Coffee swillin' analog gamer

Random table for Jeff

2012-01-31T11:51:00.000-08:00

This is in response to Jeff's post here.

It's a d30 table, because I know Jeff likes his d30.

Random Mishap Table (for Jeff)

Dungeon events, roll hourly:

d30 result

01 --- Toe stubbed on loose flagstone, 1 hp damage
02 --- Torch "just goes out"
03 --- Torch dropped, goes out on 1-3 on d6
04 --- Backpack strap digs in too much, must stop and adjust.
05 --- Pebble in shoe; stop and take it out or move reduced by 1/4
06 --- Skivvies riding up; all rolls at -1 until adjusted
07 --- Head hit on low ceiling (or outcrop); 2 hp damage unless wearing helmet
08 --- Trip and fall taking 1-3 hp damage.
09 --- Charley horse! Must rest and massage it out or movement halved and all rolls -1.
10 --- Distraction; somebody stops to check something out (1 turn wasted)
11 --- Accidentally stab buddy with ready weapon, roll normal damage (but no STR)
12 --- No event
13 --- No event
14 --- No event
15 --- No event
16 --- No event
17 --- No event
18 --- No event
19 --- No event
20 --- No event
21 --- No event
22 --- No event
23 --- No event
24 --- No event
25 --- No event
26 --- No event
27 --- No event
28 --- Drunken monsters, 1-6, party automatically gains surprise
29 --- Someone dropped their purse! 1-2 copper, 3-4 silver, 5 gold, 6 platinum (1-100)
30 --- Someone dropped a magic item! 1 cursed, 2-5 low on charges, 6 normal

D&D V

2012-01-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

Wizards of the Coast announced today that they were working on D&D 5th edition. (Which shows that, while they can't count, at least they're consistent...)

Despite having a draft of a playtest document already, they claim that they want input from gamers on what Type V should be like. Well, here are mine:

Did I order a kitchen sink?

Why, no. No I didn't.

If you're going to put out a game that you want people to actually play, you need to redefine your concept of "core rules". I don't want three vast tomes that I have to fully read and digest before I can start to play. I want to get started and learn more from there.

Start us off with one core book, why don't you? You can call it a "basic set" if you like, but before you do take a look at the old basic sets for what they did right (and the older WOTC ones to see what NOT to do...). Actually, take a look at the Pathfinder Basic Box for a not-too-bad idea.

Give us 4 classes: Fighting-Men, Clerics, Magic-Users and Thieves (yes, I know you're going to change the names. That doesn't matter. The basics do matter, though, and you know that you know this.) You want your fighter to be different? Roleplay it! You don't need five different fighting classes.

Give us 3 or 4 races. Just humans, elves and dwarves would work (okay, halflings if you absolutely must...). We really don't need to start out with half-Tiefling, half-Dragonborn, fully psychotic unplayable messes. Really we don't.

But players like lots of options!!! you say.

Bloody good for them, then. You want us to have options? Fine, put out option books. But make it absolutely plain, both in the player's and DM's sections, that options are OPTIONAL. Nobody can come into my game and insist that idiotic class/race combination is automatically playable because "it said so in this book!". And while we're on that subject:

Empower the DM.

It's his or her game, after all. I got quite sick and tired of 3.5, because there were far too many books and the players would use them to slap the DM around. He wouldn't take it, but they kept trying. Hey, I'm here to game, not to watch another argument. If you could just put in the book somewhere, in nice bold print:

What the DM says is final. If you want to argue, do it in your blog.

it would certainly save a lot of grief. (Your mileage may vary; it's possible I've just been playing with a bunch of immature mooks for the past 30 years...)

Bring back the sense of wonder.

If you absolutely have to put in a system for every hick redneck magical type to make their own magical items, put it in a supplement. An entirely optional supplement.

Magic is supposed to be ... well, magical. The production line, magic-as-tech version from 3.5 (and I'd assume 4.0 as well) was entirely wrong for D&D.

"Hey, we found a wand! Let's see what spell it duplicates."

Whatever happened to the Wand of Wonder? That was a nifty item. And it's a good example of how magic should be, truly wondrous and not just another 'ho-hum let's toss it on the pile with the rest of them' kind of thing.

(There should also be a section in the DM's advice on keeping magic rare. In one game I was in, we seriously considered making for our house a picket fence out of the innumerable +1 swords we kept picking up...)

What else? You might want to mention in there that it's a game of exploration, not combat. That changes the whole emphasis and thus the whole game (and for the better, I think; again, YMMV.)

Also, take out critical hits. Gary Gygax warned DMs not to include them, no matter how much the players wanted them. Sure, it's kinda cool to deal out an incredible amount of damage to the bad guy, but when he does it to you (and far more often...) it's not that much fun.

And it's about having fun, isn't it? Or is it just about selling more product?

Anyway, that's the view from my branch of the tree. As Craig Ferguson says, "I look forward to your letters."

To those of you confused during last night's game:

2011-12-13T09:43:00.001-08:00

This is what GI Joe hands looked like when I was a kid:

Hope that clears up any lingering confusion.

Abbador lives!

2011-12-12T22:25:00.001-08:00

New Monday, new session of the Vats of Mazarin, and Abbador didn't die!

I'm so happy I haven't even totalled up my experience to see if I made a level or not. (I may not even be close.)

(Just checked; no, I didn't make a level. But I'm getting closer!)

Vats of Mazarin again

2011-12-05T21:36:00.000-08:00

Well, I can safely say that my connectivity problems are (for the while at least) done. I just got done with another Vats of Mazarin game on Google+.

Abbador died again (we only had 2 pc's at that time, and I got into melee. Not a good position for a Magic-User...), but was raised by the rest of the party.

Next time, I'll hire mercenaries. Even if I have to take one down to the Vats and clone him!

When in doubt, reinstall, part II

2011-12-03T13:27:00.000-08:00

And even before you have a doubt, run reliable anti-virus and anti-malware software!

Finally, after a combination of things (AVG PC Tune Up and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, to be specific), I think I've finally solved the computer problem that was preventing me from participating in hangouts on Google+. At least, I tried to start a hangup today and it worked.

I missed out on the Conan game last Thursday, which was a real bummer. But it looks like I'll be there this week.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though.

When in doubt, reinstall.

2011-11-15T23:34:00.000-08:00

I reinstalled the Google Talk plugin, so it seems that I can participate in hangouts on Google+ again. That's a relief.

(My apologies to everybody in Monday's "Vats of Mazarin" game that didn't happen; I tried and tried, but nothing worked. Now it seems fixed.)

Not much else to say, really. I haven't done as much gaming as I'd like lately, but the only person I can blame for that is myself.

I think I'll get back to work on the whole "Freedom in the Galaxy"/"Worlds of Wonder" mashup I was working on last spring. It feels like time to get back to that.

Another Thursday post!

2011-10-06T20:43:00.000-07:00

If it's Thursday, it must be Arcadayn's "Conan" game.

Better connection all around, this time. My video froze a couple of times, but I didn't get booted and my screen didn't go all screwy (see previous post).

We're now escaped slaves, in some unknown (to us) city, teaching our Pictish barbarian the ways of civilization by going through pretty much every crime we know, one by one. So far we've done:

* escaped slaves,

* burglary, and

* mugging.

We might work our way up to murder or a bit of light arson; who knows? The night is still young...

Not sure what happened here...

2011-09-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

The game I was in tonight had one man absent, but proceeded pretty well nonetheless.

And then, this happened:

(Click for full-sized weirdness)

I've never seen anything like it. Not sure if it was Google+ or my own machine (I had just installed the newest version of Firefox).

This was in addition to the routine connection errors I get.

If anyone can tell me what it was, that'd be great. In the meantime, I'll continue playing and see what other weirdness turns up.

What?

2011-09-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

I could have sworn I posted something here last night.

But now it's not here.

Ah, well.

Just letting you know that I'm still here, and I've been gaming both in person and on Google+. Got to try out X-Plorers (which I've owned for about 2 years now but have never actually played until now...I hate that, but it's the way I am.)

Anybody on Google+ have any requests? Anything you want to play that you haven't yet?

I really feel like running something, but can't decide. Too many choices! Arrgh!

(but not Arrr! That's for Talk Like a Pirate Day, and that won't happen until the 19th.)

Not an amorphous blob!

2011-08-16T15:45:00.001-07:00

Tried out my new webcam in the Vats of Mazarin game last night. Everybody was happy that they could actually hear me this time, and that I wasn't really the amorphous blob they'd come to know.

Sadly, however, I was having server issues. So for about half the game I couldn't hear them. Pity, too, because I could see them laughing -- but I hadn't heard the joke.

But we had a good session, made some allies, cleared some of the dungeon. Three or four of us made a level (including me!)

So that was pretty good.

Generation Gap

2011-08-15T00:17:00.000-07:00

In my AD&D game, we've been trekking through this one tunnel for over a day now (game time). We keep coming across side tunnels, which don't get us to our objective.

Tonight, we came to another side tunnel. And inside it, we found another side tunnel. And the DM was busy looking something up. So, as it my way, I said:

"And we came to another side road and off to the side of the side road was another fifteen foot cliff. And at the bottom of the cliff was another half a ton of garbage. We decided one big pile was better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up, we decided to throw ours down. So that's what we did.

"We went back to the Church, had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep, and didn't get up until the next morning when we got a phone call from Officer Obie."

And they all stared at me like I'd lost my mind.

So I said "Alice's Restaurant?"

And they said "What's Alice's Restaurant?"

The DM recognized it, vaguely, but couldn't be sure if it was Arlo or Woodie Guthrie (I told him it was Arlo, Woodie's son.)

That's when I felt really, really old.

Now I'm trying to dig this classic up on iTunes, so I can bring it along and enlighten these puir wee bairns about popular culture from the time of D&D's creation.

Okay, couldn't find it on either iTunes or YouTube, so I sent them the link from Grooveshark. In case you need to hear it (and hey, who doesn't?), here it is:

http://grooveshark.com/#/search?q=Alice%27s+Restaurant

...but am I paranoid enough?

2011-08-10T21:36:00.000-07:00

(It's the punchline to an old joke, in case you were wondering.)

What could inspire such a title?

Dungeon Crawl Classics, that's what.

Finally got to give it a try, again on Google+. I'm really starting to like this service, by the way. Two nights in a row I've been able to game (and, incidentally, meet fellow gamers), all without leaving the comfort of my home.

What can I say that wasn't already said months ago?

It's not as bad as it looks. How's that?

The reputation that proceeds DCC (for short) is that it's even more hardcore than old school D&D was. When I started, in the early 80's, the old guys in my group told of the days when you'd start 5 first level characters, hoping just one would survive to second level.

Well, DCC trumps that: You start with a handful of unlevelled characters, hoping one will survive to make first.

I must have done well; 3 of my 4 survived. And there were only 2 of us playing! Out of 8 characters, 5 of us survived. Not bad.

I could actually feel my old school dungeoneering skills oozing back into me (which is nowhere near as creepy as it sounds).

I thought I'd lost them, what with all the 3.5 I played. But they're still there. And now some of the rust has been knocked off them.

But aside from the system, I'm absolutely loving the new opportunities to play games with people I've never met before. A lot of them are from the Original D&D Discussion forum, where I've been a regular almost since it started. It's good to put a face and a voice to these guys.

And they are, without exception, Good People (tm).

I gotta say, I like living in the future!

Gaming Online

2011-08-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

Note that this is not the same as "online gaming", by which I mean World of Warcraft and such things. What I'm talking about here is playing a standard analog rpg (in this case, B/X D&D) online.

I got to do this for the first time last night, and I had a blast.

Everybody knew the game, so we didn't have to worry about that. We got started pretty quickly.

As is typical with 3d6 in order, we had some character quirks:

* The Thief had a higher Wisdom than the Cleric.

* The Cleric had a higher Strength (and a higher AC) than the Fighter.

* The Magic-User (me!) had more hit points than the Thief (I rolled a 4 and had a +1 Con bonus).

Overall, we were a pretty low Wisdom party, so doing silly stuff seemed right up our alley.

We were kind of bummed when we lost the Thief, but he came back as a Dwarf in fairly short order. (And when we lost the Fighter, he came back as another Cleric).

Regarding these last two points, I have to say I was quite pleased to be in a game with experienced, veteran players. Neither of these things was a problem. I've seen a lot of newer players get all bent out of shape if everyone isn't "serious!" all the time. I've also seen them have a harder time with character death.

These guys took it all in stride and kept the game going. That's the kind of player I can get along with.

Naturally, I did my best to be the comic relief. I can't help it; I see funny situations crop up and I can't resist commenting on them. They all laughed, though, so I got away with it.

(Plus they got the inside jokes, too. Party: "Why don't you fire your Magic Missile at the hand coming out of the fountain?" Me: "I'm saving it for the Darkness.")

All in all, it was a very positive experience. We're going to do it again when we're all available, and I'm really looking forward to it.

I Have Been Assimilated

2011-08-05T09:30:00.000-07:00

And now, I also have a gmail account.

But you can still reach me at the old, usual places.

Google+

2011-08-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Google+ is the latest technology for doing old-school gaming.

Or even new-school gaming, if that's what you want.

I approve. I haven't tried it yet, but I want to. I want to play something before I run something, but I want to run something. I want to run a lot of somethings.

It seems perfect for experimentation. Want to try a new system? Do it on Google+, without disrupting your regular group.

Don't have a regular group? Try Google+ and discover groupness beyond measure. (Sure, I know "groupness" isn't a real word, but I got it from a friend of mine. So it stands.)

If anybody wants to run something on Google+, let me know. I'd be happy to try almost anything.

Gary's birthday

2011-07-27T13:59:00.001-07:00

Will took the Hardest Gary Gygax Quiz in the World and got 70%!

You are a Gary Gygax Champion. If knowledge of the minutiae of Gary Gygax's life translated to political power, you would be the satrap of a continent-sized province, owing allegiance to no one (except maybe that Grognardia guy).

Paladin Code: You completed this quiz without using Google.

On writing adventures.

2011-07-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

Yay! A new post.

There are a variety of skills or abilities that one needs to have to be a good referee.

Organization is a big one, planning is another. I wouldn't say I was great at them, but I'm not completely useless either.

Handling NPCs is one of my strong suits; I've gotten comments on that.

But I don't have a whole lot of experience writing adventures. I've run some published adventures (and here's where the whole planning thing falls down, because there's usually something in there I missed...). But I haven't run a lot of my own scenarios.

(It was easy back in the day, when I ran Champions. I just threw a villain or villain team out there and let the heroes duke it out. Not very story-centric, I know, but my players loved it.)

If I'm going to get this Freedom in the Galaxy game off the ground, I'm going to need adventures.

So I'm throwing it out to you. Please leave a comment including your single best piece of advice for writing adventures. I can use all the help I can get!

2011-05-13T11:53:00.000-07:00

It's tough to realize how old modes of thinking hold us back.

I started this whole adaptation of Freedom in the Galaxy to a rpg to do something different. I didn't want the same old "open the box and play the setting they give you." (Not that there's anything wrong with that; the AD&D game I'm in is set in the World of Greyhawk and that's working out well.)

My latest sticking point has been races. There are several races; it's a space opera.

And I was getting worked up over how to apportion special abilities to each of the several races, when a thought occurred to me: Why?

Just because every game that has ever had different races (yes, including D&D) has had some mechanical difference between them.

In other words, "because we've always done it that way." If that's the only reason to do something, it's not a very good one.

The dominant race in the game is the Rhone -- this is basically human. Once upon a time, all of the other races in the game were genetically modified, crossbred, by the Rhone. So while they look different, they share many of the same characteristics. Kayns look like dog-men, Leonids like lion-men, Saurians like lizard-men, etc. But there's really no mechanical difference.

So I'm just going to leave them alone.

Except in cases where a specific environment requires a change. Some races are flyers; they'll need a racial ability to fly. Some live in Liquid environment; they'll need gills or something.

And if I feel the need to 'balance' any of these advantages, I'll come up with something. But it doesn't seem that important.

This is a real breakthrough for me. It means the characters will be easier to create, which in turn means I'll be able to get the first adventure going sooner. And that's always a good thing.

(I was going to post this yesterday, but I'm glad I didn't -- blogger probably would have eaten it.)

Spaceships!

2011-05-05T01:06:00.000-07:00

I've been worried for a while now on how to handle spaceships in Freedom in the Galaxy.

* I could just handwave them, and assume that all fighting is ground-based. But that's just not the way the boardgame works.

* I could dream up some complicated, Traveller sort of construction system. Sounds like way too much work.

* I could adapt the 'system' used in the Big Yellow Book (BYB). That doesn't seem to cover what I want.

I want unique ships, as well as cookie-cutter masses of vessels. I want personality! I also want a system that will be easy for me to use.

And I thought about the ships and their characteristics. I'd need a way to rate their strengths, their agility, their resilience to damage...

Characters.

Why not use the same attributes as characters? It'd go like this:

STR - How heavily armed the ship is (damage bonus)

CON - How much damage it can take

SIZ - How big it is

INT - How good its sensors are (idea roll)

POW -

DEX - How agile it is, i.e.; how good it's defenses are (dodge roll)

CHA - How good its countermeasures are (persuasion roll)

This is all sort of hazy, but I want to make smaller ships hard to hit. So I'll use Defender's SIZ as a modifier on the Attacker's roll. But do I use INT for the attack attribute, or POW? Still haven't decided on that one.

Let's say POW. (INT for detecting, POW for attacking). It would go like this:

Ship with POW 10, firing on ship with SIZ 2 (say a Millenium Falcon size...), would effectively be a POW 12 on the Resistance Table. Cross reference with the DEX of the defending ship to see if a hit is scored. If it is, the defender still gets a Dodge roll. If that fails, roll damage (and larger STR ships get a bonus to damage...) Take damage off CON (or HP, if you will...) and when the ship reaches 0 it cannot fight any longer.

Oh, wait, I still need a relative accounting of speed -- maybe POW could be that?

Like I said, still a work in progress. But I'm definitely MAKING progress.

Quick post

2011-05-04T01:20:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't forgotten this blog!

April is over, and with it the A to Z challenge. I was stuck on K anyway, so I won't be continuing in that format.

However, despite its detractors, the A to Z challenge did give me the impetus to actually blog for 10 days straight. That's a new personal best! I think I got some good stuff down, but I also wrote some crap. Oh, well.

As far as the detractors go: Some bloggers don't seem to understand that some of us need structure. Without the A to Z challenge, I wouldn't have done half the work I have done on my project.

It's like a poet. Some thrive with free verse (or blank verse, although I couldn't tell you the difference to save my life). But others need a formal structure, such as a sonnet. It has specific rules, and within those rules you can say absolutely anything. Look at Shakespeare.

Anyway, I'm working on pre-generated characters for Freedom in the Galaxy!, and I'm having some problems. I need to work out a skill list, for one. Not so hard, you might say, and that's true.

But then I need to work out racial characteristics for at least a dozen alien races (although I don't need to do them all at once.)

Plus, I'd like to faithfully adapt the characters from the boardgame. I know, it's not easy; I didn't sign on for this because it'd be easy, I signed on because I thought it'd be fun.

And as far as fun goes, after a session or two I should be able to put together some character creation rules. I was going to just go for pre-gen/adaptations for the whole thing, but I get the sneaking hunch (having spent so much time as a player myself) that players won't like that. They'll want to create their own characters.

And why not? That's the fun part for players, isn't it?

Anyway, I'll keep plugging away at it.

Also, don't forget Free Comic Book Day this Saturday! Check your local stores for participation. Me, I'm going to The Source, a store which in past years has given away 10% of ALL comics given away in a given year! It's not just an event, it's a party!

J is for Just Do It!

2011-04-30T22:13:00.000-07:00

I is for Intelligence

2011-04-29T23:29:00.000-07:00

If you're new here: This whole A to Z blogging lark was supposed to take place during April. Well, that didn't work for me, so I'm doing it now.

Our subject is using the old SPI wargame Freedom in the Galaxy as the basis for a roleplaying game, using the Chaosium's old Worlds of Wonder boxed set as the basic rules.

What I'm doing with the A to Z is exploring different aspects of this project as I work on them. This is all a work-in-progress, but I'm confident it'll lead to something cool.

As always, comments are invited.

Not the attribute, not the level of smarts among the players, I'm talking about intelligence in the military sense. (And yes, I know, "military intelligence" is an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp. There, that's out of the way.)

When I start my game, I'll give the players a mission and let them carry it out.

But after that? I'm going to let them decide.

And how, you may ask, will they decide? Well, they'll have to find out some things, won't they?

That's what Military Intelligence is all about. Finding out where the enemy is, and what he's capable of, and what he plans to do.

History is rife with examples of epic failures of military intelligence. Pearl Harbor. The Battle of the Bulge. These are strategic surprises that proved devastating.

There are lesser examples; the panzer divisions at Arnhem on the eve of Operation Market Garden. The presence of American carrier groups northeast of Midway Island (a failure for the Japanese).

Which brings up a point: Every intelligence failure for one side is an intelligence success for their enemy.

It was US codebreakers who broke many of the Japanese codes, allowing us to figure out that they were going to attack Midway. Without that, we might have gotten smeared yet again. Because of that, we knew that Yamamoto was going to be traveling in a Mitsubishi "Betty" on 17 April 1943 -- and we sent up a flight of P-38s to shoot him down.

Finding stuff out that the enemy doesn't want you to know is fun. And games are supposed to be fun. (I think TSR's Top Secret was a great game -- and it'd have been even better received if it had included a Raise Dead spell of some sort, and not just the fortune and fame points it had.) I was really happy to see that there was a "Gather Intelligence" mission -- but that was just for finding out Planetary Secrets (about which more in a future post).

So this is one of the kinds of things I'll have my players do in my game (unless they decide they hate it, in which case I'll abandon the plan -- I'm not married to it; I just think it'll be fun). Either way, it'll happen -- whether by the players or by NPCs.

(And NPC Intel summaries would give me even more chances to put obstacles in the path of the players...)

So Intelligence can be your friend. But some friends are less than helpful...

H is for Hyperspace

2011-04-28T23:33:00.000-07:00

If you're new here: This whole A to Z blogging lark was supposed to take place during April. Well, that didn't work for me, so I'm doing it now.

Our subject is using the old SPI wargame Freedom in the Galaxy as the basis for a roleplaying game, using the Chaosium's old Worlds of Wonder boxed set as the basic rules.

What I'm doing with the A to Z is exploring different aspects of this project as I work on them. This is all a work-in-progress, but I'm confident it'll lead to somethign cool.

As always, comments are invited.

Certainly there's no other way to venture from star to star in a proper science fiction setting than hyperspace! (Sure, there's warp drive if you want to do Star Trek, but we're doing Star Wars!)

The basic rule is this: The farther you jump, the more dangerous.

Ships can end up either:

* At their destination (orbit),
* Adrift in the destination system (drift 1), or
* Lost in space, attempting to get their bearings (drift 2).

Which result you get depends on the navigation characteristic of the character involved and the distance (on the map) of the jump.

It seems to me that this would be easy to simulate in BRP.

1) Assign a Navigation skill to the player depending on the characteristic of the character.

2) Assign a difficulty (1-20) based on the distance jumped.

3) Have the character roll on the Resistance table; success indicates a successful jump. Failure results in Drift; catastrophic failure gives Drift 2. (And getting back from a Drift 2 situation could be an adventure in itself! Or not.)

Okay, I just checked my book and find that there isn't a catastrophic failure on a Resistance Table roll. That's okay. I can add one, just for Hyperspace navigation! Take 10% of the value needed; if the roll is failed in that top 10%, it's a Drift 2. If it's a normal failure, it's a Drift 1.

Example: Professor Mareg has a Navigation of 2. For a jump of distance 1, he'd automatically succeed. For a jump of distance 2 or greater, he'd need to roll.

How to make this work?

Okay, the Navigation skill would be a number (like a stat) from 1-20. Let's say 4 times the actual value, so in this case he'd have an 8. (The character with the highest value has a 5, so that would be 20 and still fit neatly on the resistance table.)

That's the active value. How about the resistant?

Let's go with a conversion of 3. So a jump of distance 1 would be 3, 2 would be 6 and so on.

So, Professor Mareg, making a jump of 2 would have a factor of 8 versus a factor of 6, giving him a 60% chance of success. Since there's only a 40% chance of failure, he'd need 4% (or 97-00) to get a drift 2 result. (Unless his navigation equipment was sabotaged...)

I can live with that.

G is for Galaxy Map

2011-04-27T21:49:00.000-07:00

If you're new here: This whole A to Z blogging lark was supposed to take place during April. Well, that didn't work for me, so I'm doing it now.

Our subject is using the old SPI wargame Freedom in the Galaxy as the basis for a roleplaying game, using the Chaosium's old Worlds of Wonder boxed set as the basic rules.

What I'm doing with the A to Z is exploring different aspects of this project as I work on them. This is all a work-in-progress, but I'm confident it'll lead to somethign cool.

As always, comments are invited.

This is the map for Freedom in the Galaxy:

The dotted lines divide the galaxy into provinces, which have an effect on the boardgame and could have an effect on the RPG, too.

Each star may have one or more worlds; each world may have one or more inhabited environments.

Just because characters are in on environment on one world, doesn't mean that the inhabitants of the other environment(s) will be affected by what they do.

Additionally, not all characters are suited to visit all environments. (Since it's a wargame and not a roleplaying game, the rules leave out such inconvenient things as gravity and atmosphere -- but then, so does Star Wars, so we're good there.)

Each world has its own native races, some of which are star-spanning races. These are important for the 'domino effect' which can accelerate the rebellion (and, in the wargame, is something much to be desired by the rebel player -- pity I didn't think of that when I did "D"!)

Travel about the galaxy is accomplished through Hyperspace (about which more tomorrow). But once you've got there, what do you find?

Each world has an Orbit box. Ships, characters and troops in orbit can venture down to the
planet's surface or leave and enter hyperspace to visit another world.

There is also the matter of detection.

It is possible for orbit to contain imperial vessels and for the player characters to still evade detection. But it isn't necessarily easy.

Once a character is "spotted", he can be targeted. (N.B.: This works both ways; player characters

will want to spot enemy characters...) This can lead to assassination attempts, capture, whatever wild scheme I'd like it to.

So, you don't want to get spotted. (And I'll be looking for player ingenuity to evade/avoid such things...)

You also don't want to fail on too many missions. Fortunately, there are a flock of player characters out there (the wargame comes with 20 rebel characters). So, one bad mission won't spoil the whole rebellion.

Right here, I'd like to state something I don't believe I've mentioned so far: This is NOT some 'story path' or 'plot point' campaign. This is a sandbox. I haven't made any assumptions about what's going to happen. I don't know if there will be a happy ending for the rebels, or if they will all die horribly in an imperial prison.

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. (But I don't really want to waste the letter P on pudding...)

F is for Freedom in the Galaxy

2011-04-27T00:10:00.001-07:00

The game we're adapting here. Once called the best adaptation of Star Wars to a wargame.

Where to start?

First of all, I've never actually played it. I've wanted to, for decades now -- ever since I saw the description in Nicky Palmer's Best of Board Wargaming in the early 80's.

Didn't think I'd have the opportunity, because SPI was busy folding at that time. But then TSR bought them! And didn't reprint FitG. But Avalon Hill did! But I never saw a copy, and soon thereafter I suffered an economic downturn.

Thank god for eBay.

I actually got an unpunched copy. But I punched it almost immediately (take that, resale value!). I'm weird like that; I enjoy punching out the counters for wargames. Sorting them into the counter storage tray (which SPI liked to include in their games, but Avalon Hill always wanted you to pay for...)

Even if I rarely touch them again.

I have many more games than I've played. I don't know what it is about me. I like the idea of a game, so I buy the game. But I don't have a regular opponent, so I don't play it (or I fart around with it in solitaire mode, but that doesn't help much -- I seem incapable of actually learning a game by playing solitaire. Remind me to tell you about the first time I played Panzer Leader against a real opponent...)

Anyway...

The object of the game for the rebels (who will be the players in my RPG version) is to foment rebellion throughout the galaxy. They do this by undertaking missions, as briefly discussed earlier, and by military action.

The object of the game for the empire is to stop them.

Fleas attacking an elephant. Classic stuff! The empire really just has to be luck once; the rebels have to be lucky all the time. But if they are, the payoff is immense.

I do plan to use this in the game, assuming it goes on for any length of time. As things go more and more their way, the rebels will find that the empire is stepping up it's countermeasures. In short, things get hairier for the rebels no matter what they do.

That way, they don't become complacent. There's nothing sadder than a complacent player...except maybe a complacent GM.

So I have to stay on my toes, too.

I'm looking forward to it.

E is for Environments

2011-04-25T23:30:00.000-07:00

One of the things that sets Freedom in the Galaxy apart from other wargames, even other science fiction ones, is that each world has different environments in which combat takes place. These are:

* Urban
* Wild
** Liquid
** Air
** Fire
** Subterranean

Most of these can be shown by reference to the extant Star Wars films.

Urban is a city; though it needn't be a world-spanning city like Coruscant.
Wild is non-urban; think the forest moon of Endor.
Liquid; the Gungan city underwater on Naboo.
Air; the cloud city of Bespin (although I believe the intent is for it to be a civilization with the innate power of flight).
Fire; the battlefield where Obi-Wan fought Anakin in Episode III. (No, I'm not going to look it up for you. It's late.)
Subterranean; This one gave me pause. I want to say it's an underground world like in TSR's module B4: The Lost City. But I don't have a specific Star Wars reference for this one.

(And, as an aside, isn't it odd that everything I've cited above happened after Freedom in the Galaxy was released? No matter.)

Now, the double asterisk environments above are known as 'special' environments in the wargame. Empire troops take a column shift (i.e.; a penalty) when fighting in such environments. In a combat situation, that makes life easier for the player characters.

But we're not going to be roleplaying all that many combat situations.

What about the diplomatic situations?

If you're trying to sway the water-dwelling creatures of a particular world to the rebel cause, you'd better be able to meet them on their own ground (so to speak). You'll need some sort of rebreather (and can't count on standard Jedi equipment...) or something.

Fire will be the fun one.

Sure, I'll come up with equipment for the players to use in a given adventure. But the hazards of the environment will have to come up, if only to show the players how deadly the world is...

Y'know, a thought occurs to me.

A friend of mine, back in the 80s, when we were all playing FASA's Star Trek RPG, noted how that one was "pure roleplaying". We weren't after loot, or kills, or advancement. We were just playing for the fun of it.

This game I'm working on is the closest I've come to that. And that feels kind of good.

D is for Danger

2011-04-24T21:27:00.001-07:00

But I don't want you to think that overthrowing an evil galactic empire is all fun and games. Characters will run great risks, possibly even dying in the process.

Or being captured...

Remember that great scene in Star Wars when Luke, Han and Chewie go down to the detention block to rescue the Princess? That can totally happen in my game.

It's also possible that the characters staging a rescue attempt will fail. Utterly.

It all boils down to missions. I'm in the process of understanding the mission procedure from the wargame so I can mimic it in the RPG. Note that I say 'mimic'; I'm not going for a one-to-one translation here. Rather my adventure design will be influenced by the missions suggested in the wargame, as modified by the current state of the rebellion and the empire both.

I'm going to adapt the Table of Missions from TSR's venerable spy game, Top Secret. The main points of the table for each mission type were the following:

* Information the players know,
* Information the players don't know, and
* Possible complications

Set this against the backdrop provided, with varying environments and races and levels of Imperial involvement, and you can see how the same mission at two different times on two different planets will be two different missions.

That should keep the players on their toes!

Bonus post!

D also stands for Diving Right In

Sure, I could sit down and work out all the different neat aspects of the wargame and how I expect to model them in an RPG. But it'll be more fun and more productive both to get the basics down and then get straight into adventure design!

So, within the coming week or so I aim to have prototype character conversions set up and the rudiments of the first mission (adventure) down on paper.

It won't be easy, but if I slack off now it'll never happen.

And that'd be D also -- for Damned Shame.

C is for Cards

2011-04-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

(Or as I like to think of it, Concentrated Array of Relevant Data)

There are really two kinds of cards I'll talk about here. The first is the 3x5 card I mentioned a couple days ago. I've started using them, and they're great at concentrating the focus of the task at hand.

(As a side note, I did consider moving up to the 4x6 card, but decided to tough it out. Go, me!)

The other kind is the card that comes with the game Freedom in the Galaxy (see examples).

Zina Adora and Adam Starlight are clearly the stand-ins for Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker. Emperor Coreguya and Thysa Kimbo are non-Star Wars creations (since "The Empire Strikes Back" hadn't even come out when FitG was released). The Advisor Android might be a C-3PO analogue, and the cache of rare gems allows bribery or something (the errata notes it disappears after one use).

I like this approach. A lot of the info that the game contains is on the cards or the tables; as a result the rulebook is still only 32 pages. (Sure, that's long for a wargame, but if the info on the cards was included, it'd 64 pages at least! Additionally there would be much cursing and page-flipping attendant on each game.)

Then, you look at Magic: The Gathering, and the whole game is on cards!

I'm not going that far. I'll stick to character sheets and dice, thank you very much.

But I do like the idea of putting the things that don't go on character sheets on cards. Each possession, for instance, will go on a card. When a character has that item, he holds the card. (Between play, I'll paperclip it to the character sheet.) Each Imperial character will have a card, too -- which is not to say that I won't eventually make up a character sheet for each, but I shouldn't need it for routine play.

I'll also put the rebel characters on cards -- that way, I can surreptitiously make notes while the character is being played and the player might not know anything about it!

I'm also toying with the notion of putting the major elements of my adventures (aka "Missions") on cards, so that I can flip through them easily and not let some huge pile of papers intimidate me behind the screen.

And I also specifically bought colored 3x5 cards, so I can easily distinguish between types.

So, yeah, not that ground-breaking, I know. But I got C done! That's 3 days in a row. Better than my last effort.

B is for Basic Roleplaying

2011-04-23T00:30:00.000-07:00

I've been searching for quite a while now for my favorite RPG. I don't think I'll ever find it, but for the immediate future, BRP seems to be it.

The thing I like in particular is that the characters are pretty much human. Sure, Superworld allows for super-human abilities, and other iterations include magic, mutations, sorcery and high tech, but the basic character is recognizably human.

And, more to the point, stays that way.

The one gripe I've always had about D&D and similar is that as characters advance they become less human and more godlike. Look at a high level fighter in D&D. You can shoot him with a cannon and he'll shrug it off. High level magic-users can alter reality and also take a sword to the chest and laugh it off.

Whereas real people can be killed with a mere dagger.

BRP gives the options for (game mechanical) greatness, but retains the essential frailty of the human form. And I like that.

But then, there's another version of edition wars:

Sharp-eyed readers of this blog may have noticed that I specified that I'd like to use Chaosium's Worlds of Wonder to run SPI's Freedom in the Galaxy. The question may have arisen "Why not just use the current incarnation of Basic Roleplaying, aka the Big Yellow Book (aka BYB; or sometimes BGB for Big Gold Book). Especially, I might add, because I do own the Big Yellow Book.

But it's 400 pages!

I'm sorry. I love the idea of the game. I love the 16 page booklet I bought back in '83 or so. I love the way new games have continually added to the core rules.

But I just can't get through 400 pages of rules in any consistent or meaningful fashion.

Worlds of Wonder, on the other hand, has the 16 page BRP with which I'm familiar, plus three settings that are 18 pages each (including a mini-adventure!) Now, many of the Superworld rules won't be necessary, and most likely ditto for Magic World. In fact, I'm going to lean heavily on the BYB for inspiration. But the final rules I use will be more akin to WoW than BYB.

One reason is size, as mentioned above. But another reason is Awesome, as mentioned yesterday.

Magic World gives us Sorcery, which is almost directly repeated in the BYB as Magic. But only almost.

The BYB gives us tiers of power, depending on how one wishes to run one's game. For starting spells, the Normal tier gives 4, the Heroic tier 6, Epic 8 and Superhuman 10.

These all start at a %-value of the character's INT x 1 (although it does note that characters may spend skill points).

Magic World only gives the starting spell-caster 4 spells, like the normal tier. But they start at INT x 3.

(No, I won't be using spells in a science fiction game; this is merely illustrative.)

So, the older version gives more awesome characters (in my opinion) than the later one does.

Also, because of the aforementioned size, it's easier to carry.

Stay tuned tomorrow! Since I'm not following the strict rules of the A-Z thing anyway, I'm going to go ahead and post on Sunday! Any guesses what C will be?

A is for...Awesome!

2011-04-21T23:43:00.000-07:00

(Yes, I know, I'm starting over. And restarting a bit late. But hey, it's my blog; I'll do it if I want to.)

So for my upcoming Freedom in the Galaxy/Worlds of Wonder game, I've decided that A is for Awesome.

I've come up with campaign ideas before, but the big problem with virtually all of them is that the player characters won't come up against the really cool stuff until they're higher level -- sometimes much higher level. That takes time. And it can be dull getting there.

Besides, one of my big beefs with class/level games is that you pretty much want to start at first level so the character can "grow".

Screw that.

For this game, I want the characters to be grown already. Like starting out a D&D game at 5th level (or even higher). I don't want bumbling newbies, kids barely old enough to shave, trying to save the universe! I want professionals, sickened by the excesses of a corrupt Empire, willing to risk all to bring Freedom to the Galaxy.

So I've decided to go with pre-generated characters, based on the characters in the game.

Some will cry foul; rolling up one's own character is some sort of gawd-given right. Maybe. But they might turn out to be a putz. My way, every character has something going for him or her. (And speaking of her, what the heck is up with the entire Star Wars series? why is it that I can count the number of female characters on the fingers of one hand? But I digress.)

And the beautiful thing is, you don't have to play the same character every time. Say you come to every session. One time, you pay Rayner Derban. But the next time, Derban isn't even on the mission! What to do? Play another character, of course!

(I admit, this might cause problems. But I hope it won't.)

Anyway, these guys are going to be a bit over-the-top. And that's great. Roleplaying is supposed to be escapist. Just be glad you didn't have to work your way up to it from first level!

So, to summarize and to get to the title of this post: I'm going to be embracing the blog post "How to Awesome Up Your Players" from the awesome Jeff's Gameblog.

I've always been more restrictive than permissive in my GMing. And I see now that I don't want to be. So I'm making a conscious effort to do this.

Bonus post!

I didn't really jump on the A to Z bandwagon like a number of other old school bloggers did. I don't think that way, for one thing, and I have a hard time completing long projects like that.

But I'm thinking it might be good for me.

Plus, I got some good feedback on my last post, which gets me all juiced up to get started.

So, A is also for: All right, let's do this thing!

First of all, I have to admit that I finally understood something about myself after my last post. When I asked if it was a stupid idea, I didn't mean for someone to do this, I mean for me, specifically to do this. I didn't realize it at the time. I chalked it up to a standard self-effacing "I'm not special" kind of thing.

But it was actually a real concern. As near as I can tell (without a formal diagnosis), I have ADHD. This results in problems in undergoing long-term projects and the like. I've had this all my life, but only recently realized that that's what it is. It makes so much sense out of so many things that have happened to me/that I've done.

But I refuse to let it be a handicap! I'm going to do this thing, because I believe in it and because some of my favorite bloggers have responded positively to it. I'll finally be running the game I want to run.

Y'see (if you'll pardon the digression), every time I've run a game I've pretty much run it straight out of the box. I take the designer's word for how to do things, and usually run the enclosed scenario (if there is one -- and I can't recommend the one from LotFP:WFRPG enough, it's a doozy!)

I've never "rolled my own" as so many of the old school have. This gives me the chance to do that.

I put together a list earlier of some of the many things I'll need to address. Here's a partial list:

Aliens
Professions
Character Conversion
Spaceship rules
Army rules
Environments (*)
Equipment

and the list goes on.

(*: Environments is a special one from FitG; each world may have one or more of the following:
Urban, Wild, Liquid, Subterranean, Air and Fire -- each of which has its own characteristics)

Okay, just that list almost overwhelmed me. I knew if this was to work I'd need a powerful ally. And I have one: The humble 3x5 card. Anything important gets a 3x5 card. If it doesn't fit, it needs to be broken down into smaller things. (I may not be able to write a 128 page worldbook, but by gawd I can write a 3x5 card!) Focus is the key.

So, when I run this, expect to see my 3x5 card box at the table. It'll be my constant companion, my memory, my campaign-in-a-box.

It just might make things even possible. Because I really want this to happen.

(Hmm, now what the heck to I do for a "B"?)

Freedom in the Galaxy?

2011-04-20T12:09:00.001-07:00

So, what I'm thinking I'd like to do is run this:

...only not as a wargame, but as the basis for a RPG. Using this:

Does this sound like a completely stupid idea?

I mean, I can see an immediate criticism: Why don't I just run Star Wars?

The answer to that is that I've tried. I used the original WOTC (3e era) set, before they revised it and then created a whole new game (from what I can gather). I've also looked at but not played the old West End game. Neither one really did it for me.

So that leaves me in the now, with two specific criticisms:

1) I don't want to learn a new system. More importantly, I don't want to read thick hardcover gaming books, and

2) Star Wars has too much baggage for my taste. I'd like to start with something less well known, so people can approach it fresh. (Plus I don't want George Lucas looking over my shoulder the whole time -- that's how I felt when I ran SW before...)

Anyway, that's where I'm at right now. Comments appreciated.

And I have it in my hands

2011-04-19T01:34:00.000-07:00

From order late on Friday night (possibly Saturday morning; I can't be sure) to receipt on Monday.

Never let it be said that Noble Knight Games dallies once an order is placed. I've had this fast of service from them before (of course, it's right along I94 from them to me, but that's beside the point).

So, now I have my Worlds of Wonder boxed set.

Coincidentally, I also now have the first three printings of BRP. It's not OD&D, but it is an interesting evolution nonetheless. Not many actual changes, just formatting and rearranging and the like. Characters are functionally equivalent.

Anyway, I'm happy with what I have, and I'd probably be willing to run it at the drop of a hat.

Just sayin', is all.

I got it!

2011-04-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

I just received my confirmation email from Noble Knight Games for my order for a copy of Chaosium's Worlds of Wonder box set.

I'm sure I paid too much for it, but I don't care. I'm going to own it, and I'm happy.

This makes my earlier post about Janus that much more likely to happen...

"A" is for Another a-z lemming

2011-04-02T04:06:00.000-07:00

(Sorry I'm late on this; I can't commit to things. Not sure if I'll even finish this, but what the hey.)

Abernathy

Just started rolling a character randomly, to see what I'd get. Straight 3d6, in order, take it or go home. Here are the results:

STR - 4 (loser!)
INT - 10 (average)
WIS - 6 (kind of a loser)
DEX - 9 (average)
CON - 11 (average)
CHA - 18 (wait...what? a Paladin?!)
GP - 120

Holy crap! First crack out of the box, I get a Paladin. But he's kind of an idiot-savant Paladin, at that -- can barely pick up his sword. Is there a Holy Dagger out there, I wonder? Stay tuned!

World Building: Janus

2011-03-20T22:47:00.001-07:00

(Caveat: Yes, I know; none of this is exactly new. But that's not the point; the point is to create a world in which role playing adventure can occur.)

The planet Janus was named for the Roman god with two heads (or, more importantly, two faces).

This was because the planet also looks both ways, being tidally locked; one side is perpetually bathed in the fire of its parent star, the other looks out eternally on the icy dark of space.

Circling the world between these extremes is a twilight zone, a narrow habitable area no more than five miles wide. It is here that most of our action will take place.

In the world of light, the heat is so intense that the only portable means of combating it is magic -- the local name for a force made possible by absorption of the star's unique pattern of ratiation.

In the darkworld, science is the only force capable of keeping one warm enough to function, since magic doesn't work here.

Magic, of course, is not the fantastical nonsense that defies all reason. It's something to do with the confluence of the solar radiation and the planet itself. It somehow changes people, allows them to utilize a strange force not found elsewhere in the galaxy. This force was dubbed Magic, an acronym for Mutated Ability for Generating Improbable Conditions.

Over the centuries since the world was settled (and particularly since the collapse of the empire-wide spacelanes stopped all interstellar traffic from arriving here), a cold war has developed between the daydwellers and the nightsiders.

And in conflict, one finds adventure...

Rules: The game will use the 1980 edition of Basic Role Playing, amended by elements of Future*World and Magic World from the "Worlds of Wonder" set, as well as modifications of my own.

So, whaddya think? Groovy? Stupid? Beneath contempt? More importantly, especially for the locals, would you play such a game?

I'm looking for...

2011-03-16T16:06:00.000-07:00

...a copy of Chaosium's "Worlds of Wonder" boxed set, from 1982.

You can read James Maliszewski sing its praises here.

I have three of the four booklets already, but it's the additional material that I'd really like to get my hands on.

(Although if a complete set were to turn up, I'd be very interested.)

Thanks for any help anybody can provide.

Holy cow, a post!

2011-03-16T00:54:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted in a while. Sorry.

Sunday was my usual AD&D game. We spent the whole session (4 hours) in town.

One guy levelled up (now 4th). The way this DM handles advancement is that if you learn something NEW (in this case, a weapon proficience; but it could also be a spell level or whatever), then you have to pay for training. Otherwise you just advance once you're in town and have enough xp.

So, we spent the whole session in town. Nothing happened.

I mean, nothing.

This is the only problem I have with "sandbox" games. If the players don't know (or can't decide) where to go next, the whole game grinds to a halt. And we couldn't decide.

Part of this was because one of our party is a druid. Now, druids in AD&D aren't bad, but she decided to play it to the hilt, and won't go into a dungeon (in a game called DUNGEONS & DRAGONS...)

(If we'd had an objective, we'd have spent about half an hour in town and gotten on the road again.)

On the plus side, however, nobody died. And now both of our main fighters can use a longbow. So that's something, I guess.

In other news, this is my 100th post on this blog. Not too bad, considering.

Tower of the Stargazer - Actual Play Report

2010-11-21T17:27:00.000-08:00

Whew!

That was an awful lot of fun.

Warning: the following Actual Play Report contains spoilers for James Edward Raggi IV's Tower of the Stargazer. Read further at your own peril. You have been warned!

The party were five in number (eventually; we got started late because people straggled in):

Horsch, a Halfling (Jesse),
Abraxis, a wild Fighter (Aaron),
Alexis, a Magic-User (Herself),
Minnick, a Specialist (Trevor), and
Max, a Cleric (Sean)

Quote of the Day goes to Max: "Wait -- did I just gamble my soul?"

Since I wanted to run Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role Playing Game, I naturally wanted to run the included beginning adventure, Tower of the Stargazer. But I needed a world in which to set it. For a few weeks I idly wondered what to do with it, but then a solution presented itself: I already had one! I'd created a one-page wilderness, the Barony of Northmarch (which you can find in your copy of Fight On! number 7, on page 27. Or if you're really lazy, at my blog post here.)

Since hex #0304 already has an "abandoned wizard's tower", the party set off from the village of Dolders. They decided that they had met in the inn there, where Minnick was recruiting for an expedition. (Being a specialist, he was the only professional adventurer around. Also, with an 18 Charisma, he was the natural leader.)

They marched for the day without molestation, arriving near the tower by nightfall.

Observing the lightning strikes, they spent the night (again, unmolested) and finally approached the tower at dawn.

Horsch gathered the rope from the body at the base of the tower, discarding the grappling hook (he took the sword, too, but discarded it when he found it broken.)

Minnick and Abraxis took the stairs while the others waited at a "safe" distance.

Avoiding the serpent-shaped handles, they knocked with the knockers. This resulted in a very loud 'bong', but opened the doors. The whole party entered, finding the foyer and the sitting room. Horsch took three of the bottles from the cabinet and Minnick took the other. Abraxis checked out the cloakroom, but found nothing of value.

Bypassing the statue, Abraxis looked up the stairs but didn't venture up them. Instead, he tried to pry open the top box of the stack in the corner, discovering them to be a false stack covering a trap door.

Horsch and Minnick, meanwhile, investigated the status and discovered that it would move (and thus revealed the other trap door).

The party opened this second trap door and dropped a torch down it to see what was there. Horsch climbed down, with a rope tied to him so he could be retrieved, and found the portcullis. He came back up and Minnick went down, but he came back up also.

The party then checked out the other trap door and came upon the storage room. They moved boxes around (didn't want to open any...) and got to the door to the workshop, where Minnick debated removing the gold thread from the corpse but decided wisely not to touch it.

Abraxis meanwhile investigated the mirrors in the corner, and got sucked into the closest one on the right. At this point, Alexis the Magic-User cast her Identify spell on the mirror (and I admit right out here that I hadn't read it carefully enough to know that it took an entire day back at a lab -- my bad) and learned that he was screwed. (Aaron immediately started rolling a new character.)

Horsch twiddled the dial on the elevator shaft and brought the disc to the room. But then Minnick checked out the door on the south wall, leading to the cells, and they

fought the undead corpses for awhile, finally killing them all. (we rolled a lot of simultaneous initiatives -- I was using the traditional d6 for the party and d6 for the opponents). Minnick took some damage.

Horsch then got the brain parasite from the unmarked corpse, so he drank off an entire bottle of wine and got good and drunk. Then he closed his eyes and faced one of the mirrors, hoping that whatever was inside him would get a blast. It didn't, so he opened his eyes at the mirror on the end and was blasted by the light.

And then there were three.

So the party went back up the trapdoor and back down to the other part of the basement, where Minnick and Max opened the portcullis and entered the room. They were fascinated by the fissure in the floor, so they weren't even looking for an attack -- the stone spider got surprise and attacked Minnick, missing handily. The party fought valiantly, scoring 10 of 11 points of damage on it. Finally (and on another tied initiative), Alexis hit it, but not before it hit Minnick, who missed his saving throw and died.

Reading the plaques on the doors, Max chose the workshop. Inside, he moved to investigate the vials on the workbench and was trapped by the portcullis. He tried drinking the potions (and I didn't bother with potion miscibility; it was too much fun to let him go), which resulted in him:

Developing a very strong body odor,
Becoming incontinent,
Losing all his body hair,
Losing his teeth and nails, and finally
Shrinking to 2" tall, which enabled him to get back out of the room.

He and Alexis then checked the treasure room, but upon finding that the chests appeared to all contain stones carved and painted to look like copper pieces, they left that alone and went back to the elevator.

They took it up to the very top. They looked at the book, taking it with them. Then they used the control panel to open the roof, extend the telescope, unblock the lens, and ignite the coal chamber. Since the last didn't do anything, Max put a double handful of the mysterious black powder in the chamber and flipped the switch again. This caused a thin beam to come forth, but had no effect on the other end.

They didn't check out the pool.

Next they went down one level and found (and ruined) some books in the library. The found the room with the Ghost, but when Max tried his hand at the game, he lost.

Here is where the quote (above) occurred. (I didn't have a game handy, like chess or anything, but we both suck at chess anyway, so we just rolled for it.)

This is where we left it. Herself, playing Alexis, was the only survivor.

Jesse came up with an interesting suggestion: If I was to create a random creature using the Random Esoteric Creature Generator, and felt that it was acceptable to play (much like Original D&D allowed people to play Balrogs and whatnot), he'd play whatever I came up with. I'm going to try it.

Aaron meanwhile has already rolled up his character: A dwarf. Named Abraxis.

While this is a bare bones recitation of what happened, we all had a great time. The players were laughing and attentive, and nobody was really upset about dying (hey, if you play old-school, death happens. Frequently.) I'll definitely run it again.

We especially liked the encumbrance system and the convenience of the "skill" system, what with the skills represented by d6s right on the character sheet. It's probably the most convenient character sheet I've ever used.

Overall rating: Two thumbs up.

And afterward, Herself and I went to Outback Steak House, where I had steak and lobster and beer, and a really, really good creamy potato soup with cheese and
bacon. It was the perfect reward for getting up off my fat bottom and actually running something.

Now I just need to plan the next session...

Almost there...

2010-11-20T12:56:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow (less than 24 hours, really), I'll be running LotFPWFRPG (as I've posted about in this space before).

Preparation continues; I still don't think I know the adventure well enough. Maybe reading through it a few more times will take care of that; maybe I'll need to make index cards for each individual room to remind me of what's there.

(I don't want to have my face stuck in a book the whole time; that defeats the social nature which is so essential to the gaming experience). I want to look at my players, see how they react to things, watch the little wheels turning (and wonder what the heck they're going to come up with...)

It may be awesome or I may crash and burn. But I think we'll have a pretty good time.

And that's what it's all about, really.

Plus, afterward, I get to go to Outback Steak House (it's traditional after gaming at The Source; it's right up the street). And that makes me really happy.

The Time has Come...Almost

2010-11-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

I'm nearly there! I've set a date to actually run LotFPWFRPG!

Sunday, 21 November, 12:00 noon to 4:00 pm at The Source. Open to any interested, although I reserve the right to limit attendance should I get too many (i.e., more than I think I can handle).

Remember, it's a new (-ish) system, and I haven't run a game in two and a half years. But I'm going to give it my best shot.

Wanna bone up on the rules? Get the Rules and Magic books, free, in pdf form, from the publisher here.

Need directions? Contact page for The Source.

If I could get some kind of headcount before starting, that would be great. But if people just show up, that'd be good, too. I know Kesher's already looking forward to it -- he gets to PLAY for a change!

Inspiration

2010-09-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

Inspiration comes from the strangest places.

This came to me this morning after a mis-heard Van Morrison lyric:

Clockwork Gypsies

No. Appearing : 2-12
Armor Class: 3
Move in Inches: 9
Hit Dice: 2-5 (*)
% in Lair: 15
Treasure Type: F

Clockwork Gypsies have the same reputation as regular Gypsies (i.e., that they are all thieves), but in the case of the Clockwork version this is always true.

Clockwork Gypsies surprise on 1-4 on a d6.

* Hit Dice: Roll randomly (1d4+1) for the leader's hit dice, the rest are 2 HD.

When found in lair (clockwork caravans, pulled by clockwork horses), Clockwork Gypsies number an additional 3-18 in assorted states of repair.

Oil: Since Clockwork Gypsies must be in a good state of repair to be effective, they most frequently steal oil (bartering for it if they absolutely must). Once well oiled, they surprise as above; if un-oiled, they squeak horribly and surprise is impossible. Since they are oily, however, fire-based attacks deal double damage to them. (Lightning attacks do no damage, since they are not electrically operated.)

I'll be runnig LotFP WFRPG

2010-08-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

For those of you who missed my last post, I'll be running LotFP WFRPG. All of my local Twin Cities folks are welcome to play.

You can get the free pdf version (without art) from the LotFP blog, here.

(You can get the character sheet there, too, but don't bother -- it's for A4 paper, which I have. So I'll bring them along and we can all create characters together.)

Let me know if you're interested, and what days/times work for you. I'm pretty wide open on weekends, but can be flexible about weeknights, too.

Committment?

2010-08-13T15:32:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of talk about committment lately around the blogs I follow. This is very cool, if you like that sort of thing; they're talking about this.

It's a place people can ask questions about role playing games. The people that are doing all the committing then answer them. Pretty nifty, really.

The only thing that bothers me is the timing, and that was just coincidence.

Y'see, I was going to post here the other day about committment, myself, only of a different kind. I was going to post about my own committment.

If you read my last post, you know that I've received my copy of the LotFP Weird Fantasy RPG. Now, I've bought many games in the past couple of years, but this is the first one that I'm really, really itching to run.

I've run games in the past, but they never seem to last very long. I've come to the conclusion that it's my own lack of committment that causes that.

So I decided that the best thing would be to actually, formally commit to running the thing. And that's what I'm here for today.

I hereby do formally commit to running a campaign of the LotFP Weird Fantasy RPG lasting not less than 12 sessions.

Now, I may have trouble finding players. I'll overcome that trouble.

I may lack inspiration on occasion. I'll find some.

I may decide to chuck the whole damned thing. I won't allow myself to do that.

Committment is one of the things that separates the good referee from the hack. A committed referee will be there for his players, for his campaign, and will do his best for them both. And that's the guy I want to be.

This will not be an online game. It will be live, face to face, and sessions will happen either at one of the local game stores or in my own home (depending).

Now, any takers?

LotFP

2010-08-05T20:41:00.000-07:00

Finally got my Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg today.

I really wish I'd sprung for the priority shipping!

This is really good stuff, both production-wise and as a game. Sure, we've seen a lot of it before, but the stuff we haven't is really good, and the attitude that permeates it is astounding.

I honestly can't remember the last time I was this excited about a game!

Marking time...

2010-07-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

At work right now, but I can already tell it'll be a slow day.

Then off at 6, home to grab some stuff and then it's off to CONvergence! Hope to do a bit of gaming (plus cruising through the dealer's room to see what cool stuff I can find).

I think I'll take OD&D and Risus with me. But I'm open to new experiences, I guess...

Are any of my local friends going to be there?

2010-06-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I gotta say -- I'm pretty much through with ten sided dice.

I don't have any problem with dice that produce a 1-10 result, I just don't like the pointy little non-platonic bastards that keep stabbing me in the hand.

That's why I bought a set of these:

Twenty siders, numbered from 0-9 twice. Found 'em on ebay. These are the style of dice you used to get back in the day, but made of modern materials (i.e.; they won't start wearing away immediately).

They just feel better. They probably don't roll any more randomly, but I don't care. I'm happy with them and that's what matters to me.

One potential drawback for the uninitiated would be using them as percent dice. But once again, I remember from back in the day: The colored die is the tens digit and the white die is the ones digit. It's a simple as that. (The Top Secret rule book said so, in so many words.)

(I knew one guy who would call which die was the tens die while they were in the air. Sometimes even after they landed. And what he called might be the tens or it might be the ones. No consistency whatsoever, and perilously close to cheating in my book. Drove me up the wall.)

And, in other news, Fight On! number 9 is out. But you knew that already, right? Thought so.

Traveller

2010-04-06T20:23:00.000-07:00

(I still refuse to call it Classic Traveller; the later versions are revisionist heresy in my book...)

Ahem.

Anyway, if you have any interest in Traveller at all, you could do worse than go to RPGNow and downloading the Starter Set for free.

I'll say that again: FREE.

Here's the link.

You'll thank me.

Wow, two years already?

2010-03-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

Fight On! Quarterly magazine number 8. Lulu print-on-demand or pdf.

Cover by the legendary Erol Otus, and an interview with him by Jeff Rients of Jeff's Gameblog.

Plus the usual great stuff from the usual crew.

Regarding failure in the game

2010-03-17T11:50:00.000-07:00

So, we finally ran up against plain old orcs in my AD&D game the other night. I've wanted orcs for awhile now -- they crunch really nicely, aren't that hard to hit, and won't wipe out the party.

Uh, except that none of us were rolling at all well, to hit wise.

This got annoying.

Then frustrating.

And finally, it was just plain funny.

We did finally take out the orcs and move on with the rest of the game, but for a while there we thought we were going to have another TPK. One guy rolled five separate 1's, but he was playing his character and the other fighter in the group whose player couldn't be there so it's not like one character had that bad of luck.

We didn't lose any player characters, either. Nobody even got seriously wounded.

But we did have an awful lot of fun. We laugh quite a bit in this game. Obscure puns abounded, as they usually do. For example:

DM: "You hear a rustling sound."

Me: "What, like Bill Cosby's kid brother?" (Bill's brother's name is Russell.)

DM: "I knew somebody would get that!"

Nobody else on the planet might find that funny, but I laughed. I guess you had to be there.

Now, look, there are things about this game that bother me. But there are a tableful of good people hanging around, and we have a hell of a good time. And that so far outweighs my petty quibbles that they're not even worth mentioning.

So I won't.

I'm in a damn good game, the occasional failure notwithstanding, and I'm happy about that.

And happy Saint Patrick's Day to you all!

2010-02-26T23:13:00.000-08:00

(oops, this was supposed to be a reply to my last post. Sorry.)

Thanks, everybody, for your responses.

Joethelawyer:

"Question then--how did you determine who did what in which order within the group? Do you group actions according to missile/melee/spell with actions needing to be announced before initiative is rolled?"

It depended on the individual DM. We pretty much went around the table: What do you do, Bob? What do you do, Frank (and, often, would go around the other way the next time). Other guys would go: Okay, any movement? Andy missiles? Any magic? Okay, melee. (I think that was the order). So a little of both, really, but nobody felt left out or passed over. We each got to do something when it was the group's turn so it worked out.

But we all moved at the same time, so it was pretty easy for a few of us to gang up on whatever bad guy needed it most. Or whatever. I recall that a round would go pretty fast, even with a 6-10 players, each having 1-3 characters and henchmen.

Shimrod:

"It's more simulationist..."

You say that like it's a good thing.

"Your example of play is an example of bad/incompetent play."

See, now this is an example of busting on my example without giving one of your own. And I specifically asked you not to do that. Please give an example of good play, instead of just criticizing an example I made up while waiting after work for my ride to get there so I could go home. (Which is why I asked for a counterexample in the first place.)

Initiative Rant

2010-02-26T16:05:00.000-08:00

Can someone explain to me the appeal of individual initiative?

When I started gaming, we had just plain initiative. We'd roll a d6 and the DM would roll a d6 and the higher roll went first. If we tied, it was simultaneous.

Sometimes we'd win initiative and then lose it, so the monsters would go twice in a row. But sometimes we'd lose and then win, so we'd go twice in a row. We didn't know, from one round to the next, exactly what would happen. The tension of having to wait to find out was excruciating sometimes, but it was part of the fun.

And then, all the whiny little crybabies who had extremely high dexterities wanted to use the individual initiative modifier (which as I understand it was intended for use in one-on-one, very important or climactic duels). Usually, our DMs would tell them to sit down and shut up.

(Sure, some of you started with Holmes, who had you go in order of Dex. This doesn't work for me because:

a) The DM has to roll for (or assign) the Dex for all the monsters, which is one more thing he doesn't need on his plate, and

b) All the guys with an 11 Dex clump up and have to roll off anyway. So no real advantage there.)

I don't remeber 2e, but it seems to me it worked the same way as 1st. (Although I had at least one DM with his own weird system...)

And then, along comes 3e. And enshrined in "The Way Things Must Be Done!" is the individual initiative system. And I'll admit, when I first saw it I thought it was pretty cool. But then actual play happened.

I can't count the number of times I saw a scene like this:

The party is lined up down a 5' corridor:

DM: "Okay, Bill you go first."

Bill: "Really? I'm like fifth in line!"

Buttinski Other Player: "You can move through the others; we're not in melee." (Puts book back down, smug look on his face.)

Bill: "Um, okay, sure. But we kinda lined up like this for a reason, didn't we?" (Looks around for reassurance)

DM: "Oh, just go already, willya? We're burning game time here."

Bill: "Okay, I guess I advance up to the front."

DM: "Finally! Okay, now the monsters go. Bill, I guess you're the only target. All four of them attack..." (Rolls dice for what seems like forever) "Okay, that's 37 points to your ... first level Cleric." (Looks up) "Sorry, dude."

Bill: "Y'know, it seems to me THAT'S WHY I was lined up so far back in the party!"

DM: "Whaddya gonna do? It was your turn!"

And that's it. It's your turn, even if it doesn't make a lick of sense.

So, please, somebody, explain to me how individual initiative is a good thing.

And before you blast my example, provide one of your own. I'm not kidding here; I've lived through and/or seen that same kind of thing many many times (the last was a couple of weeks ago). Sure, I've played with a lot of groups that don't do common sense, but I kind of like to try it every once in a while...

Additional to my last post...

2010-02-15T19:49:00.000-08:00

One thing I should have noted about the dwarf jumping into the pit the second time...never in my gaming career have I laughed so hard at a trap. The first time, when the dwarf (who, frankly, nobody liked) charged down the hall, he fell straight in the trap. We thought he was dead.

But then when he realized he'd forgotten his nifty stick, we just howled. Priceless.

Tonight's adventure was brought to you by the letters T, P and K!

2010-02-14T23:00:00.000-08:00

My twice-monthly AD&D game? It was a bit of a fiasco. We started out in the dungeon (it's that kind of game, we pick up right where we left off). We had picked off a few hobgoblins already, but they weren't aware that we were there.

Then the elf Magic-User found a concealed door. It didn't look like the hobbo's had found it, so we went that way (we were looking for our erstwhile comrade who had come this way and hadn't come home). Downstairs, we found a couple of hobbos, who we took out, and then there was a door and behind the door was a table on its side, with two humans behind it, with crossbow. They fired upon us, so the dwarf charged them.

And fell right in the pit trap, just ahead of the table.

Well, we fought them for a while and were afraid we'd be pushed back without our comrade, when we finally put them down. We got the dwarf out and planned to evacuate the dungeon immediately, getting back to the horses.

That's when the dwarf realized he'd left his Dwarven Battle Club down the pit. (Really, it's just a mace, but from a roleplaying standpoint it's pretty important.)

So, we go back to fight more humans. (About half of the party are humans, also; these are bad-guy humans we're fighting.)

So, the dwarf jumps down the pit and the rest of us engage the rest of the humans who keep coming. Finally, when we're out of healing and down most of our hitpoints, we prevail. The dwarf has his stick, so we head out after a perfunctory poking about.

Things are getting serious down here, so we decide to go home.

But, upstairs, the hobgoblins have noticed that we killed their buddies, so they're hanging out. We can't sneak past, so we try running -- despite having two dwarves and a halfling in the group. No way we can get through that, but downstairs looks like it'll only get hairier. The elf Mage says it's our only option. So we go for it.

The results, of course, were entirely predictable. The one surprise came at the end, when I almost got out. Y'see, I'm the only guy in the game who didn't roll his own character. There was a guy playing him, but he had to drop out, so I inherited him. I've been leaning toward getting him killed for a while now. And since I was closest to the exit, and the hobbos weren't hitting me, I seriously thought for a minute I'd survive and have to keep playing this guy.

But they finally got their act together and took me out, and shortly after they dropped the halfling.

And that made it a total party kill.

Afterwards, we learn that the elf was wrong. If we kept on the way we were going, we'd have found both the treasure AND THE EXIT. But we listened to him and tried to get out.

So, next session, we get a whole new world (possibly; the DM isn't sure if he's even going to use Greyhawk next time...)

But one thing is sure: We're not going to listen to the guy who played the Magic-User any more.

- - - - - - -

But, on the plus side, Herself didn't mind me going out gaming on Valentine's Day. According to here, every day is Valentine's Day, so it's okay.

I sure did pick her well, didn't I?

Scenario from Alignment

2010-02-11T13:58:00.000-08:00

I get a lot of thinking done on the way into work.

Today, I was thinking about alignment. (No, I'm not going to try to define it or anything else that might cause controversy. Sorry.)

Alignment in D&D came directly from Chainmail. And there's this one little line in Chainmail that says:

"Neutral figures can be diced for to determine on which side they will fight, with ties meaning they remain neutral."

Keep in mind that this was written for wargames. My assumption is it was for the referee's aid in planning scenarios ("I'll just check and see whose side the elves will fight on ... oh, tough luck, good guys!"), although one could let the players roll for themselves.

But how would that work in a roleplaying game? Instead of a die roll, you'd send a delegation -- and that's where the player character come in.

Now, you'd want to make sure that the party was mostly, if not all, of one alignment. (Some more 'immersion' type roleplayers would probably enjoy having an all-Lawful party with one guy who was secretly Chaotic ... but a lot of groups would find him out and then kill him instantly. You have to know your group.) You could have some neutrals, and it would be good to have a representative if possible (elves, for instance, are in both the Lawful and Neutral columns -- so if going for a neutral tribe of elves, it might help to have an elf in the party.)

If you have a large war, or a lot of little wars, you could build a whole campaign around this idea. And if not, you could still make an adventure out of it.

Anyway, I haven't done much with this idea, but I thought it was too good to just ignore.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions? I'm open.

DM Practice?

2010-01-05T16:07:00.000-08:00

We had "that discussion" again in my AD&D game last time. You know the one:

"Gandalf carried a sword!"

Le sigh.

Much has been made about whether Tolkien was a big influence on D&D or not. I think it's pretty obvious by now that Gygax included rather a lot of Tolkienisms, despite later claiming that the Professor wasn't that big of an influence. And I think I know why, or at least partly why:

Remember, we think we play a lot when we have a game every week. Sometimes it seems too much (but in a good way...) when I have two games in one day. But Gary Gygax would run his game every night of the week! (Or at least six days a week -- he had to have some time to add on to the dungeon and the world.)

Can you imagine how many times he had to put up with the whole "Gandalf carried a sword!" thing? How about level limits on Elves? That sort of thing would put me off the whole "This game is based on the Lord of the Rings" thing.

(I'm not saying that's what happened, mind you. I'm just speculating.)

But when people talk about Dungeonmasters, they usually include Gary among the greats. And part of that is the broad base of fantasy literature he had to fall back on. But another reason is that he just did it an awful lot.

Practice makes perfect, y'know. But in this case it's not "I'm practicing the piano," but rather "I'm a practicing DM." (which I'm not, currently, but it could happen...) I really never looked at the phrase like this before, so it's a bit of an enlightenment for me. I always understood it to mean "practice" as in "rehearsal". Funny how things go like that.

Star Trek! Role playing! What a combo!

2010-01-01T21:06:00.000-08:00

Say, didja know that there was a new discussion forum, specifically about roleplaying Star Trek? Well, there is!

Warning note to any children reading this blog: When I say "Star Trek", I am of course referring to the television show titled "Star Trek". I am NOT referring to the television show titled "Star Trek: The Next Generation". If I am, I'll say so (or, more likely, as ST:TNG.) It's just a little quirk I have; I have watched and very much enjoyed ST:TNG. I mean it no disrepect. But it wasn't called Star Trek; thus I don't call it that. (end of digression.)

Anyway, if like me you like the original Star Trek and you would like to roleplay it, jump on by. It's the Old School Star Trek Roleplaying forum.

Anyway, here's my icon -- I'm posting it here so that I can link to it there.

Merry Christmas to me!

2009-12-16T15:55:00.001-08:00

Hmm, been a while since I posted. Well, I can take care of that!

One thing I always try to do around this time of year is find something special for one of my favorite gamers: Me. (I figure if I get myself something, I probably won't be disappointed.)

I've long been searching for a good 'space' science fiction game. Traveller has long been a favorite, but it carries way too much baggage (not to mention being completely unbalanced and annoyingly gearhead-y. But that's a whole other rant). I never played Star Frontiers. I bought StarSiege: Event Horizon, but something about it just rubs me the wrong way.

And then, a while back, I was (as usual) reading Jeff's Gameblog. And he mentioned X-plorers.

X-plorers is a rules-light science fiction game from Grey Area Games. I took a look at it on Lulu, and it looked right up my alley.

So, when Fight On! number 7 came out, and I went to order it, I got X-plorers as well.

The next day, Grognardia did a full review of it. I hadn't known about the free version. To be fair, though, I would have bought it in print anyway. I'm not going to try to recap James M's review; click the link and read it yourself. But I will give my own comments.

What's not to love? It's rules light, which is always a plus. It's OGL (to an extent), so it's based one familiar stuff. Advancement is minimal (compared to the tweaked-out piles of numbers I saw in D&D 3.5...) There are no aliens as yet (shades of Asimov, right there). And the robots can't harm humans (good heavens, more Asimov, right off the bat!)

In short, this seems to be the game I've wanted my whole life.

With the resurgence of the old school movement and their whole do-it-yourself ethos, stuff I might otherwise have complained was missing is now simply an opportunity for me to imagine the hell out of it. There's a lot less crunch than, say, Traveller. But that's okay; having been through the crunch of Traveller I'm better able to look at the stuff that's there (like starships) and tweak and mod the rules myself.

And it's okay that I do that. In fact, it's encouraged! This is a real old-school attitude, and one that I really like. Plus they seem really friendly over at the forum and the Yahoo! group.

So, now I just have to round up some players and give it a shot. I think I'll really like it.

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

2009-11-09T11:40:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-06T15:49:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-23T20:45:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-23T20:49:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-20T00:11:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Kesher, Northmarch is now also available here!

New Pictures -- as promised!

2009-09-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

Here they are, my new pictures. As usual, click to enlarge.

For those of you who read my last post, you'll understand why I didn't get more painting done. But I got the important stuff done, at least for Kesher's Otherness game: I got a figure painted for my character, Melvin. He's the guy in plate and the red and white surcoat on the end. I also painted my other Mage figure, because we have two of them in the party (and now we'll have two painted figures). And the dwarf, because we have a dwarf (sometimes).

I have an elf and some more human fighter types to paint up before the next game (maybe more than one elf -- we seem to have a few of them).

We haven't faced any orcs yet, but when we do, I have some figures ready!

One Page Wilderness

2009-09-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

Since everybody else in the old school renaissance seems to be putting out their own one-page items, dungeons, cities, wildernesses, even whole games!), I thought I'd join in the frenzy.

Actually, it was a guy on the Original D&D Discussion forum that got me started. He said what I felt, that he had the creativity of a lump of mud. Well, he doesn't and neither do I.

So I took it as a challenge, and here it is: The Barony of Northmarch.

You can get the pdf here (which gives a legend for these symbols, as well as an encounter table and hex by hex descriptions).

Thanks to Chgowiz, for the One Page template.

There will be more pictures...soon

2009-09-15T19:53:00.000-07:00

I had the day off from work today. And I'll have tomorrow off, too. The warehouse I work at is moving, and all our stock is on trucks, waiting for the pallet racking to be installed, which will happen tomorrow.

So, having some time on my hands, I primed a whole bunch of my figures today. Tonight, I started (barely) painting my orcs. Since I have tomorrow off as well, I hope to finish the orcs and do the goblins and the rest of the undead.

So, there will be pictures of the rest of the Caesar Fantasy miniatures line coming in the near future!

More gaming

2009-09-14T10:31:00.001-07:00

You may remember this post. Or you may not. Anyway, they have a permanent opening in this game so they gave me a call. So now I have two games (in addition to various online things), although neither of them is weekly.

So, Yay! It's a good year for gaming, apparently.

I can has table!

2009-09-13T12:17:00.001-07:00

Table!

Finally, after all these years, I have in my own home a table big enough that I can host a gaming-type activity. I also have six matching chairs (not shown). That's enough for a game, just not a huge game. To show the size of the table I took a pretty universal constant: The Holmes-edit D&D Basic Set box. Everybody should be able to judge relative size from that.

This was my dining room table while I was growing up. We moved Dad out of the house two years ago now, after Mom died, and we've been cleaning it out and hoping to sell it. But in this economy, and in that market, I don't know.

But I do know that I can has table!

Booklets! Pictures! Pictures of Booklets!

2009-09-05T18:28:00.000-07:00

This is in response to Jeff's Gameblog, wherein he posted pictures of his booklets. Now I have to do the same, so here you go.

These are my D&D books, printed from the pdfs. But these are different. These are the deluxe versions.

I got the leather-style heavy paper for the covers as packing material in something at work, there were about 10 or so of them (and several have already gone away, so I'm nearly out...). The interior pages are done on parchment paper I had for a calligraphy project (that never went anywhere, but so what). The open booklet is on a piece of white paper to show the difference in color of the pages.

Hope you like them!

And finally, a picture of my new dice rolling area for taking to conventions. Cost in materials: five bucks at WalMart. The looks on people's faces: I hope it will be priceless. If you can't read the sign (I can't), it says "Kids! Stay off my lawn." (See, 'cause I'm older than they are and ... well, either you get it or you don't...)

Fight On #6!

2009-09-02T11:55:00.000-07:00

Fight On! number 6 is out, both in print and PDF. I haven't read every page yet, but it looks at least as good as the previous issues. There are some very nifty things this time, as well as another Education of a Magic-User (which introduces a new character!)

Check it out at all the usual places.

Yesterday

2009-07-27T12:34:00.001-07:00

It was a quiet day around the house, yesterday. Up until, that is, the phone rang.

After establishing that I was who I am, the called finally identified himself. He's an acquaintance and fellow gamer. A while back he said in his blog that he was starting an AD&D 1e game, so I asked if he had room for one more player. He didn't.

But yesterday, four of his seven players couldn't make it. So he wanted to know if I was available.

I sure was! After checking with Herself to be sure we could swing it, I agreed and later set off to play. I was running somebody else's Halfling Thief, and I think I did okay. There was some talk of another guy having to drop out, and they might make me a permanent member of the group if that happens. So I might have another regular game to play in.

That would be nice.

Or, I could get references from past GMs and set up my own Gamer Temps service, like in Knights of the Dinner Table.

Alrighty...

2009-07-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

Seems like just a couple of posts ago, I was telling you that Fight On! Number 5 was out.

(Oh, hey, it WAS just a couple of posts ago!)

Anyway, Fight On! Number 6 is on the horizon -- I can tell, because I just got my comic strip submitted (that's The Education of a Magic-User, for those of you who missed it in earlier posts). I haven't hit a deadline yet, so I'm still on track there.

However, this one is different: Calithena, the guy to whom I submit the thing, said (and I quote): "This one is quite funny."

That's a good thing for a cartoonist to hear! It beats the heck out of no comment at all. Actually, other than people saying they're looking forward to it, I haven't received a whole lot of comments at all.

Which is still better than "It's not funny" or "I don't get it" I suppose. Ah, well. At least Herself believes in me, and that's really all I need. Because ultimately I'm doing this for myself; when I start doing it specifically for others (as opposed to for myself), then I'll have to quit, because it'll be work and not fun.

But right now? It's still a lot of fun!

A tale of two bands, and the gaming connection thereto

2009-07-17T13:51:00.000-07:00

A few years back, my nephew wanted to see this one band live in concert. They were playing at the University, not too far from me. The problem was, the boy was just 18 and his mother didn't want him coming to the Big Bad Twin Cities all by his lonesome.

So she asked if I'd go with him. She'd buy my ticket; she just wanted a chaperone for the boy.

Well, it's family, so what could I do? I went.

We had seats at the very top of the arena. I was in the very last row, so I could hardly see the performers. But it was sure loud enough; I didn't have to worry about hearing them.

I didn't care for the band (they weren't bad, they just weren't what I like). It was crowded. It was smoky. It wasn't a pleasant experience for me. I could have lived without it.

Another time, many years before this, I went to a party with some friends. At this party, the entertainment was a band which contained the brother of the girlfriend of one of my friends.

Again, it was loud; this time so loud I just stood near a wall and felt it vibrate. The songs had no distinct difference one from another; they were just an assault of noise (although I later found out that one of them was supposed to have been "Johnny B. Goode").

Again, I could have lived without it.

Thanks for sticking with me through this! You're probably wondering what this has to do with gaming.

Well, it's an analogy.

The first band, the major label band, that everybody went to and we couldn't even see them, that's 4th edition. A helluva lot of people love it to death, and even though I don't particularly like it, I don't begrudge its existence. It keeps gaming alive after all.

The other band is old school, whatever old school rules you like (my preference is 3LB, but ymmv). It's not that it's objectively "better", it's just different. And part of that difference is that when the music was over, the musicians sat around and drank with the rest of us. I listened to their stories and such. They asked us what we thought and some of us (not me but those more musically inclined) told them -- even if it wasn't unabashed praise.

I felt like I was a part of it, not just a spectator.

And that, to me, is the whole reason I'm involved (even in my minor way) with the whole Old School Renaissance: I get to be involved. Directly involved, I mean.

Specifically, I have a contribution in every issue (so far) of Fight On! magazine. I'm proud of that. (My comic for Issue #6 is mostly written, so it should be finished this weekend.)

I really don't see any hope of me having such a connection with 4th edition. Not just because I don't play it, but because I can't see getting very deeply involved in such a thing. It's just not my cup of tea.

4E is a major label release, after all (in fact, the most major of labels).

I'm much happier with a local garage band.

Fight On #5 is out!

2009-05-28T14:56:00.001-07:00

Get your copy today! (Well, you can't actually get your copy today. But you can order it here.)

As usual, I'm in it with another installment of The Education of a Magic-User. Not my best one yet, but I kinda like it.

There are other comics this time as well, so I don't feel alone any more.

Long and Dull Ranty-Rant about Labels

2009-05-26T12:17:00.000-07:00

Old school? New school? What the hell?

Okay, labels are just labels. They don't really tell you anything about anything, unless you know exactly what is meant by the label. And the labels "old school" and "new school" apparently don't tell people enough about what the game is like to be worthwhile.

Okay, fine. I don't care.

I don't play games to acquire a label (other than "gamer", but I've had that one so long I don't even think about it much anymore). I play games because I enjoy them.

I don't consider them "just games" any more than I consider a book to be "just a book" or a movie to be "just a movie" -- or a job to be "just a job". I tend to find the word "just" to actually be unjust; it's unnecessarily dismissive.

They're not "just games" to me, whether old school or not. Gaming has been a big part of my life, it has contributed largely to my development of social skills for one thing. Most of the long-term friends I have I made through gaming. So yeah, I'm going to tend to take it seriously.

But doing so doesn't mean I need to rain on somebody else's parade. I've come to realize that if some kid I don't even know wants to play 4e, then that's fine -- for him. Doesn't mean I have to play it (I tried it and didn't like it -- there's too much farting around for my taste). Same with 3e; I used to play it and enjoyed it for a long while. But it began to get a bit samey; everybody else I ever met had higher stats than I did, so they thought their character (or their "build" was therefore better than mine). And that's just not the kind of thing I'm into. I'm glad it's there for those who like it, but I no longer count myself among them.

Notice how I'm not saying my way is better? That's because it's only better for me; it isn't my place to say what's better for someone else. I'm just saying "this is what I like", not "this is what you should like". I don't have time for people dictating to me what I should be doing so I'm damn sure not going to dictate to them.

Tell you what, you want labels? Okay, here you go.

Back in the day, on the Risus mailing list (which is now the Risus Yahoo group), there was a discussion of trust. Risus is a high-trust game. You really have to trust the GM to do what's best for his game (which should include allowing the player characters to be awesome).

It's the same with old school, near as I can figure.

New school, apparently, is the result of a backlash against such things. Some GMs were found to be untrustworthy, so a massive body of rules had to be erected to "protect" the players from these GMs.

(Back in my day, if you couldn't trust your GM, you just didn't play in his game. Simple as that.)

And this "new" school isn't as new as you might think, either. I remember one game back in the mid-80's. We had some old established players and some newer ones. The DM was a distinct Gygaxian; he was there to challenge you but not to kill you outright. Something happened (I don't remember exactly what), but some of the players cried foul. I didn't care; I knew he was going to give us a good game and that he should be given the benefit of the doubt.

So I said, "Look, he's the DM; you can trust him."

One of the newbie players, who thought she was much smarter than she actually was, chortled and roared out "Anyone who trusts the DM has got to be STUPID!" (I'll note here, before I get flamed for this, that she was NOT typical of the other female gamers I've known...)

She actually believed this shit.

I looked at the DM; he looked like he'd been kicked in the gut.

Similar situation came up in 3.5. Another Gygaxian DM (this one came up playing D&D, the boxed sets; you know, the ones some people who simply cannot read call "Basic D&D" when only the basic set of D&D is called Basic). He had the experience and the DMing chops, he could run a good game. Or he could phone it in. Depended on his mood that week, I guess.

Anyway, 3.5 is pretty cut and dried. The rules say you can do this and you can't do that. Well, he did something that apparently contradicted what the rules as written said. And his brother hit the roof. They argued about it for at least half an hour, during which time the rest of us got no gaming done.

No trust. None whatsoever. (Turned out that what the DM was doing was okay by the rules, but his brother didn't have all the information. Nor should he have; if you already know it all, why are you playing?)

So trust seems to be an old school trait, but it isn't. It's more necessary in the play defined as old school, but it ought to be there anyway.

Anyway, this discussion of trust came up regarding Risus. Risus dates back to the early 90's, and allows you to design the specific character you want. Sounds pretty new school to me, but it still requires a high degree of trust in your GM for it to work. So it's kind of both. Or neither. (And it's also free. Remember the name, kids: Risus. Confounding expectations since 1993.)

The label doesn't matter. Risus is a good game, and I'll play it. Because I'll play what I want, and don't care what label others put on things.

You see, I trust my Gamemasters (or referees, or whatever). But I've seen it go the other way. I've seen guys who expect (and frankly deserve) my trust when they're behind the screen; these selfsame guys immediately display their arrant distrust when it's me back there. I may have to earn some respect, but if I've gone to the trouble of putting a game together, the least you can do is give me the benefit of the doubt -- if I prove untrustworthy, then that's one thing. If you shoot my game down through distrust before I can prove myself, that's an entirely different thing -- and you won't be invited back, that's for sure.

So, is there a point to all this ranting? No, I don't think there is. I just wanted to get in on the whole debate that's resurfaced. I wanted to give people a different look at things. Hey, it's my blog -- you get my viewpoint. And that's all I'm qualified to give.

If you agree with me, if don't agree, either is fine. I don't expect you to change your mind because of what I say. I may get flamed, I may get praised. I don't think I'll care very much one way or the other.

Anyway, that's where I'm at.

I'm back and I'm back.

2009-05-04T12:12:00.001-07:00

No, I'm not just repeating myself in the title of this post.

I'm back from my honeymoon in Las Vegas (which is an awesome place, if a bit overstimulating for herself).

And I'm also back in work mode for my comic strip, The Education of a Magic-User.

I had bupkis. I mean absolute nada. Zip. Zilch. Goose-egg.

So I emailed Calithena that I'd have nothing and that I was sorry. (Hey, it was the least I could do: The official deadline was something like March 24...)

And as soon as I had given up, as soon as the deadline had irretrievably passed, that's when I finally come up with an idea. (It's kind of zen, in an asinine sort of way, but hey, it's me.)

And that's when Cal got back to me and said he could give me until Thursday, because the humor section is its own self-contained space and doesn't need monkeying with, layout-wise.

So I'm back in the old cartooning chair at the drawing table tonight. I have my script pretty well worked out (always the tough bit), and the drawing should be a breeze.

It's good to be back.

Takin' it easy...

2009-04-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

...for a few days. (Not that you'll be able to tell; I'm not the most frequent of posters to begin with. Whatever.)

Anyway, I'm getting married. Tomorrow. And then we're off to sunny Las Vegas for a bit of a honeymoon.

I won't be totally away from the internet, of course, but I'll be away from my home and all my beloved games (I'm traveling light, so the most I'll take will be pdfs -- and a few dice; hey, a game might break out sometime, right?)

Anyway, take it easy yourselves for a few days. I'll be back before you know it.

By Request - Close Ups!

2009-04-09T07:54:00.001-07:00

I had a request for close up pictures of my figures, so I tried it. Whaddya know? The digital zoom on my camera works pretty well. Here we go!

The pictures get imported funny; they're not in the order I asked for them. Oh well. They should be pretty obvious, anyway.

The women are, from left to right, a Cleric, a Fighter, a Magic-User and a Thief. At least that's how I see them. (From behind they're the other way around.)

The men you've already seen, although here you can see them better.

I'm kind of impressed with how these have all come out. I'm happy that I have a consistent methodology:

A) to produce figures suitable for actual play,

B) that doesn't take a long time to complete, and

C) that gives me figures of a decent quality (i.e.; I don't have to hang my head in shame when compared to the "real" figure painters).

And as usual, click to enlarge them.

That's all for now.

What do Mark Twain and Dave Arneson have in common?

2009-04-07T16:00:00.000-07:00

Answer: A lot.

For one thing, the rumors of their deaths were greatly exaggerated; Dave is still with us (as of my latest information). (Mr. Twain, obviously, is still dead. But nobody really expected otherwise.)

But both men wrote. They were both Americans. They both clearly had a great sense of humor.

Dave Arneson may not be the household name that Mark Twain is, but around my household he certainly is.

I'm glad he's still with us.

A Sad Day

2009-04-07T11:24:00.001-07:00

I just heard that Dave Arneson passed away.

He was the guy who started it all. Without him, we wouldn't be here.

I'm sure those who knew him well will have eloquent eulogies for him. I only just met him a couple of times, both up at The Source. He was pleasant, and cheerfully signed the things I brought with me. (First Fantasy Campaign, Blackmoor, and the Dungeon Masters Index)

I can think of no more fitting tribute than to say that I'm going to keep right on playing and having fun. I think Dave would have wanted that.

And with that in mind, more pictures! Sorry they're out of focus -- they're better than the first ones I took.

This is a mini-battle scene, showing the Barbarian Hair Brothers against a Barbarian Orc.

All figures are from Caesar Miniatures, from their Fantasy line. Click to embiggen. I think the necklace of teeth on the orc came out really well. And I had to make the barbarians blonde, because their heads just looked so 80's hair band (they look blow-dried, don't they?). Next up will be some female characters from the Adventurers set, the ones I take as a Mage and a Cleric.

Anyway, hug someone you love today (especially a game designer).

New Pictures!

2009-04-03T18:09:00.000-07:00

"Plastics."

Here's the mage from the Caesar Miniatures I bought way last fall or summer or whatever. I finally painted him. (Click photos to embiggen.)

Actually, the reason I waited this long wasn't mere laziness. I wasn't sure how to prime the silly bugger. But then I came across the Junior General. And they led me to learn that Krylon makes a paint, called Fusion, that specifically bonds with plastic. Good stuff! And it's a buck cheaper than the primer I just bought at the gaming store...

Anyway, here he is, Fusion primed and miracle dipped.

New Avatar!

2009-04-03T12:43:00.001-07:00

Here's my new avatar! Let me know what you think.

Pictures!

2009-03-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

Here is the new box I'm using for my D&D books. The box I originally bought them in is intact, but in pretty crummy shape. And since many people only have the pdfs and not the original booklets, there is some interest in finding or building boxes to contain such books.

I got mine at Joann Fabrics, which is also a craft store, in the craft section. It's a papier mache box that looks like a hardcover book. Here's a link to the item on their website. (It says they have large and small sizes; I must have gotten the large size since the dimensions they list are too small and my box cost $4.95 whereas theirs lists for $3.99. Whatever.)

Anyway, these three pictures are as follows:

First, the front and "spine" of the box. I've added a sticker on the front, duplicating the front of the fifth printing "white box", and stickers on the spine saying (in case you can't read it):

Gygax
Arneson

Dungeons
&
Dragons

TSR, 1974

Second, the books inside the box. See how much room is left? And

Third, the three D&D booklets, with reference sheets and Chainmail.

The box can be painted, but I was impatient to put my books in there. But I'd love to see any boxes anybody else gets and decorates.

Advice for DMs

2009-03-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

As I've said before, I read Wil Wheaton's blog. In the linked entry, he posts a reminder of some of the basics of DMing.

These are pretty good, since they're not the same old four or five things. Plus they're drawn from actual play (which he's posted also earlier in the series).

Now, some might object because he's doing a 4e game. I don't care. The basic principles hold, regardless of edition (or for that matter game; he also cites GURPS and T20 as well as D&D). These are just basic things a referee should know/do.

I especially like the last point, about blogging about your experiences. We can all learn from each other this way, and I like it.

- - - - -

And speaking of other bloggers, I got my shipment from James Edward Raggi IV today. He's the guy at the Lamentations of the Flame Princess blog. I got both versions of the Random Esoteric Creature Generator, which is infinitely cool, as well as Fantasy Fucking Vietnam. I think I'll run that one at a local convention -- that might shake some people up! (Naturally, I'll remember all of Wil Wheaton's advice when I do. The synthesis should prove interesting...)

Oh, and all three items are signed. How cool is that? This is one of the parts of the old school renaissance that I like a lot -- that you can be on a first name basis with game designers (or should I say with other game designers?) It puts the emphasis back on "hobby", instead of "industry".

Ruminations

2009-03-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if we old school D&D'ers aren't just a bunch of crotchety old farts who are out of touch with the real world.

I mean, I read Wil Wheaton's blog. He played the hell out of D&D back in the day, when he was a kid, like we all did. Sure, it wasn't the '74 rules, but it was based directly on them -- it's effectively the same game. Sure closer than AD&D was at the time.

And ol' Wil has, through his celebrity blogger/geek status, gotten to get in on a 4e game with other geeks. And he loves it. He even got out his old Mentzer Basic set and read through it, which shows me that at least he can easily see a continuity between where we as a hobby were and where the current wave now is.

And that's cool. That's okay for them as likes it. They're having fun, and that's what counts.

But then I remember playing 3rd edition. I've had a lot of fun with it, but I also remember the rules arguments, the discussions, the sheer "trying to wrap our aging heads around strange and badly worded concepts" of it all (I still hate the unnecessarily complex "attacks of opportunity crap").

And I can't help but contrast it with the game I'm currently in. Aaron Kesher, over at Sandbox Empire, is the referee -- and I use that word advisedly. No lordly Dungeon Master he. He's just a guy with a world that he lets us visit. It's his sandbox, but it's our playground.

And play is what we do. We discuss rules, but only to see what fits us best as a group. We defer all final decisions to Aaron, because it's his world. We make bad jokes (okay, that's mostly me...). We come up with weird and strange notions (which Aaron makes note of...)

But we don't have the knock-down drag out rules arguments. We really don't.

We also don't have a lot of powergaming. Or any, for that matter. The routine goes like this. "Oh, man, I only have a twelve Strength? And a nine Intelligence?" "Don't worry; stats aren't as important as they are in later editions." "Well, okay..."

Twenty minutes later.

"Yeah, I think I would go ahead and pull the lever anyway -- after all I only have a five Wisdom!"

Players learn to have fun with their characters, warts and all. There's so little given in game terms that the players, highly creative sorts after all, simply have to come up with something interesting, whether background or quirks or philosophy or whatever.

And we're loving it! We don't need piles of rulebooks as high as a dragon's eye. We don't need power attacks or healing surges; we just go in their and risk death for gold and glory.

We also don't need a complex skill set. You want to do something? Go ahead and try! Depending on your stats, your personality, the Referee's whim and quite probably the phase of the moon, it might be easier or harder, but unless it's a specific class skill (such as spellcasting), you at least have a chance. And that's all you really need.

And death happens, don't think otherwise. Each death means a new opportunity to try again with a new character. We've played three times and I'm on my third character. Nobody has gotten beyond level one. But we keep coming back, and we keep having a good time. And if we don't like something in the game, we can always ask the referee to change it. He might not, but we know that we can ask.

So yeah, the kids out there can call me a crotchety old fart if they like. Their words pass by me like a spring breeze. They can have their shiny new 4th edition, too, and more power to them! Anything that keeps them off my old school lawn is fine by me. Plus they help keep my friendly local game store alive, which gives me a place to play. And if we show them how it's done, they might just join us and find out how much fun a good old dungeon crawl can be.

At least that's the way I see it.

Sneerglaw no more

2009-03-16T11:40:00.001-07:00

Sadly, Sneerglaw didn't survive the latest foray into Under Xylarthen's Tower, by the estimable Jeff Rients, as run by Kesher.

Those hobgoblins were just too much.

Although I do have to say, he proved much more valuable to the party dead than alive.

First of all, there were the 755 gold pieces he was carrying (from the last session when we'd found a necklace worth 5000). Then, one of the guys took his blackened Balrog skull back to town and traded it to a Mage there for a scroll of Protection from Evil.

All in all, not to bad a deal.

Mister Procrastinator, that's me!

2009-03-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

So, I said I'd read all these books/magazines I've gotten lately and then probably review them.

And I sort of have reviewed some of them (well, one, but with snippets of another).

I finally started actually reading Empire of the Petal Throne. Section 200, The World of Tekumel, really pulls you in. There's a world here, and it's up to you to explore it. This is not your "standard D&D" (as if that phrase ever meant anything...)

I haven't gotten into the seriously different parts yet, but I like the character generation and combat sections. Spellcasting would be a bit weird, but I'm sure it would be okay once you get used to it.

As far as physical presentation, the pdf of the book itself is pretty good, but I have to wonder about the maps. What size were they originally? They seem to be 11x17 in the pdf, which doesn't print out right on my 8.5x11 printer (even if I just print half, there's a strip down the middle I'm missing). And I'm really not an expert on printing odd sizes from pdfs.

Anyway, there will be more to come on this and other things. Stay tuned!

The challenge is the thing

2009-03-05T10:58:00.000-08:00

From Through Dungeons Deep, page 5:

"A fantasy game isn't played so that a single character wins. No one is trying to beat the others. The idea is to have a good time facing challenges and, hopefully, overcoming them -- all as a group effort. Everyone works together."

Ah, how that last sentence has fallen out in some games. I've seen it happen. I like it better when the group all does work together, but I also know I can't count on it.

from page 15, immediately following an example of play:

"This example showed several things. One is that the player characters never once made a decision based on game rules; their actions were based on the situation described to them, their knowledge of their comrades and common sense. This is what makes role-playing games feel so realistic."

Indeed. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Got the rest of it.

2009-03-05T09:49:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I got Fight On! number 4. (I couldn't wait for the proofreading stage; I ordered as soon as Cal said he had it up on Lulu.) This issue is dedicated to Dave Hargrave and his world of Arduin, so be prepared for some old school gonzo dungeoneering!

And then today, I got Through Dungeons Deep, by Robert Plamondon. I'm happy it's the same book that I remember. The cover illustration proves that; it shows a painter with a smock and floppy beret, standing in front of a magnificent dragon. The painter tells the dragon that he has painted portraits of the most famous dragons in all the land, and now wishes to immortalize him. But before he begins, he will show the dragon a sample of his work.

With the dragon, flattered beyond repair, now eagerly staring at the easel, the "painter" takes the cover off of the mirror of life trapping. Vooop! No more dragon. Then he calls his workmen in and excavates the entire horde, without any combat taking place.

I remembered that story all these years as a really good example of player creativity. It's the kind of thing that I love about old school gaming. (I really don't see a computer game allowing for such a thing. Do you?)

Anyway, once I've read it I'll post a review.

Featherstone review, part 2

2009-03-04T09:58:00.000-08:00

Caveat: I haven't actually read the rest of the book. But I have read much of it and heavily skimmed the rest.

The remaining chapters of the book follow a similar format to Chapter Two, in that they look at a specific part of military history (in Chapter Three, one specific battle), and then describe how to simulate that one the wargames table.

A couple of points need to be stressed here. Neil Thomas's book Wargaming: An Introduction (as I've mentioned before), is a very modern, plug and play kind of wargaming book. It's for two players to sit down and knock some figures together, improvise some terrain, and decide if wargaming is right for them.

Featherstone, on the other hand, is for a club. There is nary a two-player game in the entire book. Each project is for a minimum of three people (assuming one is a referee). In more cases, there are five people (two players on each side and a referee).

Also included are tales from the wargames club (as I believe I mentioned before).

Now, this presents an entirely different picture of wargaming than I've been exposed to. It's more focused on doing it yourself, with the whole club getting involved. The referee is there to settle any arguments, and everybody has a good time whether they win or lose. It is a social thing, with all members drawn together for camaraderie by a shared love of military history, sportsmanship and friendly competition.

This is the exact same sort of atmosphere D&D grew out of. The club Featherstone speaks of is similar to the clubs Dave Arneson and the late great Gary Gygax had.

While I appreciate and enjoy Thomas's book, I'm truly happy to have gotten Featherstone's. And I'm kind of glad I got it now, as opposed to 20 years ago; I really don't think I'd have 'gotten' it back then.

"Where are the rules?" I can hear my 20-years-younger self cry out in anguish. "Aargh! Who wants to put up with all this crap? Just give me some rules and let me get on with it! Ah, screw it, here's a nice board wargame where I can sit down and just play."

The difference, as you can see, is an important one. The Thomas book is for players, who can sit down and get on with things. The Featherstone approach, on the other hand, is for referees, for creators, for those who have the vision to create their own world and invite players to join them in it.

And if it weren't for the Old School Renaissance, I would have missed that point entirely.

Featherstone review, part 1

2009-03-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

I've started reading Featherstone and it has been ... interesting.

Chapter One includes a lot of stuff I found strange, given that he appears to be writing for a first-time wargamer. There are sections on military possibilities, chance cards, time charts, and morale, which are all good. But there is also a long section on surprise and how to simulate this in a game, which I found rather hard going. I'm sure it'll be more clear upon re-reading, but it almost seems as if this chapter is a test. "Make it through this," he seems to be saying, "and the good stuff lies just beyond."

If that was his plan, it worked. I made it through chapter one and on into chapter two, which covered American Civil War battles. Here Featherstone gives a brief description of the conflict, points out how well documented it is (making research easy), and goes through a short but complete description of weapons and uniforms of the opposing forces. With this information, one could buy a few boxes of Airfix or other plastic figures and put together (and paint!) their own armies for a fairly small investment (compared to metal figures anyway).

He also includes rules for such games, which run to about three pages overall, although these pages also include an illustration and a sidebar.

Unlike commercial rule sets, this is just the actual rules. Figure out for yourself how to base your troops, and dig up the historical order of battle -- that stuff isn't here.

Featherstone also shows some of the human face of wargaming, in his vignettes "Down at the Wargames Club".

I am struck by how much the "do it yourself" ethic permeates this book.

Now, for a good basic introduction to wargaming, I'd highly recommend Neil Thomas's "Wargaming: an Introduction", which includes rules and army lists for several periods. It covers some of the same ground as Featherstone, but does it in a much more "starter set" way.

As a comparison many of you will understand: Featherstone is D&D, with supplements. Thomas is the Mentzer Basic Set of D&D, with module B1 included.

I like them both, but the attitude in each is different. And that's okay. Differing attitudes make for a broader coverage of the subject. Each book works, in its own way.

Each book also includes glorious photographs, many in color, of miniatures that are painted far better than I'll ever be able to paint them. But I shall persevere and do my best; my only goal is to not totally embarrass myself with my painting skills. And I think I can do that.

Blogged too soon!

2009-03-02T09:01:00.000-08:00

Here I was, content that I'd gotten one of my books. And about two minutes after I hit "publish post", the UPS guy came with my Amazon order. Game Night by Jonny Nexus, and Space: 1889 by Frank Chadwick (of GDW fame).

I'm Mr. Happy Guy.

First book arrives

2009-03-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I mentioned that I ordered a bunch of books. I got the first one today, and it wasn't even one that I mentioned.

The book is Featherstone's Complete Wargaming, by the redoubtable Donald Featherstone. Published in 1988, the book appears to be a treasure trove of information about the hobby. Now that I've got your attention, I'm not going to talk about it. (Hey, I'm at work, and I only just got it, and I haven't had a chance to even read it yet!)

My gaming, you see, tends mostly toward roleplaying, and that tends mostly to D&D. But I originally wanted to be a wargamer.

The first "adventure game" (to use the broad term) I ever bought was Ogre, by Steve Jackson (yes, that Steve Jackson), published by Metagaming. This would have been in 1979 or so; I'm guessing here because I don't specifically remember.

It would be three or four years before I found someone to play it against. In the meantime, I read what I could in the library about wargames and wargaming. There was a sharp division in print (although I later learned it wasn't that sharp in practice) between the miniatures guys and the board wargamers. I fell into the board wargamer camp because one whole game, complete and ready to play, was available for $20 or less (sometimes much less; Ogre had cost me $2.99).

Whereas with miniatures, you had to go out and

* buy the damned things,
* assemble them,
* paint them,
* base them, and
* find some way of protecting them.

Then you had to do the same for their opponents.

Then you had to beg, borrow or build the terrain for the battle.

And you had to do research so that everything listed above was accurate. (This really would have come first, but I really didn't know what I was doing in those days...)

And then you had to find a place to store all this crap. Yowza.

Well, times have changed. After many, many, many years of "adventure gaming", I'm no longer a footloose wanderer. I have a permanent home, with a basement for my gaming activities, and plenty of places to store stuff. I can even buy or build shelves, should I need them. And because my sweetie is an absolute genius with money, I can actually afford to buy things now and then, like miniatures.

I bought some this weekend. I got a game called Napoleon in Europe at Half Price Books, for $50. It's out of print, so I don't know (or care) what it would have cost new. But it has hordes of plastic figures, around about the 1/72 scale or so.

I can work with this.

I'm finished assembling (but not yet painting) my first complete army. The French Napoleonic army from the book Wargaming: An Introduction by Neil Thomas. Neil presents simple rules for a few different periods and provides army lists to accompany them. The book is readily available (again, at Half Price Books) and seems like a winner.

The only problem was, he uses the "standard" basing conventions for these armies. Close order infantry, for instance, would be four figures on a 40mm by 20mm base, assuming 15mm figures. For 25mm figures, the base frontage would be 60mm.

Well, I just don't have enough troopies to do that. So I tinkered, as wargamers do. I took 3 figures per base, with a frontage of 50mm. They fit, they look okay, and they'll work better on my smallish table.

Plus, I can make two complete armies this way.

I'm going to try some solo wargaming with them, and I'll let you know how that comes out.

And I'll probably review Featherstone's book. Once, y'know, I've actually read it.

Economic Stimulus, from a gaming perspective

2009-02-25T11:03:00.000-08:00

I don't like most of the newer games I see out there. I've tried 4e D&D and was not impressed.

Yeah, sure, I'm just a curmudgeonly old fart. But that's my problem, not yours.

So, anyway, I decided to use my state tax refund to stimulate the economy a bit, gaming-wise. I've ordered stuff from both Amazon and RPGNow, so that I either have now or will soon be getting:

* Empire of the Petal Throne. I've always wanted this game, just to see what all the fuss was about. Got it as a download (the only way I'll ever be able to afford it), along with the maps and the first issue of the Tekumel Journal (or whatever it's called). It'll probably take a whole ink cartridge to print the silly thing out, but we'll see. I might not need to print the whole thing.

* Through Dungeons Deep. I remember reading this book out of the library once upon a time, back in the 80s. It seemed to be more about D&D than AD&D (which is what I played at the time), so I never sought out a copy for myself. But now I really want one, so I'm getting one.

* Game Night, a novel about gods doing a bit of gaming, by Jonny Nexus. Jonny was the guy behind the Critical Miss online fanzine for dysfunctional gamers, which was brilliant. So I have high hopes for this novel. Hey, anything to help out a fellow gamer, right?

* Space: 1889. I dunno, I've just always loved the whole Victorian thing. And the whole Mars thing. So when you mix the two, hold on! This is a game I've always wanted, but couldn't afford back in the day. I'm glad they're reprinting them, but I doubt if I'll buy any of the supplements. Again, we'll see.

I may or may not review any of these here in this blog. Who knows? But I'm happy to be getting them. I'm doing my bit to support the economy, at any rate.

R.I.P. Bahb the Draftee

2009-02-22T16:52:00.000-08:00

Turns out, we didn't continue on in the Ruined Monastery.

So, Kesher rolled on a table that I believe he got from Jeff's Gameblog, one that determine's your character's fate if he was left in the dungeon last time.

And Bahb the Draftee didn't make it out. So sad.

On the other hand, it gave me a chance to play my new character. But first, a little background:

In light of Men & Magic, Page 8, Other Character Types:

"There is no reason that players cannot be allowed to play as virtually anything, provided they begin relatively weak and work up to the top, i.e., a player wishing to be a Dragon would have to begin as let us say, a "young" one and progress upwards in the usual manner, steps being predetermined by the campaign referee."

I hereby present:

Player Character Balrog:

AC: 2
Move: 6/15

Table of Levels:
Hit Magic Immolate
Level Experience * Dice Resistance ** Damage ***
====== =============== ====== ============= ==========
1 0 1 5% 1d4
2 2,500 2 15% 1d6
3 5,000 3 25% 1d6
4 10,000 4 35% 2d6
5 20,000 5 45% 2d6
6 35,000 6 55% 2d6
7 50,000 7 60% 3d6
8 100,000 8 65% 3d6
9 200,000 9 70% 3d6
10 300,000 10 75% 4d6

* I used the same progression as the Magic-User; this is obviously negotiable.

** Calculated as against an 11th level Magic-User; adjust up or down by 5% for each level difference. Thus a first level Balrog (MR 5%) against a 5th level Magic-User (-6 levels) would be 35%.

*** Only if a hit is scored with the whip, so the opponent can be brought into immolation range, or if opponent is already in contact.

(Good thing these buggers don't use magic, eh?)

I named him Sneerglaw, which a friend of mine pointed out only yesterday was Walgreens backwards. (We were passing a Walgreens at the time).

He was a lot of fun to play. Got to immolate a couple of times (I may need to restrict that in number of uses as well as just damage, but for a sandbox game like this, it seems to be working okay.)

The elf wiped out an entire warband of orcs with but a single Charm Person spell.

Basically, we had a great time. In three hours of gaming we defeated all of our foes (except the Wight; we ran from it). We also got a pretty good map made.

We were exploring Under Xylarthen's Tower, by the estimable Jeff Rients of Jeff's Gameblog fame (which you really should check out if you haven't already -- it's one of the best).

Best of all, the whole party survived.

Can't wait until next time!

Weekendy gaming-ness

2009-02-20T14:11:00.000-08:00

(I was going to say "gameyness" but that sounded way too wrong...)

On Sunday I will again be participating in Kesher's Otherness game, up at The Source.

Tomorrow, Herself and I are having people over. This will be the first time we've done so in...well, ever really. No, I tell a lie: One time at our last place we had a couple of people over.

So, we're kinda new at this.

It's just one couple, and the women are good friends who don't see enough of each other. The guy I kinda know, but haven't really spent any time with. But Herself informs me he's a gamer, so it's all good. I'm sure we'll find something to talk about while the women are doing their thing.

I'm just a bit nervous (as well as bored out of my skull at work, where it is glacially slow).

Anyway, I have Sunday to look forward to. Bahb the Draftee lives! But whether I can say that on Monday or not -- now, that's the question...

I Survived Con of the North

2009-02-11T12:22:00.000-08:00

I didn't run anything. I only played one game.

Okay, let me clarify a bit: There's a guy from a local game store who runs a drop-in drop-out D&D 3.5 game at all the local cons. I first encountered this two years ago, at MarsCon. I started a bard (at first level, naturally) and by the time that con was over, he was 3rd.

Well, going into this con he was 4th; coming out, he just made 6th. But that was at 10:00 pm on Sunday.

(I later calculated that I spend 28 hours in the game this weekend. And 26 hours in the hotel NOT in the game...)

Overall, I had a good time. I had hoped to make 6th level, and I did.

But I did rediscover the thing that I don't like about 3.5 (and I hasten to add that this is not necessarily a problem with the rules as written, it's more a problem with me):

It brings out the rules lawyer in me.

Now, I was raised by a pack of wild rules lawyers, back in the early 80's when I got started playing AD&D. If there was a rule, somebody could quote it (I got really good at the rules for two weapon fighting...)

One of the rules I loved best was the one at the very end of the DMG, about how the DM is in charge of the game and should make it his own. We all discussed that, but rarely applied it. We pretty much played by the book.

But there were arguments about rules! Even back then, we argued. (I think that could be the appropriate collective noun for roleplayers. You have a pride of lions, and a murder of crows; well, you could easily have an argument of roleplayers...)

And this weekend, I found myself falling back on the old ways, of reading the rules whenever anybody didn't know exactly how something worked -- the problem is, then I'd want to beat the offending party over the head with the rule. Not very social, I know. And it wasn't even my game, so it really wasn't my place to do so...so I tried not to.

But there was this one guy who really ticked me off. I got into a bad mood and it stayed through most of Monday. (But I'm feeling MUCH better, now!)

Anyway, that's my con report.

Con of the North

2009-02-05T23:17:00.000-08:00

Con of the North is a local gaming convention. No panels, no cosplay, no GOH; just gaming. By gamers for gamers.

I never have my act together in time to definitely say that I'll run something. Last year I pulled a dungeon out of thin air and ran OD&D for some people, but that's about it.

I hope I get in the Holmes game a guy I know is running, but don't yet know. Also, the 3.5 game I often play in should be running, so there will be something. But I'm not sure exactly what.

Anyway, gotta pack; we leave tomorrow and I wanna sleep late.