My blog's evilness ==

This site is certified 38% EVIL by the Gematriculator

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Trollzine 4 needs artistry

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

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

Any help would be appreciated!

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

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Collecting the wisdom vs the Hive Mind

Collecting the wisdom wins again!!!

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

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

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

Really neat!

Friday, March 18, 2011

yay! pictures of cool helmets!

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

[1e] Implicit setting WIP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

A few random things

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

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

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

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

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

99 PILGRIMS (CE – Cult of the Three Dooms)
Clerical Leadership
CHANTRY PRIESTS
1 3rd level and 6 2nd level clerics
1 5th level and 3 4th level clerics
All clerics below 6th level serve in the chantries.
CHAPEL PRIESTS
2 6th level cleric
These clerics occupy the chapel
PROPHET OF THE DARK CHAMBER
1 8th level cleric
This cleric occupies an isolated underground chamber
Exceptional characters:
fighter: 3 (lvl 7, 7, 1) A pair of twins, the 7th level fighters, and a gnome 1st level
assassin: 1 (lvl 5)
thief: 3 (lvl 7, 5, 2)
magic user: 1 (lvl 7)
Deity:
Called the Three Dooms, it appears at times as a withered & one-eyed dwarf, a
healthy mature human male with a third monstrous arm extending from the chest,
or as a heavily hooded and robed crone who can reveal a third eye. Its
presence among the cultists is in the form of Raugak, a type IV demon (using
much illusion, project image, and polymorph self). It acts as an intercessor
between the cult and a greater power in the Abyss. It is loathe to Gate in brethren, as it does not want to share the bounty of its current worship. Raugak lairs in the darkness beneath the chapel, indoctrinating the cult's prophet into the deeper mysteries of its Master's Dooms (i.e. driving him insane).
 Raugak (Type IV demon) 
AC -1 SA spells and powers
MV 9/12 SD +1 or better to hit
HD 11 (51 hp) MR 65%
A 1-4/1-4/2-5 INT 14


Refer to OGL if required.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

When Cloud Giants Go Bad

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Wilderness Monsters by Season

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


Spring (C)

Summer (L)

Fall (C)

Winter (L)

1

Green Dragon

Red Dragon

Black Dragon

White Dragon

2

Elf (CG)

Dwarf (LG)

Elf (CG)

Dwarf (LG)

3

Dwarf (N)

Elf (N)

Dwarf (N)

Elf (N)

4

Dryad

Dryad

Efreet (N)

Djinn (N)

5

Ettin

Efreeti (LE)

Ettin

Ghost

6

Gargoyle

Gnome (LG)

Gargoyle

Gnome (LG)

7

Ghoul

Goblin

Ghoul & Ghast

Goblin

8

Gnoll

Goblin & Hobgoblin

Gnoll

Goblin & Hobgoblin

9

Gnome (N)

Hobgoblin

Gnome (N)

Hobgoblin

10

Dwarf & Gnome (N)

Dwarf & Gnome (LG)

Dwarf & Gnome (N)

Dwarf & Gnome (LG)

11

Elf & Gnome (N)

Hell Hounds

Elf & Gnome (N)

Gorgon

12

Grey Ooze

Black Pudding

Harpy

Hell Hounds

13

Harpy

Hydra

Hydra

Kobald

14

Jackalwere

Kobald

Jackalwere

Goblin & Kobald

15

Gnoll & Jackalwere

Goblin & Kobald

Gnoll & Jackalwere

Hobgoblin & Kobald

16

Leprechaun

Hobgoblin & Kobald

Lizard Man

Goblin, Hobgoblin &Kobald

17

Lizard Man

Goblin, Hobgoblin &Kobald

Werebear

Lamasu

18

Werebear

Lammasu

Werboar

Wereboar

19

Werewolf

Lizard Man

Werewolf

Manticore

20

Berserker

Wereboar

Berserker

Berserker

21

Nomad

Manticore

Nomad

Dervish

22

Brigand

Bandit

Brigand

Bandit

23

Pilgrim (N)

Dervish

Pilgrim (N)

Pilgrim (N)

24

Pilgrim (CG)

Nomad

Pilgrim (CG)

Pilgrim (LG)

25

Pilgrim (CE)

Pilgrim (N)

Pilgrim (CE)

Pilgrim (LE)

26

Merchant

Pilgrim (LG)

Merchant

Merchant

27

Spirit Naga

Pilgrim (LE)

Spirit Naga

Nightmare

28

Minotaur

Merchant

Minotaur

Nymph

29

Nymph

Night Hag

Night Hag

Orc

30

Ogre

Orc

Ochre Jelly

Ogre Magi

31

Ogre & Gnoll

Ogre Magi

Ogre

Pilgrim of & Ogre Magi

32

Orc

Pilgrim of Geryon & OgreMagi

Ogre & Gnoll

Pilgrims of & Rakshasa

33

Orc & Ogre

Pixie

Orc

Ogre Magi & Goblins

34

Shadow

Pilgrims of & Rakshasa

Orc & Ogre

Ogre Magi & Hobgoblins

35

Gynopshinx

Rakshasa & Hobgoblins

Purple Worm

Ogre Magi, Goblins &Hobgoblins

36

Giant Spider (CE)

Gynosphinx

Giant Spider (CE)

Ogre Magi & Bugbears

37

Sprite

Rakshasa, Goblins &Hobgoblins

Roc

Ogre Magi, Goblins,Hobgoblins & Kobalds

38

Stirge

Rakshasa

Satyr

Remorhaz

39

Giant Toad

Stirge

Stirge

Slyph

40

Treant

Giant Toad

Giant Toad

Ice Toad

41

Troglodyte

Wight

Treant

Wight

42

Troll

Wolf

Troglodyte

Wolf

43

Will-o-wisp

Dire Wolf

Troll

Dire Wolf

44

Vampire

Wraith

Vampire

Winter Wolf

45

Wolf

Rakshasa

Shadow

Roc

46

Dire Wolf

Shedu

Will-o-wisp

Wraith

47

Yeti

Skeleton

Skeleton & Shadow

Shedu

48

Skeleton

Skeleton & Zombie

Skeleton

Skeleton

49

Skeleton & Zombie

Spectre

Skeleton & Zombie

Skeleton & Zombie

50

Skeleton & Shadow

Criosphinx

Skeleton & Shadow

Spectre

51

Shadow & Zombie

Hippogriff

Shadow & Zombie

Criosphinx

52

Androsyphinx

Stone Giant

Androsphinx

Yeti

53

Hieracosphinx

Fire Giant

Hieracosphinx

Griffon

54

Griffon

Barbed Devil

Hippogriff

Frost Giant

55

Blue Dragon

Horned Devil

Cloud Giant

Ice Devil

56

Hill Giant

Ankheg

Storm Giant

Brownie

57

Ankheg

Basilisk

Centaur

Blink Dogs

58

Basilisk

Brownie

Chimera

Bugbear

59

Bugbear

Blink Dogs

Bugbear

Cockatrice

60

Bulette

Pilgrims of Dispater

Cockatrice

Pilgrims of Dispater

61

Centaur

Pilgrims of Geryon

Pilgrims of Jubilex

Pilgrims of Geryon

62

Chimera

Displacer Beasts

Pilgrims of Orcus

Doppleganger

63

Pilgrims of Jubilex

Pilgrims of Dispater &Barbed Devil

Djinn

Displacer Beasts

64

Pilgrims of Orcus

Pilgrims of Geryon &Horned Devil

Doppleganger

Pilgrims of Dispater &Horned Devil

65

Djinn

Fire Giant & Hobgoblin

Displacer Beasts

Frost Giant & Hobgoblin

66

Hill Giant & Orc

Fire Giant, Hobgoblin &Goblin

Frost Giant & Orc

Frost Giant, Hobgoblin &Goblin

67

Hill Giant, Ogre & Orc

Stone Giant & Orc (N)

Frost Giant, Ogre & Orc

Pilgrim of Geryon & OgreMagi

68

Hill Giant & Gnoll

Stone Giant & Dire Wolf

Frost Giant & Gnoll

Pilgrim of Dispater &Ogre Magi

69

Hill Giant & Bugbear

Pilgrim of Dispater &Ogre Magi

Frost Giant & Bugbear

Pilgrim of Geryon & IceDevil

70

Hill Giant, Bugbear &Gnoll

Brownie & Pixie

Frost Giant, Bugbear &Gnoll

Pilgrim of Dispater & IceDevil

71

Hill Giant & Ettin

Wraith & Shadow

Hill Giant & Orc

Goblin & Bugbear

72

Basilisk & Gargoyle

Spectre & Shadow

Hill Giant, Ogre & Orc

Wraith & Shadow

73

Troll & Troglodyte

Dryad & Pixie

Hill Giant & Gnoll

Spectre & Shadow

74

Pilgrims of Orcus &Shadows

Gnome & Pixie

Hill Giant & Bugbear

Ghost & Shadow

75

Centaur & Sprite

Spectre & Shadow

Hill Giant, Bugbear &Gnoll

Brownie & Gnome

76

Treant & Sprite

Wraith & Shadow

Hill Giant & Ettin

Yeti & Wolf



Refer to OGL if required.

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

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

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

[Freak Jazz] PRIMITIVE OHIO!!!

My Early Gaming History

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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