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.

OD&D Solo game w/wife - How one woman nearly starts a war

No miniatures were put on the table this game, nor were any attack dice thrown. The only table referenced in this game was the "Carousing" table from Jeff Rient's The Miscellaneum of Cinder. And yet we had a diplomatic incident, tons of roleplaying and lots of laughter. What else could you expect from a game?

The defeat of Alaxus netted the brave adventurers quite a bit of loot and some XP, but @thePrincessWife's character Aeli was lacking 550 XP to make fifth level. Being the generous and kind-hearted DM that I am (why did I just hear a ton of raspberries?) I offered her a chance at the carousing table for 275gp (I give double XP to go against the Carousing table) and even reminded her about the d30 rule. @thePrincessWife was hoping that she'd fail her saving throw...

I've never seen a "1" rolled on my d30 before, but she did it. That was not only a fail, it was an epic failure, the kind of failure that would have long lasting consequences for the character, the kind of failure where you hear a pin-drop and a gasp of breath... and then the gleeful laughter from @thePrincessWife as I made her roll her fate. A 7. According to Jeff's chart, that means: "Insult local person of rank. A successful Charisma check indicates the personage is amenable to some sort of apology and reparations."

Well crap. So far, Aeli has managed to completely befriend just about everyone of note in Valetown. It was going to be hard to find someone that might be insulted by her... hmm.. think, think, think... I asked for 5 minutes to figure out her fate. Flip over to Finch's City Encounter table, roll a few dice... no, I don't think a "local guard" counts as a local person of rank... hmm... roll again... "Sporgo Frogface, carrying the Pennant of the city’s Overlord, exhorting all to courage in the face of adversity, and loyalty to the city’s government, 1d6gp."

Well, doublecrap, there is no overlord to Valetown, so probably no Sporgo... although what kind of overbearing, stuffed shirt would be in Valetown, which is just a small farming/agricultural center, almost a market town kind of place...  Wait a minute... Sporgo's kinda like an ambassador. What ambassador would care about farming? One on a trade mission. What would be best for a stuffed shirt ambassador that Aeli could insult?

Only one answer - the hidebound, strictly-by-the-book, lawful-stick-up-the-rear Southron Empire! Prepared with a name "Gale Merry" (snicker), I introduced Aeli's carousing efforts. I asked @thePrincessWife how she would have insulted the honorable ambassador during her two day-long rip-roaring bash over killing the Minotaur Mage.

Her: "I step on his toes and call him a buffoon!"
Me: "OK, he looks down his nose at you, calls you a typical Northern drunk trollop and tells you to go home to your husband who should keep a leash on you."
Her (warming up): "Oh really? Well, I laugh at him and point to his 'wee weenie' and call it that. I also tell him to wear loose trousers or stuff something into those tight pants of his." (gales of laughter)
Me: "Well.. that's impressive! The ambassador's face goes beet red and he says the only loose thing around here is you and your lips! That any man who would want you would have to keep you locked up to keep you from running them so freely."
Her (really into it now): "Oh yea, I tell him that the only thing he needs to worry about locking up is his ugly pig wife from leaving him! Hahah! I'm insulting his wife now!"

At this point, her friend and NPC party-member Tironell intervenes and attempts with help from her henchmen, to hustle her away up the stairs. As she was being escorted out, the ambassador had a parting shot.

Me: "Well, he says I would expect no less of rudeness from the so called Hero of Valetown, a swine living among pigs!"
Her: "Yea? If you're lucky, we'll give you leftover slop!"

So at this point, she passes out and wakes up to find out she has to make amends to the good ambassador. At first, Aeli was going to blow it off, but when told that news would go back to Lord Risz, the noble who the governor of the area, and that word would be passed on to the King himself as the Ambassador was threatening to end his trade mission, her face fell and thus the making up happened. Aeli ran around town, spending a good chunk of gold to find the best dress possible and she agreed to give up the two large gems found in Alaxus's tomb.

The "apology" would have to be done according to strict Southron custom, which involved Aeli taking a submissive, secondary role while Tironell acted as a proxy for a male member of her family making amends. She had to enter, assume a bended knee position and hold the gems while Tironell gave the apology. Here's where the CHA check came in. Given she was of nobility, I deemed the difficulty "normal/easy" and made her roll 3d6 to equal or be less than 12.

15. She could not make a roll this game to save her life! @thePrincessWife told me how her sword scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaped across the floor and ruined the mood of the apology. While the ambassador took the gems (duh), he also declared that she should never step foot in Southron lands, lest she fall under his rules - an implied threat!

So while the apology temporarily assuaged the ambassador's anger, it's clear that Aeli now has a possible enemy! I wonder if she'll ever have to travel to the Southron empire...

I really enjoyed the chance to broaden Aeli's/@thePrincessWife's view of the world, introduce an element that could play into her future (should she ever need to travel that far) and see how she'd roleplay it, especially since Aeli's background was nobility. We had great fun and I always enjoy bringing an element into the game that we've not had a chance to explore - this time being the relationship between the Southron Empire and the Northern Kingdom. We didn't get a chance to play much more than this, but I'm looking forward to her next game as she deals with the aftermath of her successful adventure... and maybe even find more ways of draining her gold from her. I think I got about 1,000 gp through this whole carousing deal and aftermath - thanks Jeff!

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.)

Classic D&D Marathon - Recap

This past Saturday, I held a Classic D&D marathon at Unique Gifts & Games in Grayslake, IL. This follows the Classic D&D marathon from 2010. It was scheduled at 10 hours, I halted at 9 1/2 hours mainly because the players hit a logical stopping point and there was really nothing that could be done in 30 minutes.

First, I have to tip my hat to Ken and Kathleen, the owners of UGG, for making this a welcome event. We had half of the gaming area for a large table for 9 people and they were very accommodating. They also supplied freebies to give out to players and provided me a complimentary sandwich for dinner, that was much appreciated!

It was an awesome event! I had 28 people play throughout the day. I had two of my AD&D campaigners show up for about 8 hours of gaming. My youngest player was in the range of 7 to 10 years old - Juan - and he was a great player. I had a wide range of ages and genders play. The average session was about an hour or two, and I had complete table turn-overs almost the entire day. By the end of the day, I was exhausted, the players had tromped through the Isle of Dread and survived!

Yes, Isle of Dread - the great wilderness exploring module X1. I've had a soft spot for this module ever since the Expert box set came out - I remember diving into the box expecting great things and I was never disappointed. I remember killing many PCs on just the journey from the mainland to the island, as wandering monsters on the ocean are particularly deadly! My "rules" of choice was D&D - a huge mishmash of Holmes, OD&D and house-rules. I had my pregens from my 2010 B2 Keep on the Borderlands, so I bumped them to 4th level, updated the character sheets and away we went.

A side-note before the recap... in preparing the module, I was impressed once again by how easy it is to make this module your own. You've got a dragon, nasty dinosaurs, enough races to set at each others throats and lots of places to throw your own wrinkles. The downside was the heavy-handed wording of the module in how players should be wrestled/coddled/fudged into success. There are places where it seems as if the 2e "story first!" approach was already taking root, nine years early. Those admonitions can be easily ignored, but the proliferation of magic items in almost every treasure is not. For a one-shot, I really didn't care, but for a long-term campaign, depending on your magic flavor, this module could tilt it fast.

So I put in my special sauce - changed things, modified things to my liking, grabbed my S&W Ref Sheets to make wandering monster rolls easier (as well as have other tables handy) and threw the players onto the Island!

Stealing a page from Jeff Rients and Gilligan's Island, I started the game with combat as the players found themselves marooned...
Me: "OK, let's get started. You see skeletons in front of you and zombies are pulling themselves over the rails. Everyone else is pretty much dead. You have initiative. What do you do?"
Player: "What is going on? Where am I?"
Me: "Is your action to look around and assess the situation?"
Player: "No, no.. I'll attack the nearest undead!"
and so on...

The cleric made quick work of the undead and the players found themselves shipwrecked somewhere on the Isle of Dread. A quick search of the captain's quarters found a roughly drawn (by the DM right there) map of the coastline of the Isle of Dread.

"So where are we?" the players asked.
"Somewhere on that map." I replied.

That was some people's first introduction to Classic D&D as I had a couple of requests for "What do I need to roll to figure out where I am." (Answer: "Well, you can see you're on a beach, there's a huge mountain to the NW and ocean to your east and south. Jungle is to your west. You don't need to roll for that...") Once they got over that bit of a shock, characters picked up their gear and hiked along the beach. We had a brief segue with some harpies that charmed all the demi-humans (go figure) and then the players reached the village of Mora - the outpost of the Kingdom!

Upon learning that the next boat is 30 days out, the players began looking for opportunities to kill things and take stuff. The two teenage boys were all about looting and pillaging the village, but soon enough they were heading to the jungle with "Ron the Hunter" - a guy who had a really bad Aussie accent and a cowardly streak of hiding behind the adventurers until the monster was dead, then dashing forward to plant his boot and sword in its steaming carcass.

The first adventure found one the more unusual results of dice telling the story - the constant reappearance of the damn green dragon in the game. After melting two of the players with it's breath and clawing a third to death, the players gave up most of their magic items to the dragon who flew off. Bamf! Replacements appear and on they go. (Ya gotta love just dropping the veil of verisimilitude and concentrating on just playing) This dragon ended up showing up three more times (!!!) as a wandering monster.

The players hunted down a dinosaur that was eating a villager and netted some gold and good will from the natives. They returned to hunt more animals for gold and ran into some flying-squirrel-monkey-racoon things - the famous Phanatons of X1. After some non-verbal negotiation, the players convinced the phanaton to trust them and to do some trading of intricately carved doo-dads for silver.

One of my special sauces was to have a ton of hooks for each major encounter, both prior and within the encounter. The Neanderthals would want the players to go after the Lizard folk and vice versa. The Rakasta would ask the players to join them on hunts if reactions went well. If the Arachnae captured the players, they would force them to attack the Phanaton and so on. In this case, the Phanatons got the players to go hunt Arachnae.

That ongoing hook took up most of the day. Players died to poisonous snakes, giant - 24 foot tall giant - sloths (heh, wonder how that'll go down when you reach the Halls of Valhalla...) and other misfortunes. The biggest "kill" belonged to the slimy witch-doctor and his wandering monster band of 11 zombies. I threw Hold Person on the thief and cleric and had two to three zombies per other PC. Two PCs were killed in the melee. Three PCs fled and the held players were left to their fate...

In the end, everyone had a great time, got loot, killed things and felt good about helping out cute little spider monkey/squirrel/raccoon/George Lucas wannabe Ewok things. I spoke to a number of people about my AD&D campaign and may have netted another player or two and perhaps I'll be running campaign games at UGG. We'll see.

Thanks again to everyone that showed up and UGG!

Updated 3/11/2011:
Two players have posted their recaps, I thought I'd share them. Thanks again for playing!
The Delve Lord's recap
APlus's recap

I will be doing another Marathon next year, I'm just not sure what the hell I'll be running. Maybe a megadungeon... something bizarro... I've got a whole 11 months to think about it...

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.

OD&D Solo game w/wife - The (second) death of Alaxus

"WHO DARES TO DISTURB MY SLUMBER? IS IT YOU, ANNOYING RAT KING?" thundered a sepulcherous voice from the elaborate coffin at the top of the dais. Before it stood 8 hulking, rotted minotaur zombies. Behind the dais crouched 8 piles of bones, with a bull skull perched ominous on top.

"No, it's just me!" Aeli (@thePrincessWife's character) called back. Beside her stood her loyal henchmen, Turchao and Rather. Behind her stood 6 hirelings with flasks of oil and torches, her mage companion Tironell and the mysterious Osash - acolyte to the Patriarch of Valetown.

"A WOMAN?!" boomed the voice. "NO... NO... I SAW YOU DIE AS LIFE LEFT MY BODY. I KILLED YOU ONCE. NO... NOT THAT SWORD! NOT THAT ACCURSED SWORD! NO, IT CANNOT BE YOU AGAIN! I WILL KILL YOU AGAIN!" With that challenge, a cadaverous form of a minotaur skeleton wreathed in a layer of rotted skin stood in the coffin, draped in rotted mage robes. This had to be Alaxus, in some type of evil undead form.

Aeli and her companions waited. Hands gripped swords and spears with white knuckles. Short breaths were heard as everyone stared in dread at the sight before them. In the rear, Tironell muttered as he desperately tried to figure out how to activate the thin "Fizbin's Shooting Stars" wand he had recently acquired but not yet figured out.

"GO AND DESTROY THEM, MY MINIONS!" Alaxus thundered and he gestured towards the group standing in the doorway.

"This is it!" Aeli called out. "Stand your ground and force them to fight into the door. Osash, can you turn them?!"

"I believe so..." called out Osash in a strangely untroubled voice. He chanted words that made the group's collective skin crawl and Aeli felt a chill run down her spine. The zombies lurched to a halt, and then turned around!

"Aha!" called out Tironell as Osash triumphantly concluded his chanting and gestured the zombies away. "I've figured it out... FIZBINS SHOOTING STARS!" and the wand's end burst into a silvery/purple glow and a small glowing "star" shot out of it and smashed into the hulking minotaur mage.

"ARRRGH!" Alaxus groaned and then he lifted his right hand. "ARISE MY LOYAL WARRIORS! CRUSH THESE INTRUDERS!" Behind him, to the left, four of the piles of bones began to spin in a circular motion, rising up from the ground to form shambling skeletal minotaur warriors. They lurched forward at the door.

"Down and throw at the mage!" Aeli commanded. The front rank immediately went to one knee and  hunkered behind shields. Behind them, Osash again chanted his odd words and Tironell sang out "FIZBINS SHOOTING STARS!" again. The skeletons immediately spun on their heels and fled for the opposite wall of the sepulcher, scratching at the wall to get out. Flasks of oil sailed towards the mage as another silvery star smashed into him. One flask sailed overhead, but the other two broke on him and the coffin, covering him in dripping oil.

"NO! ARISE MY WARRIORS!" Alaxus called out and he gestured to his left. In similar fashion, two more piles of bones spun in the air and arose to skeletons. Alaxus boomed in laughter. "YOU WILL NOT LIVE TO SEE THE SUN AGAIN!"

In answer, Osash again chanted his faith in his religion and the two skeletons were repulsed. As if to answer in challenge, three torches sailed from the second rank towards Alaxus. One hit the doorway and broke apart, covering the party in cinders, which they quickly beat out. One sailed over Alaxus but the last skittered across the dais and touched the oil puddled at his feet. Almost immediately, the oil burst into a conflagration which burned away the rotting robes and charred the mage's undead skin. (**1) Once again, Tironell called out the words that caused the wand to spit a magic missile at Alaxus.

"NOOOO!!!!" howled Alaxus. "PROTECT ME, MY FAITHFUL!" and he gestured one last time to the remaining two bone piles, which arose into warriors.

"Tironell, why aren't you using that wand?" Aeli called out urgently, still hunched over behind her shield.

"I... I... if I use this wand up, it's gone! It's the only one I  have!" confessed Tironell.

"If we make it out of here, I'll buy you all the wands you want! Kill that damn thing!" snapped Aeli.

Tironell muttered, but his response was lost due to the chanting of Osash, who faltered and then trailed off... the skeletons continued to advance.

"Up and hold! Wait till they get close enough! Second rank, spears at ready!" Aeli barked. She hefted the Blade of Runes which was shining a bright blue light so painful, it was almost too much to look at directly. As Turchao and Rather glanced at her, she almost seemed to look like the famous heroine of legend that slew Alaxus originally. In their stupefied state, they almost immediately dropped their swords as the skeletons charged in their attack.

The skeletons clawed at Aeli and the front rank, ripping flesh and bone on Turchao who screamed in pain. Alaxus laughed coldly and gestured at Aeli.

"NOW  YOU DIE!" and he snarled words that seem to stab at her, in the form of three small red/silver balls of energy that smashed in her, nearly knocking her on her feet. Behind her, the hirelings stabbed at the skeletons with their spears, smashing bones and destroying one completely.

"Tironell... use that wand!" Aeli groaned in pain as she staggered to her feet and battled the last skeleton, her sword slicing it into an unmoving pile. The flaming oil encasing Alaxus had burned out, leaving scraps of skin hanging like tattered curtains on the undead mage's bones. He snarled another spell and before the party's unbelieving eyes, he grew.. and grew... and grew to a huge form! His evil laughter filled the sepulcher.

"YES, LOOK UPON YOUR DOOM... " began Alaxus and then a small voice was heard "FIZBIN'S SHOOTING STARS!" and a silvery/purple missile shot out and smashed into Alaxus. He staggered...

"NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo....." he wailed as his form began to crumble into dust from the inside out. A whistling sound was heard as the ancient mage of Evil fell.. again...

The party stopped moving for a moment in disbelief... then Aeli turned, grabbed Tironell by his waist and hoisted him so high, he almost hit the tunnel's ceiling with his head.

"We did it!" she yelled. "We did it! We won!!!"

---

And that, my friends, is how @thePrincessWife slew the proto-lich Alaxus, found his treasure haul (which gained her about 5,000 XP), found a blackened skin covered spell book, found his notes which may give her clues to her ancestor Kellus and found a mysterious silver-filigreed black crystal ball, which she had to pry from the coffin's lid. She almost forgot to check the coffin, she was a bit in shock and awe of having achieved her goal.

Mechanically, I made Tironell do a 5d6 attribute check to figure out the wand - he passed quite handily. That wand, the oil, and the discipline of Aeli's attack at the door, holding her ground and forcing Alaxus to commit his forces, were the keys to success. I was going to have Tironell stop using his wand, but Aeli made him continue to fire it. @thePrincessWife really roleplayed the session well.

Turchao and Rather, her henchmen, both fumbled at the same time, in the same way, when the skeletons charged. Aeli used the Fighting Man - Multiple Attacks rule and we successfully converted to DAC so I could use the Target20 algorithm. I use it in my AD&D games and it's just so easy for me now.

We also had a treat that I used my big Battlemat for the first time with her. She liked it! I may have to use it again. I don't want to focus on the miniatures as boardgame pieces, but she enjoyed "seeing" the room.

Now Aeli has a lot of things to do. She's got the books, written in the Black Tongue of Mhaldor(**2) to translate. She has a mysterious orb she knows nothing about. She has a favor to return to the Patriarch for use of his acolyte. She also still has to find out why her arch-enemy Calypso was so interested in her ancestor Kellus that he'd kill her entire family over it.

I can't wait for the next game!

**1 - in my OD&D campaign, I've ruled that most physical undead can be affected by fire, the more powerful at half damage. Non-corporeal cannot.

**2 - one genuine ChicagoWiz No-Prize to the person who not only can identify where Mhaldor came from, but has virtually been there and can tell me what my use of this place probably means... :)

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...

HOTT + OD&D Swords & Spells

While the OD&D Swords and Spells supplement has been beaten and bashed by guys who are smarter/more experienced at wargaming than I am, it still has some neat/nifty stuff in it. Philotomy liked it enough to name it as an inspiration his awesome Combat Sequence. I get a kick out of the illustrations from it. I've had the flarghin' PDF for awhile now...

I'm an idiot because I didn't think to look at how it adjudicated magic - probably the biggest thing keeping me from implementing HOTT style mass combat into my games using PCs. It wasn't including PCs into the elements that bothered me, no, I handle that like this:

When a PC/NPC becomes a HOTT element or "leads" (is merged with) a HOTT element (a PC/NPC may be integrated with a unit, like a HOTT general is part of a unit), they have Hits To Kill = their # of HD. Each time a PC/NPC has a kill scored against the unit they lead (or themselves if they are an individual unit), they lose a HTK. Upon 0 HTK, they are dead. 

If a PC/NPC leads a HOTT unit that is destroyed and the PC/NPC survives, they become their own element.

PC/NPC individual elements function as regular HOTT elements for purposes of movement, flanking, closing the door maneuvers, melee, etc.

A PC/NPC may be designated as the side's general - a general does not have to be a PC/NPC.

Easy-peasy. I'm still tinkering on any bonuses/minuses, and number of attacks, but I'm leaning towards Chainmail inspiration to say you have to be 4th level or above to add any bonuses to the Combat Factor.

Anyway, it was magic that gave me heartburn. I wanted the mages and clerics to be able to do their thing. Turn a unit of undead? Sure! Frag a unit with a Fireball? You betcha! Magic Missile? Uh... wait...

Magic Users and Clerics would not waste spells of an individual basis, like Magic Missile, unless they were in a man-to-man or skirmish battle (at which point, we'd move from HOTT to Man to Man and adjudicate the contest.) They would use area effect spells or spells that would influence multiple men. But, you may say... what about scale? Ah, that's a very good point.

HOTT makes no real distinction of how many men a unit ("element") represents. It could be 10, 50, 100 - the idea was abstract. So while a Magic Missile might affect a unit at a 10:1 scale, at a 50 or 100 to one, it's not really worth the effort. So when would *I* use HOTT instead of the normal D&D rules?

Well, HOTT says you create an army from 24 "points", and DBA (HOTT's Ancient Warfare parent) puts you at 12 units per army. So let's average that. The biggest battle I've run with my players is about 30 enemies and 15 PCs/hirelings. So a 20 or 50:1 scale feels about right... 12 * 20 = 240 creatures and I don't ever see myself adjudicating 240 enemies versus the players on a 1:1 scale, and at 50:1, we're up to ~ 600 guys in an "army" which I definitely would not adjudicate at 1:1!

So.. the magic missile. A magic missile taking out a single person in a 20 man unit is not going to seriously affect it all that much. So we can ignore Magic Missile... but what about sleep? A sleep spell taking out the max result of 2d8 HD affected could degrade/disrupt a unit consisting of 20 1 HD creatures.

Swords & Spells put the area of Sleep's effect at an inch (10 yards) and punted the specifics of the effects back to the spell listing in OD&D. In my mind, at @ 2d8 HD affected at 1", it's enough to hit a unit or two, although the Game Referee might have to be creative on how low you could go before a unit as a whole wasn't affected.  Chainmail didn't have Sleep, but it did have Slowness and Confusion which affects 1 figure: 20 men (at the 20:1 scale - which the Fantasy Supplement is scaled at.)

The end result of all this comparing S&S/CM to my HOTT+D&D is that I have some metrics to help me in deciding how to "whittle down" what spells will truly affect a unit. In all honesty, CM is probably going to be the bigger help, although S&S does a nice job in ranges.

Now I just need to find some of my Dark Ages guys/gals who are brave enough to test some of this out...

OD&D Solo game w/wife - The fancy sword of "I don't think so..."

Calypso (the miniature)
Yes, I'm painting him.

Aeli and her merry band of fighters and one long-suffering mage once again entered the dark tunnels of the Tomb of Alaxus to recover the famed Runeblade and investigate the tomb. Aeli is still looking for clues as to why her family was killed by the mage Calypso. Having been thwarted from entering the sepulcher by a skeletal hand reaching out of a coffin, Aeli began searching other areas of the tomb. She hoped to find some means of opening the newly formed locked on the sepulcher doors.

I took the opportunity to help @thePrincessWife plot some strategy on how to fight the things that she saw surrounding the probable coffin of Alaxus. I suggested ways of using the dungeon terrain (the door) and gave tips on how to use oil/missile weapons, plus spears in the second rank. So off they went... and shortly, they found themselves confronting the ratling king, his host of ratling followers and two very nasty giant weasels. The vast majority of ratlings went down from an NPC's Sleep spell, but the weasels proved very difficult. @thePrincessWife sacrificed her shield arm (Shields Shall Be Splintered!) to prevent a blow that would have taken her to 3 hit points (the weasel attached and was sucking hp automatically per round until successfully damaged to cause it to break off). The brave cleric of Patharcus healed Aeli, only to die from a weasel's bite shortly thereafter. In the end, the other hirelings proved their worth by defeating the weasels and the Ratling King was killed in a fight to the death (he wanted to retreat, but there was no other way out, so it was to the death.)

I am coaching @thePrincessWife on using some of the variant rules for OD&D to make the fighter an interesting choice, as well as giving her some options to increase her survivability as a solo player. The ones I have been using mainly are the "Cleave" (if she kills an opponent, she can immediately attack another opponent of lesser HD in that same round, provided the opponent is within melee range - 10') and the "Multiple Attacks per round" at FM Level - Creature HD = # of attacks.

With the ratling king dead, she could now retrieve the sword with crystal runes embedded in the blade that glowed an odd blue. Tironell, the NPC mage, saw the blade for what is was: the fabled Runeblade that legends say slew Alaxus! So Aeli bent down to pick up the blade and...

... 10 minutes later, she realized she was happily cleaning and sharpening her "fancy blade" (the one with runes on it that say "Covet Me"). Everyone else is looking at her like she's out of her mind. Shrugging it off, she took the large silver key that dangled about the ratling king's neck, noting that it was very similar to the key displayed in various murals found in Alaxus's tomb - and hopefully the key that would open the sepulcher doors! With only 8 hp and no cleric, she decided to return to town to heal and discuss the Runeblade.


Thus began some of the better roleplaying that we've had so far in the two plus years of this on-again, off-again campaign. Aeli was very reluctant to admit that there might be something wrong with her "fancy sword" but when pressed by Tironell, she tried to pick up the Runeblade again. 10 minutes later, she realizes Tironell is staring at her while she's cleaning her precious fancy sword. So, as a test, he offers to trade her his dagger for her sword as a permanent exchange. 10 minutes later, she realizes she's cleaning her sword (AGAIN) while Tironell is hiding behind the door, with the dagger stuck into the door about where his head HAD been!

It was at this point that Aeli finally admitted that yes, something might be wrong. Next game, we'll be resolving this with a trip to the Patriarch priest to have Remove Curse cast upon her.

In game terms, @thePrincessWife has a sword with some personality! She's not entirely sure that the sword has been beneficial to her, although it seems to have been a good sword. She is playing up her character to be a "damn the torpedos" type of person who doesn't like to admit she's wrong and wants to present a brave front. She also likes her pretties as well (life/art imitation? *grin*) and this "fancy sword" has been her mainstay, although @thePrincessWife said she really does want the Runeblade.


So on to the next game! Will she be forced to confront whatever lies in Alaxus's sepulcher with the Runeblade or the "fancy sword"?

OD&D Solo game w/wife - The doors on the tomb go "open and shut..."

(If you're humming "Wheels on the Bus" right now, that's where the title is from...)

After a brief distraction with confronting and capturing some wandering bandits, Aeli and her band returned to the Tomb of Alaxus to crawl through a ratling tunnel (more of a natural crack in a hill) to see if she could find a different way into the tomb. We had a little time to spare, life has gotten quite hectic in January, with something going on almost every evening. This was a treat to have a couple of hours to play.

We also play short sessions. @thePrincessWife isn't the type to sit at the gaming table for 10 to 12 hours, unlike her idiot husband, so I try to take it in short bursts and I'll let her stop the game in dungeons. Since it's just her and I, there's that luxury.

So... on to the game and the meaning of the title...

After crawling through bugs (a "small" giant centipede dropped on the NPC mage who promptly decided he did not like crawling through tunnels...) and into a room that looked suspiciously like other tomb rooms, Aeli found herself back in a hexagonal chamber with a skeleton in plate armor and a shield with a sunburst. One of the henchmen decided to take the shield, but Aeli was more interested in the jet black double doors that lay to the north.

Brief segue.. I hate it when my screw ups in directions lead to player confusion in mapping. Talk about a way to kill a great game flow... kinda like this segue... anyway...

So the jet black doors, with bas-reliefs of minotaur heads and silver bull-head door ring pulls. She pulled the doors open and she saw a dias with a coffin in the middle. Between the dias and the door looked to be 8 rotting minotaurs and behind the dias were 8 piles of bones. It was the tomb of Alaxus!

In the meantime, I've been waiting for her to finally find this tomb. So I'm excitedly setting up the minis, putting up the terrain and just all happy. @thePrincessWife's eyes are as big as plates right now and she's considering the backing and the pedalling. It's a huge climax ...

... and then as I reviewed the description to make sure I had everything, I saw a single line at the very beginning of the room description, where it is describing the jet black stone doors... "These doors are locked."

...

...

...

Yea... so what to do? Do I leave the doors unlocked? Do I go "oops. Wait.. this didn't happen."

No.

So Aeli and party are still at the door, gaping at the sight before them, when a skeletal hand reaches up out of the coffin, points to the doors AND THEY SHUT! Right on those adventurer's noses!

So Aeli and company plot and get oil and cleric ready.. they're going to go in... but the door will not push open! The two silver bull head ring pulls suddenly liquefy (ala Terminator 2) and form one solid bullhead, it's mouth now a giant keyhole.

(Insert sudden dawning realization on @thePrincessWife's face and then the glaring and growling and "WTF'ing"...)

Heh. A cinematic moment made more cinematic by an old school "GET OFF MY LAWN!" performed by something in the coffin.

Aeli and party returned to the skeleton and she took the plate mail armor and dressed in it. Now if you're familiar with "Wrath of the Minotaur" module by Jeff Grubb, you know that this is most likely the armor of the famous mage-killer/Hero that slew Alaxus a long time ago with the Sword of Runes. The henchman who had taken the shield sheepishly (and a little in awe) gave it Aeli saying the shield probably belonged with the armor.

That's something I've started giving to Aeli (and to my Dark Ages players as well) at 4th level - some respect and admiration. In OD&D, 4th level was equivalent to Chainmail's Hero, making 4 attacks per turn instead of 1. These were the bad-ass knights, the snarling ferocious barbarian leaders or the dudes that were gonna go get some serious ass-kicking on. Well, they get some deference and notoriety. Aeli saw a bit of that when she captured the bandits, and now that she's donning platemail that may have been worn by an ancient hero.. well, that's just the shit!

She exited the Tombs on that note, and went back to town to drink. A wandering minstrel took note of her and sang a song of the famous fight between the unnamed female Hero and Alaxus the Blackest of Mages.

The screwup with the door has presented itself with opportunities for her and for me. For her, it means that "peek" gives her a tactical edge - she knows what to expect and she can prepare better for it. I won't begrudge that to her, hell, it was my screwup and her gain. It gave me some fun with a moment that you won't see in most fantasy movies and depending on what she does/where she goes to find how to unlock the door, more opportunities to have some fun. So not too disheartening and just a quick improv - thank gods I pulled that outta my ass!

I can't wait to play again!

OD&D Psionics - my take

I don't like psionics. Wait, let me take that back. I don't like the psionics from Supplement 3, or from AD&D or from the web and it boils down to the same thing for me... tl;dr - too many dice/too much paperwork.

Now that's an oversimplification and this is a personal opinion - I like my games lean, mean and many options, few rules. Many of the psionic systems that I've taken the time to really read and grok end up following a similar pattern:
1. Figure out how powerful the psionics are (and in some systems, figure out how much psionics you can do for this level/day/combat.)
2. Figure out the attack/defense
3. Figure out if an attack/effect was successful (usually matching results from #1 and #2, comparing, and making dice rolls for saves and damage.)
4. Track points/power levels.

There are a lot of people who like that type of mini-game, I'm not one of them. Call it thick-skull, maybe I inhaled too many fumes from that "dope" when I was building model airplanes as a kid, but I like my in-game systems quick and easy.

That all being said, I do have a psionics system I do like, and it was written by Gary Gygax in 1975 in the magazine Strategic Review #1. In it, he described the Mind Flayer for the first time and it's Mind Blast power:

Intelligence  Saving Throw at Range   Effect of
of Opponent        1-2" 3-4" 5-6"     Mind Blast

3-4                19   19   17       Death
5-7                17   16   15       Coma, 3 days
8-10               15   14   13       Sleep, 1 hour
11-12              13   12   11       Stun, 3 turns
13-14              11   10   9        Confuse, 5 turns
15-16              9    8    7        Enrage, 7 turns
17                 7    6    5        Feeblemind
18                 5    4    3        Insanity, permanent

Magic users add +1 to their saving throws, and clerics add +2. 
A Helm of Telepathy adds a +4 to saving throws, and when such 
saves are made the attacking Mind Flayer is stunned for 3 
turns.

Now admittedly, to my own taste, there's a lot wrong with this chart, such as why someone with 18 INT would suffer insanity if they fail their save versus the 13/14 would just be confused, BUT it's the simplicity of the effect and approach. Attack. Save. Ouch or Haha! So let's expand this just a smidge.

1. Figure out if you have psionics - prereq is a 13+ INT. 1 in d30 gets you the freaky mind! 


I do like Carcosa's system of using INT/WIS/CHA to determine likelihood, so I'll add that a WIS of 16+ and/or CHA of 16+ adds +1, cumulative. A person could have a 3 in 30 if they have high enough stats. 10% chance.

And yes, you can simulate a d30 with a d20+d10 but really... the d30 is so cool, this system will make you run out and buy one. Right? Guys?


2. You have 4 powers - Mind Blast (like the mind flaya' [although I may redo this to do some damage dice and save the effects for a failed save]), ESP (like the spell) and Charm Person (like the spell). You also have Telekinesis (like the spell). You can use the number of powers per day as your level/3 (rounding rules apply). So choose wisely at first level. 


It was my thought that 10th level should be able to use all powers at least once, so I may allow 10th level 4 times since that's the cap on most classes. Maybe not, maybe those freaky high level mages should allow themselves some extra oomph, since we are talking about OD&D here...)


3. To attack, you declare like a spell and let your mind do the talking. The target makes their save based on the chart above. Your powers are limited to 60'. If they save, you are stunned for 3 rounds (in combat use) or 3 turns (non-combat use). If the target fails, the power works (per spell description or Mind Blast - which we would redo the chart)

Now, in accordance to the Alexis TestYourBullshit! rule, I have not tested these because I'm still noodling them. It's my (perhaps incorrect) suspicion that psionics are one of those campaign tilters, just like tossing a +3 Vorpal Sword into a pile 'o treasure, so I tend to tread lightly. Do these seem doable? To me they seem fun.

OD&D Solo game w/wife - The return of Aeli

After 10 months of trying, @thePrincessWife and I finally sat down at the table and tossed some dice, shoved metal figures around and had fun playing OD&D again. With the step-daughter, 4 year old granddaughter, 2 teenage daughters and a constant revolving door of people coming and going, it's hard to set aside time to get to gaming, but we manged to do it. I had recapped the previous adventures of Aeli and her band of rag-tag misfits (heh) earlier on the campaign wiki, and we picked up much where we left off.

Now I'm not one for the blow-by-blow recaps, but I would like to point out a couple of neat things:

1. I'm noodling around with a house-rule that says a Fighting Man can attack multiple targets at rate of Level - HD attacks. It basically breaks down like this: Fighting Man Level - HD of creature = Number of attacks per round. Any numbers < 1 = 1.

Here's a chart:

HD      <1  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9+
Level          
1       1   1   1   1   1   1   1   1   1   1
2       2   1   1   1   1   1   1   1   1   1
3       3   2   1   1   1   1   1   1   1   1
4       4   3   2   1   1   1   1   1   1   1
5       5   4   3   2   1   1   1   1   1   1
6       6   5   4   3   2   1   1   1   1   1
7       7   6   5   4   3   2   1   1   1   1
8       8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1   1   1
9       9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1   1
10      10  9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

The math checks out. The problem is that I keep forgetting to give Aeli the extra attacks! I bet if I tell her this rule, she'll make sure to ask me if she can get extra attacks! :) This really will help with the solo game survivability as well.

2. Tying up loose ends. A few adventures ago, Aeli captured some bandits with the "help" of a local neer-do-well by the name of "Nib". Well, he fled her company once the bandits had been caught and she suspected him of attempting to double-cross her. So in this game, she ended up with a bandit encounter and guess who I ruled was leading the bunch? Nib. This wilderness encounter, which the dice told the story, ended up derailing her plans for the day. Thanks to her charge through the line of ill-prepared bandits to grab Nib, as well as the monsters rolling "surrender" after the first death of the opponents, Aeli had to take the bandits back to town for a justly deserved reward... which she can collect once she takes the Writ of Reward to the Keep to cash in.

I am a big/huge proponent of taking the story the dice tell and weaving it into the narrative. Had there been no bandit encounter, Nib would still be out there, but now he's in chains awaiting trial and @thePrincessWife has a nice conclusion to that tale, as well as a bit of cash.

3. The story lives. OK, this is more of a thought after the game and a bit morbid but... do you write out the thoughts in your head as to where the story might go... just in case?

This is probably really damn personal and a bit odd, but if I die, the story dies and @thePrincessWife would never know how it would end. Now I know this is the fear of any writer anywhere, or any artist that creates... but it strikes me that DMs really do show a personal side of their creativity and if they pass on - well, we don't know where things would've went.

There are no notes about Castle Greyhawk that point definitively to how it was supposed to really look, all fleshed out. I don't know how detailed things were for Blackmoor, and I get the feeling that Tekumel/EPT is so well fleshed out that people would be able to see Prof. Barker's notes.

So OK, it made me worry about my lovely wife, so I actually wrote out where things are going IF she continues on her path. It's a constantly evolving story, as she makes decisions and things change, but if God forbid something were to happen to me, I'd want her to know. OK, morbid.. sorry. But the solo game has become such a thing that I feel between her and I that I want her to have this. No matter what.

OK, go hug your SO and kids now. :)

Where's our EPT and Blackmoor? Is the "OSR" doomed to retreads?

This all started because someone asked John Adams (he of Brave Halfling Publishing) over at the Swords & Wizardry forums about doing the old S&W Core Monster Book as a Whitebox release.

Something snapped in my head - it was painful - and over the past couple of days, the following blog post wrote itself in the cockles of my heart. So here you go...

I think we (the people who actively support/write/advocate old school style of play - call it what you will) can, we should, be doing better.

Look, I know John Adam's gonna do what John's gonna do to make a buck. And yes, 90% of our little band of 137 grognards are going to snap up WB Monster Book, WB Advanced Classes and all the other stuff that people want in order to either have the latest and greatest of the brand or because they want to show support to the little press. At the end of the day, I really don't begrudge John, or Matt Finch, or any of the small press / old school related guys making a buck. I know I made a buck or two on my Ref Sheets, as Bullette pointed out over on that forum thread and that's OK.

I think we can and should be doing better.

Where's our EPT? Where's our Blackmoor?

Where is the truly different and unusual that will have people really rolling? The only one that really pushed boundaries, so far, has been Carcosa. No matter what you think of the subject matter, the point is that Geoffrey took D&D/OD&D and went somewhere very different with it. I loved it. I've used a lot of it as stuff to prod my games along. That's why I love the crazy and wacky from Fight On magazine. That's why I have orcs with guns, fallen shiny spheres, crazy creepy dolls and a whole bunch of other stuff that my players might never see, but it's there because I'm inspired to put it there.

I may think Raggi's an ass, but I dammit sure respect him for trying to do something other than a retread. I may not buy his stuff, but I give him props. There's little other stuff coming out that I want to buy though, because it really is more of the same. Same orcs. Same plate mail. Same Stinking Cloud (except when Matt Finch forgets to include it) and just more restating of the same stuff we've been doing for the past 30 odd years, but with a shiny new name on it.

Say what you will about Alexis over at Tao but at least he's trying to perfect the craft of AD&D and push it into areas that some of us just back up and say "Woah, you are one crazy mofo... now how do I do that?" It's new, it's fresh and it hews true to the old school camp while taking us places where we need to go.

Where's our EPT? Where's our Blackmoor?

We should be doing better. We've been doing this little old-school stuff for what, almost 5 to 7 years now? We have retroclones of virtually every D&D flavor you can think of up to 1989. We have a retroclone of a Chick tract, for cryin' out loud! Are we really that tapped out that we can't do something different?

An orc is an orc. We can describe the same orc in 50 different retroclone ways, or we can do something new with this orc. Mash him with Mr. T. Put a laser in his hands. Put a laser on his head. Do *SOMETHING* different with the orc but please don't restate him with WB stats, then with Complete stats, then with OSRIC/AD&D stats, then with Holmes retroclone stats and on and on and on...

Look, I love the style of play that the original editions give us, but I also hope to see inspiration and movement to something that explores the places we haven't gone. OK, I may be derivative myself, but at least with Ultima RPG, Modern OD&D, I was trying for something new. That's why Tombs of Hultep Koa remain hidden. It's retread shit and I don't want that.

At the end of the day, I hope John makes a buck. If he does that with the same Orc with a shiny new label, Gods bless him and I hope it does well.

I just hope he does something different... or SOMEONE does something different. Otherwise, I think we're just going to end up cutting the same game into tiny pieces and saying the same thing until it just doesn't matter anymore.

I want 2011's EPT.

OD&D Solo game w/wife - Falling in love again

ThePrincessWife and I are about to start gaming again, both with OD&D/Swords & Wizardry and in Pendragon. To that, I've been going through all my old game notes and coming up with recaps that she can read and get back up to speed. I thought I would share them here as well.

Here are the links:
A recap of the game so far - Part 1
A recap of the game so far - Part 2

(Should I reproduce the text here? Or just the links?)

Anyway, in writing these out, I found myself remembering a lot of ideas, memories and half formed plans - those "Oh yea... what about this... and this..." and I found myself wanting to go back to The Vale again and being the exploration. It was like pulling back the curtain and falling in love again with this setting and what was so exciting about playing it.

I think I'm really healed from the drek and scum from the TARGA and YesNoOSR deals. It feels good to just be excited to game. Now if I pick up my miniatures painting brush, I'm REALLY in trouble. I still have almost 100 left to paint! LMAO!

Failure IS an option

The next time...

... your elf fails a secret door check, they really DO feel something is odd about that wall and that secret door is right there, plain as the nose on his/her face! It must be magical!

... your dwarf fails a detect traps check, every 10 to 15' or so, he/she sees another trap, very similar. This continues on for another 1d6x10 feet.

... your Magic User fails some sort of an attribute check[1] against their Intelligence, or Saving Throw, say to suss out the arcane formula that either explodes like a fireball or gives him the Big Secret... well, he's for sure he's got it right... all we have to do is displace that dragon 3 days over and then grab the cocktrice's tail and...

... your thief type character fails to detect traps, she really DOES find a trap and spends quite a few turns trying to disarm it, but for some reason, it's not working.

... your fighter fails to open a door, no, he really does open the door and keeps on steaming through the room unbalanced, falling over everything and slams into the other side of the room, knocks himself out for 1d6 turns/rounds (rounds if there's gonna be combat from the other dudes looking in amazement at the idiot human who just knocked himself out...) and worse indignity, suffers 1d2 points of damage from the crash and door falling on his face.

Failure doesn't just have to be "No" - take what would have been a successful outcome, or what would have happend IF there was really something there, twist it so that it's going to be an obstacle or setback and make it a red herring, an event that wastes time/resources, puts them on a temporary bad path... something that they'll talk about for months down the road - "Hey, remember when George tried to kick open that door that led to the Imp's breeding grounds and he knocked himself out falling right at the feed of the Barbed Flaming Devil?!?"

[1] I love the 3d6, 4d6, 5d6 or 6d6 attribute check dealio. Not only are you rolling a lot of dice, but it's intuitively cool.

The retroclones have taken me back to the originals

I've noticed something lately... I'm not playing the retroclones as much as I'm back to playing the originals. This has less to do with the clones themselves than with the fact that the retroclones have done something invaluable - they've opened the door to me to *understand* the originals.

When I played AD&D and Holmes, I had no freakin' clue what I was doing. We just got together and killed things and took their stuff and made the world safe for... something. Gygax's prose, the intricacies of B2 and X1, the concept of the "underworld" - it meant nothing to me as a 14 year old hopped up on puberty hormones, MTV and Atari 2400.

Coming back to those games many years down the road, the retroclones opened my eyes to what I had missed in all that time. OSRIC laid out AD&D in clearer tones, and that was good! But now I find myself going back to the original DMG more than I crack open the OSRIC book. Hell, Kellri's CDD4 is probably referenced more than even the DMG. Swords & Wizardry gave me the simplicity of OD&D and Whitebox S&W gave me the OD&D "toolkit" to make my own game - the Ultima RPG. Yet now I keep going back to just the Ref sheets and the LBBs to tease out little bits on my own, or I open up Holmes.


It's not that the clones are bad, but I find they've taken me back to the originals and I'm happy with that. I've found myself almost at the same place I was back in 1979 and 1980 - mashing together Holmes and AD&D, but now I've got more stuff and more importantly, I've got more experience and understanding. I've got the blogs, I've got the forums and I've got the experience.

I still own the retroclones, but I'm finding my enthusiasm has waned a great deal in purchasing Yet-Another-Clone, especially in this economy. The Whitebox boxed set is the last RPG purchase I've made this year and probably will be the only one.

I don't know that this *means* anything, except that retroclone and simulacra publishers are going to give me the fat finger because my wallet is closed and I can't really recommend any clones save the ones I've already publicly supported. 

---

I am collecting monetary donations for the 2010 Chicagoland Toys for Tots Parade to be held on Dec 6th. This is a great charity where the Marines distribute Christmas toys to needy kids. I am raffling off some RPG items as well - the more you donate, the more "virtual tickets" you'll get. See this post for details and thank you!

What if, when civilization was first forming...

(These are notes that I had compiled a while back when I was foolishly thinking I was good enough to write modules. I had considered publishing an alternative history deal centered around a Black Ziggurat. Ha! Boy was I dumb. So, I'll just muddle around here with it, and maybe get together some players for it someday...)

What if ...

... the god/dess/es were real, and they influenced PCs on a much greater level - similar to a charm person, or to where the player had to make a saving throw versus an attribute to do something against the will of a god inside of the god's city? And what if this was easier at lower levels, because everyone is basically a grunt, and as you grow in levels/importance, you grow in the sight of the god/dess?

... magic users were really sorcerers and your very first "first level" spell wasn't Read Magic but Summon Demon so that you could use the demon to cast spells? And what if the mage had to have a high Charisma as well as high Intelligence? And what if the mage had to make a Charisma save to have the Demon cast the spell (ala, EPT's Spell Fumble roll prior to casting a spell?) And what if instead of sucking up the Demon's HP when the spell is cast, on a failed save, the Demon would still cast the spell but the hp cost came from the Mage?

... only those who wanted to risk disfavor with the Gods could write?

... technology was something that caused the Gods influence/power to be less? So that yes, you could use the higher technologies of refined metals, writing and what-not -- but then those Cleric spells might not work so well?

... everyone had a shot at divine favor/intervention?

... you could move up in levels, but you also had some measure of how happy your God or the city's royalty were with you... and that depended on how much of your "stuff" you gave?

... gp/sp was only a relative "measure" - coins and money was not as prevalent as jewelry, cattle, slaves, property?

... going into the "Underworld" meant you really did go to a place where the rules changed in how things worked?

... Resurrect spells were really opening portals to the deepest parts of the Underworld where you had to battle to regain the souls of your lost comrades.

... the end game was your quest to become a lugal so that you could be equal to a god through technology, control of the people and worship of a god and how the god's influence was spread to other cities, territories?

... Jeff's game of EPT at Winterwar had influenced my view of "Land of 2 Rivers" a lot more than I had realized?

OD&D Solo game w/wife - 4th level

My @thePrincessWife reached an achievement in OD&D/Swords & Wizardry; she attained 4th level. On the eve of her birthday no less! In OD&D, she would now be a "Hero" which was significant in Chainmail - she would be considered a special type of character and now able to confront the truly fantastic of creatures. I mentioned to her that word of her accomplishments and travels are starting to become noteworthy not only in the immediate area, but regionally.

We played a bit last night - much of it was concerning "paperwork" in reviewing things like how Hit Dice worked, her various skills and abilities and her henchmen.

We also had some fun watching the dice give @thePrincessWife fits! She has concluded that there must be a back entrance to the Tomb of Alaxus, given that these ratlings seem to be living there and probably did not come through the front door. She is not a ranger or skilled woodsmen, so I gave her character, Aeli, a base chance of each hour finding something, if something was there. The more she searched, the more I raised the likelihood of finding something, or positively concluding that nothing was to be found. The only downfall was wandering monster checks.

[Spongebob Announcer Voice] Five hours later... [/Voice]

So the dice were not kind and five hours passed in-game while the group trekked around this hill looking for something - anything! It wasn't until the wandering ratlings cued Aeli to the location of the secret entrance that she found it. We all had a good laugh on that and had to regretfully stop playing for the night as we just ran out of time. Either tonight or tomorrow, she'll enter this narrow hole in the ground and see where it leads to.

I'm really looking forward to getting her new "true" 25mm miniature all painted up and ready to go - as I am looking forward to completing Tironell's miniature (the NPC mage that accompanies Aeli.) Although I have no problem killing him if needs be, I have come to enjoy the banter between her character and Tironell. Unsurprisingly, it mirrors some of the same banter she and I have. Go figure!

Miniature-less abstract combat in AD&D/OD&D

Sometimes I come up with weird ideas. Sometimes those ideas happen when I'm on the second throne, sometimes they happen when I'm reading totally non-related things.

r_b_bergstrom of the blog Transitive Property of Gaming wrote about WFRP 3e today and I was wandering through that post, having made a side trip to Delta's blog to print out the Target 20 system because I love it and must have it and have been using it already in my head...

... so r_b writes: "So I was pleasantly surprised that the game uses very abstract positioning rules, with the assumption that a melee is "like a rugby scrum" with everyone in constant movement. If you're part of the melee, you're engaged with everyone. If you _need_ to get somewhere, you just do, but it costs you a few fatigue points. This is a completely different paradigm, and it feels fresh and innovative."

Now a few months back, I played 3:16, a player narrative type of game that had 3 rangers. Close, Near and Far. It was easy to tell who the D&D'ers were because they wanted to operate on the range based on a number that gives a discrete amount. Once they/we wrapped our heads around what the various ranges really meant in terms of narration vs. actual mechanics, things worked better.

One of the games I'm running is an online Wave game in my Dark Ages world. In that setting, ranges can get fiddly as we're not dealing with minis or such. It occurs to me that the abstract 3:16 type of range could be laid on top of simple combat systems, such as OD&D/AD&D.

If you're at Close range, you're in melee. Mechanics such as flanking, back-stabs, rear attacks, 2nd row spears don't matter in terms of range, but in terms of spending time/abilities to do so[1]. Close could be 10' or a circle of 30' or whatever - it's more about going face to face with your enemy.

If you're at Near or Far, you're limited to missile fire. Near weapons are hurled or smaller missile weapons. If you're at Far, you're doing missile fire with Far weapons (long bows, firearms, crossbows) or adding +2 to Near range missile weapons.

If you're Out of Combat, you've fled the combat zone, whatever that is.

This doesn't take out determining who attacks who, and you can still deal with spell-casters being in melee.

[1] To flank or rear-attack, you would indicate an opponent (or just say you wish to try to do so on someone - if the DM rules that there's the possibility, say in a rough terrain area or the number of participants would mean a type of scrum, then I'd allow it, if it was a narrow dungeon corridor or very military based opponents with lines and shield walls, I'd disallow it - I would rule it would take a round to set up the flank/rear attack, next round's attack gets the bonus. Same with monsters. Back attacks require the thief to hide in shadows or move silently, whichever the DM ruled appropriate... then the next round, they get the back-attack.

I don't really use inches, grids or the like in my combats, and indicating abstract ranges can remove the argument of who is in the range of something exploding - if you're at Close and a spell is flung into the melee, say a Fireball, everyone at Close gets nailed. DMs can still rule on effects (I'll aim the sleep spell so that it affects the monsters only - DM makes a gut check if that sounds plausible... if the players have been describing a general scrum... PCs might be zzz'ing.)

I wonder if I'll lose my OSR card for this. It's an interesting thought exercise, nonetheless.