Tran Eskoor an Doon

Noodan Rookse Nart

2011-07-19T22:38:00.000-07:00

Been spending A LOT of time on the internet recently. I would like to think that this qualifies me as a power user, but there's a connotation of productivity there that is misleading in this case. Digging around Google's basement and work shed, pretty interesting, and tonight was also one the most entertaining nights at K&K Alehouse. Funny conversations.

Anyway, I have resigned myself to utter and complete google fanboyism. I am google's man now. One consequence of this capitulation is that I am going to stop writing at Tran Eskoor an Doon and start a blog under my real actual human being google account, to whatever extent blogging comes from these quarters - it certainly has tapered off of late for me anyway... 204 posts over the last few years, oldest post from 1/19/09.

I'll post the new address once I get it set up.
In the meantime - Great Googs to ya!

Did I watch that? Yes I did.

2011-07-08T19:24:00.000-07:00

I've broken the long running media block. I mentioned Netflicks - lot of things on there. So NOW I know why everybody was ape-shit about Firefly! There were three Flying Circus episodes I'd not caught before. Since Conan the Barbarian was not up for streaming, I threw down with She. It was a suggestion and I always do what they tell me.

Wow. She. Some people actually made this movie! Someone with some money thought it sounded like a good idea - and then went ahead and produced it! Amazing stuff, B-movie bad style + big dose of really intense 80's dumb.

Stand tall Aldeboran!

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

Since the comments are off over there, gotta post here instead - Don't go Limpey! I remember when people were giving you shit because you posted about politics. Giving you shit, that is, on your blog about what you were writing on your blog. Your blog is one I have personally really appreciated both for your D&D-think and (maybe even moreso) the non-D&D.

If you go nuke, won't hold it against you. Can't blame you for not wanting to deal with more assholes than necessary, and blogging is a choice - not blogging is an easy way to cut yourself off from a planet's worth of jerks. It's hard to ignore them when you give them a platform to use (that is, comments on the blog) - but I do sincerely hope you stick around.

Did I read? Yes I did!

2011-07-06T22:49:00.000-07:00

Well - I did read some books last month (decided to re-read Song of Ice & Fire in light of the next book apparently coming out soon, and the TV show and whatnot). I'm still enjoying the books, but don't really have a lot to say about them. It's like a soap opera with swords essentially - and I don't necessarily mean that in a derogatory way. These are the days of our lives... (also read a Horseclans book after seeing many internet people say they liked them. jury's still out.)

Didn't read much the last few months, not post much here mainly because I was in the middle of studying for a certification exam. 4 month class leading to a certification. Basically when I was not studying I was not able to get past the feeling that I should be studying, so I did not have much brainspace for gaming and such. Good news is that I have have letters after my name now! (those are CPC-A). The idea now is that I go out and get a big-boy job. After most of a lifetime working in kitchens, this concept is appealing to me, professional development. One of those months involved a wisdom tooth blowup and a big month for freelance writing (sorely needed).
--------------
Additionally, broke down and got netflicks. First film watched? They Live. The fight scene based around one guy wanting the other guy to put on a pair of sunglasses is one of the best things in movies. Ever. Carpenter is a primitive.
--------------
Did get some of my first deep Runequest reading in there somewhere though. I was pretty blown away. Cults of Prax, Runemasters, and Dorastor. Looking forward to reading more, but that stuff is pretty pricey - also got my first look at a Hackmaster rule book. I've ended up with some of the monster books over the years, but never seen any of their actual rule implementation of 1e. It is funny that the DMG is largely organized in the same way as 1e's DMG - transferring semi-instinctive knowledge is a pretty neat trick(like where the gem tables would be found for example, or rules for spying missions by feel of page thickness).
--------------
Since I'm not taking a dump on anyone else's internet life with this post, I'll bypass making a pittance to the brawler right now...

Scattered thoughts on DCC RPG

2011-06-11T03:29:00.001-07:00

I've not sat down and rolled up any mooks with it, let alone played it, but here's my read-through impressions.

CORE MECHANIC & EDITION DIFFERENCES
- Games are games and I don't have a knee-jerk hatred of the core mechanic. Much of my early gaming was with Tunnels and Trolls, and I was grateful to have a default method to resolve actions. When 3rd edition D&D came out I thought that the Fortitude/Reflex/Will saving roll categories were one of the better 'innovations' of the game as regards ease-of-play. So this is not a 'deal-breaker' for me.

- It does take out of 3e iterations some the things that I did not like (feats, skills, etc), and leaves in some that I did like.

- Funky dice? Why not?

CHARACTERS
- Luck. Like it. Of course, players will likely 'forget' that their score is low in tight circumstances. I'd also probably ignore the 'sacrifice luck for +6 to roll' thing. My past experience with Fate/Hero/etc points has left a bad taste in my mouth.

- I like that demi-humans learn their native language as an exception. Humanocentrism FTW!!!

- In principle, I like the whole "roll up a bunch of farmers & cross your fingers" thing. Early attrition is a virtue in my opinion - at least the importance of player knowledge of the fragility of their characters in the early game is a virtue. Would the same ends not be served however by rolling up a bunch of 1st level fellers and then throwing them up against some ogres, something tougher than centipedes & slimes?

- Always appreciated Stormbringer's early steps in character generation (i.e. you don't choose to be Melnibonian, you roll on a table and find out that you are a beggar of Nadsokor instead), and so that's one aspect of DCC character generation that I like. It also brings in the background "skill" concept cursorily touched upon in the DMG.

- Not a fan of clerics in general, but allowing their powers to be applied to creature types other than undead is potentially a step in the right direction.

- Cthulhu as neutral? In the three alignment scheme, agreed.

- Apparently I'd really be screwing the thief over if I did away with the luck burn.
I like the thief variations by alignment.

- Mighty deeds of arms. Again, coming from a T&T background, this stuff is second-nature. I'm glad to see it dealt with, and the simple categorization (blinding, disarm, etc) is functional.

- Wizards. There's a lot going on with the wizards. I like the random spell determination (big surprise there!) and the patron material. Would initially be inclined to allow wizard players to start with 3 random spells and chose the patron pair of spells in place of the fourth. The patron stuff is the kind of thing I've always wanted to cultivate with players of magic users. Some like the idea, some hate it. It is consistent with the rest of the game though to keep patronage a matter of luck/fate/chance (at least at the beginning of the game, if it is rolled up as a known spell).

- Not much to say about the dwarves.

- AHA! The elves have automatic patron. OK. I like the iron prohibition also.

- Not much to say about halflings either. Been avoiding them for years... they'd be super-screwed by fiddling luck-burn out, and I do like the lucky charm idea here. Multiple halflings in the party? Roll to see which one has the charm for that adventure.

SKILLS
- Still not a fan of explicitly tying skills to a single stat for purposes of modifying skill rolls. Leave it up to interpretation. Things that are obvious to one GM are not so obvious to others. Arguments can be made for various interpretations - Balance: agility or strength? Break down door: strength or constitution? As a GM, I would rather figure these things for myself, or be free to use different stats in different circumstances. A quibble. I do appreciate the fact that there is a section called WHEN NOT TO MAKE A SKILL CHECK and think it could be expanded, emphasized, and placed closer to the start of the whole section, before even the mechanical explanation of how to resolve them.

- Reminds me that I need to finish writing about Rolemaster's School of Hard Knocks... Each skill in that book has it's own resolution table a la the spells presented in DCC...

COMBAT
- Crits & fumbles. I like this kind of stuff. I like doing it by class/level vs per weapon (again Rolemaster) or general (BRP/Arduin/etc), but I think it might be better to modify the roll by level instead of breaking the tables out into different level-appropriate results. A design decision, obviously, and likely an option considered and decided against.

- Spell duels. Always wanted to see a good implementation of such things, and this is likable. The momentum tracking and phlogiston disturbance table is a bit too fiddly for me (ironic since I still spend so much time proselytizing the theory in pamplets and lectures at society meetings), but wizard players like fiddly things, don't they?

MAGIC
- This looks like a fun game to play a wizard in. The uncertainty of successful casting might be mitigated by wizard's increased selection of weapons.

- I disagree with the 'reversed spell is a separate spell' thing, always have. Personal preference. But particularly given the uncertainty of casting built into the system I would be even more inclined to allow a caster to throw a reversed form of a known spell.

- Perhaps it is hypocritical to dislike luck-burn and like spell-burn. Call me a hypocrite.(once per comment though, please.)

- Mercurial magic & corruption: like them both, but corruption coupled with spell-failure effects might be too much. This is the kind of thing I'd have to see in play to decide on I think.

-----------
Overall, it looks great. I love the art (personally I don' think there's too much of it) and there's a lot of neat ideas here. Having played a lot of Rolemaster, tables and charts for specific details do not phase me too much, and as you play a game with a lot of such things, you get used to it, or adapt (i.e. use a copy machine). The spell tables are the kind of thing that would be good as reference pages, cards, etc.

Looks like it would be a fun game to play and not difficult to run.

May Readings

2011-06-11T02:56:00.000-07:00

May was not a bad month for personal reading. I needed it as I am drowning in medical coding technical manuals and anatomy and such.

I re-read Fred Saberhagen's Broken Lands trilogy. This is a series that I never really hear anyone talk about, even though it's got "Appendix N" cred. I first read these books (in the omnibus Empire of the East form) when I was... 13? 14? Somewhere right around there. Anyway, it was my first rewarding departure from Tolkien - in fact I think I bought the book because it had a blurb about being better than LotR (a tall claim, sure, and pretty much apples & oranges too - very different writers). I read and re-read LotR as a kid more times than I want to admit, so apparently I was ready for something "better".

I'm not going to say that what I got was better than LotR, but it was different, and it was good. It's science-fantasy, weighed a little heavier on the fantasy side, Saberhagen's style far less lyrical. The story had a good impact on me at the time, and helped me to get some perspective, that there was more to the world that Tolkien.The re-read was good - the books stand up in my opinion.

So in addition to The Broken Lands, The Black Mountains, and Changeling Earth, I managed to sneak in 2 more Vance books.

1. Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph - Jack Vance. This is SO Jack Vance, Ridolph might be the archetypical Vance 'hero', a smug detective for hire, all brain, no brawn. Kinda a cosmopolitan Matlock or something...

2. Blue Planet - Jack Vance. Liked it. The culture of the planet seems to have been started by prisoners (from the Gaian Reach I assume), the current castes and professions all derive their names from the titles of criminals and crimes of the far past (they do not seem to be aware of this fact). For example, the Hoodwinkers. Hoodwinke are in charge of communications between settlements - this accomplished by blinking light semaphore at the top of towers.

The thing I am finding in trying to write about Vance is that I have a hard time pinning down the what's & why's - I am content with appreciation.

April readings

2011-05-02T08:30:00.002-07:00

Light month on pleasure reading. Getting my ass kicked with class work & real-life in general.

1. Game of Thrones. I read this book back in 2004 or 5, and I think it had a lot to do with reigniting my interest in D&D. So - since I cannot watch the series, I decided to go back and reread the books (also since the new book is due soon). Stands up pretty well so far. It reads like watching TV, and I mean that not in a derogatory sense.

2. Sepulchrave's Story Hour. This page has links to the story threads, and PDF versions of the stories without so much of the reader commentary. Sepulchrave's input over at K&K has always been interesting and stimulating, and while I've never been big on reading campaign journals & such, I was pretty amazed by this one. It is written very well.

Was that it? Really? I'm afraid so. I just don't think that writing about the details of the CPT, ICD-9-CM & HCPCS coding manuals would be of much value here. Trust me on this one. I have continued to acquire more Vance, and look forward to that. Maybe my reading time will increase after June. This month, no Dios for me, :(.

Revolutions vs Regimes

2011-04-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

Regimes win again!!!

--------------------

I get to thinking about the Internet/table top RPG intersection somewhat often. It's interesting because in many ways it answers a lot of wishes I had when I was a kid and had time to game all the time - namely, in theory anyway, always being connected to other people and therefore able to 'game' all the time, or whenever you wanted.

When I finally got a stable internet connection a while back and was able to relax into the net and do idle searching and such things, gaming cropped up quick. I was amazed at the creative wealth and vitality, inquiry and general thoughtfulness, etc - the whole bundle. So, naturally, I had to investigate what it was like to play games on the Internet - here was this 'dream come true' technology come true.

Jumped into Alexis' blog game and also a Yahoo group Warhammer game run by Noisms. I started running a game at the Trollbridge, and a (rough and) brief experiment in high level generic D&D-ish play, brief games with Vedron of the potion shoppe, jumped into A long-running game of Snorri's for a minute - tried to use the blog to help write a solo module. So there was the act of gaming, but also it became clear that the web allowed for amazing feats of collaborative work. I feel like an unfrozen caveman in writing that down, it seems like such a no duh thing - but anyway, I was just pretty stunned by the scopes and the scales of possibilities. So I started trying to translate Epées & Sorcellerie from Google english. Got to help compose some the monster tables in the Swords & Wizardry Monster Book, that was fun! Speaking of fun, does anyone remember the rush, the total creative burst, when Snorri dropped Delver of the Unknown on the OD&D board? That was a totally beautiful thing to watch IMO. There's amazing, persistent projects all over the place - the Dragonsfoot project placing encounters on the rest of the D1 underworld map - OSRIC players handbook and Danger Dungeons! - magazines and ezines - the links of wisdom wiki - etc etc etc - again I feel like a caveman...

So, anyway, I think about this stuff and my experience has been mixed (likely the case with most ongoing, consistent elements of one's life). The balance weighs more on the positive side, though I wonder if I got a bad rep from my actions in Alexis' game, or from my initial enthusiasm for a project slowing to an off-putting pace - I wonder if I let my Trollbridge game devolve into tedium for the players, things like that. It is sometimes hard to read people, or be read by people, over the computer, to get a sense of who they are or whatever.

Now I am starting to get back into projects. The other thing about the Internet is the (assumed) persistence of it ('assumed' like assuming the sun will rise tomorrow, assuming that it did today... I suppose the Internet could disappear tomorrow...). The main frustration of gaming by blog/post/email/etc seems to be the pace. So it seems to make sense to play games that are intentionally slowly paced.

While I'm at the total navel-gazing thing, one thing that keeps occurring to me is that I don't buy or read very much by way of products being released. An example is Mythemere's Adventure Design Deskbook. (It was actually Fitz's post that got me thinking about this tonight). It looks like precisely the kind of book I would really get a lot out of, one of my favorite kinds of game aids - but I haven't gotten it. So why? Granted, I'm not in much of a position to buy everything I want to, but that's not expensive, and the fact is that I have picked up old material that I used to have or always wanted to (Jesis! I wanted Monsters Monsters! for 30 years! I had to get it!). I've found that I keep myself away from a lot of the products that have made an impact in the last few years with the internet ol' school gang, and I think the reason is this: my work is already really derivative. Like really - when I write adventure material or setting material or something and look back at it, I see B1. There's the ogre's cave from B2 outside of the "home base" (which reminds me of little more than Hommlet...). So, I'm making this sound like it was an intentional decision on my part, and I don't think that it was. It's a weird dialectic to be really moved by the material being produced and also a little leery of it... ugh.

Anyway - yah. Looks like I need to lighten up!

Number Appearing

2011-04-07T09:22:00.000-07:00

On the whole "close to the bones of AD&D" thing - one experiment that has always appealed to me is to treat the number appearing entry of things in the Monster Manual as absolute maximums. This is already the case with the most powerful creatures therein, they are unique. So do this with all of the monsters - since you can encounter 10-100 pilgrims according to their Men entry, that means there are but 100 pilgrims in the whole world. Ah, but wait! There's 5 alignment groups of pilgrims... so there's 500 pilgrims in the whole world! 400 elves & orcs, 4 dragons of each type (I only use green, black, red & white, so there'd be 32 dragons, 1 of each color and age...), 6 barbed devils, etc...

I know! Big deal! Still, this is a setting I would like to play with more. There's 1 lich, 100 sprites, 6 ogre magi... I'll append to this post later the total population list I culled from the MM (it's on a different computer) so I don't lose it.

The only way I'd diverge off the ridiculously strict read with a little Holmesian thing I've never been able to shake - the way that the alignment for many creatures is listed with options (dwarf LG or N, giants & dragons too... must revise my dragon # again... gah!) - more creatures in the Holmes book are listed as being possibly neutral, and I adopt that because I really like neutral! So this could boost the number of demi-humans, unless the differences are within the already established total population (are there 400 LG dwarves AND 400 neutral dwarves, or 200 of each?)...

Anyway - it makes for a small world, or creates the sense of it, because these numbers are smaller, but still not small. They do become more manageable and comprehensible to me though. And interesting points come up all over the place - in the issue of pets & guard animals. Dwarves, elves, goblins, gnolls - several demi-human and humanoid species have animals - stone giants w/cave bears, etc... Given the # Appearing for the cave bear, chances are that these are the only cave bears in the world. Another decision point comes up with the issue of the classed-types that show up with the Men groups - should these then be the only classed beings in the whole world? Should the PCs have to be drawn from this pool of pre-existing classed characters?

It definitely reinforces humanocentric AD&D, men far outnumber any other race. Again, I'll post the numbers in a minute.

EDIT:
1 aerial servant, beholder, demon prince, succubus, arch devil,
ice devil (11 HD), pit fiend devil (13 HD), djinni (7+3 HD),
dragonne (9 HD), efreeti (10 HD), elemental (8, 12, or 16 HD),
gelatinous cube (4 HD), ghost (10 HD), golem, homonculous (2 HD),
hydra (5 to 12 HD) , imp (2+2 HD), invisible stalker (8 HD), lich (11+ HD),
mimic (7 to 10 HD),morkoth (7 HD), neo-otyugh (9 to 12 HD), night hag (8 HD),
nightmare (6+6 HD), pseudo-dragon (2 HD), quasit (3 HD),gynosphinx (8 HD),
sylph (3 HD)
1-2 cave bear (6+6), bulette (9 HD), barbed devil (8 HD), bone devil (9 HD),
megalosaurus dinosaur (12 HD), otyugh (6 to 8 HD), purple worm (15 HD),
rust monster (5 HD), shambling mound (8 to 11 HD), giant constrictor
snake (6+1 HD), titan (17 to 22 HD)
1-3 black bear (3+3 HD), catoblepas (6+3), “typed” demon (8 to 11 HD),
erinyes devil (6+6), horned devil (5+5), gray ooze (3+3), medusa (6 HD),
spirit naga (9 to 10 HD), ochre jelly (6 HD), roper (10 to 12 HD),
giant amphisbaena snake (6 HD), water weird (3+3 HD), will-o-wisp (9 HD),
wind walker (6+3)
1-4 basilisk (6+1 HD), black pudding (10 HD), chimera (9 HD),
ceratosaurus dinosaur (8 HD), dragon (5 to 11 HD), ettin (10 HD),
storm giant (15 HD + 2-7), gorgon (8 HD), jackalwere (4 HD),
giant fire lizard (10 HD), werebear (7+3 HD), manticore (6+3 HD),
mind flayer (8+4 HD), nymph (3 HD), rakshasa (7 HD), giant scorpion (5+5 HD),
sea hag (3 HD), criosphinx (10 HD), hieracosphinx (9 HD), phase spider (5+5),
umber hulk (8+8 HD), vampire (8+3 HD)
2-5 displacer beast (6 HD), giant owl (4 HD), owlbear (5+2 HD),
salamander (7+7 HD), giant poisonous snake (4+2 HD), giant spitting
snake (4+2 HD), unicorn (4+4)
1-6 anhkheg (3-8 HD), axe beak (3 HD), brown bear (5+5 HD), carrion
crawler (3+1), cockatrice (5 HD), dryad (2 HD) , ghast (4 HD),
cloud giant (12 HD + 2-7), green slime (2 HD), jackal (½ HD), giant
subterranean lizard (6 HD), ogre mage (5+2 HD), spectre (7+3 HD),
wyvern (7+7 HD), yeti (4+4 HD)
1-8 fire giant (11 HD + 2-5), frost giant (10 HD + 1-4),
stone giant (9 HD + 1-3), giant minotaur lizard (8 HD), minotaur (6+3 HD),
giant spider (4+4 HD), giant poisonous toad (2 HD)
2-8 carnivorous ape (5 HD), giant boar (7 HD), hell hound (4 to 7 HD),
wereboar (5+2), mummy (6+3 HD), satyr (5 HD), shrieker (3 HD),
winter wolf (6 HD)
1-10 hill giant (8 HD + 1-2)
1-12 wild boar (3+3 HD), huge spider (2+2 HD), giant toad (2+4 HD), troll (6+6)
2-12 griffon (7 HD), harpy (3 HD), giant lizard (3+1 HD), wraith (5+3 HD)
3-12 bombardier beetle (2+2 HD), fire beetle (1+2 HD), doppleganger (4 HD),
dire wolf (3+3 HD), worg wolf (4+4 HD)
2-16 gargoyle (4+4 HD) , hippogriff (3+3 HD), wight (4+3 HD)
4-16 blink dog (4 HD), brownie (½ HD), manes demon (1 HD), wild dog (1+1 HD)
3-18 boring beetle (5 HD), pteranodon (3+3 HD), giant killer frog (1+4 HD),
werewolf (4+3 HD)
1-20 giant eagle (4 HD), leprechaun (½ HD +1), treant (7 to 12 HD), giant wasp (4 HD)
2-20 flightless bird (1 to 3 HD), ogre (4+1 HD), shadow (3+3 HD),
large spider (1+1 HD), wolf (2+2 HD)
5-20 pixie (½ HD)
2-24 giant centipede (¼ HD), ghoul (2 HD)
3-24 zombie (2 HD)
4-24 centaur (4 HD), wererat (3+1 HD)
3-30 skeleton (1 HD), stirge (1+1 HD)
5-30 lemure devil (3 HD)
6-36 bugbear (3+1 HD)
5-40 giant frog (1 to 3 HD)
10-40 larva (1 HD), lizard man (2+1 HD)
5-50 giant rat (½ HD)
10-60 triton (3 HD)
20-80 nixie (½ HD), sahuagin (2+2 HD)
1-100 giant ant (2 HD)
10-100 berserker men ((1+1 HD (d6)), cave men ((2 HD (d6)),
pilgrim men (1 HD (d6)), sprite (1 HD), troglodyte (2 HD)
10-120 tribe men (1 HD (d6))
20-200 elf (1+1 HD), gnoll (2 HD), hobgoblin (1+1 HD), bandit men (1 HD (d6)),
brigand men (1 HD (d6)), merman (1+1 HD),
30-300 nomad men (1 HD (d6)), orc (1 HD)
50-300 merchant men (1 HD (d6))
40-400 dwarf (1 HD), gnome (1 HD), goblin (1-1 HD), kobald (½ HD)

March - Steerpike, Nie the Hever, and Golem XIV

2011-04-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

In lieu of gold stars on the fridge, I am awarding myself 3 Dioses, 1 per book read in March.

1. Imaginary Magnitude, Stanislaw Lem - A re-read (it was loaned out for a long time after I first read it), this book is a brilliant and absurd collection of book introductions and sales pitches from the future, building up to a recording of MIT scientists “conversations” with GOLEM XIV, a luminal machine, a tough pill to swallow.

2. Titus Groan, Mervyn Peake - This is the first time I have read it. Wow. I remember that Scott often sung the praises of this and it is really an amazing sustained effort. Paragraphs are scattered though out the book that end finer than anything I’ve ever read. It is an absolutely unique read. Operatic, baroque poetry about the creepy mundane, the doom of responsibility.

3. Maske: Theary, Jack Vance – 1st read, I’ve read enough Vance now to see how almost all of his books are the same. This is not a criticism or a point against in my opinion because I like how all of main characters talk to each other. I also like how there’s hardly ever aliens or monsters in his stories – makes them stand out more when they are present (Dragonmasters, some of Magnus Ridolph… how very few monsters are to be found in the Dying Earth? I can think of a few only, even considering Sandestins seems a stretch - they just as much a-holes as every other character there...)

Sometimes after reading Lem I just can't imagine reading anything else. Golem's like that, the first time I read it I felt shocked. I still don't think I have the right words to express it. The first part of the book is frenetic whimsy, hilarious. I do not want to say anything spoiler-ish about this book, to not color anyone's particular reading of it - it is certainly on the short-list of must-read Lem - so do it!

I took a long time reading Titus Groan. I think I started it in February. Ordered a copy of the second book of the trilogy (! this stuff is dense!), but the book smells horrible. I can't open it and put my nose near it enough to read with out the grossness getting to me. Note to world of book sellers on the Internet at large: if your book stinks like rot, don't sell it to me (or at least tell me in advance. I suppose a stench attendant of Culte des Ghouls might be a selling point).

Trollzine 4 needs artistry

2011-03-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

I am not a good drawer, so I thought I would put a call out to the wild and wooly. TZ4 has suffered delays, and one of the biggest is a dearth of pictures. The relevant thread is here (The link is to the last page as the thread has become very long...)

The Trollzine is a totally fan-based, free product - gotta get this one done so we can start on #5!

Any help would be appreciated!

UGH! (Trollish for "Thanks" in this instance)

Collecting the wisdom vs the Hive Mind

2011-03-23T21:50:00.000-07:00

Collecting the wisdom wins again!!!

Really they are not antagonistic and man this is a good idea.
Zak gives a step-by-step tutorial that may be explained as clearly and plainly as is humanly possible.
Consequently, Old Guard's Dragon Tables are now there whenever you need them.

Drop-dead easy and kinda astounding. I now hereby race all of you to "shields shall be splintered"! Certainly the most widely adopted old school Internet house rule I am aware of...

This is next level Hive Mind shit! Sometimes you actually have the time to go back and read deep into the Gameblog, the Grog'n Blog - there's so many ones that really reward
a reader willing to do some scouring. And when you don't have the time (or the inclination I suppose), maybe I do. Or maybe 30 people all over the world do!

Really neat!

yay! pictures of cool helmets!

2011-03-18T15:45:00.000-07:00

the one on the right in particular
the one on the left - badass!
a gift to Henry VIII from the Byzantine Emperor
Whoa(thanks to various posters at Historum.com)

[1e] Implicit setting WIP

2011-03-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

(I'm considering this page a work in progress. More citations and such later, and I tend toward discursiveness anyway)

Plenty of people[1] at various times have left their ideas about this before now, and I have always found it a totally fascinating idea. To tease enough small detail out of just the MM, PHB, & DMG to build a campaign environment that is somehow as "close to the bone" of the AD&D rulebooks as one could possibly create. I can't even sure that it would be a setting I would have much interest in playing in or running - but it is an interesting thought experiment that many of us have spent some time with.

These details range widely - from the implications of specific game rules (like Gold spent = experience points, the Cleric class almost certainly necessitating the presence of gods or god-like things & alignment, etc) to the spinning of fantastic causal chain constructions of the social reality of life in "D&D land" (DMG pg 106 the Humanoid Racial Preference Table, the selection of possible NPC personality features).

It rests on some fundamental/pseudo-fanatical SOPs like:
1. Pedantic, literal reading of minute detail and cataloging thereof. Sometimes a joy in itself - a very difficult endeavor to sustain (for me anyway).

2. An ability to focus mostly/only on details of fine granularity. Example - the assumption that magical artifacts exist in the first place vs what the presence of The Throne of the Gods implies, range and varieties of Men subtables in the Wilderness Encounter section (though Gygax has said that those were intended as "primitive examples" that DM's would certainly rework to fit their own campaigns. (Oh God! Am I going to have to find that one in the Enworld monstrosity? No!)

As an example, these are the points of interest I draw out of the first entry in the first AD&D book - Aerial Servant:
conjured by clerics
can be found roaming the astral and ethereal planes ("natives"?)
move twice as fast as the invisible stalker (suggestive of conjuration 'arms race' between clerics and magic users in the past?)

[1]
Scott's from Dragonsfoot (2006) --- I find this really inspiring.
Amazing "speculative analysis" by Scottsz of WG4

P.S
I spent some time using the Internet, trying find an attribution for the phrase "There is no such thing as discovery, only recognition or re-discovery" - but that is a paraphrase. Hence the difficulty of citation...

A few random things

2011-03-16T07:14:00.000-07:00

1. Liz Danforth is selling the original art for City of Terrors, the actual piece that became the cover. Wish I was a collector!

2. More things on Ebay myself (link to the right) (Bushido, V&V, Aftermath, Rolemaster, D&D)

3. Schoolin' & studyin' is kicking my ass!

4. The Tricks, Empty Rooms, and Basic Trap Design book over at Hack & Slash is a fantastic read and resource.

5. Requisite Joesky content (Thul sa doom Thul sa doom Thul sa doom)
An evil cult for 1e

99 PILGRIMS (CE – Cult of the Three Dooms)
Clerical Leadership
CHANTRY PRIESTS
1 3rd level and 6 2nd level clerics
1 5th level and 3 4th level clerics
All clerics below 6th level serve in the chantries.
CHAPEL PRIESTS
2 6th level cleric
These clerics occupy the chapel
PROPHET OF THE DARK CHAMBER
1 8th level cleric
This cleric occupies an isolated underground chamber
Exceptional characters:
fighter: 3 (lvl 7, 7, 1) A pair of twins, the 7th level fighters, and a gnome 1st level
assassin: 1 (lvl 5)
thief: 3 (lvl 7, 5, 2)
magic user: 1 (lvl 7)
Deity:
Called the Three Dooms, it appears at times as a withered & one-eyed dwarf, a
healthy mature human male with a third monstrous arm extending from the chest,
or as a heavily hooded and robed crone who can reveal a third eye. Its
presence among the cultists is in the form of Raugak, a type IV demon (using
much illusion, project image, and polymorph self). It acts as an intercessor
between the cult and a greater power in the Abyss. It is loathe to Gate in brethren, as it does not want to share the bounty of its current worship. Raugak lairs in the darkness beneath the chapel, indoctrinating the cult's prophet into the deeper mysteries of its Master's Dooms (i.e. driving him insane).

 Raugak (Type IV demon) 
 AC -1          SA spells and powers
 MV 9/12        SD +1 or better to hit
 HD 11 (51 hp)  MR 65%
 A 1-4/1-4/2-5  INT 14

Refer to OGL if required.

When Cloud Giants Go Bad

2011-03-12T05:44:00.000-08:00

(in response to Grognaria's call to arms)
Tell us about your orcs... well orcs are made by giants. Powerful giant shamans know how to turn the livestock that pesky humans keep into beast-men. A good way to keep the frontiersmen away. They do the same with boars that men chase, dogs that bay at the edges of their villages... I pictured the orcs as mostly simian featured with jutting jaws and big bottom teeth (I think from my favorite orc lead figure of the day).

It's been a very long time since I played, but back then I had an elaborate magical evolutionary tree. In short, when the world began, there were Dragons, the Fae, and Giants. Assume the usual "ages pass in cycles of animosity and lassitude, mankind rising unnoticed by the Big 3", as they were in a kind of a magical arms-race of evolution. At this point, another player gets involved in this life creation racket: wizards.

So the only race that wasn't created by magic is the humans. I might try to dig through old notes to find the ridiculously complicated causal chain of life... I remember that dragons made dwarves & kobalds from rocks, fae made goblins & elves from fairy dust(?), giants made orcs & gnomes from animals.

The arms race side of it was this: A dragon makes a dwarf. Dwarf meets a Fairy and gets changed to a brownie. Or dragon made a kobald instead. The kobald meets the wrong cloud giant and is transformed into a griffon... Each of the 'client races' could be further transformed by the opposing 'creator races'.

I think I was riffing off of TITAN - in which your pieces could muster recruits based on the terrain of the space they occupied. I liked the wizards too, but they kinda had the shit end of the stick. The old races had much latitude in what they could do to a wizard. Unseen servants, intelligent magic items, familiars, permanent spells - these things could be transformed into esoteric creatures (say, save or fire giant turns your ring of spell storing into a salamander). It meant that magic users would have to divest themselves of much of their adjuncts and accoutrements when facing the magic using varieties of these older races.

It was interesting - way too much trouble to go through to contextualize the presence of the minotaur(giant curse), otyugh (fairy curse), and ogre magi(dragon curse). I'll dig around and see if I can't come up with the tables I made for this a long time ago...

Wilderness Monsters by Season

2011-03-10T10:24:00.000-08:00

To make up for the Hottie Elf Chick madness sweeping through the ranks of us old fogies, here's an encounter table based on the current season. Yes, it's d76. Oh well.

	Spring (C)	Summer (L)	Fall (C)	Winter (L)
1	Green Dragon	Red Dragon	Black Dragon	White Dragon
2	Elf (CG)	Dwarf (LG)	Elf (CG)	Dwarf (LG)
3	Dwarf (N)	Elf (N)	Dwarf (N)	Elf (N)
4	Dryad	Dryad	Efreet (N)	Djinn (N)
5	Ettin	Efreeti (LE)	Ettin	Ghost
6	Gargoyle	Gnome (LG)	Gargoyle	Gnome (LG)
7	Ghoul	Goblin	Ghoul & Ghast	Goblin
8	Gnoll	Goblin & Hobgoblin	Gnoll	Goblin & Hobgoblin
9	Gnome (N)	Hobgoblin	Gnome (N)	Hobgoblin
10	Dwarf & Gnome (N)	Dwarf & Gnome (LG)	Dwarf & Gnome (N)	Dwarf & Gnome (LG)
11	Elf & Gnome (N)	Hell Hounds	Elf & Gnome (N)	Gorgon
12	Grey Ooze	Black Pudding	Harpy	Hell Hounds
13	Harpy	Hydra	Hydra	Kobald
14	Jackalwere	Kobald	Jackalwere	Goblin & Kobald
15	Gnoll & Jackalwere	Goblin & Kobald	Gnoll & Jackalwere	Hobgoblin & Kobald
16	Leprechaun	Hobgoblin & Kobald	Lizard Man	Goblin, Hobgoblin &Kobald
17	Lizard Man	Goblin, Hobgoblin &Kobald	Werebear	Lamasu
18	Werebear	Lammasu	Werboar	Wereboar
19	Werewolf	Lizard Man	Werewolf	Manticore
20	Berserker	Wereboar	Berserker	Berserker
21	Nomad	Manticore	Nomad	Dervish
22	Brigand	Bandit	Brigand	Bandit
23	Pilgrim (N)	Dervish	Pilgrim (N)	Pilgrim (N)
24	Pilgrim (CG)	Nomad	Pilgrim (CG)	Pilgrim (LG)
25	Pilgrim (CE)	Pilgrim (N)	Pilgrim (CE)	Pilgrim (LE)
26	Merchant	Pilgrim (LG)	Merchant	Merchant
27	Spirit Naga	Pilgrim (LE)	Spirit Naga	Nightmare
28	Minotaur	Merchant	Minotaur	Nymph
29	Nymph	Night Hag	Night Hag	Orc
30	Ogre	Orc	Ochre Jelly	Ogre Magi
31	Ogre & Gnoll	Ogre Magi	Ogre	Pilgrim of & Ogre Magi
32	Orc	Pilgrim of Geryon & OgreMagi	Ogre & Gnoll	Pilgrims of & Rakshasa
33	Orc & Ogre	Pixie	Orc	Ogre Magi & Goblins
34	Shadow	Pilgrims of & Rakshasa	Orc & Ogre	Ogre Magi & Hobgoblins
35	Gynopshinx	Rakshasa & Hobgoblins	Purple Worm	Ogre Magi, Goblins &Hobgoblins
36	Giant Spider (CE)	Gynosphinx	Giant Spider (CE)	Ogre Magi & Bugbears
37	Sprite	Rakshasa, Goblins &Hobgoblins	Roc	Ogre Magi, Goblins,Hobgoblins & Kobalds
38	Stirge	Rakshasa	Satyr	Remorhaz
39	Giant Toad	Stirge	Stirge	Slyph
40	Treant	Giant Toad	Giant Toad	Ice Toad
41	Troglodyte	Wight	Treant	Wight
42	Troll	Wolf	Troglodyte	Wolf
43	Will-o-wisp	Dire Wolf	Troll	Dire Wolf
44	Vampire	Wraith	Vampire	Winter Wolf
45	Wolf	Rakshasa	Shadow	Roc
46	Dire Wolf	Shedu	Will-o-wisp	Wraith
47	Yeti	Skeleton	Skeleton & Shadow	Shedu
48	Skeleton	Skeleton & Zombie	Skeleton	Skeleton
49	Skeleton & Zombie	Spectre	Skeleton & Zombie	Skeleton & Zombie
50	Skeleton & Shadow	Criosphinx	Skeleton & Shadow	Spectre
51	Shadow & Zombie	Hippogriff	Shadow & Zombie	Criosphinx
52	Androsyphinx	Stone Giant	Androsphinx	Yeti
53	Hieracosphinx	Fire Giant	Hieracosphinx	Griffon
54	Griffon	Barbed Devil	Hippogriff	Frost Giant
55	Blue Dragon	Horned Devil	Cloud Giant	Ice Devil
56	Hill Giant	Ankheg	Storm Giant	Brownie
57	Ankheg	Basilisk	Centaur	Blink Dogs
58	Basilisk	Brownie	Chimera	Bugbear
59	Bugbear	Blink Dogs	Bugbear	Cockatrice
60	Bulette	Pilgrims of Dispater	Cockatrice	Pilgrims of Dispater
61	Centaur	Pilgrims of Geryon	Pilgrims of Jubilex	Pilgrims of Geryon
62	Chimera	Displacer Beasts	Pilgrims of Orcus	Doppleganger
63	Pilgrims of Jubilex	Pilgrims of Dispater &Barbed Devil	Djinn	Displacer Beasts
64	Pilgrims of Orcus	Pilgrims of Geryon &Horned Devil	Doppleganger	Pilgrims of Dispater &Horned Devil
65	Djinn	Fire Giant & Hobgoblin	Displacer Beasts	Frost Giant & Hobgoblin
66	Hill Giant & Orc	Fire Giant, Hobgoblin &Goblin	Frost Giant & Orc	Frost Giant, Hobgoblin &Goblin
67	Hill Giant, Ogre & Orc	Stone Giant & Orc (N)	Frost Giant, Ogre & Orc	Pilgrim of Geryon & OgreMagi
68	Hill Giant & Gnoll	Stone Giant & Dire Wolf	Frost Giant & Gnoll	Pilgrim of Dispater &Ogre Magi
69	Hill Giant & Bugbear	Pilgrim of Dispater &Ogre Magi	Frost Giant & Bugbear	Pilgrim of Geryon & IceDevil
70	Hill Giant, Bugbear &Gnoll	Brownie & Pixie	Frost Giant, Bugbear &Gnoll	Pilgrim of Dispater & IceDevil
71	Hill Giant & Ettin	Wraith & Shadow	Hill Giant & Orc	Goblin & Bugbear
72	Basilisk & Gargoyle	Spectre & Shadow	Hill Giant, Ogre & Orc	Wraith & Shadow
73	Troll & Troglodyte	Dryad & Pixie	Hill Giant & Gnoll	Spectre & Shadow
74	Pilgrims of Orcus &Shadows	Gnome & Pixie	Hill Giant & Bugbear	Ghost & Shadow
75	Centaur & Sprite	Spectre & Shadow	Hill Giant, Bugbear &Gnoll	Brownie & Gnome
76	Treant & Sprite	Wraith & Shadow	Hill Giant & Ettin	Yeti & Wolf

Refer to OGL if required.

Yo doodz! D&D 4.5 beta (HoT eLF Chick build) arrives!

2011-03-10T09:16:00.000-08:00

I won't even bother with a picture, but man - the spikes!

[Freak Jazz] PRIMITIVE OHIO!!!

2011-03-08T22:03:00.000-08:00

My Early Gaming History

2011-03-08T11:17:00.000-08:00

The recent batch posts on the development and history of “OSR” got me thinking about my personal experience starting as a gamer.

My brother taught me how to play chess pretty early on, though I've never been particularly good at it. Mastermind and Stratego. I loved Stratego. When I was 9 years old, my brother would have his high school buddies over to play D&D. He had the basement as his own room. I can remember the 3 LBB + supplements on his book shelf, Holmes basic, monochomatic modules, and certainly the AD&D hardbacks. Card table, bean bag chair, dehumidifier, dead beetles in the corners. They were stoners, late 70's stoners. I can remember my sister freaking out because one of them chased her around the house with a roach clip, me having no idea what such a clip was at the time.

I didn't play, but they let me watch a few times. Enthralling. One of the dudes, Wooten was his last name – very theatrical. He got put to sleep by a homonculus... poor Wooten. Anyway, Mike (my brother, 9 years my senior) starts to play the Ogre and Melee microgames with me. Once again, my poor sister – after my first kill in Melee (which must have been a good roll as my brother narrated that I'd cut his head off), I rush upstairs in excitement and brag to her about beheading my bro. No wonder uptight people were freaked out by their kids playing D&D! She thought that was gross. I thought her braces were gross. Good times.

So – eventually Mike agrees to run my first game of D&D. Roll up stats, 3d6 in order, got a high wisdom score. So be a cleric, says he! I remember being intimidated by the details of the open-ended decision making. For example, the character's name. Mike generated one for me out of the back of B1 with slight variation (“Greggo of the Mountain”) because I couldn't name the dude. My character awakened in a small room with a monster - I cannot remember what it was. I want to say it was a ghoul, but I can't remember precisely. Anyway – how's that for “You stand facing the dungeon's door...” - it's obvious that the set-up is going to go violent, fast – and I froze! I didn't know what to do, didn't want my character to die. I begged Mike to tell me what to do to get out of this situation. He told me to use my suggestion spell. OK... what do I tell it to do? I hemmed and hawed for a while in indecision, Mike wouldn't tell me what to say, instead giving examples of what I should not say... Man - I was kind of a wuss! It was scary! Finally: “Tell it to sleep.” Then mush it with your mace.

It's safe to say that this experience frustrated him, as we did not play again for a long time. Eh – he was 18, I was 9 - I don't blame him. So we'd play Risk, Battleship, and Midway (a Milton Bradley boardgame, I remember liking it, wonder if it stands up...). And I took my experience into my friend Scott's garage - along with some six-siders from Monopoly, pencil and paper. We made up a game of D&D based on my imprecise memory. I DM'ed, probably used The Fantasy Trip in my brain for combat (I'd played that more and knew how to use the dice for it). I think it ended with him trapped in a pit. Hee hee.

My local gaming shop (The Griffon – go give them all of your money! They deserve all of it!) held a convention, and my brother took me along. I can remember almost nothing about this – certainly I was not registered to play in anything, but they had a few computers there, and you could wait in line to play (what turned out to be) an early version of Telengard. And as a little brother, I was obliged to bug my brother incessantly to play D&D with me again. He wasn't into it. He had other things going on at that time that I was not aware of, but he did take me over to a computer lab on the campus of Notre Dame university. And here we played a Star Trek game, the turns displayed on printer paper. One of the things Mike had going on at that time was getting a job as a computer programmer for an insurance company, and he had not yet graduated high school. Self taught, he was one of those guys that got into the computer industry before it was self-regulated. Another thing that he had going on was falling in love with a depressed girl and experiencing a religious conversion. As a consequence of one or more of these things, he decided to destroy his D&D collection by fire. Bummer. Thankfully, I rescued a Holmes Basic set, Ogre and Melee/Wizard, but all the other D&D stuff went *poof* in my back yard. While he prayed.

Before the conflagration, my earnest whining and wheedling, my begging him to play D&D one last time PAID OFF! I don't remember my character this time, but this one “came to” in a room with a pedestal and a rug. Atop the pedestal, a crystal. Touching the crystal did 1 hit point of damage. Every turn, a “blue bolt” would shoot out of the crystal and hit my character for the same amount of damage. I could not dodge the bolt, nor find any cover. I could not find a way out of the room. I was killed by the blue bolts without really having done anything except frantically searching the walls for secret doors. Afterwards he told me there was a trapdoor under the rug. Obviously I was not really prepared to think outside the box back then...

He quit high school, kept his job, got kicked out of the house, moved in with his girl, married her and had a daughter, and they went to church all the time. I stayed home of course (remember, big age difference). I'd go to the library and check out D&D books. I tried to run my friend Alan through D1, but he balked at the idea that he'd need henchmen and mules. I remember him getting really up-in-arms over the mules... My best friend lived close to downtown, so we would go to the Griffon and look at books. I didn't really play much at this point – until I stumbled across Tunnels and Trolls in a Hallmark Card shop. Still utterly confused as to how this particular distribution scheme/sales point came to be, but business is mostly baffling to me anyway.

Tunnels and Trolls worked for me. I'd use spells and equipment lists and other things from D&D and AD&D, but I grokked running T&T in a way that I hadn't got D&D. Me and my neighborhood friends would stay up all night dungeon crawling our way to ridiculous super-heroic status (flying ships, death rays, constant invisibility, AWESOME). I'd run solo modules for my friend Seaghan (pronounced Shawn/Sean) over the phone, expand them when he'd take actions that weren't on the list of options. My friend Ernie developed an interest in Aftermath, Pendragon, Rolemaster, and he gifted me the 1st editions of Character, Arms, Claw, & Spell Laws. He did this as a going away present, as I was moving to Memphis Tennessee. Good thing too, as my gaming experience there got kinda ugly.

Turns out that I moved next door to a D&D player! What luck, right! He was excited that he had figured out he could kill Lloth by using Whelm. I had no idea what he was talking about... but – he DM'ed. None of my friends really DM'ed - I pretty much had all-time DM duty. So I was glad to play some D&D for once, though it took me a minute to get used to rule-breaky, fudge-for-badassery, DM driven power gaming.

As I was getting accustomed to this, there was the afternoon that his dad called us into the living room to have a conversation. He understood that I had come from Indiana, and so he wanted to share with me some details regarding the inferior nature of black people, to raise my awareness and expand my mind by telling me some of their techniques for bankrupting welfare so that they would not have to work, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, et fucking cetera. First time I'd really encountered a seemingly rational, apparently evidence-based argument for racism. From an adult. Ugh.

I did not go there again, and my time in Memphis ended up being pretty brief anyway – just a little over a year – and then back to South Bend. In my absence my friends had kept gaming, and and top of that, none of them took up bigotry! Ernie liked Aftermath and Pendragon. Seaghan got into Top Secret. Donn ran Champions. Jack got us into Call of Cthulhu. I freaked over Paranoia. We'd play all night Diplomacy, long sessions of Squad Leader. This would have been freshman & sophomore years of high school. Lovely time for gaming! Never really did a consistent campaign – none of us really had most-favored-characters... strange to think about that now. I'd write all kinds of dungeons, nations, elaborate magic items, classes, spell lists, etc... but we flitted around games pretty constantly, and board games were a big component. And hardly any D&D too.

I quit school and my friends graduated, so the halcyon high-school gamer life came to close. I kept my books for a while, and certainly do wish that I hadn't sold off & lost them at this point - there were some goodies there. Gradually life & music, girls, weed, books & eventually education – there's (potentially) a lot more to life than playing D&D, and those are the things I did for a long time. Every once in a while I'd open up a notebook and map a continent, write up some encounters or something, but no gaming really. Magic the Gathering came out and I hopped on board for a year or so. It turned some of my RPG potentiometers to somewhere between 4 and 6, and as a casual player, it was fun, but the economics of play were not of interest to me. It's a good game and occasionally I still go to the comic shop here to draft when a core set comes out. I like it at its simplest.

D&D 3.0 came out. My room mate gets the books and we try to play. Of course, DM'ing falls squarely on my shoulders. Eric played back in the day, but we didn't know each other then. He was really into Oriental Adventures and 2nd Edition AD&D. He made a female human monk. We all know that there are differences in play-styles, yes? I hadn't run a game of any stripe in roughly a decade. My goto fantasy RPG was T&T, and when I am winging a game, that is the mind set I slip into. As soon as his character (with back-story of vengeance in place, serious shit) saw the flashing neon sign above a cave that read “ADVENTURE HEREIN!!!” the game crumbled. Oh well. I was interested in some aspects of 3e, but did not form an experienced opinion of it until later, when I played (as a player) in a few games. It was OK and my problems with it seem consonant with the general grog consensus (character build optimization snoozer, feat memorization toward astute system breaking, fiddly not-abstract-enough combat, etc).

So D&D3 didn't do much for me, but then, when I'd go to the local hobby shop, I began to see Hackmaster and I thought it looked hilarious. Then the DCC modules, very clever. The look of these products got to me - I don't remember even perusing the contents of these books. Instead, I reacquired Rolemaster...

This post is long and I am tired. A good night to you.

February reading vs buy my stuff dammit!

2011-02-28T20:07:00.002-08:00

In lieu of gold stars on a chart magnetated to the refrigerator, here's a list of the books I read in the month of February. Way less than my banner month of January - probably won't be able to match that pace again for a while (started a class for medical coding certification - so most of my upcoming reading will be dense and somewhat medical... ugh)...

1. Huon of the Horn, Andre Norton
2. Lyonesse, Jack Vance (2nd read)
3. The Green Pearl, Jack Vance (2nd read)
4. Madouc, Jack Vance (2nd read)

The first time I read the Lyonesse trilogy, I was putting my collection together, and so there were long gaps between the readings (a year between Green Pearl and Madouc for example). So this time I read them back to back to back. That helped. I loved them the first time through, and now I love them even more. Cannot help but have some idle brain cycles turning on the idea of writing up the setting for game purposes. Particularly interested in Murgen's Edict...

And I listed a couple more items on the On Ebay page, so right now I've got Verbosh, Rolemaster Creatures & Treasures III, World of Greyhawk boxed set, & Original Bottle City (SE).

Tunnels & Trolls positive vibes

2011-02-28T09:45:00.000-08:00

It is unfortunate IMO that most of the T&T related writing that I have done on my blog has been occupied with the Shipman/Outlaw Press BS. It's been pointed out that perhaps broadcasting as far and wide as possible, while potentially warning people away, might have the side effect of being free advertising for him - and I can see how that might be the case.

So there are resources on the web for T&T fans, and for the subset of those who want to buy things that won't make them feel like they need to take a shower afterwards there's always the quaint Flying Buffalo website. I've got the link to the Trollbridge inspired Lulu storefront to the right, and here's another:
It's a good one. A fantastic collection of resources and articles managed by the esteemed Dekh (that's a trollish name BTW)

While I'm here, let me put this picture up:
(I like this lion face better. *smiley*)

School of Hard Knocks: Upperclassmen

2011-02-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

PT 1
In 1995 Rolemaster became the RMSS, Rolemaster Standard System. The biggest deal about this revision of the game, as far as the skill subsystem goes, was to make the skill categories meaningful in a mechanical sense. For the simplicity of explanation, in the earlier version of the game, you would get a +5 bonus per rank you had developed in a skill. (Again, I am keeping it simple. There were skills that gave you +1 per rank, variable bonuses per rank, etc... but most of them were of the +5/rank variety - up until diminishing returns kicked in at rank 10... jeesh!)

Anyway - RMSS brought the skill bonus per rank down to +3, AND!, allowed the development of SKILL CATREGORY ranks (a +2 bonus/rank to all skills in that category).
OK - so now development strategies are in place for both broad and specific areas - a warrior can develop skill with all one handed edged weapons in general and also focus on a short sword, rapier, whatever.

I liked this solution. Of course, I wasn't really playing at that time, just reading... So this is a big division point among RM players. Some people prefer the old way. Admittedly, each has it's merits and flaws, and everybody is gonna like what they like, etc.

So when I came back into gaming (2006? 2007, somewhere in there), I picked up the then current incarnation of Rolemaster, and was pleasantly surprised to find this change. I got a couple of my friends to agree to play (gamers both, but no exposure to Rolemaster. As Mr. Burns would say from behind his bony fingers cathedralled...)I'm afraid that I'm going to have to go on a petty tangent here. After examining the beautiful and effective art shown above (Monty, that is), I have to admit that the cover art for the School of Hard Knocks is WAY up on my list of least favorite RPG art. The cover art for most of the recent RMFRP (Rolemaster Fantasy Role Playing) ain't my thing, but this book in particular... ugh. I hope I have not offended the legions of appreciators who are certainly out there. It's actually the one game book cover that a non-gamer friend of mine saw and just started laughing at, and I had to join in. Anyway, big deal Kate - lots of good books have dumb covers!

The School of Hard Knocks was published for the RMFRP system. Specific skill and categorical development are ensconced. Another level of organization is introduced - Skill Groups (sets of associated skill categories). Groups cannot have ranks developed, but other modifications can be applied to the skill categories in a skill group.
(Fighters get +10 to the Armor Group. This means that the 3 skill categories in the Armor Group (light, medium, and heavy) get that +10.)

At this point there are:
12 Skill Groups,
55 Skill categories (note: not all categories are members of groups, or are groups of one...), and
242 Skills at an absolute bare minimum

Excessive? Insane perhaps? This game has shown a pair simultaneously evolving trends applied to the same subject: simplify by adding complexity. It very well could melt brains.

So, OK, I still haven't got to the book itself. I'll post a pic of it now and write about the book itself later because I have to work in the morning. It's the expression on the front of the head of the lion-faced guy holding a stick. Also his choice of attire (Mos Eisley Public Elementary #4)... enjoy!

internetettiqute question

2011-02-26T17:27:00.000-08:00

Is it gauche to pimp one's gaming related Ebay offerings on their gaming blog?
I thank you in advance for your candid views.

Breaking news: Shipman is still an asshole

2011-02-25T17:37:00.000-08:00

He's got a new store online! Still selling things produced by other people that do not want him to sell their things. Still selling things produced by people that have repeatedly told him not to sell their things. Still doing the same things that he always does.

Please - if you know how to send electric impulses through the internet to fry people's brains, send some his way.

Freshman Year in the School of Hard Knocks

2011-02-24T20:15:00.001-08:00

(been wanting to write about this book forever, we'll see how this goes)

If you are aware of Rolemaster, then you probably know that it is a very skill-heavy game. Characters are defined by class & race, sure, but from the start (and only ever moreso as Rolemaster evolved over the years) these details of the character had the most relevance in terms of what skills a character could acquire, how quickly, and at what cost.

In the early days skills were broken down into 5 categories. These categories were organizational only, taxonomic (i.e. they had no 'crunch' in the game). Here then are the first five and the number of skills each encompassed: Maneuvering in Armor (4), Weapon Skills (6), General Skills (7), Magical Skills (5), and Special Skills (6). For the reputation that RM has, it really started out with a pretty small set of rather mundane skills.Of interest, right there in the first edition of Character Law, is section 14.11 WEAPON SKILLS FOR SIMILAR WEAPONS in the OPTIONAL RULES part of the book.
It makes sense, right? That developing some skill in the use and application of the broadsword might also mean that, should a sword of another variety be used, the broadsword experience might be applicable to it...

Again - Makes sense, right? Well, the seeds of future bloat are there from the start. (The next optional rule applies the same principle to the riding of similar mounts...)

So - Character Law goes through a revision. I do not have a copy of this one handy,
but here is where the skills start to really take off. At this point ICE begins to publish Rolemaster Companion books. These books have new classes, new spell lists, and optional rules to try out for virtually every aspect of game play. And from the first, more skills are explained.

By the time the second Companion arrives there are now more 160 skills listed, divided into 16 categories. Rolemaster Companion II really broke the flood gates - presenting optional rules for similar skills (harkening back to the early optional rule dealing with similar weapons), rules for complementary skills (using two skills in conjunction to resolve an action), and very importantly section 7.0 COMPLETE SKILL DESCRIPTIONS. Now I could see how to apply the Administration skill, the Herding skill, and the Sense Reality Warp skill among (many, many, many, too many) others.

If I had a scanner, I would love to show you 11.3 SIMILAR SKILLS TABLE, which is divided into those skills in the same category, and those in different ones. A character might apply 1/8 of their skill bonus in "star-gazing" toward attempts at "time sense", 1/4 of their biochemistry skill to poison perception, 1/4 of their skating skill bonus to any dancing attempts... man it got thick.

Optional Rule 4.3 in the Rolemaster Companion 2 gives some methods to limit the quantity of skills available to the characters. So there is now an optional rule to reduce the potential headache. The section begins "While it may seem that the number of skills now available are perhaps too great to easily handle..." (!)

I will end this part here and resume later. This was the state of Rolemaster during its big heyday (i.e. when it still had the Tolkien license and produced many magnificent Middle-Earth supplements). That state lasted for some several years, and constantly more skills appeared, more applications of those skills, more ways to relate them to each-other, more, more, more, more!

The next big change in the game (RMSS - SS = Standard System) I'll get to later. It was another organizational change, which also served to remedy some of the intensely over-wrought similar skill trees and such.

And eventually, I promise I'll get to the magnum opus - the School of Hard Knocks itself. Lovely book.

best of blogs 2010

2011-02-23T08:43:00.000-08:00

Here's a list I compiled while reading blogs last year. By no means comprehensive (frex: I just dug into the Metal Earth this year - holy shit! And I can't really link to every damn post over at Old Guard Accouterments or Mule Abides in good conscience... just go read those blogs from beginning to end!) - but all of these links struck me at the time of reading to be worth retaining for various reasons. Readers, please enjoy - Authors, please write more!

NAGOH FRUGAL GAMING
MORE NAGOH!
MULE ABIDES 1
MULE ABIDES 2
OLD GUARD
TAO ALEXIS 1
ONE OF ZAK'S BEST
DADDY GROG ALIGNMENT
A TROLLSMYTH GOODIE
TAO ALEXIS 2
EVEN MORE TAVIS!
YET EVEN MORE TAVIS!!!

more along...

3 temples

2011-02-23T07:19:00.000-08:00

Temple of the Fire God
Priests wear luminous robes of silver and silk threads - at least two will be in the chapel at all times of day and night, occupied by devotions to the Fire God. It lives in a glass case behind the altar. Some priests are devoted to keeping the god placated that fire does not scourge the earth - other priests continue logical lines of progress from the introduction of fire and seek to spread 'civilization' - druids acknowledge and respect the power of the Fire God.

It is a powerful elemental being with an intelligence totally alien to the Prime Material Plane - it should be considered neutral. It has been bound in its glass prison for 300 years (though it itself marks no measure of time) and bestows powers on clerics (and druids, sorcerers, etc as applicable) without imposing stringent lifestyle and alignment restrictions on those who make contact with it - it is the priesthood that has grown for 4 or 5 generations that imposes rules. These include:

1st & 2nd level: 1 week devotion per month
3rd & 4th level: 1 week devotion per season
5th & 6th level: 1 week devotion per year

Order of the Fire's Light: loremasters, technicians
Order of the Blazing Flame: clerics, paladins

Healing spells granted by fire god leave scars
Turning undead manifests as a wave of heat and flame that does not harm the living.

Temple of Asanu
Priests are clad in red and black. Asanu is a powerful demon lord, the cult around it is a mystery religion, wherein murder is a common act of devotion. The priests are slavers, and they are bankers. The temple is often a safe house for assassins and contains an avatar of the deity - behind the altar is a fountain of a viscous brown poisonous fluid. Asanu can sense and speak through it, cast spells and powers through it, and cause it to attack like a 12 HD water weird (with poisonous bite, -3 to save).

Clerics of Asanu cannot use edged/pointed weapons, with the exception of a sacramental knife (d3 damage). They are expected to use this knife one time per level each year to take the life an good-aligned being - consigning them to become manes demons in Asanu's realm, or undead servants of the priesthood.

Healing spells cost x2 normal
Controlled and created undead at option of priesthood

Temple of the Thing in the Lake
The priests are garbed in blue and black. They are charged with keeping their god pacified. It is to be considered a neutral creature of alien intelligence. The powers the clerics (druids, sorcerers, etc) derive are real, though they seem to be only a side-effect of interaction with the being.

Service to the temple takes the form of a rigorous regimen of fasting and meditative trance. In this way, a cleric establishes their connection to the deity and also keeps it distracted, that it not stir from the depths.

1st & 2nd level: 1 day a week
3rd & 4th level: 3 days a month
5th & 6th level: 1 week a season
7th & 8th level: 1 month a year

Clerics may gain their spells through an hour's meditation, using water from the lake as a focus. This can be accomplished at lakeside, or using a translucent or transparent bottle of lake water. The holy water fount in the temple draws from the lake.

Undead destroyed in turning become normal water

125 'professions'

2011-02-18T15:12:00.000-08:00

Adventurer
Alchemist
Animist
Armorer
Assassin
Astrologer
Athlete
Baker
Barber
Bard
Beggar
Billeter
Blacksmith
Book Maker
Brewer
Burglar
Calligrapher
Candle Maker
Carpenter
Ceramicist
Charlatan
Cleric
Cobbler
Con Man
Conjuror
Cook
Counselor
Crocheter
Cultist
Delver
Distiller
Doctor
Dyer
Elementalist
Embalmer
Embroiderer
Enameler
Enchanter
Farmer
Fighter
Fortune Teller
Furrier
Gardener
Gladiator
Gem Cutter
Glassblower
Guard
Guide
Herbalist
Hermit
Hunter
Husbandry
Illusionist
Inventor
Justice
Jester
King
Knight
Knitter
Laborer
Lawyer
Lay Healer
Lay Priest
Leather Craftsman
Lord
Lumberer
Magician
Medic
Medium
Mentalist
Merchant
Messenger
Metal Smith
Miller
Missionary
Monk
Mother
Musician
Mystic
Necromancer
Net Maker
Nightblade
Noble
Painter
Paladin
Panhandler
Paper Maker
Physician
Pilgrim
Poisoner
Potter
Quilter
Quarryman
Ranger
Rogue
Roofer
Sage
Scholar
Scribe
Sculptor
Seer
Seneschal
Shaman
Soldier
Sorcerer
Spinner
Steward
Swashbuckler
Tailor
Tanner
Taxidermist
Thief
Trapper
Traveller
Upholsterer
Valet
Vetrinarian
Vintner
Warlock
Warrior
Weapon Smith
Weaver
Witch
Wizard
Wood Crafter

5 more weird rooms

2011-02-16T20:28:00.000-08:00

1.Walls of force form a tunnel through a larger room, filled with hideous demons that batter against the invisible barrier, desperate to consume the PCs. The demons are illusionary.

2.A hole in one wall (4' deep, 5' wide) emits a permanent gust of wind (as cast by 10th level magic user, i.e. 50% extinguish protected flames, 10' wide, 100' long. If this is in a small enclosed room, it will be filled with air turbulence)

3. A magical goat is staked to a post in front of the other way out. Missiles fired in (or into) this room vanish into thin air. If the goat is attacked, it breaks its tether and engages in melee (AC -1 HD 2 hp 10 A 1 D 5-8 attacks as 6 HD creature). If it is given food, it will let them pass. It will not try to stop anyone. However, it will bray loudly once they have passed. If it is untied from the post, it will attack the un-tier that round and then vanish. If the goat damaged the un-tier, a random magic ring is left behind.

4. 6 skeletons stand in an inward facing circle. In the center of the circle is a large cube of iron. This cube hums and pulses slowly with a faint green glow. The skeletons last command was to stare at the box. They do not attack unless attacked. They will follow the cube if it is moved, though it could be very heavy.

5. Two humanoid faces are carved into opposite walls facing each-other. Anything the PCs say in this room will be repeated by the faces - one will repeat the words in Dwarvish, the other in an unknown, sibilant language.

2011-02-14T17:36:00.000-08:00

This was some ideas I was having for an AD&D environment, the player character options. All humans were of Monster Manual Men entry stock (bandit, berserker, etc...)

Apparently demi-humans cannot be single-classed and humans can multi-class. The score after the class is EXP required to level. Thieves only show up as a multi-class option. Clerics are not to be found, their spells likely split between druids and magic users.

DWARF CLASSES
Fighter/Thief 3250
Fighter/Assassin 3500

ELF, HALF ELF CLASSES
Fighter/Thief 3250
Fighter/Assassin 3500
Magic User/Thief 3750
Druid/Fighter 4000 (half elf only)
Fighter/Magic User 4500

GNOME CLASSES
Fighter/Thief 3250
Fighter/Assassin 3500
Illusionist/Thief 3500
Illusionist/Assassin 3750
Fighter/Illusionist 4250

HUMAN CLASSES
Assassin 1500
Druid 2000
Fighter 2000
Ranger 2250
Magic User 2500
Fighter/Thief 3250
Druid/Thief 3250
Fighter/Assassin 3500
Magic User/Thief 3750
Illusionist/Assassin 3750
Druid/Fighter 4000
Druid/Illusionist 4250
Druid/Magic User 4500

3 locations

2011-02-14T17:13:00.000-08:00

Planes and Planets
Borlus is a small plane floating in the astral seas. It is a perfect disc, 1000 miles from edge to edge. Ambient light equivalent to terrestrial twilight pervades the place, and the air has a slight haze, keeping maximum visibilty to 300'. X-Ray and Ultrvision do not function in Borlus. It is ruled by the powerful demon lord Agsa (HD 11+3(hp ) AC -4 MV 15"/15"), who pays little attention to his domain, so long as his manes preserves and citadel are undisturbed. Agsa is a powerful mage (magic user level 15) and has invented many powerful variations of spells (changing Monster Summons spells into Agsa's Summons spells, Agsa's Poisoned Web, etc...). Agsa can sometimes be convinced (or coerced) into teaching magi these spells in a painful instantaneous method that will replace the original spell and decrease constitution by one point.

Haarlusk is a tidally locked planet, the bright side scorched and desolate, the dark side a ice and rock waste with little to no atmosphere. The habitable areas of the planed form a ring running along the tropics of the transition zone. The weather is chaotic and often very violent. The sentients of Haarlusk are generally of three varieties: 1) insectoids under the surface of the bright side, 2) reptilians on the brightside surface, and 3) cold elemental creatures in the tropic of the transition zone, with no need of breathing.

Petchko 7 is a colony ship, long stranded but still functional, in deep space. It has been occupied by the demon Kalabus (HD 7 (hp ) AC 1 MV 9"), and he spreads cursed teleportation scrolls among many worlds. Kalabus has reprogramed the Petchko 7 to provide a suitable deathtrap for those unfortunates brought to it. Clerics and druids will not have access to spells higher than 4th level from their deities, short of gates or other direct contact. When those telepoted in are too dangerous or powerful, Kalabus may apologize and offer to teleport them home if they will then disseminate three scrolls of cursed teleportation where they go. There is only a 30% chance that they will be returned to their plane of origin, though, as Kalabus prefers his traps to be widely spread.

(yes, I am just kinda data dumping these days.)

5 weird rooms

2011-02-14T17:02:00.000-08:00

1.Permanent Magic mouth (cast by 14th level MU) laughs maniacally and gibbers nonsense as long as any living thing is in the room. There are skeletal remains bound to the walls by iron manacles.

2.A large statue of a man lies face down on the ground. It appears to be made of a brassy metal. It sounds hollow. There is a trapdoor in its chest.

3.Small pedestal with ivory statuette (ox pulling plow though field of bones) surrounded by a shallow pool of murky brown fluid. When seen, it sends a telepathic message to those seeing it, communicating that it will accept donations of food thrown into the pool. Only food can pass the surface of the pool. This statuette will teleport back to the pedestal after not being on it for one hour.

4.Fires cannot be started in this room, and flames brought into it are extinguished.

5.Esoteric observatory. There is an ornate brass telescope affixed to the floor in the center of the room and the ceiling is a scene of the night sky. There is an occasional breeze in the room also, of indeterminate origin. Those using the telescope to examine the 'ceiling' may (70%) glimpse strange luminous forms flitting from star to star, or (30%) see a nearby planet, of arid red deserts. The ceiling itself is not there: treat it as gate (transit time 5 hours @ 12" move) to the red planet for fliers, levitators, etc. Movement cannot take figures in horizontal directions beyond the dimensions of this room (i.e. a 30'x'30' tunnel to Qar'bexen that takes 5 hours to traverse)

2011-02-12T17:52:00.000-08:00

Things I like to remember:
Villages, Settlements, Encampments

1. Many villages will have dogs, or early warning analogue animals. Consider an elven predilection of giant eagles (!), gnolls w/hyenadon (!). Approaching a random village could result in being attacked, killing one of their dogs considered a crime – at least a fine.

2. The current ‘mood’ of villagers can change the tenor of approach drastically. Are they hostile because they are harried by bandits and assume the worst of wandering adventurers? Are they in the middle of some twee celebration because the crop was good? There are stories of powers moving disguised though times of festival, if not all of the time.

3. On the subject of disguise, think about things that can polymorph. Some wizards, many demons and devils. Magic ogres, maybe powerful dragons (I’m not so much a fan of that). What do you want the odds to be in a population of 500, that there’s d12 dopplegangers or d6 ogre magi or something?

4. On the subject of disguise again (I know, a tangent…), how about the invisibles? Not so many of those. Nevertheless, let the sprites go invisible, and again with the magic ogres…

5. I like villages at a headcount of 100-500 (d6x100, 6 is 1), which is to say populations of that size. Nomadic cultures produce independent populations based on a dispersion percentage. Same with merchants. These tend to be much smaller on average, but the potential for truly huge hordes exists also.

6. I have always sucked at role-playing settlements, I prefer to make it more gamey. Rolling a d6 to determine how many internal divisions there are in a group if necessary. These divisions can be used to determine the temperament of the group as a whole. If they are balkanized (roll of 6) and antagonistic in general, the community will ‘feel’ different than if they are all ‘of one mind’ (roll of 1). The number of divisions could be used for patrol size, alignment division, kinda a lot of things on the fly.

7. I tend to think of village economies as being largely centered around one resource or feature for convenience. All villages will have some provision for water. D6, 6 is 1 yields an agricultural bump. Treat 6 as whatever you want, to increase the presence of resources, 5 for very developed locations.
A. <200 Agriculture
B. 200 Fortification
C. 250 Raw Material (wood, stone)
D. 300 Goods/Production/Manufacture
E. 350 Trade Route/Temple/Cultural Importance
F. 400 Agriculture & Fortification + one of C, D, or E
G. 450 Agriculture & Fortification + two of C, D, or E
H. 500 Agriculture & Fortification + C, D, and E

8. I like the idea that maybe 1 in 10 random villages are “class sanctuaries”. Instead of multiplying by 100, the die thrown for population is multiplied by a number keyed to the class in question.
A. X10 10-50 Clerics (potentially Cultist/Pilgrim, Paladin, Ranger, Assassin, Monk)
B. X10 10-50 Druids (potentially Cultist/Pilgrim, Berserker, examples of any other basic class, certainly animals)
C. X10 10-50 Fighters (potentially Bandit/Brigand, Berserker, Merchant)
D. X5 5-25 Magic Users (potentially anything!)
E. X5 5-25 Thieves (potentially Bandit/Brigand, Merchant, Assassin)
I like the idea – generates cleric temple & druid wyrd spots, wizard covens, thief gangs, strongpoints of arms. Could be used for quick & dirty level advancement, contacts, etc.

2011-01-31T07:32:00.000-08:00

I am certain that everyone on the Internet has been wondering what I’ve been doing for the majority of the last few months while not blogging. The simple answer: Reading books. Lots of them.

I’d love to be able to say that I’ve compiled a giant list of ways that these books can be applied to gaming, but I have not. Certainly there were some moments that some things stood out, triggered some "game-thought", but I wasn’t really recording anything at the time.

Here's a list.

November
1. Four Black Revolutionary Plays, LeRoi Jones
2. Giving Good Weight, John McPhee
3. The Jack Vance Treasury
4. The Water of Thought, Fred Saberhagen
5. Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
6. The Broken Sword, Poul Anderson

December
1. The Business, Iain Banks
2. Sabbath’s Theater, Phillip Roth
3. Mathematicians in Love, Rudy Rucker
4. Space Opera, Jack Vance
5. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein
6. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera

January
1. Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces, Tom Clancy, Carl Steiner, Tony Koltz, and Jonathan Marosz
2. Anais: The Erotic Life of Anais Nin, Noel Riley Fitch
3. Space Vikings, H Beam Piper
4. John Addams, David McCullough
5. Best of Leigh Brackett
6. Gloriana, Michael Moorcock
7. The Road, Cormac McCarthy
8. Singular Travels, Campaigns and Adventures of Baron Munchausen, R E Raspe & others, illustrations by Gustav Dore
9. The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Gene Wolfe
10. The Elephant Vanishes, Haruki Murakami
11. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, also Murakami

Yes I'm particularly happy with the 11 books in one month thing. I've heard a few times recently that the average American reads 2 books a year. What's up with that?

Oh yeah! Games! Almost forgot...

2010-10-31T12:54:00.000-07:00

Haven't played anything in quite a while, most of this year. Tried a few times and it felt contrived. Was busy for a while with work and general life chaos, etc. But honestly, I didn't feel much inclined to try and get something together. My game-writing also declined for a while, though there were a couple of milestones reached (i.e. some good tables) - so I'm beginning to wonder: have I become an "ivory-tower" theorist?

Gaming exhaustion, that's the conclusion I've come to. I am liking the results of what little time I do spend on world-building, table creation, etc... but actually sitting down and playing something seems totally alien to me. Weird. Probably just a phase. Again.

If I remember correctly, it would have been somewhere in 2004 that I started getting back into game-invention (not the invention of games, but invention within the system of a particular game) - Rolemaster and Traveller. 6 years. Stumbling across the blog-o-verse certainly kicked things to a new level for me... and now? I dunno. So to those of you who read this, I'll apologize. Been quiet around here and may very well stay that way. And I am moving, so the ol' double-whammy of nothing to post & no internet (for a while) may prevail.

Take care!

[OT] small story

2010-08-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

Some backstory: My old band is playing a festival here in Lexington. We are scheduled to play between two bands, the name of the first I cannot remember, the second being Death (from Detroit, not Florida!).

I was passing this information to the guitarist, said something like "We're between... something and Death...", to which he replied "Aren't we always?"

Just thought it was funny.

out of it

2010-08-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

man - it's been a minute since I've posted here, and I think I might really kinda be out of it for a while. I started my own gaming 'renaissance' in 2006, but right now, the other parts of my life demand a renaissance, and I'm just not finding myself inspired by gaming. So, I think this blog may lie still for a long time, perhaps at some point I may get back into the swing of things - I don't know. But I'll probably still be lurking around and dropping asinine comments on ya'll good and interesting blogs sometimes.

take care.
-Greg

AD&D thought of the day

2010-06-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

1st level magic user. Plenty of fun as is, however, I've been thinking about a way to let starting wizards make temporary magic items. How's this...

1. cast a Nystul's magic aura on an object, lasts 1 day/level
2. cast a Find Familiar (doesn't count against the 'once a year' stipulation). Casting time is 1-24 hours. The familiar is bound to the object with the aura on it.
3. cast whatever spell you want the object to store or use after that.

It will have as many charges as the caster's intelligence-level (diminishing returns)

kinda cute.

Danhem's solo schoolin'

2010-06-08T22:39:00.000-07:00

Here's some links to an very interesting series (hopefully ongoing) regarding writing solo adventures.
PT 1
PT 2
PT 3
PT 4
PT 5

Talislanta needs your help & Flash Gordon

2010-05-27T18:30:00.000-07:00

Totally unconnected, and in place of blogging anything of substance...

There was an hour long animated Flash Gordon 'movie' on TV in the 80's and it's pretty cool. Stays pretty true to original source, wasn't made specifically for kids (read: has dancing girls). Worth an hour's watch

AND here's a quote from Talislanta.com



Talislanta.com In Need Of File Storage!
By MARQUES | Published: MAY 28, 2010
Our current web host only allows for a single master account for FTP’ing. We are now in a position where we really need access to multiple FTP accounts and we’re convinced there is noway to work this out with our current webhost. Is there any chance that somebody out there can help us by providing file hosting and access for Talislanta.com? Our current set of files is around 15GB’s. This will grow as the Talislanta Download Archive comes online and continues to expand. I’m not certain what our monthly bandwidth usage is but I can check with Adam if needed. Any help or suggestions would be most appreciated!

I'd help if I could, can you?

just found Frederik Pohl's blog

2010-05-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

Here and read it top to bottom, back and forth. Love it when random wanderings lead to treasures such as this!

It's the little things...

2010-05-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank the people responsible for the Basic Fantasy RPG, for OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, and also those who've taken the opportunity created by the initiative of the cloners to make the gaming environment become robust and diverse in the last two years.

Great time to game!

Trollszine #2

2010-04-30T15:52:00.000-07:00

Trollszine 2 is now available for public consumption!!! Woot!!!

12 touchstones of old-school modules

2010-04-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

Decided to reprint this cool list from ENWorld and Knights & Knaves. Enjoy!

1) environmental hazards -- slippery floors, rooms that flood, narrow ledges over steep drops, rooms that are excessively hot or cold, rooms or corridors filled with poison (or otherwise magical) gasses, etc.

2) combat encounters should generally be with baseline (or near-baseline) monsters with difficulty enhanced by the circumstances of the encounter (i.e. monsters have set up ambushes, monsters forcing the PCs to fight in unfavorable surroundings, teams of similar (or dissimilar) monster-types working together, etc.) rather than through templates or class-leveling

3) at least one encounter that if played as a straight combat will totally overmatch the party, but which can be avoided or circumvented by some clever means

4) at least one puzzle, trick, or obstacle that requires the players to figure it out, rather than being solvable by a die-roll

5) at least one item, location, or creature that causes some kind of significant permanent effect (permanently raise/lower stats or hp, permanently change race, gender, or alignment, permanently grant or take away magic items, etc.) determined by a random roll on a table -- with possibilities for both good and bad effects, depending on the roll

6) at least one item of treasure that is cursed or has other detrimental side-effects on the owner/possessor

7) some sort of "false climax" where inattentive players will think they've won the adventure and either let their guard down or go home, while clever players will realize this couldn't have really been the climax

8) at least one disorienting effect. teleporter, mirror trap, [swiveling] floor, or maze like monster. up is down too.

9) an area where resources are an issue. wet torches or wind blowing them out. oxygen low or having to hold your breath to swim [through] a tunnel.

10) an area that has items of value. but they are too large to transport. or cause someone to have his hands full at an ambush.

11) a creature that appears to be something it is not. Some examples: Lurker above, mimic, [cloaker], wolf in sheep's clothing, doppelganger, gas spore (perhaps my favorite), etc.

12. One encounter (no more, no less) that makes absolutely no logical sense, that the DM completely leaves up to the players' imagination to explain.

(1-7 are from T Foster
8-10 are from Diaglo
11 is from Xyanthon, and
12 is from rogatny,
original research-fu courtesy of piper)

AD&D Druids 2

2010-04-22T19:06:00.000-07:00

Telecanter asked "So, any ideas on mechanics or guidelines to emphasize this view of druids in play?" to last post, and as usual, some half and quarter -formed ideas at best. Druids and bards both have proven to be character classes I have much difficulty 'fitting in' - finding an interpretation I'm comfortable with - probably because they are the ones that imply a closer relation to earth history and culture than the others, so there's more baggage attached to them that way than I should bother thinking about...

The only tinkering I've done with the druid class was for Tunnels and Trolls, a system I have an easier time inventing with. Essentially, though, all I did was port over the 1e druid and throw a few more spells into the mix (spells to compel truth, to enforce pacts and agreements (kinda geas-light), and a couple of others that downplayed the nature side of the character type, played up their ability to act as judges)

So, ideas on playing up the traditional social roles of druids (in a totally fantastic 1e society/world anyway!)...

By the book, every druid will have a charisma of 15 or more. Perhaps the druid should start off with henchmen - traditionalists who rely on the character for guidance. At 15 charisma, maximum henchmen is 7, so maybe d4 or d6 henchies? Some players like having henchmen, some don't - and there's obviously some other issues with this, namely - that's potentially a pretty powerful gang for a 1st level character to command!

But this could be used to show from the start that druids are social, and could serve as a sort of foreshadowing to the intricacies of advancing through the ranks of the druidic 'church'.

The church? The whole hierarchy of druids thing. Without going into the difficulties involved in trying to play the 'organization' by-the-book, consider that each 12th level druid will have 'an entourage of three underlings'. The 12th level druid with the least experience points has an entourage of 3 1st level druids. I assume that as these low level druids rise in experience, they are passed to those 12th level druids with more experience than their previous supervisor. Perhaps then, the freshly rolled druid begins the game with a 12th level "patron"?

Well - for what purpose(s) does this organization exist? Are there more druids in the world than can be accounted for in the organization? Open questions. Let's assume that the answer is no for the time being, that all druids exist in underling/supervisor relations. Doing the mathematics to find out how many druids exist should be possible, but it not the kind of thing I want to go into right now (ever?) - I guess it seems more important to me to try to define the goals and purposes of those who follow The Great Druid. What druids in general strive for is spelled out somewhat (paraphrasing: "..to strengthen, protect, and revitalize... living, growing things."), but how specifically.

The biggest chicken-bone to me, at this point, becomes druids vs clerics. While I don't like the idea that druids are just "clerics but different", the problem that comes up is they know that the gods exist. So how do they get along with clerics? Would not (at least some of) the gods hold a druid's refusal to worship them as an affront? What has prevented wrathful, emotional gods in a pique from wiping druidism of the face of the green earth? Does the druid see a cleric's miracle cynically, or do the gods and their worshipers fit into the 'natural order of things' (as a druid sees it)?

Obviously, as much as a cleric is powered by something (gods & demons, etc) so to is the druid (nature & elements (?)), and if clerics and druids are to co-exist, the nature of their relationship, and the messy cosmological questions that arise need to be addressed.

In a way, Moorcock's multiverse seems a good place to find a 1e druid, dedicated to Balance with a capital B, pacting with Beast & Elemental Lords...

Sorry - no real suggestions worth much here, just a bunch of questions mostly. I'll have to keep working on this more...

AD&D Druids

2010-04-20T18:03:00.000-07:00

I don't like the idea that druids have 'patron deities' in the same way as clerics. No thanks - that's cleric stuff (and not much to my liking for them anyway). This was one of my beefs with the Greyhawk setting - though there's plenty of other things I do like about the setting.

No, druids retain the old ways - which is to say a belief system (and source of power) more cthonic, deistic... to them, the forces of the universe are not anthropomorphic - I like to consider them to be perhaps more Nietzschean (in the "beyond good and evil" sense), not seeking a balance between good/evil, law/chaos - just disregarding them as meaningful constructs whatsoever. Where druids interact with society, I like to play them as chroniclers and overseers of oaths and pacts - where they are rulers they apply reason evenly, but rarely are rulers.

In my effort to not be quite so consumed by the internet and to read physical books more regularly again, I lit upon a book called "The Druids" by Peter Berresford Ellis which was a good read, an attempt to examine the role(s) druids played in their time, while admitting the representation historically skewed by Roman conquerers and Christian converters... I thought it was an interesting read. In general it portrayed druids as taking on a number of important social roles, moreso than overtly religious duties (though reliable details of druidic cosmology/philosophy/etc are few and far between).

(I could not find much critical assessment of this book on the web, but here's a page that someone put up - a review which I find myself largely in agreement with.)

The AD&D druid has always been one of my favorite classes to play, but one I've always wanted to find a better fit for when thinking about settings and campaigns and such. Still working on it.

What would you do for your game?

2010-04-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

From: Ugliest tattoos
Would you go this far? I would not.
HOWEVER...
When I was a youngin' I read and re-read the Lord of the Rings obsessively. Many times.
Then when I was 17 (and smoking a lot of pot) I decided I'd give myself a tattoo. Hmmm.... what to do, what to do... where to put it...

Long story short (-1 ball point pen, -some India Ink, -1 needle and a little thread) I went with Gandalf's mark on the rock near Weathertop (The Khuzdul 'G' rune with dots in the cardinal points) on the back of my left hand.

As it turns out, I did not have much native talent for tattooing. It's faded over the years and most people do not notice it (home made cheapie tattoos like this do not last well unless you go over it a few times at least).

Dedication. Jeez...

While not blogging...

2010-04-16T10:58:00.000-07:00

I spent a lot of time poring through old messages on some of the larger, older D&D message boards. A lot of good stuff there, also a lot of drama (as per usual it seems, *ack* dragonsfoot *ack* (strictly a read-only board for me)). Anyone else do this?

For example: take one poster who has been around for a while and who you think is insightful/interesting, and then do a search for their posts. Go back to their first post, and find the thread titles that seem interesting... Obsessive? Creepy? I dunno - no harm done, and some really great ideas! I've done the same thing with some blogs too - particularly Jeff's Gameblog - go back a few years and it is still the best damm blog evah!

(also interesting in dredging through message boards is how conversation topics come up every few years)

I think I'm past the initial 'honeymoon' period of having a relatively stable internet connection - I'm maturing! It's a natural process, I am told... I think I'm past that stage where clicking links and reading everything all the time triggers that node of your brain that appreciates learning new things (often a 'false positive' on the internet...), so now... hmmm?

What to do with this internet?

BTW: does joethelawyer's wonderous imaginings crash anyone else's computer? It's strange and I cannot figure out why...

Title? OK: delicious avacado

2010-04-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just have to get away from the internet for a while - at least, sometimes I do. Otherwise I begin to get obsessive (in a less-than-optimally-healthy way) - so I've had a blog-sabbatical, and I feel refreshed. Got back to reading real books, and man did I get some good ones - Moorcock's Byzantium Endures, the first book of The Black Company, M. A. R. Barker's Man of Gold, Encounters with the Archdruid by John McPhee (who is our greatest living author if you ask me - his works, regardless of subject, have never failed me). Currently reading Moondust (talking to the astronauts who walked on the moon) and Under the Black Flag, "the romance and reality of life among the pirates". Next up is one I'm particularly excited about Ardneh's Sword by Fred Saberhagen - apparently a bridge story between Empire of the East and his Swords series... some of my favorite stuff!

Several gamish things have transpired while I've been unblogged. Acquired Rob Kuntz's Bottle City (and it is magnificent!) and the Ready Ref Sheets (finally). Thanks to a tip from Tavis I signed up for Paperbackswap a while back, and it's come through with the Rolemaster Companion II (in fantastic condition) and a late printing of the original cover AD&D Monster Manual (in bad shape, but FREE!). So at this point, I've regained all the 1st edition AD&D books that I want - Huzzah!

Started running a couple of friends through a dungeon a while back, but we haven't had time for any sessions recently. It was going well though, and hopefully we'll be able to restart in the near future. I talked them into testing out a dungeon, the kind of dungeon that is on the other side of a cursed scroll that teleports the reader and party somewhere obtuse. It's been a while since I ran AD&D, so I used the sessions to identify some of my rough spots, started to figure out how I want to handle things (initiative, higher level spells and some powerful magic items, etc... things I never really had the chance to adjudicate BITD).

Now I'm working on a small 'setting' - sort of a mini campaign area. It's been fun building things from scratch - generating a lot of information randomly and then building connections between them. The whole thing started out when I decided to generate some intelligent magic swords. I ended up with a powerful Holy Avenger that spoke several bizarre languages, and so to justify the sword's esoteric linguistic capabilities, designed its history. This established the presence of some powerful evil monsters (namely manticores and ogre magi). Anyway, I've been working on really fleshing out the populations in this area and it has been a lot of fun putting faith in the dice and establishing some story-threads afterwards.

The first Trollszine was published and proved to be a popular download. Felt great to have that come out - I have to admit that the whole Outlaw Press meltdown left me feeling very much like withdrawing from the internet gaming world - it was just such a let down and filled with personal acrimony and, frankly, that's not the kind of thing I need in the main distraction I have from real life (which all too often already has enough negativity to deal with). I got really wrapped up with that, and I think I needed to take a step back - so that's what I did.

If it wasn't for Joesky the Dungeon Brawler and Vaults of Nagoh, I don't know what I'd do!

Take care!
-G

Why was Star Wars cool? One man's opinion:

2010-03-31T16:36:00.001-07:00

Bear in mind that I was 6 or 7 when I saw it.

Anyway - the trash compactor. And the incidental music during the trash compaction.

Why did that particular scene ring the badass bell in my head when I saw it? Maybe that is just where the backlog of mind-blowings caught up with me. Maybe it's the peek into the implied backdrop (of course a Death Star will generate garbage - wonder what they do with it?). Pretty prosaic epiphany...

The Jawa music too was cool.

FLGS breaking news: The Griffon, South Bend Indiana

2010-03-05T08:39:00.000-08:00

I grew up gaming in the Griffon Bookstore and have nothing but love and respect for the people that run it. Even did a brief email 'interview' with them a while back... I don't live there anymore, but a friend of mine sent me a link to an article in the newspaper there which confirms a long held suspicion of mine... The mild-mannered propriator of the Griffon might really be a Jedi.

Trollszine #1 is go!

2010-03-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

TROLLSZINE #1
We got it on Flying Buffalo's page at RPGnow! Woot! (Couldn't do Lulu because Lulu don't like Mac generated PDFs)
It's free! And it's good!

Table of contents ...

Trolls Talk - by Dan Prentice
Trolls Regenerate - by Ken St Andre
The Trollgod Rants 1 - by M. E. Volmar
Selling Used Equipment - by Gary McCammon
Funny Shaped Dice and Massive Monsters - by Dan Prentice
Aeulungs Tale: Chapter 1 - by Tom Grimshaw
The Trollchefs Cookbook - by Salvatore Macri and Dan Prentice
Grumlahk - by Jeff Freels
The Trollgod Rants 2 - by M. E. Volmar
Roadhouse - by Greg Backus
TrollsZine Competition
The Blood War at Saxon - by Tom Grimshaw
Item! Item! - by Greg Backus and Dan Prentice
Dare to Daro - by Dan Prentice
Delverton: The Smithy - by Lee Reynoldson
The Game of the Sphinx - by Mike Tremaine
Going Solo - by Dan Prentice
The Restless Mausoleum - by Salvatore Macri

Good stuff - go get it!

More Outlaw Press BS

2010-02-03T11:05:00.000-08:00

Not only does Shipman decide to auction off his collection of collectible T&T stuff (and, by the way, the description he gave of the product is now gone, where he once purported it to be Ken's old copy) - he then rewards the bidding winner with a new copy of it instead.

Wow. He really must think he's teflon. Just wow...

stopping solo play

2010-01-28T16:09:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry Timeshadows I'm gonna have to stop running this for the time being. I think I'm probably gonna be off the internet for a while - there's a lot of personal shit going on over here right now and I just don't have the headspace right now. Thanks for playing though, it's been fun and helpful. Real world just took some ugly turns and I think I am not going to be on the net so much.

(podcast link fixed)

2010-01-26T07:52:00.000-08:00

oops.
Here, The Trollgod really does chat it up for a good hour or so.

Good Ken St. Andre podcast

2010-01-25T10:42:00.000-08:00

The Trollgod chats it up for a good hour or so.[EDIT: fixed the link noisms, oops!]

(solo playtest) HT:7 Timeshadows

2010-01-23T15:09:00.000-08:00

X). While watching the statuette, cautiously collect the coins only on the ground, and if successful, then go up the new stairs.

Roll 2d6 for amount of gold pieces collected. (Rolled 10).

Up the stairs, you arrive in the main room of the mausoleum, a small stone building with an open passage facing the town center. There are tattered tapestries and faded frescoes on the walls - it seems obvious that this place sees little traffic, just enough to keep a few torches lit.

A) go down to the shrine
B) go out to the town center.

balance vs trade-offs

2010-01-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

Trade offs win again!

There's a lot said (pro and con) about "game balance", and I think that most of the arguments in the pro column use 'character-power-equanimity' as a benchmark. I sit pretty comfortably in the con column here. I like the fact that there's not a strict 1:1 relationship between benefits/restrictions, possibilities/limitations of early D&D classes (and races if they are decoupled in that version).

The idea that a 4th level thief should be (by some metric I don't think I've understood) 'just as good' in some way as a 4th level Cleric/Fighter/etc is. In the end, I don't get it. Different classes are different...

The thought process leading up to this match up was to open up the PHB Attacks/round for fighters to the other classes too. On an abstract level, I like it

Class	1/round	3/2 rounds	2/round
Cleric	1-9	10-17	18+
Druid	1-8	9-13	14
Fighter	1-6	7-12	13+
Paladin	1-6	7-12	13+
Ranger	1-7	8-14	15+
Thief	1-8	9-16	17+
Assassin	1-7	8-14	15
Magic User	1-10	11-20	21+
Illusionist	1-10	11-20	21+
Monk	1-3	6-8	9-10

...but does this 'rob' the fighting man of something too iconic, class defining? I dunno - not so much for me. Fighting men will still be more effective in their attacks (to-hit progression, strength bonuses, etc) than the other classes, and I like to think of thieves and assassins (especially) as being more 'fighter-ly'... Moreover, fighters have the 'attack as many <1 HD as levels' thing which no other classes get... I dunno - just an idea, something nice to have around if some 12th level wizard thinks they should have gotten better at fending scaly goblins off with their dagger... at least I'll have a little logic already in place...

So, anyway - balance vs trade off? I doubt that anyone chooses their character's class based solely on the criteria of multiple attacks at higher level.

Ugh. another ramble.

(solo playtest) HT:6 Timeshadows

2010-01-21T09:17:00.000-08:00

x). Take a torch and head for the stairs, padding quietly but quickly up.

You hear no noise from above and climb the wide stairwell, adding none. You find yourself facing another set of stairs leading up, on the far side of a small shrine room. Against the right wall is a pedestal holding several unlit candles and a small statuette - a forearm and hand clenched in fist, the thumb sculpted to extend and become a serpent rearing to strike. You see several coins on the pedestal and scattered on the floor nearby.

A) Go up the new stairs
B) Go down the old stairs
C) Collect coins
D) Light candles
E) Examine shrine & statuette more closely
X)

(solo playtest) HT:5 Timeshadows

2010-01-19T06:47:00.000-08:00

A). Stick to the space behind the statues and go the exit.

You pad your way quietly, stickling close to the wall, and come to a short passage leading to a larger hall. The unoccupied hall, lit by several torches at 20' intervals, extends to your left, and contains many plaques, honorariums, statues and scenes of relief carving, detailing the lives and adventures of the First Lords of the Keep. From your position, you see a stairwell leading upwards in the center of the opposite wall, and suspect another passage in the same wall, on the far side of the chamber.

A) Take a torch and examine the details of the chamber
B) Make for the stairs
C) Approach the far side of the room for a clearer view
X)

(solo playtest) HT:4 Timeshadows

2010-01-16T13:37:00.000-08:00

X + A). Wait to make certain I am not being watched by local guard, then arm myself (if possible) with a broken piece of wood, and make my way outta' there.

You find the remains of a frame beneath the pallet, and extract a sturdy board (use as a 2-die club).

Not long after you see the guard nodding into sleep, you widen the hole and begin to crawl through, into a cramped darkness. After a long gradual tendency to the left, and an abrupt turn right, you see a circle of dim blue light ahead.

You cautiously approach, and find yourself looking down into a room - the floor seven feet below, the ceiling four or five above. You cannot see much of the interior of the room immediately though - the tunnel ends behind a large statue with broad shoulders. The source of the dim blue light is unknown to you, but fills the room with steady light. You can see other statues along the walls - tall mustachioed warriors in mail with broadswords point down before them.

You quietly climb down from the hole in the wall and peer around the beltline of the statue you stand behind. There is a 7' long sarcophagus of marble in the middle of the chamber and a considerable layer of dust. A crystal set into the lid provides the steady glow - by which you see an open exit on the far side of the small room. The statues line all of the walls.

A) Stick to the space behind the statues and go the exit.
B) Walk across the room to the exit.
C) Examine the sarcophagus.
D) Go back to your cell.
X)

(solo playtest) HT:3 Timeshadows

2010-01-15T06:36:00.000-08:00

Make a L2 SR on IQ.
(Rolled 9, failed) The pallet is a nest of nest of spiders, and you have disturbed a large one which scuttles out to attack you. You are weaponless, doing 1d6 plus adds in melee. If the spider succeeds in damaging you, make a L1 SR on Strength, and reduce you strength by the amount the save was failed by for this combat.

[Round 1:] Spider(MR 7(1+4) = 7 damage) You (d6+6 = 13 damage) - spider takes 6
[Round 2:] Spider(MR 1(1+1) = 5 damage) You (d6+6 = 11 damage) - spider crushed!

Behind the pallet, there is a crack in the wall where it joins the floor. The spider you killed came from there. Examining it closer, you see it is a hole large enough to worm into.

Do you
A) Contort yourself into the hole in the wall?
B) (return to options from HT:2, but keep option of returning to spider's hole)
X)

File under "Constant Vigilance"

2010-01-14T11:35:00.001-08:00

The continuing story of James Shipman and Outlaw Press
A fantastic summary of the whole story up to JAN 7 2010 far more coherent than I could have done and a fantastic set of links. Thanks mxy!

And today, was informed by Lulu (along with several others) that all things Tunnels and Trolls were being removed from storefronts, due to "litigation". Ugh. Lulu's policy is "pull first, ask questions later", and I can see the wisdom of this policy - so no feathers ruffled on that account.

Shipman's created a really absurdly hostile atmosphere to work in.

(solo playtest) HT:2 Timeshadows

2010-01-14T10:49:00.000-08:00

You are transfered to a few guards inside the gate, and walked to the town's center - where stands the Keep, a magnificent fountain of sculpted marble undines, a mausoleum bearing former lords of the Keep, the headsman's block, and behind that, a squat stone building holding trapdoor entry to the prisons.

Inside sits the half-lame jailer, who takes possession of your goods without much thought. Guardsmen keep their short swords hedged at your throat. You judge resistance futile and refrain from it. The jailer looks you over briefly and says to himself "...doubtless Uraja will put your head on my block, if Darhas don't free ya first..." while you are locked into a windowless cell. In the cell is a straw pallet against the wall and an empty basin - and you noticed four other cells down here. The jailer returns slowly to ground level, leaving a guard below with you.

A) Wait to see if anything happens.
B) Plead with the guard.
C) Try to lure the guard close enough for ambush.
D) Investigate your cell.
E) Call out to see if other cells are occupied.
X)

(solo playtest) HT:1

2010-01-13T09:53:00.001-08:00

OK - if you're game!
I'll give an X) option when I'd like to broaden the decisions, otherwise I'd ask you to stick to the scripted choices. Gracias!

You have arrived at the town's south gate. There are a few shanty shacks in the near distance huddled up against the town wall - which stands 16' tall, in general disrepair. The Keep looms above, from near the town center, its south face painted a pale (and now faded) orange. Two guardsmen stand watch, outside the gate.

What has brought you here?
A) You arrive at dusk with the nervous merchant
B) You arrive at dusk, captured and in chains
C) You arrive at night to try a stealthy entry
D) You arrive at night with your gang to raid the merchant's guild
E) You proceed to the guardsmen and offer a password to them

mythic underworld: Evolution vs. Intelligent design

2010-01-13T09:41:00.000-08:00

Intelligent design wins again! (wait... has it won in real life? no, but they keep on trying... )

Fungi, slimes, oozes. Plants & animals. Bugs, rats, bats. Bears, wolves, lions.
VS
Sarcophagi, boxes, cases, chests. Barrels, urns, stone basins.
Cages, pits. Shelves, alcoves. Statues, idols, statuettes.

calling this on a draw on account of time-out.

Four doors at the Four Winds bar

2010-01-13T09:11:00.000-08:00

Having seen sarkos

Been a BOC fan for 25 years, how many BOC-isms have slipped into my games? Not enough. There's a semi-consistant workshop of the telescopes, and astronomy plays an ambiguous but powerful force.
Characters have been attacked before by flaming telepaths... by goblins of Circe...
surely there's an arch-devil known by the title 'The Harvester of Eyes'...
...storms at land, storms at sea...
...gonna have to stat up a screaming diz-buster one of these days...
Cities on flame (with rock & roll)

Early BOC (the Stalk, Forrest Group/Soft White Underbelly) has got fantastic, elusive, evocative moments totally in-keeping with their development

2010? Why not!

2009-12-31T09:23:00.000-08:00

One time I made a New Year's Resolution that I actually was able to keep. This was several New Yearses ago, but it was a resolution I was able to maintain for a long time: to whit, to read books constantly. It wasn't a huge stretch (as I'd given up TV and always had read a lot anyway), but it does stand as an actual resolution that I was able to actually implement - Hoorah!

One key to the successful resolution (indeed, just about any personal decision or goal) that I've found true in my own case is this - KEEP IT TO YOURSELF! The more people that know about it, the harder it becomes to keep. Makes for a pretty boring blog entry though... so I'll try to come up with my public gaming-related resolutions for shits & giggles...

1. Finish the translation of Epées & Sorcellerie by Nicolas Dessaux into human-readable english. A really wonderful game that languishes in a pseudo-english Babelfish form - Nico has continued to produce some fantastic output (Searchers of the Unknown being among my favorite games of 2009), but I'd still love for E&S to be appreciated by a wider audience.

2. Pimp Tunnels and Trolls. The Outlaw Press Fiasco really seemed to galvanize a number of us T&T fans to mush our brains together and get material out. I've got a T&T game scheduled at a local convention in February - maybe some of those folks will be interested in continuing to game with it...

3. The no-brainer resolution: to get an actual group of actual people to actually sit down and play some damn games this year! Pretty much all of my gaming in 2009 was via Internet. I'm glad - it's been a gods-send to play again at all - but the table-top's a'callin'

4. I gotta get some Zocchi dice. 4 real.

5. Massive dungeon and hexmap drawing. Another no-brainer, already spending a lot of free-time doing this.

6. Finishing my submissions for OSRIC's Dangerous Dungeons supplement by February.

7. Get myself (my hook/crook) out to the NTRPG convention.

Is that enough for now? I think so.

2009 was a pretty awesome year, and I have you of the blogosphere and forumlands to thank for that. Looking forward to seeing Swords & Wizardry on game store shelves, Planet Algol on my own shelves, and I will make one prediction (with my fingers crossed): World of Thool revival - the ruined domes shake, the winds shift in the sandy wastes, the pools of slime bubble and ooze back to life (I've just mutated a third arm so that I have more fingers to cross...)

2010's gonna be good! Happy new year!

Step away from the computer...

2009-12-18T10:16:00.000-08:00

I'll be offline for a week, so I thought I'd offer all you RPG wackos my hopes that you enjoy (or endure if you're like me) the holidays. Take care!

Keep On Fightin' On!

2009-12-09T11:49:00.000-08:00

Looks like the new issue of Fight On! has been taken off simmer and served up.
If you are looking to get it and save 10%, you can enter HUMBUG at checkout. This issue's dedicated to M. A. R. Barker and looks to have quite a bit of Tekumel content to it. (It also has some spells I penned - hence, my obligatory shilling)

Go Git It!

Fates worse than death

2009-12-07T06:41:00.000-08:00

When I started getting back into gaming (say 2004), I went in head-first with my collection of Rolemaster books clutched tightly. Managed to convince a couple of my friends who'd never played to give it a shot, and honestly, it went pretty well for a couple of sessions - in that we were having fun.

The PC's came from a town on a lake. In the middle of the lake was a ancient magical gate which was held closed by three arcane brotherhoods, as it had in past times been used as a passage for horrible demons of the Void.

Ooops! Go figure - the first session began with something going wrong with the gate! One of the brotherhoods had become corrupted, and the town could no longer be guaranteed safe - and so, the PC's were given the task (by the non-corrupted Orders) of securing a tower in the wilderness nearby - in case the unthinkable happened, and control was totally lost.

As far as the 'story' goes, it is secondary to this post, sorry. The long and short of it is this: they go and get to the tower and explore the weirdness of it, and find that some of the local denizens have claimed it (Gratar - nasty toad-men). In battling against the Gratar, one of the PCs (a big trollish fighting machine of a character) receives a fluke critical hit from a far inferior opponent. The result of this hit is a broken leg. The other characters help him back to the tower after the combat is ended, but this was to be the last session we played.

Conclusion: broken legs are worse than death.

I admit that I waffle on the simulationist/gamist axis - but find myself more and more sympathetic to the gamist side when it comes to things like this. Two months of (game) time spend knitting bones is kinda a drag (assuming no MacGuffin Inc. Super Healing Wands are available...). I love the detail of systems like Rolemaster, but that night, when the percentiles came up with a broken bone, you could feel the 'fun' rush out of the room. I would have honestly rather had the roll come up double zero and present some hideous insta-death effect - there. Done. The character's dead. End of story.

Obviously there's a couple of 'solutions' here - use something other than Rolemaster, fudge the healing rules, ignore the 'unfun' effects, etc... but the general conclusion I've come to is that lingering game-mechanic effects of realistic wounds are kinda a drag.

I'm playing in a game of 1st edition Tunnels and Trolls right now, and two of my companions have recently lost appendages to horrible noxious slime attack. Sucks, yes. But it was handled really well in the sense of - OK - cauterize the wounds, get a fake foot and a hook to replace the lost hand, AND KEEP PLAYING! No weeks or months of convalescence - No "realistic" save vs. blood loss and shock, etc. This is the way to do it in my opinion. Facts are still facts (in the logic of the game) - Drugan's got a wooden foot and Melanthios has a hook instead of a hand - but these facts do not import a bundle of realistic assumptions that would detract from getting down to the playing of a game.

I like that.

Solo Playtest 7

2009-12-06T14:46:00.000-08:00

from 6D(Timeshadows)

Help Kragn
As you rush to the fore, you suddenly realize that something is wrong. Make a L1 SR on LK (oof! rolled 1,2 - fail).
GOTO BASED ON SR FAIL
As you turn away, the now invisible merchant manages to sink his knife deep into your back... the scavengers of the hills will feed well tonight!

Sorry about the bad roll there... (especially after the dalay) I'll get some more sections up for play pretty soon - thanks!

Trollbridge storefront on Lulu

2009-12-02T09:58:00.000-08:00

Not good at announcements...So, instead, I'll just blather on about things as per usual.

I've started a Lulu Group storefront in order to make fan product material for Tunnels & Trolls available. I've started it, but it is not mine alone. I don't know how to explain exactly how this came about, as it was more-or-less an emotional reaction to the recent Outlaw Press fiasco, followed by some further research.* But the result is that members of Vin's Trollbridge will always have an outlet for material they produce,** and there's such a wide variety of ever-changing (and persistent) AWESOME there... members of the Bridge, along with other authors that produce T&T material on Lulu.

There's debate about whether this venue is the best choice out of all the options around, and it may be that the store front is torn down and rebuilt somewhere else someday - as it is a grassroots venture, there's not telling what will happen... but for now, this can serve as a waypoint for distribution. I don't expect that there will be a whole lot available before the beginning of next year - but there are two very good free PDF solo adventures available right now (by Trollbridger jongjungbu), and more may trickling up. We are also gathering our resources and planning some regular periodical publications.

So, yeah, not good at announcements. Thanks for reading!

* I will try to provide summary for those interested. It is with mixed feelings, because Outlaw Press has been the biggest 'market-presence' for Tunnels and Trolls for a while, arguably the most meaningful one... so this episode has produced both anger at the responsible party and the fear of watching a house of cards we've visited crumble... so anyway -

- Someone gets on RPGnet questioning the art attribution on a product put out by Outlaw Press. Starts here.
- That thread continues to grow, wherein a WHOLE LOT of the art comes under scrutiny. Some of the artists take note and post also, claiming that they had no idea their art was being used. Last page as of (Dec. 2)
- When I say a WHOLE LOT, I mean a WHOLE DAMN LOT - like almost everything! I spent a week watching this thing grow and grow, the revelations become more and more damning... ugh - court of public opinion, etc, etc - I've never submitted anything to Outlaw Press because I disliked the copyright policy - and never had anything of mine stolen by him (that I know of!), so I have no dog in the race.
- There's more hijinx (to be vanilla) that Outlaw has pulled over the last few years, and I'd like to reserve this space for a future edit of a hyperlink list.
- While this is going on, other people who've felt that Outlaw Press had taken liberties with their material came forward and talked about it - and research on the boards and such showed that they'd often brought these issues up at the times they occurred... much gnashing of fangs, pulling of forelocks, etc. The event becomes a kind of a wake up call...

** I dread words like 'always' and 'never'. The assumptions here are 1.) as long as lulu's around 2.) as long as the Trollbridge stands 3.) as long as the internet holds up and 4.) as long as we all can keep our gentleman's agreement to never utter the name of That-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named (that's Hastur, btw...).

Solo Playtest 6 (Timeshadows)

2009-11-30T13:26:00.000-08:00

From 5C (Timeshadows)

Assess henchmen
Round One: Use the same stats for the caravan guards as your henchmen (Con 20, 3+10, 3 armor)

Melee in front of the wagon:
- Garweot gets 16
- Front guard gets 21
-> Garweot takes 5 damage, 3 taken by armor, so damaged for 2 points (Con 18)

Melee behind the wagon:
- Kragn gets 17
- Rear guard gets 26
-> Kragn takes 9, reduced by 3, for 6 damage (Con 14)

(bad rolls for your henchies! sorry!)

AUTOMATIC GOTO

In the moments you take to see how the combat fares, the merchant bends and breaks the medallion in half. As you turn your attention back to him, you see him disappear!

Do you...
A) Attack the last position you saw the merchant in
B) Investigate where the merchant disappeared from
C) Join the melee before the wagon
D) Join the melee behind the wagon
E) Ignore everything else, begin to loot the wagon.
X) Something else

Solo Playtest 6 (Palmer)

2009-11-30T13:13:00.000-08:00

From 5B(Palmer)

I waste him with my crossbow!
What's the gp value on that medallion?

The distance between the two of you is small, and he's a sitting duck - you get +3 to the marksmanship roll (L1 SR on DX (rolled 9, +3, in short, a hit!))

The merchant falls over feathered, his face relaxing to serene repose.
As you quickly grab the medallion and feel it's considerable weight, you estimate a two to three hundred gold piece value.

The tough life of the Temp Gamer! If you pass your next TPS evaluation, it'd be great to have you continue -

Do you...
A) Leap into the combat in front of the wagon
B) Leap into the combat behind the wagon
C) Assess how your henchmen fare
D) Ignore them and begin to pillage the wagon
E) Examine the medallion closer
X) Something else

Impromptu solo playtest: 5

2009-11-27T15:13:00.000-08:00

From 4X (Timeshadows):

"Circle around trying to see what the merchant is up to, wary of a ranged weapon, such as a crossbow, prodd, or gun.
If I can see him I observe before riding on him. Perhaps his daughter is hidden away in a secret compartment of the wagon?"

As you round the wagon, you see the merchant crouched on the ground, holding a silvery medallion with both of his hands - you see much fear in his eyes, which only increases when he looks up and sees you.

Do you...
A) Demand his surrender
B) Launch an attack at him
C) Take a moment to assess how your henchmen fare
X) Something else

St. Andre podcast

2009-11-26T08:48:00.000-08:00

Allow the dulcet tones of Ken St. Andre to work their charms while you wallow in the haze of post-feast (a friend of mine coined a term a while back, that may be applicable here (among other circumstances... ugh... love it!), that being the term "Engorgeous")

Anyway - the podcast is (sadly) brief and over the telephone, but good nonetheless. One point touched on is that Ken had little interest in miniatures gaming - beyond general interest in gaming. Every once in a while I remember this detail, and each time it seems to contribute to a slowly building something way in the mid-back of my mind...

Ken is such a nice guy. Take a minute (maybe 10...) to listen!

BREAKING NEWS: Engorgeous is defined at Urbandictionary.com! I'd argue for some other interpretations - I'll take that up with them I guess...

Solo Playtest 4

2009-11-25T15:03:00.000-08:00

from 3A (Timeshadows)

"Garweot and Kragn, I think the caravan leader is too concerned and alert for the lot of us to approach without encountering organised resistance from the mercenary guards; they've got a lot riding on this.
"Hide as well out of sight as possible until the first third of the train has passed, then attack, dividing them in two. I will shore up the rear and drive them to you, slaying any who resist.
"We may even ransom the merchant if we take him alive. Who knows, perhaps there are princesses disguised as riders, or even hidden in those large woven baskets atop the Karakaras' backs.
"What say you?"

The brigands' eyes light with greed, and seem emboldened and eager, and with this new focus, evince signs of cunning verve.

Roll d6 and divide by two to determine how many other guards the merchant has hired. (rolled a 4, so there's 2 guards and the merchant present)

GOTO BASED ON # OF GUARDS
L1 SR on LK (passed)
You and your new lackeys leap out of hiding - taking them completely by surprise! The merchant is the first to recognize the situation, and with what little time available to him, jumps to the ground on the other side of the wagon.

Do you...
A) Pursue the merchant
B) Join your lackeys in combat against the other guards
X) Something else

2009-11-25T14:39:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot of weird things going on with Tunnels and Trolls recently which has kept me pretty captivated and on the edge of the seat. An end (?) result of recent events seems to imply the following scenario, which I, among others, find particularly mind-bending...

That a clone of a game could be made and allowed to titled the same as the original. Huh?

Weird. How could this be?

I have a feeling that a "weird bomb" just exploded nearby, and after a weird and emotional period of anger and recrimination among elder trolls, we are those fortunate enough to be alive on Day One... like Childhood's End or something - maybe Saberhagen's Empire of the East, caught in the Ardneh Wave - or that psi-emanation from Traveller:New Era just passed through...

Anyway, I anticipate a real flood of fan support for this wonderful game, along with greater PDF resources from Flying Buffalo - and as I watch the continuing unfolding of this weirdness, I can't help but think that a great deal of good will come of this. I readily admit that I feel somewhat inadequate to project or try to predict all the different ways this could develop, I do not see how it could be detrimental to this great game.

While the Trollgod sits mighty dominion in his Hall, we tunnelers have been busy!

Impromptu solo playtest: 3

2009-11-23T08:06:00.000-08:00

from 2X (Timeshadows)

X: I hope to enlist them to help me seize the caravan goods and personnel, and establish a more meaningful operation from the keep. I will, of course, fight dirty with any of them who do not recognise my authority in this matter. :)

Round 1:

L1 SR(rolled 11) on CH(10) succeeds first round! Garweot and Kragn the brigands are now a part of your party. Each is CON:20 Combat:3+10 Armor:3 hits taken

Springing on them totally unaware, they offer no resistance, and you suspect them prone to surrender... but once they understand your plan, seem eager. And well rested.

Do you...
A) Have a plan in mind? (I suspect you might ;))
B) Secure your horse out of sight and wait in the brigand's cleft to ambush the wagon?

Delvers of the Unknown

2009-11-23T07:56:00.000-08:00

Oh man. Another minimal variant which strikes REAL close to home for me, a condensed T&T. As it's two pages long, it may not be for the absolute purist... an unfortunate loss...

neat link for modern apocalyptic prophecy intersection

2009-11-20T11:29:00.000-08:00

Though we live in a post-ironic era, I do enjoy the occasional moment of obtuse synchronicity. With the amount of brain energy I've spend thinking about high-level play, this post was too good... sorry, just the title...

Impromptu solo playtest: 2

2009-11-20T09:49:00.000-08:00

from 1B (Christian)

The merchant is a tough nut to crack. Make a L1 SR on CHR. (I rolled for you and rolled poorly (a 4 on 2d6) - sorry...) So, you make some faltering attempts at conversation, but he insists you remain silent and watch the hilltops - "Just keep your eyes open..."

Do you
A) Keep your eyes to the hilltops
B) Insist the merchant explain himself or the situation better
C) Strike up a (quiet) conversation with another of the guards
D) Scout ahead
E) Keep a cursory watch and try to get an eye into the merchant's cargo
X) Something else

from 1D (Timeshadows)

Reaching the top of the next rise of the road, you survey the area. The hills here 'ruled' from Toor's Hall are regarded lawless, the current lord of the castle given to excesses of drink. Make a L1 SR on IQ. (I rolled for you and got 8, so you succeed). Goblins? No - but you have the advantage what appears to be two likely brigands dozing in a cleft of rock, safe from casual observation.

Do you
A) Return to gather other guards
B) Dismount and attack them
X) Something else

neat link for listgeek intersection

2009-11-20T09:44:00.000-08:00

Dungeons & Kobalds show with the list

neat link for codegeek intersection

2009-11-20T09:28:00.000-08:00

Troll and Flame takes early lead with practices of "Agile" software development and DM minimalism.

Impromptu solo playtest: 1

2009-11-19T11:49:00.000-08:00

You hired on at the Mercenaries Guild a duty to guard a merchant's wagon en route to the Hall of Toor, an old castle mouldering in barren rocky hills. The journey is brief – the whole time the merchant is nervous and wary.

Do you
A) act the professional
B) engage the merchant in conversation
C) surreptitiously examine the merchant's goods

(or do something else since this is ostensibly playtesting?)

Continuing discomfort with new shoes...

2009-11-18T12:22:00.000-08:00

The weirdness of Outlaw Press keeps baffling me every time I think about it, and I never
do unless it is imposed on me to do so.

November - month of the real world

2009-11-16T16:30:00.000-08:00

I've really not been in game form of late.

I decided that November would be the month that I quit smoking. Sometimes I can get on a really productive OCD jag compiling a table, or spitting out rough ideas into lists to flesh out later... but sustained effort right now? Doesn't look like it's happening much... not while my brain & body adjust to this new state (i.e. not constantly over-saturated with nicotine).

But, one good thing has been dungeon drawing. It definitely fills time. I got one of those big pads of graph paper (RHODIA brand) and taken to drawing a variety of dungeon levels and playing with ideas to connect them (teleporting rooms & such - been really enjoying 'random access' models of dungeon layout). If I ever get a scanner I'll post some examples up, or better yet, put the disparate pieces together at some point into a cohesive unit...

Wait - that takes sustained effort doesn't it? Might be a while... butin the meantime, I am breathing better!

A friend of mine made an observation about quitting smoking that I thought was very insightful. When she quit, she said that she became more honest - the practice of smoking regularly is predicated on an ability to deny the damage one is doing to one's self... something else to look forward to.

Sorry - this has little to do with RPGs. Oh well - there's only 67,000,000 other RPG blogs out there or something...

Open Letter to the Lincoln Middle School D&D Club

2009-11-12T19:11:00.001-08:00

Dear LMS D&D Club -
My family will be migrating into the Lincoln Middle School feeder zone in the near future, and I would like to get my characters into the game before I arrive if I may - so here they are (get ready!):

ZALIFOS: pointy hat wizard
KETHREKHIR: mighty fighter with motorized mechanical horse
QUABB: hobbit and quasit hybrid (quasbit) thief

Assuming the Club DM's run these characters like they should be, they should be well apportioned with wealth and magic items by the time I get there - thanks in advance, they're cool!

When I do get there, ZALIFOS will cast a spell he learned that will teleport the characters to my campaign setting - WORLD OF KLUSTOR - and I'll keep the DM position until graduation.

Can't wait!

Greg

Get 'em while they're hot

2009-11-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

because they're new, not illegal. These are, of course, PDFs of the Flying buffalo solo modules for Tunnels and Trolls. After a sudden surge in psychic emanations focused on Arizona, Mr. Loomis is making a lot of classic T&T material available - he must be rewarded!

I don't like to try to tell people to go buy things - so, sorry. But I'm just really happy to see some really awesome solo modules be made available.

10 rumors about abandoned villages

2009-11-06T15:27:00.000-08:00

It is said that...
1. the village was struck by the Ghoul Plague 3 generations ago
2. the wells and springs there ran dry under a druid's curse
3. hordes of gnolls and orcs pass close there in the summer and autumn
4. a green dragon settled nearby and caused a swamp to overgrow the place
5. brigands enslaved the villagers they did not slay and rule there now
6. a Pixie shee can be found there when they want it to be
7. the villagers were slain by their guard dogs, who have taken their places
8. the villagers fell under the sway of a dark priest, who led them on an exodus
9. the village was razed by starving mercenaries twenty years ago
10. the village was claimed by a Giant Chieftan and the inhabitants fled

web tourism: abandoned settlements

2009-11-06T14:49:00.000-08:00

How tall a tower? and courses of stone

2009-11-06T11:57:00.000-08:00

...or what about giving a newly created party of PCs a home, having them design the floor plan, plant it in a village near the town, facing a common green ("OK,I buy a goat"!) - a basement hideout on the street of knives, a small tower mouldering in the wilds inherited... sort of an instant, beginning investment in the campaign locale.

Villagers trying to convince wandering PC's to go eradicate an outboiling of goblins is one thing - when those goblins are threatening the PC's stuff (Not the goat! Spare the goat!), it could be something different... maybe...

How about a home loan? By DMG, 500 gp to build a two-story stone building, 120' of outside walls... take about 12 weeks (handwaved for starting PCs) and they automatically have a 'home base' built largely to their specs. Weird. Who's got the deed to the land? Who issued it?

Could be an interesting way to build a continuity toward endgame. Some people would knee-jerk hate to have a house imposed upon their characters though, I'd bet... just not the kind of thing they feel like thinking about (eh, leave that to the mapper...)

The problem I'm having with the stronghold-style endgame is coming from (I think) looking at it in a vacuum. High level characters would ostensibly develop after a long course of low and mid levels, in the course of which, the laws of the land (and some notion of the NPCs who are the effectors and beneficiaries of those laws) would have been created/established. So then, through organic play, a fighter attracting followers would have to...

1. Stalk far into unclaimed wilderness and stake a claim, or
2. Be granted land from a ruler, judge, etc, or possession over a stronghold already built.
3. Claim possession of a pre-existing castle and be prepared to defend it
4. or any number of other scenarios, depending on the particulars of the campaign

Hmmm. Unfortunately, I think that my lack of experience running/DM'ing high level characters is kickin' in. My first game of Tunnels and Trolls lasted a long time (playing with 2-4 of my buddies for 3-4 years), and I can remember 3 of the characters, all of which essentially just retired (one building a flying skyship-thingee and seeing the world, another disappearing into the shanty slums of Wydgess to rule the thieves, and another who searched the world for an isolated forest to build an elaborate arborial mansion (a la Burrough's Tarzan) - oh yeah, he had a diamond fist. Wonder where he got that... ;)

So out of that set, I got two floorplans (flyingship, treeborne mansion), and then we pretty much stopped playing. So this is when I was 12 or 13 or somesuch. How would it go now?

>>> this reminds me that there's a really awesome solo adventure written for T&T by one of the fellows (jongjungbu) at the Trollbridge that models barony play - it's a very well put together PDF product, and a unique solo adventure. Link to PDF

journal of 13th level MU

2009-11-04T09:49:00.000-08:00

Now lets assume that my goblin raids have been successful, suffering only minor losses. Vented some of the surliness out of them - I have to assume that they themselves pillaged the pillage, so - not much wealthier as a result...one unfortunate side-effect of humanoid soldiers led by their own kind.
Next time, send a devil serjeant - something they fear...

Have decided that my tower no longer befits my station. Lellik, my henchman, scouted by griffon's back a suitable site, and I surveyed it myself through conveyance - isolated, natural defences, the wall can encompass a spring there... it looks good. Lellik has contracted with dwarf craftsmen of far-off Hendhall. 100 weeks, they say - 2 years...

Enough time to fill this tower with horrors enough to become legend!

So THAT'S why everybody don't run PBEM games!

2009-10-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

Cuz that's a lot of work!

I've had to put the overlord game/experiment on a back burner after a month of game-time has passed - it's a shame because some neat things were going down, and I think that it's a viable medium - provided the GM has done enough prep. I don't think I did nearly enough of that - but more importantly, the scale was too large* and too small**.

* Most of the players were geographically separated by many miles from each-other, so there was little direct interaction - though that did allow for some widely divergent 'cultures' being generated in relative isolation.

** The granularity of 'powerful NPCs' is wonky - particularly in the two Free Cities. Councilmembers, Guild leaders, Tyrants, Lord Protectors, etc - a detailed city would itself be an interesting setting for the machinations of the 'overlords' that called it home.

The whole thing is something worth trying again - but I just can't sustain it for the time being. Too much going on in real life and too-many open ended gaming projects lying around needing attention - it is something I want to return to after I've cleared the deck a bit and can give more attention to. I'll collect the details in the near future and post them up - there was some really amazing stuff being created by the players.

In the meantime, I have this large tribe of goblins (95 of them, +10 leaders & assistants that fight like orcs!!!) living in caves nearby. I've put them in my thrall and I'd like to send some of them to raid your villages tonight - a band of 40 + 4 leaders. What forces are present there to defend?

further evidence of fuddy-duddery

2009-10-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

...on my part.

So, on a whim (a cheap whim) I picked up a book of monsters produced somewhere in the 3e glut.
Reading through it, just to mine for ideas, I come across this statement in the description of a minor demigoddess - "...if her avatar is somehow imprisoned...her father Enkili will be pissed off at anyone responsible." (italics mine)

"Pissed off"? Really? Did I just read that in a game book?

Haven't been able to get this off my mind for days now. I'm not a delicate reader, I don't care about bad language (if this really even is considered 'bad language' - I use it all the time w/o thinking twice) - but the rest of the tone of the book is grim, modern nihilism, full of fallen races, curses, doom, etc - pissed off stuck out like a sore thumb.

I suppose this is what I get for random purchasing random 3rd era stuff...

link contribution to the hivemind

2009-10-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

These are both very good posts that have managed to put into words things I've been far too inarticulate to articulate (see!) myself - about preferences/differences in the issue of what a character is, or at least, the assumptions that go into creating a character.

joethelawyer & bxblackrazor

Thanks - very good reads both!

sap (not siege, nor plant)

2009-10-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

I haven't quite hit a year on this web world of RPGs - getting close...and *whew* are my arms sore! (cue rimshot... ugh...).

Been a while since there's been a dramatic, emotional geek-storm of rage/indignation/etc that took down more than a few outposts of reason - thank the gods. Things have been kinda quiet recently - and not in a "a little too quiet" sense. Calm. Not uneventful, just not fevered, slathering, frenzied, etc. (with the notable exception of this abomination over at the Swords & Wizardry forum) How ugly!

All of the gaming I am doing these days is via the internet. Still trying to get a group together in person (got 2 to agree in principle, a 3rd (a newb) we believe we can coerce) - but yeah - for the last 10 months I've been gaming more than I have in the last 15 years - all on the internet, with varying degrees of "success" (sorry Alexis!) - but mostly good experiences. Getting back into game shape, hopefully.

I got on the net when my band broke up. Pretty bleary & miserable time in my life, which was quickly assuaged by the environment I found here on this net - so much creativity and energy, enthusiasm, experience - A thriving and expansive subculture which I identified with.

But the internet is still weird. No visual clues/body language/etc. I feel lucky to have become acquainted with so very many interesting people, to make friendships and find communities - There's only a couple of good varieties of groupthink IMO, and a bunch of RPG'ers riffing off of each-other is one of them.

So thanks, ya'll. If my computer went kaput tomorrow, I would still feel awfully enriched by the last near-year in a way I wouldn't have anticipated. After I make my first million, I'll hold a convention and get plane tickets for everyone! ;)

AD&D early magic items

2009-10-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

Another long table - didn't want to post it here. So here's the ubiquitous PDF.

This one is two-hundred elements, each a magic item that is worth less than 1000 experience points as per the DMG (using some items from UA also). Made it for myself to use - I don't like placing magic items personally, rather let chance decide - but hate fudging a roll of 17 on Miscellaneous Magic Table I...or the folding boat...

While on the subject - I have never understood the experience point reward for magic items. The only thing I can think of is that it was a method to ramp characters up from low levels. XP for gold? I'm OK with that (particularly with carousing, spell research, etc...) - but the magic item providing experience still sort of bugs me on some level. Particularly this: as the power of the magic item increases, so does the experience reward. Then, when you get those items that are the top of the heap (artifacts & relics) - THERE'S NO EXPERIENCE REWARD!

Have always been tempted to reinterpret the experience reward for magic items as a minimum required experience to use the item. This makes a little more sense to me - that one cannot even use a Staff of Power (an extreme example - experience point value: 12,000) until 3rd level. This would mean that a fighter couldn't use a +1 sword until they'd got some 400 experience under their belt the hard way.

Tempting...tempting...but I think that recrafting the tables to suit my campaign is better than imposing arbitrary limitations on what characters can do. Am I learning to say yes?

Maybe. Kinda.