yet more alignment

Here's a quote from Gygax in Strategic Review. At this point, the system of alignments is beginning to move from the Original D&D (Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic) into that presented in Homes Basic (Lawful Good/Evil, Neutral, Chaotic Good/Evil).

Considering mythical and mythos gods in light of this system, most of the benign ones will tend towards the chaotic/good, and chaotic/evil will typify those gods which were inimical towards humanity. Some few would be completely chaotic, having no predisposition towards either good or evil — REH’s Crom perhaps falls into this category.

I find this interesting on 2 points.

• Allowing one and two term definitions of alignment to co-exist, and
• stating that evil is 'inimical towards humanity', placing the interests of humanity as the objective standard (which is probably the safest approach, maybe the only approach...)

Holmes alignment is the one I've felt most comfortable with. Not too esoteric, but of finer resolution. Continuing to use Lawful and Chaotic as independent terms does not seem a serious complication, and one that allows the existence of objective Law and objective Chaos, in the realm of deities and such.

And to maintain the humanocentric interpretation of alignment, the last paragraph of this article says:
As a final note, most of humanity falls into the lawful category, and most of lawful humanity lies near the line between good and evil. With proper leadership the majority will be prone towards lawful/good. Few humans are chaotic, and very few are chaotic and evil.

Perhaps to reinterpret the 1e AD&D alignment, removing the neutrality of each of its variations (and get rid of True, same as adding it implicitly)...nah.

This is the alignment table I use for random determination

d%	1e AD&D	Holmes Basic
01-05	Lawful Evil	Lawful Evil
06-15	Chaotic Evil	Chaotic Evil
16-20	Neutral Evil	Neutral (evil tendencies)
21-35	Chaotic Neutral	Neutral
36-55	True Neutral	Neutral
56-80	Lawful Neutral	Neutral
81-85	Neutral Good	Neutral (good tendencies)
86-95	Chaotic Good	Chaotic Good
96-00	Lawful Good	Lawful Good

So 60-70% of the aligned population falls into neutral territory, with a greater chance of lawful ethos where applicable. Boring? Realistic? Not sure. Somewhat comfortable though.

How about 13 alignments?

(This is a total ramble. Sorry - it's saturday.)

I've never been able to implement the use of alignment into a game I ran that I thought was satisfying.

Really, I dislike the following ideas as much as I dislike virtually all ideas about handling alignment - except that one which advises willfull exclusion of it.

You can view the 9 axis AD&D alignment (LE-CE-NE-CN-TN-LN-NG-CG-LG) as a 2D array (like the picture on the page). Now sparsely populate the third dimension with doubles of the bases (LL-CC-NN-EE-GG) - say that these are the most exaggerated, atavistic or monolithic interpretations of these ideas...Neutral Neutral seems like True Neutral...UGH - at least there's 13 elements, which might scare prospective DM's off due to superstition and folklore, and those who skip from level 12 to level 14...

Nah.

OK. Get rid of the conceit of 'common tongue' instead (maybe allow other less-inclusive ones like Tradespeak, Scholarspeak, Mercenarese, etc (thieves and druids do it, right?)). How about getting rid of all other languages as automatic to the character at creation - only the alignment language stays, so generally people can speak best to those'of like mind'...allow them to be learned as any other...

Eh. In a world without races, that could be cool.

Here's my personal binary favorite: PC and monster.

The concept is really fundamental to the game of D&D - in the sense that it's in the original rules, was there from the start (is it still there now?). Maybe, just maybe, my dissatisfaction with it is a shortcoming of my own. I've always hated using it while playing. I've always felt like players who make a big deal about their character's alignment have some kind of agenda to their play ('always' isn't the best word - maybe 'usually felt that'...anyway). I've always appreciated those games that don't even bother with alignment in the rules. There are, of course, good guys and bad guys in those games (PCs and monsters).

Nevertheless, I've always felt compelled to use it, or at least include it in setting and design for fantasy games, in some way just a cut above token inclusion. Take the swords and magic items that possess intelligence, ego, alignment. Opinions, outlooks, etc - these are elements of sentience - morality, ethics, what is right, what is wrong - you know the rap...

Seems likely that the anti-paladin was an invention very early in the history of the dissemination of the original game. Where's the evil anti-ranger, who hunts the edges of civilization, culling the sheep who stray too far from the village? (well, that role is filled nicely by wolves and monsters I guess...) As a class, I guess that's an assassin...

The endgame of OD&D vs say BECMI (hope I got the order right, BEMCI?). Wargaming vs at-home campaigns. Gross definitions vs fine definitions. Good Guys vs Bad Guys. Team players vs. Individualists. I'm not a big fan of 'epic' style games - so the identification of universal powers of such-and-such alignment always rubbed me wrong.

But, dammit! As a DM, I want to know if some NPC king in question is neutral, good, or evil! (Basically just so I can figure out which of them are fighting...) I still use it in design a lot. For that matter, I want to know if some prospective henchman is Chaotic Evil or Lawful Neutral. I end up writing small programs to automate NPC generation, with the idea that it'll help to populate villages and such (*herm* ok, i do it cuz it's fun) - but within these lists, inevitably, I segregate the NPC into groups of common alignment, to begin to piece together story-hooks and relations between groups...

Assuming you've made it this far, I'll apologize again.

Emotional Actual Human Beings vs the Internet

Actual Humans win again!

I sometimes forget, while looking at words and pictures on my computer, that there's people out there, behind the whole thing - actual real people. And the thing about such creatures is that they are rational, analytical, measured individuals - every last one. I myself am one such person, though I am generating this post through a php script which supplies my tone, cadence and general demeanour.

People are sometimes passionate, emotional, messy, loud, abrasive, etc. People love and hate things, are ambivalent, fearful, joyous, oblivious, enlightened, etc. Easy to forget when things are humming along smoothly - you're thinking about games, talking to other people about games and game minutae, it's cool - you disappear into the wonders that we're all building and sharing - you develop lingering internet-crushes on so-and-so.php, who elucidates angles you hadn't considered, reminds you why you love gaming, get excited about developments, (insert gushy-fanboy-love-topic-here), etc.

Several events in the last few months (and others in the last few years that I've not seen first hand but dredged up through unceasing labor (assisted, of course, by this curse of life eternal)) really make it clear though - people get hemmed the fuck up!

I love gaming, I always have and can only assume that I always will. I also love discussion, discourse - that's what the internet is for! (aside from youtube and, uh, maybe this site). For me anyway. I have more or less always gamed in a vacuum, had few actual opportunities to play since I was 15 or 16, and never *NEVER NEVER NEVER* imagined that I'd be able to read and talk to so many fascinating people - originators, obsessives, inventors, etc - It just seems like such a waste of time (this is resource management) to dwell on negatives and divisions.

just curious...

would you have a harder time playing a game where the DM rolled all of the dice for your character, or one in which you did not have access to your character's stat scores and game mechanic information?

EDIT: Let me clarify. Sorry. Hasty initial post.
1. You can look at your character sheet, but the DM rolls dice as required to resolve your character's actions and such (to-hits, saving rolls, etc) OR
2. You never see your character sheet, but roll for your own character's actions.

Fundamentalist Fatbeard Splintercells Unite!

wtf! come on already!
in a post dealing with the subject -
how to defend one's interests
in a constructive way
in a hostile environment
when you shouldn't even have to justify your interests in the first place
perhaps apply judo toward bridge-building...

some wonderful things were said about 'economy' on a thread at Vin's Trollbridge a few days ago (somewhere in page two). Feel free to find offence in the thread and focus obsessively on that instead.

Dark Static Demon

Dark Static Demon
MV 9" AC 4 HD 3 Attack 1(1d8+special)
SA metal armor provides no protection, on hit save vs Hold Person(d4 rounds)

From a far removed plane (4 planes removed, for those who desire Contact), a place of high energies, strange states of matter, and esoteric sentiences, comes the Dark Static Demon - among the easier of its denizens to summon. Though called a 'demon', they are not thought to be evil. They appear as a 4' tall cloud-like mass of writhing strands or cords - one of these cords can strike out swiftly to attack, and this attack ignores the presence of metal armors. The summoner will have effortless mental contact with the demon up to 100' away, and it will obey commands with intelligence, but will never itself communicate. Illusion and invisibility are meaningless to these creatures, and they are unaffected by mind-influence spells. Dark Static Demons cannot be maintained away from their home plane for longer than d6x10 minutes.

Magifacts

Berserker Stone (unknown quantity, assumed very large)
In the 7th Aeon, two conflicting kings warred over inconsequential matters, and fired arcing cannonades of these stones into the ranks of each-others standing forces. Composed of a chalky soft stone, they cleave easily, and from that break springs a warrior fully equipped, with no interests but attacking all others not cut from the same stone. The warrior (or the organic and inorganic remains thereof) will persist for d3 days. If found in great quantity, the GM might wish to roll percentile to see how many of the stones still retain their enchantment.

Pegarine Folio (unique)
This spellbook is known to have an enduring enchantment upon it which bars it from being opened and read by those of inadequate abilities. In the four-hundred years since it was discovered, it has been owned by six and used by five. There are eight pages, upon which any spell may be written. Any spell in this book can be memorized by the reader, regardless of different or conflicting realm or school of magic, class or alignment difference. (T&T SR Level(20-opener's level) on CH, DX & LK) (D&D I 15 W 15 D 16 C 15 required to use, and Save vs Wand on initial opening attempt)

Spool of Prison String (unique)
This thin string that unwinds from this spool can be used in two ways.
1. A single loop joined around one individual being will prevent it making any voluntary movement.
2. A thread tracked out on the ground around an area will confine those enclosed to that area, but only those present when the loop is joined (i.e. others may enter and leave as they wish). Consider that it has no ceiling for aerial purposes, but maintains its form beyond the atmosphere. Spells and powers of teleportation within the area are foiled, though those able to travel to other dimensions and planes may thusly escape.

In either application, the string cannot be touched or otherwise targeted by actions of those effected.

AD&D Soothsayer

The Soothsayer

Soothsayers are a sub-class of magic user, though they have some qualities of illusionists and clerics also. To be a soothsayer, a character must have a minimum intelligence of 12, wisdom of 9, dexterity of 11, and a charisma of 9 or more. Soothsayers do not gain bonuses to earned experience by dint of high ability scores. Soothsayers can be of any alignment, and may or may not be affiliated with a religious organization, cult, or church, but should not be considered as necessarily representative of this organization as the cleric generally is.

Soothsayers gain levels and follow the spell schedule of the illusionist. Hit dice are d6. Soothsayers can wear no armor heavier than leather and cannot use a shield. They may arm themselves as per illusionists, and choose one other weapon to be allowed to use. Soothsayers attack and save as clerics.

They may use magic items available to magic users, illusionists, and clerics (though some deities/religious organizations might disallow the functions of clerical items for a particular Soothsayer whose alignment, outlook or purpose is antithetical).

Soothsayers are more inclined toward information gathering and influence than acts of grandiose magic. They are more likely found as fortune tellers, hermetic seers, advisors, adventurers, iconoclasts and zealots or charlatans and mountebancs than leaders of a flock, crusaders or academic thaumaturges. Some cultivate an aura of mystery about themselves, others use their abilities in the service of others.

The particular methods of soothsayers allow them to cast Read Magic 1 time a day for each level they have attained. Additionally, soothsayers may cast the reversed form of any spell currently memorized, where such reversed forms exist.
Spells available to soothsayers

--	Level One	Level Two	Level Three	Level Four
1	Change Self	Augury	Blink	Charm Monster
2	Charm Person	Detect Charm	Clairaudience	Confusion
3	Command	ESP	Clairvoyance	Cure Serious Wounds
4	Comprehend Languages	Find Traps	Illusionary Script	Detect Lie
5	Cure Light Wounds	Forget	Spectral Force	Divination
6	Detect Evil	Hold Person	Non-detection	Emotion
7	Detect Illusion	Hypnotic Pattern	Remove Curse	Exorcise
8	Detect Magic	Speak with Animals	Slow	Phantasmal Killer
9	Hypnotism	Imp. Phantasmal Force	Speak with Dead	Polymorph Self
10	Identify	Know Alignment	Suggestion	Wizard Eye
11	Phantasmal Force	Locate Object	Tongues	Plane Shift
12	Audible Glammer	Misdirection	Dispel Magic	Contact Other Plane

--	Level Five	Level Six	Level Seven
1	Atonement	Find the Path	Astral Spell
2	Chaos	Vision	Antipathy/Sympathy
3	Commune	Invisible Stalker	Cacodemon
4	Speak with Monsters	Legend Lore	Instant Summons
5	Feeblemind	Mass Suggestion	Mind Blank
6	Magic Jar	Reinacarnation	Trap the Soul
7	Maze	Repulsion	Mass Charm
8	Polymorph Other	Spiritwrack	Heal
9	Quest	Veil	Imprisonment
10	True Seeing	Word of Recall	Alter Reality

Life w/o net

Man! No internet! After the first few days I got used to it, and started reading books again. Made me feel like I could quit smoking! And confined to localhost, managed to dribble assortments and some gaming things that I'll have to prettify and put up eventually...
But now, to absorb the last few weeks of OSReality.
Thanks for keeping the camp clear, everything appears to be in order...
Oh yeah - BOOKS! Vance The Last Castle and the Dying Earth quartet (finally), and Blackwater, the Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill. (general conclusion: we're fucked (unless 'we' are committed right-wing crusaders with deep links into the military-industrial complex)). Of course, this book in particular got me to thinking on matters of D&D endgame...
Now to jump back into the PBP games...it may take a few days for some emails to get sent out of here, but I do have the next few days off...
Glad to see the S&W quick-start (though I feel compelled to steer clear of it until Nico and I have the E&S project done) and the Three Headed Monster is pretty exciting too. Glad that BHP has softened up a little.
Pretty glad that I was gone while the Tweet episode flared too.
Ugh.

gone for a few weeks at worst

lost internet connection and it looks like it'll be a minute before I'm back.
Take care.

Identity and Rolemaster "Classic"

Classic refers to the first version of the game.

1. 'Universal' game material. Supplements to add-in to other systems to give a greater amount of detail. Arms/Claw Law for combat, Spell Law for magic, and then Character Law for character development. I wonder how many people used these products in their D&D games...I'm sure the critical hit tables were fused into games in various ways if nothing else...

2. With the "main-points" of RPGs covered, this then is a system of its own, internally coherent. Iron Crown stopped printing information about converting Rolemaster data to the number-scales of other games, and began packaging the books together as a stand-alone system.

3. Middle Earth. Pre-MERP - Iron Crown got a license to publish works detailing settings in Middle Earth. What a coup! With time, a spin-off game is developed, 'Rolemaster-lite' (*heh*) in the form of MERP (along with other products). Rolemaster itself continues to be supplemented by Companion products, and also a campaign setting called Shadow World. New character classes are introduced, spell lists after spell lists are elucidated, the effects of unique herbs with strange names are detailed, more skills, more skills, more options...

4. Tolkien License revoked. Bummer. Can no longer publish the stats of the Steward of Gondor...Good thing they'd been thorough while the license held. One thing you can say about Rolemaster - thorough! They'd already detailed Moria, the Woses, the Court of Ardor, etcetera.

5. A continuation of #3 above. The numbered general supplements come to number seven. Companions are produced for each realm of magic, for two 'new' realms of magic, for alchemy, and for spell-users in general. Three compendiums of creatures and treasures. A companion book for character talents and skills, for warriors and arms-use in general, for war, for sea, castles, for constructs, golems and autoamta (I'm bouncing around the editions at this point...Rolemaster is still being published). The Shadow World setting never did much for me - but detailed settings have always been thought-experiments for me, I've never run a game with much of a mind to remaining true to a setting...but I liked reading Greyhawk, Earthdawn - Shadow World never jumped out and pulled me in.

Here's the thing. I tend toward 'low-powered' gaming. Limited information, limited scope. With the amount of detail in this game, I found it difficult to put on the blinders, and focus only on the aspects of the game that supported a low-powered campaign. If the characters were playing dumb grunts in the middle of nowhere (trust me, they weren't...), I was nevertheless aware that there were world-spanning organizations - there was magic that would allow amazing feats of communication and co-ordination - and this was distracting. (The fault here I lay at my own feet).

Ugh.
Yes, I'm going to have to go through the numbered companions next.
:)

Rolemaster vs Tunnels & Trolls

T&T wins again!

But really, this is more on Rolemaster.
I apologize that my writings here tend to be somewhat meandering.

One thing about Rolemaster I always found interesting was that it was something of a toolbox right from the get-go. It was acknowledged in the books that there was so much being presented that most referees would want to not-include everything (sort of reverse house-ruling...sort of). Then, once the Companion books started coming out and the options proliferated, this observation took on new weight - for example, there were three or four systems presented to deal with initiative in combat, and you really couldn't use ALL four of them.

When it come to kit-bashing, house-ruling, etc, the idea of building complexity to a desired level from a simple foundation has great merit. My early experiences with Rolemaster, however, may have really developed in me a tendency toward the opposite - to begin with complexity and pare it down to desired level of simplicity. Or rather, to begin with comprehensiveness and reduce reduce reduce.

Both approaches have their pros and cons. I feel that I am at odds with general OSR-ness when my yang side of overdevelop-then-reduce comes out. Oh well. Different strokes for different orcs.

Now, I have a hard time imagining two RPGs farther from each-other on the dirt-simple <-> over-blowed-out number line than T&T and Rolemaster - the two games that have had the most telling influences on my 'gaming philosophy'. (This may have produced a certain schizophrenic
tendency in my gaming...I refer to the orcs mentioned above). In the privacy of my notebooks and hard drive, I still attempt to write over-arching structures, comprehensive systems, exhaustive lists, rational categorizations and such - but in play, I am coming more and more to appreciate beginning with simplicity, and generally staying there.

I think though, that there's a lot of grey-area between the two extremes. And I think also that I will not be able to stop this series until I've plucked the various gems out of Rolemaster to put them here on display.

Oh yeah - the Castles & Ruins supplement for Rolemaster is magnificent!

Crude PDFS

I posted a link to some small PDF files that I've made and thought I should offer an explanation.
They're beside the top post of this page.

First off, a set of tables for hex-occupant generation. I went through Holmes D&D and extracted those creatures listed with treasure types, put in a dash of personal bias, and made tables for lair generation. Each table is rolled with 2 20-siders. There's two tables, the first contains races, the second, monsters.

The second is a list of the spells I've recently been posting here. Yay! More spells!

Anyway - coming to understand how easy PDFs are - albeit, crude ones.

Belskod's Bubbuckle

A brass belt buckle with a simple setting supporting a tourmaline. This gemstone can be depressed
twice a day, whereupon the wearer is surrounded by an invisible barrier. Within the barrier the temperature, air quality and purity, pressure, etc are maintained - environmental conditions inimical to continuance of life do not pass. The barrier makes the wearer immune to airborne poisons and diseases, improves the wearer's armor class by 1, does not interfere with the manipulation of objects and will persist for up to 4 hours.

Further researches of Ghanto Manuscript...

Curse of Cowardice
Casting Time 1 minute
Duration 1 day/level
Target gets initial saving throw. If failed, target must save vs spells to enter melee, or to undertake other actions that call for an excessive bravery.

Curse of Hiltbite
Casting Time 1 minute
Duration 1 day/level
Target gets initial saving throw. If failed, target takes 1 damage each round for each hand holding a weapon.

Enduring Symbol
Casting Time 1 hour
After casting this spell, caster places gold ingots or bars on the symbol, of a worth no less than 14,000 coins, which suffuses into the pre-existing symbol and vanishes. The symbol from then on must be dispelled twice in one hour to be removed.

Liquefy Metal
Casting Time 1 minute
Duration 10 seconds/level
Range 5'/level
The caster can effect one non-magical object composed of metal (1 pound/level). If the item is heavier than the caster can effect, the spell fails. If the metal object is held or worn, a save vs spells is allowed. Otherwise, the metal becomes a liquid without changing temperature. If not contained it will spill to the floor. At the end of the spell's duration, the metal returns to its natural hardness.
(*should probably allow normal metal things a save too...)

Rolemaster and Alignment

Fortuitous Bandwagoneering!

Rolemaster, at first, had little to say about alignment. The book dedicated to character development actually has no use of the word in it! Regular Garden of Eden...

Evil showed up in Spell Law, where there were lists of spells that were supposed to be available to evil magicians, clerics, and mentalists. Spell Law provided the game's 'take' on Good vs Evil - which was essentially a small blurb that left it up to the Referee to decide what the terms meant in their game-world! How about that!

Enter the Companion products (of course!). Early companions were essentially fan-projects - optional rules and sub-systems submitted from players across the world - of course someone out there would submit their version of alignment for Rolemaster. It was inevitable.

Now, the latest version of Rolemaster has two pages dedicated to it, with three tables occupying one of them. It gives a variety of binary pairs (good vs evil, law/government vs anarchy/rebels/opposing government, law/principle vs opportunism, religion vs atheism/other religion, free enterprise vs cartel/guild/monopoly/socialism, asceticism vs hedonism, altruism vs egoism, spiritual vs materialist, metaphorical vs literalistic). This table, while interesting, is a simplification of an earlier table, which contains 'Personality Traits' set up in the same fashion (as pairs of extreme traits). A character was to roll on this table. Lets say this roll is 58 (yes, I rolled!). 58 gives us "Valorous, Brave, Bold, Audacious vs Timid, Cowardly, Craven".

OK. We roll again to determine where the character stands in this abstract scale (where low rolls are closer to the Valorous, Brave, etc end, and high rolls cleave to the Timid, Cowardly and Craven heights) - and get 50!. Really (again - I rolled!) How appropriate. So this particular character stands exactly midway between Valor and Timidity, as Brave and as Cowardly as the average Josef.

How about a roll on the alignment table? 71 - this will determine the character's alignment on the scale of "Metaphorical vs Literalism". OK - 32 puts him much closer to the metaphorical than the literal. A man, then, of average bravery, prone to metaphorical interpretations and understanding of the self and world.

Alignment? Apparently this character does not acknowledge a struggle between universal good and evil. Nor is the importance of individuality defined - or the value of whatever groups he associates with. Granted, with different rolls on the table, a closer approximation of AD&D alignment could have happened. And dispensing with the die-rolls altogether would simply that further...

I didn't grow-up gaming with this approach, though - it's AD&D alignment that has that honor. Honor? Anyway - ZZARCHOV has posted his approach, and it is similar to mine (though I do use Neutrality - in fact, variations on Neutrality comprise 75% of alignments). The important part is that alignment defines the positions an individual takes on the issues of self/group and selfish/altruistic - in a purely social sense. This is where I prefer alignment - as definitions of relations of self/group and then relations of groups to other groups. At this point I would have a hard time demanding that a player choose an alignment (unless the class dictated it). Alignment is something I use generally just to generate conflicts between individuals and groups.

Let's populate hex #5437 with two dwarf tribes, both Neutral Good. What stories are there in this hex? Two Dwarf tribes co-exist because of similar temperaments and mine high quality iron ores, etc. Great. Sounds like a decent place to rest and recuperate while wandering the wilds.

Why are there two Dwarf tribes fighting over in hex #7853? Because one was randomly generated Chaotic Evil and the other Neutral Good. So an antagonistic relationship between them is not hard to imagine here, the details of which could be left to development until such a time as the area is entered: which tribe is encountered first? How do they cast their differences with the other tribe?

These kinds of things could be modelled anyway you wanted - give each hex a Conflict score or something... the point of this ramble has become pretty much lost to me. Oh yeah - just that alignment has become shorthand for hex map filling, city populace factions, etc. I kind of cringe when players try to bring alignment into play...

Now. Universal powers in unending struggle...There's a wonderful thread on OD&D that is probably what got me hooked on the boards.

Epées & Sorcellerie

REPOST - To simplify matters, please email me at address shown to the right if you are interested in looking over this rough - any help is appreciated!

I've put up a rough PDF of character creation and combat for the translation of Epées & Sorcellerie and I am hoping that someone could read it and tell me if there's howling errors I am missing or if there some aspects of the game are not explained very well. The quick start version of the rules are close to finished state. It's a good game, not a strict cloning of OD&D - more a variation (and a good one!) with the author's imprint on it. This is something I miss in reading games more often than not - the author's personality, and is something I'm really nervous about preserving (though it is less an issue in the 'quick start' version we're getting together). At some point I''ll pore over Grognardia to link to the review James gave it. Anyway - these two sections total about 16 pages - if anyone could look them over, and tell me what's wrong or not right enough, I'd appreciate it!

In Clarification of Rolemaster

Well, strictly speaking, Andreas, they could populate empty spell lists from scratch, so it wasn't so much spell invention as it was stitching together pre-existing spells to form new groups. The class was called an an Arcanist - it was actually in Rolemaster Companion II methinks (maybe III). What they did present in the first Companion was 'Arcane' magic, a new uber-realm of magic which allowed its practitioners to learn lists from any realm (called an Archmage). At first, Arcane magic was an escape route from the division of magic into discrete realms. Later versions of the game changed Arcane magic into 'just another realm', with it's own professions and their base lists, etc. The Arcanist, then, was a spell-user of the arcane realm that could build lists of spells from all of the pre-existing spells.

Lucky guys!

Ok. Godsdamn* this spell system! I love it - but whew! Too much! Anyway, non spell-using characters had to choose a realm of magic, even the grunts, sages and swashbucklers. This decision could have some in-game consequences for them, but was largely superfluous. Spell-using classes had their realm (or realms) pre-determined. Here was the first clash - the Monk. By-the-book, a Monk is a semi-spell user of the Essence realm ('essence' is a term analagous to 'ambient magic', 'the force', it's practitioners those who learned formulae and methods to coerce specific effects into being). Early on, a player wanted to make a Monk, and saw them as belonging squarely in the Mentalism camp (mentalism: remember the magical field of the Essence? Yes. Well, it is uneven. Living beings form nodes in this field, and Mentalist casters tap this personal allotment of magic). I agreed. These realm divisions are semantic, or at best/worst, settling elements - and so in my game, the Monks were Mentalists.

*

In Praise of Rolemaster

Spell suites.

1. Spell Lists
Rolemaster magic is love/hate, but one thing that stuck from its spell system was the mechanical exposition of increasing spell effects at greater levels. Where AD&D used spell name and then Improved spell name, this was more obvious. AD&D also had a lot of spells in which increased caster level provided better results. Again - nothing new in a revolutionary sense, it was really just the exposition. Spells were presented in lists of levels, with (usually) 23 elements - these lists being a few related spell effects stretched and stepped out. Oh yeah - when a character 'learns a spell', they really learn 3-5 spells...yeesh - OK, I am trying not to explain the magic system wholesale here - the important point is that it got me thinking about scaling spells of similar effect (and has since contributed to my desire to dismiss spell levels entirely).

2. Lists of Spell Lists
There was a body of common spell-craft, but each class (profession in Rolemasterese) that could cast spells had 6 lists of spells (base lists in Rolmasterish) that were generally considered unavailable to other professions.

Reading through Kellri's Greyhawk Spells got me thinking about this - particularly the grouping of the 'named' spells from Greyhawk. I am assuming that at least some of the lists of named spells came from the actual negotiation of the originial players and Gygax, and not so much 'after the fact' padding put in by TSR (I may be wrong) - but the lists are generally themed. The spell inventors weren't trying to make toolkit magic, they were creating spells that fit their characters (though not without utility). (Link to Kellri if you need it - read the CDD's, and everything else too!)

X. An early publication after Rolemaster caught on was the Rolemaster Companion I. This contained a new profession that could build his spell lists from scratch. Oh yeah, and a new realm of magic that basically allowed you to ignore the division of magic into three 'realms'. Have I not mentioned the 3 realms of magic yet? Good! It's a fine concept, an evocative organization tool,
but as soon as they could, they published a supplement that included a way to 'unify' the divergent realms. Rolemaster had a vast profusion of ideas and options, simultaneously publishing ways to simplify and complicate...I feel like Rolemaster is a great game for NPCs.

& more trickeries

Aery Vantage
Casting Time 1 minute
Duration 1 minute/level
Caster must close eyes and stand still for duration of spell or it is broken. Caster's vision is centered at a point up to 100'/level directly above his position. The view can rotate in all directions, and be repositioned on the vertical axis at will.

Feral Spell
Casting Time 10 seconds
Range 10'/level
Duration 1 minute/level
Target domesticated animal must save or revert to a wild or non-domesticated state. The animal's rider or handler may make this saving roll if present and of higher level. Some particularly well-trained animals may gain a bonus to the saving roll. The animal returns to its normal condition when the spell ends. This spell has no effect on creatures of greater than animal intelligence.

Ferrous Charm
Casting Time 1 minute
Duration 10 minutes/level
Cast on an iron object, the object then protects the holder/wielder/wearer, granting a +1 to saving throws/3 levels of caster.

Namelessness
Casting Time 10 seconds
Range 10'
Duration 10 minutes/level
Target saves or cannot remember own name. Nothing else about target's memory is altered.

Riddle
Casting Time 30 seconds
Duration Varies
With this spell, the caster presents a riddle to 1 target/3 levels within hearing range. The caster must use a language the targets understand – but the spell has the peculiar quality of transmitting the voice through ambient noise of volumes that would normally impair the communication. Targets are allowed a saving roll. Those that fail suffer a -1 to all rolls for a number of rounds equal to their intelligence score divided by 2.

Symbol/Ward of Passivity
Casting Time S: 1 hr/lvl, W: 1 min/lvl
AOE S: 30'R/level, W: 10'R/level
Duration S: Permanent, W: 1 hour/level
All who enter the AOE (except caster) must save or suffer a reduction of 1 on to hit rolls, damage and armor class while in AOE.

Symbol/Ward of Weaponlessness
Casting Time S: 1 hr/lvl, W: 1 min/lvl
AOE S: 30'R/level, W: 10'R/level
Duration S: Permanent, W: 1 hour/level
Any who enter the AOE must save vs spells or immediately sheathe, sling, or stow any weapons in hand. All within area of effect must save vs spells to draw a weapon. These effects do not apply to the caster of the Symbol or Ward

Magic Items

Crown of Glass: +20% to all reaction rolls. All henchmen and important retainers within 100' at +2 to hit and morale. It is made of glass and fits narrow heads best.

Potion of Birdsong: imbiber may perfectly sing like any variety of bird known to them, and can communicate in a pan-avian language.

In Praise of Rolemaster

I'd already moved on to Rolemaster by the time AD&D 2nd edition came out, early converted by MERP – converted through sheer force of will really, my friend Ernie foisted it upon me, and we both being thorough Tolkien geeks...it was important to us. But I had read Arms Law, Spell Law, Character Law during their early printings (plastic bags, no glossy covers). I can't say that I could grok the system as a whole until very much later, not until MERP made me do it. It was not presented as a system at first, more as sub-systems (big ones) to tack on to your AD&D game. Very big ones – replacements really. I cannot help but think that Fenlon & Co. were designing a full system from the get-go.

Rolemaster is the only game that I know of that started off complex and has throughout the course of it's recent lifetime (through various iterations) sought to reduce its complexity to a more manageable level. It is to the point that the differences in organization do not form a pair of worse-organized to better-organized - they're both just as fiddly, just differently so...

1. The Resistance Roll Table – a matrix, comparing level of attack to level of resister. 1st level resistance provided 50% chance against 1st level attack. Smoothed out over 20 levels. This could be the only table ever used in a game – this table really is a very even-handed 'core mechanic'. Nothing unknown beforehand, mathematically – essentially the same concept as the magic resistance some creatures in AD&D had.

2. The division of character classes into three categories: Non Spell-User, Semi Spell-User and Pure Spell-User. This is not specifically accurate – there was a fourth category initially - the Hybrid Spell-User. This was essentially the same thing as a Pure Spell-User, the difference having to do with the categories of magic in the game. What I have retained from this, reinforced by my early playing of Tunnels and Trolls, was the division of character classes into no-magic, some-magic, all-magic.

3. Illusions. There was no disbelief a la AD&D. The caster of illusions manipulated the elements (even if that element were only 'light') and created effects that were real physical effects. Disbelieving illusions had always been a pet peeve of mine about AD&D. Broke the wall, as it were.

4. The Mentalism Companion is one of my favorite RPG books. It has some kinda bleh parts, (it's got 158 pages...) - but it has some very organized thoughts on some more outre fantasy role-playing accoutrements: time travel, 'the philosophies of illusion', natural languages, divination (of past, present, and future, each with their own treatment – jeez!), astrology, tarot, dreams...

Games I can't run? Rolemaster. As a referee, I, if not the players too, shied away from combat! It was too much to bear. In the end, character creation in Rolemaster is as far as I can go. It's kinda like Traveller that way – where character creation is itself a rewarding pastime. I even got to the point that I had 3 players create their characters in Rolemaster, and then I took their character sheets and converted them to my home-brew T&T for play! Gug!

Anyway, I'm sure I'll return to this later, one of those things. And it's given me an idea for a series of adventurous posts – Games I Can't Run!

Antimagics & other trickeries

Ethereal Room
Casting Time 1 second
Duration 1 hour/level
Transports caster to an extra-dimensional space. Caster may touch others to bring 1 target/3 levels – magic resistant targets may resist. Every hour that the Ethereal Room is occupied by a sentient being, there is a 1% chance that an Ethereal encounter will occur. The spell leaves a magical anchor point where the spell was cast, and this point is where the caster will be returned at the end of the spell. Casting an Ethereal Room spell while in an Ethereal Room serves to add an hour to its duration. Note that duration applies to the amount of time the Ethereal Room can be inhabited – the room itself is persistent and unique to each caster. The room is a cube, 10' a side/caster level. The caster (and any other targets of caster's choosing) may leave the room before the duration expires.

Hidden Mind
Casting Time 1 minute
Duration 1 hour/level
Caster does not register as sentient, intelligent, conscious, or possessing an identity for purposes of senses and detections that discriminate such points of perception. Empathy, ESP, and mind-affecting spells/abilities cannot target the caster of Hidden Mind.

Hindrance, Countercast, Foilspell
Casting Time 1 second
Range 20' + 10'/level
Duration 1 round/3 levels
Target saves or is at -1 to hit & damage, armor class is worsened one step, and attempts to cast spells fail.

Pact
Casting Time 1 minute
Duration 1 week/level
This spell targets at least two individuals – the caster may include an additional target for each level above the second. The caster need not necessarily be one of the targets. Unwilling targets may save to not be bound by the pact. It enforces an agreement between the targets. Either party that breaks the terms of the agreement suffers a negative modifier all rolls made for a full month after the pact is broken. This modifier is -1/3 levels the caster has attained.

Suppress Magic
Casting Time 1 minute
Range 10'/level
Duration 1 min/level
Target spell or magical effect must resist or be suppressed and inactive for duration of this spell. Resistance is based on caster level and the target's level. The spell has a 50% base chance of success, modified by +5% per level if the caster's level is higher than the target's, and -5% per level if the opposite is true.

Symbol/Ward of Exclusion (Minor)
Casting Time S: 1 hr/lvl, W: 1 min/lvl
AOE S: 30'R/level, W: 10'R/level
Duration S: Permanent, W: 1 hour/level
All magic items brought into AOE by anyone other than caster must resist or have their powers suppressed while in the AOE. All spells cast by anyone other than the caster of the Symbol or Ward (in AOE) must save vs. spells or the spell fails and is wasted.

Reading vs Writing

DAMMIT! READING WINS AGAIN!

Zulgyan of the boards started up his blog and it is as much a doozy as pretty much everything
else he presents to us! Avail yourselves - prepare for heavy reading - a trip back to the recent
past and his considered views (and many worthy others!). I have nothing but admiration for this fellow!

Goodbye Word of Thool

You will be missed. I don't know what else to say.

Blogs vs Boards

Boards win again!

I've had consistent internet for 6 months now, after about as many years without. The RPG blogs caught me quick and really blew my mind - looks like I got connected at a good time. But there was a lot going on in the years that I was not on the net (consult prior post for some examples).

Before the blogs, there were the boards. My journey has been backwards - stumbling into ODDD, K&K, Trollbridge, Doomsday, Alternate History, etc after finding out about them through the blogosphere.

I've never been much for monologue. The boards are dialog. Blogs are good, but really - the exchange, the community - the boards are where it's at for conversation.

Fight On! #5 & my AD&D alignment spread

Skimming through Fight On activated my somewhat dormant AD&D-cortex (hindbrain? ganglia?) - totally tangential - but I figured out the percentage breakdown of alignments in my AD&D universe.

So anyway! Had a chance to look through Fight On #5 - not yet to read the adventures in-depth, but man it looks good. Standout to me so far has been an article called "Dungeon Motivations" (by Paul Vermeren, with acknowledged shout-outs). The title suggests perhaps some musing on the ever-rich question WHY DO DUNGEONS EXIST?

No no. Better. 100 answers to the ever-droll question WHY IS MY CHARACTER GOING INTO A DUNGEON ANYWAY? Having been flustered by this question before (is this not something that the player should have already come to terms with?) I think the table is Totally Brilliant! answers provided by d100...some shining examples include:
20 Was double-dog dared to enter the dungeon
and the old double whammy of:
69 Seeks to disprove the existence of the Hollow Earth.
70 Feels a need to do what everyone else is doing.
Though there are plenty more 'conventional' results...and some pretty far out ones also...

And I can't possibly reproduce any of the effects of the Table of Fables (by an author called Age of Fables) - they are too good to extract and view in isolation. I'm a table fan, admittedly. This one is wonderful for generating strange magical effects (I'm a strange-magical-effects fan too.)

Seven Kings Mountains by Judd Karlman (methinks this is his site)is a pretty amazing setting, Dwarf-centric! Yargh! A discreet area with history, and the prime artefact of history - war! It looks like a great place to start an adventure and could open up in a million directions for longer campaigns.

David Bowman's Delver's Delve column shows several different methods toward giving beginning characters a 'fighting chance' - several different ways to 'cheat death' in the interest of keeping a game going without fudging harsh rolls or coddling fiat. I've used some of these techniques before, passed on some before, but just plain never thought of many of them, and it is really interesting to see all of them examined side-by-side.

There's a lot more. The reactions above were induced by about a grand total of 9 or 10 pages - less than 1/8th of the issue. I'll probably post more reaction later - the whole thing is pretty
awesome!

Superjail

Holy shit

T&T Solo Combat Matrix

The matrices in Tunnels and Trolls solo modules served many different uses. Common were Spell Matrices, cross-indexing your paragraph number with the spell you wished to use would yield a result. The matrices were used to add some variability to an otherwise rigidly serial format. And in the case of magic, writing down explicit choices to use specific spells seemed a signal that their use was crucial to proceed (or a temptation to doom oneself!)

As the 'golden age' of Tunnels and Trolls solo module publishing matured, the matrices were applied to more aspects of game play. I've been thinking a lot about solo module writing in general and I'm starting to mess around with more matrices.

One way that solo-module play suffers as compared to GM-player(s) sessions is that the negotiation of Saving Roll levels (for anything, but specifically here) for combat tricks/actions/maneuvers is impossible. So I was thinking about a matrix of combat manoeuvres, yielding a Saving Roll level and stat, to allow for more combat flexibility. It's not the kind of thing that is necessary, but it can lead to breaking a stalemate, creating an opportunity for escape, bypassing armor, etc...

Following is a table giving a rough idea, where the columns are 3 creatures (instead of the paragraph in which that creature is to be found...)

Move	Skeleton	Wolf	Rock Troll	Effect
Desperate Stab(DX)	bad	ok	bad	Roll 1/2 damage and apply it, bypassing armor.
Stunning Bash(ST)	good	bad	ok	(good party!)
Trip(DX)	ok	bad	bad	Flee or foe at 1/2 CBT next round
Disarm(DX)	ok	no	ok	??
Riposte(ST)	ok	no	ok	Deal damage to foe equal to its CBT
Feint(DX)	ok	no	ok	Foe at 1/2 CBT next round
Fighting Retreat(IQ)	ok	bad	ok	??
Flee! Flee!(??speed??)	ok	bad	ok	??

Early hashed implementation.
good = level 1 SR
ok = level 2 SR
bad = level 4 SR
no = SR cannot be made.
something I'll be working on some more - along with trying to get my head wrapped around the process of writing solo module in the first place...ugh

FLGS: The Griffon Bookstore (1)

A while back I tracked down and contacted the propriators of the book and game store that really molded my gaming (and reading) future and asked a few questions, which they were kind enough to answer. The Griffon has been the 'go-to' place for gaming in South Bend Indiana for more than 30 years now and I cannot help but wish that it was not 7-8 hours away from me now (oh, to browse the used-book shelves...)
It's taken me too long to get this posted, and I plan to do some follow up questions too. Thank you Ken and Sarah for taking the time to respond, and thank you also for all the years of providing a welcoming environment!

When did you open The Griffon?
1976

Why did you? It's obvious that the early seventies saw a sort of phenomenal growth of the gaming-market - but it seems the case that small business book stores/game stores are often opened more out of the proprietor(s) interest in the subject itself than making money off it.

Sarah and I were both teachers and the job market at that time especially for Russian language was very soft so we saved up for two years by working various minimum wage jobs to open the Griffon. Yes, we wanted to carry items that we were familiar with and that included both books and games although we thought then that the games would play the minor role.

Was it more 'game-oriented' at the start? I have only vague memories of the original location. Was there as much of a selection of books at the first location? Did either of you run RPGs there? I remember (again vaguely) a pretty large area dedicated to gaming tables there. Mostly miniatures?

For the first 5 years books dominated both sales and square footage of space by a 80 to 20 margin. By the time we were in our 10th year the balance was 50/50 and after 20 years the pendulum had swung to 75% games and 25% books mostly due to the appearance of the book superstores such as Crown, Borders and Barnes & Noble. Today, even though we devote 40% of our square footage to books, it still only accounts for about 15% of our yearly sales. We stay with that mix however because it provides the academic atmosphere we prefer in a gaming store rather than the comic book look.

Ken, I remember interrupting a pretty involved strategy/wargame you were involved with on the second floor of the Colfax store. What kinds of rules have you played, or if that is too inclusive, perhaps a better question would be - what rules do you prefer to play under?

The game you are referring to was Empires in Arms, produced by Avalon Hill. Now out of print. We play more games that involve less setup time and can be finished in one evening of play. Usually no more than 5 hours. That eliminates quite a few of the longer game systems. We particularly enjoy being able to play three 90-minute games in one setting rather than one long game.

What years did you put on conventions? I seem to remember two of them. What are the event count/attendance figures? - if that information is handy (or a ballpark...)

We ran Griffcon for 5 years and the attendance by the end was 300 people over a two day period. We also helped stage the Michiana Valley Wargamers conventions at IUSB for 4 years and the attendance there was about 200 for a two-day convention. We stopped running them because of the constraints due to increased rental prices, fewer people willing to run games, and little profit for a lot of work.

Character's Ultimate Fate (when player stops showing up. 2d4. Stat modifiers applied to player's next character if they return.))
2	Wanders into the hills one summer afternoon. Eaten by a giant spider. -1 IQ.
3	Finds a cursed ring of invisibility and winks out of existence when it is put on. -1 LK.
4-6	Retires and fades into obscurity.
7	Converts to a religion and is exalted on comfortable passing. +1 LK.
8	Becomes Lord of the Spider Hills. +1 CH (son/daughter of said lord...)

Star Trek

to boldly rant where no ranter has ranted before...
I'll not spoil a thing.
You know how some movies grow on you over time?
I believe this one will shrink on me over time.
Kirk, out.

N

J.R.R Tolkien         Everything (up to publication of Silmarillion)
Edgar Rice Burroughs  John Carter of Mars, Tarzan
Robert E. Howard      Conan
Fritz Leiber          Fafred and Grey Mouser
Fred Saberhagen       Empire of the East, The Books of Swords

Harvard Lampoon       Bored of the Rings
Douglas Adams         Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy
Various               Thieves' World
Michael Moorcock      Elric Saga, Chronicles of Corum
H.P. Lovecraft        Everything

George R. R. Martin   Song of Ice and Fire series
Jack Vance            Lyonesse Trilogy
Gene Wolf             Book of the New Sun, The Knight
Brian Aldiss          Halyconia Trilogy

I read The Lord of the Rings over and over and over again when I was a kid. I'd estimate that there's easily 6 cover-to-cover-to-cover-to-cover-to-cover-to-cover reads before I was 15. Then there were the times I felt like re-reading Moria, Bombadil, Helm's Deep, Fangorn, etc etc etc.
Saberhagen's Empire of the East (collected trilogy of novels) and then his Books of Swords (even the early Lost Swords) - which I read just after finishing the first Shanarra trilogy, thank ye gads! - really blew my mind. I was able to decouple from an absolutely Tolkien-centric universe.
Enter the Multiverse! The Crawling Chaos! Etc. Then I really stopped reading fantasy for a long time. All of the books mentioned had a bearing on my game-play - though many histories, philosophies, and other non-fictions (Machiavelli, Loren Eisley, John McPhee) here go unmentioned. And a boatload of sci-fi and other fictions (Murakami, Borges, Margaret Atwood, Stanislaw Lem, Phillip K. Dick, Bester, Bear, Benford, Brin, Brunner, Niven & Pournelle, etc etc etc)

I don't remember who tipped me off to Game of Thrones, but I do remember that it was late summer of 2003. It was the first thing that I'd read in years that really just made me want to play RPGs.
Other readings had inspired some writing, brain-storming development sessions, but as I continued that series, I just kept getting more and more steam up to play a damn game. So I went to the FLGS (Collectables, Etc.) and played some 3rd. Didn't 'do it' for me, but whatever.

Since then, Aldiss and Gene Wolf and Mr. Vance have each had a huge impact.

Micro-Fanzines?

This exhortation after a 1/2 month of no-blog...nevertheless - Knockspell is accepting articles for upcoming issue. This issue is without theme, and the magazine itself will accept submissions for any and or all of the OOP's and their attendant clones, now freed from their nutrient bath vats.
This is the relevant thread at the ODDBOARD.
I think that it's safe to assume that most of we who read these RPG blogs enjoy DM/GM/Referee -ing, and so probably have some corner of the game that we have and/or do love obsessively and craft wonderous subsystems, lists, tables, lyrical elucidations, etc - or have designed some interesting set pieces, spells, items, traps, monsters, etc, or suites of these in dungeon levels, sub-levels, upper workses...

How many POD fanzine style things are going right now?
Fight On!
Knockspell
Green Devil Face (someday I'll write a trap worth a delver's weight...)
(is Wilderlands of High Fantasy doing a subscription service?)

Here's my 2 ideas for fanzines
Towns, Villages, Cities - like the Catalyst Citybook Series. I like my settlements, but in general, I like other people's more often. Large settlements especially - I've NEVER invented one - just cribbed things from EVERY fantasy town/city I've encountered.

FRICKIN' TABLES!!!! Like the Ready Ref Sheets - all kinds of tables - all kinds of dice - matrixes! All kinds of subjects - maybe grouped in categories of purpose - or just one category: FRICKIN' TABLES!!!! Or maybe 3 subjects per issue...I dunno...I'd get it.

And I'm still waiting for the Earthwide Sandbox Adventure Megazine (ESAM - a world with no oceans...better draw a big lake every once in a while...)

If I could grok working with PDFs and such...ugh...

perusing GenCon list

(warning: gratuitous and arbitrary use of exclamation points!)
Not a single game of Rolemaster!
A couple Swords & Wizardry!
One Tunnels & Trolls!
Several Traveller and AD&D!
Nice to see Toon!
What the F is True Dungeon?(!)
Diplomacy!

I really just want to know how much space is given over to pick-up games and such!

whatevs

Tunnels and Trolls play-by-post is going pretty well. It's been going for about 2 weeks now. Some players bounce in and out, some are daily, some are 2-3 times daily - there's a total of 8 that have made characters, and all but one have participated to some degree. I'm glad to run a game again. It's been too long since I've run anything except what came to be one-offs, auto-aborts,
etc. I feel like I could do this for the rest of my life. I don't mean that in a dramatic sense - I mean it in the sense of 'as long as there's an internet and players' (both of which factors will certainly outlast me). I've tried to open it up as a sandbox and keep accepting players, but the idea was put forward to run an immediate adventure so that we could get out feet wet, get used to PBP. They're proving an inventive lot, really entertaining.

Warhammer FRP continues, in which I play a Dwarf named Yrkoll. The name: its all about the Yrk to me - I don't know why I've always been fascinated with that glob of letters. Yrkoon? That's the only citation I can think of (and only thought of it after I named the charater Yrkoon, and then remembered where it came from...early-senior-moment. One of those naming things...we're in the middle of out first combat, and I think I had a bursh with death in the form of an arrow graze, knocking my leather cap off...

The apothecary at Vedron's is starting an OD&D on rpol that I've joined, and I'm thinking about jumping into something really heavy over at AlternateHistory.

I'm trying to help the Swords & Wizardry project by categorizing creatures for the Monster Compendium encounter tables. It is exactly the kind of RPG-as-OCD task I love love love
and I think that S&W and OSRIC are both really relevant projects. It took some lurk time at the boards before I began to realize that I could help these worthwhile projects - to realize how easy it was even just to offer help.

Starting now to plan for GenCon. Never been. Kinda scared. But, I think it's time. I went to small local conventions in the Northern Indiana area when I was young. But the biggie? I generally avoid crowds as much as I can - and I'm pretty good at it. But there's just too much going on, and over the last few years I've really become very comfortable with how important gaming (and non-mindless escapism in general) is to me. Always has been. Gaming was a huge determinant in my life-of-the-mind (Barton Fink anyone? hoot hoot!).

I started an email interview with the owners of the Griffon Bookstore in South Bend Indiana. This is the FLGS I grew up with. Grew up in is more accurate. The owners (Ken and Sarah) have taught Russian for many years, and provided the only real outlet in town for minatures, a variety of RPGS, board and wargames for more than 30 years now. Unfortunately, I have totally let myself get wrapped up in other things (mostly the games listed above...) and haven't finished it up yet. Dammit! Gotta do that soon...

EDIT: and now helping the computer-translator English of Epées & Sorcellerie become human-reader English. This game is really cool!

Internet vs Books

7 years ago I made a New Year's Resolution (with capital letters) that I actually fulfilled! Read. Constantly. That was it. No real aspirations towards massive life overhauls or anything so dramatic - self-improvement? Bah. I'll go browse Barnes & Noble if I need some of that...

I've always read anyway, but it really did become something that I was dedicated to. Stopped watching TV. Rarely watched movies. Free time was generally spent somewhere in the middle of a sci-fi novel, histories, "literature" (you know, fancy writing about made-up stuff), sometimes game-books.

Now there's the Internet.
My resolve has crumbled. I've got 6 books started (6!), and I can't finish any of them - haven't been able to finish an actual book without a great deal of effort over the last few months (i.e.
since I got on the Internet last November)

So I do end up reading all the time now, PDFs, blogs, forums, articles, etc - it is amazing how
much information is available (I'm sure I'm the first to have noticed that...) Anyway - it looks like the Internet has won this particular face-off.

Is this natural? How long does this dubious honeymoon last? I miss my long attention span! If I could keep it in mind long enough to search, maybe I could remember where I left it...
pg 62 Forever Peace - Joe Haldeman?
pg 84 The Dwarf - Par Lagerkvist? (a nasty little book about a nasty little guy...)
lost in between two articles in a John McPhee collection?
some random amalgamation of texts in noisms' Borges Library?

...there's no telling. Maybe I should do a Google search for my lost attention span...

At some point, I'm going to read a damn book again (waiting on a friend who's getting the last book of Lyonesse soon...). Leiber is one author I'd like to revisit - My guess is that I was too young to catch as much as is probably there (I was a 10 year-old reading things I could find out of Appendix N...and LotR OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!). Moorcock stands up on re-reading (though Elric pales _heh heh_ against his weird-pulp and Dancers series...

I shouldn't complain - the net is pretty astounding - and the sense of community is singular and something I have found myself really valuing more than I would have anticipated. But these days all I can bring myself to buy are reference materials (good reference books are such amazing things...) - and there are still so many books I really really do want to read...

anyway. enough rant.

EDIT: While I was writing this the Web blowed up with the WotC PDF news.
Whadda Maroon! This post has nothing to do with those pdfs

Play Reports vs Calindrical Events

I know play-reports are hit-or-miss - so bear with me.

Had a pick up game last night, a couple of friends came over unannounced kinda late-ish. Pulled out OGRE and my homemade hex-map (400x400, full color, cool cities and roads, wow!) that went with the scenario for the evening...
Empire Invades Fracticious World!
Player A (Imperial-Alexander):50 pts infantry, 3 Mark V Ogres
Player B (Supermen-Sun Tzu):30 pts infantry, 30 pts armor, 4 sabotages*
Player C (Techlords-Clausewitz):30 pts infantry, 50 pts armor, 1 Mark III Ogre
* sabotage means a 3:1 attack on any target

Despite the Techlord's scheme of an all howitzer buy and the skillful use of the Superman sabotages, the Imperials rolled over them. This meant that the world was under Imperial control.

So...We rolled up Traveller characters and ran them through their service careers(no scouts, one marine, one merchant). They got so old, we decided they had kids, so we rolled up the kids too. We mustered them out young and rolled on a table of worlds to determine where in the universe they mustered out (convienently together and coincidental)

1. Thool
2. Earf
3. Leng (named after the huge plateau in it's ecliptic 'northern' hemisphere)
4. Trantor

Now - before I move on to the roll on this table, we realized that having two generations 'modelled' we could flesh out the 'future history' of this homeworld. So I too rolled up a character (first gene-mush product of the two PCs...gross!) and then we decided to calve off doubles. With a cursory reconfiguration, and a brief pause to autofab, we let them loose in a safe sandbox program which we checked periodically...we were here to GAME not simulate...but old habits being what they are...

Anyway - back to what gaming is REALLY all about...the roll on the table came up 3 - Leng. Awesome! Marines vs Cthuloids! Break out CoC, the Night Gaunts tickle!tickle!tickle! and the scions of the Empire find themselves before the Masked Priest...

They waste him with their needle guns!

(At this point, not only was the sun rising, but our pseudo-selves had generated 34,000 generations on the homeworld! It had become a pastoral world of centaurs! Huh!)

Nevertheless, the Crawling Chaos responded - changed a subtle energy-state of the phlogiston, rendering jump drives inert - the shock wave emanating from Leng 'moving' so much faster than light that none had a moment to prepare (indeed! our sub-selves crashed! We spent the next few hours examining the error logs and dump. In their game they'd destoyed the universe several times and recreated it without our having noticed - gotten bored, retired to castles & keeps and spent most of their time trying to build the perfect 10' pole. Looks like they were really on to something when the Eldritch foulness took them...)

Yep. Just another pick-up game.

(tomorrow's game loop: ...Gamma World->Quirks->4e->Napoleonics->Aftermath->Gamma World...

link

This is a pretty funny (and brief) write-up about reacting to earth-collisions.
(has a cool map too!)
(from link in blogroll)

25 meme table

(why so much space above the table?)
(while you're scrolling, consider buying print versions
of Fight On! They're on a push to win a contest!)

d100	Descriptor	d100	Descriptor
01-04	Swamp	53-56	Vast Mountains
05-08	Dark Fae	57-60	Animal Languages
09-12	Local Gods	61-64	Dangerous Wilds
13-16	Sandbox	65-68	Costly Magic
17-20	(Brian Aldiss)	69-72	(Jack Vance)
21-24	Rituals	73-76	Reality Warps
25-28	Boring Towns	77-80	Demons
29-32	Ancient Underworlds	81-84	Orange/Red Sun
33-36	Evil Elves	85-88	Strange Plants
37-40	Cannibal Cultists	89-92	Hill Tribes
41-44	Underwater Horror	93-96	Poisons
45-48	Jewelled Throne	97-00	NO RAILROADS!
49-52	Astronomy

meh...general whatever

I think I'm getting my head wrapped around Play By Post. I've just started a game up at Vin's Trollbridge (had the last few days off to work on stuff...). It's primitive, and I'm wondering if all of the five players are going to 'show-up', but I think that running this is going to be a blast.

Oddly enough (!), playing more has cut into 'blog-time'...

The pace of online gaming is still a little rough for me but I'm getting used to it.I'm playing in a Warhammer FRP PBP and a couple of the players are in Israel, so there's next to no chance that we'll be online at the same times...so I don't have expectations of 'instant-action' or something...

This mode of gaming lends itself well to 'parlour-games', more abstract gimcrackery, woodshedding, strategy games. Thinking about the Play-by-Mail model - which I admittedly have never done, just read about it...I think it would be really interesting to run a sandbox game where every player<->GM channel had its own thread - or an approach that considered threads calving and merging a trivial thing.

I've been thinking about ways to deal with the absence of players. My inclination is to post up a table like this and let the players know that I'll run them as NPCs if I need to to progress the game. What player would want that? The DM is not to be trusted!

Cue Random Tables! It's just like AI!

Based on what kind of situation the characters are in, the actions of a character-sans-player are 'determined' by a die roll...

d6	COMBAT
1	Stumbles and falls down (momentarily helpless)
2	Decides to change weapons then changes mind (no action)
3	Moves to defend ally
4	Attacks nearest opponent/Casts sub-optimal spell
5	Attacks random opponent in reach or moves to nearest opponent/Casts optimal spell
6	Goes Berserk

d6	SOCIAL
1	Says something really insulting and wont retract it
2	Tangential mouth-mush leaves people confused and suspicious
3	Mumbles and grunts at some appropriate places
4	Doesn't say much
5	Lends good support to own or party's goal/agenda
6	Steals the show, very convincing arguments for own goal/agenda - may try to cast an 'appropriate' spell toward this end
*	"own goal" meaning maybe the GM's interpretation...

d6	EXPLORATION/STEALTH
1	Gripped my 2 minute choking and coughing fit (very noisy, takes no actions)
2	Lazy (-1 search or stealth or whatever negative modification os appropriate)
3	normal
4	normal
5	Is double-checking already explored areas/normally stealthy
6	Is searching (and finds 10 gp!)/sneaking at +1 (or whatever)

ha ha! wouldn't that be cute!

maybe in my lifetime

we'll find out that this is the 'answer'
(?!?)

RPGs vs Music

A war of attrition is always won. (look it up)

I've recently found myself drawing analogies between music and RPGS. I started playing D&D when I was 9. Started playing the bass guitar at 14. Being in a band is a lot like being in an adventuring party (with the singer as 'caller' I guess). I speak of small-potato bands - I have no idea what it was like to have been Fleetwood Mac, Celtic Frost, etc (tho I believe that Simon LeBon of Duran Duran has tried to exert psychic control over me for years...another story..another time...)

Some analogies ensue:

+ Run what you know:
RPG: the system you feel comfortable with, the one that already is the back of your hand. Not to say that one shouldn't use other games - but there's mostly likely one game that you know well enough to run 'off-the-cuff'.
MUSIC: Over the years I've developed some varying degrees of proficiency with a variety of instruments. There's the piano which is a constant struggle for me - it is on the edge of my ability to play it in a way that is satisfactory to me. But when I just want to play some damn music, it is not my instrument of choice.

+ Play what you don't know
RPG: this is one way to stretch out and broaden your vocabulary. Try different games, different settings, etc - try games that seem antithetical to youtr 'normal play'.
MUSIC: Listen to everything! Try to appreciate the best that each 'genre' of music has to offer. Sometimes it's hard to dig through the shit to find the diamond buried beneath - but you can always wash your hands afterwards! And once you have that diamond, appreciate it, yes - but there's something to be learned from it too.

+ Structure vs Improv
RPG: This is so contextually dependant on DM/player group style - but there's always a sweet spot to be found. Some players actually appreciate being lead around by the nose (I am baffled by this, but I have seen it happen...). Some people like to play with meticulous notes and plans for every contingency they can think of - others like to wing-it, riff, or whatever.
MUSIC: I have come to appreciate structure more and more - having been guilty of countless hours of improvisational wankery (some of it good - most of it boring). There's sometimes the magical moment when structure arises from chaos like an emergent system or something - but more and more I don't see these things as ends-unto-themselves. Improv is the woodshed, structure is the home.

+ Human Interaction/Social aspects/Group Dynamics
RPG: Gamers are weirdos. Perfectly normal people - I'm sure (I mean no offense) - but gamers are dedicated to a bundle of specific (various) interests. There's solo modules and the interior times of world-generation or 'game-think' creation sessions - but eventually most every RPGer would like to sit down at (or pace near, or loom above) a table with other like minded folks. We are idiosyncratic. This can make for some tensions (usually inadvertant), but by the nature of gaming, it seems most of us are actually interested in subsuming our own personality/ego to some degree, in the interest of play. Those of you blessed with regular consistent groups of friends and people you know well are lucky indeed!
MUSIC: The only set of people that I think are weirder than musician are people who run small record labels. Let's not start on 'the guitar hero' or (ARGAGRRGAAG!) "The Singer"... Performance brings out the best and worst in people - and barring any ideas of 'making it' in the music business, being in a band is (in most of my experience anyway) kinda a nightmare. Bandmates are like ugy smelly girlfriends that you don't even get to cuddle with...unless you're packed in the back of the van for the 17 hour drive to Missoula ...anyway - I consider myself more a craftsman than an artist and have seen ego and inflated expectation ruin more promising bands than I want to think about right now. Idiosyncatic. Generally stressed out and poor and driven by some combination of impulses to make music. Tough crowd. Of course, I haven't tried to play lounge jazz...or muzak. Betcha that would be pleasant...

go read Lord of Green Dragons

In addition to the fact that every damn post has been really interesting and well thought out and well written, this one about the Ranger is just amazing.
This just really made me so happy. So I'm a tree-hugger.
As a rule, I'm a total sucker once someone sayd 'liminal'...

warning:nostalgia

I've contacted the propriators of the game store I grew up with. This would be The Griffon in South Bend Indiana. A few nights ago, in a fit of nostalgic desperation, I started doing a web-scour for them and - guess what? No website! Talk about 'old-school'(!). But I did find an email buried deep in antiquated city listings...and it worked!

I spent a lot of time there - it's a new/used book store in addition to being the only real game store in the town. The Griffon really ended up having a pretty big influence on me - as a gamer, sure, but also in a more general sense, and I know I'm not alone in being subjected to fits of nostalgia for the 'FLGS'.

The owners, Ken and Sarah, have agreed to participate in a little email-interview thingee and I'm pretty excited. I'll post up this interview as it progresses.

I'm a shitty trapper

I am.
I try. Grimtooth's Traps? Love 'em.
Spring loaded darts? Cool!
Covered pits (with or without spikes)? Rowdy!
Weighted/counterbalanced floors - man that stuff is fun!
Gears? Falling ceilings? Scything whirly-gigs? Count me in!
The stairs just collapsed and became a slide into a lava pit?
WHHEEE!
I really appreciate good clever traps and stock mediocre ones too!
but I can't write them.

I've gotta back off of simulation and get back into gaming.

Traps have always suspended my suspension of disbelief, so I think that the way to deal with this is just to remove the expectation of the suspension of disbelief (no more prepositions...)

The dungeons I've always loved have been the ones that Don't Care - EX:
Player: Why is the poison on the blade hidden in the treasure chest still 'active'? Aren't we in the untouched Tomb of the Ultra-Ancients? How could it have stayed potent over the last 28 million years?
DM: I dunno - Ultra-Ancient secret formula...Funny that they used to put gold coins in chests 28 million years ago too...Roll your save...

That dungeon Doesn't Care. It doesn't have to explain itself - and if it called upon to do so would respond with silence or scorn. The 'why' doesn't matter...

OK. This was supposed to be about me not being able to design a trap.
Maybe I can't write about them either...

online megadungeon vs MUD

I'm not gonna try to call the winner on this one, but the recent online megadungeon zeitgeistery at Grognardia, the Stonehells (one of the best back-stories for dungeon-rationale I've ever read), Castle of the Mad Archmage, etc - made me think of the time I used to spend playing MUDS.

MUDS (multi-user dungeons, just in case you're unfamiliar with this ancestor of the MMORPG) can be as small or large, explanations as tense or verbose as desired. It's a question of code-base. How difficult would S&W be to turn into a code base? With the simplicity of the rules, it seems it would not be too difficult (for programmers, that is, familiar with MUDS - I am a neophyte).

The point (if any) is that the talk of online megadungeons as resources makes me wish that megadungeons would go up on the internet to be crawled through.

Now no MUD in (my limited experience) re-created the feel of table-top play.
#1 - there is no DM - so there is no ruling, only rules (this inversion of an old-school ethic being an unforunate side-effect of the fact that we've not yet invented a human computer...someday...someday...).
#2 - as far as I know, the player of a MUD could only play one character - so henchmen, hirelings, torchbearers, etc is a no go - as is a balanced party...of course, MUDS are made with this fact in mind. But then, there was also the ability to follow other characters...so groups weren't impossible, but their actions were pretty monolithic I think.
#3 - automation is not intelligence (see lament in #1). Monsters (called 'mobs', short for 'mobile' things) are not cunning, not smart, and dangerous in senses other than combat. Maybe this is something that could be improved with some really ingenious integration of code-base and AI - hmmm...

I'm behind the curve on technology. Maybe there are such things on the Internet right now and I am wasting my time complaining about the lack of them - I dunno. I've tried some on-line games (of the strategy ilk) and they are cool (Lords is really fun in a kinda brain-dead way...) -
I can't help but think that an interesting way to introduce more people to old-school ideas would be to let them experience it first hand as a player - much in the same way that I was introduced to D&D (Holmes): by playing in it.

huh! another amazing resource!

Semper Initiativus Unum dropped THIS ONE TO MONSTROPEDIA pretty offhandededly -
and guess what? It's a really awesome read! This is another 'common-knoweldge' gem and I want to make this blog something of a repository for such...

The random page button takes a scroll-down, so I linked the 'Grog On' in my title bar (or header or banner or whatever) to point to the random article action...very lovely site.

must be full moon

all over the world! I'm kinda rivetted by the both the high-debate and catty BS that's floating around in these blogs these days. oof! We're all just human beings who have obviously been really affected by RPGs. People are really getting aware, or acknowledging, that it's very easy to step on other people's toes, and it's also easy to see that a lot of what people are writing about is of 'fan-product' quality - I place mine own in this category, and generally prefer such over high-production-value or whatever.

There's a great deal of enthusiasm. There's a great deal of release, a sense of community, with divisions and differences. I remember reading Kask, him mentioning the profusion of fan-products BITD - and also some of the horrors of being exposed to massive amounts of dreck...it's inevitable. His conversation thread is really fascinating - as an (unintentional) analog of what is happening now - largely due to the internet...no one is going to produce something that EVERYONE likes - remember, some people don't like D&D...or RPGs at all.

It's all really inspiring - even the setbacks, the rants that piss you off, the content that sometimes provides little more than a ho-hum, the promising ideas that do not come to full fruition - those that take months to flesh-out or even complete...the horrible spelling in my case...This is workspace and peer-review rolled into one, and there are a lot of people taking advantage of it. And it's an opt-in - none of us really have to do this and could decide tomorrow to stop.

So, yeah - the horror! Critisism! Appreciation! I know that I've never repsonded to a blog post with fanboy appreciation unless that's how I really felt about it. In general I try not to think too much about how a response is going to be interpreted by the original poster. Anyone can close comments if they don't want them. Why put them on an open blog if you are not, on some level, asking for commentary? There's the potential ego side of that - liking the attention or whatever - but there's also GENUINE INTEREST!

Personally, I'd love it if I got a comment that said "That's shitty." - Especially if the commenter was ready for conversation - or Counter-Attack! Do not submit things to a project if you are not ready for rejection - and do not start a 'community project' unless you are prepared to issue them.

! play-style (blag)

Forgive a rant...

Alexis at Tao of D&D in this post has said some things which I really find myself in agreement and disagreement with. Obviously there are different takes on "play-style" or methodology or whatever it is to be called - and I generally loathe the analysis and exegis of the variances/pros/cons/etc. The event-of-play works or does not and the 'tenor' of play is decided by the group - and in my (good) experiences has developed organically from that group.

This is a part of that post:

    Successful players are ALWAYS those who do not put 
    on a pretense of being some imaginary character, but 
    players who dig down within themselves to find something 
    which they don't generally display. This usually turns 
    out to be a remarkable trait they possess. I have a cleric 
    in my offline who, when not a cleric, is shy and speaks 
    little. But who will, at play, display vocal support for 
    the party, resolve, bravery and generousity. That is 
    because, deep inside, the player in question has these 
    traits--she isn't making them up for the sake of "character."

    Players should be themselves.

The first statement. This is an issue of how 'successful' is defined. In his case, as I read it, he's defining it as survival. And I agree whole-heartedly. Players who shoot themselves/the party in the foot because it's 'in-character' or whatever are a drag. Decisions based not on reason and evaluation of the situation at hand, but out of dogmatic interpretation of "who-my-character-is" or "how my character would react" are probably going to get in trouble. I tend to rationalize the actions my characters take after the fact, because that's more entertaining to me.

Now as for the final statement...
The fact is that I have never not been myself while playing a game or otherwise. But none of my characters have 'been me'. I'll draw shallow or deep from myself as seems appropriate. When I feel like really identifying with my character then I do, but I do not feel compelled to, and often find play more enjoyable when I don't. Honestly, it's just difficult to read this as anything but a positive/negative judgement - when a player is expressing something they do not express in real life and use the game as catharsis(?) this is good - otherwise, it does not contribute to Success, and is therefore bad...

By the point of the example he gives above, the argument does not seem (to me) to be about success in the game anymore. I'm all for a person's self-actualization, for people finding the positive, good parts of themselves. At whatever time/In whatever medium they choose. Not to sound too emo or goth or whatever, but I'd rather reach-down and pull up ugly parts of myself while in-game - because these don't commonly find expression in my every day life. And this is not why I play games in the first place - I am generally an escapist and prefer to keep my own psychology out of it as much as possible...

I'm not trying to pick fights!
Just writin' on my blog again!

Play-styles.
Ugh.

Somebody else read this other blog

READ IT NOW
No - actually - read it when you have a lot of time to devote to it.
I'm so blown away by this I still can't react to it except to demand that someone else confirm that it is real and I did not dream it...
...

The Spitfish!

Spitfish are aquatic creatures that undergo radical morphological changes over the course of their long lives. The Young and Mature forms travel in schools, able to live in salt and fresh water both. A school of Spitfish are all born from the same Elder Spitfish. Schools of Spitfish in freshwater often 'nest' for d6 days at some point near the waterline before moving on. Spitfish feel threatened by the presence of animals at the shoreline or in the water near to their nests, but will target fires in range preferentially.

The common school of Spitfish tend to cluster together at the shoreline to launch a volley of spit attacks at a target and then retreat to deeper water for 10-60 seconds. If the threat remains in range from the waterline they will repeat the process until they've exhausted their spits/day, have been chased off, etc. A common school of Spitfish will contain 3-12 Young Spitfish, and 1 Mature Spitfish per 6 Young Spitfish.

Young Spitfish can spit a small jet of water to a range of 15', 5 times a day. The spit attack of a Young Spitfish does no damage, but 3-12 simultaneous jets of water at the same target can be enough to douse/extinguish small fires, soak a dwarf, etc. The Young Spitfish are very small and tend to disperse and reform quickly. They are in every other way identical to other small eels.

Mature Spitfish have developed the ability to store more water and eject it with much more force. The water they spit is stored in a special organ which also infuses this water with a caustic slime. The range of the Mature Spitfish's ranged attack is 20' and they do not target fires. Targets hit by the ranged attack of a Mature Spitfish take d6 damage (save for 1/2 damage). Mature Spitfish generally do not attack the same target that any Young Spitfish present are attacking - unless, of course, there is only one target. The Mature Spitfish are otherwise identical to regular eels.

Old Spitfish travel in pairs. There is a 75% chance that an Old Spitfish pair travel with a school of 6-24 Young Spitfish, with 1 Mature Spitfish per 4 Young Spitfish - otherwise the pair is unaccompanied. An Old Spitfish couple always work in tandem and communicate through weak electrical pulses. Old Spitfish only come to the surface if the school they accompany is hard pressed or has been highly agitated by the presence of something on shore for more than thirty minutes.Old Spitfish have a small pebble (injested as a Young Spitfish) which has worked its way to the bone between its eyes. The Old Spitfish Stone radiates constant darkness 5'R. The spit attack of the third phase of the spitfish is more caustic than that of the Mature ones, and additionally holds a minor charge (2d6 damage). The spit attack can be used one every two rounds. If Old Spitfish come to the surface, they stay there until the threat is dealt with. If one of them is killed, or otherwise stops attacking, the other will go underwater. Some fisher-legends say that the Old Spitfish grant wishes. Should this prove to be true, the chance of capturing such a specimen should be 10% at best. In such a case, the Old Spitfish should probably be able to speak and live & breathe in air (at least while in duress), and would extract an oath to release them and never harm the Elders (the Elder Spitfish). Otherwise Old Spitfish should be treated as large flounders.

Elder Spitfish do not travel with others of their kind and pay no attention to the shore. In tactical situations, an Elder Spitfish should be treated as a large/giant squid with only 4 tentacles. Elder Spitfish spend half of their time wandering and half of their time in nest. While wandering they are voracious, powerful underwater hunters. The presence of a passing Elder Spitfish in a small lake might be noticed when it rapidly destocked. A nesting Elder will digs long tunnels down and if the body of water is small enough, a dip in the water level may be noticed. Nesting Elder Spitfish dig very long tunnels with acidic secretions from their tentacles, and these sectretions should also increase the damage delivered in combat. At the end of an elder's nesting period, there's a 50% chance that hundreds and hundreds of Spitfish eggs have been deposited in the tunnels, producing a huge 'bloom' a few weeks after the Elder departs.
The Spitfish Stone found in the Old Spitfish skull has become an accertion of them in the Elders.
This larger stone produces 10' radius darkness. It is also supposed to be a potent ingredient in some magical/alchemical formulae. Elder Spitfish will eat other Spitfish that are not themselves in the Elder form.

Young (minnow)
Mature (eel)
Old (large flounder)
Elder (large/giant squid)

silvery wand

This wand is 2' long, 1/2" thick, made of a silvery metal. Anyone touching it (or seeing it through infravisual filters) will note that it is very cold. When first held, it will make a prepared telepathic statement to the holder. This statement will take 10 minutes to complete, during which time the holder is immobile and also very cold - can take NO ACTIONS for 10 minutes (game time).

After this period, the powers of the wand are known in full (including with the number of charges available). The wand will never communicate again. It should resist/make all saves vs. 'anti-magic' spells and effects at a substantial bonus, but reverses that bonus against fire. If it is effected by fire it is destroyed.

When the wand is pointed at a magic gate/portal/teleporter/etc it has a 50% chance of revealing to the holder the 'destination' of the target, if such is applicable. If the chance is failed, the wand imparts no information. This can only be used on a specific target once. If the target is not actually a gate/portal/etc it imparts no information.

When the wand is pointed at a magic gate/portal/teleporter/etc and a charge is expended the caster may declare a new destination for the target. If the new destination is a place that is known by the wand's user, this is automatically successful. Otherwise, the chance for success is 50% + 5%/level. If failed, user must make a "system shock" roll, or fall into 1-year coma.

The wand can never hold more than 3 charges and no method is known to recharge it save wish magic.

a few things...

OK. I am exceptionally undisciplined - provided I hold myself to the high standard being set by RPG Dumping Ground (in my blog roll - check it!). Discretion being the better part of such-and-such, I'll admit my first blog-noob error - overenthusiasm! (could have been worse...lot's worse...) So, in short, I'm not holding myself to post a detail-a-day - but still hold it as an ideal anyway. Contstant progress...

If you haven't yet, go look at Grognardia and check out his post about the community mega-dungeon. This is a wide open idea and could become anything - several anythings simultaneously - it's an interesting concept. (I remain largly quiet about the M. Cook 'issue' - it's not the exciting part)

The online game over at Tao-of-D&D has been progressing. Heavy shit. There's a lot of generalizations about the human race that one can come to in the study of history. People suck...
and always have. That's one...life is hard is another...I digress. It's very interesting play. I'm finding myself rivetted to the computer when I come home from work, and moreso on my days off, and the in, dumpteraction can't happen fast enough for me. We've hit some snarls on tactics and timing and such - but this medium really makes it a lot easier for me to do something that I've never really done much of: get in character. Yeah. In general I've always liked my characters on index cards and largely consider them disposable until they "stand out" though play - but since I've never actually been a PC very much (running games way more often that playing them) I've never really 'gotten into character' very much (and generally blushed thereafter). It's the format. The PC's are generally trying to post 'in-character', and I'm totally getting into saying the things that my character would say. This may sound really fundamental to most people and it may be - but it's way easier for me to 'indulge' in this over the computer than it has EVER been at the table-top. Josef says (and does) some weird shit. I'm afraid of being called out as pretentious (BTW, I am) but the potential of this as collaborative-storytelling is awesome.

I've gotten a forum site and early next week I'm going to start trying to set it up. I think that it's a good format for PBP games, and I'd like to start running a few. I will give more info about it as it solidifies.

Light Shield

This shield functions as a normal 'target' shield
of strong wood, bound with a rivetted iron band.
While used it is weightless/unencumbering and buoyant, 
able to support up to 200 lbs before taking on water.
It will bear a simple two-colored design of the
owner's choosing and will refresh it at dawn. Once 
the owner sets the image it cannot be changed.

Classes/Professions

Non-Spell Users   Semi-Spell Users
Fighter           Ranger
Rogue             Paladin
Warrior           Adept
Soldier           Monk
Swashbuckler      Warrior-Mage
Sage/Tradesman    Bard
Thief             Dabbler       
Warrior-Monk      

Pure Spell Users
Magician      Sorcerer      Druid
Illusionist   Mystic        Shaman
Priest        Warlock       Magus
Mentalist     Seer          Alchemist
Healer        Astrologer    Enchanter
Lay-Healer    Necromancer   

This is a list of the character classes I like to use, make available in games I run. It follows the general concept found in Rolemaster of categorizing professions generally by how they relate to magic-use. These 'class concepts' are drawn primarily from 1st edition RM (and the Companions - many of which are really great RPG books in a ridiculous feature bloat/cool idea way).
The presence of magic in fantasy games is really totally fundamental IMO. You can run a high-magic campaign, a low- or no- magic campaign - but EVERY campaign has to define it in some way. So it makes a convenient starting point to conceptualize classes/professions (among many other things)...
But I don't develop characters as RM characters - it just takes WAY TOO LONG. I use them as guidelines and write them into the campaign - usually using whatever base spell lists and skill group bonuses (as wonked into my game). I do run separate 'realms' of magic (a la RM), but default to magic just being magic when it is too inconvenient (example: 'detect magic' in RM is split into three (really more) spells, one to detect each specific realm - too much for me).
I used to have a much larger list of 'Non-Spell Users', but it's just too easy to get way too ridiculous - and this list (Pure-spell users particularly) is close enough.
I used to have this NSU/SSU/PSU profession-group:
laborer/tinker/architect (!)
Wonder why I've developed in a vacuum so much of my life?