Cool Herculoids Game stuff

If you, like me, have a soft spot for animated sci-fantasy stuff like Herculoids, check out these cool .pdf's detailing some of the shows weird cast of creatures and characters in AD&D terms.

Thanks Tim, for sharing these!

Brave Halfling says "No More OSR"

Sadly, it looks like BHP will be leaving OSR territory to support Castles & Crusades and Eldritch RPG (an odd, obscure choice), exclusively, according to the blog post here. Ostensibly this is due to a hectic schedule and wanting to focus on his favorite games, thoughJohn has a couple of odd posts before that, here, and here, where he seems to be linking slow sales of BHP stuff to the OSR's excitement over supporting the LuLu contests for FightOn and Mythmere Games. I suppose its possible, but I would think attention for one publisher would be good news for the rest?

He then goes on to say that he receives "many profanity-filled emails and PM's from members of the Old-School community informing me that BHP, well, ought to just close up shop". Well, that sounds very strange to me, in the 2 years or so I've been following the OSR everyone has seemed very kind and gracious. Apart from the odd barrage leveled at 3E/4E, or the occasionally heated differences of opinion over one rule or the other, comments on folks' publishing efforts, projects, and blogs have been overwhelmingly supportive. At least that's been my impression. If you've been hurling curses at BHP and telling them to quit, well, what's up with that?

Despite this puzzling series of events, Brave Halfling put out some very cool-looking stuff for old-school games, including "People of the Pit", which J over at Grognardia gave a very favorable review, and the "Obregon's Dishonor" Carcosa adventure. In fact, these two came out very recently. I'm surprised John hasn't given these at least 6 months or a year to see how well these sell, rather than a few weeks, but I'm not in the publishing biz. At any rate, check this stuff out here on LuLu, and drop by to wish John the best of luck!

The Problem with Weapon Proficiencies

I was talking to a buddy the other day about how much I missed the classes of AD&D (brought on by showing off my fresh printed copy of OSRIC), and he asked why not just use that instead of S&W? One of the first reasons to pop into my head was my intense dislike of weapon proficiencies. Even back in the "glory days" of AD&D, I never liked this rule system. While it makes sense in some ways, I suppose by reflecting a characters "pre-hero" training with weapons, in so many other ways it just makes no sense at all.

As I ruminated on in The Folly of Realistic Rules, this is one of those little foibles of RPGs that, in my opinion, attempts to create a more "realistic" game environment, but fails. For one thing, there's no baseline to be advanced upon by weapon proficiencies. AD&D sets up a non-weapon proficiency penalty (-2 for fighters, -6 for magic-users, etc) that completely destroys the baseline of ability demonstrated by a level 0 nobody. Under this system, a fighter who picks up a polearm he is not proficient in is actually assumed to be worse with that polearm than a conscripted peasant.

If weapon proficiencies are thrown out the window, the relative power level between a first level fighter and a peasant make more sense. The fighter's better, whether he's had specific training or not. As he gains in levels, he gets progressively better than that peasant. By sixth level or so, you have a very sensible range of fighting ability: the 6th level fighter is better with a halberd than a 6th level magic-user, who's better with a halberd than a peasant. It makes more sense to me that characters get better at combat as they level, as opposed to having them slowly work off an arbitrary penalty. As Gygax stated, character background is what happens from levels one to six.

And what's that about magic-users using halberds? Well, another problem I have with weapon proficiencies is the assumption they make about "my" campaign. The standard class weapon restrictions as presented in AD&D (or in most versions of D&D) are presumptuous and arbitrary, in my opinion. As someone who's primary literary influence for D&D is pulp swords & sorcery, its far more natural for me to envision warrior-priests with tulwars and curvy knives, Vance-style magic-users with rapiers, and loincloth clad fighters scaling walls with daggers clenched in their teeth. Regardless of the weapon options given to the classes, a 10th level fighter is going to be more effective with a broadsword than a 10th level cleric, who's accordingly better with a broadsword than a 10th level magic-user.

Removing class weapon restrictions also broadens the range of available fantasy archetypes available when using a 3-class system like Swords & Wizardry. How many characters have actually multi-classed just to use a different weapon that those prescribed by their primary class description. There's nothing inherently *wrong* with class weapon restrictions, as I feel there is with weapon proficiencies, and magic-users with daggers and clerics with flails are sacred cows important to many gamers. I just don't feel it takes anything *away* from the game to remove them, while it can add alot of options that really don't unbalance anything.

Armor restrictions make a little more sense to me, as why would most adventurers even want to wear it? Its noisy, hinders climbing, jumping, and squeezing through small spaces, all frequently necessary activities in a dungeon. Especially an old-school "exploration" style dungeon. They travel alot, and armor is uncomfortable. Rather than make armor an option for all classes, it makes sense to me that there should be a system in place to decrease reliance on armor as a character levels. Maybe a bonus to AC equivalent to the character's effective bonus to hit? Should a 5th level fighter in leather be easier to hit than a man-at-arms in plate mail? Having more hp's resolves alot of that issue, but is it enough? Its something to ponder at least.

Wilderlands S&W session: Boars and Gores

Last session saw the intrepid explorers continuing north along the shores of the Sea of Five Winds, traveling mostly by night to avoid the patrols of Baron Ixpli. Ixpli, being nearly as smart as he is tenacious, soon expanded his patrols to include night expeditions, and his trackers were soon back on the party's trail, despite Tesmir's best elven woodcraft.

Further complicating things was Galya(the Baron's errant wife, having "escaped" her "imprisonment" via her seduction of Zurka)'s slow realization that skulking around in the wilderness night after night was not exactly the fullest realization of her romanticized vision of the future. The complaining started only two days and some thirty miles north of her home, and soon turned towards exhorting Zurka to simply stand and fight, implying he was more than man enough to face and kill Baron Ixpli.

Of course Odis immediately began advocating the hasty abandonment of Galya, encouraging Zurka to seek a "harlot" with "stronger nerves and weaker tongue";)

Deciding that finding a ship of some sort was only way to truly elude Ixpli's mounted patrols, the party doubled their speed and stuck close to the shoreline in hopes of spotting a fishing boat or anything to aid their escape. As they emerged out onto the beach, a half dozen of Ixpli's black-and-gold attired lancers burst from the dunes behind them and attempted to run the party down.

Tesmir stopped and threw up his arms, conjuring up a blast of hurricane-force wind that spewed up sand and water at the riders, causing their horses to rear up, screaming, and dismounting all but one the lancers, which was felled by a well-placed crossbow bolt from Odis's fancy new crossbow. Overmatched for the time being, the remaining riders calmed their mounts, remounted, and rode back the way they came, presumably to alert Ixpli to the party's location. Knowing their time was short, the party hastily raced forward again.

At last, they located a small vessel, seemingly abandoned on the shore, barnacle-encrusted, and upside down. Unfortunately for them, the beached boat was currently being used as the residence of gigantic wild boar, which immediately took offense to the party's invasion of its territory, and set about teaching them a violent lesson. The fight was brutal, and saw both Tesmir and Zurka viciously gored before they finally put the raging beast down.

Despite his wounds, the Avalonian swordsman was able to quickly assess what repairs were needed for the small vessel, and the party went to it, putting things back together "A-Team-Style" (cue military disco music), replacing some weak spots in the hull with fresh timber from the surrounding woods, and patching the holes in the tattered old sail with their own cloaks. Odis provided new rope for the rigging.

Before long, they had set sail for the north, passing just beyond the surf-line as they spotted a large group of black-and-gold lancers, their shrouded sorcerous leader in the front, but too far out of range for his black arts to have any effect.

Torgo Tuesday!

In light of his recent unemployment, Torgo has agreed to become the official mascot of Beyond the Black Gate. His duties will include promotional interviews, press conferences, and locating additional wives for the master.

Lets all give him a hearty "welcome aboard!".

BtBG Reader goes shopping, and scores!

Last weekend saw the annual Ravyn Family trip to the peaceful shores of Lake Chautauqua to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, eat good food, and watch fireworks. Oh, and to hunt for rare and hard-to-get books. The Chautauqau region features both an immense used book store, kept generously and diversely stocked with trade-ins from artists visiting the nearby Chautauqua Institution, as well as a fairly large flea market out in the middle of an unused airstrip.

I always come away from the weekend with two or three insteresting finds, but this year saw me driving home with no less than 13! Here's what I got:

E.R. Burroughs, "Pirates of Venus"(1979ed). This is the only one of his Venus books I never got a chance to read, so this was a treat to find, and good "research" for my Warriors of the Red Planet game.

E.R. Burroughs, "The Moon Maid"(?ed). Another Burroughs work I've never read. With 90-odd books, that shouldn't surprise me, but it does. I can't tell what edition this is, but tucked in the book, likely as a bookmark, was a campaing receipt from July 2nd, 1969. I can only imagine, 40 years ago, someone trading this in? Who knows.

Robert A Heinlein, "Red Planet"(1977ed). One of my favorite Heinlein works, and also good research material for my WotRP game. If you've never read this, its quite a treat, and I believe there are current editions available.

Arthur C. Clarke, "Against the Fall of Night"(1970ed). My favorite Clarke work, and probably in my top 5 sci-fi works of all time. Wonderfully melancholy work set at the end of human history. I had this in a collection of novellas that went AWOL years ago, so I was glad to find this.

John Eric Holmes, "Mahars of Pellucidar"(1976ed). Yes, this is the Holmes of "Holmes Basic" fame, one of the few writers able to secure license to write works set in the worlds of ER Burroughs. It should be an interesting read!

Isaac Asimov, "Second Foundation"(1971ed). I've been re-reading the original trilogy a chapter or two at a time this summer, but was lacking the third volume. Of course the collector in me was a bit sad that I'd have to get the contemperary edition, so I was pleased to find this edition that matches my set!

Talbot Mundy, "Tros of Samothrace"(1976ed). I've been keeping an eye out for this since J's review on Grognardia some months back. I'm looking forward to reading this with an eye towards the origins of D&D, as I did with Dying Earth recently.

Roger Zelazny, "Jack of Shadows"(1971ed). The first of my flea market purchases, I was tickled to find this Hardcover! version of my favorite Zelazny work in a box stuffed with romances and self-help guides. I have a tattered paperback version I loan out, it'll be nice to have an "archival" version I can save for posterity!

A.E. Van Vogt, "Quest for the Future"(1970ed). I've never been a huge fan of Van Vogt, more for lack of experience with his work than anything else. I mainly bought this book because: a)it was in a box with "Jack of Shadows" marked "2 for $1", and b) it has a bright orange cover with a giant iguana-monster lunging out of the sea to eat a hovering spaceman with a movie camera. Awesome!

Marvel Graphic Novel #2, "Michael Moorcock's Elric the Dreaming City"(1982). I'm fairly sure this is either a reprint of the graphic novel printed in EPIC magazine (or EPIC reprinted this). If it is the same version I'm remembering from the early 80's, its a pretty cool version.

Grimtooth's Traps(1981ed). My other flea market find, this was stacked with "Grimtooth's Traps Fore" and "Grimtooth's Traps Ate" (all in mint shape!), sitting inexplicably atop an old sea-chest at a vendor who seemed to deal mainly in antique wood-working tools. Maybe he was building traps out of these books in his spare time? He told me they were $2 each, so I offered him $5 for all three, which he accepted. A quick perusal of ebay tells me picking these three books up would run me $40-60, so a pretty good deal, I guess.

So I have plenty to keep me busy!

Another cool find at the flea market was a set of Batman Colorforms, which I grabbed for my 8-yr-old. Remember Colorforms!? I had the Kiss set when I was a kid...:)

Nesztor's Levitating Libram

Nesztor of Brechny was an odd man, even among wizards. His goal in pursuing sorcery was never to gain power or revenge, no godlike ambitions marred his psyche. Instead, it was flight that obsessed Nesztor's every waking moment, and most of his dreams as well. He was a bit of perfectionist, and loved to take the flight related spells of others and make them just a bit better, more useful, more powerful. Though Nesztor disappeared shortly after claiming he would fly to the moons themselves, up to four copies of his marvelous Levitating Librams are known to exist, as Nesztor was nothing if not generous with his work, the polar opposite of most wizards' near paranoid seclusion of themselves and their jealously guarded spells.

The tomes themselves are large, about 2' x 3'. The pages are hammered copper sheets held together in a teak-wood cover and bound in green, scaly leather of unknown origin. A removable brass ring, like a rune-covered door-kocker, adorns the cover (this is a Nesztor's Faithful Friend, detailed after the spells). True to its name, if placed flat on its back, the Levitating Libram always floats a couple of inches above whatever surface it is placed upon.

The tome contains the spells Levitate, Fly, and Summon Elemetal(Air), as well as the following:

Floating Disk
Level: 1
Range: 20'
Duration: 1 hour/level
This spell creates a three-foot-wide disk, invisible except for a faint greenish glow. The disk levitates one or two feet off the ground at all times, and will go wherever the caster commands, within twenty feet. The disk can support up to 100lbs of weight per caster level.

Nesztor's Remarkably Improved Floating Disk
Level: 2
Range: 20'
Duration: 1 hour/level
This spell functions as the normal Floating Disk, save that it creates an eight-foot-wide disk, that floats two or three feet off the ground, and can support up to 200lbs per caster level. Unlike the lesser Floating Disk, the caster can sit or stand upon it, and direct it about like a horseless chariot.

The Pummeling Fists of Arak-Zhorr
Level: 2
Range: 30'
Duration: 3 rounds
This spell, named for the infamous Air Elemental Arak-Zhorr, fills a twenty foot square with flailing fists of air. Anyone in the area of the spell sustains 1d6 points of damage per round and must save or have anything they are holding be torn from their grasp and thrown away from them.

Nesztor's Vastly Improved Spell of Levitation
Level: 3
Range: 20'/lvl
Duration: 1 turn/lvl
This spell functions the same as the normal spell of Levitation, except that the caster can levitate up to one other human-sized being per caster level along with himself.

Nesztor's Wondrous Flying Carpet
Level: 4
Range: Touch
Duration: 6 turns plus 1 turn/level
This spell enchants a carpet to fly at the whim of the caster. The spell can enchant a carpet of up to 10' x 10', which will hold up to eight passengers in addition to the caster, and fly at a speed of up to 60 miles per hour.

Also with each tome is a brass ring, about the size of a bracelet, the Nezstor's Faithful Friend, which summons forth a tiny air elemental with the intelligence of a dog. The elemental communicates through chirps, yelps, and other sounds, and will serve faithfully for up to seven hours a week. It can fetch objects of 5lbs or less, attack enemies for 1d4 points of damage, blow out fires, and fill the sails of a small boat with wind, among other things. It can only be hit by magical weapons, has an AC of 2[17], 1HD(7hp), and moves at a rate of 15.