Cooking Bacon In a Dungeon

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.

Sage Advice: The Real World™

Instead of building a new fantasy world from the ground up, why not place your next game in a real world setting and take advantage of earth history?  That's today's topic.  As usual with these other Saturday columns, I'll cull the opinions of some RPG writers and publishers and take a look at the popular positions.  The Real World™ argument reduces to four major points - resonance, accessibility, depth, and aesthetic choice.

Kenneth Hite is a writer I enjoy, and I've heard him postulate this basic rule; if a story can be told in the real world, then set it in the real world first.  Only exclude the real world as the primary choice when it's absolutely impossible.  The first argument supporting the position is resonance.

...My fundamental setting design policy was: "Use Earth." It's better mapped, better documented, and just plain weirder than anywhere else. At least start with Earth. But more importantly, as I've said on half a hundred panels and plenty of times in print, saying "Kragar the Liberator was secretly in the pay of the drow" is just not compelling. Nobody really cares, even if they dutifully read the forty pages on Kragar the Liberator earlier in the book. But saying "Abraham Lincoln was secretly in the pay of the drow" is compelling. The players (and GM) bring something to the table when I say "Abraham Lincoln" or "King Arthur" or "Hitler" that they don't when I say "Kragar the Liberator" or "Kragar the Lost" or "Kragar the Mad."

--Ken Hite (from here:  Setting is My Business)

There's a lot to unpack in that paragraph; Ken's context was pointing out how 40 pages on "Kragar" still create a less compelling story than using a real-world situation with a twist.  No fantasy villain holds a candle to the horrors of Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, or Pol Pot.  Our lifetime of experience and education provides a resonance with these figures nearly impossible to achieve in an RPG setting.  I'd argue some novelists might get there with some of their well known creations, but they have a lot bigger canvas with which to work versus the RPG designer.

This leads us into the issue of accessibility.  Basic knowledge of historical figures and time periods is enough to engage with the ideas of the setting, no need to indoctrinate the players with heaps of game world lore to get them up to speed.  "Here's a book to read on the history of Eberron, see you in a few weeks after you've mastered it enough to pick races and classes".  ZZzzzzzzz.  Alternatively:  the reason the Romans built Hadrian's Wall was to hold back the primordial snake men of Northern Scotland; you are all starting as Roman soldiers posted on the frontier.  Got it?  Good.  Let's start rolling up characters.

So we've established that The Real World™ is more accessible than the typical fantasy RPG material, and situations will have more resonance; how does it compare to those pages and pages of background in a typical fantasy campaign setting?  We'll pick on the Forgotten Realms, since there are probably enough RPG books and novels to fill up a series of large book shelves.

From Ken's quote above, we hear that Earth "is better mapped, better documented, and just plain weirder than anywhere else."  The first place I encountered this idea, after starting to read some bloggers, was over at Alexis's place:  Campaigns with Depth.  I promptly went out and ran a Frankish Dark Ages game on the Saxon Frontier, using AD&D rules, and it was richer for it.  If you do get lured in by the Siren's Call of Overdevelopment and Detail, you can't go wrong with The Real World™.  Between the library and the internet, Google Earth and Google Images, there's no lack of material.  Instead of recycling cliché RPG material like the Realms, pull actual situations from history that will replace the clichés with veracity and realism.

The final point of view on using The Real World™ for your D&D setting comes your way courtesy of LOTFP and the Grindhouse Edition Referee's Book.

It is suggested that you use as “normal” a campaign world as possible. If monsters and magic are everywhere in a world, then fear and terror becomes harder to portray.

--James Edward Raggi IV

The idea here is that the contrast between the banality of the mundane world, and the added elements of the fantastic, supports a specific aesthetic ideal.  For Weird Horror, you're striving for fear and terror, but even in a standard fantasy game, integrating Elves and Dwarves and various humanoid groups into the fringes of your alternate Earth creates interest.  It's a variation of the expression, if everything is special, nothing is special; magic and the fantastic have greater impact in a world when they're rare on an alternate Earth.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out some of the counter arguments to using The Real World™.  There's the argument of mastery; the DM will spend too much time researching historical details for veracity, and if they don't, the educated players in the group (who might know more about a given era than the DM) will lose their belief in the game world if it doesn't match their expectations.  The more compelling argument, from my  perspective, is when the constraints of using The Real World™ don't allow the DM to create the types of adventures and locales they want; at some point, the needs of a High Magic, High Fantasy world with air ships, flights of dragons, demon empires, and golden kingdoms of elves creates too much dissonance to exist in a world that followed the patterns of Earth history.

I'll leave the readers with this thought; the argument for using the Real World is that it has resonance, is accessible, and has more depth of detail and history than any RPG book.  Is it any wonder that Tolkien extends such a long shadow over standard fantasy gaming?  One could argue that Middle Earth is so well-read and well known, that it meets the test for many of the reasons put forth for using Earth!

Polls of the People

I had a bunch of completed polls queuing up.  Sit back and enjoy the collective opinions of those opinionated readers that choose to reply.  (There was a recent AD&D rules poll, too, but those results warrant their own post).

HAVE YOU DRAWN A CARD FROM THE DECK OF MANY THINGS?

Hell yeah! I'd draw a card right now!  (58%), Only as a last resort. (10%) I would not, could not draw a card.  (3%)   It's never come up in a game.(27%)

Let's ignore the poor 27% of disadvantaged gamers that never encountered The Deck.  Here's some advice - go chastise your DM's for depriving you.  Of the remainder, 82% of you would draw a card - gamers like to gamble!  Then again, I have one of those 3% percent folks that would never draw a card, sitting in my home game.

DO YOU NERF TURN UNDEAD IN YOUR GAME?

We use it as is; clerics are awesome(40%).  We use mixed groups of high and low undead(24%).  I limit its daily use (like LOTFP)(21%).  We don't use clerics(7%).  House rules - see comments(6%).

The cleric is the best class in D&D, and Turn Undead puts it over the top.  I like the LOTFP approach - converting it into a 1st level spell -  but in the current game we're running mostly AD&D style and clerics get to be totally awesome and dominant.  The AD&D optional rule of mixing undead levels is a good way around the high level clerics.

HOW DO USE LEVEL DRAIN IN YOUR D&D GAME?

We use energy drain as written (44%).  We use it, but undead are rare (4%).  We use alternate abilities instead of energy drain(20%).  We've applied a house rule(22%).  We've made Restoration easier to get(4%).  Something else (see comments)(6%) .

Considering how many folks complain about energy drain, it's interesting to see 44% use it as written.  Blog readers seem heavily skewed towards DMs.  I'm in the group that's applied a House Rule (characters can "heal" drained levels with sufficient rest) but it's actually not a great rule for players, so I'll give them a vote to remove it.

WHAT LEVEL CAN NEW PLAYERS JOIN THE GAME?

Always as first level.  (16%).  A few levels below the other guys.  (8%)  One level below the lowest party member.  (41%)  At the average party level.  (25%)  Same as the highest level guys.  (0%)  Something different.  (8%)

I'm firmly in the "majority", such as it is - the 41% that start folks a level below everyone else.  Areas like this, where the DMG doesn't give a hard and fast rule, tend to have the most spread in the results as folks figure out what works for their table.  A more nuanced approach is something like "during levels 1-3, new guys always start at 1st level, but once the lowest group member is level 4, new guys start a level below the lowest party member".

Questions that Need Answering

Been away a few days focusing on writing; real posts are returning, but I've got some questions.

Sci-Fantasy Inspiration
Okay, so I listen to metal any time I need some inspiration for Gothic Greyhawk.  For the Black City, with it's roots in weird sci-fantasy, aliens, and Chariots of the Gods, I find myself turning to electronica and synth pop for listening.  What do you listen to for weird sci-fantasy inspiration?  (That's the important question here, but if you read on, I can always use some advice on these other questions, too...)

Rational Dungeons
This could probably be it's own blog post, but I'm very much a top down developer; I've usually got a clear idea what's going on in a given level or sub-level before pencil hits the graph paper.  I read "Let There Be a Method To Your Madness" in The Dragon #10 back when I was a kid and never looked back.

With the Black City, I'm starting to take another approach - using some random generators to get ideas and not make the maps 100% "rational".  Just curious how many folks do the rational dungeon design approach versus wahoo random all the way?

Taking a slight pivot, here are some production related questions for any folks in the know...

MS Publisher for Layout
I'm a Microsoft person via work, so I have access to home-use copies of MS Publisher and Word. These should be fine for simpler game adventures. I expect to use either a one-page-dungeon format or two-page-dungeon (ala Stonehell) - mixing in images, tables and text probably disqualifies MS Word. Are there any other issues with using Publisher versus a professional layout tool (like In Design)?

For instance, will there be gotchas with an MS Pub PDF with Lulu or OBS?  I don't want to shell out $200 for InDesign for a pilot project, but could be forced to learn one of the open source tools if necessary.

Maps
Hex maps are being done in Hexographer - I have a question on color. Would you recommend developing grey-scale hex tiles right in Hexographer (and making a grey scale map for a B&W product), or doing it in color and changing it to grey in a tool like GIMP? Similarly, I'm wondering if it's best to do all the text overlays in GIMP as well.

For dungeon maps, I'm looking at making the simple graph paper maps in Gridmapper or Dungeonographer (and apply text in GIMP).

I'll post some updates here and there - blog writing will take a slight hit as I continue throwing the majority of my time at compiling the Black City manuscript.

Black City Bestiary

Kicking off new Black City posts with a Bestiary collection.  It's projected to be an 8 level dungeon so there's a need for a lot of monsters.  Taking a cue from the Dismal Depths (and Evan's place) here's a look at the Bestiary so far.  I've got a list below of future creatures (most of those are strictly dungeon level 4 and deeper beneath the City).  Stats are somewhat "LOTFP style" since that's the core rules I'd use.  I still need to edit these entries and adjust the balance between brevity and detail.

Ape Men of the Black City:
AC as Leather, MV 12, HD 1, Atk - Club 1-6, ML 9, AL C.  Matriarchal white haired proto-humans that wield clubs and throw rocks.  Gangs of male apes patrol areas in the city; females display a creepy attraction to human males.

Berserker Stage 1
AC as Leather, MV 12, HD 1+1, Atk - By Weapon, ML Special, AL C.  Humans infected with the rage worm parasite from polluted water.  Enter a blind rage during combat and never check morale, +2 on to hit rolls due to ferocity.

Berserker Stage 2
AC as Chain, MV 9, HD 3+1, Atk - By Weapon +1, ML 9, AL C.  Prolonged rage worm infection mutates the victim into a larger, musclebound, feral human, with oversized jaws and teeth, that craves human flesh.  Very stealthy, they surprise on a 1-3.

Berserker Stage 3
AC as Chain, MV 9, HD 4+1, Atk - By Weapon +2 or 1d10, ML 10, AL C.  The final stage of rage worm infection causes the misshapen victim to grow larger than man-sized (8-10' tall).  Often build cave-like lairs to larder food and suck bone marrow.

Blood Worms
AC as Leather, MV 12, HD 1+2, Atk 1hp, ML 7, AL N.  Swarms of 3' long worms with hag-fish mouths that infest the Warrens; attach on a successful bite and drain 1hp per round blood for 2-4 rounds before dropping off.  Hinder movement.

Croach-Matrix
AC as Unarmored, MV 1, HD 2 per 10x10 area, Atk Paralysis, ML 12, AL N.  Fungal growth in the Warrens of Decay.  The matrix generates a powerful toxin; terrestrial creatures that touch it must save versus paralysis or be helpless for 1-6 turns.  Croach-Matrix encases paralyzed creatures in 1-10 rounds and slowly dissolves the creature while it's still alive, feeding nutrients into the Warrens.  Croach-Matrix burns.

Demon Wind
AC as Leather, MV 15/30, HD 6, Atk 3d6, ML 9, AL C.  Evil winds from the arctic, offspring of the walker in the wastes.  Deals 3d6 damage from scouring icy wind.  Limited vulnerabilities.

Dokkalvar
AC as Chain, MV 12, HD 1+1, Atk By weapon or spell, ML 8, AL C.  Servants of the Queen of Air and Darkness, these evil elves explore the ruins on her behalf.  Typically carry sleep and charm spells, icy rapiers and cold ray wands that do 1-6 damage per level of the Dokkalvar.  Immune to sleep, charm, and cold attacks.

Draugur
AC as Leather, MV 6, HD 8, Atk 2-16, ML 12, AL C.  Gjenganer that cannibalize other Gjenganer (see below) can become Draugur, ghouls capable of growing to twice their size and capable of delivering massive slams.  When first encountered, they will appear man-sized and grow during combat.  Draugur devour the slain.  Have standard undead immunities.

Dverge
AC as Chain, MV 6, HD 1, Atk - By weapon or spell, ML 8, AL C.  Deformed race of evil dwarves from Nidavellir that seek gems and magic.  Many of them can cast spells.  Can become invisible at will.

Frost Gremlins
AC as Leather, MV 6, HD 1-1, Atk - By weapon, ML 7, AL C.  Vicious goblinoids spawned from rodents dunked into the ichor of the severed Joten head.  Cruelty to other creatures is matched only by their desire to capture and dunk more rats.  Resist cold, hampered by daylight (-1 on to-hit rolls).

Furry Snake
AC as Leather, MV 9, HD 2, Atk - bite, 1-4 + poison, ML 7, AL N.  Adapted for life in the city; always attack first.  Hunted by frost goblins (since snakes hunt rats).  Save vs poison or die.

Giant Furry Snake
AC as Chain, MV 12, HD 4, Atk - 2 bites, 1-4/1-4 + Poison, ML 8, AL N.  These 10' long furred sea snakes hunt aquatic mammals on the islands; sometimes enter the ruins.  Save vs Poison or die.

Gjenganer (Hungry Dead)
AC as Leather, MV 12, HD 2, Atk - 2 claws and bite, 1-3/1-3/1-3, ML 9, AL C.  Humans and demi-humans that die within the dungeons must Save vs Death or rise in 1-6 turns as Gjenganer, hungry dead fueled by the energies of the Dark Goddess trapped in the depths of the dungeon.  Intelligent; some newly risen Gjenganer don't realize they're dead.  Driven to cannibalism by the urges of the Dark Goddess.  Have standard undead immunities.  See also Draugur, Hungry Bones, Moaning Shambler.

Glass Spider
AC as Chain & Shield, MV 12, HD 2, Atk - bladed forelegs, 1-4/1-4, ML 11, AL N.  Scuttling automatons that serve the Overmind and maintain the Warrens of Decay.  Insert corpses into the Croach-Matrix to fuel the Warrens.  Front legs have retractable blades.

Headless Servitor
AC as Plate, MV 9, HD 4, Atk 2 claws, 1 bite, 1-6/1-6/2-12 ML 12, AL N.  Victims abducted by the Winged Terrors are taken to the Tower of Pain to have their heads removed; the bodies are fitted with fungal symbiote units.  Surgical alterations include gigantic stomach mouths, armor plated implants, various claws, hooks, and bladed implements attached to their arms.

Hungry Bones
AC as Leather, MV 6, HD 1, Atk - 2 claws and bite, 1-2/1-2/1-3, ML 12, AL C.  Moaning Shamblers that persist long enough lose their flesh and sinews, but not the hunger; they become ghoulish skeletons.  Unintelligent.  Have standard undead immunities.  Take minimal damage from non-blunt weapons.

Jackal-Men
AC as Unarmored, MV 9, HD 1, Atk By Weapon, ML 10, AL N.  Tall, slender creatures with jackal heads.  Most are spell casters and can cast magic user spells; levels higher than 1 are possible.

Mites
AC as 7, MV 9/18, HD 1/2, Atk 1-3, ML 6, AL C.  Flying cousins of the frost gremlins, they use small sized makeshift weapons.  Five or more mites close together create a chaotic aura that reflects spells, critical misses, and fouls mechanical gear.

Moaning Shambler
AC as Unarmored, MV 6, HD 2, Atk - 2 claws and bite, 1-3/1-3/1-3, ML 12, AL C.  Gjenganer that can't maintain a flesh diet undergo rigor mortis, lose their inhuman intelligence, and begin to stiffly shuffle like traditional zombies.  Have standard undead immunities.

Mutates (Beast-Men)
AC as Leather, MV 12, HD 2+1, Atk Varies, ML 9, AL N.  Various animal hybrid humanoids dwelling below the Warrens.  Roll for type:
1-2 Cat People (claws and bite 1-4/1-4/1-4)
3-4 Dog Men (bite 1-8)
5-6 Rat Men (bite 1-4, 1 in 20 chance of disease, stealthy).

Neanderthals
AC as Unarmored, MV 12, HD 2, Atk By Weapon, ML 7, AL N.  Primitive cave men living in the Warrens, they survive by following the leadership of She Who Must Be Obeyed.

Plastical Mark I
AC as Leather, MV 12, HD 3, Atk By Weapon, ML 12, AL N.  Plastical, from Plastic-Alien, are rubbery humanoids with bulbous heads and large black eyes.  They're fabricated by the city's machinery as workers.  The Mark I often carries a heavy wrench (treat as club) and can be seen repairing doors and dungeon fixtures.  (Obviously, I love me some Castle Amber with these Plasticals).

Plastical Mark II
AC as Chain, MV 12, HD 4, Atk Squeeze, 1d10 acid, ML 12, AL N.  The Mark II was designed for hard to reach ducts and tunnels; it can stretch 20', envelope a target, and secrete an acid; roll open doors to break it's grip.

Plastical Mark III
AC as Plate, MV 12, HD 5, Atk By Weapon or Lightning, ML 12, AL N.  Mark III's were designed to work on electrical equipment and glow faintly; thrice per day they can fire a 3d6 lightning bolt.

Plastical Mark IV
AC as Leather, MV 12, HD 2, Atk Charm, ML 12, AL N.  The telepathic Mark IV can attempt one charm person per round; in this way the Overmind manipulates the various humanoid factions throughout the dungeons.

Romanoid
AC as Chain, MV 12, HD 4, Atk By Weapon, 2 attacks per round, ML 12, AL C.  Centuries ago, members of the Lost Legion XVIII discovered the Overmind beneath the City.  Some of their consciousnesses were transferred forcibly into human-like plastical bodies and put into stasis.  They've been revived to function as elite guards (Praetorians).

Sub-Humans (Morlocks)
AC as Chain, MV 9, HD 2, Atk By Weapon, ML 10, AL C.  Devolved Neanderthals that live beyond the Warrens, pale skinned and sensitive to bright light. Desirous of humanoid flesh.

Volt
AC as Leather, MV 24, HD 1+1, Atk Swoop, 1-6 + Stun, ML 10, AL N.  Bat-like elementals of electrical energy.  When touched, save vs paralysis to avoid being stunned through end of next round.  Harmed only by magic.

Winged Terror
AC as Leather, MV 12/15, HD 3, Atk Special, ML 7, AL C.  Alien creatures, half moth, half crustacean, half fungus.  Abduct humanoids for unearthly experiments.  Attack with otherworldly weaponry - paralysis rays, lightning guns, stun nets - unuseable by humans.  Can drone once per day to create 30' sleep effect.

============================
Regular Monsters:
These are things in the standard bestiaries that still need to be added:

Northman Viking variants (Bandits, Nobles - Hersir with Huskarlar, NPC Party, Traders, Veterans).  "Dire" animals infected with rage worm.  The Warrens are full of giant insects of all stripes, vicious rodents, and fungi monsters.  Traditional necromantic undead are not unknown - wights, wraiths, et al.  Some automatons and golems (besides plasticals) need to be created.

============================
LEVELS 4-6

Automatons (Golems)
Caustic Ooze
Cyborgs
Dimensional Terror
Dreaming Brain
Radiated Mutants
Insectoid Hive Creatures
Machine Mind (Boss Overmind)
Mordant Vapor
Reconstituted Alien Terror (the Resurrected)
Reptoids
Servitors of the Pool
Thing in the Pool
Vegetal Controller and Pod People
Waking Nightmares

============================
LEVELS 7-9

Alien Ghost
Alpha Predators
Avatar of the Dark Goddess
Denizen of the Obelisk
Floaters from Beyond
Greys
Space Devil (from the Palladium)
Star Demon
Walking Worms
Watchers

============================

Gothic Greyhawk, Game Report 47 - Ravenloft Finale

Cast of Characters:
Mordecai, a Cleric-6: Adam
Forlorn, an Elf-5 (1): Bo
Mister Moore, Magic User-6: Mike
Shy, a Fighter-6 (3):  JR
Leonidas the Paladin-5:  Nogal
Digit, the Elf Thief-6:  Z
Konstantine, Magic User-4: Smitty

Henchmen:
Phat Kobra, a Dwarf-5
Grumble the Smug, Halfling-5 (3)
Donavich, Cleric-4
Boris, Druid-1
Gregor, Ranger-1

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AD&D 1E, I6 Ravenloft
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Boba Fett died like a chump, Darth Maul got chopped in half while gloating, and Strahd got wasted by Dispel Evil before rolling a single attack die in his own moment of truth.  No matter, the surviving vampires in Castle Ravenloft have been able to wage a guerilla war against the invading adventurers, dragging the module on for… 6 months!  And now it's finally over.

The important part of the session began when the group started sweeping the southern crypts the following day; the Paladin would pause momentarily before each crypt, and use his Detect Evil to determine if there was evil dead lurking on the far side.  After detecting an evil presence behind one of the first new crypt doors, the noisy group spent time discussing what to do right there in the hall, then decided to finish sweeping the long line of crypts in the current passage.  By the time they finished the sweep, the evil presence was gone from the other side of the crypt; this caused no small amount of consternation.

While they groused about this turn of events, the ranger, Gregor, noticed the sound of bats, skittering and moving along the ceiling, just to the edge of the party's globe of continual light.  "This can't be good".  The druid cast Speak with Animals and learned the evil ones were forcing the bats to move in on the characters - there were hundreds of them just beyond the light, waiting for the signal.

The Paladin felt the evil presences closing in.  "That's right outside the door!  Man, this is a big fracking signal.  They're in the room with us".  Copious Aliens quotes as the Paladin detected multiple evil presences moving into attack position just outside the light sphere.

The decisive moment went like this:  the characters knew that once the bats attacked, they wouldn't be able to cast spells because of the fluttering swarm.  Mordecai made a fateful decision to burn the Dispel Evil scroll (Dispel Evil creates a radius around the Cleric and lasts an entire turn).  The party made a crucial initiative roll, and won it over the incoming bats.  Mordecai cast the spell.

From multiple directions, vampires screamed out of the darkness baring fangs, but then they would hit the invisible globe of Dispel Evil and burst into flames.  Gertrude's skull rolled to rest near the character's feet, a pair of vampire fangs sticking out of the top jaw.  Top Hat Man's hat fluttered to the ground, the rest of his body reduced to ash.  Cheers from around the table as the vampires missed their Saves.  The last standing vampire was Helga, who got a shot in on Gregor (killing him), but who ended up fleeing the carnage in mist form.  The druid cast Faerie Fire on the fleeing cloud and the group followed it through the dark crypts back to the starting point - Helga's crypt was the first one they had found!  She was cornered and destroyed.  All the vampires left in Castle Ravenloft were part of the ambush, and they were all destroyed.  Total party win.

The only other battle worth mentioning involved clearing a demonic presence from one of the castle rooms.  After entering, it looked like a normal office, albeit with dark shadows beneath the furniture and bed.  Seriously dark shadows.  The Paladin concentrated… there - under the bed is the demonic presence.  Someone handed him the gold coin with a Continual Light spell on it, and he carefully rolled it under the bed from a safe distance.

Immediately, the bed exploded upward as a Shadow Demon burst upright, splintering the bed to avoid the cursed Continual Light.  The magic users called out spells, and the Paladin side-stepped, creating a clear path and jabbing at the Demon with his magic spear.  Mister Moore's Lightning Bolt had no effect on the inky monster, but the clerics had been sitting on Light spells and cast them at the creature's eyes.  (Unbeknownst to the players, Light spells do fireball damage to a Shadow Demon).  They watched in delight as it screamed in agony from the Light spells, and Leonidas quickly finished it with his spear.

That effectively ended combat operations in Castle Ravenloft; I don't mind "scooping" when the monsters are beaten, and there's no need to play out the details of bashing a few zombies skulking in closets and that kind of stuff.

When we resume, we'll be skipping a few months of game time to ensure all injuries are fully cleared, the winter will be waning down, and the group can start their next thing in the early spring.  They've been discussing options via email during the week.  So far it looks like they'll do a handful of mundane things in Barovia during the downtime, such as rebuilding the church, fixing up the castle, and patrolling the valley.  When the mountain passes clear, they'll send a group back to the dwarf hold of Stone Gate to open up trade, gather news about the lowlands, and then press on to find Mordecai's witch and have a reckoning.

Story Matters, But Loot Pays the Bills

My sweet spot for adventures are site-based locations with minimal overarching plot.  Those types of adventures let me supply any number of plot hooks or other forms of information for the players, tailored to my campaign, and then run the location like a sandbox.  That's my agenda; to enable a player-driven game.  More often than not, excellent stories emerge from the intersection of player decisions and the reactions by the inhabitants of the setting; the end result is greater than the sum of the parts, and endlessly entertaining to me.

It does raise the question, what motivates players to choose a certain adventure or follow a course of action in the first place?  A rational approach would go like this:  players "win" through level advancement; the fuel for leveling is centered on gold as XP; therefore, players responding to that incentive will choose adventures with the best risk-to-reward ratio.  The Autarch guys have a detailed post on the economic argument for player choice in D&D.  There've been a lot of posts about sandbox motivations, but one of my favorite is Zak's rogues in the sandbox.  Amoral looters will plan their own capers and are best suited for the player driven game.  Some of the more humorous terms I've seen on the interwebs include labeling adventurers as "murder hobos", or playing "mug the goblin".

Rather than weighing economic factors, don't players usually just follow the most interesting story and hope the gold piece fairy rewards them at the end of the day?  The DM preps something, the DM offers some intriguing plot hook, the players say, "That sounds cool", and off they go.  Outside of the large, multi level mega dungeon, or the wilderness hex crawl, most short adventures are chosen on the basis of story, and not rational economic calculations of risk versus reward.  Theoretically, the DM could prepare a lot of different small adventures, and try to create that same degree of transparency around risk versus reward, so an economic value can be attached to the plot hooks, but I'll believe someone is doing it when I see it.

Thus, there's a disconnect between the reason most adventures are chosen (story) and the reward model for playing (XP for loot).  I've bounced up against it a lot of times in the past few weeks as I discussed how a "Wide Area Sandbox" game would work as a weird fantasy setting; the plot hooks in that game would be story-centric - they consist of journal entries by a previous adventurer priest - so the players would make choices mostly based on story and not risk-reward.  Any loot gained is incidental.

I'm not the only person reacting to the dissonance.  Mister LOTFP himself alluded in a recent post that he'd consider dropping the level or XP system in a future LOTFP release (and my head promptly exploded); as LOTFP adventures evolve to invoke weird horror adventures in more of a quasi-real world setting than bog standard fantasy, the idea of having to dole out 300,000gp in loot to a mid-level party is jarring.  I get it, I really do.  Jack's new blog* had a follow-on post, suggesting that weird fantasy D&D keeps the level system but replaces gold-for-XP.

I don't have a clear takeaway yet; my gut tells me "D&D is Always Right", and folks are bouncing up against these problems because we're straying outside of the game's sweet spot with some of these niche campaign concepts.  Gold as XP solves many issues, and reinforces an interesting paradigm of exploration and problem solving.  It's also quantitative and doesn't require any subjective role playing rewards or  (barf) story awards.  So folks might say that running D&D in a quasi-real-world setting is a horse you can only ride so far without performing major surgery on the advancement system.  I disagree.

Real world history is full of plunder, loot, and riches - Teutonic Knights and Templars growing rich on trade and plunder, Roman generals building vast wealth conquering the provinces and returning home for their triumphs.  Even the early modern period has the pillaging of the New World and fighting over ships laden with Spanish gold.  What's wrong with the characters in that kind of game being the ones that win vast riches and move the dial of history with fortunes that bring even kings knocking at their door?  That's right, there's nothing wrong with it.  So the problem comes back to story and game focus.  If you're trying to run a game where the characters do "heroic" things, like stop evil cults or keep the Great Old Ones from returning, I hear there's not much money in that line of work.  One of the big differences between D&D and let's say, Call of Cthulhu, is the moral factor of "saving the world" is a clear imperative in Cthulhu gaming.  Returning home with wagons of plunder isn't really the point of the game.

Let's not get so engrossed in story or literary genre emulation that we lose the foundational elements of the game; otherwise we're just promulgating Call of Cthulhu with Magic Users and Clerics.  I'm right at that edge myself; my "elevator pitch" for the Library of de la Torre describes it as a mix of Solomon Kane, The Three Musketeers, and Lovecraft Country.  But the looting stays.

*Tales of theGrotesque and Dungeonesque…  looks good so far, go check it out.  You may remember his Flavors of Fear PDF from a few months ago with various Weird Fantasy setting ideas.