a complete Classic D&D game. Now if I were allowed to bring 4 books.... the 3 core AD&D/1e books and Holmes.

BtBG: How about the one non-RPG book?

James M: That's harder to answer, because I don't have a hands-down favorite book. For now, though, let's just say I'd bring along my one-volume edition of The Lord of the Rings, since Tolkien's masterpiece is a book that repays repeated readings.

James R: Assuming “for entertainment purposes” and not a smart-ass survival guide choice …

The Unabridged Edgar Allan Poe. The beautiful leather-bound gilded edition I have!

Thomas: Dune. Best sci-fi book ever written. Though if I was asked for one author's libary I'd say Robert Heinlein's (except Number of the Beast) he's my favorite.

Zak: Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow. Though ever since I drew every page of it I get kind of tired of it quicker. Maybe "The Information" by Martin Amis. Or, y'know, the SAS Island Survival Guide.

Michael: Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival by Tom Brown, Brandt Morgan

BtBG: The one album?

James M: No idea. I'm not a huge lover of music, popular or otherwise.

James R: I think I’d rather have none than just one.

But because dodging questions is crap, I’ll say Iron Maiden’s Live After Death – with the bonus tracks. It’s not my favorite album, but it’s long, has good songs on it and a lot of variety, and when I get utterly sick of the sound of it I haven’t ruined any of my favorite bands.

Thomas: Black Sabbath: Sabotage, the first four Black Sabbath albums are Ozzy's voice at his best, and Sabotage, their 4th album, represents their best song writing.

Zak: Eyehategod "Take As Needed For Pain". You'll want something loud so passing helicopters can hear you down there.

Michael: Ugh - you have me there. I can't choose one. One artist/band would be Led Zeppelin - so I'd probably go with a compilation album of their best stuff -- although some of the more non-commercial, bluesey stuff is what I like best.

BtBG: You've all been involved in DIY publications - how do you think your blogging helps get your stuff out there? Do you think self-publication on the same scale would have been an option 10 or 20 years ago?

James M: I see blogging as occupying the same niche that fanzines used to back in the day. They're a great way to share the fruits of your ongoing gaming with others -- and quicker, easier, and cheaper than any of the alternatives available in the past.

James R: The blog helps sell the work (and thus helps the next project be biggerbetterfancier), but it doesn’t really much affect putting the work together in the first place.

I think the history of the hobby is self-publishing. TSR, Palladium, White Wolf, GDW, etc., those were all at least partially creator owned… And their scale was much larger. So yes, it would have been an option.

Thomas: Self-publication has certainly become much easier. The most startling development is the popularity of PDF's. I think self-publishing is the present and future of the RPG "industry". I don't know if blogging helps or hurts because I haven't really published anything since I started my blog, but I intend to soon.

Zak: Well I never self-published, but yeah, obviously, blogging and the internet and cheap graphics programs and printers make all this stuff easier.
My friends who do 'zines used to have to pound the pavement much harder.

Michael: I think it's a mixed bag. It certainly gets the word out to the 137(squared) of us, but it's a closed loop. I think self-publication is probably more today only because of the Internet, but I also think that it's no less/more vibrant compared to the fanzines, gaming clubs and local gamer scenes that have been around. It's far easier to put your stuff out there, but it's also harder to stand out and be noticed.

BtBG: What’s your favorite blog or gaming site right now and why?

James M: I'm not sure I have a single favorite, but I will say that I regularly find myself visiting both Cyclopeatran and The Underdark Gazette, as they both do a better job than anyone of keeping up to date listings of old school blogs and news.

James R: Does Oglaf count as a gaming site?

For blogs, the Underdark Gazette. I have a million blogs on my blog role but the weekly news there still has a ton of releases I’ve never heard of, and that’s probably the most valuable thing in the OSR for me right now.

Thomas: James over at Grognardia has really mastered the OSR blogosphere. The quality and quantity of his posts really surpasses anything else out there.

Zak: Jeff's Gameblog, always. He's so good at being a human being. He reminds me of in Twin Peaks when Agent Cooper gets shot and he's lying there talking into his tape recorder "I wish I had been nicer to people"... Always trying to be better, that guy.

Michael: I visit Troll & Flame's site daily because he has one of the best blogrolls to see what's going on. I have this weird thing that I don't like to fill up my reader with blogs, but I like "overviews" in case I find something interesting to read elsewhere.

My favorite forum continues to be the OD&D Forum - I have a game going there, I'm participating in two games there as a player.

BtBG: What’s your favorite monster and why?

James M: I'm a big fan of the undead in all their forms, particularly intelligent or cunning sorts like ghouls, wraiths, and liches. I suspect my fondness for them comes from my own fascination with death and morbid topics. Plus, I enjoy being frightened as much as the next guy and there's something undeniably frightening about the walking dead.

James R: Man.

Jules Lavesque, Iri-Khan, the Knights of Science, Garvin Richrom, Archibald Kohler, the Duvan’Ku, if you could demi-humans as “people” then there’s the elves of Weird New World and Mâr-Rune. I just think having something identifiable as a “big bad” makes the whole thing more intense than a “slay the monster” kind of thing.

But if you’d like a traditional monster, I’ll pick the Doppelganger (or the customized variation I’ve been using lately). It’s so great for screwing around with the players.

Thomas: The Beholder is one of the best original monsters Gary Gygax ever invented, and he's invented quite a few. Gary's imagination really blows me away - you have to look at the context, before him there were no RPG's. Or the Drow: but I don't think of Drow as a monster so much as a playable character race, though strictly as a monster they are certainly Gary's greatest "monster" invention.

Zak: Flail Snail. Because at first it's silly but really it's disturbing and sublime and weeeeeeird.

Michael: Kobolds. Why? One name... Tucker. 'nuff said.

BtBG: Tell us about the funniest (or scariest) thing that’s ever happened at your game table recently.

James M: I think the funniest thing to happen around my table recently were the extended interactions between the player characters and the various Animal Kings who have set up shop in the central city-state of my Dwimmermount campaign world. The Cat King, for example, is arrogant and lazy and is surrounded by cages filled with mice his minions have captured. He treats humans as his inferiors and the characters needed to tread lightly to gain his help. The Rat Boss, on the other hand, was likely a Hollywood mafioso, right down to the “New Yawk” accent and a coterie of toadies with nicknames like “Specs” and “Johnny.” We had a lot of fun during the sessions involving these guys.

James R: I’ll preface this by saying I really don’t have a lot of sex in my games, because especially here in Finland these perverts have no problem role-playing out (in detail!) a sex scene while six or seven other players are looking on, bored that the focus isn’t on their characters. It gets awkward. Mostly for me.

Recently I was running games for some younger people (though not kids… damn I’m getting old), and I threw in a bit where an inn was run by an old wrinkly woman – 70, 80 years old. And she was horny and was after one of the PCs.

I thought it would be a comedy ha-ha bit where the player went “ooh, gross, old woman, RUN!” but I should remember to never underestimate the desire for players to get their characters laid. My comedy bit was ruined when he went for it. (plus he saved the money for a room that night… players… *sigh*)

We didn’t role-play it out, but I then tell all the other players that all night long they hear screaming coming from the end of the hall. “YES! MORE! OH YES! I LOVE ADVENTURERS! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

We did this at an in-store game, mind you. Our table erupted in laughter there, and I think some of the Warhammer-playing people at the other tables had a momentary interruption as sexual comedy interrupted their war…

Anyway, next morning, the party gathers in the common room of the inn, and all the other players are looking at this other guy really weird…

Thomas: I was running an adventure from Dungeon magazine #73 called Quoitine Quest. There is an undead creature that mistakes the adventurers for her "children". I tried to invent a unique voice for her, and somehow this terrifying shriek that came out of my vocal cords - I have no idea how - freaked the players (and myself) out! The player's loved it, and it was definitely the scariest thing at my gaming table.

Zak: Kimberly Kane got stung by a jellyfish man--so she's out for 1 to 4 rounds. And apparently science tells us that the ammonia in urine
counteracts the poison in a jellyfish sting, so Kimberly keeps saying...ok, well I'm sure you can figure out the rest from there.

Michael: There is always laughter at the table, and I always try to award a "Line of the Game" to someone who comes up with a funny line.

To be continued...