The final say-so on 0e/1e vs. 4e...

... comes courtesy of Cleverbot.

There's absolutely nothing that anyone can say to this except...

Apologies to my AD&D players who came last night only to see me in the throes of an allergy/lack-of-sleep attack. We had a nice discussion and managed to recruit a new member even though we didn't play. I'll see you guys on the 31st!

Not an Edition Warrior, but I have chosen a side...

... and it dates pre-2e.

You play what you want, great. Doesn't mean I'm going to go all kumbayah with 2e/3e/4e. I have no interest in them, no real use for them and they don't influence what I do with my game. If that makes me an "Edition Snob" - well, I'm fucking guilty as charged - kinda like "If it's wrong to be in love, I don't want to be right!"

Really? Why is there this sudden kumbayah all over the place? Why isn't it OK to just love what you love, play what you play and get the fuck on with it? Why do we have to shove banners and warm fuzzy phrases all over the place and pretend like we are all supposed to embrace something that we really just have no interest in, don't care about and won't give a second thought to past this post?

*sigh* I really am getting curmudgeonly, aren't I? Ah well...

(Edited to add)

I'm reminded of a phrase from the Hagakure:

"It is bad when one thing becomes two. One should not look for anything else in the Way of the Samurai. It is the same for anything that is called a Way. Therefore, it is inconsistent to hear something of the Way of Confucius or the Way of the Buddha, and say that this is the Way of the Samurai. If one understands things in this manner, he should be able to hear about all says and be more and more in accord with his own."

This is not inconsistent with how I feel about the way I play D&D.

Tids and bits

- As of the 3/13 AD&D Dark Ages game this past Sunday, we've reached the 50 game milestone. That's pretty damn cool! If I were a more prepared DM, I'd have some compiled statistics and trivia, but all I got is me trying to prep for the Garycon game. If I do have a dwarf visit from another realm, it's going to be epic... the last dwarf was seen about 257 years ago by elves. Visiting characters from other campaigns though... very cool!

- The online game keeps rolling and I may have a new player. Welcome Slatz! Good luck and don't pick up any dolls. :) You might also just start cursing Kellri right now, all my other players are. It seems to rain A LOT in Skalfier. For some reason, the players blame his CDD#4...

- I started painting my Sumerian DBA I/1a army last night and realized what all shiny-new army painting n00bs realize... this shit is hard! And I was just working on the flesh areas. This is not as easy as slopping together 18 or 25 orcs...

- Been ruminating about how I'll be incorporating a megadungeon into my campaign and realized this is going to be tricky with an already skittish bunch of folks who saw a high level (for my campaign) PC die and another fall the next game. The players are convincing themselves that they're not ready for what lies to the East, although I think this is more the first time they've really struggled. The world has presented them an opportunity and while I'm not going to push them there, they've opened Pandora's Box. I'm now walking a fine line between coming off as some sort of "you must follow my plot!" DM and presenting the consequences of their actions.

"Do you hear that sound, Mr. Anderson? That's the sound of inevitability..." - Agent Smith, The Matrix


Yea. Tricky. I know how I'll navigate it (without giving anything away to the players that read this blog. *waves* Hi there!) but it's gonna be tricky. You ever run into that?

Have a great weekend!

Zombie Fungi == Zombie Shriekers

(Inspired by joethelawyer's post and the Huffington Post article/BBC video here.)

Zombie Shrieker
Armor Class: 7
Move: 6" (60')
Hit Dice: 3
No. of attacks: 1 slam (Dmg. 1-8)

---

Special: Nil,  Frequency: Rare,  No. Appearing: 3-24,  

% in lair: Nil,  

Treasure Type: Nil,  Magical Resistance: Standard,  Intelligence: None,  Alignment: Neutral,  Size: Medium,  Psionic Ability: Campaign dependent, usually nil.)

The zombie shrieker is a horrid combination of a fungus and it's dead host. The zombie shrieker is not undead in the normal sense, rather it is an animated corpse controlled by the fungus in order to reproduce. The fungus spreads by releasing it's spores, infecting those who breathe the spores. Those infected will die a slow, painful death and then sprout stalks and tendrils, while still "moving" and even attacking other creatures near it in an attempt to be hit to cause the spores to release. It will periodically release a deafening shriek (1 round) in order to attract attackers, especially in response to light (within 30') or movement (within 10'). This shriek has a 50% chance of attracting wandering monsters in the round after.

Anyone attacking the zombie shrieker in anyway has a 50% chance per attack of causing the spores to release in a 1"x1"x1" cubic area. Any creature/person within that area must make a save vs. poison or be infected by the fungus. Infection will take 1d4+2 days to complete, at which time the creature is dead, but still animated for up to 2-24 days after by the fungus. Each day of infection causes the carrier to lose 1-3 points of each attribute, a zero score means the carrier is dead. In the latter half of the infection, the carrier will have an uncontrollable desire to be within as populated an area as possible or to stay around people.

A cure disease can remove the fungus from the carrier.

(On the XP side, you might want to give them the equivalent of 4HD XP, considering the special attack with the lethal spores and shriek.)

(This monster and its description is designated as Open Game Content.)

AD&D/OSRIC campaign - Sometimes the vise squeezes the other way

Sunday's AD&D game saw the players discover the reaction to their previous adventure in freeing the human prisoners and killing an orc shaman. The orcs have become more deadly, more organized and, most importantly, have learned to turn the tables on the players. This time, the orcs were using ambushes by suicide troopers, traps by multiple mounted patrols and using the players' habits against them - which resulted in a loss of another brave warrior. It also didn't help that the players lost a third of their group to a temporary paralysis from a disastrous encounter with giant wasps.

In coming back, the players found that the homefront has a new sheriff, and one that might not be as appreciative of the players as before. Time will tell ... alliances fall, only to see new opportunities and new challenges. The players ratcheted up the action and the orcs have responded, will the players?

I'm finding that I'm enjoying thinking about the reactions and the ways that the monsters will react now that the players are making their mark in the world. Make no mistake, disrupting the slave trade in enemy territory and killing a shaman was a definite mark and the orcs will not soon forget it. Now I'm looking forward to seeing how the players will react. It's a fine line thought. Squeeze the vise too much and the game becomes grim and hopeless. Don't raise the bar in response to the players and it becomes boring. The world will move without the players, but it will also move when the players have enough leverage. Things are starting to get very interesting.

Unfortunately, along with the death of another PC [1], I also learned that one of my longtime players, Lu, will be leaving us in April to go back overseas. In the time Lu's been with the campaign, he's taken his human thief, Irem, to fifth level - the highest of any of the players. He's a smart player, thoughtful and has adapted well to my campaign while also challenging me to come up with things in response to his play. Unfortunately, there are two avenues that had opened up during his time in the campaign that I won't be able to explore with him directly.

One was a bad roll on the Rient's Carousing Table. Lu found himself with a "black mark" on his forehead that faded... or did it? I actually was going to start exploring that again, but with his departure, we'll have to send that hook/path on to the realm of possibilities. The other avenue was a previous contact with a man with glowing eyes. Lu never returned to that contact, but who knows what the other players may find if they start turning over some rocks?

Well, in any rate, I plan on doing something special for Lu at our final game, which looks to be April 3rd.

I've made suggestions to Lu that he join my online/Google Wave game, but time will tell. He's going to be busy with his move and whatever happens, I wish him the best and a very heartfelt "THANK YOU" for playing at my table. Lu, you're welcome back anytime.

[1] - what is it about PC deaths coming in clusters. I've gone almost a year without any and now I've had two in two games. I knew that the players were ratcheting up the game, with exploring new areas/levels and riling up the orcs, but this seems to be very coinky-dinkal. It wasn't that the monsters were more powerful.. yellow mold and orcs.

Sidenote: I really enjoyed Monday's DM Dilemma discussion. Here are some of the topics I'm going to explore in future posts:

• Mounted combat - between two mounted combatants
• Poison and how it works
• Other spell interpretations

DM Dilemma: Charm Person

I thought that it might be useful to group some posts together under the heading of "DM Dilemma." We all run into things that cause us to scratch our heads, make rapid rulings on the fly, then we go back later and dig through the manuals and forum posts for some sort of inspiration on either solidifying a houserule or realizing we had it wrong in the first place. Dilemma might be a strong word, but it's a catchy title, so I'll go with it. I often find myself busy Monday morning looking up things that have puzzled me from the game from the weekend. I hope these posts are useful to some of you.

It's been my experience that players are pretty forgiving of a DM when the DM says "I'm ruling this way now, but I'm going to solidify my understanding to make it right for my campaign in the future." It's part and parcel to improving our skills as DMs, thus challenging our players to improve on their skills as players.

So... that said, I'll post my first "dilemma" which is more of a challenge...

So imagine this. You're a blood-thirsty orc leader. You are on a religious crusade to rid the earth of humans. You just sent your warriors to encircle a party of humans and you've watched this damn human spell-caster deal serious damage to them. In a bloodlust, you and your bodyguards charge the spell-caster, to remove the immediate threat. To your rear, a druid casts charm person on you. He then attempts to persuade you to stop your charge. (Imagine a bearded druid running after a charging orc yelling "Wait! Stop! That spellcaster means you no harm!")

As a DM, how do you rule how the charm has affected the orc?

Charm Person (druid) - AD&D Players Handbook

"The creature then will regard the druid who cast the spell as a trusted friend and ally to be heeded and protected. The spell does not enable the druid to control the charmed creature as if it were an automaton, but any word or action of the druid will be viewed in its most favorable way." 

(NOTE: the magic-user spell description refers to the druid version for effects)

I'll tell you what I did. The orc leader assessed that his new friend, although human, was no immediate threat to him or his orc troops.  He did not order his bodyguards to attack the druid. He assessed his new friend's entreaty to not attack the magic-user. While trusting that his new friend had the best intentions, the orc concluded the mage's continuing aggressive actions were the biggest threat to the orc's survival, as were the other humans attacking him and his friends. To not protect himself and his brothers would be suicide. So the orc leader attacked the mage and damn near killed him.

I think my players were a little surprised at the way I ruled on charm person and I've chewed on it all week and come to the conclusion that my initial ruling was the right one for my campaign/table. Charm Person is an amazingly powerful spell, but it's usefulness in the middle of combat, in the middle of a charge, is dubious. A charmed being doesn't go instantly stupid, nor does he somehow completely change his way of thinking in an obedient automaton. Rather, he has a changed data point to deal with - a powerful one, but only one.

In combat, with life and death on the line, charm person will have mixed results. In the middle of a charge, probably not nearly as much as at a moment of indecision, or if the target of the spell comes into a one-on-one with the charming spell caster. If this were a non-combat situation, the charm might have led to an extremely favorable result, depending on how the magic-user or druid steered the discussion.

Now, had the party ceased their attacks, this might have turned out different with regards to the charm. Weighing the threat versus the words of the druid would have led the orc leader to different conclusions and he would have found the datum of "the most favorable way to view the druid's words" to be more powerful than immediate survival.

It's an interesting spell and ruling to chew on.

Next week will be mounted combat, as I ran into this issue yesterday (3/13/2011) and it's going to take me a few days to chew on.

If there are any DM Dilemmas that you'd like to cover, please feel free to suggest or post your own and I'll link to it.

Re-imagining AD&D orcs and monsters

What a great topic to talk about (hattip to Grognardia)... except what a bad topic for me!

You see, I've done a lot to my orcs, and many other beasties in my AD&D world. My tabletop players have ran into more differences, changes and odd things that vary off of the standard AD&D definitions... but there's a lot more they haven't run into or figured out! I can't spill all the beans here So, I will try to give you some broad brush strokes of things they already know and see how we do.

In my Dark Ages campaign:

Orcs - are pig-faced and a bit larger/bulkier than humans. Their genesis is rumored, but the exact facts are lost to history. They are religious zealots, smart, cunning, have no problem with sunlight, are very militaristic, resemble Planet of the Apes gorillas in coloring, dress and armor. They will commit suicide rather than be captured. They remove the heads of their victims after battle, and burn the bodies. They do not leave bodies of their fellows behind. They are extremely racist and view humans and elves as no more than cattle or a sub-species. They may also be breeding hybrids of some sort for some reason.

There are some specific influences to my orcs and some clues here that may give you further insights. Orcs are right now the Big Bad Guys in my campaign and have the players full attention.

Kobolds - the players ran into a strange new type of kobold a couple of games ago - these are winged kobolds that spit poisonous saliva into players' faces. In my campaign, kobolds can climb walls and ceilings like spiders.

Troll Mages - take one orge mage, reskin it as a troll, merge the best of both monsters' abilities together and you have the feared troll that lives under the bridge right outside of Enonia in the Dale Woods. This guy is responsible for one near-TPK and a lot of angst. The players still plan on taking this guy out.

Trollkins - are the "children" of the troll mage. Mysterious and fey. So far, they seem curious and childlike, but extremely wise beyond what seems normal.

Dwarfs - are a lost race. They were once slaves to the Dark Ones (ancient evil beings of Chaos that ruled the lands) but once freed, they've not been seen since.

Elves - are a seafaring race, grouped by families/clans.

Dragons - are generated using EG Palmer's amazing Dragon Generator. First published in 2009, I have a copy of that in my "Best of Old School Blogs" folder. Now that is probably news to my players that dragons will not be dragons, but they'll learn soon enough. My tabletop players are already familiar with one, even though they don't realize it... or maybe they do!

One thing that is common for all my monsters. Unless otherwise specified in the Monster Manual, they're intelligent, ruthless and committed to their own best interests. They don't particularly fear the players. They have their own agendas and I prosecute those agendas to the best of my ability.

This has caused some issues, and led to one player being asked to not come back when he couldn't deal with the changes. In his mind, kobolds should be groveling at the feet of a first level character. In my mind, these are starving kobolds who are desperate enough to try and bluff their way into robbing the players, as far as they can, because they have NOTHING ELSE TO LOSE! I'm very proud of the players that I do have that were able to deal and adjust to the world as I've presented it. I think that's something to be aware of when you alter from the "norm".

I'm looking forward to reading the other entries in this meme. I hope you've enjoyed mine and if you have any questions about them, just ask! Stats are available - feel free to email me. Bryan, close your email, I won't send them to you. :P

AD&D/OSRIC campaign - Requiem for a warrior/mage

I had a post set up musing about charm person but events at last night's game are worthy of note. Last night, one of the more powerful characters, Teela the elven fighter/mage, played by Bryan N. fell.

The party crept into the strange room, populated by a large metal table and chairs. A very thick layer of dust covered the furniture, but strange ridges in a pattern could be seen in the dust covering, as if the table bore some strange symbols in its surface. At one corner of the table, the dust appeared disturbed, as if someone long ago had push it aside, the covering here was much lighter. The chairs around this area were lying on their backs, pushed away in a haphazard manner. 


The party was exploring an area of the Dwarf mines, searching again for the "Hall of Records" to find treasure. Their other paths had not been fruitful and they found themselves winding through rooms with corroded, rusting metal shelves and debris, gear-works and strange pipes.

Rhys, the ranger, moved over to the eastern wall to cover the other exit. Dargellon, the ranger, stayed close to Teela, peering at the table while Talos, the druid, hung back at the south entrance to the room. Teela looked at the disturbed dust and confidently swiped her arm over the table and strange symbols, which revealed themselves to be part of a map! 


"Look!" she said excitedly. "It's a map with ancient Dwarf symbols wri...." and then the dust "exploded" with a burst of yellow spores, filling the corner of the room her and Dargellon stood in!


Yea... Yellow Mold. This is the same Yellow Mold trap, in the same room, on the same table, that claimed a character almost two years ago.  Bryan's character moved the dust, the 50% chance of spores popping hit and then the dice rolled for saving throws. Both players opted to invoke the d30 rule to give themselves higher chances of rolling their saves.

Dargellon coughed and gasped, stumbling away from the cloud of spores as both Rhys and Talos shouted in horror at the sight. Dargellon hacked and spat phlegm a few times and stood up, his face pale. 


"I'm OK." he gasped. Then they both turned to look at Teela, who was lying on the floor next to the table. Her breath wheezed in gasps as she clawed at her throat and chest. The spores were settling down, but Teela's fate was already sealed.


Bryan needed to roll a 13 on the d30, he rolled a 7. The stunned looks on everyone's face, including mine, and even the store owner, who had been watching us play, told the tale. Teela was dead from poison. After 11 sessions over 14 months, gaining 10,354 XP, the third level fighter/third level mage was brought down. It was a pretty heavy moment and the mood grew extremely somber.

I gave Teela 6 turns to do as she wanted, I left it up to Bryan. Bryan plays another character, Jorann the cleric, and he willed most of his wealth and possessions to Jorann, which I allowed. Bryan has run both characters faithfully especially for moments where he might lose one. He's been cooperative in not linking the two as mules or trying to exploit them once we figured out how playing two characters worked best in my campaign. Teela had become a somewhat mysterious, but visible figure in the town of Enonia - becoming friends with the only NPC mage in town and serving as a type of informal ambassador for the Elven nation. She had faced terrible monsters, seen the effects of Chaos under the abandoned monastery of St. Eggyx and helped to explore the wild lands east of Enonia. This was someone that Bryan had put 14 months into, and it required consideration, respect and some understanding.

"Please give these to Jorann... and take what you need. I am almost gone." Teela gasped as her party members lay her gently on the ground. They had trekked as quick as they could to escape the mines, but civilization and help was just too far away. Her companions looked shocked and bereft and the two hirelings Aldred and Killas stood quietly in respect. 


The end was quick and merciful and Dargellon swore to take her to Jorann and pass word to the elves so that her family could bear her away.


Bryan stayed in the game as one of the hirelings and he had a good nature about it. Bryan and I had to come to an understanding early on of how things worked. Bryan's a good player, he knows the rules, he is skilled at many things and most importantly, he understands the fairness and risks of the game. He was disappointed, but he was a good sport. We all were sympathetic. It was hard for Bryan to shift out of "Teela" mode, and we all joked that somehow Teela had gotten into "Killa's head" as Killas suddenly seemed to know a great deal about the mines, similar to how Teela had known.

It was a shock, to see a powerful character like Teela be brought down by lowly Yellow Mold, but that's the game. The remaining party made sure to burn the mold and pushed on, facing an undead shadow which they killed with fire and the use of the druidic shillelagh spell. They pushed on to places dark and deep, but the Hall of Records eluded them and they were forced to turn back.

Silently, the party made their way back to Enonia. Their grim visages warned the usually inquisitive guards away, who watched in a bit of awe as the returning adventurers bore Teela's body between them. They made their way to the humble church of Tangorin where a distraught Jorann ushered them in. Slowly, the rumors started spreading that one of the mightiest of of the strange adventurers of Enonia had fallen in the deadly Dwarf mines.


Farewell, Teela. You were fun to have in my game and you will be missed.

Kids D&D

I don't know how widely this has been talked about, but I just found Jimm Johnson's version of an attribute-less, extremely simple D&D game for kids. It's very much in the tradition of the microlite games. I'm talking the kind of game a four year old could play and enjoy, while remaining a bit faithful to the game we all love.

The PDFs (and picture of his sweet Dungeon Forge setup) can be found on his blog - The Contemptible Cube of Quazar - here at this link. Very nice and thank you, Jimm! I can't wait to give this a whirl.

AD&D/OSRIC campaign - Player's recap

Following yesterday's post, one of my players posted a recap from his character's POV. I really wanted to share it. For him, Sunday's AD&D adventure included:

• Winged kobolds that spit poison - I've been waiting for awhile to pull these guys out of the bestiary.
  
• A 3 to 1 monster/human ratio, at over 90 monsters in a little hamlet, we were in skirmish territory. I brought a lot of d20s. As soon as the players heard the NPC reveal what was going on, you could hear the needle scratching on the record as the players' initial plan went south in a hurry.
  
• Orcs riding warhorses and riding down players. The ranger took 15 points from one charge which got everyone's attention in a hurry. In this case, the treasure from the adventure wasn't gold, it was light warhorses. At 200+ gold a pop, and the ability to charge into battle and stay mounted, this was real profit.
  
• Orc shamen performing evil rituals by ripping the hearts out of human prisoners... and I managed to make the players all say some version of "yuck!" (@thePrincessWife jokingly asked me "What is WRONG with  you?!?" to which I replied "Hey, YOU married me...")
  
  The Orc Shamen from Otherworld Miniatures made an appearance, complete with heart and blood spattered arm/blood dripping from the heart. That picture is coming in a couple of days.
  
• The funniest wandering monster result I've had to make in a long time. I rolled a hit for an encounter on the day the players were going to ambush the goblins to free the human slaves. It was my not-zombie-but-zombie-like monsters - the Damned. Well, howinthehell do I work this out? While the players are figuring out their ambush, I'm rolling dice like mad to figure it out - do the PCs encounter them before or after the ambush (3 in 6), do the PCs find them or are they active, etc.... and it ends up that one of the hirelings sat on the grass-covered Damned in their somnolent slumber. Imagine a poor hireling sitting down in garbage disposal... that's about what it was like. The groans heard 'round the table as I pulled out the zombie miniatures was funny though...

AD&D/OSRIC campaign - Happiness is...

... surveying the wreckage that the PCs have caused over the campaign setting and enjoying the glorious chaos that will ensue as the world reacts.

... watching a miracle missile attack succeed with a natural 20 and derail the villians' plans.

... sacrificing a favorite NPC to save a PC and seeing real emotion from the players as "a short female scream is heard... then cut off and silence."

... watching half your monsters cut down by a well executed ambush and contemplating the screamings and cryings when you (the DM) pull off that same tactic in the future.

... hearing players say "Wow, that was an awesome/amazing/fun/crazy game!" as they pack up to leave.

I'm exhausted, mentally, from the game yesterday, so this is the extent of posting today. I'm going to be busy this week finishing up my tweaks and prep for the Classic D&D Marathon this coming Saturday (11am to 9pm at Unique Gifts & Games, Grayslake IL) using the X1 Isle of Dread module. Don't be surprised if you see Morrowind influences here... something about both module and setting go together like peanut butter and chocolate.

But man... what a cool game. Nothing like doing a warhorse charge on the players. Good thing the hirelings weren't there.. immediate morale check. Oh yea...

Taxation, again

My online AD&D group has just had almost the same exact reaction as my tabletop players had about 2 years ago when they came hauling a load of loot to the city gates... and then were stopped for inspection and taxation. The screamings... the wailings... the plotting of how to get around it... there were machinations that rivaled anything else in the game to avoid paying gold to the King.

I'm amused for two reasons. One, I don't charge for training to increase levels. I take care of that via taxation on goods brought in and in "cost of living" which I have a published formula and cost for. I confess that if I weren't so against training costs, from a personal "I don't like it" POV, this wouldn't be an issue. Second, from the perspective of their characters - taxation in this form would be normal. Yes, it can be avoided, but the lengths both the tabletop and online group wanted to go through would seem crazy to normal people in the imaginary world.

... and the players in my online game were coming up with some funny ways of getting around it... from casting charm person on the guard (there are multiple guards and people around... that would be an attack. A Bad Thing, especially for a 1st level guy that's probably not going to last long against guards.) to levitating over the wall with the loot... to trying to somehow transport the NPCs outside the city to to the loot...

I had this to say to them:

Me: BTW, just as a note... this is not unusual for this world as this would be the practice in almost all human cities and places where a goverment existed. Only in small villages, hamlets and places where mostly locals operated would this activity not appear. It's a common custom of taxing incoming goods/items that had been "found" or brought in or even items being shipped. 

Player: Do you mean that our backpacks are checked everytime we go into the walled part of the city, but since we're not usually carrying anything unusual we don't RP it? 

Me: No, you've just never presented the profile of a merchant or someone who has goods to be checked.

Look at it from the perspective of a guard. He probably is looking at 5 to 10 people a minute coming in, on a busy stretch. He'll look at what they're doing, if they've already entered and are leaving, what they're carrying, if they appear to be a merchant or not, if they have some sort of reason to be searched, etc. The times you've entered the cities, you've presented the profile of mere travelers. With urns, boxes and sacks, you're going to look a bit different.  

(Just as an aside, I'm astounded - again and I don't know why I should be - at how the brakes screech and the heads snap around and the "WTF"ing starts when I mention taxing ... imaginary... gold :D) 

So yes, you'll definitely look like merchants, you'll probably be stopped and checked. This would, from your character's perspectives, be business as usual and unless you really were interested in saving every last gp, most "ordinary" people would not go out of their way to avoid it.

I swear, I'm starting to channel Alexis more and more each day... ;)

BTW, this is not a bitch at my players, we've had a good discussion and they're actually more worried about the guards opening the urns that they wish to keep intact till they deliver them to the NPC. That's a valid concern and I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

It's just funny, to me, that they're doing the same thing my tabletop guys did 2 years ago.

Do your players do the same thing when you extract gold from them?

No game tonight - but here's a free AD&D/OSRIC tool

... thanks to this miserable cold. I've had two this year already and I'm really ^@#$@#$%#@!!! done with the cold season, thankyouverymuch. I hate cancelling games, but as I told my players, if I can't give 100%, I won't waste my time or their's. Nor do I want to get anyone sick with this crap...

There is quite a bit of planning going on the campaign email list, much of it centering around coming up with a strike force to attack a slaver town. A couple of games ago, my players were exploring the plains between Enonia (their home base) and Irecia (the abandoned city that everyone wants to get back to) and they stumbled onto a hamlet that seemed to be occupied by orcs and goblins! They were about to mount an attack when a mysterious figure rose out of the ground in a gilly suit - it was the former mercenary Anya! She seems quite off her rocker now, but she's waging a one-crazy-woman campaign against the orcs, leaving heads on spikes all over the place. She let the players know how overmatched they were, as the force was at least 30 orcs/goblins but that they met at the location approximately every 30 days or so.

Now the effort is to raise a force to strike at the orcs and the players are discovering that things are expensive. It's not like hiring a two or three zero-level meatshields for a jaunt to the old dungeon, no, this requires planning, it requires expert hirelings and it requires gold. Lots of it.

One of my Dark Ages campaign players, Tyson, made a spreadsheet for figuring out how much a force would cost. I made a copy of it and updated it against the OSRIC/tables. It's AD&D compatible. It's a Google Spreadsheet (AD&D/OSRIC Army Calculator) and the only thing it lacks is a lookup dropdown list - if you want to use it, you're more than welcome. I'm not sure if you have to copy/paste to your own document or if you can save your own copy, but by all means, go for it! You will have to unhide the data to update for your own campaign prices, but it should be fairly straightforward. The prices are all in silver (as OSRIC listed silver for the wage) and the wages are on a monthly basis.

Here are the valid names to put in the cyan column header in order to populate the calculator. If you need to expand the number of calculated columns, don't insert a column, move stuff over. The columns under the grid are the data for calculating all those numbers.

Archer, Longbow; Archer, Mounted; Archer, Shortbow; Crossbowman; Footman, Heavy; Footman, Light; Footman, Hvy Mount; Footman, Light Mount; Horseman, Heavy; Horseman, Light; Horseman, Medium; Pikeman; Slinger

Sgt, Longbow; Sgt, Archer Mount; Sgt, Shortbow; Sgt, Crossbowman; Sgt, Hvy Foot; Sgt, Light Foot; Sgt, Hvy Foot Mount; Sgt, Light Foot Mount; Sgt, Hvy Horse; Sgt, Light Horse; Sgt, Med Horse; Sgt, Pikeman; Sgt, Slinger

(To create lieutenants or captains, simply replace Sgt w/ Lt or Capt)

Some assumptions - Sgts are first level, Lts are 2nd level, Captains are 5th level. Although it's not automatic, my metric is a Sgt for 5 to 10 men, a Lt for every 10 men, a Capt for every 20 men.

Enjoy!

A few bits...

In lieu of a real blog post, I'm going to post a few links.

Dark Ages Elves - my online Google game has encountered some elves on a pilgrimage to their home base of Skalfier. So I've been busy fleshing out more details on elves. It's interesting how sometimes the online game pushes me, then the tabletop does and so on.

The different thing about my elves is that they're more human than most D&D games allow for. Think of Norsemen sailors that are shorter than humans. Or think of the iconic OD&D elf picture to the left there. Those are my elves. I've never quibbled about the ears thing, but I've never seen elves as almond-eyed, pointy-eared in my campaign. I've mostly let the players go about elves as they typically seen them. As I'm maturing into my campaign and growing comfortable in how to articulate (and document) these little tidbits, I'm stressing them more and more.

Solo Game - Blade of Runes - @thePrincessWife finally freed herself of the influence of the "Fancy Blade" and now she has a nice shiny Blade of Runes. If you own "Wrath of the Minotaur", you can look up the stats on it - it's a nice little blade! We're still trying to get some peace and quiet time when neither of us is exhausted to try and finish the Tomb of Alaxus. In speaking of the solo game, I've also codified the Combat - Fighting Man attacks houserule and the Combat - Fighting Man Cleave houserule. Nice additions for her to survive better in a solo game, maybe you'll find them useful.

Oh yea, and one other thing - the Classic D&D Marathon is coming up in 11 days! This means that 1) It's time to officially PANIC [haha] and 2) it's time to repimp the game. This year, it's at Unique Gifts & Games in Grayslake. I know 4 people have RSVP'd on the meetup group and the owner tells me he has some signups. Whether I have partial or full table, there will be a lot of fun to be had! I'm running X1 - Isle of Dread with some quirks and twists... no telling if Dragon Turtles will be seen or not... muahahaha...

AD&D - XP for magic items

I've had a mental back and forth for a few days on the subject of XP for magic items. By the book AD&D Dungeon Master Guide says:

(Those magic items not sold gain only a relatively small amount of experience points, for their value is in their usage.)

Well, this is all well and good, but let's look at an example - a wand of magic missiles. Now while acquiring this wand spanned multiple games, got people really excited and has resulted in some hilarious "off line" emails in how they tested it to figure out how it works, but the DMG says this sucker is worth 35,000 gold pieces and 4,000 experience points.

Uh, woah.

Now I know, BTB is BTB and for my campaign, not always applicable, but I'd like chew on this a bit here. Based on those values, I can say that the XP value for this item is roughly an eighth and a half of it's value. That's not a formula that follows in the XP/gold value ratios for other items. It seems there's a relative value based on the difficulty of making the item, but that is still a huge jump.

Now, for wands, there is an interesting note that says "Assumes full charges are in the item", which I'm not quite sure how that would affect XP, unless they are ranking the value's "worth" and XP on how many times this lil stick is gonna pop a monster for 1d4+1 (twice a round too!) OK, so the max charges are 100, so lessee... that's about 40 XP per charge and 350 gold per charge. While I can understand the cost, given it takes a 6th level spell enchant an item which can be cast only by a 12th level wizard or higher, and requires a crap-load of components to make, for a 90 charge wand (on average) that's 3,600 XP. So some first level wizard who was on a quest and participated in finding this magic item and somehow gets to keep it is going to now be 2nd level just for holding Fizbin's thingie. Same with 2nd level - it's an automatic upgrade.

Is this how AD&D balances things - mages usually get the magic items, so because they need more XP, they get more powerful by dint of finding the magic cookies? Am I just being stingy with the concept in my head?

I'm leaning towards thinking that I'm going to go BTB for several reasons. Mages are already on fragile grounds, unless they're doing double-duty as a multi-classed demihuman. The human mage is still 2nd level, but close to third, if I remember correctly. I also go back to the eXPloration justification - if a fresh/newly minted first level character picked up a wand of magic missiles, should they get 3,600 XP for a wand of magic missiles? Should that bump them to 2nd level?

Given that magic is so rare in my game, yes. I think I don't have a problem with that. The players are slowly beginning to find stuff, but not anything near what most people might expect in a D&D game. I want magic to be mysterious and cool and valued when found. To me, XP isn't just about a person's own ability, it's also about their standing in the world, their ability to do things and their overall "power" that comes with the stuff they carry about. Heroes in Chainmail were powerful in many ways, not just because they'd crossed swords with hundreds of orcs.

Side note - It's a testament to one of my player's tenacity that as an elf fighter/mage, he's hit 3rd level in each. If he'd been in one or the other as a human, he'd probably be the most powerful character. Of course, he's coming to almost every game.

Followup on "Revisiting Alignment"

Inspiration comes from  unexpected places.

I have a slight confession to make. I'm very much the tinkerer, but I also have this odd habit of avoiding sources of inspiration from other people's games. I've taken some great rules (d30, Shields Shall Be Splintered!, Philotomy's Combat) but for the most part, I tend to be Mr. Homebrew/Homegrown. So I'll download and read a lot of great stuff, but I don't lift it as-is.

So while I posted my thoughts Monday on alignment, I still wasn't entirely happy. I didn't like the thought that to the players, this all would still be arbitrary and I still was missing "something". Then Rob Conley laid a comment on me:

For clerics and paladins (myrmidons and the other crazy stuff I use in MW) I spell out what the creed and exceptions are in my one page handout. Players taking those classes catch on pretty quick to how things work.
...
However it is import to have some type of culture/society. Even if it the default merrie olde england fantasy kingdom. This give context to the player in which to make moral decisions.

That sound of "click click BOOM" was the gears in my head sliding into place. Pretty much every religion has it's expectations and limitations - so write them down and codify them. Make the players figure out how to follow the Light, but with something to anchor on, they can figure it out and explore it themselves. It gives me the yardstick to measure their actions.

BTW, reading Majestic Wilderness was a treat to jogging the brain cells. Get it. No really, it's worth it, just for some seeds. I know all 137(x2) of you already know that but hey...

So this is what I came up with for "the Light" and sent to my players as a starting point for discussion:

The Tenents of the Light

• Protect your fellow human against the forces of darkness, but do not let the acts of Chaos and Darkness become your weapon of protection.
• Show mercy for the weak and unprotected, but show no mercy to the forces of Darkness and Chaos that threaten our great civilization.
• Truth shall be the beacon of Light that clears the darkness from our souls and brings us back to our rightful place. Be truthful and honest in all that you do.
• Stand forth and show no fear, lead your fellow humans to work together to overcome all that is lost.
• The Holy Priests, Champions and the King are the flames of the Light that shine in the darkness. Follow them and their orders. Without their orders, Chaos will darken the world.

Simple and direct, but gives my clerics something to hang their hat on. I've also started talking to clerics of the "old gods" (Jorann who worships Tangorin, and Kjeld who worships Vanir).

Edited 2/10 to add:
Here's a link to the campaign wiki's description on Tangadorin - one of the Judges Guild "Unknown Gods" entries that a player of mine uses as his cleric character's deity. The creed/rules for Tangadorin are there. The player helped me to come up with some of these.

This is why the d30 rocks...

“... Still more Goblins poured forth. Irem and Mazlor took grave wounds and a score of Goblins converged on our four man front, threatening to drive them back into the river! Then, to our horror, the great Goblin shaman and his elite guard emerged from the tunnels. Our forces were split, our front line crumbling and our most powerful adversaries had now just entered the fray.

The situation was dire. Then, when things looked darkest, a brilliant flash of light erupted from Treen and streaked across the cavern, striking the Goblin Shaman. The Shamans head turned to pulp, like a rotten tomato under hammer and he fell to the floor lifeless and twitching.”

This is a completely awesome adventure recap from a player's POV. Man, I want to play in this game! Oh wait...

Heh. It was a fun Sunday.

26 goblins + one shaman vs. a party of 8 PCs + 7 hirelings. I'm running the goblins like the slimy bastards that they are, pinning the players down with crossbow teams and the goblins charging the ford to cut off the attack. The players were unloading spells left and right.

Then... the Goblin shaman comes out and the player of Treen invokes the d30 rule and wastes the shaman with a single magic missile that somehow delivered 17 hit points of damage. Blam! One d12 = 12 roll later and there are now 12 surrendered goblins (4 were KIA, 10 magically sleeping) keening a lament over their fallen leader and the fact that they will "never reach perfection" from "the Master."

Talk about awesoming up the players. Now they have a new pretty wand and some very evil looking arm wraps with bits of a strange ebony rock embedded within to play with.

Revisiting alignment

Quick recap on my opinion on alignment. I'm ambivalent towards alignment. I use a form of Jeff Rient's "Ragnorak" explanation of Law vs. Chaos with the opinion that most of us probably lean towards Neutral. For the first two years of my AD&D campaign, I've kept alignment out of focus because there was no need. For my game, alignment's not important.

Except when it is.

Clerics are a good class to be in. You advance quick, you have decent HD (d6) and you get the best of both worlds - spell-casting and fighting. You can use all armors, there's no real disadvantage to blade vs. blunt and you can be assured of at least one chance at saving your own ass - Cure Light Wounds. You have access to ALL your level spells (assuming you're not a DM like me that makes the clerics go ask the gods for 3rd level and above spells...) unlike the poor mage that has to collect/amass libraries.

So where' the catch? Ah, you're subordinate to a deity(ies)/religion that might have its own agenda. Membership has its privileges and responsibilities.

I have two clerics of "the Light" that are 4th level. In OD&D terms, they're "heroes" and they are starting to gain a reputation of their own. (It also helps to have an annoying hireling who runs around proclaiming the grand stories of the "Mighty Mazlor" and "Amazing Alana"! The other players are cracking up now everytime "Isty" is hired to come along.) So they are cranking along... except now I'm starting to show them a new side to being a cleric... being responsible TO your ideals.

The Light is "lawful" in that it has rules, structure and believes in a code of conduct and morality. The good of mankind, the benefit of all, we're all in this together, kumbayah. No, really. It has a hierarchy but it also has people at the grassroots who really do believe and are trying to do the best they can. The people want to have some hope and after the Doom, "the Light" became the official religion of the Kingdom.

So now Mazlor and Alana are more than just joe-priests running around exploring dungeons and getting rich. The actions they do have consequences. The choices they make will affect more than just the party. The hirelings look to them (as they do the other 4th and above level players) as heroes, as bigger than life and they watch what they do. So do the deities. They're not high priests, but the choices they make can and will affect them.

So if the characters do something that I as the deity in question would not like, the clerics will face consequences. At this point, it was the "light" not giving Mazlor a 2nd level spell back for a couple of days. He'd not stood up to what was (in "the Light"'s opinion) a chaotic/evil act and so there was a small consequence.

Alignment won't be a huge DM hammer. It'll be reactive, but there will be reminders. This gave the players on Sunday a stage to really have a discussion on what was right (from their character's POV) and they thought hard about it and RP'ed it pretty good. I only asked "clerics, how do you feel about this" and now Mazlor/Alana are giving thought to actions - as they should be! They are heroes of the Light, they should be promoting what the Light is about. Benefits have costs.

It's still a fine wire and I want to avoid what Mazlor's player spelled out:

"But trying to restrict/penalize player actions very easily and frequently slips over the line into rigid stereotypes and/or a DM trying to dictate values.
So far, I haven’t had problems with feeling handcuffed or being pigeonholed, but I’m a little bit apprehensive and I hope whatever you’re planning involving alignment isn’t going to change that.
For example, I liked how Phalleum and Averin have both served as heads of the local Temple of Light, but were totally different people with very different attitudes and philosophies towards the Marshall, other religions, etc.

Trust me, buddy, neither do I. I won't stop players from doing things, nor do I have a "code of conduct/values" that everyone has to follow. If Mazlor wants to tie up helpless prisoners and brain them, I'm not going to stop him. If "the Light" disagrees with his actions/choices, he'll find out. If he goes over to the Dark Side, well, that's awesome as well and I'll have no problem with helping him adjust to his new world - but it will be his choices and his decisions, not mine. I won't use alignment as a limit, but I will use it as a consequence or reaction.

That seems to fit well with me and it's something I'm going to continue to explore gently.

Black Blade and Usherwood to produce/sell OSRIC hardbacks

In followup to my post from last Friday, there is big news on the OSRIC front. (I think I rolled 1 on the d30 for psionics last week...)

http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=101572#p101572

I'm thrilled to see OSRIC get a little love from them and some "oomph" in terms of making books available. Having worked with both BBP and UP, I have a lot of confidence that they'll do an awesome job.

We were just discussing on K&K that there's an anecdotal ratio of about 6:1 between old school AD&D players still playing, and those people who are active on the Internet participating in the old school discussion. Having OSRIC available to bring in more new players, bring in people who don't know the old books are available... it's all good news for this old edition of D&D.

AD&D/OSRIC campaign - this is why he plays

Awhile ago, my players stumbled onto a treasure map in the form of a letter, indicating a great treasure was in a particular place. It took a little while, but my players finally returned to attempting to find the location.. and what they found totally thrilled one of my players who plays a cleric of Tangorin. (Tangorin is based off of the god Tangadorin from the old JG "Unknown Gods" supplement.)

I've had this place set up for awhile, but without a real story behind aside from a cryptic entry in my hex map notes. This is the best part of "just in time" DM'ing and sandbox creation. Here's a location, now plug a story around it. You've got cockatrices, a treasure map and a temple to a forgotten god nearby. The story practically wrote itself and the result on my treasure generation just fit to a T. Taichara's Little Treasures finished it off, as I got this result from her table: "A cultic text: furled hundred-page scroll of golden parchment, inked in black and crimson and mounted on crystal rods."

And thus the players now had a meaningful purpose to the treasure map and since it was near a recently discovered sacred site for my player's god...

Long ago, when Tangorin's Tower of Light was erected, his most highest and fervent of priests (who had just about bankrupted himself in erecting this strange edifice that most called "folly" as it was stone/metal but mostly of glass) journeyed with a few faithful to fill the tower with the treasures of Tangorin as well as his most holy words, enscribed on golden parchment, with crystal rod ends. Unfortunately, this unknown priest never made it to the tower and it remained empty (some said haunted) until it was long forgotten after the Doom. Forgotten... until someone stumbled onto a treasure map, had a vision and then quested to rediscover the holy text.

Jorann's player was almost beside himself when the chest from the cockatrice lair was opened and gave up all claims to other treasure  in exchange for the magic mace and text of Tangorin. (which was about the equivalent of about 4,750 gold pieces. It was a huge haul, representing the wealth of this dude. Imagine a lonely guy, not quite like a cult leader, but definitely on the fringe, investing all his wealth into this tower, then journeying with the last of his belongings... anyway, you get the idea. Sad ending. Cha-ching for the players.)

You'll see her when she kills you.

It was a fun game, full of divebombing cockatrices (my first time using Aerial combat rules), five of the six players wanting to strangle the last one due to some unscripted combat, the "Mighty Mazlor" being smacked on the back of the head by his religion for overlooking a Chaotic act (the Light wouldn't give him his forgotten spell for a couple of days... alignment post coming later this week!), death-from-above large spiders, and a half-crazed woman commando who is on a mission to rid the world of all orcs, one severed head at a time.

It was one of those games. Totally awesome!