Sometimes, the rules can work FOR the party...

So, we were ambushed by kobolds.

This is fairly standard for a first level dungeon; they're kobolds, that's what they do. It's the only way they can survive.

But they didn't kill anybody, so they got killed themselves, all but one who ran off.

Unconcerned, we continued on our merry way. Until we came to a door, one that wouldn't open no matter what we tried. We made a lot of noise trying to open it, and the DM (Kesher) told us so.

"It'll attract monsters," he said.

So I had an idea:

"Fine, let it! We'll hide and ambush them!" And someone else (sorry, I don't remember who) said "And we'll wait until they open the door!"

So that's what we did. Doors open for monsters, even when they don't open for player characters.

So we ended up ambushing the kobolds this time and killing off some more of them. And we got the door open, to boot! I love it when things work out like that.


Sadly, however, while searching the Wizard's room, Melvin opened the wardrobe and was immediately bitten by a large, black snake. Failed his save vs. poison, and Melvin is no more. The party continued searching the room long enough for me to roll up a new character, equip him, and enter the dungeon and catch up with him. That's when my new character (a magic-user) asked "Who is the dead guy, and why haven't you looted the body yet?" So another fighter got Melvin's +1 sword, which was kinda cool.


One little gripe I do have about the game is the way everything changes all the time. Now we're using a different system for magic. I mean, sure, it's interesting to see the different ideas that come up, but at some point I'd like to just PLAY instead of PLAYTEST every time. Ah, well. I guess that's what other games are for.

(Don't get me wrong -- I do enjoy the game. I just don't want to have to learn new rules every session, that's all.)

Nostalgia Gaming

I'm proud to be a part, in my own small way, of the Old School Renaissance. I've long thought that games were getting too complex, that we didn't really need the endless rules, the endless supplements and splatbooks, the endless endlessness.

On the other hand, if a game isn't supported, it dies. How many people do you know who still play Star Frontiers? Or Top Secret, a clunky but awesome game I used to love.

Okay I have to admit, when people accuse us of "nostalgia gaming", I get a little irate. But in my calmer moments, I do have to admit that there's more than a little truth to it. At least, for me there is. (I don't want people to think I'm speaking for anyone else.)

What brought this on, you may ask?

Well, I've rediscovered an old love. Not a girlfriend; my wife is my one and only in that area. No, it's the first role-playing game I ever bought any of.

It isn't D&D. While that was among the first, it wasn't the very first. In fact, I resisted playing D&D for quite a while, simply because it has rules quirks that take some getting used to.

No, this was Steve Jackson's very first rpg, called The Fantasy Trip.

Where D&D was quirky, this was streamlined. Where D&D was vague, this was concrete. (As a reviewer in Isaac Asimov's Science Ficion Magazine said "Four hexes are four hexes and that gargoyle is either in your way or he isn't.")

But I couldn't get anyone interested in it.

Sure, there was this one time. I got the "second string" if you will, of my gaming group, to give it a try. (The "first string" were the really cool older guys, who had been around since the little brown books. They would occasionally try something else, but were steadfast D&D men to the last.) We tried it out, and while it was okay, it wasn't sufficiently different to warrant a change.

I still like it, though, because it was so different from D&D. Things made sense. I'm kind of a big fan of making sense, but then I've always been a science fiction guy more than a fantasy guy. In fantasy, you can just say "it's magic" and get away with it. SF was always more rigorous, in that if you postulate certain changes in what we currently understand about the universe, the technology in question would actually work, whether it be warp drive, teleportation, or ray guns.

(I'm not trying to say that SF was in any way better; just different, just something I preferred. Put the rocks down.)

So, The Fantasy Trip (or TFT, for short), was kind of like the science fiction version of fantasy, if you take my meaning. There were spells, and you could put these specific spells into magic items. No more "What spell do I need to make a flaming sword?" or suchlike, that you got in D&D.

And combat was codified. You had your movement allowance, and if you moved too far, you couldn't attack. If you were engaged, you could shift one hex, but that was it.

Does any of this sound familiar? Add in Feats and you have a version of 3rd edition D&D, right here. No wonder I was so enamored of it when it came out. (That's right; I said it. The bloom didn't come off the rose until well into 3.5, with the endless stream of supplements.)

So now I see some of what others didn't like about TFT, especially as compared to D&D. It didn't have that same sense of wonder. It didn't feel like "anything could happen."

There was, in short, no serious weirdness.

Because I've since learned that that's the hallmark of pulp fantasy (or swords & sorcery, or whatever...) You need to get your serious weirdness on, of you just haven't got it.

And that, I think, is where I fall down as a DM. I'm not in touch with the serious weirdness. I may lack the gene for it, or something. I'm still more of a science fiction guy, even though the world has moved into more of a fantasy phase. (I'm not worried, though; I expect the pendulum will swing back again.)

So I may try to run TFT. Just don't expect it to be D&D, though. It is what it is. (I may just run the wargames, Melee and Wizard -- possibly at a convention. That would be cool. I think these old games need more love than they're getting.)

Because I do feel a large rush of nostalgia from some of my old games.

Make no mistake, I still do like them better because they're simpler, more "elegant" (if I can get away with using that word), more downright accessible to the busy gamer who doesn't have a fortnight to read and digest a three hundred page player's handbook before starting a game. I don't think the modern trend toward "bigger is better" is a good thing.

And I still really really hate "collectible" games of any stripe.

So, in the final analysis, am I a Nostalgia Gamer? Sure, to some extent.

But I've never seen much reason to distinguish between types of gamers. Aren't we all pretty much alike, when you get right down to it?

Shot to Death by Canon

And no, that's not a typo.

By canon, of course, I mean the sheer amount of baggage that any game or game system gathers as it grows. And they do tend to grow, don't they?

Sure, lots of disgruntled fanboys like to say that the company is out to gouge them for all they're worth, and that's why they keep putting out supplements and magazines and things like that. And there may be some of that.

But I think it's far more likely that when people find a game they really like, they play it to death. And their experience soon outstrips the possibilities of the basic version of the game, so they add to it. (Some people do this before they even start playing, but they are exceptions. I hope.)

And, as a result, you end up with tons of additional material. Any given piece of it, surely, is just one addition and won't change things much (if at all). It's like a pinch of salt in your soup: It enhances the flavor but doesn't change it.

Add fifteen, twenty years of additional "salt" and you have an inedible mess, only of any use to the hardcore gamer who stuck with it forever. Hard for a new guy to get involved in this, ain't it?

And all of that stuff becomes canon. And once something is canon, it cannot ever be changed (although possibly retconned, which is a whole other rant). It must be debated and/or argued, but never changed and never ignored. Hey, just ask the die-hard Traveller cognoscenti.

You might think (with some justification) that I'm talking about D&D/AD&D/WOTC's 3 & 4e. I could be, but I'm not.

I'm talking about Car Wars.

One of the niftiest games ever, the original edition of the game is a classic of compact design and mind-expanding possibilities. And the whole game is a textbook case of a game spiraling out of control and growing exponentially, until the point of the basic game is nearly obscured.

See, originally it was about fighting, car to car. You get in your car and I get in mine, and we go out on the road (or into the arena, whatever) and we duke it out.

But that was only the half of it! The bulk of the time people spend on the game as a rule is in the vehicle design part of the game. Only today, with the fifth edition, you don't even have a design system! (Hmm -- that may be why the Rules Compendium (aka 4th edition) is now available on Steve Jackson's pdf store, e23. But it's not for beginners...)

But there's just too much of it. I went along buying the games and some of the supplements, right up until the original Deluxe Edition. And that's where I stopped. I didn't need gasoline engines, or freakin' Boat Wars for crying out loud. (Truth to tell, I had almost had enough of the really tiny pedestrian counters -- but that's a subject for another post...)

So I took a cue from the Old School Renaissance. I decided to get back to basics, to reboot 2031 if you will. So I got on eBay and got a copy of the old pocket box (actually the third edition, but in the grand scheme of things it's considered the third printing of the first edition, if you take my meaning). It's not enough, though; I subsequently found a copy of the FIRST first edition (the ziplock bag edition that came out before the pocket box; it's on it's way to me from Noble Knight Games).

And I designed my own area, which debuted tonight.

It was the first game ever for my wife, and my first game in probably 20 years. The arena is a figure 8, so there's an intersection. The levels don't change, so everybody crosses right there. Well, Herself wanted to see what happened if she swerved in front of me. What happened was a collision, with a closing speed of 65mph. That means 8 dice of damage -- to my front armor but her side armor (and, as it turns out, her power plant and driver as well, fatally for the driver).

So, we didn't even make a complete circuit. But the arena now has a name: Crash Crossing. You can see the whole thing is the out-of-focus long shot; the final position (mine was the green car) in the other shot. (As usual click to embiggen.)

(For the curious, we each had a stock Joseph Special, with no modifications whatsoever.)

Clerics, Alignment, and things like that

There are these people in France, you see. And they've decided to build a castle.

Sure, I hear you say. Them and William Randolph Hearst (or was that Charles Foster Kane?). Seems like everybody with a couple of million dollars to rub together wants to build a castle.

I've been in the SCA; the topic of discussion whenever anybody discussed the Lottery was what sort of castle they'd build if they won. (Not whether; only what sort.)

And that always seemed a bit off to me.

Okay, so these people in France are using actual Medieval construction methods and no new technology. Great for a research project, but still a bit off.

Y'see, the main, major, life-changing, everybody-and-their-brother-gets-involved construction project of the Middle Ages was NOT the construction of castles. They were a dime a dozen; anybody with a pair of spurs to his name built one of those.

No, the real big deal in construction back then was a cathedral.

(See how I got Clerics in there? Pretty sneaky, huh?)

Now, a lot of people in the old school renaissance (okay, on the Original D&D Discussion Forum, and really not all that many, but go with me here) want to do away with the poor Cleric. "He's just not Swords & Sorcery," they say, "he's just not pulp."

Well, no, he's not. But he's very Middle Ages.

The one constant in the Middle Ages was the church. Kings would come and go, local lords, populations, etc. Even your parish priest, or his boss the Bishop (dun duh duh DUH dun! Sorry.) They might come and go. But the old mother church? Always there. Omnipresent. Churches were more than a place to kill an hour on Sunday. You went there for village meetings, christenings, weddings, funerals -- everything! It was THE social center of the Middle Ages (and the reason they didn't invent Facebook back then.)

So, why is the Cleric not shown more love? It's because they are invariably treated as a combat medic, the guy with the band-aids, nothing more. And I think that's just sad. (Not that I haven't done it, mind you. But as often I'd be the guy playing the Cleric.)

So, how do we reconcile this? The Fighting-Man is a blast to play at low levels, because he can always do stuff. The Magic-User is a blast (literally...) at high levels, because he can lay waste to everything at a whim. And what can the Cleric do?

Well, for one thing, he can turn undead. That's nothing to sneeze at. (BTW: For those of you playing with the Moldvay/Cook or later rules, you seriously need to look at the earlier rule sets. When you turn, you don't roll 2d6 for the number of hit dice of undead you turn; you roll 2d6 for the number of undead you turn. Otherwise, you'd only ever be able to turn a grand total of one (1) vampire, since they have 9 hit dice. Do the math for yourself; you'll see.) Those level drains (if you'll pardon the expression) suck!

But there's more than that. Clerics can perform masses (such as the last rights, which you'll need if you aren't on your toes). They can hear confessions (which you'll need; see previous point). And they provide a great amount of conflict to a game.

What's that you say? That it's up to the monsters to provide the conflict? Why, gentle reader, who on earth do you think I'm talking about?

Y'see, there are these guys called Anti-Clerics. It's right there in Men & Magic, page 34:

Note: There are Anti-Clerics (listed below) who have similar powers to Clerics. Those Clerical spells underlined on the table for Cleric Spells have a reverse effect, all others functioning as noted. The chief exception is the Raise Dead spell which becomes:

The Finger of Death: Instead of raising the dead, this spell creates a "death ray" which will kill any creature unless a saving throw is made (where applicable). Range: 12". (A Cleric-type may use this spell in a life-or-death situation, but misuse will immediately turn him into an Anti-Cleric.)

Anti-Clerics: Evil Acolyte, Evil Adept, Shaman, Evil Priest, Evil Curate, Evil Bishop, Evil Lama, Evil High Priest.

Where do these guys hang out? In dungeons only? I don't think so!

When I was starting out in adventure gaming, in the 80's (yeah, I'm old; get over it. I have.) I would play pretty much any game which looked interesting. So I got Steve Jackson's Illuminati! because it looked cool. And later on, I picked up the Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (and immediately understood more about The Fantasy Trip, but that's another story...)

Anyway, there's a point in there with a Satanic ceremony, and one of the characters says that a lot of Satanists get positions in Catholic churches so they can steal consecrated items to desecrate in their rituals.

That's what an Anti-Cleric would do. (Remember, in OD&D, there's no Know Alignment spell...)

So: Law is the good guys and Chaos is the bad guys (see, you knew I'd bring Alignment into this...) Well, the Christian Church is based on the Bible. Why couldn't the D&D Church be based on, I dunno, "The Book of the Law?" This would be a Bible-equivalent for a D&D world. Anti-Clerics (chaotic) would profess piety, but secretly work toward the downfall of the church. (Check out the Bishop dude in the movie Ladyhawke. An EHP if I ever saw one. And don't even get me started on Cardinal Richelieu...) And of course the Lawful (i.e.; good guy) Clerics would be on the watch against ALL THE EVIL IN THE WORLD. Including, of course, the Anti-Clerics.

(I'm not advocating McCarthyism, but wouldn't that be a fun scenario for you push-the-envelope type DMs? "The Inqui-SI-tion, what a show!")

Anyway, that's how I'd run D&D if I ever run D&D. (I've been toying with the notion of running a game on the aforementioned OD&D Discussion Forum. If I did, would any of you reading this now be interested in playing? I'm just curious.)


And that's what I have to say on that. Not especially earth-shaking, I know, but hey, I'm just one blogger.


And now, I think I'll have another beer.

Overcoming inertia and new pictures!

Whew.

I've gotta say, it seems my only problem in working on games and gaming related matters is to just get started. I have this incredible inertia -- if I'm at rest I really tend to stay at rest.

On the other hand, once I get going, watch out! I do tend to get going much like a juggernaut, running over everything in my path.

Case in point: One page wilderness and quarter-page villages. See previous posts.

Another case: Painting figures. I have a bunch of new ones pictured here, all done in the last few days. Seriously, I've done more gaming related stuff (painting, writing, etc.) in the past week than in any week since my gaming heyday of the mid 80's. It's pretty cool.

Anyway, at the top we have some new fighting-men. (As usual, click to embiggen.) These are designed to be player character types, but can be stand-ins for NPCs should the need arise.

Next are some more undead types, to bolster the skeletons I painted quite a while ago. I don't honestly know what D&D monster type these guys are supposed to represent. Are they wights? Wraiths? If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open...

And then we have a goblin standard-bearer. What? Why would you need a standard bearer? You only need them if you have...an army.

(See what I mean about getting a lot done?)

Bloomin' 'ell, 'e's done it again!

Well, this one page thing seems to have gotten in my blood. I was worried about those villages, you see, in the Barony of Northmarch. I didn't want them to go out into the world without some more attention, so I hacked Chgowiz's lovely dungeon level template and made a village template. Well, sort of. Take a look; it's here, on my Google Docs (and I think I set it up so anybody can get it, but I'm not sure).

In other news, I went to a birthday party today. The guest of honor was an old DM of mine who I haven't seen in a couple of years -- and haven't gamed with in far longer. Well, his son has been bugging him to do some DMing (he's probably the most Gygaxian DM I ever knew). And he might join us for Kesher's Otherness game sometime. That'd be cool.

And in other other news, I'll have more pictures up, probably Sunday night. I've been painting again...

Northmarch (One-Page Wilderness) reposted

Thanks to Kesher, Northmarch is now also available here!