Things I like to remember:
Villages, Settlements, Encampments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's a list.

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

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

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

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

Oh yeah! Games! Almost forgot...

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

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

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

Take care!

[OT] small story

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

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

Just thought it was funny.

out of it

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

take care.
-Greg

AD&D thought of the day

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

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

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

kinda cute.

Danhem's solo schoolin'

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

Talislanta needs your help & Flash Gordon

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

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

AND here's a quote from Talislanta.com

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

I'd help if I could, can you?

just found Frederik Pohl's blog

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

It's the little things...

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

Great time to game!

Trollszine #2

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

12 touchstones of old-school modules

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AD&D Druids 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AD&D Druids

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

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

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

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

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

What would you do for your game?

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

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

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

Dedication. Jeez...

While not blogging...

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

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

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

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

What to do with this internet?

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

Title? OK: delicious avacado

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take care!
-G

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

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

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

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

The Jawa music too was cool.

FLGS breaking news: The Griffon, South Bend Indiana

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

Trollszine #1 is go!

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

Table of contents ...

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

Good stuff - go get it!

More Outlaw Press BS

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

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

stopping solo play

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

(podcast link fixed)

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

Good Ken St. Andre podcast

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

(solo playtest) HT:7 Timeshadows

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

---

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

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

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

balance vs trade-offs

Trade offs win again!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ugh. another ramble.

(solo playtest) HT:6 Timeshadows

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

---

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

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

(solo playtest) HT:5 Timeshadows

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

---

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

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

(solo playtest) HT:4 Timeshadows

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

(solo playtest) HT:3 Timeshadows

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

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

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

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

File under "Constant Vigilance"

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

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

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

(solo playtest) HT:2 Timeshadows

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

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

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

(solo playtest) HT:1

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

---

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

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

mythic underworld: Evolution vs. Intelligent design

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

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

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

Four doors at the Four Winds bar

Having seen sarkos

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

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

2010? Why not!

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is that enough for now? I think so.

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

2010's gonna be good! Happy new year!

Step away from the computer...

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

Keep On Fightin' On!

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

Go Git It!

Fates worse than death

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

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

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

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

Conclusion: broken legs are worse than death.

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

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

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

I like that.

Solo Playtest 7

from 6D(Timeshadows)

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

---

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

Trollbridge storefront on Lulu

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Solo Playtest 6 (Timeshadows)

From 5C (Timeshadows)

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

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

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

(bad rolls for your henchies! sorry!)

AUTOMATIC GOTO

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

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

Solo Playtest 6 (Palmer)

From 5B(Palmer)

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

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

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

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

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

Impromptu solo playtest: 5

From 4X (Timeshadows):

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

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

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

St. Andre podcast

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

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

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

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

Solo Playtest 4

from 3A (Timeshadows)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weird. How could this be?

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

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

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

Impromptu solo playtest: 3

from 2X (Timeshadows)

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

Round 1:

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

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

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

Delvers of the Unknown

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

neat link for modern apocalyptic prophecy intersection

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

Impromptu solo playtest: 2

from 1B (Christian)

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

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

from 1D (Timeshadows)

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

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

neat link for listgeek intersection

Dungeons & Kobalds show with the list

neat link for codegeek intersection

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

Impromptu solo playtest: 1

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

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

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

Continuing discomfort with new shoes...

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

November - month of the real world

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

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

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

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

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

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

Open Letter to the Lincoln Middle School D&D Club

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

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

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

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

Can't wait!

Greg

Get 'em while they're hot

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

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

10 rumors about abandoned villages

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

web tourism: abandoned settlements

How tall a tower? and courses of stone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

journal of 13th level MU

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

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

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

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

Cuz that's a lot of work!

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

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

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

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

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

further evidence of fuddy-duddery

...on my part.

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

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

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

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

link contribution to the hivemind

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

joethelawyer & bxblackrazor

Thanks - very good reads both!

sap (not siege, nor plant)

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

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

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

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

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

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

AD&D early magic items

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe. Kinda.

Early Dungeon features

I use the term features to mean things that aren't necessarily harmful, nor necessarily an object or a location, but possibly any of the above. I like early dungeon whimsy for the sake of object lesson. New players should be exposed to some safe-ish examples or strange things early on - learn that they can waste time, learn to not make too many real-world assumptions about the game environment, establish that sometimes weird things are just there - not there just to help or harm them. Perhaps this was established by my beginning to play in B1 rather than B2 (though the latter has some wyrd too). Such as it is, here are some things I like to present to early players -

1. The door that will not be opened. Put it in the first or second room. It defies logic, lock-picks, brute force, fireballs, acids - every ingenuity the delvers can contrive. Perhaps different sounds can be heard behind it with each listening. It is not an illusion - it is a real actual door that cannot be opened. (Unless you want to supply a key or a trigger somewhere else in the dungeon or something...open it from the other side and it's a gate to Glerwodd's Taproom...)

2. The invisible wall, the wall of force. Love it! The invisible bridge across a bottomless pit (...well, probably bottomless...) Totally hokey - for the win! People walking into invisible walls (a la Time Bandits) always been a favorite of mine. But this is not about the Schadenfreude of DMing - these features can be used to further develop the point that limitations of actions are not always obvious and that seemingly insurmountable problems may have solutions that require different methods of searching.

3. The ringing payphone. Yeah - even in a dungeon it presents the same quandry as it does in real life (unless one of the PCs is under a Geas to answer it). And with the knowledge that there's a telephone, the players may want to make calls with it. Maybe you can give Dispater or Orcus' phone number scrawled in a matchbook to a player the next time the alehouse is dull...

Conventions

Wanted to get to GenCon this year, but couldn't. Would have been my first time at that one, and with the Swords & Wizardry win, I'm sure it would have been a memorable event.

I've been to exactly three RPG conventions, all before the age of 18. These were all smaller scale conventions (2 Griffcons in South Bend Indiana and another in nearby Fort Wayne whose name I cannot remember). My memory of the first convention is very dim - I believe that my older brother took me, which would have put me in the 9-10 age range. I do remember, a few Apple ][ computers set up with a dungeon program running. I was amazed by this.

At the second convention, with a little experience under my belt, I signed up to run a total, from-scratch, homebrew (from scratch meaning largely cribbed from a variety of other games). The slots filled and I was excited. On the big day, I waited 1/2 hour, one player showed up - we agreed to go look for a pick-up game instead. Bummer. I'm sure that this is for the better - whatever that game was (all I can remember are some hit location charts from Twilight 2000...), I'm sure it was nothing that needed to be inflicted on anyone at that point.

A few good things happened that day though...

1. Napoleonics! The only time I've had the opportunity to play straight-up miniatures - it was a blast! Whatever the rules being used (I have no idea) they were easy to pick up. The physicality of miniatures and landscaped tabletop allows for less rules - there's not a rule for line of sight, weapon range, etc - there's a tape measure! Empirical! I did not win the scenario I played, but I loved the whole experience, and have always wanted to play more.

2. Got in a game of Fringeworthy. Fortunately, the GM knew the rules well enough that I just had to say what my character did and roll dice (the system is one I would not have to want to run - though the setting/premise is pretty awesome). My friend Donn (a cartoonist and general genius) was running it, and I was awed*.

3. Watching a game of Paranoia after the homebrew wash-out. What a f'in hoot that game was when it first came out! I like games that can throw seriousness into a sea of silly and see what floats. I ended up playing a lot of Paranoia with my buddies - stretched it all kinds of ways and had gonzo-goodtimes.


Then there was a weird quiet one in Fort Wayne. It was quiet, held in a dusty warehouse space. I signed up to play D&D. Turns out that the DM was this guy I went to high school with and didn't much like. We were tasked with chasing some goblins out of a keep. We strode up to it in full daylight (having agreed among ourselves that goblins don't like daylight, so sure - why not?)and stormed the gate. The action couldn't have taken more than 20-30 minutes - we died pathetically under arrows and spears, nets and oil. I ended up liking the DM fella more after that - we were asking for it...

So now I'm getting ready to run a couple of games at a convention the gaming club at Univerity of Kentucky gaming group this February. Want t keep it 'abstract' (I have no miniatures - stay off the battle mat - I like RQ-style 'ranks'...) Looking forward to it - a Swords & Wizardry game and a Tunnels & Trolls game. These are totally new games to the people in the gaming club - yay! Toying around with ideas for what to run - a variation on City of Terrors for the T&T game I think, and I'm inclined to run Chgowiz's quick-start for S&W - and distribute copies to the players afterwards.

Maybe I'll get a chance to play some of these new-fangled games there - it seems a sad certainty that there'll be no fatbeards with musketeer figurines there...

* this has made me think of something.
There's a lot of examples of games that I liked when I was younger, but could never run - out of intimidation. It was a 'write-what-you-know' kinda thing - with fantasy, absurd dystopia, cthulhu spooky, apocalytic mutationry - I felt like I "got it" enough to run it well. It was mostly make-believe.

Traveller, Aftermath, Twilight 2000 - loved reading them, but couldn't bring myself to run them. Note the military/technical theme here. My math has never progressed past simple geometry - my unit-conversion skillz == 3/0...If only I'd thought at the time that it was OK to take the system into my rush-clutch and take it to some far endzone - but at the time, looking at the tables and skills, megacredits and kilometer ranges - too intimidated to even try.

ramble(Isn't it really just about the ref sheets?)

More and more I think it is. Game books without much authorial voice (i.e. most every game book published these days, i.e. game materials by committee and such) are not fun to read. Sometimes the stars are right and I can get into well written setting and stuff - but most of the the time, meh. I do in various ways enjoy reading T&T, Paranoia, Gygax - but for book use, it's the lists and the tables I'm after. I've had one experience with a DM aid - a ref screen for AD&D. Loved it. Handy.

I'm really glad to see that the 'DIY ethic' has caught hold with so many other people of and near my generation - not something I see much of in my day-to-day local life.

Isn't it really just about the ref sheets? Pre-prep organization work, tweaking frequencies on random tables... not just that - it's really about sitting down and playing. Or pacing, as you see fit...

Ramble much? yug.

now that that's off my chest

some more AD&D class rambling...
On a logical level thieves, assassins and monks make more sense to me as sub-classes of fighter -
paladins and rangers as subclasses of cleric and druid respectively. But I don't like the division of magic into divine/arcane, so I think that the cleric & magic user should be merged into one class, with a few permutation subclasses:
Magic User (learns magic user & cleric spells)
- Illusionist (learns magic user & illusionist spells)
- Druid (learns magic user & druid spells)
and heretical though it is (they can cast spells after all...)
- Paladin
- Ranger

This is, mind you, just logical ordering

Breaking AD&D character classes to itty bitty bits

Why not? It's the kind of question one usually asks after the fact.

So one night a while back I made a table whose elements in a few hours went beyond d100 range, but stayed far shy of d1000. I stopped somewhere in the 150-160 number, listing out discreet elements of the AD&D character classes. An heretical idea had seized me - instead of picking a class, players make 2-5 rolls on this table, and these elements would define the class. Magic user that can disguise like assassin? Cross your fingers and roll! With the right five rolls, the generated class could conceivably fight like fighter, spell like a cleric AND a magic user, sneak like thief, and get druid level powers (as their career of near assured success continued).

So yeah, the table got huge. Throw'd in race-specific stuff, spell-like powers, magic resistance, starting wealth and magic items, etc... I started getting bored. And then I started trying to write it up as a table. Too many elements for d144 (d12 tens, d12 ones)... oh, I should edit it down... I think I got tired.

There's recurring board-debate on such pressing issues of class-as-mechanically-immutable-archetype vs. 'why caint my wizard wear a sword?', etc, etc. My response would be to have 2-5 rolls made on some refined version of this sprawling, half-baked list, to see exactly which classes have their turfs (turves?) tread upon.

I largely forgot about it, and then found it today while cleaning up. Enjoy. It's just a list...
fiddly fiddly fiddly!

1. +1 to hit with blunt weapons
2. +1 to hit, +1 damage with one melee weapon
3. +2 damage with one melee weapon
4. +1 damage with missile weapons
5. Gain use of weapon not normally allowed (or +1 to hit with 1 weapon if weapon use unrestricted)
6. +1 to hit with missile weapons
   
7. +1 dexterity reaction/attacking adjustment
8. +1 to hit with one melee weapon
9. Turn undead as cleric of same level
10. +1 constitution hit point adjustment, +10% system shock/resurrection survival
11. +1 to hit with spears/polearms
12. Disarm at +2
13. +1 damage with one melee weapon
    
14. Turn undead as cleric of level/3
15. Turn undead as cleric of level/2
16. Has d3 doses of poison and +2 on saves vs poison
17. Has d6 doses of poison
18. +2 to hit with one melee weapon
    
19. Backstab as thief (if already a thief, may use assassination table when appropriate)
    
20. Infravision (30', or +30' if already has infravision)
21. +1 dexterity defensive adjustment
    
22. +1 wisdom magic attack adjustment
23. +1 to hit with on type of melee weapon (axes, swords, polearms, etc)
24. All saving throws at +1
25. All saving throws at +2
26. Immune to disease
    
27. Immune to poison
28. Immune to petrification
29. “Lay on hands” as a paladin
30. Surprise as a ranger
31. Dodge missiles as a monk (if a monk, saving roll at +2)
32. Track as a ranger at half listed chances (if a ranger, add 5% to chances)
33. Track as a ranger (if a ranger, add 10% to chances)
34. Open lock and find/remove traps as thief of same level (if a thief or monk, add 10% to chances)
35. Read languages as a thief (if a thief/assassin/monk, add 10% to chance)
36. May use assassination table at ½ listed chance (if assassin, improve chance by 5%)
37. Disguise as assassin (if an assassin, reduce chance of detection by ½)
38. Infravision (60' or +60' if already has infravision)
39. +1 to hit against one type of creature
40. AC improved by 4 when fighting one type of creature
41. +1 to hit and AC improved by 2 when fighting one type of creature
42. Secret concealed door detection as elf
43. Surprise as elf
44. +1 (+5%) to reaction rolls
45. +2 (+10%) to reaction rolls
46. +2 to hit with thrown weapons
47. +1 to hit, +1 damage with thrown weapons
    
48. Knows 1 additional language per 4 points of intelligence
49. +1 to hit with melee weapons
    
50. Half chance of getting lost
51. +10% improvement to climb walls*
52. Herbal lore allows location and preparation of minor toxins and physicks
53. +d4 hit points
54. +2 hit points
55. +d6 hit points
56. +4 hit points
57. Internal clock allows unerring sense of passage of time
58. Earth detections as a dwarf (if already a dwarf, improve all chances by 10%)
59. Earth detections as a gnome (if already a gnome, improve all chances by 10%)
60. Reduce final price of weapons purchased by ½
61. Reduce final price of armor purchased by ½
62. Reduce final price of animals, equipment and supplies by ½
63. Improve initiative by 1
64. Does barehand damage as a monk of level-2 (if already a monk, +1 to hit barehand)
65. Does barehand damage as a monk of level-1 (if already a monk, +1 to hit barehand)
66. Does barehand damage as a monk of own level (if already a monk, +1 to hit barehand)
67. +1 to hit with missile weapons, may extend range of missiles by 25%
68. Improve AC of armor worn by 1
69. May use a shield against 1 more attack than normal.
70. Natural Horseman
71. Outdoorsman
72. Encumbrance penalties halved
73. May use a shield as a off-hand weapon (treat as a club)
74. +10% pick-pockets*
75. Add open hand attack damage to a successful hit with a melee weapon
76. +5% Move Silently and Hide in Shadows*
77. +10% Move Silently*
78. +10% Hide in Shadows*
79. Re-roll any fumble. If second roll hits, no damage is done, but fumble is ignored.
80. Heal at x2 normal rate
81. +10% Hear Noise*
82. No off-hand penalty applied while using two weapons
83. +1 on saves against any source of heat/fire or cold
84. +2 on saves against any source of cold
85. +3 on saves against any source of cold
86. +2 on saves against any source of heat/fire
87. +3 on saves against any source of heat/fire
88. +2 on saves against any source of heat/fire or cold
89. +2 on saves against any source of electricity
90. +3 on saves against any source of electricity
91. +2 on saves vs poison
92. +1 on save vs poison per 5 constitution
93. Decrease chance of surprise by 1 and gain +4 to hit against surprised opponents
    
94. Number of henchmen x1.5, loyalty base +10%
95. Regenerate 1 hit point per minute unless killed (must be inactive to regenerate)
96. +1 to strength damage adjustment
97. Shields used reduce armor class by 2 steps
98. Blunt weapon and impact damage (including falls) to character are halved
    
99. If reduced to half or less hit points, to hit and damage at +1
100. If reduced to half or less hit points, AC improved by 1
101. AC improved by 1 against 1 attacker/round
102. AC improved by 2 against 1 attacker/round
103. AC improved by 1 against up to 2 attackers/round
104. Photographic Memory
105. Unaffected by mind-influencing spells
106. +1 damage per level against one type of creature
107. +1 damage per 3 levels against one class of creature
108. Invisible to scrying
     
109. Knows one 1st level magic user or illusionist spell, and gains 1 1st level spell per day
     
110. Knows two 1st level magic user or illusionist spells, and gains 1 1st level spell per day
     
111. Knows one 2nd level magic user or illusionist spell, and gains 1 2nd level spell per day
     
112. May cast spells as a cleric (if cleric, one additional spell/day)
113. May cast spells as a cleric of ½ level (if cleric, one additional spell/day )
114. May cast spells as a druid (if druid, one additional spell/day)
115. May cast spells as a druid of ½ level (if druid, one additional spell/day)
116. May learn and cast spells as a magic user (if magic user, may retain memory of one spell cast/day)
117. May learn and cast spells as a magic user of ½ level (if magic user, may retain memory of one spell cast/day)
118. Has Magic Resistance equal to charisma + (level x 2)
     
119. Has Magic Resistance equal to wisdom + (level x 2)
120. Saves versus spells, rods, staves and wands at +1
121. Saves versus spells, rods, staves and wands at +1 per 6 points of wisdom
     
122. Saves versus spells, rods, staves and wands at +2
123. Saves versus spells, rods, staves and wands at +1 per 4 points of wisdom
124. Saves versus magic user and illusionist spells at +4
     
125. 50% magic resistance vs spells and powers of creatures from other planes
126. Saves versus cleric and druid spells at +4
127. May learn spells from one other class
128. May learn spells from two other classes
129. Sixth sense – cannot be surprised
130. Saves vs spells, rods, staves, and wands at +1. Saves versus spells cast by character at -1
131. Operates as a thief (if already a thief, +5% to all skills)O
132. perates as a thief at ½ level
133. May cast Remove Curse 1/day
     
134. May cast Dispel Magic 1/day
135. May cast Animal Friendship 1/day
136. Ethereal Sight for 2d10 minutes, 1/day
137. Saves against spells cast by this character are at -1 **
138. Saves against spells cast by this character are at -2 **
139. Magic Resistance of those targeted by character's spells is halved **
140. Magic Resistance of those targeted by character's spells is ignored **
     
141. May save vs death at +1/level to ignore spell disruption effects **
142. Spells cast have double area of effect/number of targets when applicable **
143. Touch range spells have range 5', ranged spells add 50' to range **
144. Self range spells have range touch, touch range spells have range 5' and ranged spells add 50' to range **
145. Duration of spells cast is doubled when applicable **
146. If magic user/illusionist, may wear leather armor. If druid, may wear chain. If other, improve AC by 1
147. Has d3 potions
148. Has a scroll
149. Has a magic sword
150. Has a miscellaneous magic weapon
151. Has a magic wand
152. Has a magic staff
153. Has a magic rod
154. Has a magic ring
155. Has a miscellaneous magic item
156. Has magic armor or shield
157. Double starting gold
     
158. Begins the game with d3 henchmen (up to maximum)
159. Begins the game with d6 henchmen (up to maximum)
160. Begins the game with 2d6 henchmen (up to maximum)

!EDIT! Ugh! A PDF! Improved? I dunno, but even a little longer...

Spell casting foiled

(d6)
1. Spell fails, memory of it is retained
2. Spell fails
3. Spell fails, memory of it replaced with other known spell, determined randomly
4. Spell fails
5. Spell fails, 50% chance it replaces spell written on a scroll in possession
6. Spell fails

drop of water in ocean vs drop of water in wildfire

Haven't posted in a while because I wanted to wait until I had the overlord thing 'in full swing'. Well - I wouldn't say it's in full swing, but it is starting (after some fits and starts, butting up against the edge of my disorganized & accident-prone nature). What's that about battle plans surviving first contact? Oh yeah, that they don't!

I was thinking I'd start it after I got a group of people playing at the table, but this has proved a stumbling point. The gamer club at the state university here is pretty 4e centric when it comes to RPGs, with a couple of Rifts enthusiasts(!). Three prospective players responded to a flier I put up, but they've all washed out. Hrumph.

Nevertheless, the coffee shop down the street makes a room available to reserve, for free(!) so my thinking is just to start an open with a couple of my friends and toss around a couple more fliers...

OSRIC supplement development is big news. E&S continues (glacially). Seems the S&W megadungeon is pretty back-burnered. Trying to set-up this overlord game has really made clear to me how thin I'm spreading myself - but once it finds its legs, I think it will largely 'run itself'.

But the thing I came here to get off my chest is this: play Tunnels & Trolls! It's a great great game that deserves more love! No - more [b]use[/b]!

OK.

Dreaming of D&D

Savage Swords talks about dreaming of games - this has been happening to me a lot recently. A lot. I recently reacquired the 1e DMG, and poring over it like I used to do when I was 12. A lot of the setup for the overlord side of the game I'm getting together is coming from the DMG - it's sinking into the subconscious. Last night I dreamt of tables - and like there's not enough in the book (can there ever be enough? uh...yeah, probably so...anyway) - like there weren't enough in the book as is, I found a cache of tables I'd never seen before - somewhere in the random encounter by dungeon level area, which was a sort of uber-table.

This was a dream, remember, and it was vague. I was totally psyched - it was the table to end all tables! I think I was generating a dungeon. And, of course, I can't remember what it was about. I remember rolling on it and generating some information and being really excited, feeling like a thorny problem that had existed for years was solved by this discovery - but yeah, in the waking world, I have no idea what the table was. Ugh. Oh well. Perhaps it'll bubble back up out of the subconscious at some point (like while I'm trapped at work, or fixing dinner or something). Perhaps it will appear in the next Fight On! - stranger things have happened.

Makes me think of something I used to do when I ran games pretty regularly. Provide dreams. When the characters slept, (and when I remembered) there was a chance they'd have a dream (the chance was 10% + Int + Wis I believe...)). So I had about a dozen index cards with some content of some generally random dream-things that had no bearing or symbolic relevance to the characters - of course, I did not tell them that - they were free to 'read into it' as much or as little as they wanted to. There were also 1 or 2 cards for each character that DID contain a clue or a message that was relevant to their character, though couched in obscure terms and such. I'd draw a card at random if they had a dream, and give it to them to keep. Sometimes they'd latch on to something that was suggestive of import and really try to suss it out - and this gave birth to some interesting play!

Dream On!

3 conclusions I've come to (randomly)

Tekumel is not a game because of its wilderness rules.
RPG.net is the real home of Chainmail on the web.
Stop picking on Jeff Reints, he’s the most level-headed swine, after all.

Offered with no supporting arguments and a large can of ad hominem just waiting
to crack open.

setting info 2

Link to Google Doc PDF of more information warping together, and still a few more threads to stitch in, in sort of general-overview mode.

Setting Info

< OLD LINK REMOVED >
A timeline
Some history-lite
Cursory geography
A crude map (WIP!)

Still in the 'setup' phase. Players are submitting ideas and information, so it is still a work in progress. I'm trying my damnest to keep kinda quiet about what this looks like under the hood, and it's difficult because there's really cool things happening in here. Emergent patterns and such. Once the first turn starts, I'll have to start posting the words of the town criers, border edicts and travellers' stories...

One thing is certain, which seems to be much a truism in human internet-based text gaming - the initial plan never survives!

<*> I thought I'd get a couple of people, maybe a slow trickle. Nope!
<*> I was gonna randomly assign players to NPCs I already had in place. It immediately became apparent that that would not be the case across-the-board.
I am not complaining about this - the stuff being submitted is making the setting so much more interesting - so many ideas I would have never come up with. And here's where the 'emergent behavior' thing got really freaky (as in cool). Different players unaware of each other coming up with character and 'kingdom' ideas independantly, that work together very well...different hooks that seem easily related to each-other...etc

One thing that has remained pretty consistent is a sort of 'omni-game' approach. Players are using different systems for game detail of their characters as they see fit. I'm sticking to 1e AD&D as a 'lingua franca', and using it for a lot of the implementation details on my side of things, but there's 2e-isms, some T&T-isms,
and some other stuff from I don't know where!

In real world, I went to the college youngins game club this evening for their first meeting of the semester, and met with three guys that responsed to the flier I put up in a few places last week (like outside the game club's meeting room on campus for one!). One of them was somewhat aware of internet OSR stuff, they all seemed at least somewhat interested (I kinda half-assed pitched Swords & Wizardry/OSRIC aka "Old D&D" - I've never been much of a salesman...but), we're supposed to get together next week to start. In Search of the Unknown.

Quasqueton aside, they're gonna be walking into an amazing environment. Thank you overlords! I can't wait to get the internet ball rolling, so that the players can see what's going on too.