Swords & Glory, Vol. 2: Tekumel Player's Handbook

Hello, 14 year-old me...

I stumbled across this post on the Tekumel Foundation blog early this last week, on Facebook (I think I traced that back correctly...) This version of Tekumel, published by Gamescience back in 1984, was my introduction to The Good Professor's astounding vision so, needless to say, I was giddy as a novitiate of Dilinala, and eager to get my hands on it.

When I expressed my joy on Facebook, Victor Raymond, one of the, well, founders, I guess, of the Tekumel Foundation pinged me and asked if I'd be interested in reviewing it if he sent me a copy. I've known Victor for five or six years now, and even played in a con game he ran, poking about in the Underworld of Jakalla, so I was more than happy to help him out. Plus, you know, BOOK.

I was 14 in 1984, and a friend of mine mentioned seeing this crazy game--I think a store employee gave him the low-down on the world. Somehow I had some money, birthday maybe, so I ran out and picked it up, opened the box and whole new horizons opened up in my brain.

So, back to the actual book. Physically, it's beautiful--a gorgeous full-color cover and a nice, clean scan. DTRPG's POD services have gotten quite good. The binding is tight is flexible, and the paper good quality. There aren't a whole lot of illustrations (not unusual back then), but the art that is there is excellent--clear line drawings, some by The Good Professor himself.

Before taking a quick look at the game-system itself, it's important to point out this particular volume is vol. 2; the first volume is an almost inexhaustible sourcebook. A third Referee's Guide was advertised but, tragically, never materialized. Maybe the Foundation has notes buried away somewhere...

The rules allowing you to step into Tsolyanu are, well, plentiful. Numerous as the official epithets for the Emperor of the Petal Throne. Is that a bad thing? Not at all--I certainly liked that kind of density when I was 14. Not so much now, but such is age. We did play it back then, a number of times, and my memory is of the system flowing along smoothly. And maybe that's it--there are potential rules for almost anything you can think of, though they're mostly in the form of modifiers. The core mechanic can be summed up as "cross-referencing": You have a number on one axis of a table; you cross-reference it with a number on the other axis, and you arrive at a percentage chance for success. That consistency makes the density bearable. And, of course, you could most likely jettison a lot of it if you wanted to without harming anything.

However, here's the other thing about the rules, something I don't think I quite grokked when I was 14: they add another whole layer of Tekumel, above and beyond the previous sourcebook. Not to wander off into game theory, but there's the idea that some games are built for Simulation, formally defined as facilitating the experience of actually being in a given milieu (this is not the same thing as theoretical Immersion). I bring this up only because easing into these rules (first and foremost the process of character creation) will soon find you on a sakbe road, heading north from Bey Su to Avanthar, hearing the bellowing of chlen, the chatter of merchants, the cursing of soldiers, the chanting of priests, the singing of children, knowing in your heart of hearts that you are destined for greatness, your deeds recorded forever in azure ink on pages of paper-thin gold.

Many thanks to the Scribe of Bey Su...

In the Scribe's own hand...

Lonewolf fan? Look no farther...

I am a Kai Lord. 'Nuff said.

Project Aon has pretty much every Lonewolf-gamebook related thing you could ever want, all in excellent, bookmarked ebooks, all for free, and all with the express permission of the author himself, Joe Dever. Awesome.

Of particular excellence is the Magnamund Companion, a classic example of Gold Age gamebookery. Though, given what PA is offering, we may indeed be headed towards a Platinum Age...

Here are a few images from the Companion:

A timeline of Magnamund

Instructions for building you own Kai Monastery! And then burning it down!

Instructions for building ships! And ramming them into each other!

A cut-out view of the Monastery. You didn't know the Secret Kai Language was Italian, did you...

Awesome color maps of all parts of the continents, uniquely split by what I guess boils down to a giant, salt-water river...

What's particularly cool is Joe Dever's making all of this freely available while still working away on re-publishing the gamebooks in hardcover Collector's Editions as well. The Lonewolf world has gone through several RPG iterations, both from Mongoose. The first was a big d20 tome, The Lonewolf RPG, and the second, after the release of 4e deflated a lot of planned d20 lines from independent publishers, a return to the gamebook's original mechanics: The Lonewolf Multiplayer Gamebook. This line also has the benefit of being entirely illustrated by Rich Longmore of LotFP Carcosa fame.

This first is still easy to get relatively cheaply; the second not so much (in that I'm not willing to pay over $30 for a 72-page book). If anyone out there is interested in unloading the Multiplayer Gamebook volumes  for reasonable sale/trade, just drop me a line!

Oh, and it looks like yet another RPG version is on the way, published by Cubicle 7...

Jack Vance Memorial Game...

Rhialto Is Dead! Long Live Rhialto!

...wherein our Magicians insult twk-men, interfere in local mating rituals, perform amazing feats of regurgitive magic, and inspire filicide, all before dinner.

As the blogosphere duly noted, master author Jack Vance died a bit more than two weeks ago. The weekend following his death, I hosted a Jack Vance Memorial Game session. Inspired by the coincidental discovery of this astounding Vancian Magic Supplement, (which includes the two perfect stories to read before playing in this particular milieu) and using my large collection of Dying Earth RPG rules and supplements as grist for the mill, I decided we`d play what those in the know refer to as a Turjan-level game using the Original D&D rules. 

All players would be Magic-Users of mid-level: Rolling a d6, 1-2: Thaumaturgist; 3-4: Magician; 5-6: Enchanter. Spells were generated using the list of Vancian spells. All were assigned two Vancian taglines (as per the DERPG) and four magical items chosen by me from various DERPG supplements and the OSRIC magic items list. Otherwise they rolled up characters 3D6 in order, HP according to rules, etc. It's worth noting that Grodram secured a STR of 18, and therefore decided to wear platemail and carry a two-handed sword...

In the end, the group of truculent mages consisted of:

• Xamruc the Gourmet, played by Jesse
• Pupericion the Wisemonger, played by Nick
• Grodram the Grisly, played by Sean
• Igrex Zed the Colorful, played by Trevor
• Abador Rex, played by Will

Normally loathe to cooperate, they had banded together to face the threat of Zaramanth, arch-mage of Almery who, displaying perhaps fatal temerity, had decided to locate his new Manse Sabulle, in the Derna river gorge in Ascolais, running through the Great Forest Da. The outline for this potentially radiant stew of conflict can be found in the pages of the first issue of the Excellent Prismatic Spray (known by all pundits and men of style as one of the best gaming magazines ever printed...) As is usual when five erudite and obfuscatory personalities congregate, chaos ensued...

We made it almost exactly halfway through the adventure, and will be finishing up this weekend. Honestly, it ended up being a lot more fun than I`d hoped, especially with me just throwing it at my beleaguered players a few days before we played. Most of them were at most tangentially familiar with the Dying Earth, but with just a bit of guidance, they all jumped in with both feet, slinging spells and taglines right and left.

One of my suggestions, taking my cue from the Rhialto stories, was for each of their characters to consider themselves as the absolute authority on some aspect of magic. E.g., Igrex Zed ended up with the spell "The Gestation of the Ignoble Servitor." He thereby considered himself to be the last word on mephit culture, physiology, psychology, and style. And therefore began working his expertise into every conversation possible. At least until he became distracted by a nubile village maiden, which led to a forest chase and a disagreement with Thrang the ghoul-bear...

I`ve come more and more lately to see ODD as an almost transparent tool or, to paraphrase Jesse, a practical engine of pastiche, and this experience really clarified it for me. Though of course there`s a large dose of Vance in ODD already, especially in the magic, it was effortless to translate DERPG-specifics into ODD terms on the fly. Pure awesome.

Dagger: The RPG for Kids (apparently my kids...)

"Be sure they notice our cool t-shirts!"

My five year-old twins (fraternal, in case you're wondering) had their first RPG experience this last Sunday, playing the excellent Dagger RPG by Brave Halfling Publishing. There's both a free, condensed, b&w version, or a color version with a few more useful pages for all of a $1.00 (worth it.) This is a game made with young kids in mind, and AFAIC, John hit it out of the park with this one.

The game is really a stripped-down version of early D&D--stripped down meaning no stats, only one saving throw, only four character classes (knight/wizard/elf/dwarf). Well, and an optional halfling. I got the twins (Nate and Sam) thinking about their characters the night before, so on Sunday they were ready to go: Nate wanted to play a knight named...Nate. Sam wanted to play an elf named Spike. At this age, they love to write anything, and the character sheets were perfect:



Spike the Elf



Sammy actually first wanted to play a wizard, but we were using the figure stand-ups and map from the Pathfinder Beginner Box, and the only male wizard was an old guy, which wasn't doing it for him. He finally found a pretty bad-ass elf, made even bad-asser by the fact that he had a wand and could cast...MAGIC MISSLE! 



Nate found a stand-up knight with a gigantic shield shaped like a lion, and it was love at first sight.

Nate the Knight



I used descending AC because it was easier to tell them the AC of the monster they were fighting and then have them find the number they needed to roll to hit. I also let them roll two dice for HP and pick the highest one, 'cause I just can't play without at least one house rule. Or, actually, two. It wasn't completely clear to me from the rules how many times a magic-using character can cast their spells, so I limited it to once/spell/encounter. That magic wand needs to recharge, you know...

As for the Adventure, Nate the Knight was summoned to the throne room by King Kesher. He explained that their elfish ally, the Elf Queen, had had her magic bird stolen by Garg the Ogre, who wanted to eat it to gain magical powers. Nate was given the quest to rescue the bird and slay the ogre, which he promptly accepted. Accompanying him would be Spike the Elf, one of the Queen's favored heroes.

At the entrance to Garg's cavern lair, they were taunted by some goblins whom they promtply slew. Faced with the choice of an open doorway or a stairway leading upwards, they chose the stair, went up it, and then crept down a short corridor. Ahead, through an open doorway, they heard some strange scuttling sounds. Spike strode boldy ahead, and his torch revealed a large room completely covered with spider webs, especially the ceiling.

This was interesting in that they weren't sure what to do--there was no immediate threat, only a mystery. I told them they could do whatever they wanted; what did they think their characters would do? So Spike decided to touch a hanging bit of web with his torch. It flamed up and out, and something moved through the webs up above from the middle of the room over towards the door where Nate was standing. The dithered a bit more, so then the (surprise!) spider dropped a coil of webbing around Nate and began wrapping him up.

Though they could now see the spider, Spike decided to shoot an arrow at the strand of webbing and see if he could cut it in half to set Nate free. Um, awesome, so yeah, do it! Roll that twenty-sider! He rolls a 19... 

With Nate now free, they make short work of their foe, and then it was time for them to go over to their grandparents' house, so we paused the adventure. 

It was a blast. Could we have done it using ODD, or B/X, or whatever? Sure. However, Dagger had it all laid out already, all the changes I might've made, and a few good ones I probably wouldn't have. 

The other great thing about the game is it's easy reskinnability (I leave with a neologism...) As John points out in the $1 version, let the kids play whatever they want. Just use a current class as a base and tweak as needed. Play in space. Play in the time of the dinosaurs, pirates, pokemon, whatever. And of course, the rules can be used to good effect in adult groups, too. Simple, fast, flexible. Worth every dollar. :) 



A New Campaign Rises...INTO SPACE!

Feathered hair is a galactic constant...

After much rumination and discussion, in just a bit less than two weeks I'm starting up a Classic Traveller Campaign. I haven't run this game since I was, I don't know, 14? However, I've been getting tons of good advice from Victor Raymond, I've got a passel of excited players, and I'll be ready with my subsectors at launch time!

This whole experience will be different too, in that we're not going to be playing at a game store. My family and I moved into a bigger house last August, so we're going to actually be playing in the (wait for it)... basement. Awesome. On top of that, I mean for this to be an actual campaign in pure sandbox style, but more on that later.

For now, some great CT resources:

• Free Starter Traveller
• Rob Conley's "How to Make a Traveller Sandbox"
• Citizens of the Imperium
• Traveller Forum at Original Dungeons & Dragons

The Medium Is the Message

In an RPG as such, role-playing is the fundamental MEDIUM of the game, just as poker is a card game, and chess is a board-and-pieces game. Without the MEDIUM, you have a different kind of game. Gambling w/o cards, instead using dice,frex, is craps: a dice game. Gambling, as such, is a larger thematic classifier, not a MEDIUM.

So what?

It thus makes no sense for players to be rewarded for role-playing, any more than it would make sense to reward poker players for using cards. If you're not role-playing, you're playing a fundamentally different kind of game.

Now, this doesn't mean that you can't play a different kind of game without role-playing; if you give all your chess pieces names and personalities and have them trash-talk each other while playing, you're still playing a board-and-pieces game. You can remove the role-playing and the MEDIUM remains the same. In exactly this way, you can add miniatures to an RPG without fear of changing it into a war game.

Now, how to define "role-playing", well, that's another whole rant...

Proof of the Existence of Glob!

 Ask, and it shall eventually be given...  Alexandre Ilitchev at Blood Ghost has made my dreams come true with Adventure Time: The RPG!

The Good: It's freaking awesome.

The Bad: It's a full-color pdf, and so essentially unprintable on a home printer (well, my home printer anyway...) It also has no bookmarks.

The Controversial: It's based on 4e.

Now, that's probably only controversial to the Old Skool crowd I run with, most of whom have no real use for 4e. Actually, it'll probably be more disappointing than controversial. I myself have an on-again/off-again fascination with Type IV, especially in its Essentials manifestation, so it doesn't particularly bother me.

On the contrary, I think it's a sorely-lacking example of how flexible 4e can be. This game really strips the system down to its fundamentals, and shows (also for the first time) that 4e does humor with no problem. Frex, if you play a Candy Person (and of course you can), your racial power is "Candybalism", which allows you to break off and eat a piece of yourself in order to immediately use a healing surge. Completely. Algebraic.

There's also an online Character Generator, which allowed me to create Sweet Cheeks the Awesome, Sticky Bun Warrior of the Candy People, in all of two minutes.

Do yourself a favor and check it out. If you're not familiar with Adventure Time, well, stop living in a cave and join us in the Land of Ooo; you won't regret it. Well, at least not as long as you have a sense of humor...

You know what Time it is!

D&D Next Playtest, or A Goblin Bloodbath...

Hey! Three Little Brown Books!

Well, after one failed attempt, we finally organized a D&D Next playtest! Will, of course, needed booklets, and so not only hosted us, but set the tone with his old school rendition of the newest school. Awesome.

The Crew

From left to right: Chad, Will, Sean, and Susan. My awesome Brave Halfling gaming box is standing in for me...

The Characters

• From left to right: Rhynar the dwarf Cleric of Moradin; 
• Parsley, the elf Wizard; 
• Darro, the halfling Rogue;  
• Slayer the dwarf Fighter.

As usual, I couldn't keep names straight, and immediately starting referring to Rhynar as Rhino, and Darro as Pedro, but there you go.

The Adventure
In which goblins are taught the futility of their existence...


Our intrepid heroes enter the realm of the Caves of Chaos. While deciding which cave to approach, Rhynar feels a greater evil emanating from the caves at the far end of the ravine. Sensibly, they decide to enter a cave near the mouth of the ravine...

They immediately encounter a goblin patrol, and almost as immediately obliterate it. As the red fog clears, they hear the flat-footed approach of more goblins, and so duck down a dead-end corridor, hoping to find a secret door. Parsley comes up empty, and so as a clump of goblins at the far end of the corridor notice them, our heroes open fire with crossbow, sling, and magic missile. Goblins die. Slayer and Rhynar rush forward; Darro ducks and weaves through the fog of war. More goblins die. Some goblins run away. All is momentarily quiet.

Not for long. A door is heard crashing open. Heavy footsteps and basso-profundo rumblings approach. Our heroes ready themselves and behold a sight they'll not soon forget: A naked ogre, bilious yellow in color, with violet eyes and a great shock of lank black hair, shouldering a big chunk of wood. He sees Parsley and smiles hideously. "Ellllllllff..." he grumbles, and lumbers forward.

A furious battle ensues in which heroic tactics win the day: Parsley shows why it's so vital to master cantrips, and locks the brute in place with Cone of Frost. The dwarves wound and are wounded, and Darro stays out of the ogre's line of site and pelts him with sling bullets. He begins to break free of the ice, and is promptly frozen in place again. Rhynar ends things with a righteous warhammer bringing justice to ogre genitalia. The creature collapses, and Darro finds himself crushed beneath what is later termed "the flaccid ogre bulk." Thankfully he suffers little more than bruised dignity. The party takes a short rest to allow Rhynar to shake out his battered shield arm, and then push on.

Locating the ogre's aromatic den, they poke around and quickly leave with a large sack of coins and an unopened cask of fine brandy. A bit farther on they find a room which seems to be full of goblins. They confirm their suspicions by throwing a torch into the darkness, which is greeted by squeals of panic and flight of arrows. Our heroes charge in, the dwarves leading the way, and indeed find a roomful of foes. Battle is joined and many more goblins die. Quickly. Gruesomely. However, Parsley is knocked unconscious one moment, only to be reinvigorated by Rhynar's healing chant. He leaps up and brains a goblin with his staff, then starts melting off faces with Shocking Grasp. Rhynar plays the knightly defender to the hilt, interposing his shield between friends and foes, saving Parsley and Darro several times from potential injury. Slayer, well, slays. A lot. Then the Goblin King rushes into the room with his retinue.

Hurling a spear, it strikes the already wounded Slayer in the chest, knocking her unconscious. Parsley shouts out the runes of Sleep, and casts his glittering dust over the newly arrived foes. Darro ricochets a sling bullet off the the King's helmet. Four of them collapse in slumber, but the King, while shaking his head groggily, pushes forward. Parsley and Darro drag Slayer out of the room while Rhynar goes into pure defense mode, protecting his companions with a fighting withdrawal. The King presses his attack furiously, but simply can't break through Rhynar's defense. Out in the hallway, Slayer thrashes back to life, her enforced short rest bringing her back to groggy life. As Rhynar and the Goblin King back out into the corridor, Darro ends the fight with a well-aimed sling bullet.

Realizing that both the giant sack of coins and the cask of brandy are still in the room, our heroes show their true mettle and rush back in, suffer a few wounds, but secure their loot. With resources running low, they exit from the ogre's cave and head back to some semblance of civilization...

We take confidentiality very seriously. Pizza, too.

The Summary
We had a blast! Though in essence it wasn't anything more than a smash-and-grab killfest, it was really fun.

Thoughts:

• The Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic
• Simple, elegant, and completely useful. In fact, we used it constantly. Even if I never played D&D Next again, I would steal this mechanic.
• Backgrounds and Themes
• Simple and colorful. They functioned as easy to grasp hooks for character personality. Slightly confusing was the fact that the Rogue had both a Scheme and a Theme, but I imagine that'll shake itself out. The potential for easily individualizing characters without needing to spend a half-hour poring over lists of feats and skills is huge.
• Ability checks, saving throws, etc
• Easy-peasy. I'm a huge fan of the fact that all checks are now tied to ability scores. I find it intuitive, and honestly, is something I've been house-ruling almost since I started playing with Moldvay Basic.
• Skills 
• Here's the cool thing: Though all the characters had skills tied to backgrounds and themes, none of the skills were described in the accompanying rules---and it didn't matter. There was no question of how or when to use them.
• Characters
• We all agreed that every character had cool stuff to do out of the gate. I think it's arguable the Wizard may be a bit over-powered to begin with (does he really need magic missile AND shocking grasp, for instance?), but that'll likely work itself out, too. I love that the Fighter with the Reaper theme does damage even when he misses. Awesome.
• Hit points/dice
• Though it took me a bit to overcome the gravitational pull of past-edition expectations, I have to say I really like how hit points are being handled. It seems to me a well-considered blend of AD&D and 4th Ed. healing surges. And even the rules as they stand describe the whole concept of hit points in the clearest language since the AD&D DM's Guide: They are an abstract measurement of overall ability and endurance. Down to half your HP's, and you show no physical damage. Less than half, some cuts, bruises, abrasions. Zero, you're knocked unconscious. Below zero, someone got through your defenses and you are dying. IMO, this makes the idea of characters taking a short rest to shake off the battle makes complete sense, especially since they can only recover a number of times equal to their HD (level), and they only recover a random amount based on that class HD. So, a Wizard can take a short rest to recover HP's, but will most likely always recover less than, say, a Cleric or Fighter.
• Flow of play
• This whole session really felt no different to me than playing ODD or AD&D. In fact, since characters had some more options, it was in ways more fun. It was fast, and encouraged DM rulings and player innovation. Works for me.
• Experience
• With the rules as they stand, I have no idea how experience is being generated, except that at this point, characters only get XP for overcoming foes. There's actually very little monetary treasure in the whole adventure. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but it is confusing to me why, for instance, the Goblin King was worth 400 XP, and ogre only 350, when the ogre was definitely a more dangerous foe (with twice the HP's!) I'm willing to let that sit for now, but it was interesting that all the characters left with XP's putting them halfway to 2nd level.

If it isn't obvious, I think WotC is heading in the right direction. I'm pumped for our next session (though I'm also in the midst of moving, so it might be a few weeks...) I'm also really interested to see the next iteration of the rules, which will reportedly cover character creation.

Dim Carcosa, or darn that Shub-Niggurath...

...in dim Carcosa.

About 10 days ago I managed to run a G+ session of Geoffrey McKinney's Supplement V: Carcosa, now available in a gorgeous edition bound in human skin...er, some sort of extremely tactile substance. Sadly, my own copy is a printed-out version of the original edition, as it were, but as soon as I become independently wealthy, I'll spring for the Finlandian volume.

I've wanted to game in Carcosa ever since it first came out, but seeing as how at the time my oldest son was usually playing in our sessions, I needed to bide my time. G+ sessions are by there temporal nature (for me at least) kid-unfriendly, so I finally got my wish. I grabbed the Carcosan Grimoire (extremely helpful, and I believe its contents are included in the current edition), hunted down my copy of Fight On! #4, containing Geoffrey's Carcosan intro adventure (also now included in the revised edition), and was ready to go. Will and Shane joined me online, having already created basic characters (both Fighting Men--no Sorcerers this time out). I decided on the ODD rules, but with the stat bonuses from Labyrinth Lord, just 'cause. I also started them both out at second level, since there were only two of them. We Carcosa'd them by choosing color and, from the Grimoire, by adding names and a specific item of clothing for each, which gave us:

• He of Mercy, Neutral Green Warrior, wearing Translucent Chains. (Will)
• The Unanswerable Wind, Lawful Ulfire Warrior, wearing Precious Chains. (Shane)

I started them right on the southern edge of the desert, spending the night in burnt-out ruins while in search of treasure. They swiftly encountered a gigantic flying edifice shaped like a kneeling woman clutching at her veiled face, which loomed out of the black night and settled next to their campsite. A being inside sent them on a dream flight across the desert and into caves on the far side, where they viewed a disturbing statuette of greenish-black stone, somewhat reminiscent of a Great Old One whose name rhymes with "Hulu". The entity suggested they retrieve the statue, and waking to find the edifice gone, they decided to comply.

Thence followed the gathering of dried Black Lotus leaves from an enigmatic statue; a quick and brutal fight with some yellow cannibals; more antagonism involving White Lotus zombies and the death of The Unanswerable Wind; the discovery of a heretofore unnoticed captive of the zombies, a Chaotic Blue Warrior named Uttermost Grace of War; the drinking of a potion in an alchemist's lab which promptly turned UGoW into a green man (much to the delight of He of Mercy); an avoidance of a group of Deep Ones; and the final death of both Warriors in battle with a foul Spawn of Shub-Niggurath in the form of a bone-white arachnid creature with burning yellow eyes and plethora of small fanged mouths as they back-tracked through a storage room. Thus the adventure ended, though not before rolling up two new characters:

• The Uttermost Ravishment, Orange Warrior, wearing a Leather Robe
• Shining Life of the Eyes, Orange Warrior, wearing Tight Weapons (?)

Immediate synopsis: We had a blast! It's such a weird setting, I don't think any of us really knew what to expect from encounter to encounter. The wacky dice-rolling turned out to be a lot of fun. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll use this type of dicing whatever version of ODD I'm running. It's great because it really makes combat uncertain and actually exciting, and you're throwing all the dice all the time, which is always fun.

I'm excited to run it again, and in the quest to find some character sheets, I was tipped off to a limited-edition Carcosan game-aid, which I'll share more about as soon as it arrives in the mail...

Target 20: Me likey...

This post at the Aspiring Lich led me to this document: Target 20. I feel pretty sure I've read it before, but must not have been in the right mindset to appreciate it. I really like it--it pretty much solves all my statistical and neurotic hesitations about ditching to-hit charts and not liking ascending AC (and getting my kid to practice adding on the fly!)

The only weak spot seems to be thief skills. I can see how it works for almost all of the skills as they stand except for Climb Walls, which starts out much higher to begin with. Maybe give that particular skill a +3 modifier to the roll?

Chainmail as RPG

On the proverbial spur-of-the-moment, I've decided to run Chainmail as an RPG tonight on G+, from 10pm-midnight, CST. This will be "straight" Fantasy Supplement, with a few things added in from the main rules (arrow fire, morale, I think that's it...) Each Hero or Wizard gets 3HD of followers, human or otherwise (HD here meaning how many Men  they fight as)

We'll see how it goes! :)

(and no, that's not me in that picture...)
(and yes, it was very difficult not to use a picture of someone wearing a chainmail bikini...)

If you're interested, post here, email me or add me on G+.

GESTALT

First of all, unrelated, this is awesome: The Friar

A lot of weird images come up when you type the word "gestalt" into Google... Anyhow, this one fits what I'm talking about. I think.

The discussion going on around DnD Next or 5E or whatever has been nagging at me. I really like the idea that it sounds like they're actually going to pay attention to the history of the game and try to unite all editions in play, so a 1Eish character could adventure right alongside a 4Eish character. Fabulous. I signed up to playtest, and will do so in good faith. However, I've been wondering if it really needs to be so involved. This came to me yesterday when rereading some forum and blog posts about how M.A.R. Barker of Tekumel fame used to run his games. Players would have some details for their characters, and then when conflict arose, they'd simply roll a d20, and Prof. Barker would let them know what happened. The whole mechanic was the higher you rolled, the closer you came getting your way. This was modified by the context. You can't really get simpler than this.

So, based on that thinking, here's a little unifying (as yet untried) system to bring all versions of DnD (and since I've been reading Hackmaster 4e lately, that too!) into the same game.

GESTALT
Unbelievably, this word is not an acronym. I'm using it with two assumptions in mind:

1. The "whole" of DnD is a mindset or experience that can encompass all editions.
2. In a complex field of contextual factors, a meaningful result can be focused upon with the insertion of a simple randomizing lens. :)

Character Creation/Importation

• Describe your character in no more than three sentences or no more than 30 words.
• List an Object, a Belief, and a Goal unique to your character.
• Note your level
• List anything else you consider to be important: Spells, abilities, skills, powers, whatever.

Conflict

• Resolved with a d20.
• In general, any character adds their level to any dice roll they make. The DM may modify this based on the conflict and the particular character involved.
• In opposed conflicts, the DM adds the HD (or some other appropriate number) to her roll.
• Any character aiding another adds a +2 to their roll.
• The DM can/should liberally address contextual modifiers, from +1 to a +5
• These contextual modifiers should mostly come from everything listed out on the character card, as well as from how the player decides to use the environment. Awesomeness should always be rewarded.
• Non-opposed: I.e., jumping over a chasm; checking for a secret door; etc. The player rolls a d20, +/- modifiers. High is better. 
• DM "gestalts" results.
• Opposed: I.e., you know, fighting, mostly. Player states what they want to do; both player and DM roll d20s, +/- any modifiers. DM gestalts the results based on the difference between the rolls.
• The trick with combat, especially, as a player, is to specifically describe what you're doing in order to convince the DM to give you positive modifiers. Tactics and Awesomeness will win the day, especially against stronger foes.
• Trying the exact same thing when it didn't work the first time should give you at least a -2 modifier.
• An opposed roll for a spell/power is to see how close it comes to achieving its listed effects, which of course will need to be folded into the overall gestalt.

I think that's about it.

So yeah, Will, if you're reading this, this is what we're gonna play.

Oh, and here's the other image I almost used:

It might actually represent the core of the idea better:

"Is it a rabbit? Is it a duck? Who the hell cares---it's one weird looking creature and it wants our BRAINS!"

Ryth Chronicle: Cover-to-Cover #1

                     Bookletized version, complete with my scribbled notes...

And so it begins--my most ambitious blogging project to date. I've recently been blown away by The Ryth Chronicle document that recently surfaced. It's an amazing source of insight into the earliest days of the hobby, and it really deserves a thorough discussion. My plan is to go through it cover-to-cover, usually covering a few pages at a time. I'll be posting images from the document that connect to the main point of the given post--the document is, of course, approaching 40 years old, and is, I believe, a scan of a photocopy, so don't expect sterling resolution. If anyone can offer insight about how to clean up the jpegs I'm snapshotting out of Reader and editing with Photogallery, I'd appreciate it!

Front Page

We'll start out with the introduction, right on the front page. This is a thing of beautiful utility--it sets up the whole framework for play in four short paragraphs, including all those things that many DMs (well, okay, me anyway) hand-wave:

• Class-specific lodging
• Taxes (based on your status, i.e., XP!)
• Immediate adventuring destinations

"...murky Fenmarch, where few men travel these days."

"Overlooking the road lie the ruins of the once-proud Tar Morgard, a fortress built by the Great Kings long ago. Now the ruins hold only the dread Weir burrowed into the mountain by generations of evil beings. Minstrels sing of vast wealth and powerful treasure hidden in the dark depths of the Weir, but few dare venture there, and fewer still return."

Alright. I know exactly how to set up my Adventurer, and where to go from there. Plus there's an echo of the famous "...vast, ruined pile" quote from the LBB. Oh, and has been pointed out elsewhere, it's called a "Dragons and Dungeons Campaign". :)

Houserules
Next, logically, come the houserules for this particular campaign. The most fascinating thing to me is the Combat Hit Matrix:

It's a bit hard to read, but it first adjusts AC targets by weapon used. I don't think these guys had Chainmail, nor do I think (given the details of the first character report on the next page, and the fact that the Hit Die Roll Adjustment doesn't include thieves) that they had Greyhawk. It's a fairly logical extension of the combat system, especially if you know anything at all about how weapons and armor actually work, but I'm curious where it came from .

Next is the really interesting part, the "Hit Die Roll Adjustment for Degree (Level) of Attacker". It appears they immediately de-matrixed the combat matrix into a simple hit bonus dependent on level. Sound familiar? So much for the innovations of the d20 system! (okay, that's an oversimplification, but still...) They tinkered a bit by letting everyone increase in smaller increments over levels (as opposed to the combat table which only grants bonuses every three/four/five levels), but that's a pretty common houserule even these days. I'd use this table as it stands.

Current Questions for John and Len

1. Did you guys have the Chainmail rules?
2. When did you start using Greyhawk?
3. Why did you decide to make these particular changes?

If anyone else has questions, just add them to the comments.

Old School Archaeology: The Chronicle of Ryth

                        Chronicles of Ryth pdf at risusmonkey.com


Run, do not walk, to Risus Monkey and download this document. Now. Do you have it? I'll wait...

Okay, what you are holding is an ORIGINAL CAMPAIGN CHRONICLE FROM 1975-6. And it's 80 pages long. Published as a series of newsletters by John Van De Graaf and Len Scensny, these guys bought their white box straight from the hands of Gary himself. They concocted (of course!) a few house rules, and then began running and fairly exhaustingly, well, chronicling their multiple-GM, 40+ player campaign.

Yeah. You read that correctly. 40+ players.

I'm going to begin doing a cover-to-cover of this historic text in the next few days here on this blog. Until then, do yourself a favor and read it. No, actually, don't just read it--experience it.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG---go get the beta!

Goodman Games had finally released the beta version of their long-discussed Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. Is it the Holy Grail of Old School Gaming? Is it just hyperbolic sound and fury, signifying nothing?

Only one way to find out.

Two Old, One New...

It's so freaking impossible to keep up with the flood of goodness being produced these days, but here are a few I've had my eye on:

Beasts, Men, & Gods

This venerable game had approximately 1,000 copies in print. My friends and I, back in maybe '83 or '84 somehow got ahold of a copy and played the crap out of it. I think, at the time, we really loved the piecemeal armor system and the more detailed combat (well, more detailed than AD&D.) It's recently been reprinted by the author in the first, at least as far as I know, successful petitioning of an original author by a fan--the Vault Keeper. This enthusiastic Italian has actually been digging up a bunch of interesting lost RPGs; it's definitely worth your time to poke around through his blog.

You can by your own, brand-new, almost facsimile, copy of a piece of RPG history here:

Beasts, Men, & Gods

There's a sizable (60 pg.) pdf preview, so you can get a pretty good sense of what it's like. I would like to point out here that, not only do I have a vintage copy, it's signed by the author. :)

Oh, and there's also a strange Russian novel by the same name...

Holmes 77

The excellent Professor Thork has put together a "retro-edition" of the original Holmes Blue Book rules for Basic D&D. There have been a number of expansions for these rules floating around for a few years now, but Holmes 77 puts it all together in one document, altering as little as possible. Now you can get your Holmes on from levels 1-9 and beyond!

Holmes 77

On a related Holmsian note, the industrious Zenopus has put together and is rapidly updating a Holmes Basic website. Go there now.

Mystery Men

John Slater, from deep within The Land of Nod has produced, as far as I know, the first OSR superhero game. Grounded solidly in class and level D&D, it is a fascinating, incredibly inventive game. One of the cooler features is that the GM picks a starting Experience level for the campaign. All characters then start with that fund of XPs to "buy" superpowers. Any left over end up being added to actual XP, so a character with just a couple of powers can easily end up starting higher than first level. This is so simple and elegant a solution to both how to do superpowers within this particular framework of rules and how to give players an option to start higher than first level. The trade-off choice is beautiful.

Mystery Men

Oh, and did I mention it's FREE?

And, since it's made by John, the art and layout are superb. I will make time at some point to play this game!

Legends & Labyrinths Playtest, Episode One: Heart of the Storm

Though faced with rain, hail, and tornadoes, our playtest of George Strayton's swiftly developing Legends & Labyrinths rules went on at the Fantasy Flight Games Event Center. We only had to evacuate to the warehouse for about 15 minutes. :) Thor is obviously watching out for Secret Fire Games! One of my players is a member at the Event Center now, too, so we got to game up in the mezzanine, which was pretty cool. Like playing in an attic instead of a basement...

The players were:

The characters were:

Nicker the Nimble, Dwarven Holy-Man
Though weak and uncoordinated (obviously not suited for being dwarven warrior!), his robust health kept him alive long enough to join the priesthood. Though insightful, his offensive nature sometimes makes communication difficult.

Talia the Clever. Or the Beautiful. Or the Nimble. Or the Mysterious. Or any combo of the above, Elven Thief
Though weak and delicate, her nimbleness has gotten her out of many a situation in the course of her scoundrel life.

Bahb the Enigmatic, Human Fighter
Muscular, robust, and agile, Bahb is a competent warrior of few words. A bit dense and foolhardy, others sometimes mistake his incomprehension as deep reflection, especially when he decides to speak up and use his natural persuasiveness to convince others he knows what's going on.

Sargon the Inquisitive, Arch-Mage-in-Training, Human Magic User
Robust, brilliant, and persuasive, Sargon leaves no stone unturned. Nor soil untasted. His wizardstaff, topped with brass human hand, only adds to his formidable appearance.

Snakefoot the Unblinking, Elven Thief
Though delicate and occasionally foolhardy, his physical adroitness leaves his foes wondering just where that arrow came from...

Initial Cool Thing: I just made up these descriptions by using only the ability score descriptors. They immediately bring the characters to life! I could've kept going by working in their personality traits (one each for Good, Neutral, and Evil), but I wanted to get this posted today... Players were using them throughout the session in reference to one another.

Character creation took awhile, but it turned out we were using two versions of both rules and character sheets, so that slowed things down. Once solidified, I don't see making a character taking more than about 15 minutes. Once characters were set, we didn't have a whole lot of time to explore McKracken's Folly, the insta-dungeon I created for this session (more on that in a later post.)

Situated in the skull of a titan defeated long ago by the Arch Mage McKracken, they discovered a circular trap door on the inside dome. Some careful examination of the ground revealed a metal rectangle which, when depressed, extended into steps leading up to the door, each one embossed with the McK sigil. One by one our intrepid adventurers walked up the stairs and entered the trap door and went up the ladder rungs on the revealed shaft, only to find themselves, after a moment of disorientation, climbing down instead. This was a bit too much for Nimble, and he lost his grip. This necessitated him making a Luck roll. Having taken the Special Quality, "Lucky Son of a Bitch", he had a +3 to this roll and made it, being jerked up short by his holy symbol getting jammed in a ladder rung.

A bit of exploration of the dungeon at the bottom of the shaft led to one encounter, with a necrophidius:

If you recognize this from the Fiend Folio (though this is a different illustration), you made your Lore roll. I used both the Fiend Folio and the 4e Essentials Monster Vault for monsters. There are great quick and dirty conversion rules for both 1e and 4e in the rules, and I made liberal use of them.

The scouting elves heard this horror at a corridor t-junction but, deciding to leave well enough alone, they continued on ahead. The other three characters were subsequently hypnotized by it's swaying, lambent eyes until the elves, running back, peppered its skull with arrows, shattering it and destroying the beast.

Attacks in L&L are interesting, in that they currently combine a d20ish system of adding adjustments to a d20 attack roll with cross-referencing that number on an level-determined Attack Matrix with their foe's appropriate defense. Armor is, of course, a defense, with higher being better, but so are Fortitude, Reflex, and Will, which confused me at first. Part of my confusion came from the current lack of an explicit statement about this in the text; obviously a beta-draft issue. Once I figured it out, I just assigned the necrophidius a level for his hypnotism and made an attack roll on the Matrix, no problem.

I was going to go into more detail about the system and how it worked, but correspondence and George's blog have shown the rules are rapidly evolving into a non-OGL framework with some really intriguing differences. I'm excited for the direction it's going, and am eager for our next playtest session (scheduled on June 12.)

Legends & Labyrinths Playtest!

This is rather late notice, but I'll be running the first of two planned beta-test rules playtesting sessions for George Strayton's Legends & Labyrinths this Sunday. We'll be at the Fantasy Flight Games Event Center, from 11:00-1:00, possibly up in the mezzanine.

As always, it's an open-table game, so if you're in the area (Minneapolis / St. Paul), feel free to drop by and join in!

Hey, I get to PLAY!

So, I'm a lucky boy. The only player who's been to EVERY Otherness session, Will, aka "coffee", is all primed and ready to go running Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and I get to play! He's even got the deluxe boxed edition, which is, in a word, gorgeous. James Raggi, you've set the bar high.
.
If anyone wants to join in, the date set is Sunday, November 21st from 12-4 at The Source Comics and Games. You can let me know about it here, let Will know about it over at his blog (linked above), or just show up---we run things by the Free Campaign philosophy: whoever shows up gets to play.

I'll obviously be posting more about the session and the rules after we play, but I'll say this immediately---the free  Rules and Magic books available on the LotFP site are clearly written and thoughtfully laid out. I mean, I don't expect much when something's free, but even these free, art-less versions are laid-out, as opposed to just dumped from word processor into a pdf.

I dig it.

primordial_odd: A Work in Progress

Alright, here's the newest iteration of my attempt to write a simulacrum of the Fantasy Supplement from Chainmail:                                   


primordial_odd


There are still lots of holes, but I've made a couple of breakthroughs that I'm pretty excited about.    

1. I replaced the attack and defense terminology of Light/Heavy/Armored with Cunning/Fierce/Masterful. The more I studied the original tables, the more it became obvious to me that they really weren't so much about armor as they were a gestalt of force and skill. This is especially obvious when you look at the way the terms are used for monsters in the FS. That kind of abstractness appeals to me, so I just pushed it one step further. Armor as such still matters in the Dueling Table, but not at all in the Combat Table.
2. Which leads me to my next breakthrough, which is the, well, not so much re-creation but interpretation of the three main combat tables in the FS, the Combat Table (kept the same name), Man-to-Man (now Dueling), and the Fantasy Combat Table (now Wondrous Combat). I made some significant changes, especially in the Dueling Table, but overall I think they closely adhere to the spirit of the originals. I can honestly say when I was madly designing "indie" games three and more years ago, I would laughed out loud if you'd told me I'd design a game with three good-sized, cross-referenced, combat resolution tables---the world is funny like that, I guess. :)

For the tables themselves, which still woefully lack any sort of instructions or examples, so here's a short crib:

• The Combat Table uses single d6s, and the formula is dice/rank(target number to score a hit); e.g., 1/2(6) means one die/two ranks, with a 6 needed to score a hit.
• The Dueling Table uses 2d6, and at least right now, the low rank in the duel is subtracted from the high rank. The high rank in the duel uses that "duel number" as the number of 2d6 combos he rolls. The low rank in the duel rolls their rank, unless it's higher than the duel number, in which case they use the duel number, too. Opponents of the same rank each roll one 2d6. E.g., a 4th rank character faces off in a duel against a 1st rank character. 4-1=3, so the high rank rolls 3 2d6s combos, while the low rank character only rolls 1d6. If the low ranking character was 2nd rank, then both opponents would roll 2d6.
• The Wondrous Combat table uses single rolls of 2d6 for each opponent. Damage can be dealt in one of two ways: each successful roll equals one hit of damage, or a successful hit equals an actual kill---that'll learn ya' to take the Wondrous lightly! The scores needed to hit are listed, for instance, as "7/5". The character's score to hit is on the left, the monster's on the right.
• Characters themselves have hits equal to their rank. They can actually be knocked down to zero hits and keep fighting. Once below zero, they make a Saving Throw---if they make it, they're unconscious, if they fail it, well, even heroes die. After a combat, all hits are restored. If knocked down past zero and only rendered unconscious, when revived, hits will go back up only to the character's rank minus one, until the Adventure's over (or they spend a few days resting.)

I'm happy to field questions, and if someone's willing to give the combat tables a spin, well, that'd be fabulous. I'll be playtesting it this Sunday for Otherness: Session 13. Already sounds like we're going to have weird characters, so stay tuned...