10 for '10: New Year Gaming Resolutions

Here's hoping everyone has had a great holiday season, and has a debauched and (reasonably) safe New Year's Eve! If you haven't yet, he sure to grab your copy of the 2009 Beyond the Black Gate Compendium. Thanks for all the kind comments on this, I hope you get as much use out of it as I do.

Now on to my top 10 Gaming Resolutions for 2010:

1. More Gaming! While I enjoyed more old-school sessions in 2009 than in 2008, I still would like to get a regular weekly thing going. Optimistically, I've talked to quite a few local old-school ex-gamers over the last year or so, and with a little effort via phone and email, I can probably put something together.

2. More Writing! As I put the finishing touches on the Warriors of the Red Planet rough draft and an as-yet unannounced project (see certain past blog entries for clues!), I hope to get still more projects rolling for 2010. I have to say writing with an old-school ethic has certainly been liberating compared to the d20 projects I've worked on in the past. I've actually had to "re-train" myself to focus on real text rather than rules-crunching, and its been very educational.

3. See Warriors of the Red Planet published! As this gets closer and closer to a form I'm not terminally embarrassed of, I'm getting more and more excited about actually seeing it in print. Partnering up with the amazing Thomas Denmark really raised the bar on this for me, and made me seriously focus on turning what was basically a pet project of house rules for Sword & Planet gaming into something I can be proud of.

4. Convert at least one non-gamer. If you had asked me five years ago whether these great old-school games would actually see a resurgence, I would have had my doubts. I think its fantastic how things have taken off in just the last year or so, due in large part to the hard work of the RC, adventure, and supplement authors, the contagious enthusiasm of so many great bloggers, and the publishers of awesome old-school mags like Knockspell, Fight On!, and Green Devil Face. So here's hoping everyone does there part and brings at least one new gamer into the fold this year to enjoy this stuff.

5. Run a public Demo. I ran a couple of Megadungeon demos this year for friends, and this coming year I'd like to step it up a notch and run some at local cons. Also, 4E has made the local D&D Meetup chapter grow to huge numbers, and they welcome all manner of games, so I'm planning to run a few demos for these guys, too!

6. Contribute to Old-school Magazines. One of the more frequent comments I see on the blog is "you should submit this to (insert magazine title here)", so I plan on doing just that. Thanks for everyone's support and encouragement! You should see my first effort (already submitted) in print very soon...

7. Watch more Cheesy Movies. Since expanding my cable service (and, sadly, my cable bill *sigh*), I've rediscovered my love of cheesy sci-fi, fantasy, and horror flicks, and subsequently rediscovered how much cool stuff is out there to mine for great gaming ideas.

8. Expand my Pulp Library. Thanks in large part to Grognardia's awesome pulp library features and Paizo's wonderful Planet Stories, my appreciation for classic pulp fantasy and sci-fi continues to grow. I hope to post reviews of my more interesting finds here on the blog at least monthly.

9. Talk about Health. Is it gaming related? I don't know, but 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'm not sure, but I have some ideas, so stay tuned for more on this subject.

10. Help Promote Retro-clones at Game Stores. With Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord in print, I plan on making a point of visiting any local game stores and encouraging ("we wouldn't want any accidents to happen, now would we?") them to get these on their shelves ASAP.

So what are your gaming resolutions for the big '10?

A Gift for You.

I Hope everyone's having a great Christmas! My guys have been up for hours already breaking in the Wii, who woulda thought, a video where you stand up and move around instead of sitting and staring with glazed eyes...;)

Click here to download my Christmas gift to all of you: The Beyond the Black Gate 2009 Compendium.

Its packed with charts and other fun stuff I use at the table. Print it up "little booklet" style for maximum old-school effect. Hope you like it!

Happy Holidays!

Savage Swords of Athanor

One of my favorite bloggers, Doug of Savage Swords of Athanor, has put up his Weird Science Fantasy Goodness on LuLu. From the blurb:

"Savage Swords of Athanor is a science fantasy campaign setting and rules supplement for Swords and Wizardry. Athanor is a dying world with crumbling ruins, lost technology, dinosaurs, and ancient slumbering evil. Savage Swords of Athanor includes: new character class (the Rogue); modified spell lists and rules for magical mishaps; new races; a wilderness map, encounter charts, and key; and new monsters and items. This supplement includes material presented in the Savage Swords of Athanor blog, compiled, cleaned up and expanded as well as new material."

Get it here!

Warriors of the Red Planet - Dungeoncrawling on Mars

As I re-read several of Burrough's Martian books while working on Warriors of the Red Planet, I was surprised to note just how much action takes place in what we gaming fans would consider to be "dungeons". In fact, nearly every book features some sort of Underworld action. Burroughs was not alone; from the great cavern-factories of Kline to the mountain hive-cities of Norman, from a strictly literary perspective, "dungeoncrawling" seems more a part of Sword & Planet adventure than most "standard" fantasy fiction! To name a few:

The "Pits" - First introduced in A Princess of Mars, the martian gaol, or "Pits", is a maze of underground corridors and cells. Typically, these are huge complexes, but the martians seldom utilize more than a small area of them, leaving the rest to grow wild and frightening, inhabited by nameless, unseen horrors that feast upon forgotten prisoners. Most are also honeycombed with tunnels gnawed by the ulsio, the fearless, repugnant, hairless martian rat, a creature about the size of a large terrier and with the disposition of a wolverine. No prisoner may sleep peacefully in a martian dungeon for fear he will awaken with an ulsio trotting off with his arm in its mouth! Also, the gaols often feature hidden shops and laboratories, or may intersect with the buried ruins of long-dead cities.

Underground Rivers and Lakes - There are no true above-ground rivers or seas on Barsoom, but deep below ground are many tributaries leading to the River Iss, a mighty subterranian river. When the long-lived martian grows weary of the bitter struggle of life, he or she ventures into the underworld to follow the Iss to the martian paradise, the mythical Valley Dor, where they may rest amid peaceful surroundings (see Gods of Mars for more on this!). The course of the underground river is fraught with fearsome predators and natural hazards, and few indeed make it as far as Dor.

Ice Caves - The great glaciers of the north are riddled with tunnels and great caverns, many haunted by the fearsome Apt, a bloodthirsty predator. It is rumored that inhabited lands beyond the icy walls may be reached via these tunnels (see Warlord of Mars for more on this!).

Underground Cities - Some two miles beneath a great volcano lies the black underground sea of Omean, and on its shores and burrowed into its walls is the fables city of the Pirates of Mars, once rumored to come from the nearer moon of Mars. The city is a maze, with great chambers, flooded passages travelled by submarine, a great arena for gladitorial combat, sunless gardens of unearthly beauty, great temples that revolve with the passage of time, and trap-filled secret corridors and concealed doors linking every thing together. Elsewhere on Mars is a great underground city of tunnels, populated by repulsive, crablike creatures which ride headless humans like horses, and still elsewhere a buried, lost city populated by ancient undead who nonetheless believe themselves to be alive!

"Lost Worlds" - Subterranean cavern complexes and deep, shadowed valleys offer rich opporunties for the fearsome monsters of bygone ages to pick out an existence feasting on the occasional traveller or sacrificial victim. In Fighting Man of Mars, the adventure follows a cavern and underground river haunted by monstrous reptiles. Fighting through this only leads to the even more fearsome Valley of Spiders!

Megadungeon - Obviously, the potential for a Megadungeon in a Sword & Planet setting is immense, just drawing from a few resources like those mentioned above. A Martian Underworld location like Omean, perhaps a version conquered and left in ruins ages ago, to be populated only by rampant monsters, the degenerate remains of the original city's inhabitants, and the obscene, failed experiments of a mad scientist still plying his trade in the deepest Pits, would make for an immense dungeon that could span many campaigns worth of adventuring! Imagine an area like this:

Area 2.33: The Vault of Seven Chieftains -
The staggering dimensions of this natural cavern are almost too huge to define. Far above, ancient globes of irradium light still dimly illuminate the glittering strata of platinum and rubies that run through the ceiling. Opposite you, set into the wall, are forty-foot-high steel doors inscribed with the heiroglyphics of a bygone age. A crystal bubble filled with gold and silver clock-work gears joins the two doors together where a handle and keyhole would normally be set. A forest of stalacmites and stalactites obscures the far reaches of the cavern to either side of you, but you detect a hint of movement, and something dark scratches at the corners of your mind...
Nine Hrecha lurk in the far corners of the room, waiting for their master, Bors Borsinn, a 5th level Mentalist, to summon them to the feast. At even intervals around the cavern are seven crystal sarcophagi containing the perfectly preserved bodies of long-dead chieftains with faintly purplish skin (a race that died out eons ago). Their jewelled harness and ornate weaponry are worth in excess of 1200gp, but each sarcphogus is trapped with a gas that causes a slow rot (1hp per turn damage for 3d4 turns) to any standing within 10', failing a save. The bubble on the door can only be opened telepathically by reading a series of nineteen formulae inscribed upon the door. The heiroglyhics may be deciphered by a Scientist of 3rd level or higher. The skeleton of a Great Albino Ape lies just to one side of the door, covered in some faintly-glowing green fungus.

Hrecha: HD 5; HP 30, 25x2, 22, 20x3, 12x2; AC 5[14]; Atk 4 claws (1d4) or 1 bite (2d8); Move 6 (fly 18); Save 13; CL/XP 5/240XP; Special: Fly-By Attack (-2 to hit flying Hrecha).
Bors Borsinn, Mentalist Lvl5; AC 5; HP17; Powers 3/2/1; Irradium Pistol, Gas Belt, 22pp.




Past Previews

Still more on ships!

Check out the RPG Corner today for Ships of the Wilderlands, which includes some nice info on the Galley, Corbita, Longship, and Xebec.

More on ships - the Crew

Ship's Crew

Of course, a skilled and reliable crew was as important to a successful expedition as a sturdy and reliable ship. With a crew of only about twenty sailors, every man had a place on the Caravel. Some of the more important positions included:

Captain - A good captain will have served in every other position on a ship, and know the workings of the ship inside out. Some captains, however, attain their position through wealth or position in society, and must rely more heavily on the other ranking crew members. A captain needs to be familiar with supplies, travel times, costs of provisions, materials, and repairs, and a dab hand at maintaining crew morale is a must, especially for long voyages.

First Mate - As the captain's right-hand-man, the mate needs to be just as familiar with the workings of the ship as the captain, and also serves as a force for intimidation and order as well, especially for smaller crews with no official "sergeant-at-arms", and may also serve as quartermaster, allotting provisions and alcohol rations as necessary.

Boatswain - The boatswain is essentially the foreman of the deck crew, overseeing the basic operation of the ship, inspecting the rigging, planning and scheduling sailor's work duties, etc. Getting on the boatswain's bad side was a good way to spend a long voyage scrubbing out decks and emptying slop buckets.

Pilot/Navigator - A must for any but the shortest, shore-hugging voyage, the Navigator is responsible for plotting a course and knowing where exactly the ship is at all times. A Navigator lives and dies by his knowledge of the seas he travels, and jealously guards his maps and charts (cool map at the link). A Navigator with an extensive and accurate collection of charts is able to hire himself out at a premium. Not unlike the priests of a mystery cult, Navigators closely keep their secrets, preferring the masses to remain ignorant of the scientific truths they utilize. They are able to use an hourglass, the stars, the wind, position of the sun, magnetism, and other less obvious clues of nature to know where they are at and where they are going.

Arms and Armor

Despite the popular Hollywood view of ship-board combat, sabres and pistols waving, the common arms of the common sailor were a lot less glamorous. Swords were typically the arms of the nobility, requiring expensive training, and pistols, also expensive, don't often feature in most pseudo-medieval fantasy campaigns.

Pin - The most common shipboard weapon was the Pin, a heavy wooden, clublike implement (sometimes filled with lead for added weight) used to secure rigging, hatches, and within easy reach all over the ship. It makes for a handy and deadly weapon. Suggested damage for the Pin is 1d6.

Hook - Used for hauling cargo and pulling heavy ropes, rigging, and sails, the Hook was another weapon always within easy reach, and was often used in combat to pull an enemy sailor into a death-blow from a knife or hatchet. Suggested damage is 1d4, and target must save vs. Paralyzation or suffer automatic damage from a weapon held in the assailants other hand.

Hatchet - The hatchet was also kept within easy reach at all times, as often rigging needed to be cut free quickly to avoid damage to the ship or sails in inclement weather. It's short handle made it an effective weapon in crowded shipboard conditions. Suggested damage for the Hatchet is 1d6.

Crossbows - Crossbows were a common weapon of medieval ship-to-ship combat, and special oils and grease were needed to keep strings, screws, and cranks functional in the salty sea air. Quarrels dipped in pitch and set afire were a particular menace. Unlike traditional long or short bows, crossbows required little training and were more effective in cramped conditions.

Armor - Armor is typically not worn on ships, more due to its restriction on movement than for any fear of sinking (many sailors couldn't even swim, and freezing cold often finished off those that could!), but some more militant crews wore piecemeal scraps of leather, helms, bracers, coats, boots, and the like (this sort of "armor" should convey a bonus of no more than 1 or 2 to AC). Ship's marines usually wore whatever armor their infantry counterparts wore, though they typically engaged in sea-to-land combat, not ship-to-ship. Sailors, spending months or even years aboard their ships, become intimitately familiar with their confining deck conditions, and its recommended that ship-to-ship attackers suffer a -1 penalty to-hit defenders.

Sand - An another important defensive implement on ships was sand, and many barrels were kept on board. Sand was used to douse fire (such as that from naptha or "greek fire"), and to give slippery or bloody decks more traction.