Dreams in the Lich House

Firearms for LOTFP

2012-03-01T05:42:00.000-05:00

I was out checking out the recent LOTFP indie gogo and I saw something I missed last time - it's still the two modules that are being funded, but one of them also includes rules for firearms!

This is such a natural fit for that rules system. The horror and weird fantasy tone of LOTFP works really well in a Renaissance or early modern game, so I'm glad to see firearms added to the mix. Solomon Kane-style adventurers and musketeers need their muskets! James Raggi was threatening to add firearms to LOTFP last year, and here we are.

The two modules are suitably interesting - The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time is explicitly Lovecraftian, so that puts it right in my sweet spot for adventures, and I'm intrigued that the forward is by Kenneth Hite (besides authoring Trail of Cthulhu, he has a storied career writing other Mythos adventures and essays).

I don’t know much about the second adventure, The God that Crawls, other than it involves a cult in a dungeon, and includes rules for firearms. There's a picture of one of the monsters on the project site, and it looks a bit like Abhoth, or a shoggoth, or similar nasty thing from the Mythos. Great stuff. Just about every release from this publisher has been a home run, so I'm expecting similarly excellent adventures this time around. You can check out the project page here: The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time. Make sure to click over to the gallery to see the shoggoth-like monster.

It was pay day, so that's a good time to set aside some extra cash to a kickstarter or similar crowd-sourced project. Lulu also had a big sale, so I picked up a book that's been on my wish list, Play Unsafe, a piece on improv and gaming, by Graham Walmsley. Graham's done a bunch of Trail of Cthulhu scenarios, and I really enjoyed Stealing Cthulhu, a guide on adapting Lovecraft stories to gaming. That one's somewhere in my backlog of reviews to write. Actually, isn't Dungeon Master appreciation day coming up in a few days? RPGnow usually puts on a sale at that time, and there's a few RPGnow titles on the wish list, too.

I can't believe it's already March. This year is already flying by at breakneck speed.

The Battle of Tharizdun

2012-02-29T07:04:00.000-05:00

I'm doing something a little different this week. First off, I'm posting a game report mid-week; I usually put them up Friday or Saturday, right before the next game. But this one is loaded with pictures, as I want to give the players time to study the final disposition of the battle before Saturday so they formulate strategy. They're in a tight spot.

Here's the situation. Last game session, the party scouted a location they were calling the Black Temple. It's actually the site of WG4 THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE OF THARIZDUN. Tharizdun is another storied Gygaxian location in Greyhawk, and the designer notes indicate it was used in Gary's campaign as an adjunct to S4 THE LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH. Gygax's creations are known for intense tactical combat, and Tharizdun has the potential for a fierce pitched battle right near the entrance.

The Black Temple exterior is a step pyramid up on a mountain top, with a large ramp leading into the side of the top tier. A yawning passage leads into the side of the pyaramid.

The group sent an invisible thief up ahead to scout, who came back with a fairly detailed description of the interior, and the disposition of the various monster guards. When he returned, they set about to battle planning. This took a lot of time, but it was one of those situations where the planning was the important part of the game.

Initial monster set up after scouting

The party used a combination of invisibility effects and silence 15' spells to get their elf fighter magic user surreptitiously into the entranceway to open hostilities, while the rest of the group hung back to wait for his signal. He tossed away the rock carrying the Silence spell, and opened hostilities with a Sleep spell. That picture above is how things looked right before the elf threw the first Sleep spell. Groups of norkers and gnoll archers milled about on guard duty.

Cast of characters

You can see in this one, the group has thrown some sleep spells and moved in to engage. The pennies indicate sleeping monsters. I've mentioned that the movement rates in AD&D are really high compared to classic D&D, three times as fast, so characters can move super far. One player described it like being able teleport around the map. For example, a fighter in classic D&D can move 4 squares on a 5' grid each round; in AD&D the same fighter can move 12 squares. Unarmored guys move 24! That's like walking in from the next town over. So they were able to send the fighters to the flanks and the thieves straight ahead to start knifing sleeping monsters.

Unfortunately, things were about to take an ugly turn for the players.

The battle changes as the net falls

When the players first sent the thief up to search the entry way, two things went wrong: the thief missed a find traps roll, and when he described his search procedure, he completely omitted looking up or checking the ceiling; he missed seeing the large weighted net clinging up there, 30' up in the shadows. There were also some monsters hiding behind the entrance wall, controlling the net, that they missed on that first scouting trip.

The norkers hiding behind the entrance walls dropped the net, catching the clerics and magic users underneath a tarry mess, with weights and hooks. Because the characters all ended up near the edges, they had the chance to crawl their way out, but it would still take a few rounds, and they were getting pummeled by monsters with clubs in the meantime.

Mister Moore was right in the middle of the net, but his brownie familar, Packer, used Dimension Door to get him to the other side of the hall. Once he was recovered from the jaunt, he lined up a wicked lightining bolt (pictured) and this helped quite a bit. He would later snap off a fireball close by, as monsters swarmed him from the other side of the hall.

Unfortunately, the fighters were penned in by combatants, and they kept missing attack rolls. The druid and his bear companion had stayed back, avoiding the net, and giving the druid a chance to use Speak with Animals to get the bear ready for some fighting. Here's how things looked after the bear mauled its way through some norkers and moving closer to the front:

Druid to the rescue

The fighters are still pinned and surrounded. The two thieves, Grumble the Halfling and Digit the Elf Thief (the miniature with a sack over his shoulder) have been taking a beating since they were acting like front line fighters. Both of them now have hit points down to the teens. The clerics and magic users just escaped the netting and haven't had a chance to start engaging.

Board layout after Round 5

We use a battlemat about half the time, depending on how complicated is the situation. Since this one started with 40-50 monsters and characters, the miniatures and little wooden blocks really help keep it straight. I snapped the pictures to document the battle for the guys that missed, and also so we can set the board again next weekend. We game in an upstairs study that's not usually ransacked by the kiddos, but you can't be too sure with a 5 year old on the loose.

I'm curious to hear if other folks have played THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE OF THARIZDUN, but try to stay away from too many spoilers in the comments, since my players will read the game report to study the tactical situation for next week's game. They've got two injured thieves holding down the front line, their 7th level magic user is all alone at the front of the hall, their clerics took a beating getting out of the net, and their three tough fighters are engaged on the flanks - they've got plenty to think about. And is that the sound of reinforcements coming up the stairs?

Next week should be interesting. Let me know if the picture-by-picture display is worth it, maybe we'll do it again next week to finish off this battle.

Questions, Questions, Questions

2012-02-28T06:50:00.000-05:00

The theme of the weekend gaming blogosphere was QUESTIONS. Brendan posted a survey on DMing rules styles, and then I was tagged by the Evil DM.

RULES
This is a classic case of "do as I say, not as I do..." We're currently playing AD&D, and trying to play as by-the-book as possible, and that means stepping outside my comfort zone and seeing things from a different perspective. I'll answer these questions assuming I didn't currently have a social experiment in 1979-style AD&D running in my regular game slot.

Ability scores generation method?
3d6 in order

How are death and dying handled?
Zero hit points, d-e-a-d

What about raising the dead?
Definitely, at the local church. For money. Unless I'm going for a gritty, horror-themed D&D game, my default approach supports Raise Dead.

How are replacement PCs handled?
A level below the lowest character in the group.

Initiative: individual, group, or something else?
I prefer Individual initiative, but Group initiative works best for large groups and kids (which usually describes my groups).

Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work?
I prefer Crits as max damage, not double damage. (But players sure love that double damage).

Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet?
It's an assumed part of the armor class. If a player ditches their helmet, their head is AC 9.

Can I hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly?
Definitely.

Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything?
Be prepared to run.

Level-draining monsters: yes or no?
Definitely.

Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death?
Yes, that comes with the territory.

How strictly are encumbrance & resources tracked?
Too strictly for the player's taste. Systems like LOTFP or ACKS that simplify encumbrance calculation really help split the difference.

What's required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure, or do I have to wait for down time?
Return to town or any civilized spot for rest and recovery to gain levels. Low level magic users need to be near their teacher, but by mid-levels they get their own spells through research and scrolls.

What do I get experience for?
Treasure and monsters. I tend to give small, occasional ad hoc awards to the kids gaming with us when they exercise ingenuity and good problem solving skills.

How are traps located? Description, dice rolling, or some combination?
Proper description will allow anyone to find traps, but dice rolling can also work if the thief searches the right area.

Are retainers encouraged and how does morale work?
Retainers are necessary for survival, and morale is checked as required.

How do I identify magic items?
Experimentation and use

Can I buy magic items? Oh, come on: how about just potions?
It's not common, but definitely possible at the right market

Can I create magic items? When and how?
Both my preferred clone rules (LOTFP and ACKS) have excellent magic item creation rules

What about splitting the party?
Not recommended, but allowed

How is alignment used?*
Alignment reflects cosmic allegiance, and is not a straitjacket on behavior.

Are demi-human level limits enforced?*
Definitely

*Those last two questions I added, but they seem to be common fault lines in OSR games.

TAGGED!
What made you decide to write a blog?
I became a regular reader of some blogs and decided it looked like tons of fun. Huge Ruined Pile was one my favorites back then, until it went MIA. Once I actually became a blogger, I discovered there are a ton of great blogs out there.

What would you say has been the highlight of your blogging career to date?
Most of the folks who read my blog are fellow gamers, and enjoy either D&D or Call of Cthulhu, so I tend to think we have a ton in common. Far and away the best thing about blogging is seeing ideas bounce around amongst the blogs, and picking up new ones from the rest of the gaming community.

Name your favourite animal.
My dog. She licks the side of my face sometimes and is always happy to see me.

What has been the best thing to ever happen to you?
My dad brought home a copy of the 1981 Moldvay boxed set for basic Dungeons & Dragons on the way home from work because he thought I'd like it. How awesome is that? He's a great guy; one time he got me tickets for Die Walküre for Lincoln Center because I love opera, even though it bored him to tears and he dozed through the last act. I've been able to see Siegfried at the Met as well, but I haven't seen live performances of Das Rheingold or Götterdämmerung yet.

These days, my wife and family are the bringers of great joy. But I would't be the same person without developing that deep love for fantasy, games, and literature, back in 1981.

You are in a lift with a Nun, a middle-aged business man, a Karl Marx look-alike, a twenty-something female charity worker and Stephen Hawking. The lift shudders to a stop, the lights go out. There is a high-pitched scream followed by a thud. The lights come on and the Nun is lying dead on the floor with a knife in her chest. Who did it and why?

I saw that exact movie. Stephen Hawking did it, because he's secretly the devil, and when the lights go out again, someone else is going to be killed. All the people on the elevator have dark, hidden crimes, and their souls are being collected to pay for their awfulness. For instance, the female charity worker once cheated on a test. Stephen Hawking has no mercy for cheaters, especially when its a math or science test.

Name your favourite colour.
Orange. It's the color of Broncos jerseys and pumpkins. I have a ton of orange shirts.

What has been the scariest thing to ever happen to you?

I had eye cancer and needed to have a major operation. I still have the eye, but the vision in that one eye isn't great. All hope of me playing professional baseball was gone (not that I had any to start). The cancer was totally gone, but that was pretty scary stuff. Luckily it was a long time ago!

You are about to break the world record for the tallest house of cards in front of a crowded room of onlookers and world press. All of a sudden, some idiot parent allows their errant child to charge over, knocking into your table, sending your world record beating attempt crashing around you. What do you do next?

I wake up in a cold sweat, and tell my wife we should never have kids. Then she tells me, it's too late, we have three of them. I can't stop screaming after that.

If you had to spend a month on a tropical island, what four luxury items do you take with you?

Notebooks, graph paper, and and a package of mechanical pencils. I'd finally get the Black City done. For the last item, I was considering some weights to stay in shape, but maybe that's not such a problem on a tropical island. Instead, I'm now thinking the last thing would be a book -either The Worm Ouroboros or The Chronicles of Amber. Both are hefty reads that are on my list to read again.

Once on your tropical island you are allowed to have one person of your choice to stay with you. Now this can be anyone famous, living or dead, fictional and from any period of time/history - loved ones are not allowed - who do you choose and why?

Dejah Thoris. Because she's a famous pulp fantasy adventurer and would help with campaign inspiration. She'd be along for her mind, you perverts.

What has been the worst impulse purchase of a totally useless item (one you convinced yourself into believing you needed, but didn't)? What was it, and do you still have it?

4th Edition. Luckily, I ebayed all the 4E stuff well before the WOTC announcements. Honorable mentions still in my gaming closet include a huge box full of these little plastic Pirates of the Spanish Main plastic cards/models, or maybe the Heroclix Watchmen collector set, which we've never actually used in a Heroclix game. Total impulse buy. But most of the time I ruthlessly divest gaming stuff that I no longer intend to use.

Cthulhu Campaign Elements

2012-02-27T06:24:00.003-05:00

So far in the Lovecraftian sandbox, I've focused on the kind of campaign structure and investigations that support player choice and agency; I'm ready to wrap the series up next week with a sample campaign. This week we'll look at a bunch of elements that frequently show up in Cthulhu games. I'm putting this list together to make sure I "check off the right boxes" as I compile notes for the setting.

Antagonists
This one is pretty obvious, most investigations involve a (human) villain or cult, and usually some kind of Cthulhoid horror. If you're starting your scenario design with the awful truth and working backwards, you've had to figure this out already. I find some of the most interesting villains are those that end up using Mythos magic as a means and not an end, and don't consider themselves insane worshippers of an outer god. It always goes horribly wrong for them, like the guy that built Jurassic Park. Munch munch.

Organizations
I don't recall too many recurring organizations in Lovecraft's actual stories, but they're excellent devices in a campaign. An individual antagonist can be removed, but the organization endures and continues to plot against the player characters (or the world). Well-known examples in some of the published campaigns include The Masters of the Silver Twilight, or the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh. I really like some of the organizations in the Delta Green book, like the Karotechia (undead nazi sorcerors) or The Fate (mythos wizards running an organized crime network). One of the closest examples in Lovecraft's work would be the Cthulhu Cult, as we catch glimpses of a world-spanning conspiracy in the eponymous story.

Eldritch Places and Ominous Locales
Investigations will already feature interesting and ominous locations; when I think of this as a campaign element, it means putting in a recurring location that will have an impact beyond a single investigation. It could be a mundane location with occult overtones like The Fate's Club Apocalypse, or something completely beyond the mortal realm, like The Great Library of Celaneo (an alien library orbiting a distant star, only reachable via magic). Resources and sources of knowledge are ideal for this role.

Bystanders
My view of the Lovecraft campaign structure involves the players belonging to an organization that allows the campaign to survive frequent character death; the first set of NPCs will be other folks in the organization, peers and patrons. In the Armitage campaign idea, this would mean students and other professors. Recurring (mundane) locations should have NPCs associated with them, and as we learn more about the player characters, some personal attachments can be added, too.

I tend to be on the fence about how much time to require players to put into background notes up front; ideas like pillars of sanity and sources of stability from Trail provide some convenient mechanics for at least jotting down quick notes without too much depth, so that's probably the approach I'd use for campaign play.

It might seem obvious, but one of the best uses for bystanders is vicarious horror. Inflicting horrible things on bystanders foreshadows what might happen to the player characters, and builds tension before the player characters become directly exposed to the awful truth.

Tomes and Artifacts
A number of Lovecraft stories directly involve eldritch tomes or artifacts, so this is another element that will probably end up in some investigations already. Two quick examples the reader will recall would be the Necronomicon itself, and the Shining Trapezohedron from Haunter in the Dark. I like eldritch tomes in the campaign, because they present real dilemmas for players to decide how much to read them because of the associated sanity loss. The other suggestion here is to consider multipart artifacts, so that the artifact's significance extends longer into the campaign. One that jumps to mind are the many pieces of the R'lyeh Disc, which show up in Shadows of Yog Sothoth as a scavenger hunt theme.

That's it for this week; I'll pull it all together next week and put up a sample Lovecraft sandbox. Well, I'm calling it a "sample", but it could easily be the one I use this spring when we start some episodic Cthulhu games.

--On the image above: Anyone remember Chaosium's old Mythos TCG card game from the 90's? I must have a thousand of those in a card box in the attic - I might have to bust them out sometime for a retrospective.

Troll Fight Deconstructed - Gothic Greyhawk Game 55

2012-02-25T12:19:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week, I made a post identifying all the things that stood out for us as "different" in AD&D combat (Playing AD&D Combat Like it's 1979) versus the classic editions we've played the most. What motivated those observations is the fight described below. Instead of the normal approach to a game report, I'm changing it up to include a round by round account of how this particular AD&D fight developed.

The party had camped for the night and deployed their standard watches; during one of the shifts, Moore (MU), Mordecai (Cleric), Shy (Fighter), and Digit (Thief), were sharing the watch. The party typically can't be surprised when Moore is up and active, because his brownie familiar prevents surprise. The watch men became aware of some monsters at encounter range, when a stench drifted into the camp and they heard the sound of claws clambering on rocks out in the dark.

The group won initiative, and adjusted their placement slightly; the fighter moved to the edge of the camp and "held his combat action", but the casters had no one to target yet and declared no spells; you can’t "attack the darkness". The elf thief also passed. They called out for everyone else to wake up; a handful of people started to stir (based on rolls).

One thing I mentioned in the combat post is that movement rates in AD&D are really big. When the monster's turn came, they had enough movement to close to melee range from out of the darkness (and in AD&D, you can close slowly without giving the other side a swing). As the monsters entered the firelight, the party saw it was a pair of trolls.

In round 2, Moore declared a fireball, and Mordecai declared a prayer spell. The party won initiative, and Digit the thief moved off to the flank and ducked out of the light, attempting move/hide rolls. Shy swung and tagged a troll. The fireball was aimed so that it would roast the back of the trolls but not the character in melee with them - I make the player make a roll when attempting such finely aimed placement, and use grenade rules to determine the shift, so it's possible to catch your own guy in the blast. But after reading how AD&D favors catching friendly characters in missile fire (because of the assumed movement during a round) I'm probably being too generous!

Meanwhile, characters that were still in their tents and under blankets started to clamber out and get to their feet in round 2.

On the troll's turn, Shy was targeted by both trolls doing their claw\claw\bite routines, and he took like 30+ damage.

For round 3, more casters were up, and all the arcane casters switched to magic missiles. The rolled initiative was simultaneous, so spells would be delayed by casting times. Previously, I said we'd use weapon speed to break ties in simultaneous combat, and the trolls had natural weapons, so their attacks would happen first. Rolling multiple double damage crits, the trolls did enough damage to put the fighter well below -10 in a single round, killing Shy. Whether Shy would have gotten a swing was immaterial to the result, but the group got upset that each monster's entire attack routine (like claw/claw/bite) all happens on the same initiative and doesn't get staggered down the segments like player multiple attacks. Thus, I encouraged everyone to pour over pages 61-71 of the 1E DMG to get a handle on AD&D's combat system (and compare/contrast with how OSRIC streamlined things).

Digit had skirted the trolls and made a sneak roll to come up behind them; by now, other fighters like Leonidas and Kobra, who had clambered to their feet last round, charged the trolls on their turn. Magic missiles went off a segment later, and the trolls were pounded by 3-4 magic missiles per caster (Forlorn, Moore and Konstantine all unleashed spells).

The fight ended on Round 4, with the party winning initiative and destroying the last troll. They had plenty of wooden brands to thrust into the fire and cauterize the troll corpses. Mordecai had been carrying a scroll with Raise Dead, and they decided to Raise Dead on the spot. This generated a ruling; Raise Dead implies that a character needs a day of bed rest for each day they were dead; what if they were dead only a few minutes?

After seeing what a mess the AD&D weapon speed rules are (at least as presented in the 1E DMG), I'm fairly sure we'll be dropping them, and just using weapon lengths during a charge movement as a differentiator. But the comments from the other day had some good suggestions, and I'm going to see how 2E suggested using weapon speeds and initiative.

One critique I have for the group's play is how they use the clerics. We started this campaign using LOTFP (the original version) a long time ago; when the group got to the mid-levels and we agreed to work in all sorts of classic AD&D modules, we converted to Advanced Edition Companion (and now AD&D 1E) because AD&D's classic modules are combat-heavy and AD&D clerics fight as well as fighters - a big change from LOTFP's approach, where clerics never improve at fighting ability. The group needs to keep that in mind; if the plate-armored cleric had supported the front line with Shy, it's likely they wouldn't have had to waste their Raise Dead.

I have a few quick questions for readers. I remember Raise Dead caused a 1 point loss in Constitution, but I couldn't find that in either the PHB or DMG; is that only a 2E and later rule?

The AD&D Monster Manual has curious phrasing about trolls and regeneration. Classic D&D specifically says trolls don't regenerate from being burned with fire or acid; AD&D phrases it differently. Trolls regenerate (no exclusion for damage types), but the only way to permanently kill them is applying fire or acid. I read that to mean trolls regenerate from everything, but when they're at zero hit points, that's when burning keeps them dead. Maybe I'm reading it too closely; maybe you can't read anything in AD&D that closely.

For folks that follow these game reports for the story side of things, here's how the group got to this point: they had apologized to the gnomes, and through diplomacy, brokered a deal where they would tackle the Black Temple and the monstrous forces that were harassing the gnome vale, while the gnomes would patrol the lost caverns in the interim. The two groups would use caged pigeons and speak with animals to keep these disparate forces in communication, since they'd be many days apart across mountainous terrain. The troll encounter happened after days of travel, when the group camped not far from the Black Temple. They're planning a scouting mission for the following day.

Here was one significant thing: one of the meatshield rangers earned a name! The party was tracking the monstrous raiders from the gnome vale across various mountain valleys, but on the third day, a drizzle started around 3am, and by sunrise, the tracks had taken a couple of hours of rain. The chance to track was down to 5% and dwindling hourly.

Meatshield 1 took the lead and the player attempted a tracking roll - and made it with a 03%! The group cheered, since they were actually near the Black Temple and found it that morning. They gave him an immediate promotion to a fully named henchman member of BK Inc.

Meatshield's new adventuring name is "Bing McQuest"; he can find anything for which they're searching. They debated calling him Yahoo or Google, but figure they can save those for future rangers.

War Versus Sport... and A Game of Thrones

2012-02-24T06:25:00.003-05:00

Bronn has just killed Ser Vardis Egen in a duel, and thrown him out of the Moon Door. The Lady of the castle, Lysa Arryn, is furious.
Lysa Arryn: You don't fight with honor!
Bronn turns to face Lysa, smiling mockingly
Bronn: No...
Bronn points to the open Moon Door
Bronn: ...he did.

There was an idea that spread through the blogs a few weeks ago; a useful way to differentiate new school from old school play styles is to use a metaphor of War versus Sport. (The idea started on an Enworld thread here: Combat as sport vs Combat as war).

War:
There is no such thing as a fair fight. Melee fighting is a last resort, and when it happens, players are expected to use every way possible to get an advantage and stack the odds in their favor. The DM is under no obligation to provide balanced encounters, so survival is contingent on the players sizing up threats and responding accordingly, including running. In game terms, Save or Die effects and level drains emphasize the dangers of casual combat.

Sport:
Later editions create the expectation that fights are essentially fair. Elements like the challenge rating, encounter level, or encounter experience budget allow and encourage the DM to build combat encounters at or slightly above the group's power level, and the underlying game systems assume opponents are evenly matched. Players can engage in combat with more confidence of victory, and more time is spent working through intricate tactics within the scope of a tactical combat, instead of figuring out ways outside of the combat to skew the results, as in the "War" approach.

Wow! Every time I think about the difference between those two approaches to combat, I think of Bronn and last season's A Game of Thrones on HBO. Bronn is a low-born, scrappy mercenary, who survives in a world of powerful, armored knights, through wits and strategy.

In the scene from above, he sees an opportunity for profit by agreeing to fight Sir Vardis in a trial by combat. The loser will be thrown out of the Moon Door, an open hole over a yawning abyss; the castle is perched on a mountainside. Ser Vardis expects a straight up duel, a fair fight; Bronn runs away, throwing obstacles in the knight's path like torches and candelabras, he makes the knight chase him up and down some stairs, even using the crowd as a barrier. As Ser Vardis tires out, Bronn hits him in the hamstring from behind, limiting his mobility even further. Then it's all over.

Bronn is OLD SCHOOL.

Season 2, chronicling the events of A Clash of Kings, should be right around the corner - I think it starts April 1st here in the US. Rock on. If you missed Season 1, it's worth catching online or on-demand... I read the books years ago, but found the TV series an enjoyable romp. It provides a game master lots of inspiration for power politics in a fantasy game.

How Do You Read Blogs?

2012-02-23T05:44:00.001-05:00

I find that I am split between identities - I've been blogging as "Beedo", an old avatar name from time spent on discussion boards in distant years. But G+ uses my regular name. It seems that when you link your blog to your G+ account, the accounts merge and your blogger profile disappears. Must Beedo die for my G+ account to fully live?

Here's a more serious question - how do you keep up with your favorite blogs these days? The common options seem to be using Google reader or a similar feed reader- either by subscribing or following a blog; watching your G+ stream for posts; going to the blogroll of one of your favorite bloggers and clicking on blogroll links; bookmarking your favorites; doing a Google search when you feel like checking up on a place.

Before I push the shiny red button and explode Beedo into a cloud of electrons, it seemed like a good time for a poll - let me know how you keep up with your favorite blogs. Thanks!

Oh - as for me, I tend to use Google Reader. I urge folks that use blogger to go into their settings under feeds and allow full feeds; many times I can't click through to your place if I'm at the office, but I can still stay in touch with the feed. Why limit your ability to be read and enjoyed?

Playing AD&D Combat Like It's 1979

2012-02-22T05:00:00.022-05:00

It seemed like such a good idea a few weeks ago. "Hey, you know what fellas? AD&D is being reprinted! We're already playing Labyrinth Lord with the Advanced Edition Companion - it's practically AD&D now, so why don't we just convert all the way?"

Let me tell how you that's working out.

First, the good news. I still have a group of players, and the game hasn't blown up, but then again, I haven't sent out invites for next weekend's game. (We'll see who shows up). After a few days of pouring over pages 61-71 of the DMG this weekend, the general consensus from the guys seemed to be, "WTF, Gygax?"

I consider EGG a creative genius; I love his adventure modules, especially those classic high level AD&D romps from the 70's, with their blend of exploration and intricate, tactical combat. But his gift was not the art of clear and understandable rules.

Here are our observations on how AD&D by-the-book differs from the beloved editions.

Surprise
There's a requirement of calculating how much the surprised side lost the roll, because they get punched in the face over and over again for that many segments - just bam, bam, bam, straight rights, to the kisser. Luckily, I don't foresee this happening often; the group has 2 ranger meat shields and a Brownie familiar named Packer, so they usually can't be surprised, and since they clomp around in plate mail holding continual light spells, the only monsters they can surprise are already deaf and blind.

Initiative
The high roll wins initiative, but then you calculate the number of segments between the two rolls to determine when the other side gets to go. So when the party rolls a 5, and the monsters roll a 2, the party actually goes on 1, and the monsters actually go on 4. Perfectly clear.

My house rule is that the winner is the low roll, and the sides act on the segment showing on the die; in the example of a 2 and a 5, the 2 wins initiative and acts on segment 2, the other side starts on 5. It keeps the spirit of the rule without the awesome math.

One of the characters was getting double teamed by a pair of trolls last game, and wasn't happy that all 6 attacks were happening at the same time. Of course, I knew there was a rule calling out "attack routines" like claw\claw\bite as a single attack sequence (and not the AD&D definition of multiple attacks, which happen staggered later in the round), but of course I couldn't find it mid-game. (It's here in the section on initiative).

Random Missile and Melee Targets
When firing into a melee, you randomly determine the target - including friends. It turns out you randomly determine the opponent for a melee swing, too. No more tactics around "let's whittle down the wounded monster". Random, I say!

Closing to Striking Range
In classic D&D, every combatant can move 1/3 of their speed each combat round and still make an attack; the typical plate-wearing fighter can move 20' and swing. Players get used to being able to move and attack.

AD&D handles things… differently. First off, you can move your entire movement (60' - or should I say - 6") and then neither side gets a swing for the rest of that round. Monsters that move 12" can cover a gigantic chunk of terrain - that's like the next zip code. Then they move in carefully the last few feet and ensure neither side gets in an attack. One of the guys likes this, from the perspective that winning initiative is no longer a penalty - you can saunter up and tie down the front liners. Everyone else, not so much.

If you really want to move and attack, it's got to be a charge - you lose your AC dexterity bonus, run like mad, but you get a +2 to the swing. However, the guy with the longer weapon gets the first attack when the charger enters melee distance, and you better hope they don't have spears or pole arms.

I don't mind the AD&D approach to closing to striking range, but the players hate it. Most of the time, monsters are coming out of the dark, and the party doesn't even see them until they enter the lighted up zone, and then the monsters tie down the front line because they "closed to striking range". Roll a new initiative. Muhaha.

Weapon Speed Factors
Weapon speed factors are not very coherent. I was using speed factors to break the tie in simultaneous combat, but after a closer reading of that section, I saw that it actually says you only use speed factors when both guys are using weapons! So a natural weapon wouldn’t count, and you wouldn't break out weapon speed factors when fighting monsters armed with claws. But then the very next sentence goes on to point out that fist/punch (a natural weapon that uses a weapon speed of 1) would strike before a dagger, at speed 2, if there was a tie, and I was back to being thoroughly confused.

I won't even go into the next series of paragraphs, which speak to how one combatant with a really fast weapon might get a bunch of swings before the other guy gets a single swing, all in the same round. I have no idea how that's meant to interact with multiple attacks, attack routines, and who knows what else. Everyone should be swinging daggers!

Luckily, there's this quote over on Dragonsfoot where Gary, in later years, had this to say about weapon speeds:

"Aargh! Forget weapons speed factors. I must have been under the effect of a hex when I included them in the bloody rules."

When the boss says a rule is bunk, I'm glad to drop-kick it. Hey, what are the odds that WOTC takes a Sharpie to the weapon speed factor section of their reprints and puts Gary's quote in the margins?

OSRIC to the Rescue
Let's say you want to jump on the AD&D bandwagon, like us. The new books are coming out, and in a euphoria of gamer attention deficit disorder, you too retcon your campaign. Don't end up with edition beer goggles! There's no need to wake up in the morning, your hand draped over the 1E DMG, reaching for aspirin and alkaselzer and wondering if you went to one of those Elvis chapels to get permanently hitched to that efreet cover.

OSRIC dumps the weapon speed factors (per the boss's quote up there) and restates the AD&D combat rules simply and clearly. You get all the perks of running AD&D combat without having to cross-index the text, like a Biblical scholar, and deal with the obfuscation. Plus, the OSRIC pdf is well-hyperlinked and tablet friendly; you can get your own copy here: OSRIC. I can truly appreciate the awesome job those guys did!

The 1E DMG is a great read, but it's not the best reference for use while actually running a game. I'm reminded how I started with Moldvay BX, and all those years playing "AD&D" back in the 80's meant that we were really just using the BX combat system with the player's handbook and monster manual. Judging by my player's reactions, they're encountering the AD&D combat system for the first time as well. Wish us luck as we continue to play (mostly by the book) as if the Moldvay BX edition was never printed in 1980.

I do think the players are *really* enjoying spell components and casting times in melee. I've got a nose for these things.

Build Your Own Investigation

2012-02-21T08:29:00.001-05:00

This week's blogthulhu is looking at different approaches to constructing investigations. The goal of the series has been to outline a step-by-step approach to building a Cthulhu campaign that can be run as an investigative sandbox; previous columns are here: Blogthulhu. Let's look at the advice the core books have provided on structuring investigations.

Call of Cthulhu
The core book presents the classic overview of how a scenario unfolds:

A mystery or crisis is posed
The investigators become linked to the problem.
The investigators attempt to define the mystery.
The investigators use the clues and evidence to confront the danger.
They mystery or problem is solved.

The key step in the classic view is step 3, defining the mystery. Clues are gathered, NPC's are questioned, and the problem solving happens. However, there's not a whole lot of method in the old COC book, just some sample investigations. The other thing I've always remembered from COC is its use of an onion metaphor; each phase of the adventure is like the layer of an onion - once the players penetrate the first layer, they realize there's another layer underneath, and so on.

Trail of Cthulhu
Trail challenges the Keeper to develop three pieces of information - what is the plot hook that engages the characters, what is the horrible truth behind the scenario, and what is the trail of clues that leads from the initial plot hook to the horrible truth?

It seems like common sense to start with the end of the scenario (the horrible truth) and work backwards; start with the center of the onion and cover it with layers, working outwards to the last peel, so to speak. One thing to be wary of with the Trail approach is this reliance on a breadcrumb trail of clues leading from point A to point B to point C; they call it "the spine", and if the idea is taken too literally, the investigation will seem linear. In practice, though, it's fairly easy to make sure the path meanders, and to ensure there are events that ratchet the tension or sidetrack the action as the players probe the mystery - Trail calls them "confrontational scenes", and they're a way to introduce reactions by the other side. Finally, there's this idea of "floating clues", which I'm not terribly fond of, unless I'm using a lot of improvisation in the scenario. Floating clues are a tool to get an investigation back on track.

Last week's post mapped the flowchart of "The Haunting" as a dungeon, and it can be analyzed using the Trail approach fairly easily. The horrible truth is that a previous owner of the house, now interred as an undead monster in a secret chamber in the cellar, exerts a baleful influence throughout the house. There are two trails of clues to follow, a research path that goes through various library, newspaper, and court records, or a physical path that involves careful searching of the basement. Finally, the plot hook involves being hired by the landlord, after the last set of renters ended up in the asylum. Simple! Phrased thusly, you could write an investigation like that, couldn't you?

There are many scenarios that don't use a linear breadcrumb trail of clues to meander along a path, but rather a "cloud" of clues surrounding the subject matter. I rather think of them more like Call of Cthulhu's "onion peel". There's a layer or two of obfuscation that conceals the truth, not single path. I was taking a look at "Edge of Darkness", a popular introductory scenario for COC, and recently read another popular scenario, "Mister Corbett" (from Mansions of Madness), and both scenarios follow a similar structure: they start with a simple, awful situation. The players learn enough up front to head right to the site of the scenario, guns blazing (metaphorically, at least), or they can choose to take a circumspect approach and do non-linear research. For that matter, both "The Haunting" and "The Kingsbury Horror" from last week are really close to this structure as well; while a few of the clues in both scenarios have prerequisites, creating a slight breadcrumb trail, the group is otherwise free to choose between following a research path or kicking down doors.

There are some high profile Cthulhu campaigns that involve lots of directive action by NPC's; the group of players is a bit like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, popping in to observe a key scene when they're sent for, or sent to, a certain locale, and the whole thing involves a lot of puppetry by the game master. Blech. A few bad apples have created this reputation that "horror game means rail road". This is false. As I review more Cthulhu scenarios, I'll call out the ones that require Keeper puppetry to move the investigation along; there are plenty of well-done alternatives.

One final note; the past two weeks have focused on structure, and identifying structures that support the kind of agency we enjoy in old school games, like the dungeon crawl. Structure does not equal content. I'm considering what is to be said about making a good mystery, how much information is too much, and how to create an elegant puzzle that challenges the players. Another thing to look at is the other elements I like to put in a campaign. I've got a week to decide which one comes next...

Review of Barrowmaze

2012-02-19T16:03:00.009-05:00

I had the chance to read Greg Gillespie's* Barrowmaze this week. Barrowmaze is a large dungeon beneath a barrow-ridden moorland. It's not explicitly stated, but my sense is that characters would reach 5th level or so by the time they exhausted Barrowmaze's opportunities - that's a lot of adventuring. The PDF is 87 pages and you can get it at the usual suspects (Barrowmaze at RPGnow); it's a great value for $6.66. The statistics are officially for Labyrinth Lord and the Advanced Edition Companion.

The atmosphere of the dungeon makes an immediate impression. Imagine a haunted moor outside of the nearby village, small hillocks shrouded in mist, hiding barrow mounds, or rings of standing stones, on the crests of the hills. It's hard not to be reminded of the village of Bree and the famous barrow downs from Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, and it made me realize - it's about time we've seen a cool published adventure that placed a large, sprawling dungeon beneath a haunted moor!

Continuing the theme, the dungeons under the moors are creepy, quiet, and strewn with undead. A dark power has defiled many of the crypts, transforming the interred remains into hungry monsters. But the treasures and magic belonged to an ancient culture, and the only thing standing between the adventurers, and great wealth, is whether they have the requisite courage.

Barrowmaze breaks the mold of the traditional vertical dungeon, extending horizontally, instead - the further one travels from the entrance, the more difficult it becomes. It's loosely divided into four different sections of difficulty -the antechambers, the haunted tombs, deserted dormitories, and finally, the death vault.

The author has used some interesting techniques to reinforce the theme of plundering long sealed tombs. There are frequent calls for excavation, or smashing through bricked up walls, to reach the hidden room beyond; much of the treasure is interred in burial catacombs (niches) carved into the walls, which require careful searching. Time is always a factor. There are 30+ new monsters, although 10 or so of them are conversions, bringing monsters to Labyrinth Lord that you may remember from the Fiend Folio or Monster Manual 2, like the Huecuva or Coffer Corpse.

Fun in the Barrowmaze!

The writing in Barrowmaze is informal; the design notes and introduction read like one gamer speaking to another gamer. This tone, along with the many pieces of art by Stefan Poag, portraying parties of adventurers in various stages of combat or exploration, gives the adventure a strong hobbyist vibe. Greg claims that Barrowmaze was the backbone of his home campaign, and it feels like a piece that started as a well-cared for home brew that has been elaborated and developed into a published work, ready for market.

I love the atmosphere of the sprawling labyrinth of crypts and ruins beneath a field of haunted barrow mounds, and I think this would be fun for any old school group to experience. There are enough factions and mysteries beneath the hills to provide drama, and give a party actual enemies to plot against, besides the many undead horrors. I guess the best praise is this: I'm already thinking this one will go to the top of the queue when the weather warms up, and I start another weekend kid's game with my son and his neighborhood friends. Barrowmaze would slot nicely into The Grand Duchy of Karameikos on the haunted moorlands beyond the town of Kelvin.

Hope you enjoyed the review!

*Greg's alter ego is Kiltedyaksman, over at the Discourse and Dragons blog.

Gothic Greyhawk Game 54 - One Mouthy Mage

2012-02-17T22:57:00.003-05:00

Meeting the gnome king from Tsojcanth*

Player Characters:
Mordecai, a Cleric-7: Adam
Forlorn, an Elf F/MU 5/5: Bo
Mister Moore, Magic User-6: Mike
Shy, a Fighter-6: JR
Leonidas the Paladin-5: Nogal
Digit, the Elf Thief-7: Z
Konstantine, Magic User-5: Smitty

Henchmen:
Phat Kobra, a Dwarf Fighter-5
Grumble the Smug, Halfling Thief-7
Donavich, Cleric-5
Boris, Druid-4
Meatshield 1, Ranger-1
Meatshield 2, Ranger-1
Ireena, a Fighter - 5
Vlad the Inhaler, Magic User-1
Meatshield 3, Cleric-1
*Italicized characters are back in Barovia

Since there hasn't been a lot of dungeon crawling lately, I'm endeavoring to keep these game reports brief.

The day after defeating the trio of hill giant brothers, our intrepid adventurers looted their cave, then sojourned through the southern passes towards the gnomish vale. Mountain highlanders were encountered and befriended, in part due to the party's own clansmen, Meatshield 1 and Meatshield 2, and within a few days, they were escorted to the bucolic gnomish vale; the highlanders were vassals of the gnomish king. (I have skipped copious roleplaying and blah blah blah).

I know the typical reader couldn't possibly remember the details of what's important in our weekly game sessions, or why the group is obsessed with finding an entire vale full of talking lawn decorations, so here are reminders why the group believes the gnomes are important: 1. They're convinced Tosjcanth is near the gnome vale. Their target is still THE LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH, after all. 2. Leonidas had a vision of a sword in a stone in the gnome vale, and is convinced Zeus granted him a vision of a holy sword he's meant to recover.

During a feast with the gnome king, they learned how the vale was under attack by minions of "the Black Temple", an evil place south and west of the vale. A long winding tale was told by the DM (back story monologue…. ZZzzzzzzz) about the Elder Elemental God, the awful priests that sought to wake it, and a mighty patriarch and the Knight Valorous that broke the strength of the cult 150 years ago. The knight died, his sword was sunk in a stone, and the surviving priests of the Black Temple looted the place and went elsewhere. Now a new power seems to have claimed those ruins, a furious mountain giant, who seems to be building an army of gnome-hating minions. The vale has been attacked repeatedly, and the stone that held the golden sword was carried off as booty. Muhaha. The DM chortles.

Now the group has a dilemma. The mission they chose for themselves is to find THE LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH and recover the Demonomicon before their enemies find the book. Their enemies, all seeking the Demonomicon for themselves, include: a Witch with her army of orcs; a vampire with his army of ghouls; an evil wizard they had once trapped and mortared in a brick cell; the Red Duke (whoever he is); the Prince of Lost Dreams (whoever that is); and the Demon Prince Orcus - because Forlorn read Orcus's Book of Unspeakable Shame and now has godly wisdom for it. Drawing really poorly from The Deck of Many Things (twice) might have something to do with Orcus's hatred, too.

On the other hand, the group really like the gnomes for some reason, and feel bad for the little guys. One of the gnome guards even said, "I used to be an adventurer like you, until I took an arrow to the knee", in a wee Scottish accent. So cute.

Intense meta game thinking ensued. "The DM clearly has two dungeons in mind. Surely one is harder than the other, and that will determine the proper sequence. Quick - everyone watch his face for a tell-tale sign." Blink blink blink.

"Your move, players."

The gnomish king wouldn't actually tell them where THE LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH could be found. "State secret, need to know basis, very hush hush". The gnomes promised to send out patrols looking for the miscreant trespassers the party complained about (the witch, the wizard, the vampire, and so forth). The gnomes promised to keep the entrance to the caverns hidden and safe.

"Oh yeah, you little buggers'll keep it safe all right", slurred the magic user Konstantine, standing up and interrupting the gnome king; Konstantine is frequently role played by Smitty as a vodka-swilling lush. "You little cone heads can't even protect yourselves! A bunch of monsters stomped all over your vale and carried off the magic sword!"

Funny how all that hard work by the diplomats in the group can go 'poof' once the drunken loud mouth with the 8 charisma spouts off to the king. There was no immediate reprisal - the gnomes know by reputation how capable is the group, they defeated Strahd after all - but the angry king, all 3' of him, stomped out in a huff, and various gnomes dropped insults and f-bombs towards Konstantine on their way out of the hall.

In the interests of making an apology and restoring goodwill, it seems the group will end the threat of "the Black Temple" and help the gnomes out, after all. Good job, Smitty, the check is in the mail.

*I think this one is by Jim Holloway, from S4 THE LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH

The Popularity of Cthulhu Gaming

2012-02-17T05:10:00.002-05:00

I made a decision coming into this year to do more Cthulhu blogging - I've long been an admirer of Call of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu, I try to run some one-shots each year or so, and there really doesn't seem to be a lot of blogging about those games - it's a fraction of the coverage that D&D gets.

I ran a poll a month or so back, "What kind of experience do you have with Cthulhu gaming?", and here were the results:

17% actively play
40% play from time to time and still like the game
32% are interested
9% either didn't like it or aren't interested

That's quite a bit of overlap in the readership between the two types of games! 91% either play, have played, or are at least interested in the horror gaming; I'll just assume you 9%ers aren't interested YET. I tend to agree there's a lot of overlap; many of the adventure ideas are directly portable from horror gaming into fantasy, and if you go for Weird Fantasy (especially LOTFP style), the horror gaming is like a close cousin.

Cthulhu gaming can be a bit bleak, so maybe it's an acquired taste playing ordinary or mundane folks trying to stop occult horrors, when compared to the accessible power fantasy gaming experienced in the beloved D&D. On the other hand, pulp fantasists like Clark Ashton Smith and RE Howard put Lovecraftian horrors in plenty of their fantasy stories, too, so the chocolate and peanut butter gets mixed up in the source literature.

That raises an important question - how do you like to use the Cthulhu Mythos in your games? As monsters in a fantasy setting, or alien terrors in a horror game? I have added a new poll to catalog the results of this important question! The world must know.

I'll keep up with the weekly Cthulhu posts and occasional reviews, mixing chocolate in the peanut butter and vice versa. It keeps things interesting for me. Bon appétit!

*Image is from the cover of Call of Cthulhu's 5th Edition

Barbarians are Big and Strong (But Don't Call Them Dumb)

2012-02-16T05:12:00.009-05:00

I've seen a number of folks discussing the faults of differentiating ability score ranges between male and female characters in role playing games this week. A much more interesting question to me is whether we should consider creating distinctions between culture groups in a human centric world. AD&D, for instance, has no problem applying ability score adjustments to the demi human races when compared to humans.

Consider that one of the most common themes in Swords & Sorcery literature is the strong but primitive barbarian juxtaposed against the decadent cultures of the large cities. The barbarian character is invariably more physically capable and resolute than his civilized antagonists. You see this motif in the RE Howard stories of Conan, the character of Fafhrd in the Lankhmar stories, and countless other stories featuring rugged, sword-wielding barbarians.

Consider also this historical excerpt from Tacitus's Germania, speaking of the many tribal inhabitants across the Rhine:

Hence the physical type, if one may generalize at all about so vast a population, is everywhere the same wild, blue eyes, reddish hair and huge frames that excel only in violent effort. They have no corresponding power to endure hard work and exertion, and have little capacity to bear thirst and heat; but their climate and soil have taught them to bear cold and hunger.
--Tacitus, Germania

My intent isn't to start a real world furor over Tactitus's text; it's been abused by plenty of folks already (koff, Nazis, koff) in other contexts. But when you're making a game world that features humans from different cultural groups, does it make sense to have racial or cultural abilities that differentiate those groups mechanically in game terms?

My son is playing a lot of the Skyrim game, and he tells me "Nords", the Skyrim analog of the northern barbarians, are tough and resistant to cold. That sounds a bit like Tacitus's description of the barbarians in Germania. Video game designers apparently don't have any problems making humans from different areas different from each other based on culture or race.

Let's look at these big blonde northerners again. According to Tacitus, they're all pretty much big and strong. The fantasy stereotype of the barbarian is also strength; what's the argument against giving characters from barbarian lands a +1 to the strength score?

But how about a -1 to the intelligence? You know, to balance it out. The way I read the intelligence tables in D&D, intelligence gives you literacy, knowledge of extra languages, and the ability to learn spells - all capabilities that are the result of education and not primarily aptitude. There shouldn't be a problem declaring that characters living out in the untamed wilderness, as an insular tribal unit, haven't had the same education as the decadent urbanites - but the moment you tack a -1 intelligence onto a cultural group, you step onto a pretty slippery slope my friend. Even if it is a fantasy culture. Would Conan put up with a -1 to *his* Intelligence score? You don't tug on Superman's cape, or call a Cimmerian uneducated or stupid. The Romans may have looked down on the barbarians, but who had the last laugh? (Alaric did).

I'm only familiar with one official D&D supplement that tackled human racial and cultural differences - it was the Hollow World boxed set for classic D&D / Mystara. The Hollow World gave humans from different ethnic groups pseudo skills and proficiencies to differentiate their culture backgrounds. Antalians (the Viking analog) could climb like thieves; Milenians (ancient Greeks) all had extra bonuses with spears. Some of them were more extreme; Tanagoro tribes people (analogs for African cultures) could all move at 150' base movement. Azcans (the Aztec knock offs) were ridiculously tough and got an entire extra hit die at level 1!

What's my point? In today's day and age, humans are uncomfortable declaring another group diminished in any capacity. Maybe games have no place classifying differences between groups of people (or the sexes) in this way. But there's a cynical side of me that sees a really simple way around the problem. Just flip it around and highlight a positive benefit, and cultural differentiation becomes much less controversial (and judgmental). "Scythians and Parthians don't get minuses when firing from horseback!", that kind of thing. Make people feel good about the in-game differences.

Hey, look at what I just did? I managed to justify giving all those barbarian tribesman a +1 to their strength scores after all. I feel better already.

A Mystaran Shout Out for a New Blogger

2012-02-15T19:50:00.004-05:00

Bighara over at Echoes from the Geek Cave has been making posts reviewing signature monsters from the old BX and Mentzer classic D&D sets; I've enjoyed all the usage suggestions. Seeing as it's a newish blog and the word hasn't gotten out, go check it out! The monster stuff is here: random monster assessments.

Note:
Bighara is also the guy behind Faster Monkey Games; I reviewed FMG's Lesserton & Mor last year.

ACKS Player's Companion Preview

2012-02-14T05:25:00.013-05:00

Just last week I reviewed the ACKS core book, and Lo, the guys over there had already announced a Kickstarter for their next supplement, the ACKS Player's Companion. How could I resist? So here's some first impressions on the play test version that's been posted to the project backers. (You back the project, you get sneak peeks, and a chance to play test and make suggestions. It's great marketing.)

The Player's Companion extends the core rules by adding a series of new classes, the dwarven machinist and spelunker, the elven ranger, and some human classes - mystic (monk), shaman (druid), and priestess.

I'll come out and say it though, the thing that got me fired up with the book-love was the extensive list of templates. (I think they claim there are 144 of them). An ACKS template is basically some pre-selected options that speeds up character generation and gives the character a bit of early flavor. ACKS supports the old school roll-and-go - it's got basic 3d6 in order for abilities and simple classes, like classic D&D. The templates take it the rest of the way, by adding a preconfigured set of starting equipment, starting money, and suggested proficiency selections.

For instance, your 1st level fighter could be flavored like a Norse ravager, a knight, a Roman legionnaire, a mercenary, a gladiator, or perhaps a pirate. I love the support this provides for roll-and-go, and heartily approve of archetypical fast-packs of equipment. Maybe it's just me, but nothing drives me nuts quite like the guy that shows up late, then wants to roll up a character, and then has to wade through the equipment list - while everyone's waiting. "You mean now I get to pick some spells and a proficiency or two, as well?" GAH. Just put my head in a vise already. So I love fast packs and random equipment generators; that stuff's like gold. There's also plenty of inspiration for depictions of the classes, just by browsing the templates.

I'm beginning to see how race-as-class is evolving in ACKS. Remember that classic D&D used Dwarf or Elf as a class, effectively making all dwarves as fighters and all elves as fighter/magic users. AD&D separated race and class, allowing things like dwarven clerics and elven thieves. It's clear the ACKS approach is to give each race a selection of classes that are similar to the human versions, but different enough to maintain racial distinctiveness, and costing the racial benefits into the experience curve. Thus, a dwarf player can be a dwarven vaultguard (for a fighter flavor), a craftpriest (for cleric), or a spelunker (for a taste of thief). The new one is the dwarf machinist, which is totally new, and provides the ability to create automatons and clockwork creatures - assuming that fits into your campaign's vision of dwarves.

There's some extra stuff in there too, such as extended spell lists for the new caster classes, and a section on creating custom classes. This idea of expanding class coverage horizontally is very much in line with how Mentzer/Mystara evolved.

Okay, here's an interesting bit about this particular Kickstarter. It met the goal in what, 3 days? I've had questions whether the announcement of 5E, coming out presumably sometime next year, would dampen people's enthusiasm for backing OSR projects in 2012. Apparently that's not a problem. I can't say that anything I've seen from the 5E discussions has lit my world on fire yet. I also don't see the new game catering to the crowd that wants to see economics and domains in their campaigns. Games like ACKS will be able to keep on trucking.

ps: Haven't had the chance to sign up for the LOTFP indiegogo yet, I want to see how it differs from Kickstarter first. Who's in that one?

Mapping the Investigation like a Dungeon

2012-02-13T05:45:00.007-05:00

This week's offering of blogthulhu starts with a simple premise: the traditional D&D dungeon is a type of workflow. It offers nodes and processes and decision points, and the players navigate these decision points to reach their final destination - the boss fight, the big treasure, the answer to the quest - whatever goal that inspired them to choose this dungeon in the first place. The dungeon as an adventure setting is such an enduring fixture because it provides a great degree of choice and agency for the players, within a limited structure that even a new DM or game master can handle well.

You could step back from a dungeon and map it out like a flow chart, and realize it looks an awful lot like an investigative scenario. To drive the point home, I went ahead and mapped out a few signature investigative scenarios as dungeons! Sit back and enjoy as we send our adventurers into The Haunting and The Kingsbury Horror. The Haunting has appeared in just about every edition of Call of Cthulhu as a sample investigation, and The Kingsbury Horror appears in Trail of Cthulhu. Spoilers abound - you are warned!

The Haunting

In The Haunting, the players are hired by a landlord to look into problems at a rental property - seems like the last tenants ended up in the nuthouse! The place indeed has a sordid history, as a quick jaunt to the library or newspaper records will reveal, and if the group follows up these threads all the way through, they may even discover an old cultist's hangout at the abandoned Chapel of Contemplation and find their first Mythos tome.

Note how a group might choose to go right to the house (the right path), move from exploring the first floor, to the cellar, and find the secret chamber leading to the resolution of the scenario. I've seen folks decry that the players can "solve" the investigation without going through each and every potential research point in a linear fashion. Bah!

Before critiquing The Haunting, let's take a brief look at The Kingsbury Horror.

The Kingsbury Horror

The Kingsbury Horror is the sample scenario in The Trail of Cthulhu book. It involves the investigators acting as consultants to the sheriff, helping to find a serial killer during an election cycle. But this is Cthulhu gaming, so naturally the serial killer is a cultist! Much fun ensues.

Like The Haunting, there's an investigative path on the right side of the "dungeon" that can lead to the resolution fairly quickly; once again, that's a feature, not a bug! However, The Kingsbury Horror adds an important element to the mix that The Haunting is missing - "wandering monsters".

Wandering monsters, you say? In 1930's Cleveland? There are a number of floating events, such as a nosy detective, breaking news around additional killings, or "time slips" as the weirdness mounts, that can sidetrack the investigation, or increase tension as the players realize they're running out of time. I'm just being a bit cheeky in calling them wandering monsters, but the effect is similar. It's a simple element to add, but these events transform the investigation into a much more dynamic environment.

Folks frequently ask how to make The Haunting into a better adventure, and that's the first thing I'd suggest - add in some variable encounters that bring the surrounding area to life. It could be suspicious gangsters or street thugs, nervous about the investigators casing the neighborhood; it could be a hobo or squatter trying to camp out in the abandoned house and yard; it could be a beat cop asking a lot of questions and checking the investigator's references. One of my favorite ideas is to have the landlord find new renters, and press the players to cut their investigation and quickly give the house the all clear so he can move a lovely young family in there… while they know something is still very, very wrong there!

I enjoy both of these scenarios because they offer multiple paths to navigate the scenes and reach a resolution - I recommend both of them highly. The Kingsbury Horror gets that extra edge due to the pacing and sense of building menace the Keeper can achieve by interspersing variable events. Good stuff.

We’re not done looking at investigation design; there are suggestions on designing your own in both the Call of Cthulhu and Trail books, and next week's blogthulhu will hold that advice up to the light. But today's post gives you a flavor on what I value in an investigation, and how these match up with old school priorities:

A non-linear path through the adventure
Multiple roads to victory
No indispensable NPCs pushing the Keeper's story - it must be player driven
Some variable events that keep the situation dynamic

I'm reading a Cthulhu campaign book right now that has lots of "this NPC is too important to die, don't let the players kill him/her", and "the players need to trust and like this other NPC for the adventure to continue", and that kind of stuff , and it makes me reach for the heartburn medicine. Don't do that, people, don't make Beedo nuts. Games can feature powerful NPCs giving directives; that's how life works. What is not okay is mandating that the players need to act or feel a certain way towards an NPC because of a preconceived story the Keeper wants to implement.

Next week we'll look at the design advice offered in the main rule books. This series of articles started as a top-down approach to setting up a Cthulhu campaign - but one that can be managed like an investigative sandbox - so it seems only fitting to top it off with an original campaign framework at the end. That's in the works, and it'll become my default go-to setting for both Cthulhu one-shots and campaign play (at least with my regular group). I'll wrap up this series with that setting in a few more weeks. See you next time!

Gothic Greyhawk Game 53 - 3 Dead Giants

2012-02-10T08:07:00.000-05:00

The first of many

Player Characters:
Mordecai, a Cleric-7: Adam
Forlorn, an Elf F/MU 5/5: Bo
Mister Moore, Magic User-6: Mike
Shy, a Fighter-6: JR
Leonidas the Paladin-5: Nogal
Digit, the Elf Thief-7: Z
Konstantine, Magic User-5: Smitty

Henchmen:
Phat Kobra, a Dwarf Fighter-5
Grumble the Smug, Halfling Thief-7
Donavich, Cleric-5
Boris, Druid-4
Meatshield 1, Ranger-1
Meatshield 2, Ranger-1
Ireena, a Fighter - 5
Vlad the Inhaler, Magic User-1
Meatshield 3, Cleric-1
*Italicized characters are back in Barovia

The party continued their sojourn through the valleys and passes of the Crystalmist mountains, seeking THE LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH*.

After a long day of travel westward, they discovered an open valley in the mountains with four distinct mountain passes leading out of it. Three of the passes were on the old map they had gotten from the gypsies, but the pass leading north and east was new. Their own heading on the morrow would be southwest, towards the Gnome Vale. But first, they made a camp in a stand of sheltered pines.

The major action of the evening kicked off when the party's first watch was alerted to a large figure pushing it's way through the trees - a giant. They could hear its breathing just beyond their campfire light, the group in a circle around the fire, waiting with weapons drawn. Then it crashed off into the night panting.

You know what players are thinking, right? "Holy crap, look at the size of those tracks", as the rangers stand over a footprint in the damp soil. "We're going to get to kill a giant!" And they promptly went about plotting, scheming, and planning various traps and ambushes.

The druid ended up casting a fire trap on one of Konstantine's empty bottles of vodka, and then planted it in the woods next to a coin with a continual light spell on it. I guess they were thinking, giants are dumb, and what self-respecting giant would pass up a chance to snag a free bottle of vodka? You just can't fault that kind of player logic.

The other trap involved string trip lines across the most obvious approaches to the camp and tying some metal pots and pans to them, to make noise if disturbed.

All these preparations took a good half hour of time during the watch, so I went ahead to figure out what the giant was doing in the meantime. Bubba, so named because all Hill Giants are going to be a bit like amiable rednecks with a hankering to eat people, ran back to the cave where Roscoe and Ewolt were sitting around a meager fire and grumbling.

"Butter my butt, and call me a biscuit, there's humans in the valley! With tasty horses and mules!" Roscoe, the Hill Giant leader, responds, "If you doubled your brains, you'd still be a halfwit. There ain't no humans in the valley, you blockhead." "No, really, and they had tasty mules and horses! Stoke up the fire, we're eating right good tonight!" A random dice roll revealed to me the giants took their time arguing and building up their cooking fire before piling out of the cave to investigate the truth of Bubba's find.

Ewolt snuck off to one side of the woods to do some mule raiding, while Roscoe and Bubba went towards the bright light in the forest. "Don't go touching that bottle, Bubba, you're a few grains short of a full silo. We've got to make a distraction so Ewolt can steal the mules. Keep your eyes on the prize!" They plunged forward and promptly fell over the trip line, creating a ruckus in the woods. That alerted the guards, who woke up everyone else in the camp.

The fight was pretty simple; Ewolt snuck in the back way, but couldn't resist the urge to chuck rocks at the back of the party. Bubba and Roscoe went with the full frontal assault, swinging giant-sized clubs. The MVP of the melee side of the battle was Grumble the Smug, who used the ring of invisibility and halfling sneakiness to get in position for a backstab; 7th level thieves do triple damage! Between the front line fighters, prayers, chants and similar buffs, and a barrage of magic missiles, the attacking giants died pretty quickly.

Meanwhile, they struggled with Ewolt, who stood off in the dark tree line, well outside their firelight, and chucked rocks at the party for 2-16hp per shot. Mister Moore asked his faithful brownie familiar, Packer, to light up the area with a continual light spell, and they were able to blast Ewolt with a lightning bolt shortly thereafter.

That's pretty much it. There was some looting and scouting and other stuff I'm glossing over, but that's dull to relate. See you next time!

Postcript:
It's funny to imagine some random slob in the future, coming across that abandoned bottle of Vodka with the lingering fire trap on it. "This must be my lucky day. Someone left a bottle of booze!" He'll be standing there with a blackened face, white eyes blinking, like Yosemite Sam after Bugs Bunny gave him an exploding cigar. These are the things for which D&D excels.

*If you missed last week's game report, I have to ask, why? Don't you realize these game reports are made of awesome and topped off with a frosting of pure win? On a less serious note, let me tell you why THE LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH will always be capitalized now.

Gygax always capitalized product names in the AD&D books. In order to interject a much needed dose of Gygaxian swagger into these reports, henceforth shall products be equally capitalized, making them totally Gygaxian.

Share some War Stories

2012-02-09T10:57:00.001-05:00

Hey folks, consider this a small experiment. I'm going to pick just a few modules from the hobby's past, and I'd be grateful if you could drop a quick comment here, or on G+, with a quick war story from any one of these legendary modules.

B2 Keep on the Borderlands
B4 The Lost City
X2 Castle Amber

Okay, I'll start:

B2 Keep on the Borderlands
Our group of salacious 13 year olds all got turned to stone by the Medusa after she flashed some leg from around the corner. There's a life lesson for you!

B4 The Lost City
The party dwarfs hummed the theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark while trying to outrun the boulder, while wearing plate armor. They were flattened.

X2 Castle Amber
Our party got mauled by Killer Trees in the indoor forest, and the party magic user was torn into pieces. The thief was carrying the spellbooks, potions, and scrolls, and got turned to stone by an animated statue. We were able to get a raise dead for the magic user shortly, but he was very sad not to have his stuff.

You've played them, you loved the adventures, now share a tale or two!

Review of Adventurer Conqueror King (ACKS)

2012-02-07T21:39:00.004-05:00

So did Conan return the wayward daughter of King Osric to her home. And having no further concern, he and his companions sought adventure in the West. Many wars and feuds did Conan fight. Honor and fear were heaped upon his name and, in time, he became a king by his own hand…

It's no surprise that I'm predisposed to liking Adventurer Conqueror King. I've often mused here on the blog that the goal of adventuring in the traditional versions of Dungeons & Dragons is to become a king by one's own hand. It's right there in AD&D, you can gain a stronghold and followers, clear the wilderness, then build out a domain. But there weren't any systems back then to facilitate that facet of the game.

To understand how a late comer like ACKS fits into the crowded mix of retro clones and neo clones, this is where I like to start, with the idea that a D&D campaign isn't limited to endless dungeon crawling. The real objective in the game is the acquisition of power: personal power, power through wealth and magic, and ultimately, political power and conquest.

The campaign system in ACKS is a major competitive advantage. It gives groups that want to extend play beyond the dungeon the means to run a coherent campaign in that space. ACKS starts by outlining how the core classes develop followers and a power base in the campaign world while striving to reach name level and gain wide renown. Fighters and clerics are primarily interested in growing their followers and building political realms, but clerics can also develop the faith and gain divine favor towards crafting items. There are systems for magic users to create laboratories; gather apprentices; create constructs, magic items, and monstrous cross breeds; even build and seed their own dungeons. Thieves get an interesting treatment, creating hideouts with gangs of lesser thieves that can perform hijinks such as spying, assassinations, robbery, smuggling, rumor-gathering, and discovering leads to fantastic treasures.

In order to rationally support domain level play, a considerable effort went into ensuring the numbers square top to bottom in the ACKS economic system. Domain revenue and peasant earnings align with the price of mercenaries, and the prices on the equipment chart. Even if you don't use the domain rules anytime soon, it's valuable knowing the underlying assumptions make sense. This logic extends to other aspects of the campaign world, as well. For instance, how many fifth level fighters should exist in a kingdom? Using the demographics by level chart, a game master can quickly determine the relative levels of power in the wider world.

If I had to use one term to describe this overarching philosophy in ACKS, it would be Fantasy Realism. ACKS presents a set of game rules for a functioning fantasy world that makes sense economically, but also explains why the areas beyond the borderlands are littered with dungeons, why adventurers looting vast treasures makes sense in the context of both the fantasy world and real world history, and why legitimate rulers should always be high level characters.

I've appreciated the idea behind the game since the Kickstarter was announced. Although I haven't played pure Mentzer D&D in quite a few years, I've long had appreciation for the vision of Mentzer, and how he extended the D&D experience horizontally from dungeons to the wilderness to domain rulership. ACKS is a true spiritual successor to Mentzer. The similarity extends beyond treading into domain rulership; ACKS uses a similar class list, race-as-class, 3d6 in order for ability scores, a similar spell list, and a similar monster list to Mentzer. Except for the Skittering Maw, the shark-headed, poisonous, giant, centipede, monstrosity that has become the unofficial poster monster for ACKS...

There are some differences between ACKS and the classic versions of Dungeons & Dragons that will be readily apparent. Various dice rolls (throws) are expressed in ascending difficulty, mirroring modern design sensibilities in the d20 world. A modular proficiency system is included, giving a flavor of 3rd edition's feats and supporting a bit of character customization, such as distinct fighting styles. Many abilities from classic D&D classes are included in the proficiency system, supporting the emulation of advanced favorites like the paladin or ranger.

A recent post here on Mentzer, Metnzer Madness, bemoaned the 36 level grind in the Mentzer system; I feel like the D&D sweet spot for wrapping up a campaign is somewhere between levels 10 and 14. Classic BX only went to level 14, and ACKS also tops out at level 14. (It's like they read my mind). A ritual spell system has been added to allow the cleric and magic user classes limited access to the higher level spells that showed up in AD&D or BECMI past level 14.

One of the more interesting chapters is the guide on setting creation. It presents a comprehensive top-down approach to generating and stocking a large campaign area with wilderness and dungeons, and just reading it makes my campaign creation OCD bubble into a rapid boil. If ACKS were published 20 years ago, it's likely I wouldn't have finished college. As it is, I have a fairly clear idea on what my ACKS campaign world is going to look like; now I just need to clear a handful of other projects and I'll get right to it. But you know, that next campaign is only a TPK away… muhaha. My players love it when I kid around like that, really. They say it's motivating.

This discussion of the game book is waxing long, so let's start to wrap things up. My group has had some history with the system, so this isn't a blind review; a few of my players attended the play test with the designers while we were at Gencon last year, and a few of us also made it up to New York one weekend for a game day with Tavis. ACKS plays like D&D, and you can play it like a straight update of BX or Mentzer, and never even crack the chapters on campaigns or setting design. (Fair warning: Those chapters are a bit table heavy; ACKS is crying out for someone to put together a good macro-driven spreadsheet). But if you want to play a game where all that stuff makes sense, ACKS leads the way. We've been playing other games while the guys finished their ACKS Kickstarter, but I've been using ACKS assumptions in the background of my campaign for quite a few months with our play test copies of the rules, so I'm already adjudicating my group's current domain building efforts with ACKS. Having witnessed many of the great discussions on the development forum, I can vouch for the thorough testing of the systems.

The physical hardcover book isn't out yet, but the PDF is nicely hyper linked and is well indexed; I enjoy being able to jump from the table of contents, or one of the indexes, to quickly get to the right section or table. I like this new trend of hyperlinked PDFs that are both tablet and table friendly! For you folks that love artwork, there are plenty of excellent full page black and white pictures that show classic adventuring situations, or capture some of the new campaign mechanics, like hijinks, in action.

Would I recommend ACKS? Sometime ago, I pointed out how there's an evolution in what people want from a campaign: Beedo's Hierarchy of Campaign Needs. Many folks are totally satisfied with a game that revolves around characters, monsters, and dungeons. As you climb the pyramid, different priorities emerge, like the desire to leave a legacy on the campaign world, to build castles, to conquer lands, to exert some power. ACKS is the first new generation game that climbs that pyramid, and for that I give it a hearty recommendation. A version of their mass combat system should be on the way soon (though real life has prevented me from trying the play test versions) and they have some interesting products in the pipeline, like their Auran Empire Gazetteer. With a heavy nod towards BX, Mentzer, and the various Known World Gazetteers, ACKS is a sturdy bridge across nearly 30 years of gaming. If D&D 5E doesn't work out for those Seattle guys, I've got my long term campaign game right here.

AD&D Question - Weapon Specialization

2012-02-07T06:26:00.001-05:00

We've recently converted our D&D campaign to 1st Edition AD&D, and one of the questions is whether we should use Weapon Specialization. Specialization was published in Unearthed Arcana, and is presented as an optional rule in OSRIC. It was certainly carried over into 2E and beyond through feats.

Pro's:
Specialization beefs up the fighter quite a bit, if you think they need a patch; +1 to hit, +2 damage, and extra attacks.

Con's:
Without specialization, fighters are free to pick up most weapons and use them equally well (unless you're using proficiency slots, which limits the pool a bit). Once specialization is introduced, the fighters tend to use only their specialized weapon for the rest of the game (reducing overall choice). Most everyone picks longsword.

Previously, we were using a "weapon-by-class" house rule that gave the fighters equal damage regardless of weapon, and that was pretty awesome, fighters ended up using all sorts of weapons and were much more opportunistic. But all house rules have been repealed since we've converted to AD&D to level set again. One of my goals with this AD&D experiment is to try and play as By-the-Book as possible*. Allowing weapon specialization would probably be the first house rule.

Let me know how you feel about 1st edition's Weapon Specialization. It seems like a good time for a new poll, too.

*So far, we've only had two problems to discuss. In Labyrinth Lord and the Advanced Edition Companion, alignment restrictions on the paladin's companions are looser, and so a druid henchman was introduced by one of the other players. An AD&D paladin, by-the-book , won't support a Neutral NPC in the party long term. Our house rule will be that as long as the party's quests are supporting Law and Good, the paladin will accept the presence of the druid as a contributor on those quests.

The other one is the awesome BX Staff of Healing, which doesn't exist in AD&D. We're using it "as is". The AD&D Staff of Curing is significantly different.

Target Rich Horror Gaming

2012-02-06T08:01:00.004-05:00

Blogthulhu continues! I've been looking at how to structure a Cthulhu campaign and enable some of the free-form sandbox play we enjoy so much in old school D&D and avoid the linear rail road. The sandbox style is one where the players have a high degree of choice and agency, there's no formulated story, and the events of the game unfold primarily through player interaction with the setting. Sandbox is far from the only successful style of play in horror gaming; at some point I'll take a look at some of the pros and cons of the famous published rail road campaigns in the genre, but for us, sandbox is the style we prefer. For the D&Ders, most of this idea should also carry over into weird horror gaming in any historical setting.

Previous installments of the series have declared an overarching metaphor for horror gaming (points of darkness), discussed the difference between active and passive plot hooks, and then argued for the importance of an investigative organization to provide a campaign framework. A framework solves common problems in Cthulhu gaming, like access to plot hooks, replacement characters and continuity, and a lightweight approach to getting new characters in the game without a ton of back story.

Now let's look at how choice defines sandbox play. There are two scales of choice that are important to me when enabling player agency - at the campaign level and at the adventure level. On the larger scale, there's the question of which adventure the characters are going to pursue; when they've made an adventure choice, I then want to make sure it's structured to support player planning, different strategies and roads to victory, and variability of outcomes.

Let's use a simple example from the D&D space. The ubiquitous elf, dwarf and a cleric, at the local tavern, learn there are bandits in the nearby woods, a weird hermit stalks the north woods, a dangerous swamp lies nearby with rumors of reptilian marauders, and beyond the nearby hills, the legendary Caves of Chaos await. This is that top level of choice - what will they do? Once the party makes the decision on which rumor to investigate, the actual adventure site offers many different approaches to how the group resolves their exploration.

In horror gaming that first level choice emerges via the plot hook. The first hurdle in porting a similar sandbox approach to Cthulhu gaming is to provide a "target rich plot hook" environment - the equivalent of deciding between stopping the goblins in the woods or heading out to the ruined moat house.

The nice thing about the organizational frameworks from the last post is that the Keeper has a venue for introducing options to the players and giving them the same kind of experience. "According to these news bits from our clipping service, there's an art gallery in New York City displaying a series of paintings from that notorious artist, and there was a ritual murder in Central Park last week. It could be nothing. The other item that's come in off the wire is this announcement of a new fraternal order recruiting in Boston - anyone care to join the Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight?"

A risk with an organizational frame work is to provide real choice, and not make these plot hooks directives from an NPC boss in the hierarchy. One criticism I have with Delta Green is that "missions" tend to be presented as immediate orders from superiors - pretty much the opposite of what makes player planning in a sandbox fun. The default setting in Delta Green assumed the players are rank and file agents that take orders; in my preferred style of play, that would be adjusted. There would still be some reactive, urgent missions, but players would also be able evaluate intelligence and make decisions on longer term cases to pursue. It's a simple but important switch to flip.

A nice opportunity emerges regarding plot hooks that are passed over; other NPCs in the organization may investigate those plot hooks instead, and that can add some interesting verisimilitude later on. "Remember how we sent Doctor Horton to investigate that Hermetic Order in Boston? He's stopped phoning in reports… we may have a situation."

So one key component to this style of campaign is to have an input funnel that regularly presents plot hooks to the player characters to create that target rich environment. Looking at some of the sample organizations from the previous article, it could be projects or expeditions presented by the Miskatonic faculty - "Should we outfit a voyage to the Yucatan seeking the legendary crystal skull, or pursue this rumor that the tomb of Nephren Ka might have been found in Giza?" It could take the form of intelligence briefings gathered by Project Covenant, Delta Green, or The Laundry. The Gilchrist Trust might use a news clipping service as they try to find positive evidence of the supernatural on their globe trotting search. The Bookhounds scour auctions and estate sale posts seeking forbidden tomes.

One interesting variant to the plot hook funnel is a true info-dump. When I was thinking about a similar campaign in the D&D space last summer (The Library of de la Torre), the idea was that the characters could inherit the journal or library of a recently deceased adventurer who had made a career of exploring occult mysteries and fighting monsters. I saw this character as an analog to Howard's Solomon Kane, but you could port this type of idea into Cthulhu gaming just as easily. I hear there's a famous Lovecraft story that used the same technique… it's on the tip of my tongue… Call of… Cthul-something or other. Kidding aside, don't lose sight that The Call of Cthulhu story is essentially an info-dump of the memoirs of a deceased Lovecraftian investigator, and the protagonist sifts through the material and then launches his own investigations. It's the epitome of the target rich investigative setting.

A published adventure following this approach is The Armitage Files; the campaign dumps a lot of information into the player's hands at discrete intervals, giving them massive freedom to determine how to proceed. Masks of Nyarlathotep does this as well.

You may be thinking, Beedo, are you out of your mind? If I give the group multiple plot hooks every time we start a new adventure, doesn't that mean I need to generate all those adventures? I have a life outside of gaming, you mad monkey! I'm well aware of balancing sandbox constraints, and I've referred to it in the past as the sandbox triangle.

It's a fair criticism, and I have a few suggestions. The first one is a really simple Pro Tip: Don’t present plot hooks at the beginning of a gaming session! Present the next briefing or opportunity to review leads at the end of a session, or in between sessions, so the group can discuss the pros and cons of different leads and make their choice ahead of time, giving you ample time to prepare for the following week without having to over prepare. It's a fair trade-off for giving them so much freedom to pick their adventures.

Another recommendation is to leverage the massive back catalog of published adventures for Call of Cthulhu. Chaosium has been producing collections of short adventures for 30 years, they're all compatible with the current rules, and most are available in PDF. Couple that with short adventures from Miskatonic River Press, Pelgrane Press, and The Unspeakable Oath, and you've got a ton of material to intersperse with your own creations - just file off the plot hooks, which are typically passive plot hooks, and add your own that would bring them to the attention of an active investigative unit. There were some additional magazine publishers as well - The Black Seal and Worlds of Cthulhu - but I never collected them. The Black Seal was focused on the modern UK and I wasn't collecting when Worlds of Cthulhu was printed. I'm hoping Worlds gets converted to PDF some time. If you read those, let me know what you think of them.

Alright, that's enough for now. I'll see where the Cthulhu muse takes me next, either a review of The Armitage Files (since I've mentioned it a few times now) or on towards open-ended adventure structures. Ciao!

Book Review: The Mathematics of Magic, The Complete Enchanter Series

2012-02-05T10:12:00.006-05:00

About the time I started blogging, a little over a year ago, there was a movement towards rereading the classic fantasy works that inspired Gygax and Arneson for making Dungeons & Dragons. These have been listed out most famously in the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide Appendix N. You'll often see lists identified online by one gamer or another as 'my version of Appendix N'. I've aspired to read through my own list as well, and finally got the chance to finish another one - The Mathematics of Magic, a collection of novellas by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt.

The protagonist for this series is Harold Shea, a clinical psychiatrist who discovers a way to slip from our dimension to various alternate realities where the worlds of earthly literature and mythology exist as real places - he visits mythic Ireland and Finland, the world of the Norse gods, the realms of literary creations like The Faerie Queene or Orlando Furiousa (The Madness of Roland). Other realms that are visited include Kublai Khan's Xanadu, the Land of Oz, and Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom.

If you like stories where modern characters either travel back in time or find themselves in a fantastic realm, you'll appreciate the central conceit for each of these. Harold Shea is brainy and bold, and constantly has to match wits with dangerous "heroes" that are both stronger and a bit homicidal. Protagonists that seem to be idealized stand-ins for the author are oft referred to as a "Mary Sue", and Shea falls into that space.

One aspect of the stories that will be fairly interesting to gamers is this; Harold Shea is a fencer, and many of the challenges involve using fencing styles against other styles and armor. At the end of the collection, there are a few interesting essays from the 1960's debating whether fencing would work in other times and places, including various field tests by the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). There's also a letter by a young General Patton, then only a lieutenant, discussing sword techniques for the pre-World War I era army, and revising army doctrine around slashing and stabbing. Considering the frequent arguments in the blogosphere regarding shields in D&D, table top gamers would find the essays quite interesting.

The writing in the Shea stories isn't fantastic, but many of the fantasy books I've read from the 40's through 60's don't light the world on fire with their prose, so take that as you will. The primary reason I found the collection enjoyable was because of the author's interpretation of those various mythic and literary realms traversed by the characters. For instance, I've never read The Kalevala, but Harold's adventures in mythic Finland are intriguing and I could see myself adding that to the reading list. Same with mythic Ireland, and the stories of Cuchulainn bounding over the turf in a chariot and chopping off heads to mount on his wall of trophies. I would recommend reading one of the novellas, going off and reading something else, reading the next one, and so on. 500+ pages of Harold Shea straight through started to feel like a grind.

Inspirations for Gaming
The Harold Shea stories are often held out, alongside Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories, as inspiration for the magic system used in Dungeons & Dragons. I tend to think Vance's influence was primary, but Harold Shea does need to learn various verbal, somatic, and material components to perform his spells, and anyone who's played 1st Edition AD&D is familiar with those terms. The magic in Shea's stories often uses theories of sympathetic or contagious magic, as well, which we see in the choice of material components in AD&D.

This book is likely the inspiration for the D&D green dragon; in the Norse tale, a dragon emerges from a cave and breathes poisonous, chlorine gas. Other creatures I remember include cockatrices and griffins. But most of the antagonists are the violent, homicidal "heroes" of myth and folklore.

So perhaps the most direct inspiration is on AD&D's Deities and Demigod's Cyclopedia. The heroes and gods of Finnish, Irish, and Norse myth are featured in the book, along with some introductions to their mythic realms, and an enterprising game master could use the Deities book, along with the source materials and the staging in the Shea stories, to create a campaign built around traveling from one mythic realm to another. Don't tell me that wouldn't be totally awesome.

Premature Evocation - Gothic Greyhawk Game 52

2012-02-02T22:38:00.007-05:00

Player Characters:
Mordecai, a Cleric-7: Adam
Forlorn, an Elf F/MU 5/5: Bo
Mister Moore, Magic User-6: Mike
Shy, a Fighter-6: JR
Leonidas the Paladin-5: Nogal
Digit, the Elf Thief-7: Z
Konstantine, Magic User-5: Smitty

Henchmen:
Phat Kobra, a Dwarf Fighter-5
Grumble the Smug, Halfling Thief-7
Donavich, Cleric-4
Boris, Druid-4
Meatshield 1, Ranger-1
Meatshield 2, Ranger-1
Ireena, a Fighter - 5
Vlad the Inhaler, Magic User-1
Meatshield 3, Cleric-1
*Italicized characters are back in Barovia

If you read the bit earlier this week about My Big Mouth™, you already know about the Druid and his pet bear. The druid finessed the party past an encounter with some hungry grizzly bears. When they made camp later that night, I haughtily ~~heckled~~ pointed out to the druid that he could have used the Animal Friendship spell he memorized (not sure why he took it, otherwise). The problem with shooting off your mouth in such a way is this; the party might remember they're loaded with Rangers, that Rangers are known to track things, like bears, and just because the druid forgot to use his I-Always-Wanted-A-Pet-Bear spell today, he wouldn’t forget to use it tomorrow. After the Rangers guided him to the bear, of course, because I reminded him about the spell.

So now the Druid has a pet bear, and the player is quite happy about it.

Overall, they're still slogging through the mountains trying to find… something. The adventure is to find THE LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH, but I think they're trying to find a valley of Gnomes, first.

(See what I did there? I'm rereading AD&D and Gygax always capitalized D&D product names. Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth: Not Gygaxian. LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH: Totally Gygaxian. This campaign is now totally Gygaxian.).

More interesting than the quest for Gnome Vegas was their fight with an army of hobgoblins. It wasn't a big army, mind you, but more hobgoblins than you'd face in a dungeon - 70 or 80, something like that - archers, skirmishers, and lots and lots of pole arm wielders. And not halberds, but military forks, glaives, guisarmes, and bill-guisarmes, in great detail, because this is Gygaxian! The hobgoblins were camped along the side of the valley, and the party noticed thin wisps of smoke rising into the air when they were still a good distance down the valley. A good portion of the remaining game time was spent with the players huddled over the table, intensely scrutinizing the hastily sketched map of the camp, the location of the cave, the deployment of the tents, disposition of the units, the pickets, and the archers. The party huddled behind a spur of boulders and rock-fall while the halfling scouted (with a ring of invisibility) and everyone else crouched and planned. Isn't that the essence of a good gaming night - the scouting, sneaking, planning, plotting, using up resources, figuring out the perfect attack plan? Good stuff.

They used Silence 15' magic to mask the approach of their armored guys and get them into position for a charge, while some of the unarmored guys quietly climbed into a position to rain magic down on the camp from an overlook. Mister Moore opened up hostilities with the wand of fireballs, raining blasts across the camp over the course of a number of rounds; Constantine sent his one memorized fireball down on the camp, too.

Once the magic started flying, the fighters jumped up from where they were crouched behind an embankment, and started their charge across open ground, yelling and hollering. The hobgoblins were scrambling to regroup after getting pounded by fireballs, but they had enough time to form a rank of pole arms against the charging fighters, and they inflicted massive damage on them - 20-30 points to each of them. But once the fighters got past those blades, the hobgoblin line quickly collapsed under a vicious series of slashes.

The DM's other moment of almost-glory was when an overlooked group of hobgoblin archers piled out of some hidden tents and formed a squad to pepper Mister Moore with arrows. 8 hobgoblin archers, using AD&D's 2 shots per round, meant the unarmored Mister Moore had close to 16 arrows coming his way (a few went towards the nearby Grumble the Halfling). But I had a disastrously bad run of d20 rolls, Mister Moore survived, and then he hit them with a fireball… in the FACE. It was all over for the hobgoblins except for the crying.

So that was another spectacular victory for Team BK Inc., beating up a horde of 1 HD mooks (albet in style). Now, about the title of the post. We switched back to AD&D this game, and it's been a long time since we played with segments and casting times and that kind of stuff. It was completely fun, and I loved pulling out those 1970's classic hardbacks. But the players were disappointed spells were taking so long to resolve; they'd win the initiative, but the spell might not happen before the monsters acted. Segments and casting times are a big change from BX's simplified approach. And thus, the great punch line of the night was set up:

Konstantine (seriously): "Mister's Moore's wand goes off so fast, it's faster than my magic!"
Mordecai: "Yeah, isn't that what his hot NPC wife was saying the other week, Moore's wand goes off too fast?"
Forlorn: "They have a term for that, you know; it's called Premature Evocation."

We could have ended the night happy right there.

Campaign Frameworks for Cthulhu Games

2012-02-01T06:06:00.082-05:00

Cover image from The Armitage Files

I've been interrupting the regular stream of Dungeons & Dragons posts this year to bring more Cthulhu blogging, and my first big project has been to step through campaign structures and different approaches to launching campaigns. I'm particularly interested in exploring ways to run investigative sandboxes to enable the kind of free-form, sandbox style I enjoy so much in D&D. If you're wanting to run a weird horror D&D game in a mundane or historical world, these posts should offer ideas for that as well, since there's a lot of overlap with games like Cthulhu Dark Ages or Cthulhu Invictus.

Last week's entry, Points of Darkness for Horror Gaming, contrasted a horror setting with the typical D&D fantasy approach (points of light). It emphasized the importance of plot hooks for engaging the characters; I further separate plot hook approaches into "passive" or "active".

Passive plot hooks are related to the back story of the characters before the adventure: "You are all gathered together as friends of Important NPC™ Jackson Elias." Or, "You receive a letter from your old friend, Henry Hancock, the African explorer, asking you to come to Scotland and help him at his current dig site…" I have issues with the passive plot hook approach. They trade on some pre-existing emotional connection between the player characters and the NPC. While I expect players to buy into the general premise of the game, I don’t like having to tell them to feel a certain way towards an NPC so they have the right emotional resonance with the scenario. That's not very old school.

The second issue with passive plot hooks is that once the scenario is initiated, there's no longer a credible reason for replacement characters. One of the in-jokes in COC gaming involves a party narrowly escaping a TPK, needing replacement party members, and recruiting the waiter, the store clerk, the taxi driver - you get the idea. Here's one caveat; while I dislike the passive plot hook approach for a campaign game, I recognize that it works well for one-shots and convention games; the Keeper can distribute pre-generated characters with appropriate backgrounds and push the game right onto the tracks.

This isn't a new problem. There was an 80's publication that took a tongue-in-cheek approach to an organized group of Mythos busters (The Field Manual of the Theron Marks Society) but it wasn't until Pagan Publishing's Delta Green (1997) that a campaign setting outlining a comprehensive framework for investigations altered the face of Cthulhu gaming. I consider myself an old timer, so I'll trace the evolution of these frameworks from Delta Green through the latest books I've seen published.

You might ask, what's the big deal? Important characteristics of the investigative frameworks are that they provide built in objectives for the game, as well as solving the problem of credible replacement characters and campaign continuity. The campaign now transcends the player character party and a TPK is no longer fatal. The casual dramatists and authors in the group can still write their detailed character back stories, but the frameworks make it easier for everyone else to make their 15 minute character and start rolling the dice.

Delta Green
Delta Green is a (fictional) conspiracy within the United States government, to investigate and stop Mythos activities, and keep the existence of the Mythos horrors secret. Players take on the roles of cross-departmental government agents who manage to use official cover, appropriations, and false orders to get involved with investigations that have alien or supernatural elements. One guy could be in the ATF, someone else in the FBI, and so on. It tends to feel a bit like The X-Files, badges and guns, with more hardware and spy tech (since it's an underground conspiracy communicating through back channels).

The most interesting part of the Delta Green setting is how other corrupt organizations have learned of the existence of Mythos magic, kept it secret, and attempted to wrest power from the supernatural by weaponizing the Mythos. It always goes horribly wrong. The signature opponents in Delta Green include various inhuman Nazis that have extended their lives unnaturally, and the Majestic 12 group (formed after the Roswell incident) which has been benefiting from alien biotech while turning a blind eye to alien abductions. Don't get me wrong, the opponents in Delta Green are not like the pulp Nazi sorcerers you see in a Mignola Hellboy comic; the situations in the Delta Green books tend to be fairly dark; they're smart, slick, and mature. Delta Green captures that pre-millennial conspiracy angst from shows like The X-Files or Millenium. The books are hard to get, but I hear PDF versions are nearing release at the usual places, and an updated version of the setting for the post-911 "war on terror" world is underway as well.

Call of Cthulhu d20
I wasn't a fan of the d20 level-based approach to COC, but the d20 book itself was still chock full of useful campaign advice for Call of Cthulhu; John Tynes, one of the driving forces behind Delta Green, had taken his skills to WOTC during this time and worked on the d20 Cthulhu book.

The d20 book recommends the use of a tentpole NPC - a powerful figure behind the scenes that ensures continuity for the investigation - or the creation of an organization. It goes on to describe Cthulhu setting genres and sample organizations for each one, such as Lovecraft Country, Hometown Horrors, Private Investigators, Badges and Secrets, Esoteric Orders, and Global Hot Spots. (Delta Green even makes a cameo).

The other thing I really liked in the d20 book was that it took each of the genres and looked at how it might change for different time periods, and included good movies or TV shows to help set the mood. Good stuff all around.

Trail of Cthulhu
Last week I did a review of Trail of Cthulhu; Trail provided three detailed campaign frames, two of which have been further developed in later books. The first one, the Armitage Inquiry, assumes the various professors of Miskatonic University, having previous Mythos encounters (as detailed in some Lovecraft stories), recruit like-minded individuals from the faculty and student body to explore and document Mythos occurrences. The second frame, Project Covenant, suggests the Naval officers, involved in destroying the Deep One colony at the end of The Shadow Over Innsmouth story, form a secretive investigative arm of the government - similar to a 1930's version of Delta Green, but with actual government backing. The final suggestion is Bookhounds of London, which puts the players in the role of book merchants collecting and selling rare and highly sought volumes (and frequently encountering the mad occultists seeking said books for all the wrong reasons). It reminds me quite a bit of the excellent novel, The Club Dumas.

Two of those campaign frames get the full treatment in The Armitage Files (cover pictured above) and Bookhounds of London. Both are excellent, so I'll definitely review them in the future. The (award winning) Armitage Files is unlike any game book I've seen, and warrants a full post (and a warning!)

The Laundry RPG
I don't have The Laundry yet. It's a BRP system like COC, based on a series of books by Charles Stross (The Atrocity Files), that details a secret British agency known as The Laundry. The Laundry is tasked with keeping the world safe from occult horrors. My perception is that it mixes quite a bit of office-culture and Information Technology humor juxtaposed against high-tech Mythos investigations in a world where computers have made monster summoning a not uncommon affair. I'm not sure how the black humor would work out in game play, but I'll keep my eyes open for getting a copy and plan on reading The Atrocity Files at some point. Although I'm a purist at heart, I'm sure my group of regular players, all tech geeks, would probably find this approach entertaining.

This discussion waxes long! Providing a framework for ongoing investigations has become de rigeur in the Chaosium licensees making modern Cthulhu games. There is an alternative to a structured organization, mentioned briefly above, it is the idea of using a "tentpole NPC" to anchor a campaign; I'll visit that one shortly. Then we'll return to campaign development, perhaps looking at structuring investigations, and what makes for a good one. Ciao!

What Hat is the DM Wearing?

2012-01-31T06:07:00.001-05:00

Yesterday's brief post about my big mouth generated some good comments - the issue of the DM or gamemaster offering advice to the players is fairly nuanced. Is the DM's role that of an impartial referee? Is the DM an adversary? Is the DM a coach? In many cases, the DM is the most experienced gamer at the table (or knows the rules the best) so one could argue the DM has a duty as coach and teacher of the rules. Does that drop away when the players are sufficiently experienced? How about coaching for strategy and tactics? When the players are tossing ideas back and forth regarding how they're going to attack their current problem, should the DM interject and point out which ideas would or wouldn't work, or should he or she keep quiet unless directly asked, and let the players execute their plan, making the rulings then?

Then there's the bad poker player, the DM that's having a hard time keeping their mouth shut about that obvious thing the players are overlooking... that was me with the bear, the bad poker player. But in this age when folks have a ton of things on their mind, distractions at the table, faulty memories, should the DM play it close to the vest at all? These questions are a bit of a parallel issue to Stuart's GMing badges regarding game mastering philosophy, albeit these are more subtle elements of presentation.

My own position is that the DM needs to give the players space to execute their own plans; success or failure should come from their own efforts. When they succeed, they've earned it, and they can feel great that it came honestly. And don't fudge the dice. If there's a crushing defeat, after the session I might spend some time tossing out some alternative approaches they could have used if the players seem stumped. It's their game, and they need to have the freedom to play it - and sometimes that means they miss things, or choose a sub optimal tactic, or forget they're carrying the silver bullet all along. At the same time, don't you take a lot of pride in your players when you throw everything you've got at them, and they pull out an amazing victory? I know I do.

Oh, and lest I forget - sometime's the DM should even play the fool - this video exhortation over at Alexis's place was great: Vlog the Fool. We need to be able to put on that silly hat and that performer hat from time to time as well.

The DM Has a Big Mouth

2012-01-30T06:01:00.007-05:00

Let me ask you if you have this problem, too. The party just got pasted by a monster, they run out of there dragging their dead companions and cursing the unfairness of gaming, the session wraps for the night, and you mouth off about all the things they forgot. "You didn't even have to fight the Elemental. What's-his -name has the Protection from Evil 10' radius spell and you guys could have hedged it out and moon-walked across that room…"

If I have a fatal flaw as a DM, it's giving the players the DM's perspective after their failures and not letting them figure this stuff out for themselves through head banging, frustration, and trial and error. It's one thing doing an after action review with some newbies, but I'm always blabbing my mouth off about play refinements, even with the seasoned vets.

Case in point from the other night, and this one came back to get me. The party was making camp in a stand of evergreens (they're way up in the mountains) and their ranger scouts noticed a small group of grizzly bears come down out of the opposite trees and start splashing in the river that split the valley. Then one of the bears rises on it's haunches, sniffing the air. Did it smell their horses, or the cooking meat?

The druid goes out there with a sack of food, cautiously uses Speak with Animals, ends up convincing the bears to be on their way, after giving them a few weeks worth of rations to drag off.

So they're camping later that night, and I snicker, "Good thing you didn't remember you took Animal Friendship…" That's the spell that lets druids turn an animal into a permanent companion. The gears started turning in the minds of the players… could they afford to miss a day of travel, and have the rangers and druid double back and track the bears, so the druid could attempt Animal Friendship? Dang it! By the next night, the druid was working on teaching his new bear companion some tricks, after burning a few Speak with Animals and Charm Mammal spells out in the wilds.

In all truth, this was a fine turn of events for the players, the druid guy loves his new animal companion - "I have a bear!" - the players laugh during Speak with Animals when the bear talks like the Yogi Bear cartoon character, and seeing a grizzly bear maul hobgoblins later in the session was entertaining all around.

But seriously, I need to learn to shut the hell up!

Desperately Seeking Tsojcanth - Gothic Greyhawk Game 51

2012-01-28T14:28:00.009-05:00

In which the quest to find fabled Tsojcanth is begun...

Cast of Characters
Mordecai, a Cleric-7: Adam
Forlorn, an Elf-5: Bo
Mister Moore, Magic User-6: Mike
Shy, a Fighter-6: JR
Leonidas the Paladin-5: Nogal
Digit, the Elf Thief-7: Z
Konstantine, Magic User-5: Smitty

Henchmen:
Phat Kobra, a Dwarf-5
Grumble the Smug, Halfling-5
Donavich, Cleric-4
Boris, Druid-4
Meatshield 1, ~~Sean~~, Ranger-1
Meatshield 2, ~~Declan~~, Ranger-1
Ireena, a Fighter - 5
Vlad the Inhaler, Magic User-1
Meatshield 3, ~~Mason~~, Cleric-1

*Italicized characters are back in Barovia

Yes! Last week, we officially started AD&D Module S4, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. (I say it "Zoy-Kanth", although as a kid I pronounced it "Zodge-Kanth"). The groundwork has been laid for a while in the campaign background; the players have crossed paths with many powerful, supernatural entities in their short career: an ancient vampire lord from antiquity, a Satanic witch, a vile master wizard, a lady of the Fairy Otherworld. Now that word has leaked out regarding the lost location of the Demonomicon, these factions (and other, yet unrevealed, players) have plunged into the Crystalmist mountains seeking to find the Lost Caverns and be the first to claim the Demonomicom. Last week, the players launched their own expedition to find the book

The players are following a gypsy map that shows many of the valleys and passes in and around Barovia, and they've headed into the mountains with weeks of rations, animal feed, horses and mules, wending their way through the high passes. Their first objective is to find something they're calling the Gnome Vale; from Strahd's journal and library notes, it should be within about 50 miles from Barovia, and one written account indicated it wasn't far from the Horn of Iggwilv, an important landmark for finding the Lost Caverns.

Work is kicking me in the head right now, otherwise I'd have made some e-versions of the new maps we're using, and post them on the blog; it's also making it impossible to work on the Black City. It's good stuff though - in the midst of a job change, initiating a few large projects, completing some carryover projects. I'll get some Tsojcanth related maps up in a few weeks - I've adjusted them slightly for local geography.

In fact - I should be getting back to some work-related reading this afternoon, so I'm only going to briefly narrate what happened. Boris had used Druid mojo to gain an animal companion, a hawk, and he's trained it to return. Each day in the mountains, he's using Speak with Animals to send it out searching, and then using a second Speak with Animals later in the day when it returns to learn if it's seen anything important. In this way, the players quickly found the location of the Gnome Valley, but they don't yet know how to reach it - the hawk was able to fly over impassable ridges. The initial goal has shifted from finding the hidden vale, to finding a pass that will lend egress to it.

The party fought an entire army of goblins (if you count nearly a hundred goblins as "an army") and demonstrated how awesome a party of 6th level guys can be when they unleash a ton of magic; they Slowed a large section of goblin infantry, Hasted their front-line fighters, blasted the back ranks with Fireballs, sniped sergeants and leaders with barrages of Magic Missiles. It was over before the goblins knew what hit them. We all know there are monsters out there that will beat the snot out of adventurers, but as the players remarked amongst themselves, they felt like Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn single-handedly taking out a horde of orcs. Even I was impressed.

Some other points that may come up in future games: familiars, the dream of Leonidas, and the charter. Familiars: both Mister Moore and Forlorn used their downtime in Barovia to summon familiars; Forlorn now has a weasel companion, and Mister Moore, the very picture of Lawfulness and Goodness, attracted a Brownie. I've never seen a player roll that 5% chance to get a special familiar, so that was quite remarkable. His name is "Packer", and I suppose I'll need to learn a wee Irish accent when I need to take on the role of Packer the Brownie.

Leonidas had a visionary dream which he claims came straight from Zeus, his patron deity, in which he saw a golden eagle circle an amazing glowing sword (he thinks it's a holy sword) stuck in a rock, Excalibur-style, at a stone tomb edifice in the gnome vale.

Finally, the group amended the BK Charter, their corporate adventuring papers, to include that they have the right to call all 1st level henchman "Meatshield" until such time as the henchman earns level 2, and will be given a proper adventuring nickname. Except for Vlad the Inhaler, whose party-given name is too good to lose. I think Bo is taking a stab at formally writing the BK Inc Charter as a mock legal document. The charter was first introduced way back here: The Player Charter, and has been a mainstay of the group's treasure strategy ever since.

Does your group have a Charter? They should. Charters are fun, and fun is good.

*Image is by the incomparable Erol Otus, from the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth cover.

Mentzer Madness

2012-01-27T06:12:00.002-05:00

You may note how from time to time I climb to the top of the soapbox and proclaim great things about classic D&D, the BX sets, the Known World of Mystara. But I tend to be curiously silent about the Mentzer editions that dominated the classic D&D line after 1983. No longer! You shall know the truth.

It goes like this: Mentzer D&D, BECMI, is the greatest series of D&D sets... that I shall never play again. BECMI, incidentally, comes from Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortal - BECMI.

The reasoning is pretty simple. 36 levels is just way too much room to advance. There is absolutely no way I'll stick with a campaign long enough for a group to get a fraction of the way, and when I stand at the base of the Mentzer Mountain, gazing longingly at the cloud-wreathed peak where the "Paths to Immortality" lead folks beyond the sky to the Immortal Playset, I turn around and say, keep your mountain, you bearded sadist. I'm off to play a game we can actually "finish" in a few years.

So there you have it. You've learned that I have a low attention span, but possess enough self-objectivity to recognize this monstrous flaw. See, a few decades ago it was the opposite; "Who wants to stop playing at level 14, like that unfinished Cook Expert set, when Mentzer lets you go all the way to level 36? The sheer genius!" Oh how we change.

Here's the problem - playing 3-4 times per month, our old school characters are leveling once every 3 or 4 months. After a year and a half, our current set of guys is level 6 or so. I've resisted the urge to nuke the campaign so far, but how long can I hold out? My brain is exploding with ideas. I'm always on the edge.

The thought of trying to spend 144 months (that's 12 whole years, brother) trying to get to the top of Mentzer Mountain, just to find out there's a whole series of Immortal levels to start climbing, is just too much for my comprehension. I had to turn my back on BECMI. When we dabbled with the 4E, with its mad-fast power-leveling, guys would level once per month, meaning that an end-to-end campaign would be about 3 years.

These days, I much prefer the achievable level curve in Moldvay-Cook's BX edition (level 1-14, even though they hinted at 36 levels). Even with AD&D, I don't recall folks playing it after levels 10-14 - about the time they got knee-capped by The Tomb of Horrors. Even if I didn't nuke the whole setting, I'd be ready by then to retire those characters in the campaign and start over.

That all being said, there's no greater model for what should be in WOTC's new D&D than the contents of those BECMI books. They want modular, Frank Mentzer gave us modular. Everyone starts out kicking doors and stabbing monsters in the face with the Basic Set; when the dungeon shtick gets old, you're ready for towns, hex crawls, and nautical jaunts in the Expert Set. Player options, mass combat, and domain ruler ship are in the Companion Set; Artifacts, Paths to Immortality, and Planar Travel are the Master Set, and finally you have the Immortal end game. Is that modular, evolutionary game play or what? Oh well, what do I know?

It seems about time for a new poll. So tell me, o wise and knowledgeable readers, what kind of level range do you like to see in your D&D games?

On The Trail of Cthulhu - a Review

2012-01-25T08:36:00.004-05:00

I'll just come out and say it; Trail of Cthulhu is controversial. It's a new school game and uses mechanics that feel very different from the simulation approach of 1970's games. It shares a common setting with Call of Cthulhu, and it's fairly easy to convert back and forth between the two systems. Furthermore, Pelgrane Press is challenging the status quo with a lot of interesting supplements, many of which I'll review as the year goes on, so Trail of Cthulhu is worth a close look.

The physical book is amazing - much of the art is photo realistic, brooding, and ominous. There are many full page prints of intrepid investigators or explorers dwarfed by alien ruins, strange monuments, or haunted locales, and it captures the spirit of the game perfectly. It’s written by Kenneth Hite, and there's a ton of Mythos scholarship and useful ideas for Cthulhu games.

The book is published by Pelgrane Press and uses their Gumshoe system; Gumshoe shows up in most of their games: Esoterrorists, Fear Itself, Mutant City Blues, Ashen Stars, and the upcoming Night's Black Agents. Before we get too far talking about all the things Trail of Cthulhu does right, let's take a side track and talk about how the Gumshoe system works. (I'll refer to Trail of Cthulhu as TOC here on out).

Gumshoe Abilities
Gumshoe characters don't have Call of Cthulhu (COC) style attributes like strength, intelligence, size, education, etc., instead they have abilities like Athletics, or Forensics. The player can surmise an athletic character is probably strong, and a guy with good technical skills is probably smart.

A character with skill in an ability (for instance, forensics) is an expert in that area. TOC is an investigative game, and a guy with skill in forensics will automatically find the appropriate clues just by searching a scene and bringing forensics. The other thing about having a rating in a skill is that it also gives you a pool of points you can spend during the investigation to excel. Let's say you have skill with Latin; you could normally translate that loose page of De Vermis Mysteriis in a few hours back in your study. But if you spend a point out of your pool, maybe you can read it directly, on the fly, or translate it in a fraction of the normal time - as long as the player can come up with a snappy reason for their moment of excellence. The GM can also assign bonus clues for point spends, but I prefer treating point spends as rewards for quick thinking and player improvisation.

Besides the investigative abilities, all of the conflict skills are abilities, too - "general abilities". Conflict skills require dice rolls, and points can be spent to improve the chance of success. A typical guy can be hit in combat on a 3 or higher on a d6, so even a single point spent on the d6 roll improves the odds dramatically.

What the two sets of pools means is that TOC puts a lot of emphasis on resource choices. Players need to gauge how much they're going to need those points later and spend wisely. Investigation skills only refresh in between completed adventures, whereas general ability pools refresh daily, or partially after periods of short rest.

It can be a little hard to visualize how this plays out differently from a Call of Cthulhu situation, so let's look at how a few situations might be handled in the two rules sets. Building gun-oriented characters in a Cthulhu game isn't generally a good idea, but let's assume you're a Morose Veteran of the Great War with 80% in rifle (COC style). Early in the game, late in the game, doesn't matter, whenever your guy drops prone with his rifle and takes a shot, he'll be shooting at 80%. Whether he makes an awesome shot is out of the player's control; he needs to roll the dice and see what happens, explaining the results after seeing the roll. You don't get to choose when you're awesome (but when you do roll that 16% and make a critical/impale, everyone cheers).

In the TOC system, the same character would have a lot of points in firearms (let's say he has Firearms 12). Many monsters have higher hit thresholds (4 or 5 on a d6) so the player might need to spend 2-3 points per shot to ensure he's always hitting his target. Unlike the COC player, the TOC player can choose to pump a lot of points and ensure he hits. He may even get an extraordinary result with a good roll, exceeding the monster's hit threshold by enough to do extra damage. But later in the session, when all of those firearms pool points are spent, he's down to straight rolls. "I'm spent".

In TOC, you lose some of the suspense that comes when all of your success is contingent on a dice roll. The tension is different; you're constantly wondering, will you need those points later, did you choose to spend wisely? It has echoes of resource management from the survival horror genre, as points dwindle and choices get tough. It's a different qualitative feeling than hoping for lucky rolls.

Another difference is that Trail of Cthulhu resolves narrative investigation differently than dramatic conflict. Let's take the example of a locked door. During an investigation, a character with the locksmith skill can automatically get through the door to the clue on the other side. However, when the group is being chased by a hideous monster, and they need to open the same kind of lock to escape, a dice roll is required and the player would need to spend some points to ensure success. The mechanics change depending on whether it's exploration or combat.

Before you cry foul, keep in mind that versions of D&D have had things like take 10 or take 20 on skill checks, implying that skills during exploration are different than execution under a pressure situation. The ability to refresh pool points at arbitrary intervals is not much different than 4E's use of replenishing Encounter or Daily powers, or even spell memorization.

I tend to think older gamers, ingrained in 70's and 80's RPG styles, are more comfortable with success based on dice rather than the resource spends.

Gumshoe Clues
I've seen questions regarding the Gumshoe clue system; what fun is it if characters always find the right clues? Here's the thing: you built your guy to be a professor of dead languages; you find the cultist's journal, and it has notes in archaic Greek; since you can read ancient Greek, you can read the notes. The fun isn't whether you make or fail a roll, it's what the group does puzzling over this new bit of information you've discovered, and how this changes their plans moving forward.

In games where skill rolls are required to get basic clues, you can end up doing a fair amount of "pixelbitching" once the main guy fails his check. "Crap, I missed my Greek roll on the journal. Now what do we do?" Invariably, it involves using a fall back skill (like Luck or an Idea Roll) to see if a Deux Ex Machina is around to help with that translation; or worse, the barely trained other characters in the group make off-the-wall rolls hoping for a critical success. "Yeah, I only have 5% in Ancient Greek, but I rolled a 04% - take that, Professor! Looks like your 90% in Ancient Greek were points well spent, har har!"

It's no fun when groups miss necessary clues through bad rolls. If they ask the right questions and have the right skills, they should get the clues. Most Call of Cthulhu Keepers familiar with the problem either fudge dice or ignore the skill check rolls for necessary skills; TOC makes it an explicit design element.

New School Roleplaying
Another way that TOC is a modern design vs an old school design are the mechanics that shift narrative control to the players. I already alluded to the investigative abilities, and how a player can choose to spend points, do a little improv, and generate their own spotlight moments. For instance, having the right Flattery skill might get you into the hotel conference; spending some Flattery points and making up a little story for the hotel clerk might get the players a room on the same floor as their target, or a back stage pass. Cha ching.

TOC characters have a new mechanic called a "Drive" - a drive is the personality quirk that makes them open to investigating eldritch horrors in the first place. It could be something like Curiosity, a sense of Adventure, or boredom (Ennui). When characters fulfill their drives, they replenish mental Stability points. Drives can also be a stick that penalizes them when they're ignored. Let's look at an example.

In COC, the group of characters follow the bloody footprints out of the front door to the street, where the man-hole cover lies ajar. "Dude, I am not going into that dark sewer following a rotted corpse. Let's go back to the mansion and come back in the morning. With shotguns". That's how gamers think - like gamers, not like the neurotic protagonists in a horror story. TOC's Drives ensure the characters have a good reason to throw caution to the wind like their literary forebears in the horror genre. In this situation, at least one of the players would want to slide the manhole cover aside and look down the hole, for the chance to score some quick Stability points by demonstrating their insatiable Curiosity, or sense of Adventure.

TOC kept the same kind of Sanity death spiral you see in COC, so there are plenty of options for investigator madness; keeping with its tone of encouraging more player control, many of the insanities involve the entire table "reinforcing" the insane investigator's new, warped world view.

Trail of Cthulhu's Improvements
The book has a lot of elements that are useful in regular Call of Cthulhu campaigns, even if you skip out on the Gumshoe system. TOC introduced the idea of Pulp vs Purist styles of play - more gun-wielding, weird adventure versus the bleak nihilism of Lovecraft's grim stories (think of The Dunwich Horror as a pulp story, and The Colour Out of Space as a Purist story). There is great practical advice on structuring investigations and building out mystery scenarios, and examples of "campaign frames" - narrative structures for investigation games. The original COC rules don't provide any of that campaign support, and I look at the TOC ideas fairly often. I owe the readership here an article on narrative structures for Cthulhu gaming, so I'll defer a discussion on campaign frames for now, and return to it real soon.

The Mythos monsters and entities are very well done, and each major entity is given numerous rationales or explanations that surrounds the beastie with a sense of mystery and horror. The COC book, with it's dry statistics and monster-manual-style of presentation, has had the unfortunate effect of making those Mythos horrors a bit banal after 30+ years.

Finally, Pelgrane Press has created a praiseworthy body of work, stretching the limits of Cthulhu gaming with titles like Bookhounds of London, Shadows over Filmland, Cthulhu Apocalypse, and The Armitage Files. I'll be reviewing many of the Pelgrane titles as the year goes on, as they hold interest for both TOC or COC Keepers. Because both games are light on rules, I find it's really easy to convert back and forth, running TOC materials using the COC rules - after a while, you stop seeing green code fragments, just blonde, brunette, red head….

We've played a fair number of Trail of Cthulhu one-shots the past few years; the greater emphasis on pregenerated characters with back stories, Drives, improvisational role playing, and bleak, Purist destruction, makes it ideal for one-shots and change of pace games - everybody dies or goes bonkers. I expect we'll be doing some classic Call of Cthulhu games this spring and summer, while importing some of the TOC enhancements to the art. Although I like it quite a bit, we've never given Trail a run as a campaign game. Hopefully I've given folks that aren't sure which style they'd prefer, Call of Cthulhu or Trail of Cthulhu, some qualitative information to illuminate the differences and help any decisions on system. I'm glad to discuss the two games more in the comments.

Blogthulhu

2012-01-24T08:23:00.001-05:00

Does anyone know of some good blogs on Cthulhu and Lovecraft gaming? I regularly read Ken Hite's and Dan Harm's blog (when they post), and Pookie's Reviews from R'hlyeh. AD&D Grognard started a blog for Cthulhu board games. There are lots of places that discuss Lovecraft fiction, but other than the campaign journals on yog-sothoth.com, not a lot of blogging. (Flames Rising sometimes has COC or Trail stuff, but mostly World of Darkness). Let me know what I'm missing! thanks-

Converting to AD&D

2012-01-23T18:47:00.001-05:00

1E is back on top!

Ever since the announcement that 1E is being reprinted, my group has been asking the question whether we should switch completely to AD&D. We're using Labyrinth Lord and the Advanced Edition Companion, so we're pretty much playing AD&D with classic D&D stats and race-classes already - we have a Paladin, for instance. But we're not actually using the old 1E books at the table, despite one of the players (Mike) bringing up the idea of converting at every available opportunity… for months. With the 1E announcement, he's been able to sway the table - the group voted to switch whole cloth to AD&D. The Trampier cover is back in the house.

There are some obvious things to change - the Dwarf becomes a fighter, the Elf becomes a fighter/magic user. The more interesting question is what to do with the stats?

On 3d6, the average roll is 10.5; on 4d6 drop the lowest, the average roll is 12.24 AD&D characters have an average of 10+ more points spread across their ability scores. And it shows. A fighter in classic D&D gets +1 to hit at strength 13; that same fighter needs a strength 17 to get the same bonus in AD&D. Stat inflation, baby.

What have you done for converting existing "classic: characters to AD&D's higher stat requirements? The two options we discussed were re-rolling using 4d6 drop the lowest, but arranging the scores in the same relative order - so if Character A was highest in Intelligence, he would put his highest new stat back into Intelligence. The simple approach is this - since AD&D characters have much higher stats, 10 more ability points, on average, just give everyone 10 more points to spend. That fighter with a 13 strength can pump 4 points into strength, giving himself a 17 and staying on course.

I'm enthused by the 1E reprinting. We don't know how limited will be the print run, and whether it will stay exclusive to hobby stores; I'd be delighted if it was successful and they chose to roll the reprints out to retail. I don't need to go looking for cynical reasons to justify the reprint; WOTC is helping the cause of getting new folks to pay attention to older games again, and that's just dandy.

Gothic Greyhawk - Game 50 - Pounds, Rations and Mules

2012-01-21T11:35:00.002-05:00

Points of Darkness for Horror Gaming

2012-01-20T08:27:00.001-05:00

Last year I spent some time thinking about how I'd run a historical D&D game in a "weird horror" mode, and I called it the 'Wide Area Sandbox'. Points of Darkness is a simpler and more evocative term for horror gaming; I saw it over at Brendan's blog (points of darkness) and it stuck with me.

The idea behind the Points of Light trope is the fantasy world is essentially a dangerous place, and the DM can structure it as civilized settlement (a point of light) surrounded by a vast swaths of wilderness that are unfriendly or hostile (the darkness). It's a great approach for starting a standard D&D campaign, which typically involves a fallen civilization and lots of ruins.

Lovecraft Country: not for hex crawling

Horror gaming often takes place in the regular world - it could be 17th century Europe, the Victorian age, 1920's America, or the modern day. Day to day life may be different than our world, but it's still fairly mundane; whatever supernatural threats or horrors exist, they do so on the fringes of society - the remote mountain fastnesses of Transylvania, untouched tombs of Egypt, sleepy New England coastal towns where the forefathers made a pact with aquatic horrors. The points of darkness where eldritch horror lurk are few and far between, and they keep themselves secret and hidden. This is a problem for putting players in touch with the horror!

The traditional 50 miles of hex crawl centered around a medieval manor or barony doesn't work as an organization structure for a globe-spanning horror game set in the mundane world. The characters aren't going to hex crawl through New England before discovering the weird events surrounding the lonely Akeley Farmhouse (from The Whisperer in Darkness).

The plot hook becomes the primary method for ferreting out the existence of a Point of Darkness, and so the horror game is defined by its approach to plot hooks. I haven't always appreciated the plot hook; it's very easy for a DM enamored with their own ideas of "story" to slide from presenting plot hooks as information into plot hook as rail road.

There are two basic approaches I've seen to using plot hooks in horror games; the first approach emulates the literary genre by associating the plot hook with character back story, the second approach functions more like a police procedural.

In genre emulation, the protagonists often have a close, preexisting connection to the plot hook and the Point of Darkness; they’re already in the wrong place at the wrong time when the story starts. Henry Armitage gets involved with The Dunwich Horror because he happened to be the Professor at Arkham University; Francis Thurston of The Call of Cthulhu (story) was the nephew that inherited the papers of his dead uncle, and pieced together the fragmented tale of the Cthulhu Cult; Walter Gilman in The Dreams in the Witch House happens to be the student that chooses to stay in the Witch House and has those bizarre experiences. The protagonist's initial involvement is almost passive.

You see a similar approach in game materials that try to emulate horror source literature; everyone has to play pre-generated characters that come loaded with a back story that places them in nexus with the upcoming horror. Many Trail of Cthulhu adventures use this approach. Alternatively, everyone makes a character, but they're required to have an appropriate background before the first session - "The adventure involves Mayan ruins, so you need to be an archaeologist, or someone associated with a dig site, at the start of the game".

That approach is fine for one-shots and limited engagements, but doesn't work so well in a campaign where the players want to use their own characters. The "police procedural" approach puts the players in some kind of narrative framework that provides access to plot hooks over time, and the group chooses to conduct investigations that could ultimately lead back to a Point of Darkness. A good example from television was The X-Files; the main characters were FBI agents who often investigated murders and abductions that put them in contact with supernatural or alien forces. Most TV shows that have a recurring horror element have a narrative framework that puts the protagonist in touch with frequent plot hooks - one per episode, right?

The nice thing about the procedural approach is that it gives the players quite a bit of agency in how they actually carry out their investigations. They still need to buy-in to the basic premise of the game, first; "I know we said we'd be occult investigators working for a rich philanthropist, but that sounds kind of dangerous. How about we all become bankers instead?" Short game.

So what's the point about this analysis? Really two-fold. When taking a look at published scenarios, you should be able to ferret out fairly quickly the approach the writer is expecting. Most early Call of Cthulhu materials used back story or connections to a friend or benefactor to get the characters engaged; thus, it was often a struggle having a rationale for introducing replacement characters as the body count rose; be warned. Later publishers in the space have offered various forms of narrative frameworks supporting the procedural approach, obviating the problem and supporting ongoing campaigns that feature degrees of mortality.

As a scenario builder, you'll likely start with a horrible situation in mind, and have to work backwards to getting the players involved (starting at the center of the onion and adding layers). It'll be helpful to know which approach you mean to use - will the players encounter the plot hooks passively or actively? In an upcoming post, I'll discuss common narrative frameworks for games like Call of Cthulhu, and then pivot to discuss different ways writers have presented investigations and adventure sites. After all, what we want are free form sandboxes that maximize player agency! I've got a review of Trail of Cthulhu almost done as well.

Ode to Mystara

2012-01-19T06:00:00.011-05:00

I Got Your Gonzo Right Here, Buddy

Hey, I just found a new blog (Stocking the Dungeon) and noticed it's dedicated to campaigning in my old favorite, Mystara. These days we are strong with the power of AD&D and Greyhawk, running a campaign featuring all the classic AD&D modules, but I spent most of my DM career campaigning in Mystara. For many years, the Grand Duchy of Karameikos was always the starting place for new campaigns.

Mystara tends to be overlooked by the old school crowd, folks that got their start in the 70's and early 80's; by the time Mystara was hitting its stride, they had checked out of TSR and its 2nd Edition and its death from a thousand settings. Mystara followed the pattern of the time, releasing book after book after book, describing all the nations of the Known World in Gazetteers, the Hollow World, and something I can only describe as RACE CLASS MADNESS (in other words, those four Creature Crucible books and Orcs of Thar).

But while many of the TSR settings of the 2E period went for different flavors of theme and simulation, like Al Qadim or Kara Tur or Maztica or The Horde, Mystara saw that, raised them, and then went gonzo. As in, "the moon is ruled by katana-wielding Cat People Samurai Ninjas, who ride giant saber tooth tigers, in space." That, my friends, is either stupid, or awesome. Or as Jeff might say, stupidly awesome.

This is what happens when you're the red-headed stepchild of AD&D. The suits ignore your product line, and you're given freedom to have some fun. Basic D&D is for kids, right? Sit tight and see what happens when the inmates run the asylum.

First off, Mystara kept Dave Arneson's Blackmoor firmly in the setting's prehistory (for those that wanted some time travel, there was the opportunity to jaunt back to the Temple of the Frog or visit the Egg of Coot in the DA series of Blackmoor modules for Mystara). The good ship FSS Beagle crashed on Mystara, and its nuclear reactor exploded, destroying the ancient world of Blackmoor and turning the globe into a prehistoric nuclear wasteland. All magic on Mystara is fueled by low levels of background radiation, and the existence of magical creatures can be traced back to magical mutation. The first step to awesoming up your setting is putting a global thermonuclear catastrophe in the ancient past and declaring that magical races (elves!) are actually unwitting radioactive mutants.

In the Glantri book, there are even ways for wizards to learn how to manipulate radiation-magic directly (it's called The Radiance) and a practitioner will either become immortal or get turned into a Lich suffering from radiation sickness. But don't worry, the 20th level wizards wasting away into radioactive Lichdom fit in with all the vampire wizards and werewolf wizards in Glantri. It's a party. Too much manipulation of the Radiance can actually alter the flow of magic on Mystara, causing Potions of Longevity to fail and magical creatures (elves) to slip into lethargy.

Before I forget - a little Clark Ashton Smith makes any setting better, so those whacky Mystaran writers transplanted the whole crew from Averoigne right into Glantri by way of Castle Amber. I love the fact the Enchantress of Sylaire graces the cover of the Glantri book.

The Mystaran sky is filled with various nations that have mastered air ship technology, like the expansionist Heldannic Knights of the Heldann Freeholds, or the Alphatians, descendants of the Atlanteans of Earth myth. The Alphatians went on an inter-dimensional odyssey before ending up in Mystara... every setting should have ties to sunken Atlantis. We learn that Alphatia is ruled by a council of no less than one thousand 36th level wizards.

If "magic as technology" isn't your thing, you might be annoyed by Mystara. There are flying carpet courier services, islands set up as theme parks for ordinary folks to experience "the adventurer lifestyle" on holiday, and Glantri City is lit by continual light spells. An entire kingdom of gnomes floats high above the ground in their orbiting clockwork city of Serraine.

In case the surface doesn't have enough wahoo, consider that Mystara is hollow. There are huge voids at the north and south pole where an explorer could literally walk around from the outside to the steaming jungles of the inside world, but powerful divine anti-magic prevents flying ships from making the trip. The hollow world is a night-less place where the immortals of Mystara transplant dying cultures in a kind of world-sized bottle city; it's filled with analogs of the Aztecs (with dinosaurs), the Romans (with dinosaurs), and the Egyptians (with dinosaurs). One of the hollow world deities is Ka, the patron god of dinosaurs, so the place is crawling with prehistoric monsters and the scantily clad barbarian princesses that ride them. It's ideal for a savage world, swords & sorcery style game (with dinosaurs).

I mentioned that Mystara featured RACE-CLASS MADNESS. It's what happens when you can't resist the urge to turn any monster or humanoid race into a playable class. I mean "Pegataurs", really? Mystara took the Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling classes, as laid out in Moldvay BX and Mentzer, out to its logical conclusions. There are race classes covering every type of lycanthrope, lots of woodlands creatures (centaurs, pixies, sylphs, dryads, satyrs, and more), all manner of aquatic races, and every kind of monstrous humanoid. One could even run an entire humanoid campaign centered on the monster realms in the Broken Lands - wouldn't it be fun to visit Trollhattan, or Bugburbia? Mystara didn't take Gygax's "humanocentric vision" very seriously, and enjoyed plenty of in-jokes.

In addition to stretching the bounds with gonzo weirdness, the D&D line featured products that took classic D&D out of the dungeon and added new dimensions to game play, like mass combat, domain rulership, and quests for immortality. I haven't been shy about talking up my support for Adventurer Conqueror King, especially because it's improving the systems first field tested on storied Mystara.

The story line that was begun in X4 Master of the Desert Nomads and X5 Temple of Death reaches fruition in module X10, Red Arrow, Black Shield - a double sized adventure that plunges Mystara's Known World into a continent spanning war against "The Master" and his desert hordes. It's really two games in one, first a series of player character quests as the players traverse the Known World as envoys enlisting the kingdoms of the world to rise up against the Master. It's also a continent spanning military campaign using old school hexes and cardboard military counters to track the progress of a war spanning dozens of nations and hundreds of army units.

Domain rules are fully embraced in C1, Test of the Warlords, which opened up the Norwold region of Mystara for colonization, allowing your 15th+ level PC's to carve out wilderness domains, raise armies, and hold off various invasions. Norwold would go on to be a mainstay in the M-series of modules as well, and thrust the players right into the middle of the conflicts between Thyatis and Alphatia, the world-spanning empires on Mystara.

I'm going to skip discussing Mystara's approach to Immortals and quests for Immortality, seeing as this Ode to Mystara is waxing long. Wrath of the Immortals was a boxed set that put this element of play front and center, and probably deserves it's own post at some point (it's both ambitious and controversial). Suffice it to say, Mystara's approach to integrating gods, known as "Immortals", was just was wahoo as the rest of the setting, centering Immortal politics around a location on the moon known as the Vaults of Pandius that's presented a bit like the halls of the Justice League.

Let's hope part of WOTC's appeal to lapsed buyers gamers includes putting those old PDFs back on sale; there's a lot of great stuff in the Mystara catalog that should be experienced by modern gamers and mined for ideas. The Grand Duchy of Karameikos is still the best campaign starting area ever published...

Call of Cthulhu's Old School Roots

2012-01-16T09:47:00.002-05:00

One goal for this year was to write more frequently on subjects with nexus to Call of Cthulhu - reviews, discussions of the literature, how to play the game and run campaigns. If you've hung around here a bit, you know in my D&D discussions I'm biased towards the rules light, old school style of play; a good place to start any discussion of Call of Cthulhu is how it measures up as an old school game.

Simulationist
My power trio of early games is Dungeons & Dragons, Traveller, and Call of Cthulhu. One important element that ties all three games together is they attempt to simulate a game world, with a set of coherent rules where conflict and skill resolution are handled by dice; you don't see any of the things that creep into later generation games like dice pools, resource pools, action points, or similar elements that support cinematic, action-hero play. The game master exerts strong narrative control, and all three games lend themselves well to free form, exploratory scenario design.

Characters
The default approach to Call of Cthulhu is to play ordinary folks in the 1920's, who through one reason or another, begin to investigate occult mysteries. It's the game that pioneered such exciting character choices as "Antiquarian", or "Historian". The action oriented might choose to be a "Police Officer", or "Private Detective". Characters are generally fragile, and the scale is human (as opposed to the super-human action heroes that grace power fantasy gaming). Like other games of the period, COC uses random character attributes.

Conflict and Balance
All of the chief conflict resolution systems use dice for resolution - combat, skill checks, and sanity rolls. Like Traveller, character skill is an important element to the game - investigators are typically armed with such exciting skills like reading ancient languages, or knowledge in various scientific fields like botany or zoology. (Gun skills are useful for dealing with cultists and mortal foes, but not so much against monsters).

There is no "game balance" whatsoever. Invariably, the investigators will cross paths with cultists armed with terrifying spells, or horrible monsters from the Cthulhu Mythos. Survival during an investigation is primarily dependent on player skill, since physical conflict against monsters is a bleak proposition. The ability to analyze clues and information, marshal resources, and solve problems, is critical to successful Call of Cthulhu play, and the game challenges the players far more than their characters.

Paradigm of Investigation
Characters in Call of Cthulhu perform investigations, which are essentially fact-finding, exploratory scenarios. One of the things I'll highlight in some upcoming posts is how investigative scenarios are basically virtual dungeons; you can flow chart an investigation much like a traditional dungeon (and I find it's helpful in scenario design to avoid a linear experience). One issue we'll visit below is that poorly done scenarios are essentially rail roads.

Rules History
Call of Cthulhu was first published back in 1981; the first few releases were boxed sets, followed by progressively more elaborate core rules. I've heard there have been something like 30 different unique printings of the core rulings in one form or another, although the game is officially on the 6th edition, with rumors of a 7th edition in the works. Unlike D&D, that generates wide-scale changes between editions, COC typically features only minor variations, and early edition supplements remain completely compatible with the latest and greatest set of rules.

Issues
We tend to have big debates in the D&D world about play styles and DM approaches; sandbox play is right, and rail road play is wrong, that kind of thing. Similarly, in the Cthulhu space, one can find scenarios that are written in a linear style with foregone conclusions and elements we'd describe as a rail road. One of the things I'll get to discuss over the course of the year is which published scenarios and campaigns support free-form exploration in the old school style, and which campaigns and scenarios are linear rail roads, and how groups have different expectations. For instance, many Call of Cthulhu devotees are more interested in good horror experiences than character agency, and don't mind a linear plot if the situation provides a novel experience.

Another thing that drifts from old school play, is when scenarios put significant emphasis on character background and back story, more than we're used to in old school Dungeons & Dragons. This isn't inherent in the game system, it tends to be the foible of a specific module writer. You folks that complain about the pre-generated characters in Dragonlance know of which I speak.

The original game doesn’t provide a lot of guidance on campaign structures that allow a group of disparate investigators to come together without straining credulity; it really becomes a problem when the body count piles up and replacement characters need to be introduced. "This is Bob, my other character's second cousin's brother…" Call of Cthulhu D20, Delta Green, and Trail of Cthulhu all added useful tools for structuring campaigns that provide an ongoing rationale for character involvement, and I'll explore these ideas in upcoming posts as well. Despite the issues, Call of Cthulhu is absolutely an old school system, and it's possible to structure the same kind of free-form, exploratory adventures in COC that we enjoy so much in old school D&D. It'll be fun to discover here on the blog.

My goal is to do a Cthulhu-related post or so each week, but not overwhelm the D&D stuff; judging by how the side poll is going, the majority of folks that come by here are either COC players or somewhat interested in the game and genre, so that should be fine. Let me know how it's going!

Gothic Greyhawk - Games 48-49 - Founding of a Barony

2012-01-14T18:12:00.001-05:00

Cast of Characters

Player Characters:
Mordecai, a Cleric-7: Adam
Forlorn, an Elf-5: Bo
Mister Moore, Magic User-6: Mike
Shy, a Fighter-6: JR
Leonidas the Paladin-5: Nogal
Digit, the Elf Thief-7: Zee
Konstantine, Magic User-5: Smitty

Henchmen:
Ireena, a Fighter - 5
Phat Kobra, a Dwarf-5
Grumble the Smug, Halfling-5
Donavich, Cleric-4
Boris, Druid-3
Vlad the Inhaler, Magic User-1

On Monday, I posted a brief campaign recap to date, but here's the actual report (or should I say memoir?) of the last two game sessions. Whew, this one is long, and covers politics, diplomacy, religious conversions, and an exciting joust.

Months have passed in the valley of Barovia; over the winter, the characters have begun fixing up Castle Ravenloft, laid plans to replace the wooden church with a larger stone edifice, and negotiated terms with the Barovian gypsies to act as wardens, scouts and border guards. The group was anxious for spring weather, so they could descend from the high mountain valleys back into Sterich and find out what was going on in the world.

In case you're interested, we're using the ACKS (Adventurer Conqueror King) playtest rules to determine things like domain population, castle upkeep costs, domain morale, building costs, all those cool things that come with domain rulership. A previous post on Castle Ravenloft, Under New Management, lays out some of the initial work I did, and they took it forward from there.

The individual characters had their own agendas. Wizards set up laboratories in the castle and began transcribing spells and making "percent change to learn" rolls. Mr Moore assumed the title Baron of Barovia, with his betrothed, Ireena, as the future Baroness. Forlorn has continued reading the Book of Unspeakable Shame. Mordecai, now a 7th level cleric, is Bishop of Barovia, and he and Father Donavich worked diligently at preaching to the villagers and performing miracles on their behalf. They also recruited an acolyte.

Another funny thing became evident; Leonidas the Paladin started extolling the virtues of Zeus, in opposition to Mordecai's church. I guess this detail had drifted into my subconscious, but when the group had frank discussions about the Church and the religion of the townsfolk, Leonidas's player (Nogal) reminded me that he was dedicated to the old gods and Zeus as Ruler of the Universe. "Who wants to be a holy paladin when I can be a paladin of Zeus?"

Mordecai is a "prophet" of the Eternal Spirit - he was a simple farmer that had an angelic visitation, and found himself bestowed with clerical powers. Since the beginning of the campaign, clerical spell casters in Gothic Greyhawk are selected through divine fiat, for unknown aims, and they are infrequent. As such, he hasn’t developed formal ties to the institution of the Church, and has been fairly laissez faire regarding other faiths.

I hadn't planned on having echoes of the Greek gods in the medieval framework of Gothic Greyhawk, but I certainly want to encourage the kids in the campaign to make creative additions to the world. So now Nogal is quick to google a picture of the Spartans from 300 whenever he feels the need to remind me what his guy looks like. "His armor and helmet looks like this guy, only there's more armor because it's plate mail, and more clothes because it's cold". And they have a druid henchman, too.

I'll leave it up to the players to figure out how they work together with three different "faiths" in the group, whereas NPCs and inhabitants of the world are another matter, as you'll see further in the report.

While the magic users continued their group spell transcription, Leonidas announced that he was having visions of a magnificent war horse, and he needed to leave the valley and enter the low lands. (You may recall the AD&D Paladin can 'call a war horse' at 4th level). His horse was in the hands of a brutal master, whom he swore to find and challenge. A bunch of characters signed on to go with him in pursuit of the vision, and so a sortie was planned.

Mordecai, Shy, Leonidas, Digit, Ireena, Phat Kobra, Grumble, Donavich, and Boris, went on the journey, along with Vladimir, a level 1 magic user apprentice recruited by Moore's guild. Ireena considered this an official state act, and their first stop was to head into the foothills on the way out of Barovia and visit Constantine's old village (which I learned from the players was called Stradia). Ireena decided that Stradia would need to become part of Barovia, and the lord of Stradia, Tzefronis, would be given the chance to pledge fealty to the new Baron.

Now, nothing is more boring to me then relating lots of role playing, and this was a session heavy in it. I'll try and touch only on the high points. There was a scene akin to a Monty Python sketch trying to get admitted to Lord Tzefronis's tower - "We're envoys of the Lady of Barovia." No, you're not. We have one already - don't need anymore envoys. "Open in the name of the Baron". Nope, don't think so. Besides, Barovia doesn't have a Baron. "There is a new Baron!" How imaginative you are, giving yourself titles. Good day. (That kind of stuff).

Eventually, Tzefronis's wily gate guard was overcome, Lord Tzefronis brought to heel, and a few days later the group had descended out of the high vales and re-entered the Upper Davish river valley, anxious to see if there were zombies or ghouls about. Instead, they ran into a Flannish patrol.

The nice thing about a wilderness trek is I got the chance to use my "What is the party doing when the encounter happens" tables. A Flannish patrol came across them while they were taking a map break, and Ireena was busy telling a bawdy joke about her husband. "Oh yes, the phrase, stop fondling your little wooden wand has taken on a whole new meaning to me…" Gotta love henchmen making fun of their bosses, especially when it's a future wife. Meanwhile, the new magic user apprentice, Vladimir, sneaking off for a quick smoke, earned the nick name "Vlad the Inhaler". He was surprised when a patrol of highlanders on small rugged horses rounded the corner. The players remarked, "His love of the halfling's leaf has clearly clouded his mind".

They made peaceable contact with Egan, the patrol leader, and learned much of the changes wrought in the valley since the previous autumn. As mentioned in the campaign recap, the Flannish highlanders were at odds with the lowland Oeridians of Sterich. The Oeridians were the folk that lived in the settled towns of Bovia, Poignard and Mittleberg, and the lord of Mittleberg was preparing a campaign to convert them. I meant to call to mind historical conflicts like the Franks and Saxons, or the English and Scottish or Welsh.

Egan pointed out how a plague of undead wiped away the decadent lowlanders, and the undead followed the refugees down the valley, attacking Bovia after Poignard and eventually threatening the rich farmland around the capital, Istvin, hundreds of miles away.

Meanwhile, the Flans have moved into the void, slaying any straggler undead left by the horde and forming a large moot in the ruins of one of the old Oeridian villages. The party traveled with the patrol back to the semi-nomadic encampment over the next few days. Although many of the characters were Oeridian in race, as representatives of the new Barony, there were opportunities for peace and trade between the two groups, and Egan held in high esteem those who had overthrown the ancient vampire lord of the mountains. And the Flans wanted allies for when the folk of Istvin tried to reclaim their lost lands.

When Leonidas described the vision of his war horse, Egan confirmed it. "I know that red-haired man you described in the vision, his name is Bran, and we know that horse as well. It was caught in the wilds of the valley, perhaps running free after the death of the lowlanders, and Bran's men haven't been able to break it in. He beats the animal cruelly. But he's a proud man, and won't easily give up the animal."

When they arrived at the sprawling encampment, there was a pall over the camp. The chieftain, Cadman, was wasting away after falling victim to a witch's curse. In the large audience hall, he was attended by healers while he slunk low in his wooden throne, and heard the character's story. They agreed to peaceful contact and to trade some horses, then they heard Cadman's tale of the witch:

A few nights ago, we were visited by a powerful witch. She was moving her forces across our lands, a foul woman that walked with a devil at her side. She had a legion of orcs and a vicious trolls in the nearby hills, and was flown by gargoyles on a palanquin.

(The players have had at least three run-ins and quests with the witch, so they know her well).

When I told her we wouldn't join her quest, she mocked me. She said, "The great war is coming. What does it matter if you've finally won back your lands? One of the great wizards of yore has returned to the world of men, one who knows the lost secrets of Iggwilv and her book of Evil Chaos. He has joined with the blood drinker that leads Orcus's horde, and together they turn west to be the ones to rediscover the book first. They are the first of many to join the hunt - the Red Duke is coming to the south from the Horned Lands, and the Prince of Lost Dreams has crossed into the mortal world in Geoff".

Her speech was amazing and fearful, but still we would not join forces with that foul one. And so she told me that if we would not lend her our strength, we would have none ourselves; she pronounced a terrible curse upon me, one that none of our druids has been able to cure. I fear I am dying.

Cadman also went on to report that scouts had reported that the siege of Istvin was dispersing, as if the horde of zombies and ghouls had suddenly become leaderless and returned to their mindless pillaging. It seemed to corroborate the witch's story that Cyris Maximus, the vampire lord that took control of the horde, had changed his focus, and was now seeking out this evil book with the help of a dark wizard. The players are convinced the dark wizard is none other than Calcidius, the vile wizard they trapped behind brick and mortar in the Tower of the Stargazer.

This was all bad news for the players. In previous encounters with the witch, they knew she was a servant of Hell, and was preparing for an upcoming conflict against the forces of the Abyss. The beginning of her great war seemed nigh at hand.

Mordecai volunteered to attempt a healing the following day. There was a haughty exchange between Mordecai and the high shaman, the druid Dallas, like Moses versus Pharaoh's wizards, but the chieftain agreed to give Mordecai an attempt on the morrow. Mordecai prayed for Remove Curse, and the following day, restored the chieftain to full health. The chieftain decreed there would be a new god in the halls of his people, that there would be space for this "Eternal Spirit" amongst his people, and the druid stormed off, enraged.

Leonidas stepped forward when the chieftain asked if there was some final favor to grant for his health, and he described the warrior Bran. "I would like to challenge him for the right of the white horse," said Leonidas, and Bran was summoned. "I will not give up my prize mount to this outsider", spat the horse lord, but Leonidas had been coached on invoking the proper challenge, and Bran agreed to ride against him in a joust. It was set for that afternoon.

Numerous crowds gathered on the tilting field, as this was considered great entertainment by the hill people. Bran and his supporters were on one edge of the sward, Leonidas on the other, with spears and swords. Bran didn't ride the white horse, but had a small, sturdy war horse. Although the fighting wasn't meant to be to the death, tempers were hot and Bran wasn't going to hold back.

On the first pass, Bran caught Leonidas with a spear and unhorsed him soundly; the paladin fell flat on his back and had lost half his hit points between the double damage charge and the fall. (Nogal slumped his head on the table in despair - kids take these moments hard). He quickly got to his feet and pulled his sword, chopping at Bran's spear and forcing the horse lord to dismount as well and fight hand to hand.

Leonidas was a better swordsman, and quickly made up ground as they started trading sword blows, and the final round ended up with simultaneous initiative; Bran rolled a critical, and double damage brought Leonidas down to 2 hit points left. But Leonidas rolled heavy damage himself, and this was enough to knock Bran loopy (zero hit points); in terms of the duel, that gave him position to force a submission. Leonidas had won, and Nogal cheered!

Leonidas won his companion war horse, but as a paladin he arranged to offer recompense to the horse lord, paying a fair market value for the animal and soothing over hurt feelings with his clansmen in the interests of peace.

Now the group turned for home. They had come away with the purchase of a dozen and a half horses for their use in Barovia, they had annexed a new village, Stradia, established peaceful trade with their new Flannish neighbors, planted a new church, and learned that various forces of evil were on the move. Future discussions with the Flans might include an alliance against Istvin, but the group didn't commit.

My guess is they'll want game time to advance to where the wizards are done with all their spell transcription (I'll need to consult the calendar, but I think there was about a week left) and they'll use that time to plan a quest. I'm thinking they'll throw their hat into the ring and mount their own expeditionary force to track down the witch, and find this evil book ahead of Calcidius and his vampire companion. Should be fun!

Happy Friday the 13th!

2012-01-13T22:14:00.002-05:00

My kind of M:TG card!

It's Friday the 13th, and the mind invariably drifts to slasher flicks and cheesy killers in hockey masks.

Okay, well that's what I was thinking about today, at least. Such a long dreary week. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark came in the mail, and I'm excited to experience the Del Toro remake. Tonight is a good night for some horror!

Far and away, the worst opponents in any horror game are the psychotic humans - the mad, deranged killers, and the hillbilly clan of cannibals. When the group's attention is focused on monsters that look the part, they often fail to notice that they've entered the domain of a two-legged monster, that looks just like them, until it's too late.

Implacable and insane human opponents play a key role in a few of my favorite Call of Cthulhu scenarios - let's take a look at The Worm that Walks, and The Hills Rise Wild.

The Worm that Walks is one of the chapters in The Shadows of Yog Sothoth campaign; while the group is visiting a benefactor, they discover a lead that takes them out to an old cabin ("Don't go in the woods!") where something occult may have happened; what's really waiting for them out there are a bunch of characters straight out Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The signature scene is when one of the killers bursts out of a pile of bones, startling any adjacent investigators, and whacking one of them with a huge axe.

In The Hills Rise Wild, the adventurers are trekking overland in rural Dunwich looking for a fallen meteor. When they take advantage of some country hospitality, they put themselves at the mercy of a deranged cultist and his downbeaten and abused family. It's quite creepy.

For a literary reference, take a look at Lovecraft's The Picture in the House. It's one of the earlier tales, and has an ending reminscent of an Edgar Allen Poe story. It's an excellently creep story. A traveler in the Miskatonic Valley enters a lonely farmhouse when caught out in a storm; the minimalist story begins to get unsettling when he starts flipping through an old book and has a progressively more disturbing conversation with the menacing owner of the house. I don't want to give the ending or twist away if you haven't read it; it's a short story so go check it out yourself.

I haven't been mean enough to put a nasty family of hillbilly cannibals into a regular D&D game; players accustomed to only seeing monsters where they have green skin or tusks would be far too easy to lure in - like shooting fish in a barrel. But it's time I rectified this egregious oversight. In the meantime, let me know how you've used "cannibal hillbillies" in the comments.

I'm off to see Don't Be Afraid of the Dark!

Recent Poll Results

2012-01-12T06:00:00.002-05:00

I'm off to "the Big City" today, so not much time for a deep thought post. How about we take a look at how things went with some recent polls?

THE LOCATION FOR THE ADVENTURE LIES BEYOND TREACHEROUS WATERS. CAN THE PLAYER'S SHIP SINK ALONG THE WAY, KILLING EVERYONE?

Yes - If it happens, time to roll new guys (31%), No - The story would be over before it began (69%).

See - I tricked you - I put in the words "story" in the second answer, a clear tip off that making rulings to fit some notion of a predetermined story is the wrong answer, prima facie. By now you should realize story is irrelevant; no player characters have plot immunity. If they choose to hop in a boat and head into unsafe waters without precautions, of course the ship can sink. Blub blub. That all being said, I appreciate the well-thought out comments in the post - many folks were fine with raining havoc down on players that sailed unwisely into ice-berg laden northern waters, but rather than making a sinking ship equal instant death, they advocated a wide range of complications - ship damage, lost cargoes, lost resources, man overboard, forced to abandon ship to a lifeboat, tons of options that still get the point across. I'll be a wiser judge with all your useful suggestions in hand.

WHAT'S YOUR PREFERRED METHOD FOR ABILITY SCORE GENERATION?

3d6 in order, no adjustment (44%), 3d6, rearrange and adjust (14%), 4d6, rearrange and adjust (12%), Modern point buy (7%), Something else (21%).

3d6 in one form or another was the popular choice in my circles; from the comments, I got the sense the folks that picked "something else" were doing 3d6 with the adjustment scheme from Moldvay BX, and I probably needed to call that out specifically - BX called for 3d6 in order, limited adjustments, but no rearranging. From previous polls, I get the sense by-the-book AD&D sits around 10-15% in terms of active play so the 4d6 result makes sense. I see a lot of Advanced Edition Companion in use with classic D&D versions.

The 1970's Sandbox as a Post-Modern Experience

2012-01-11T08:19:00.000-05:00

We often use the term "emergent stories" to describe what happens in the free-form sandbox style of play. The DM presents an environment for play, without a preordained plot or story, and the players exert freedom of choice in how they choose to interact with the setting. As they move about the place, gathering information and making decisions, we derive enjoyment from the resolution of conflicts, the approaches used to overcome challenges, the successes and failures. Many things come together at the table - the DM's artistry of description and presentation, often humorous role playing by the players, and the anticipation of seeing how the dice roll at a given time. "We explore dungeons, not characters". The story "emerges".

Herb pointed out an observation he made regarding emergent story in the sandbox - he called it Memoir as Story. (Definitely go read it, if you missed it previously). Herb's analysis hit me hard in two places - first in how it should define the goal of actual play, and then how it informs the after-play report.

When you step back and consider a person's day-to-day life, it's a meaningless string of incidental events - morning coffee, a drive to work, stop at the drive-thru for a bagel, reading the morning email. Is that upcoming meeting with a client important on a cosmic scale? How about on a personal scale? It's only after the fact that we fully appreciate the meaning of life's mundane events. Herb's point was that the biographer or memoir writer superimposes importance on life's mundane occurrences in order to create a narrative out of an otherwise undifferentiated string of incidents. Your life is a sandbox adventure, my friends. We all suffer a bit from apophenia and pareidolia - we're the unsung protagonists of our individual lives.

It's been many years since I've stalked the halls of academia, so forgive me if I'm misusing the term, but when comparing the sandbox to story games, wouldn't that make the D&D sandbox a post-modern experience? The argument is that the individual creates a narrative where none exists, by attributing subjective meaning to things. The party happened to stumble into the toughest monster on a dungeon level at an inopportune time, but they manage to prevail due to some lucky rolls; it's only afterwards, when resistance crumbles and they learn they're left as the toughest hombres on the block, that they declare, "Boy that was some climax to clearing that dungeon level". Prior to fixing the definition in place, the entire experience was sans plot and fairly elastic. Who knew how it would turn out? The other piece that's interesting is that there's no one version of the truth; since each individual constructs their own mental narrative, If you have five players, they could come away from the experience with five distinct stories.

Speaking of the number five, I'll reserve special antipathy for that darling of the new school set - the "five room dungeon". I'll defer the invective for now; I don't want to derail this post too much with an impromptu barrage of vitriol.

Back to the main item, the other place the Story as Memoir metaphor holds truth is in the process of writing a campaign journal or session report. The journal becomes an external artifact reflecting this internal process of attaching meaning to events; categorizing, sequencing, sifting, and otherwise editing our memories in order to present a view of what happened that's compelling for someone else to read. I know when I write game reports for Gothic Greyhawk, I try and skip as many trivialities as possible.

Here's the lesson for sandbox dungeon masters; don't get caught up with concerns about story or driving the action in your campaign to any preordained conclusions. The human condition is such that your players will take care of superimposing a narrative structure on what's happening for you; when it's all said and done, the group will be able to reminisce when a story arc started, when it was getting intense, and when it concluded - even if there was no premeditated story there to start.

Your job is to fill the sandbox with compelling elements - interesting places to visit, challenges waiting to test intrepid adventures, and strongly characterized NPCs. The rest will take care of itself.

We explore dungeons, not characters: Does anyone know who originated this quote? I recall it was part of Evreuax's Sig on Dragonsfoot some years back, so it predated my entry into blogging. Just curious - it sums up the old school gaming experience on so many levels.

Gothic Greyhawk - What's it About?

2012-01-09T10:53:00.002-05:00

We finally got to resume my long-running quasi-AD&D campaign this past weekend. I say quasi-AD&D, because we're using basically the BX rules with Labyrinth Lord's Advanced Edition Companion - all the good stuff from AD&D without the dubious sub systems.

There are two good reasons for a quick overview of the campaign - first, it seems like two months since a campaign report, and second, the latest events in the campaign hearken back to the earliest days of the campaign, two summers ago. Memories just aren’t that good for campaign minutiae.

Why Is It Called Gothic Greyhawk?
I have a deep respect for all the creative things touched by Gygax, despite my quibbles with some rules , so when the players clamored for a return to a traditional Dungeons & Dragons experience after our divorce from 4E, it had to be Greyhawk. Most of these guys had never played the early AD&D modules and they specifically requested a campaign that featured the classics. Ravenloft was also on the list.

My vision of Greyhawk was to treat it like a folkloric early Medieval setting, emphasizing a strong monotheistic church, devils and fallen angels, ghosts, faeries, vampires, werewolves, witches, and things that go bump in the night. We set the campaign in the misty river valleys of the Earldom of Sterich, placed the hidden valley of Barovia at the headwaters of the Davish river, and unleashed a bevy of 1st level characters into a hex crawl sandbox centered on Mittleberg - this all began a year and a half ago.

Recent History
The last 6-7 months of the campaign took place in Barovia, where the characters matched wits with the vampire lord Strahd von Zarovitch. Strahd was nuked by a Dispel Evil scroll about halfway through the time period, but the group spent months fighting a guerilla war against all the free-willed vampires, previously under Strahd's control, that now strove for supremacy over the castle and village. Notable energy drainers appeared, such as The White Lady, The Top-Hat Man, sexy Gertrude and Helga, Sasha the Vampire Queen, and various minor vampire spawn - including risen PC's previously killed by the vampires, like the cleric Barzai the Wise.

Before the holidays, the group concluded the campaign against the vampires and were in sole possession of Ravenloft Castle (under new management); Mister Moore pledged marriage to the daughter of the previous mayor of Barovia, Ireena, and they've assumed the titles Lord and Lady of the new land. They immediately started rebuilding the valley.

The next campaign journal resumes with the characters sending envoys out of Barovia, back down into the lowlands, to determine the state of the world.

Useful Background for Upcoming Journals
The big event that characterized the early days of Gothic Greyhawk was when the group released 13,000 hungry dead out of Death Mountain (the LOTFP adventure Death Frost Doom); the tide of zombies and ghouls swept into the river valley, overrunning the human settlements of Mittleberg and Poignard (see map here). The player characters made a deal with the ancient vampire, Cyris Maximus, to avoid the horde, and they ended up going the opposite direction, deeper into the Joten Mountains. Along the way they had encounters with a powerful witch, lycanthropes, and the dwarven citadel of Stonegate.

Another element that should be remembered as the story resumes is the conflict between the lowland Oeridians and the Flannish hill folk. In the early days of the campaign, the lord of Mittleberg was supporting the Church in its effort to send missionaries into the high country to preach to the hill folk; when the latest missionary was murdered by the hill shamans, plans were drawn up for a spring campaign to march an army into the hills and sack the vales where the druidic shamans held sway. The folk of Mittleberg were swept away by the zombie horde before this campaign ever happened.

The folk of the hills, in their high mountain vales, persisted.

Cast of Characters
Here's the crew - although I need to confirm the current levels are accurate. Since the campaign started, we’ve had 16 character deaths.

Player Characters:
Mordecai, a Cleric-7: Adam
Forlorn, an Elf-5: Bo
Mister Moore, Magic User-6: Mike
Shy, a Fighter-6: JR
Leonidas the Paladin-5: Nogal
Digit, the Elf Thief-7: Z
Konstantine, Magic User-5: Smitty

Henchmen:Ireena, a Fighter - 5
Phat Kobra, a Dwarf-5
Grumble the Smug, Halfling-5
Donavich, Cleric-4
Boris, Druid-3
Vlad the Inhaler, Magic User-1

Do you hear The Call… of Cthulhu? A New Poll.

2012-01-08T11:34:00.002-05:00

A simple question for a Sunday, before I head out to do some chores and then settle in for the late afternoon football game. D&D was the primary fantasy game I played in my youth, but we messed around with Gamma World, Traveller, and Call of Cthulhu. Besides D&D, I kept up with Call of Cthulhu, and played a fair number of campaigns in the 90's and early 2000's.

There's a significant intersection between Weird Horror D&D and Call of Cthulhu, so it's natural I've been thinking a lot lately about Call of Cthulhu and its relations (Trail of Cthulhu, Realms of Cthulhu). What kind of experience do you have with Cthulhu gaming? There's a new poll over to the right, and feel free to drop a comment.

I'm off to chainsaw some logs and split wood with a wedge and maul - fun stuff.

Games Don't Need Plots to Have Stories

2012-01-07T13:27:00.004-05:00

I saw a prominent blogger (JB over at the Blackrazor blog: ranting in the new year) taking the game to task for being low-brow. JB is fun to read because he brings a lot of passion to his blog and isn't afraid to step on the soapbox. Going into dark holes, kicking down doors, and stabbing monsters in the face is dumb; it doesn't tell the kind of story you read about in fantasy novels.

It's true, you don't see much looting in fantasy novels. But games shouldn't worry about emulating fiction; they should worry about being good games, first and foremost. Dungeons & Dragons is a very good game. There's a reason it's endured in a sea of forgettable RPGs, each trying to tell a story. When a game is good, and you play it over and over again, excellent stories emerge after the fact.

Let’s talk about another game that's just a big dumb game - Pro Football.

Here we are on the verge of the NFL play offs, and the beloved Broncos are a day away from getting crushed by the Steelers in the play offs (again). It's a good time to reflect on the NFL season and how things developed this year. Football is just a dumb game - a bunch of big dudes, with helmets and cleats, trying to jam an odd shaped brown leather ball across a line in a field of grass. It's got some funny rules, and a referee. No novelist or screenwriter sits down to script out how the NFL season is going to unfold.

Denver Post: Tebowing

This year, the big story with the beloved Broncos was Tim Tebow. Who saw that one coming? Tebow was the 3rd string quarterback coming out of Broncos camp, and the new coach considered him a wasted draft pick by the previous regime. Kyle Orton was the starter. And then Orton's Broncos started the season 1-4. The fans were restless. Colorado has a strong evangelical presence and folks clamored to see Tebow hit the field; they even bought billboard space across from the stadium to campaign for their guy. It was Tebow's chance to pilot the team after the bye.

The Broncos went and ripped off a string of 7 straight victories, many of them in dramatic, 4th quarter come-from-behind fashion with Tebow's late game heroics. People started to notice. A story about the Broncos began to emerge. I would imagine even those of you who dislike sports have seen some kind of mention of Tebow over the past month; there was even a Saturday Night Live sketch with Jesus in the Broncos locker room poking some fun at the phenomenon.

This particular story took a nosedive when the Broncos finished the season 0-3, getting killed by the Patriots and Bills, limping into the playoffs, and now facing the hard-nosed Steelers in tomorrow's game. I don't have high hopes, but it's been a fun and memorable season nonetheless. Real stories don't need endings like books.

The lesson here is simple. Football is a simple game, a bunch of big dudes smashing into each other and running around. But when you toss in the high drama elements of competition, rivalries, grudges, egos, strong personalities, amazing athleticism, tactics, strategy, dynasties, history, the media, the fans, then the stories become larger than life. Every minute counts in the NFL and there is no tomorrow. These emergent stories are much better than anything someone could have scripted, because no one predicted them. Consider how often you're watching something and can tell where a movie plot is going to end up, or how a book is going to finish? Why would you want to copy that in a game?

The confluence of factors that come together in Dungeons & Dragons make it an excellent campaign game and thus an excellent vehicle for emergent stories. Lairs, dungeons, wilderness hex crawls, and landscapes filled with petty rulers for toppling, are fertile ground for a player-driven campaign. The character class structure of D&D fosters team work and group planning. The XP for gold structure provides a built-in overarching objective. Compared to the motivations that drive literary characters, looting wherever you go is a bit shallow, but it's very very good for ongoing gaming.

I find that when I let go of the notion of genre emulation, and let the game do what it does best, we don't lack for amazing stories. My campaign journal is full of them.

Note: The idea that games should stop trying to tell stories and just focus on being good games is not new or original; I remember hearing a Microsoft video game designer talking about the football and story analogy on a podcast and it made a huge impact on me. I've never played Minecraft, but I hear similar things about it as a plot-less game. Video games with their cut scenes tell the designer's story, but fail when compared to the amazing and original stories that emerge from a good tabletop sandbox game.

Photo: Daniel Petty, The Denver Post

Isgerd's Fury: A Sample Ship for the Black City

2012-01-05T14:52:00.001-05:00

Spoken by Heidrek Palson, captain of the Isgerd's Fury:

Welcome to Thule! We've made it across the whale-road, but before you run off half-aimed into the ruins, we'll set up a camp up the beach and unload the ship. I'll give you some quick pointers about life on Thule so you don't end up feeding the ravens.

There to the north, where you see the rock wall and the weak smoke coming from a cluster of huts and wood halls - that's Trade Town. It's run by a Jarl named Bergfinn, and his honor guard keeps the law. Here on the beach, everyone is subject to Bergfinn's laws - and they're mainly in place to limit the feuds. There's not much to the town, a mead hall and a smithy, and a place to barter and trade. Bergfinn's crew arrives at the beginning of summer, same as us. In return for safety and use of the beach, we give Bergfinn a cut of what we find. There's a dusk-skinned wizard from the sun-scorched lands that lives in a tower up the cleft from Trade Town, and the wizard pays good silver for artifacts from the city. They say he returns to his home in the hot lands each night, carried on the wind by a genie.

Look down the beach - you see another half dozen ships pulled ashore like us, making camps? Most of them are Norwegians from Trondelag, but a few are from the south - Bergen, or the Vik. From time to time you'll see some Swedes or Danes. More ships may come as the summer waxes, and they'll start to leave as the captains lose people to the ruins, or run out of supplies. Bergfinn's laws keep the peace out here on the beach, but it's different in the ruins. Watch your backs or you'll feed the ravens.

The ruins are a few miles up the shore from Trade Town. There aren't good places to beach the sea-steeds near the city, it's always misty, and there's always ice in the water, so we make camp down here. Many folks head to the ruins with picks and shovels and try to excavate treasures right on the surface. If you're brave, you might use the hole at the Well of Woe to climb down to the tunnels beneath the city, where the treasure is better.

Men that are clever and lucky are able to find sparkling gemstones, triangles of gold and platinum, and things with strange eldritch writings favored by the wizard of the tower. Find stuff like that, and we'll all go home wealthier men. But there are snow beasts in the ruins, and they say the dead come back to life in the tunnels under the city and hunt the living. You'll have plenty of chances to prove you belong in Valhalla. It's not any safer out here on the shore; the island is infested with the white bears, and they're not afraid of attacking a man. Don't go anywhere without a good spear.

But first, we need to get camp set up, so we don't freeze to death and feed the ravens ourselves. Pull the hide tents and wood off the boat, we'll build a covered shelter in one of these dugouts and start a fire. It doesn't get much warmer all summer, so we bring enough wood and peat to keep a low fire burning the entire time we're on land. We'll use the ship's hull as a wind-break. Get a move on, you coal-chewers!

This is the type of background information that will show up in the player's guide for first time visitors to the Black City. Isgerd's Fury is a default ship usable for one-shots, and Captain Palson makes for a good starter patron. Either Palson or his first mate, Dag the Proud, are a sources of knowledge and rumors, as this is their second summer guiding a crew to the ruined city.

Below is a list of supplies brought along for a two-month stay on the island. There's enough food for 16 weeks - 3-4 weeks there and back, and another 8-10 weeks for the summer exploration season. For groups that are just interested in kicking open doors and bashing monsters, the DM can ignore the logistics and assume it's managed by the NPC's. For groups that enjoy resource challenges, I'd take things a step further - it's necessary for someone to forage for local food at least once a week to stave off scurvy, as months of preserved rations are insufficient to stay healthy. Foraging for fresh food includes fishing, hunting seals, walruses, whales, reindeer, and bears, and gathering sea bird eggs - eating fresh meats wards off scurvy.

Here's an inventory on what a Knarr might bring on a journey to Thule, to provision a crew of 16 for a summer-long stay on the islands:

Standard rations, 112 days
Preserved rations, 1680 days
Dry goods barrels, 36 barrels
Beverages - water, mead, beer, 1792 days
Fluid barrels, 36 barrels
Trade goods, 1 quarter ton
Lumber for ship repairs, 1 cord of ship lumber
Extra mast, 1 mast
Extra sail, 1 sail
Spears, 16 items
Axes, 10 items
Knives, 16 items
Blankets and bedrolls, 16 items
Wooden shields, 32 of them
Personal Armor (leather), 16 suits
Personal Gear, 16 backpacks
Winter Clothing, 16 sets
Sea Trunks, 16 trunks
Oars, 8 units
Rope, 10 50' lengths
Tents, 16-man capacity
Cooking Gear, 4 kits
Carpentry tools, 1 kit
Picks and Shovels, 16 tools
Block and Tackle, 1 unit
Wood/peat for fuel, 3 cords
Wooden dinghy, 1 boat

Excluding personal gear in the backpacks and sea trunks, a summer-long expedition would cost around 5,500 sp to outfit, using the silver standard, not counting the cost of the ship. Once players are 3rd or 4th level, they're in a position to buy and outfit their own ship. The cargo (including player gear) accounts for around 19 tons - a knarr could carry 25 tons, so there's even a little room to spare.

Isgerd's Fury is sponsored by a local lord back home, Hirsir Thorgeir Sigmundson, and he'll expect the ship's expenses to be paid, plus a share of the profits. If the summer exploration of the ruins goes poorly, it's not unheard of to leave early and raid the coast of England for cattle and thralls to recoup some costs and build a reputation.

The crew consists of 14 sailors (player characters included), plus the captain and mate. A knarr only needs a few rowers at any time to help the tiller keep the ship tacking properly, so most of the crew act as marines. NPC sailors could also be mercenaries and hirelings. The ship needs at least 4 sailors and a captain to survive to make it home; it's not unheard of for crews to band together late in the summer if their original ships have suffered heavy losses on the island.

One of the strategies the captain likes to use each year is to follow the Norwegian coast to Lappland, trading with the Lapps for fresh food, and then sailing for Bear Island (once again foraging for fresh food). The stops along the Norwegian coast and at Bear Island allow for sleeping on land each night. However, while the coastal route minimizes the amount of time on the open sea, it is fraught with pirates amongst the numerous fjords.

For campaign play, the trip along the coast to Lappland would take 10-15 days, depending on weather. The captain's course to Bear Island takes 3-5 days, and then from Bear Island to Thule is another 4-6 days.

When My Blog Finally Grows Up…

2012-01-05T11:13:00.001-05:00

I want it to be like Jeff's Game Blog. I posted an AD&D poll about the most dubious AD&D rules a few months ago, and was delighted to get over a hundred votes. Jeff posted a similar poll yesterday, and had over 250 votes in less than one day. (I just checked back, and less than 24 hours it's at 320 votes).

I'm here to tell you, my friends, that is REAL ULTIMATE GAME BLOGGING POWER™!

This is not jealousy but outright admiration. 8 years of high quality, gonzo excellence - I can only hope the Lich House is even around 8 years from now. That is an impressive run, man. Jeff is the Iron Man of Game Blogging. After just finishing only a year of blogging, I can appreciate the diligence of maintaining steady blog output for 8+ years. I can think of handfuls of game blogs that popped up and crapped out just last year. So I tip my hat off towards Jeff's place.

With that in mind, I'm thinking the Iron Man of the blogging world should have some Chuck Norris style facts… something like, "Jeff doesn't roll dice anymore, he snaps his fingers and they rearrange to the result he needs." Or, " Jeff doesn't read game books to learn the rules, the texts read Jeff to learn Jeff's rules."

I'm dealing with a bad cold, hopped on the meds, and the work week is dragging on. It would be delightful if any of you are inspired to add your own "Iron Man of Game Blogging" Facts in the comment's section.

I'm sure I'll see my way to a non-frivolous post shortly.

Vacationing at the Lake of Hali - A Carcosa Review

2012-01-04T11:54:00.004-05:00

Carcosa is a 143 page PDF published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess; it's a setting that describes the forsaken planet of Carcosa and the Lake of Hali (the names of both locations hail from the Cthulhu Mythos and the Lovecraft circle of writers). I had the chance to read the PDF version of Carcosa over the holidays. The physical book is still on the way.

The PDF is nice looking and functional; the two-facing pages read very well on an iPad and the hyperlinks let you zoom all over the place. As a publisher, LOTFP is distancing itself from the hobbyist side of the OSR by turning out progressively more polished products.

The artwork in Carcosa is amazing and it's a joy leafing through and soaking up the pictures. Every piece is done by the same artist and he did a great job with all of the Lovecraftian horrors and scenes of high tech carnage.

So what is Carcosa like? It's a singular piece of fevered imagination that brings me back to flipping through Heavy Metal magazine and gazing at Omni covers at my cousin's place down the street when I was a kid. Carcosa is what happens when your Call of Cthulhu investigators fail to stop the return of the Great Old Ones, and the world is plunged into horror and madness. Failure is an option, and that option looks like Carcosa.

The setting describes a distant planet ruled by the Great Old Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos, where humanity is the bottom of a food chain that includes alien horrors, ancient serpent men, elder gods, mad robots, and cyborgs. Humanity is hopelessly fractured into different colored races of man, and the monstrous sorcery used by the inhuman sorcerers of Carcosa uses men as components in horrible rituals. It's a bleak setting ideal for horror gaming or adventure gaming with lots of horror elements.

What I Liked
Carcosa thrusts difficult ethical choices into the foreground, and if your table enjoys mature discussions on that level, you'll enjoy Carcosa. Standard D&D type gaming allows players to happily stab the orcs, goblins, and kobolds in the face and loot the bodies; moral dilemmas in the dungeon can be minimized by distinctions of race and alignment. Carcosa removes the distinctions; there are two types of opponents - other humans, on the one hand, and all the inhuman aliens and Great Old Ones on the other. Carcosa's approach to humanity reminds me of ER Eddison's The Worm Ouroborus, where the different races of humans are called Goblins, Demons, Ghouls, and so on, living in Demonland or Goblinland, but they're all people nonetheless. The names are just labels. I could probably write a lengthy post on how Carcosa's use of color generates such interesting questions - it's like the Trek episode with the black and white faced guys who hate each other irrationally - only on Carcosa, it's the whole planet.

The other element that creates ethical problems on Carcosa is the sorcery. The recommended magic system for the setting uses ritual magic to conjure, bind, banish, imprison, or torment various eldritch entities. It's reminiscent of the magic system of Call of Cthulhu, where a player needs to think long and hard before choosing to learn and use magic because of the costs. On Carcosa, all rituals require human sacrifice. If you enjoy the high drama of Faustian bargains and deciding when the ends justify the means, this is for you.

Beyond those two points, there are lots of neat little mechanical items to recommend Carcosa. There's a hex crawl that covers 400 hexes (2 encounters per hex) - 800 encounters. That's a lot of coverage. There are tons of new monsters, stats for all the Great Old Ones, rules for psionics, robots, cyborgs, and plenty of artifacts. I can see many of the artifacts making it into my own campaigns immediately.

Issues
I have some issues with the material that I'd likely change if I were to use Carcosa as a complete setting. First, there are a series of suggested rules that require rerolling various hit dice and damage dice at the start of each combat; even psionic talents vary from day to day. I haven't play tested those rules, but my sense is they would create a lot of swing and reduce the player's ability to calculate and plan; a difficult foe could roll badly on their hit dice and be within the player's range, or roll well and be far tougher to beat; you wouldn't know until combat started, and that's too late to plan.

The randomness applies to players as well - the beat stick fighter could suddenly find himself with d4 hit dice. This system would work for horror gaming by keeping things uncertain and nerve wracking, but I'm cautious whether it's actually fun for D&D style play. Enabling planning and calculation of resources is an important part of how I approach old school gaming. It certainly creates a sense of uneasiness and uncertainty in a visceral, physical way, and might be okay for short forays into Carcosa.

The Great Old Ones are fairly bland in description; the barest mechanics and damage are provided, but not much about their cults or how they interact with the world. Folks with a background in the source literature wouldn't have a problem filling in the gaps. I'm loathe to criticize statistics for literary creations, because so much of it is taste and interpretation; I see enough of that fanboy grief in the Heroclix world (I can't believe Superman can beat the Hulk!). I didn't agree with a lot of the stats in Realms of Crawling Chaos, either.

Will I Use Carcosa?
Absolutely! I can say with total certainty that Carcosa becomes one of those places a party can accidentally end up by going through the wrong dimensional gate, and be forced to trek around the hex map trying to figure out a way back to their world. Carcosa is that doomed dimension, just out of phase with our world, a sign of things to come if the Old Ones aren't stopped from gaining a foothold here, and plunging the world into madness. There's too much awesome stuff in the book. But I find the setting a bit too bleak to imagine running a campaign 100% start and finish in Carcosa.

Despite some quibbles, it's a 5 out of 5 on the Beedometer - the scope is far beyond anything I'd home brew, and the presentation, art, and quality of the PDF advances the state of OSR publishing. Looking forward to seeing the actual book.

Now that the holidays are behind us, the finances should level out and I can make some more gaming purchases. I'll be doing some upcoming reviews of Anomalous Subsurface Environment, and Book of War, and hope to pick up Weird Adventures and some of the latest S&W/Frog God stuff in the coming weeks.

Hello 2012. Best of the Lich House, 2011

2012-01-03T10:02:00.002-05:00

I learned a lot in a year of blogging. The discipline of writing about your games forces introspection and reflection. Beliefs are held up and examined, the underlying thought structures are tested. Criticism is more constructive out here on the blogs; there's more of a spirit of gamers helping each other to run better games. It was a fun year.

Here's a quick look at five of my favorite posts, and then the five most popular posts in terms of internet traffic. I picked these five mainly because they embody themes I returned to at various times on the blog, and which I'll likely continue developing next year.

Some of My Favorites
Horror in Dungeons & Dragons
I love the horror genre; it tests the DM's skills to create horror situation, and horror moments usually involve challenges on multiple levels for the players. This post listed ideas on incorporating horror into your D&D game by borrowing common horror themes.

Winter is Coming, and so is Gamer ADD
I frequently suffer from the Gamer ADD - my past is littered with campaigns ditched when something new and "better" came along. This post laid out strategies (culled from project risk management) on managing your gamer ADD so you don't blow up your campaign every time a new idea comes along.

Say Yes - Skill Checks in a Rules Lite Game
A challenge in running old school games is adjudicating all those situations not covered by the rules; this post promotes a collaborative/cooperative style of DMing to maximize player engagement in skill rulings and avoiding being an arbitrary DM.

The Sandbox Triangle
I am keenly interested in player-driven games and structuring my campaigns as a sandbox; the challenge in the sandbox is balancing player freedom, with the amount of detail and effort required by the DM.

The Drowning Fairy
I read a lot of myth and folklore and like to pull inspiration for monsters from real world sources. Faeries and ghosts are often indistinguishable in folklore, and this monster involved combining the drowning fairy motif - Peg Powler or Jenny Greenteeth - with the Ringu type of ghost.

Most Popular
You can't take post-counts too seriously; if one thing is clear, it's that odd ball traffic through the Google can spike traffic to a minor post. Most of these "popular" posts have racked up hits from non-gaming sources looking for something else.

The Demon Azazel
Unclean Spirits of the Wilderness
Ape Men of the Black City
Monsters as Plastic Army Men

Azazel and The Exorcist are the two most popular searches from non-gamers - people love googling the demonic possession. The Black City picks up visits from folks looking for white apes. And I'm always getting hits from people looking for stuff about plastic army men. They should play some D&D instead!

I bet there are a few blogs out there where "hot elf chicks" is their top post.

I Just Nuked Gothic Greyhawk
Die, Strahd, Die!

These are the two most popular gaming posts; I'm glad they get a lot of traffic because they demonstrate key points about my DMing philosophy. Player choices matter, I'm not going to fudge the dice, and I'm not afraid to let things rip - for good or ill. NPCs are meant to die, there are no Mary Sues in my campaigns, and the players need to earn their successes without any dice fudging by me, too.

The Gothic Greyhawk post got a ton of traffic after it was linked from James's LOTFP blog, when my group unleashed 13,000 hungry dead on our campaign world while I was running Death Frost Doom. It wrecked their homeland, but made the campaign way more interesting.

Die, Strahd, Die became an OSR rallying post - it illustrated that letting the players develop their own plans and strategies, and playing it straight with the dice, will lead to a more interesting result than forcing a scripted story line to fit a sense of drama. Besides, unless you're Al Pacino, players know when you're fudging.

Goals for this Year
I expect in 2012 to continue to discuss ways to build player driven games and run sandboxes. Other goals this year are pretty simple - I'm hoping to read another 10 Appendix N type books, continue running a weekly D&D campaign, publish the Black City, and incorporate regular blogging about Call of Cthulhu and its siblings to this year's mix of stuff. I should be able to get in some Cthulhu one-shots along the way as well.

Choosing the Lesser Evil

2011-12-30T10:07:00.037-05:00

Horrible Choices in Call of Cthulhu, and Carcosa

Ever have one of those soapbox posts, you get on your high horse and blah, blah, blah and rant, rant, rant? I sat down to write a Carcosa review, and then it morphed into a long post about violence and morality and stabbing goblins in the face. I re-read that awful bitch-fest and decided to go in another direction. You'll thank me later. I still talk about Carcosa a bit in the wrap, but this post mostly became about the difficult ethical choices you often see in Call of Cthulhu.

I've heard Ken Hite speak a few times on the podcasts, and he frequently identifies Call of Cthulhu as the only moral role playing game. There are no alignments in the game, so it's not like you can label yourself Lawful Good. Where would this idea come from?

It's fairly simple; characters in Call of Cthulhu are investigators trying to stop ancient horrors from entering the world, but the act of investigation in Call of Cthulhu destroys your character. Playing the game (successfully) is essentially a selfless, moral act. As characters investigate situations involving the eldritch horrors, they accrete sanity damage. The more they fight against the horrors of the Mythos, the more sanity they lose, and the easier it becomes to keep losing sanity. It's the sanity death spiral. Character death or forced retirement is inevitable... the only question is how long can your character keep up the good fight?

While the "sanity death spiral" is a death of a thousand cuts, a frequent horror theme requires a much more explicit form of sacrifice. Back in my "horror in dungeons & dragons" post, I called this theme The Monstrous Choice: Is the group willing to do whatever it takes to stop an even greater evil?

I spend a fair amount of time forced to read subjects like "decision theory" as part of the corporate gig. I'm familiar with the theoretical problems around outcomes and expected value calculations, and how they should influence decisions in a business setting. Yawn... It's remarkable how quickly the theories get tossed out the window when faced with a real world situation, when your pulse is racing and everyone is watching and Monty Haul is asking if you want to keep your prize or see what's behind door number three.

It's the same with the ethical constructs - folks can have their well thought positions on "the ends justifies the means" or "two wrongs don't make a right" (simplifying consequentialism versus deontology) - but there's nothing like putting a face-to-face table top group right in the middle of a deep ethical crisis during a gaming session, then sitting back to watch how they work through the problem when they've got actual skin in the game (so to speak).

Spoiler Alerts! Spoilers for Beyond the Mountains of Madness and The Black Drop, forthcoming.

I've had some unforgettable Cthulhu games that stared unblinkingly at difficult ethical choices, and I would say all the participants came out of those games with memorable experiences. Here are a couple of war stories demonstrating The Monstrous Choice theme to illustrate the idea.

Beyond the Mountains of Madness
BTMOM is Chaosium's epic campaign (440 something pages) that puts the players in the role of Antarctic explorers following in the footsteps of the ill-fated Lake Expedition that discovered the Mountains of Madness and the city of the Elder Things.

Deep into the module, there's the strong likelihood the group will be faced with a terrible choice. The ancient Elder Things had built a god-trap that keeps a world-breaking entity imprisoned just outside our space and time, and the god-trap requires the brain of a hominid to function. Earlier in the adventure, the reawakened Elder Things kidnap a key NPC in the expedition and carry him off to their tower as replacement parts for the machine. When the party finally learns his fate, they see his decapitated head powering the machine, and it's quite likely they cripple it when they pull his head out of the machinery. As things fall apart, they learn the true function of the machine and its earth-saving importance as a key piece of the god-trap. Where can they get a still-living brain to insert back into the neural matrix? :Gulp:

In hindsight, it's easy to see that section of the adventure is a screw-job, but it is effective in presenting the group with a terrible choice - either watch the god-trap fail, releasing The Prisoner, or sacrifice a party member or NPC to the machine.

The group didn’t have much time to struggle with this one… they were tossing out some half-hearted ideas such as drawing straws for a volunteer when Deb took the helm. She calmly took out her revolver and gut-shot "Cole the Cook", who was played by Dennis, and then coolly informed everyone, "There, I've made our selection. I suggest you get Cole into the preparation tank before he bleeds out and I need to shoot someone else".

The sudden violence snapped everyone out of their paralysis, and they reacted by dragging Cole off to the acid bath where his head would be prepared for insertion into the machine. Cole screamed and cursed while he was carried off, but no one bothered to question the morality of what they were doing; they were too busy saving the planet.

That's only a small section in Beyond the Mountains of Madness; it's a massive adventure and a true magnum opus for Chaosium and the authors. I keep hearing that a second edition is in the works (a German second edition was released last year) so I'll keep my fingers crossed - I'd love to have that one in hard cover.

The Black Drop
The Black Drop is a Trail of Cthulhu scenario put out by Pelgrane Press; it's hard to believe it came out all the way back in 2010! It's a short adventure, suitable to two nights of play, or a single epic session. It involves a remote outpost of the French government on the far southern Kerguelen Islands in the years prior to World War 2. At the same time the players arrive to bring supplies to the small group of French colonists, a party of four or five Nazis arrives for their own nefarious purpose, heading into the mountainous interior.

Over the course of the scenario, we learn that the Kerguelen plateau was once part of ancient Lemuria; Lemurian artifacts have been recovered on the island; the Lemurians kept a sleeping god in a state of torpor beneath a basalt temple on the side of a mountain there. Every thirty years or so, when an astrological event happens, the transit of Venus, the god creeps towards wakefulness.

The twist in the scenario is that the Nazis, whom everyone expects are the villains, are actually a group of occultists that know the island's horrible truths, and their secret society sacrifices its members to keep the evil god asleep, by performing a gruesome bloody ritual as the god stirs. It's quite likely the players don't figure this out until they've knocked off a number of the Nazi scientists, eliminating necessary members required for the final ritual and creating some tough choices for themselves. Meanwhile, the small group of French colonists are all cultists that have fallen under the power of the god as it creeps towards consciousness; they cause no end of trouble running and gunning across the mountainous interior.

I ran this one as a one-shot with my D&D group that summer, and they were off guard when the straight-up hunt for cultists pivoted into the difficult ethical choice of teaming up with the Nazis for the sacrificial ritual. One of the characters, Adam, abandoned the expedition at that point, making the Kantian choice - "Let justice be done, though the world perish"; he'd rather perish and let the world be destroyed than team up with Nazis. The others accompanied the surviving Nazis to the ritual site and helped entomb the gargantuan god-thing back in torpor as Venus made its solar transit, but it involved a lot of squick. A bunch of dudes were drugged and more or less fed to the god to keep it immotile, while one character masqueraded as the high priest, and returned it to its slumber beneath the earth, using the Lemurian artifact. Only one PC survived, but it was a "team effort" to succeed.

Carcosa
As I was reading through Carcosa, and considered the previous Carcosa controversy that roiled through D&D discussion boards a few years ago, it struck me the root cause is one of perception; people are looking at the setting through the wrong lens. Carcosa is a horror setting with a D&D label. Carcosa brings The Monstrous Choice, so common in horror gaming, and thrusts it into the forefront of D&D, challenging the players to survive in a hostile, evil world.

An actual review of Carcosa is still forthcoming from me. It's a cool book, with some whacked out ideas, and it deserves it's own post. I'm reminded of something I wrote some 6-7 months ago: defending the horror. Back then, brouhahas were brewing over gruesome D&D art. My answer now is the same as it was back then, and speaks to why players like to challenge themselves against such things; the darker the world or setting, the brighter the light cast by even a single candle, and there's great satisfaction in success when so much is on the line.

*About the Watchmen scan: I only lightly studied ethics in high school, but the first time I can remember having long discussions with friends about ethical quandaries involved Moore's Watchmen. Who was right, Ozymandias or Rorschach? I still love that book.

In my CoC experiences shared in this post, Deb was an Ozymandias and Adam was a Rorschach - a funny way of looking at them!

Lazy Map Day - Thule Island

2011-12-29T08:19:00.001-05:00

I worked on some maps over the holidays - relaxing stuff. First, I want my maps closer to black and white, for easy printing down the road. And since The Black City is using more real world geography for inspiration, I updated the archipelago map:

Here's a faded version with a hex overlay I'll use for island stocking. The scale is 1 hex = 24 miles.

The peninsula ridge where the ruined city and Viking camp is located gets lost at that scale, so I'll be building an area map (maybe 1 hex = 1 mile or 3 miles) that blows up the circled area in great detail for forays near the ruins:

All these maps were done in just a few hours with Campaign Cartographer; I'm not terribly good at it (yet) but it's a pretty powerful tool - I may start doing traditional hex maps and dungeons using it as well.

Answering the Sinking Ship Challenge

2011-12-28T08:56:00.002-05:00

Spectacular view of northern Svalbard*

First off, thanks all for the many responses yesterday. The themes that emerged in the comments reflected similar approaches to what I decided to use. Folks astutely pointed out, if the idea of the campaign is to explore a megadungeon on a frozen northern island, just start the group there already.   Eliminate any initial chance at a shipwreck, and assume they're some of the adventurers that made it to the island successfully.

Here was my problem: I do prefer that PC's and NPC's follow the same set of rules. If there's a chance that NPC ships sink on the way to the island, there needs to be a chance for the PC ships to sink as well - otherwise I'm treating players like the special unique snowflakes in a world built just for them to exploit.  It minimizes player achievement; "winning on the easy setting" is unsatisfying. So I needed a way to put some risk back into the journey.

My own way of reconciling these two competing positions is like this: new groups will *always* begin adventuring right on the island of Thule, at the Viking base camp (Trade Town). However, during campaign play, once they return home at the end of the adventuring season, all bets are off. When/if they plan a return trip the following year, they'll need to account for the same risks as everyone else voyaging to the island.

When the group plans a return trip the following year, there will be choices to make to mitigate the dangers of the journey. They could sign on with an experienced captain (and offer back shares of their loot), or buy their own ship and hire their own captain and navigator. They can make riskier choices, leaving early in the season to get a jump on the competition, risking more dangerous sea ice, or play it safe and wait for warmer weather. The amount of cargo will be a factor as well. I'm sure resourceful players would come up with ways to use the spell lists to reduce risks of weather or ship damage. If you're going to have an element of "courageous seagoing exploration" in the game, you owe it to the genre to give the players a chance to make both bold and safe choices.

A number of comments involved switching the discussion from "make it safe to the island/ or die" to "make it safe to the island/ or deal with complications/ or die" - in other words, stop thinking about sinking as an either/or proposition, and add some degrees of failure to the mix - maybe supplies are lost, the ship arrives but is damaged, resources and hit points are gone, that kind of stuff. Great ideas, and it's given me a lot to develop.

Campaign play for the Black City is something I'm putting in the appendix.  After these discussions, I'll be adding a section on navigational hazards and complications to cover rules for making it back and forth to the island safely when it's used in an ongoing campaign - thanks for the help!

*The picture is another spectacular view of Svalbard, this one in the northern part of the archipelago in high summer - the photographer's full set is here, creative commons: Kenyai's Svalbard photos.

Game-Mastering Dilemma: Sinking the Player's Ship

2011-12-27T09:01:00.005-05:00

Sea ice off the coast of Svalbard

Holiday break is over, and it's back to work. Hope everyone had a nice break and is charged up for another year as we countdown to 2012. Let's kick things off with a game mastering dilemma. I'd love to hear how different DM's would approach the issue outlined below. I don't know whether folks still think in terms of GNS* and games theory (see notes below), but my first thought is this can also be analyzed as a GNS problem - your priorities would inform your own solution.

The Problem
I've been working on a campaign setting on the blog on and off for a while, called The Black City. It's a ruined alien city on the shore of a frozen northern island; I'm calling the island Thule, but the real world inspiration is Spitsbergen island (part of the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic circle north of Norway). Viking adventurers have discovered the ruined city and the lucrative treasures found in the icy ruins.

Ocean travel during the Dark Ages was dangerous, and ships were frequently lost. For example, the records of the Viking expedition from Iceland to Greenland report that nearly 50% of the initial colonization fleet didn't make it (either turned back or were lost at sea). The trip from Lappland to Svalbard is equally as long - about two weeks across open ocean, with the only possible stop at Bear Island in the Barents Sea.

During summer, June-August, the ocean north of Lappland should be passable and navigable with little or no sea ice. The Atlantic current keeps the southwestern Barents Sea warmer than comparable latitudes in the Arctic. The confluence of Atlantic currents and cold Arctic waters does create strong currents and frequent mists and fogs, complicating sailing conditions even when the sea ice is gone. There's only a few months of favorable weather for exploration of the ruins each summer.

We can calculate chances that ships will sink while making the 2-3 week journey, and I'd hazard to guess it's not a trivial percentage. Sinking is a death sentence in those cold northern waters for everyone on board. We could quickly identify factors that might cause a ship to sink - foundering in high waves, getting caught in a squall or storm, crashing into rocks or sea ice while sailing blind in heavy mist and fog. One could identify factors that would reduce the chances of the same; the experience of the captain and crew, the load and cargo, the presence of beneficial magic, and how early in the season the ship sails (there would be more ice in May, like the picture).

Here's the dilemma for old school dungeon masters: When the adventure requires a hazardous journey just to arrive at the adventuring site, should the characters have a chance at failing to make it? Killing the entire party, by sinking their ship on the way to the dungeon, would be identified as a "negative play experience" by modern designers. Aren't the player characters special unique snowflakes that should be granted sufficient 'plot immunity' to at least make it to the dungeon?

Let me hear how you'd handle this type of ocean travel in your game. My thought is most DM's would give player ships a chance for sinking or blowing tragically off course based on whatever weather charts they're using, but would then let the players get shipwrecked, washed ashore, or clinging to wreckage, rather than instantly killing everyone. But washed ashore or shipwrecked is not an option in the arctic waters. So what would you do?

I had my own solution written as part of the post, but its better to hold that back a few days and first hear how other folks would handle the situation without establishing any precedents. I've also got a new poll up on the right to get the discussion started. Let's hear some reasons why we should or shouldn't sink the player's ship in the comments.

*GNS Theory
GNS theory was used on The Forge to analyze approaches in games based on whether the rules were trying to advance a particular agenda - gamist, narrativist, or simulationist. A simulationist approach might declare that ships will always have a chance to sink and the game rules will try to model a world with internal consistency; the gamist approach might consider it a mere resource problem, and by applying the right choices to the percentages, the players can "win"; a narrativist approach might let the players handle the description of their own journey (along with precautions) and just resume the story at the island.

**Sea Ice pictures
Atmospheric and glacier research is done at Svalbard, along with limited mining, and lots of folks seem to post interesting blogs while they're up there, full of excellent pictures; these sea ice pictures came from this blog (link) and show sea ice conditions in May.

The Holy Sword

2011-12-23T14:40:00.002-05:00

Moonlight shone bluely off the great blade which lay waiting. "In this sword is locked that before which they (the evil hordes) cannot stand. When their demon gods have been driven back into the Middle World, the human savages will despair and flee. We got here soon enough."

He looked up at the figure on the cross. Bending, he took the sword Cortana in his hand… Holger felt the illusion that masked him dissolve. And his memory returned, and he knew himself.
-Poul Anderson, Three Hearts and Three Lions

Folks often comment how much inspiration Gygax took from this book of Anderson's; they say Holger Danske, Ogier the Dane, is a model for the paladin class, and he indeed performs many classic paladin deeds - detecting evil, laying of hands, bonded with an intelligent war horse. The D&D troll is clearly from this book, and the story explicitly uses the Law vs Chaos alignment axis. When the civilized realms of man are identified as bastions of Law, I hear echoes of Keep on the Borderlands.

But an overlooked piece at the end is when Holger finds the object of his quest, the magical sword Cortana, buried in a ruined Christian chapel in the pagan lands. All the forces of Chaos in the story have contrived to keep him from finding this powerful weapon, for it is said it can singlehandedly turn back the tide of Chaos.

When Holger grasps the sword, the magical illusions that were obscuring his identity melt away, and the blocks on his memory placed by the Enchantress Morgan le Fay disappear as well. I often wonder if these simple lines provided the inspiration to have the Paladin's holy sword to dispel magic when unsheathed? I'm not familiar enough with the original texts of the chansons de geste to know if there are other examples, perhaps of weapons like Durandal piercing the glamors of Faerie. I would imagine "Excalibur" would be a good model for using a holy sword in the campaign as well.

I highly recommend checking out Three Hearts and Three Lions if you're a student of D&D's history; it's one of the stronger inspirational sources. I have a review of it here: Three Hearts and Three Lions review.

Changing gears, I wonder how many folks have used an actual holy sword in their game? I can't recall too many instances of such a weapon showing up in the published works - the one that stands out for me was an Astral jaunt published in Dragon, where the party travels to recover the holy sword "Fedifensor", defender of the faith, and battles githyanki.

I'm confronted by the question of when/whether to introduce any holy weapons, as my regular campaign (on hiatus due to the holidays) will resume with the characters in the mid-levels - levels 6-7 - about to embark on their world shaking quest to recover the Demonomicon. And they have a paladin as a main character. Sooner or later, the question will arise regarding the possibility of finding or using such a powerful item to aid them.

Would a holy sword be strongly tied to a deity or particular religion? Meaning a Holy Sword dedicated to St Cuthbert wouldn't work fully for another Lawful Good deity, if the setting were polytheistic? Perhaps that's getting too close to the uncomfortable question of whether scrolls of clerical magic in the possession of an evil cleric are dedicated to the evil deity in some way, and couldn't be used by the lawful cleric that claimed them. There seems to be a strong need for such items to be fungible and usable regardless of religion.

It's given me the chance to consider how such a weapon would exist in the setting. Any holy sword previously created or recovered by servants of the main religion would quickly find their way into the hands of the established hierarchy, and would be heavily guarded and kept at a central location. The questing knight that first recovered such a weapon, assuming he's not the church's champion, would likely be instructed turn it over to the Patriarch or similar leader; we're talking about pious lawfully aligned characters, after all. It's unlikely such a powerful deterrent would be sent out into the world on missions, unless it were in the hands of the religion's established champion. The risk of loss is too great. Our paladin in the campaign is from an ancient sect that predates the primary monotheistic church, so it's even more unlikely he'd be able to gain the confidence of the theocracy.

Holy swords still lost would be just that - lost and forgotten - or heavily guarded by minions of evil or the forces of chaos, to prevent their recovery. In the excerpt of Three Hearts and Three Lions, there was an arduous quest into the pagan lands, a vicious fight against a troll, and the forlorn cemetery around the church was guarded by the "Hell Horse", a minion of Hell itself.

For Gothic Greyhawk, such a weapon is in the hands of the Church of the Blinding Light, the theocracy behind the Pale. It's unlikely players would ever have access to an existing holy sword in a meaningful way. Rather, the players would need to make it an explicit goal to determine if such a weapon were ever lost in a previous age, and make it their primary quest to recover if it themselves. And even then, they'd run the risk of the bureaucracy stepping in and laying a claim to the weapon in the name of the greater good.

I could always go the Excalibur route, and have such a weapon come from "on high" for a limited purpose, returning to the divine realm or the great beyond once it's limited purpose was fulfilled. I need to think on it further; having the sky break open and an angelic being descend to earth on a shaft of golden sunlight is completely over the top, but could work in a game where the cosmic strife between Law and Chaos boils in the background.

Lovecraft and Me: A Confession

2011-12-22T06:00:00.002-05:00

A week ago this place passed its one year anniversary, and I set some goals for the coming year. One of them is to do more blogging on Lovecraftian subjects, diverse and sundry; a post per week on a topic related to Lovecraft or the Call of Cthulhu RPG. A lot of the inspirational reading I'd like to complete this year includes Lovecraft predecessors like Dunsany, Machen, and Chambers. I've had a long career running Lovecraftian games, so there are plenty of reviews, campaigns, Keeper techniques, and mechanics to discuss, plus the chance to get advice and insight from the community.

A blog is such a personal thing, it seems fitting to start such an endeavor with recollections of how my lifelong interest in this author's works became fixed in place. Cast your mind back to… 1983! Yep, that was the year I picked up one of the early Cthulhu boxed sets, the one with the stapled rule book and the classic cover over to the right:

I'll be honest with you, I had never read a lick of Lovecraft prior to getting that boxed set, and much of the flavor of the setting evaded me. The fixation on the 1920's was baffling. Instead of serious investigations, we usually ended up playing it D&D style, picking characters who were typically "Veterans of the Great War" so we could justify loading them down with shot guns and tommy guns, kicking in doors and yelling at the Deep Ones to "Get some! Blam, blam blam!" Heh. In defense, I'll point out that we were just starting high school.

I went on to read a fair amount of Lovecraft afterward, especially the Random House editions like this one on the left, with their sensational covers promising blood and horror, but delivering only nervous aesthetes and musty tomes. I still have a copy of that one in the attic. My favorite story was At the Mountains of Madness, which I had read via a hardback borrowed from the town library. It still is my favorite.

It wasn't until college that Lovecraft made sense to me, and I remember the moment clearly. I was going to Montclair State University; it was still called a college then, and they had just initiated a liberal arts honors program; I was in the inaugural class. Regardless of major, the honors program forced a worthy load of humanities on the participlants. I was suffering through a sociology class that was exploring the modern mindset (Simmel's "The Metropolis and Mental Life", that kind of stuff) when I finally made the Lovecraft connection; HP Lovecraft's stories reflected a modern mind stripped of its romantic ideals.

In the preceding 50 years or so before Lovecraft's writing, Darwin's On the Origin of Species postulated a theory of evolution that transformed humanity from created beings to evolved animals. Revolutions in Europe had seen the fruition of Marx's Communist Manifesto and the evidence of the Hegelian dialectic in action, a refutation of the great man theory and prior forms of historical analysis. (Nowadays, we forget the kind of revolutionary fervor the anarchists brought, even to America.) Freud's theories reduced the inner self to a series of mechanistic urges explained through repressed desires and childhood traumas. Bringing it all together, the world had just witnessed the bloodiest war in history, displaying inhumanity on a massive scale across the poisoned trenches of World War I.

These new theories were an assault on the special role of humanity in the divine plan; religion was under siege. In fact, these ideas were antithetical to any form of Romantic world view. It was then I perceived Lovecraft's singular achievement - he was the first modern horror writer! Lovecraft embraced man's new place in the cosmos. We are animals, advanced and intelligent, but animals nonetheless, floating on a big rock in a sea of stars. Not only are we prisoners on this rock, we're slaves to our biology, slaves to our psychology, and the progress of history is not the unfolding of a divine plan, but the mechanistic reactions to economic forces. We are alone. Except Lovecraft pointed out, we're not alone. When he gazed into the night sky, he didn't see an empty void; he saw monsters.

So that's what did it for me; the recognition of his significance in the annals of horror made me a lifelong fan. Bam! Hooked for life. Nowadays, someone would just hop on the internet, read an essay on Lovecraft on Wikipedia, or find some published criticism, but back then we had to do our own thinking, and my newfound understanding of Lovecraft seemed a profound personal achievement at the time. I was quite proud of developing my appreciation honestly. My games of Call of Cthulhu were never the same, and I went on to run many memorable campaigns.

These days I'm far more optimistic about the human condition than I was back in my "jaded" twenties. Perhaps it's related to fatherhood and all the joys that can bring. I appreciate that Lovecraft's writing appeals to both atheists and the religious minded. For instance, one of the higher profile scholars of Lovecraft these days is Robert M Price, an American theologian and instructor at a seminary. The connection between religion and existential fear runs deep. But I'm afraid that will be a musing for another day.

So that's how my obsession with HPL began, many years ago. I can assure the regular readers there will be plenty of Dungeons & Dragons posts on the way; I'll consign the Lovecraft items to a weekly flirtation. But I'm looking forward to working in discussions of Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, horror gaming, and reviews of the source literature into my blog's regular mix of topics. Thanks for reading!

Mythic Geography and the D&D Setting

2011-12-20T15:28:00.006-05:00

Sailing to paradise, Middle Earth style

Yesterday, I mentioned how the idea of a dungeon as Mythic Underworld crept into my brain and conspired to lure me away from my regular projects. Something else got stuck in my head - the idea of Mythic Geography.

Like me, I would imagine most of the readers are all products of the scientific world view*, that the earth revolves around the sun, the moon orbits the earth, the passing of seasons is related to earth's tilt, that kind of stuff, and this view of "world as spherical planet" informs just about every D&D setting I can recall. Whatever outer planes or divine realms exist, they exist outside the material world and its scientific laws. But the world wasn't always viewed this way. While the myths themselves typically take place in a time before recorded history, they postulate little or no distance between the sacred realms and the physical world.

Mount Olympus is a real place, and in the mythic world view the gods live on top of the mountain. Dark caves can lead one right to Hades, like poor Orpheus. The rainbow bridge lends egress to Asgard, Jotuns live beyond Russia, and somewhere above the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, one ought to find the Garden of Eden. I'm no expert on mythology, but I would hazard the guess that most mythologies have their equivalent sacred sites where god and man meet - Native American myths provide explanations for places like Devil's Tower, Wyoming, for instance.

Most D&D settings, and quite a bit of fantasy literature, use the scientific view of the world (the setting is basically a big planet) and they consign the mythical elements to other planes and dimensions. But just a bit of reflection reveals that there's fantasy literature that supports a view of mythic geography more in line with the mythic worldview of our own prehistory.

The most obvious to me is JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth. In Middle Earth, you can actually sail across the oceans from the Grey Havens to reach the Undying Lands - an equivalent of heaven- as long as you have the right kind of ship. That kind of physical journey beyond the mortal world is right in line with a mythic view of geography.

Faerie is typically presented as a magical realm somewhere beyond the mortal world, accessible through portals of fey crossings; in the worldview of Poul Andersons's Three Hearts and Three Lions, the realm of Chaos and the faerie lords is a physical place just beyond the civilized lands of Law. Fairy is a shadowy, twilight realm, immune to the orbit of the sun or the intrusions of broad daylight; it defies scientific reality. One can physically walk from the mortal world right into shadowed Fairy.

Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series puts the Summer Lands, a faux-Celtic version of heaven, also across the ocean (though I found Prydain's Book 5 derivative of Tolkien in many ways). Avalon is another mystical land where the journey to the timeless mystical realm is physical, not spiritual - Arthur takes a boat. HP Lovecraft's Dreamlands is full of mythic significance, mountains that provide access to Earth's gods, or ships that can sail into the sky and eventually reach the moon. Pratchett's Discworld is carried through the universe on the back of a giant turtle.

Gaming Ideas
How would a D&D setting look if it embodied the mythic worldview? Imagine how it would be if climbing the tallest mountain gave one access to the palaces of the gods, or any deep cave might eventually lead to Hell? The myths and stories of such a world would be full of their own versions of Daedalus and Icarus, of those slain like Actaeon for seeing things beyond mortal ken, or analogs of Orpheus that went unwisely to the underworld seeking a lost love.

Sailing across the ocean might be a way to get to heaven - but it would be guarded by fierce monsters, islands of enchantment, a flaming cherub or seraphim, or other hazards laid down by the gods themselves. Imagine walking far enough north to cross over into the shadowed lands of the dead, somewhere beyond the north wind?

I don’t know that such a myth-centric setting has been made, but I'd love to hear in the comments if someone is familiar with one - thanks!

*I do realize a large number of my fellow Americans believe science is a myth. Somehow I don't think they're reading Dungeons & Dragons blogs, though.

Grey Havens picture is from this gallery, with many artist's renditions: Grey Havens gallery

Musings on the Mythic Underworld

2011-12-19T08:50:00.001-05:00

In which Beedo commends some Fourth Edition and pushes some Wordsworth

I tend towards the "rational" dungeon design, even if the dungeon itself is filled with irrational elements. "Dungeon X was built by Mad Wizard Y, here is where the laboratory used to be, here is where he built a zoo for extra-planar creatures, the reason the level is overrun with mutated elementals is because the wildlife escaped from the planar zoo." That kind of stuff. The players may never figure it out, but the DM always has a plan.

I'm working on the dungeons for the Black City, and although the levels involve weird science fantasy and technology left behind by sorcerous aliens, underneath the covers, they're also very rational. "These machines are psychic enhancers, the reason the level is infested with loathsome crawlers is because the immortal Hyperborean strapped to the dream engine continues to birth them from the nightmares in his subconscious while he sleeps the unending sleep."

As long as dungeons are big holes carved into the ground, it's hard not to get sucked into the "rational" trap, looking for explanations that support the weirdness you want supported.

It's time like this, I get hit with pangs of envy - the green grass on the other side of design, going with the conceit of "dungeon as mythical underworld".

It seems to me, to pull it off properly, you need to spend some time developing the campaign cosmology up front. It makes a big difference whether the world is a ball of rock floating in space, or if it's a flat expanse where the descent below the ground is literally a passage out of the world and into another plane or dimension. The idea that the moment you go underground, you enter the Greek Underworld or the realm of Niflheim or the land of Sheol is such an intriguing counterpoint to my default position - that dungeons are big places carved into the ground by people. It reinforces an idea of sacred geography - climb a high enough mountain, you can reach Heaven; go deep enough into the earth, you'll end up at Hell.

Torog: imagine if this gruesome god made your dungeon

This is one area where I loved the Fourth Edition explanation for the existence of the Underdark. During the prehistoric mythic time, the gods fought the primordials for control of reality - a theme straight out of numerous real world myth cycles. One of these battles between god and titan went beneath the earth, smashing huge voids in the rock and creating caverns. The primordial was killed, but the god was maimed and cursed by the dying titan, and trapped by the titan's curse beneath the ground. This god, Torog, became a god of torture and pain, dragging his broken legs behind him as he smashed huge tunnels in the underworld trying to find a way out.

It also explains the presence of an Underdark in the mirror worlds to earth, the fey realm and the realms of the dead. As a god, the Crawling King was able to smash laterally into those other dimensions, but still couldn't escape being trapped beneath the ground by the titan's curse, regardless of realm.

Okay - that is a bad-ass reason for the existence of a mythical underworld beneath the 'real world' - an epic fight from the dawn of time, and to this day, the god of pain and torture still drags his broken body around down there, punishing interlopers and plotting against the surface world like a crazy Mole Man with his Mole Monsters. I've often thought the 4E default setting would be excellent for old school gaming (albeit one would need to include modernisms like Eladrin and Tieflings and Dragonborn to maintain the history). Has anyone in the old school world dared to put together a Dragonborn or Tiefling Race-Class? (Beedo quickly ducks the barrage of rotten tomatoes).

Whatever I work on after the Black City, I'm expecting it to include a cosmology that describes geography in mythic terms and not rational or scientific terms; that seems best for supporting the mythic underworld as I'm describing it here. I am curious if folks have had success with this approach - where the sun and moon, the stars, the passage of seasons, day and night, are all explained in mythic versus scientific terms. I question if the dissonance from a scientific world view is too much for the modern player, or whether it's just trading one type of rational explanation for another. I'll leave you with some Monday poetry on the loss of mythic meaning:

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

William Wordsworth, 1806.

The Artifact Rant

2011-12-15T08:21:00.003-05:00

The future of Gothic Greyhawk

Here's how the 1E DMG describes the artifacts:

Each artifact or relic is a singular thing of potent powers and possibly strange side effects as well… Those artifacts and relics which you bring into play should be so carefully guarded by location and warding devices and monsters that recovery of any one is an undertaking of such magnitude that only very powerful characters, in concert, and after lengthy attempts have any chance whatsoever of attaining one. [An artifact] is a super-weapon that is certain to blast the whole campaign to smithereens, unless it is given proper limitations (and also a nemesis creature in some cases).
--1E Dungeon Master's Guide

You get the gist of the sentiment. Artifacts hold game-warping power, so the official advice is to gimp them by the difficulty of finding one, consigning artifacts to the end-game. A slew of drawbacks and side effects afflict the owner, ensuring artifacts are a self-limiting problem. Alternatively, they show up as mere plot devices and macguffins. The 4th edition took it a step further, having the artifact literally disappear after a short while (I'm not kidding - they bampf!).

I hate the mentality of dangling something amazing and then yanking it away before anything meaningful happens. (Horrible side effects, I can live with). It calls to mind all the things I dislike about bad sci-fi or fantasy. "Let's introduce something amazing and cool, a one-shot silver bullet or magic pill, and then remove it before the status quo is permanently affected".

Quite a bit of sci fi or urban fantasy can be analyzed in this manner. Indy recaptured the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis used it to change the war, but the authorities can't have that magic box running around; better hide it in a massive warehouse with all of the other unmentionables. Powder dies, ET phones home and hops on a ship, John Travolta with all his mind powers gets killed by a tumor, and pretty much every episode of Star Trek included a MacGuffin that disappeared at the end of the episode. The aliens always melted into green goo before Mulder and Scully could get their proof of extraterrestrials. The truth is still out there.

Don't get me started on the comics. The worst offenders at dangling untold power and world-changing stories, only to reset everything back to the status quo, are those jokers writing the comics. My criteria for a good comic series usually involves the degree to which main characters get wasted and the world gets messed up.

Progressive writing allows the setting to move forward, for better or worse, and explores or alludes to the changes in the coming new world. The cure for cancer is real, or nuclear fusion works and the world has an endless source of renewable energy; the old regime crumbles away. The aliens discovered at the bottom of the sea stop World War 3 when we're at the brink of destruction. Things will never be the same again. It's much more interesting to imagine how that new world looks, than return again and again to the way things were.

This is how it needs to be with artifacts and truly powerful magic items. You don't come back to town with a Staff of Wizardry or a Holy Sword or the Hand of Vecna and act like nothing happened. If a group finds a campaign warping item or artifact, let the campaign get bent and warped. Oh man, I just had an epiphanous moment - I'm basically coming at this the same way as James Raggi a few weeks ago over on LOTFP - one important ingredient for weird fantasy is total disregard.

Yes - I am most definitely advocating total disregard. The next phase of Gothic Greyhawk involves a quest for some world-breaking artifacts, and I fully intend to let the campaign get warped and bent out of shape if they get recovered. The players are already squatting in Strahd's old million gold piece castle and we'll be dealing with the ramifications, both positive and negative, of what it means to win a kingdom (or at least a remote mountain barony). They destroyed their previous home area by unleashing a horde of zombies and ghouls; the post-zombie world is certainly more interesting than it was as "medieval mundania". Blowing shit up is fun. Don't be afraid of letting the party win the lottery, and then watch them figure out how to handle the problems brought by too much money. When the party is presented with a plunger attached to a big chunk of dynamite, you need to take off the safety switch and let things explode. Failure *is* an option. Kill your darlings, as the writers say; Mary Sue needs to die, and you need to stop being a slave to the campaign's status quo.

--This PSA brought to you by Dreams in the Lich House is more of a pep talk and manifesto for my upcoming campaign, than sound advice for any of you, but any discussions of dead Mary Sue's and world-breaking super weapons in the comments would be much appreciated.

525,600 Minutes of D&D Blogging

2011-12-14T09:09:00.000-05:00

Dreams in the Lich House has been around for a year - first post was December 14th last year. Table top role playing games are such an interesting hobby; the bloggers and players that visit here are well educated, and I appreciate that the discussions cross over into film, horror and fantasy literature, history, and mythology. It wasn't hard to find interesting stuff to write about to keep a blog going for a year; I'm confident there will be plenty more to discuss in year two.

Thanks to all who've dropped by this corner of the internet from time to time to leave a comment or drop a vote on a poll; I've learned a ton from the blogging community and my games are better for it. Thanks!

Year One Goals
Last year, I had laid out some goals - run a campaign for the year, run a bunch of Cthulhu one-shots, design the Black City, and read 12 books off my Appendix N list.

I did run a campaign for the entire year (Gothic Greyhawk) and that one is still going strong. I bombed on working in some Cthulhu one-shots. The Black City project is moving along again, and I should be ready for adventurers to enter it in a few weeks. My reading project got derailed halfway through the year - I started L Sprague De Camp and then got buried by historical reading - 17th century research, Viking research, and the tech books - GIMP and Publisher to help prepare for publishing some day, Joomla to help build a church site, and some career-related enterprise data warehousing.

I did get 11 books out of the way off of Appendix N, so it wasn't a total loss: Gormenghast, The King of Elfland's Daughter, Three Hearts and Three Lions, The Broken Sword, The Worm Ouroboros, Return of the Sorceror, The Moon Pool, and books 1-5 of Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series. I'm currently reading Alexander Dumas with the oldest kiddo.

Looking Ahead to 2012
I'm going to keep "active campaigning" and "appendix N reading" as evergreen goals, and add two new ones for 2012. First, I expect to get the Black City published. I'm undecided if that means the whole thing in one book, or just the islands and first few dungeon levels to get the campaign launched. I'll make revisions after some early play testing and decide in January.

The second goal is to include more blogging about Lovecraftian gaming - at least once a week I’d like to have something that's either a book review, game review, module or campaign review, monster discussion, literary review, rules discussion, or whatever, in the Lovecraft gaming space - mainly Call of Cthulhu or Trail of Cthulhu, but I like Dark Ages Cthulhu and Invictus just fine, as well as Delta Green. The only cautionary note involves the gamer ADD; there's so much awesome stuff out there it might drive me into paroxysms of campaign indecision. Hopefully I can sublimate such impulses into one-shots, or harness the ideas for use in the active games.

Okay, there's enough introspection. Useful posts to resume shortly.

Define Hopeless

2011-12-13T08:33:00.000-05:00

I appreciate all the discussion around ability score methods from yesterday, and I note the poll has a flaw - for old school methods like 3d6, it doesn't differentiate between 3d6, once-and-done, versus rolling multiple arrays of 3d6 attributes and picking one. Lots of folks that use 3d6 roll a series of characters (I saw x6 was a common number in the comments), and they'll pick one they like. The idea is to avoid "hopeless characters".

Two questions come to mind - how do you define hopeless, and where did this idea of "hopeless characters" enter the thought process? It's not in Moldvay. The DMG 1E approach, 4d6, purports to avoid unplayable characters, but doesn't define what one would look like. LOTFP has a suitability check.

I do one of two things - I have the player tally up the ability score modifiers, and any character that nets out at zero or higher is not hopeless. If it's a "high powered game", I might make the tally +1 or better. For instance, if the attributes were 13, 10, 11, 7, 13, 12 - the character would have +1 for strength and constitution, -1 for dexterity, and would net out at +1 - not hopeless. The first "not hopeless" character you generate is a keeper.

I do like the idea of rolling five or six sets of scores that was championed by a number of folks, because you can make the unused sets of scores into NPCs. Starting groups usually hire mercenaries and torchbearers, so those unused stats can be assigned to the hirelings. When we play tested ACKS in the city with Tavis and the Mule Abides folks, this was used to great effect. Speaking of which, ACKs day is getting closer; I keep expecting to see a printing announcement for that one. Guys are building churches, refurbishing the castle, all that stuff in Gothic Greyhawk, so the final release of ACKS will be a welcome sight.

We have an interesting character in that current game that danced along the line of hopelessness - his initial stats were something like 16, 15, 13, 12, 7, 5 - he netted out at +1 (+2 strength, +1 intelligence and wisdom, -1 constitution, -2 charisma). Bo made him into "Forlorn the Elf" - freakishly strong for his size, but frail and haughty and unable to attract decent henchmen. He's since lost a point of wisdom due to one of those old school random things. But he's survived to level 5 and has become one of the more interesting characters in the group.

Man or Superman?

2011-12-12T08:14:00.000-05:00

Why would I ever play a *human* in a game? I get to be a crappy human every day at work. The whole point of gaming is escape; when I game I want to kick major ass.
-Paul, 3.5 gamer

A few weeks ago, I spent some time looking at a series of AD&D rules that were controversial to gamers playing versions of D&D older than 1E - there was an interesting poll (dubious AD&D rules) that inquired after who actually uses those AD&D rules. Despite the controversial title, I ultimately came out defending most of them on the grounds of creating interesting tactical or logistical choices. However, one thing I skipped at the time was ability score inflation and race/class sprawl.

It's fair to state that one reason you're still playing an older version of the game is some distaste for characters that are described as "half-dragon elemental lord sorcerer artillery, optimized for area damage". But the sentiment expressed by my buddy Paul above isn't wrong; wish fulfillment and power gaming sells books and is a big draw for the later edition crowds. Playing a scrappy "ordinary guy" that straps on armor and descends into the dungeon is an acquired taste, if you didn't grow up playing that way.

The AD&D 1E DMG purports to be a human-centric game, but by the time 1.5 rolls around (the Unearthed Arcana stuff) there are tons of race variants, all with nifty new abilities, ability score generation methods that are off the chart, and power creep classes like the cavalier and barbarian. This became clear when my son came running downstairs a few weeks ago with Unearthed Arcana. "Awesome! When do I get to be a Drow? Drow are awesome!" He's been wanting to read the Drizzt books for inspiration for his future Drow; I'm certainly not going to discourage him from any reading at his age (9). He's already called dibs on making a Drow Ranger if the opportunity arises. So would a Dragonborn or Tiefling be that far out of place in the milieu of Unearthed Arcana?

I'm firmly in the 3d6-in-order camp for ability score generation, and prefer the simpler classes and races in classic or basic D&D. It supports emergent character concepts and avoids the dump stat mentality. Emergent characters means this: the combination of random generation, decisions in play, and survival, ultimately leads to a more interesting character than if the player scripted everything out via a point buy or rearrangement of the ability scores. Emergent character is about discovering the character organically through play, and overcoming deficiencies; modern character generation is about creating a tactical build and then measuring if it performs as expected through empirical observation.

Which brings me to an issue I have with the 4d6 methods in AD&D and later - if you're going to swap scores around and do the whole min-max thing to get the character just right, why not just use an old school point buy and be done with it?

Seems like a good time for a poll, since ability score generation is one of those oft-house-ruled procedures that splits the community, and I doubt the 3d6 in order method is the most popular. So drop a vote on the right or leave a comment.

Maps of Games Gone Bye

2011-12-11T09:10:00.000-05:00

I dusted off the campaign cartographer this weekend while working on some maps for Thule and the Black City; I rediscovered all these old campaign maps, plucked from the wreckage of abandoned campaigns destroyed by Gamer ADD. Anyone else use CC3 for their maps? I was never great with it, but a B&W map shouldn't be too hard - I think I'm going to do the black & white island maps both in Hexographer and CC3 and see which approach I like best (they'll end up with hex overlays either way). In the meantime, here are the forgotten maps of yesteryear:

Greek Colonies
At one point, I thought it would be fun to run something in the ancient world, based around Greek colonists to eastern Spain. Here's the map of Spain, a map of Greece, and then Europe (all done in Campaign Cartographer). I seem to remember there were dwarves in the Pyrenees, and had a dwarven monastery discovered by the Greek colonists. Celtic indigents were bad guys. I don't remember exactly what "Pillage" was about on the Achea map, but I remember my son (who was probably 6 or 7 at the time) wanted me to use it as a city name - I think it was meant to have a Necromancer king and a bunch of undead. I'm laughing that I used Roman names on a Greek map of Europe!

Tarraco, Greek Colony in Iberia

Achea, with the City-State of Pillage

Continental map for the Greek campaign

Forgotten Realms
These two are from some starts/stops in the Forgotten Realms when we were still fooling around with 4E just before the old school return and Gothic Greyhawk - one is from the Luruar area, the other is Thar in the Moonsea region.

The Moonsea

Luraur

Nentir Vale
These must have been from the beginning of the 4E time period - they are two versions of the same smooshed Europe, with names lifted from Hyboria. I can see where I placed the Nentir Vale near the top of the map, assuredly marking these as early 4E era maps.

Movie Review: Insidious

2011-12-08T07:31:00.001-05:00

I'm traveling a bit this week, so being kid-free means I can catch a few long overdue horror movies through netflix streaming. First one up - Insidious.

The first act does a fine job building tension and dread without any gore. The basic premise is that a kid falls off a ladder and enters a long term coma, and is returned home for hospice care. Meanwhile, the family is terrorized by progressively more disturbing haunting sequences until they feel forced to change houses. When the haunting recurs in the new house, they start reaching out to psychics and paranormal investigators - and learn the epicenter of the haunting is the child himself, as a demon seeks to take over his vacant body. It slides into the surreal when we learn the spirit of the boy is trapped deep in the astral plane, and this is the reason for the unexplainable coma. And then one of the characters goes on an astral journey to bring him back.

The theme of a disembodied child stuck in a spiritual realm is reminiscent of Poltergeist, but in this one, we get to see the other side, what the psychic calls "The Further"... and see what inhabits it.

Gaming Inspiration
There are moments late in the movie that don't live up to the film's early promise, but the final act is where Insidious is really great for gaming inspiration. I can't think of much media that involves other planar experiences (unless you count old Doctor Strange comics). The scenes in the astral plane are inky and dark, claustrophobic, in haunted landscapes with ghostly phantoms reliving moments of horror through stop motion tableaus. There's a sequence in the lair of a demon that's creepy and evocative in a fun-house sort of way - I loved it.

In D&D terms, "The Further" is closest to the ethereal plane (rather than the D&D astral plane). It's a place where ghosts and apparitions roam, and demons from more distant places come closer to the lands of the living seeking victims. If I ever incorporate ethereal travel into a game, I'll revisit Insidious for inspiration on presenting the ethereal realm as a nightscape of bodiless haunts. Definitely worth a viewing.

Viking Ships for the Black City

2011-12-06T22:58:00.000-05:00

I've been doing writing on the side for the Black City manuscript; a lot of the adventure details won't get posted on the blog, seeing as I expect to run and publish them, but the setting material slated for the appendix is fair game. Here's are the notes from the secion on typical Viking ships.

A couple of questions have arisen. Longship recreations can go about 10-11 knots with a wind, which corresponds to 90 miles per day. Most D&D books aren't clear on whether a day of ship travel is 8 hours, 12 hours, or double or triple for 24 hours, and how often winds change. Just presenting travel for a typical day isn't quite enough. More reading is required.

The other question is philosophical and purely a game decision - would you make Norse marines that are not adventurers 0-level men or 1st level fighters?

VIKING SHIPS
There are many different variants of the longship - karvi, knarr, snekkja, skeide, and the famous dragon ship (drakkar). For purposes of gaming, I'm collapsing the variants into 3 simple types - the knarr, a ship optimized for trade and open seas travel, the longship, and the drakkar. The massive drakkar was a flagship meant for short distance invasions, owned by kings, and typically wouldn't be found in the hands of petty captains on Thule; most vessels on the island will either by piloting knarrs (80%) or longships (20%).

The knarr has fewer rowing stations than a military longship - only just enough for guiding the craft and handling. It can be piloted by a smaller crew. Cargo is placed towards the center of the ship; otherwise, it appears like a shorter and slightly wider longship. Both knarrs and longships use clinker hulls, a single 40' woolen sail and single mast; the crew is completely exposed to the elements, and rowers sit on sea chests, which are also used to store their gear.

Both longships and knarr are shallow draft vessels that need no harbor; they can be beached on shore and carried for portage. Because the crew needs to eat their food cold while under sail, the preference is to beach the ship whenever possible and make a regular camp on land.

Viking navigators sight a bearing using something called a bearing dial or horizon board, aligning their course based on the sunrise instead of navigating by the stars. This is especially useful during the long summer days. A special type of crystal prism, called a viking's compass or solarsteinn, is used to find the sun on cloudy days.

Here are game stats for these vessels:

SHIP DEMOGRAPHICS
Yeoman farmers and local lords (hersir) are the owners and sponsors of a knarr and crew, putting the vessel in the able hands of a local captain or the noble himself, and hoping for mutual profits. The knarr captain will be a 3rd level fighter, and the crew of 8-14 sailors will be 1st level fighters.

Militant war-bands that have converted to adventuring from raiding will have a longship, sponsored by an earl or jarl back home. Longships will have larger crews of 40-50 level 1 fighters, commanded by an experienced 5th level captain and a 4th level second in command.

Most crews will have agreements to split shares of treasure equally, after apportioning a large percentage (33-50%) to the sponsors that provided both ship and captain.

Longship
5th level captain
4th level second-in-command
40-50 0-level or 1st level fighters

Knarr
3rd level captain
8-15 0-level or 1st level fighters

* The ship pictured above is the Ottar, a modern day recreation - you can read about it here: Ottar. Very cool.

Too Busy Looking at the Map to Notice the Monster

2011-12-05T17:43:00.000-05:00

I had a post last week that brought up issues that happen when shifting time scale and narrative control between players and the DM. A specific example is daily overland travel. It's all very high level and abstract; the players say something along these lines: "We get up early, break camp, and will march all day through this hex of woods, on guard at all times". Play shifts to the DM, to narrate what happens for that day. If an encounter is rolled, the time scale quickly shifts down from a daily unit of time back to 10 second melee rounds, collapsing to a granular level. What are the characters doing, what is the specific local terrain like, when daily time shifts back to combat time? Random tables to the rescue.

Below are a set of three tables - one for what are the characters doing at the time of the encounter, the other two are for woods and mountain local terrain, respectively. I spent about 15 years living near the Rockies in Colorado, and camping up in Wyoming, and have a fair sense on both types of terrain. Our campaign is shifting towards wilderness and mountains shortly.

The charts below can work with percentile dice, but I'm expecting to print out page 71 of the Vornheim book and drop some different colored d4's on a sheet of paper; I included a cross reference column with the Vornheim page in case anyone else agrees that dropping dice on a sheet of paper is rife with entertainment value. (If the dice lands on the square for "baker", for instance, that guys is actually relieving himself when the encounter comes along. That sad little monkey). For my own game, I'll probably have one d4 for the group, and toss 1-3 additional d4's to indicate what a few of the outliers or stragglers are doing. Players will complain, but anyone who has hiked with the scouts or spent time in the infantry knows that groups don't keep their intervals or spacing, columns do the inch-worm thing, bunching and stretching, and you're always stopping to let the stragglers catch up and take water.

I generated a few sample results to see how some actual encounters would kick off - this is what the group is doing when the wandering monster check happens:

Group 1, in the Woods
These guys are taking a standing rest; perhaps someone just yelled for the stragglers to catch up. They're near a deadfall in the woods, so maybe they've stopped to try and determine the best way across. One guy is sitting down, another is tying his shoe, but one guy is on active guard duty - taking his job seriously!

Group 2, in the Mountains
There's a nearby ruined habitation, perhaps an old wooden shack. Most everyone is rummaging in their packs, except two guys are pouring over the map together, and a third is jogging back - perhaps to tell them no one noticed the monster clearing the tree line behind the party.

Group 3, in the Woods
It's a sunny glade, and these jokers are strolling along fairly casually. One guy is completely enjoying the scenery (I blame the elf), another is falling back to drink water, and a third is taking a standing rest. I hope a dragon lands in the glade and squashes all the pretty wild flowers that's distracting these clowns.

I'd feel a tinge of guilt springing something like encounter 3 on a group as an arbitrary DM choice, but when the dice decide, it's all fair game. I'm ready for our next big wilderness crawl!

Black City Map Post - 1st dungeon level

2011-12-01T08:12:00.000-05:00

Lazy post today - work is kicking it and I'm buried until the weekend. Here's a sneak peek at the unkeyed maps for the first level beneath the ruined city. The surface hex maps of the city are being revised significantly, partly for black and white printing, partly for function - they originally appeared here (black city maps and transit tunnels). The first dungeon level beneath the ruins consists of a series of large "subway style" 20' tunnels beneath the ruins called "the transit tunnels". The 30 x 30 maps below represent nodes along the transit tunnels where there are clusters of rooms, junctions, and small installations for exploration.

AD&D Rules and the Voting Public

2011-11-30T11:57:00.003-05:00

A few weeks back I had a poll running regarding many of the complexities that were added to AD&D that were left out of Holmes and Moldvay BX; one thing I've noticed in the blogosphere is there's way more energy behind OD&D and BX (or Swords & Wizardry / Labyrinth Lord) than AD&D or OSRIC. Smarter folks have certainly pointed that out too - DIY is more inline with the simpler games, rather than AD&D's " don't do it yourself, we've added all the house rules already".

With that in mind, how did the polling public respond regarding the use of AD&D's sub systems? 124 visitors responded; the original questions were phrased "How many of the following AD&D rules do you ignore, or modify with House Rules? " For purposes of the results, I switched the percentages around, so what we're seeing is the percentage of respondents that use the rules without changes - that's a bit easier to parse.

AD&D's premise might have been to do away with DIY, but one thing is clear; we like to change around the rules. Here's how folks voted:

Combat Related Rules
Weapon vs AC (20%), Weapon Speed Factors (25%), Melee Segments (42%), Firing Missiles into Melee (68%), Helmets in Melee (38%), Unarmed Combat (42%)

Weapon vs AC is one of those great ideas that could have been awesome if it was integrated into the system from the beginning - for instance, if the armor types were simplified (none, leather, scale, chain, etc) and if monsters were given armor types as part of their descriptions. The vampire has AC 1 or 2, but is treated as no armor for weapon vs AC purposes - that kind of stuff. As it is, no wonder only 20% of the folks use it when playing AD&D. The only other surprise here to me was the 42% response for using AD&D's unarmed combat rules; it's the one combat subsystem I loathe.

Overall though, these are the types of rules you'd expect in an advanced version of the game, and I've previously argued that they add complexity to player choice, which is valuable, even if they don't work very well as a simulation.

Magic Rules
Spell Components (43%), Casting Times (59%), Magic Resistance (84%)

84% of the voters use Magic Resistance; makes sense, as it gives the more dangerous monsters some teeth. My view of spell components has changed over time, and I'd definitely use them if we go "advanced"; they're valuable as quest items and player motivation in a sandbox, and also regulate the use of certain spells (creating an unofficial rarity based on the difficulty of getting the components).

The abandonment of spell components in the player base seems to be one of those things that resulted from overuse of tournament style modules with little downtime or chance to resupply during an extended adventure - it's just easier to hand wave them away and keep the action moving. Avoids the book-keeping too.

Alignment
Alignment (67%)

The AD&D alignment system is fairly well ingrained, and it makes sense 2/3rds of the folks claim to use it (though I doubt they use all of the whacky implications). "What's that dribble coming out of your brother's mouth? Oh crap, he's gone Chaotic Good on us and forgotten his Lawful Neutral… I knew he shouldn't have started dating that hippy half elf from down at the bar."

Part of the fun of trying to run a by-the-book AD&D campaign would be figuring out how alignment, alignment penalties and lost experience, penance, alignment languages, and the entities of the outer planes, would interact with the world if the DM extended it to its logical conclusions.

In retrospect, it would have been interesting to split out the alignment sub rules - alignment languages, experience penalties for changing alignment, and penance for fixing your alignment.

NPCs
Morale and NPC reactions (66%)

The BX morale and reaction system is so much easier to use, this is one I usually house rule. 2/3rds of you disagree. Its one of those things where I'd probably get used to it if I bit the bullet and forced myself to keep all those percentage factors handy.

Experience
Training Costs (31%), Training Times (30%), XP for Magic Items (67%)

XP for Magic Items is a key differentiator that lets AD&D characters do some power-leveling compared to their OD&D brethren; selling items for gold and XP, or claiming the items for XP, is quite a bit different. I'd use it when playing AD&D by-the-book, but selling items for gold seems to cross over into implied-setting; not every world has magic items shops or auctions, but AD&D clearly expects some level of magic market.

I'm thinking the low adoption of training and training times goes back to the prevalence of tournament modules; I can remember many of them implying that "for this module, ignore the training rules and let folks level up during the adventure". Great precedent, TSR, no wonder they're so heavily ignored. I'd use them; they ensure the passage of time in the campaign, giving it sweep and gravitas and making leveling momentous, as well as function as a money drain.

Psionics
Psionics (29%)

29% of the folks use the psionics system? Wow - rock on you crazy mo fo's, and watch out for those Thought Leeches and Intellect Devourers. Body Weapon for the win.

I do tend to allow psionics when we play AD&D, but disallow them at 1st level; players get their psionics roll the first time the character has a death experience or similar trauma (raised from the dead), so if psionics show up to warp the game, it's in the mid-levels when everyone is a bit more powerful, and psionic monsters are interesting opponents.

Classes
The Bard (54%), The Monk (70%), Demi-Human Level Limits (70%)

The Monk and Demi-Human results make sense - about 30% of the folks change them up, but most use the rules as written. However, 54% of the respondents use the AD&D bard! That's got to be a wink wink vote - the whole conception of the bard as fighter, thief, and then bard doesn't seem practical considering the short life span of a typical campaign. The 1E Bard is out of here.

Cooking Bacon In a Dungeon

2011-11-29T08:35:00.000-05:00

I love breakfast. I cook all the weekend breakfasts, and it's usually waffles with fruit and syrup; pancakes or french toast; eggs, meat, OJ, all that stuff on the side. In the mundane world, we care about what we're having for lunch, for breakfast, what's for dinner. Days are described by where we went to lunch; periods of the day are measured out in meals.

But I don't want to hear what a character is having for breakfast during the game. Or lunch. Or dinner. What the players need to be talking about is their plan for getting into the dungeon. Grab gear, and hit the road. "But I want to buy some things!" Fine, write the list down, mark off some money, don't do anything stupid like buy 500 vials of holy water, and get back to telling me how you're getting into the dungeon. We don't need to role play "transactional scenes" like meals and shopping. I don't care what you're having for breakfast in Greyhawk City.

This isn't meant to sound like a rant (my own players don't always bury me with mundane details) but I raise it as a springboard into a discussion of "DM background authority", "narrative control" and "character advocacy". Okay, to get it out of the realm of "RPG theory speak", the issue is about this - when is it okay for the DM to speak on behalf of a player character to move things along, and when can the player, to move things along, make decisions regarding the DM's world?

A simple answer certainly could be, "the DM can never make decisions for the players", but then things won't move along very fast, will they? And I doubt *anyone* would really play in that style. Example: The characters just raised their dead companion and need to spend a few weeks in town healing up; I don't want to go through the painful day-by-day Q&A of what the characters do. Submitting that nothing exciting is meant to happen, I'll let the time pass quickly by and advance the calendar to an appropriate date. Assumptions need to be made. Some DM's will even let players get X,Y and Z done in their down time; does anyone allow players to write little vignettes about what they accomplish in the intervening months? Like, how does Black Dougal the Thief use his free time to do thief-stuff around town, and rise to prominence in the local thieves guild? (That's a trick question - Black Dougal is DEAD). More seriously, does every single transactional scene need to played out in relentless detail?

There's a theory of story telling, role playing, and even improv theater that says what we really care about are peak scenes in a character's life, pivotal scenes where something dramatic happens; no one wants to see how a character brushes his teeth, what kind of toothpaste he uses, did he floss, how does he put his pants on. D&D is not The Truman Show, and the DM is not an ever-present camera; no one cares. We want to see the players back in the dungeon mugging some goblins.

Everything changes in the underworld. A kind of hyper reality sets in, where very moment in the dungeon has tactical import, and we track time down to the smallest of intervals - 10 minute turns, 10 second combat rounds. Mundane details around food, water, sleeping, praying, memorizing spells, even cooking, become important. As a DM, I'm suddenly very interested in all of that minutiae, and indeed want them spelled out finely for me. The ever presence of danger elevates mundane activities to mission critical life saving procedures. Whether the players are frying bacon for breakfast or chewing hard tack is now an important distinction.

Wilderness travel causes me no end of problems in this area of "advocacy versus narrative control". Our unit of time is on the macro level; we count off hexes in days. And yet, encounters can happen each day, plunging us from that 10,000 foot view of miles-per-day back into the hyper reality of 10 second combat rounds, caught in a life or death struggle. What about the in-between? And where lies the balance of advocacy (player control) and DM narrative control?

Consider this example: The party is traveling through a wooded 6 mile hex. Any given hex of woods will have pockets of dense wood, small open glades, streams to cross, ridges to climb, thick brambles to bypass; there are a wide range of obstacles and features in a single square mile of woods, let alone along a 6 mile hike. When the DM determines a wandering encounter happens with some gryphons, just where does it occur?

I would hazard most of us are okay with the DM quickly determining if the gryphons are flying or landed, hunting or performing some other activity, perhaps the DM rolls some surprise checks and calculates encounter distances to help piece together a mental scene. All of the data points converge to allow the DM to describe the moment when one of the parties becomes aware of the other one. Through fiat and in the interests of excitement, the DM chooses to place the encounter when the party is crossing a wide stream, which creates a natural break in the tree cover and exposes a wide section of sky to the circling gryphons.

How much power does the DM have to decide the state of the characters? This guy over here is halfway across the stream when he hears the gryphon screech, these guys are milling around the bank, that guy over there is taking a leak, that other guy has already crossed and is looking ahead. There's a balance between springing the interesting scene on the players, part improvised, part generated die rolls, versus the player's expectations, which is that they're always on high alert, scanning the skies, or woods, or ground, or stream, or wherever direction they're being surprised.

Another example, which I absolutely love, is in The Fellowship of the Ring movie, when the hobbits are hanging out on Weathertop, cooking "tomatoes, sausage, and nice crispy bacon". No PC in their right mind would have a cook fire, with sizzling bacon, in a wilderness crawling with undead. Characters are mere game pieces, and they're rarely role played to take into account comfort factors unless imposed by the DM… "No, you can't sleep standing up in plate mail".

There's a relationship between the unit of time in the game and the amount of abstraction and player control. Players control all of their character actions in the combat round; they mostly control their actions in the 10 minute turn (though might establish procedures to fall back on); the traveling day is mostly abstracted to standard procedures; larger units are totally abstract. As player tactical control goes down, the DM's ability to interpose a situation on the player character necessarily increases. I could reduce it to a chart like this:

It's one of the many reasons dungeons are the backbone of a game. There's a much clearer line dividing the adversarial DM role and the role of the players advocating on behalf of what their characters are doing, and the time scale supports that level of description. The wilderness time scale creates a grey area and often requires a bit of "social contract" to finesse:

I'm going to spring wilderness encounters on you appropriately, based on surprise, distance, party procedures, and so on, and I'll place you guys in appropriate but interesting terrain, and then turn over control of your characters back to you once the scene is set. You don't bitch and moan that sometimes a monster might stumble by while you're taking a leak, because sometimes you'll stumble upon a monster that's taking a leak… it's a matter of trust.

An alternate approach I've been considering is to change the time scale when a wilderness encounter is about to take place, and give the players direct control earlier in the process. For instance, when I decide they've come upon a wide steam, let them explain how they're proceeding as typical character actions and go forward from there. This would slow the game down quite a bit, since I'd want to run a number of "false alarms" each day so the players don't assume an encounter is coming every time we shift into "tactical time". It would be important to have sub-terrain tables for creating interesting encounter points in various macro hex types.

My current campaign is about to go into an extended wilderness period, so I've been ruminating on how I want to handle daily travel and intermittent encounters this time around. Oh, the things we do, to strike a balance between detailed character actions and not having to hear what your character had for breakfast that day.

I can see some follow-on posts already; one involves the idea of narrative control in D&D, and do we DMs ever shift it entirely to the players ( like in the new school games); the other involves exploring those mundane details of daily life I casually dismissed. On topic for this post, though, I'd love to hear how you narrate wilderness travel and handle the shift from travel time to combat time, and shift control of the game back to the players.