tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322418162093046272024-03-04T20:28:53.491-08:00The Head of VecnaSometimes amusement requires a little too much sacrifice.Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-70076751903326261512012-02-13T08:33:00.000-08:002012-02-13T08:33:19.482-08:00An Embarrassment of Riches, or, Who Blogged About A Lock-Picking System Using Playing Cards?Okay, this is driving me nuts.
<p>One of the mixed blessings of the OSR movement is that there are SO FRACKING MANY good gameblogs churning out interesting and useable information that a) reading them can seriously eat up my time much in the same way that Wikipedia can spark a <a href="http://xkcd.com/214/">Wiki-Walk</a> or TVTropes can devour an entire afternoon; and b) if I don't immediately copy-paste said good information into a Works document and actually close one of the twenty-some tabs on one of my many web-pages, I'll completely forget which of the hundred or so blogs out there posted the article I was keen on.
<p>Case in point: within the last week I read a post someone made about how to represent a <i>D&D</i> thief's Pick Locks skill (the old percentile-based version, not the 3.+ skill mod version) by using playing cards. It was something like this: the thief can choose one of four ways to move his pick (something like push, pull, jiggle and, I don't know, twist?), and each of the cards' suits represents one of those maneuvers. The DM picks a card, and the thief's player says which of those maneuvers he wants to try; if he chooses the maneuver that the DM is holding the card for, the pick breaks. The thief's skill rating is connected to how many times he does this, or something. I can't remember, but it struck me as a really fun way to represent what would otherwise be just another skill roll. And after playing Skyrim, this notion currently has extra appeal to me.
<p>But I can't find which blog this article was posted on. I went through my browser history and can't seem to find it. Trying to do a Google search only yields website after website about real-world lock-picking, even though I put the words "D&D thief" in there.
<p>Anybody know where that was?Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-77391933423570846802012-02-01T23:46:00.000-08:002012-02-01T23:46:01.889-08:00On Game SettingsCool beans - <a href="http://russnicholson.blogspot.com/">Russ Nicholson</a> has a blog!
<p>I still intend to get down some more of that background information on the Thyatic Empire. Preferably before I try to run the first <i>RuneQuest</i> game set in it. I've just had other stuff going on lately, some of it gaming-related and some of it not.
<p>However, <a href="http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-i-want-to-hear-about-your-setting.html">something that Zak S. posted a while ago</a> caused me to stop and think for a moment about how in-game information is conveyed to the players in your game. We GM-types will often go on and on about the details of the world we're creating (or modifying, in this case), but oftentimes I must stop and remind myself that the players may not really care about all that; at least not to the degree that I do. World creation is, to my mind, one of the best parts of being a GM. And, though Zak may not care for it, I actually do dig reading that setting stuff (though I'm increasingly willing to alter it to my own tastes, as I mentioned in my last post). My love for that aspect of the game is probably a big part of why I don't work on my other creative projects nearly as much as I should - I shunt all of that time and energy into that game-world instead of my comic book, and hey, since it's just for a game, I don't have to worry about how original it is. I can afford to be lazy when I want to, or swipe an element that I like from another game setting. This is an issue I'm still really struggling with.
<p>Anyway, when it comes to reading about other people's gameworlds, I don't think that what's drawing me is necessarily the quality of the author's writing, nor even necessarily the originality of their creation. They may be rehashing Tolkien or Howard for the umpteenth time - or including yet another homage to Lovecraft - while writing at the skill level of, say, Stephanie Meyers or Dan Brown, but if they've got fodder that I can riff off of, I'm happy. After all, it's a lot harder to start creating from scratch than it is when you're working within established parameters; at least, it is for me.
<p>But I think Zak nailed the reason why my eyes glaze over whenever I'm confronted with game fiction in a rulebook.
<p>Now I want to create some random encounter tables for the Soderfjord Jarldoms. I need to find that page in the <i>AD&D 2e Monstrous Compendium</i> (I <i>think</i> that's where it was...) that shows how to make a d20 table, listing encounters by their relative rarity...Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-82470339373955239112012-01-14T19:28:00.000-08:002012-01-14T19:34:34.031-08:00The Thyatic Empire Session 0: Character CreationI was reminded last night of another reason I get those pangs of longing for simpler systems. We spent the entire evening doing character creation, and didn't manage to get to the adventure itself. While this is hardly an alien phenomenon to me - the "character creation session" is a staple of most modern campaigns, I believe - at my age I often wish we could just sit down and play like we would any other type of game. The boys' palpable disappointment at not being able to begin the adventure after laboring over their characters for so long was something I had hoped to avoid. Alas, <i>RuneQuest</i> 1984 has a pretty complex skill-generation segment, which is what bogged us down for most of the evening. When you consider the old tales of <i>D&D</i> grognards rolling up new characters during game play after losing their PC to some devious trap or monster that proved to be too great a match for them, you start to feel like maybe something good got lost along the way. After investing so much effort into building these characters, the thought of one of them dying and having to go through the character creation process again sounded like more trouble than it might be worth. Of course, <i>I</i> say that, but the boys mentioned several times that they had other ideas if their characters did die.
<p>Still, <i>RQ</i>'84 (I think it's referred to in the <i>RQ</i> community as <i>RQ III</i>) has some interesting ideas on character creation. Your Attributes give you modifiers to your skills, which itself takes a little time to figure out, because different Attributes affect each skill category differently, dependent upon the category - you may add percentile bonuses based on how many points the Attribute is over 10, but in some cases it grants you the bonuses if you're under 10, etc.
<p>Once you figure out what Culture you're coming from (Primitive, Barbarian, Nomad and Civilized), you decide on a career, and that determines a lot of your skill percentages before you place the last 30 points wherever you like. It factors in how old your character is and how long he's been in his particular career; the skills you get from your career list multiples, and for each year your character has practiced that career, you get a number of skill points on the given skill multiplied by the listed number. For example, if your career listed Boat x1, you'd get 1 percentile on the Boat skill for every year you were a Boatman; if it said Boat x3, you'd get 3 points per year, etc. This meant that Michael was easily able to make his Rakastoi who had been a Warrior for many years, but has been an Entertainer in more recent years. The boys were able to make characters who were a Malpheggoi who had been raised by Shadow Elves and a Shadow Elf who was the son of a smith and a fire-mage, and had some of both of their skill (he called himself a "flame warrior," which I thought was pretty cool and suitably Elven). I bent the RAW here and there, but honestly, I didn't have to do much - <i>RQ III</i> made such allowances pretty simple.
<p>However, this means that Michael's character - an older adult - has far better skills than the boys' characters do, since the boys both decided they wanted to be 16, and you only begin counting skill points per year after age 15. It took some effort to convince the boys that they weren't going to be failing every time they tried a skill, since their percentile ratings were so low. The game system allows the GM to set modifiers to their ratings based on conditions, and as the game clarifies, the percentile rolls are really for stress situations, anyway - like combat or serious do-or-die pressure - not everyday use. I imagine this will be bourne out in play.
<p>Another old school artifact appears in early <i>BRP</i> - the Appearance stat. Some iterations of <i>BRP</i> replace this with Charisma or omit it entirely, but I felt like sticking with the original version to see how it played out. C's Malpheggoi, Mair'foll, got a pretty high roll for his APP, so we decided his scales were extra-shiny, and he said his character had natural feathered plumage - a detail I hadn't considered for the lizard-folk, but I really liked the notion, so I decided it was a rare trait among his kind, and probably part of the reason he was adopted by the Kaldoroi. N's Kaldoroi Shy'don, on the other hand, got an APP of 6, which N interpreted to mean he had a wild, bedraggled appearance, with an unruly mane of hair and a body so skinny that his clothes never seemed to hang quite right on him. It also gave us a reason why Mair'foll and Shy'don stuck together as they grew up - they were both social outcasts among the Shadow Elves.
<p>All this being said, by the end of the evening, characters were completed, so we'll be able to jump right into playing when we next have the opportunity to meet. I designed my adventure so that we wouldn't have to endure the Buying Equipment phase of creation. Inspired by Elder Scrolls IV and V, the PCs will begin the scenario having been captured by Vikings, stripped of their weapons and armor, bound hand-and-foot and brought to a sea-cave to await the arrival of a slave galley.
<p>One other mechanic I wanted to adopt for this game was that of Hero Points (or Fate Points, or Drama Points, or whatever you want to call them). As I think I mentioned in a previous post here, the boys - like my nephew and nieces when they role-played for the first time - have an overriding desire to dictate the outcome of any given imaginary situation. Getting them to remember that in an RPG they don't get to decide the outcome, but only what their characters do (or try to do), has been difficult at times. I decided that this time I would give them a mechanic by which they could do this, but under certain conditions. First, they would have a limited amount of Hero Points to spend (I arbitrarily said three to begin), which would refresh only after the end of a game session or through some coolness on their part - I was admittedly vague about what said coolness should entail, but I'd like to impress upon them the notion that sometimes in a narrative it's more interesting not to succeed or be the strongest and most impressive at all times. I also want to reward them for being, well, Heroes.
<p>Secondly, the Hero Points can be used in a couple of ways: either to reroll the dice and take the better result of the two rolls; or to change a minor detail of the story. The boys latched on to this latter usage, of course, which prompted them to make several suggestions as to how they might escape their imprisonment, thus providing me with examples of what consituted a "minor change." C couldn't decide that the Vikings didn't notice Mair'foll had a sword in his pants, but he could decide that he had stashed his sword into a nearby barrel before the Vikings could take it from him.
<p>Following all of this, I took the Bachelor's Night prerogative to stay up far too late playing Michael's copy of Skyrim. Delighted by his reports that your character can choose to marry an NPC, I decided to make a new character - a High Elf male - and start the game over. I was initially wary of making a magic-heavy character, as my previous experiences in Elder Scrolls magic-use was always pretty limited (I usually prefer to hack at enemies with my sword), but the combination of magic and sword turned out to be pretty fantastic. The magicka-replenishment rate for High Elves is pretty great (according to Michael), so I was going into every fight giving my foes the flamethrower-hand and then slicing and dicing as they burned. The experience reminded me why <i>BECMI</i> Elves are cool as a character class, though of course Skyrim is more forgiving about combining armor-use and magic. Still, it made me consider playing an Elf if I ever get the chance to join a <a href="http://jrients.blogspot.com/2011/08/flailsnails-conventions.html">FLAILSNAILS</a>/<a href="http://constantcon.blogspot.com/">Constantcon*</a> game...
<p>*Speaking of which, I just noticed that someone's running a <i>GURPS</i> 4e version of the classic <a href="http://constantcon.blogspot.com/2012/01/caravan-to-ein-arris.html"><i>Caravan to Ein Arris</i></a> adventure at 9PM next Saturday. I wonder if I should try to convince Michael to join it with me...?Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-89034435264329937742012-01-12T14:11:00.000-08:002012-01-12T15:30:22.192-08:00Skyrim, Rifts and A Few RevelationsThis post is really all over the map - at one point, quite literally - so please forgive my somewhat stream-of-consciousness approach. I had a bunch of different things I wanted to mention, and remembered a few more as I was typing them up. I probably should have just broke it down into separate blog posts over the next few days, but I'm far too disorganized to plan something like that. I'll leave that to the Jeff Rients of the world. Now you know why I haven't posted in months...
<p>My friend and fellow gaming stalwart Michael received an XBox ("for the kids," ha ha) and a copy of Skyrim as Christmas presents this year. He gave me the opportunity to give it a spin, and darn skippy if it isn't a hoot. Even my wife got hooked on her first try. We've spent the last few weeks trying to come up with excuses to either go over to the Slussers or procure an XBox 360 for ourselves (sadly, neither have been possible).
<p>My wife is off on a school-related outing to San Jose this weekend, so I have the opportunity to go hang out at Michael's house like a lazy bachelor (totally different from my usual self, the lazy married man) and sponge off of his family's hospitality and entertainment. However, I decided, this was a good opportunity to give a little something back, in the form of some gaming for Michael's sons. Namely, a Skyrim-inspired RPG session. Fortunately, he tells me the boys were quite excited about the idea, which is good because I've been obsessing over the idea ever since I played.
<p>For the setting, instead of trying to recreate Cyrodiil or whatever the empire in The Elder Scrolls is called, I decided to go with something I'd be familiar and comfortable with, and frankly, something I've kinda been wanting to do for a while. I've taken Mystara, turned a lot of the countries into provinces of the Empire of Thyatis, and amped up the Byzantine feel while lowering the tech level a touch. I've always wanted to portray Thyatis as more medieval Greek than Imperial Roman, anyway - I'm not familiar enough with the <i>Known World Gazeteers</i> to know if that was the direction they were originally going or not, but having an ancient Roman-style state alongside medieval cultures always bugged me for some reason. The Byzantines, however, have fascinated me for as long as I've been aware of them.
<p>With this in mind, I've ventured into modifying Mystara with a more liberal hand than I usually apply to personal adaptations. In the past I had an obsession with learning all of the official details about a setting and then tinkering only within those boundaries, building upon what was already there. These days...eh. I'm not getting paid to do this, so why stick with details or concepts that I don't like?
<p>Allow me to follow this tangential concept for a moment. Michael's boys are demonstrating that they're capable of getting into more complex game systems than those we've played with in the past; they've recently started getting into <i>GURPS 4th Edition</i>. I mentioned to Michael that they might enjoy a game of <i>Rifts</i>, given their love of gonzo character combinations. As a concept, <i>Rifts</i> is easily as suitable a setting as the <i>Infinite Worlds</i> campaign for testing out all the options <i>GURPS</i> could handle. However, I decided early on that I had no desire to attempt direct conversions of statistics. That would be a load of work that I don't have time to take on, not to mention sounding like a dull exercise to me right now. I've never been a gearhead or a rules monkey, I'm afraid. I would just use the already-extant <i>GURPS</i> equivalents from the <i>Ultra-Tech</i> books and just wing it from there. If the Dead Boy armor didn't have all of the same features as those listed in the <i>Rifts</i> core rulebook, I wouldn't care and the boys would never notice. Then it dawned on me: I didn't need to keep <i>any</i> of the cruft that I never liked in the books. They'll never know I'm not using Worldbook 45 or taking into account the Three Galaxies setting or whatever. As they say, the game police wouldn't come over to break up my game, even if it did deface Kevin Siembieda's intellectual property.
<p>I had already laid out a few minor changes when I happened across SirLarkins' <a href="http://shirosrpg.blogspot.com/search/label/2112">Rifts: 2112</a> campaign design notes; that gave me extra encouragement to make <i>Rifts</i> Earth my very own without a thought to the canon. And I've been having some fun with it, even though the changes I've made have been relatively minor, probably assisted by the fact that I haven't been a Palladium fanboy since junior high and thus have missed out on pretty much everything since <i>Coalition War Campaign</i> (that's Worldbook 11, for those of you who care). I went through my old copies of <i>d20 Gamma World</i> and took some ideas from that to incorporate into my Rifts setting. So far, it's been a very amusing process.
<p>The point of this whole tangent is this: you can be told, time and again, by everyone from Gary Gygax to Ron Edwards that This Is Your Game Now, Do With It As You Will, but it may take some time for that to really sink in. It did for me, anyway. It still feels a little revolutionary to me now, to rewrite major swathes of a published setting for my own games. It's not as though I was ever expecting someone in my gaming group to take exception (especially since we only play about three games for the most part) or someone to send me a cease-and-desist, but there was always a voice in the back of my head that said, "Well, what if someone does know the original setting, and joins your game? What are you going to do then?".
<p>This is probably RPGs 101 for most people, so call me a late bloomer. I'll post something more about my take on the <i>Rifts</i> setting in another post. In case the suspense is killing you, it's not a huge deal - some of the names are changed, a lot of the stuff in the books is outright ignored, and really grokking that since the Cataclysm happened in our future instead of our present made me realize that I was free to make vast urban sprawls (now in ruins) exist where right now in the real world there is only farmland. And big <a href="http://appleseed.wikia.com/wiki/Olympus">Olympus</a>-style arcologies, no less.
<p>Okay, back to fantasy. Making The Known World into a Cyrodiil clone. I made a map, of course, to help me visualize the boundaries of the Empire of Thyatis, and their (indifferent-to-hostile) neighbors:
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<p>I'm almost certainly going to change the name of Alfheim to something more Elven-sounding, and you may note I changed Rockhome to its Dwarven-language translation. The Five Shires are now The Five Tors, since I didn't want my Hin to evoke Tolkien quite so strongly (in fact, I'm largely basing Hin culture on that of the pre-Roman Celts).
<p>Here are some of the main features I've settled on:
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<br><b>Karameikos.</b> The first Imperial province outside of Thyatis, conquered by the Warduke Karameikos and named in his honor (the original honorific I was considering was <i>Megas Doux</i>, which doesn't quite work for me; as much as I like <i>Dux Bellorum</i>, I wanted to stick with Greek-sounding titles). Though deeply loyal to the Empire, Karameikos remains a more rough-and-tumble province with plenty of opportunities for a commoner to obtain a fortune and a name for himself.
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<br><b>The Minrothad Guilds.</b> I haven't read the <i>Gazeteer</i> on this region, but my version is essentially The Spacing Guild from <i>Dune</i>. These guys control all of the trade on behalf of the Empire, to prevent its nobles from becoming corrupt through the pursuit of profit (at least, that was the original intent; things have mutated a bit since then). The culture is similar to that of ancient Crete, with a mystery cult atmosphere of secrecy, blood-oaths of loyalty, secret rites and lots of hooded guys sneaking around. The people are essentially African in appearance.
<p><b>The Kingdom of Ierendi.</b> Pseudo-Hawaii is <i>right out</i>. The folk of Ierendi are seafarers similar to those of the Somali coasts.
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<br><b>The Broken Lands.</b> Inhabited by Orcs, of course, who are more <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkworld"><i>Orkworld</i></a> than <a href="http://kingfeatures.com/comics/comics-a-z/?id=Crock">"Crock"</a>. They basically feel like they've been shafted by the world in general, since they may have once ruled a vast empire called Aengmor until the Elves and Dwarves brought them down. That's what they tell people, anyway, but then someone always derails the discussion with accusations of cannibalism...
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<br><b>The Malpheggi Swamp.</b> Inhabited by the Malpheggoi, lizard men who are analogous to the Argonians of The Elder Scrolls. They claim to remember Aengmor, too, and point to their ruins as proof.
<p><b>The Principalities of Glantri.</b> Keeping the magocracy and the bitterly divided principalities; ditching the weird ethnic mix (the pseudo-Scots live next door to the pseudo-Spaniards? Huh?). These guys are basically medieval Russians whose distrust of each other is the only thing keeping them from sweeping across the Empire.
<p><b>Darokin.</b> No more Renaissance Italians. These guys were originally Imperials who split Thyatis when the decision came down to restrict trade to the Minrothad Guilds. They have since mellowed and rejoined the Empire thanks to their exclusive rights to trade with the non-Imperial Glantroi and Atruaghinoi. They've also been heavily influenced by the Celtic-style culture of the Hin.
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<br><b>Alfheim [tentative name only].</b> Home - more or less - to three, count 'em, three Elven subraces: the Queldanoi, who are basically the mana-addicted Blood Elves from <i>World of Warcraft</i>; the Asuryanoi, brown-skinned Wood Elves heavily influenced by those of <i>Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay</i>; and the Kaldoroi, the exiled Shadow Elves who are <i>WoW</i> Night Elves with the serial numbers filed off, cursed with poor daylight vision due to their long centuries of subterranean dwelling. None of these guys really like each other very much, but that's okay, because nobody else likes them very much, either. That's why they agreed to chafe under Imperial rule: too many enemies.
<p><b>Atruaghin Clans.</b> Actually, this is more or less unaltered. Here's another minor tangent for you: I don't know about what other <i>D&D</i> players thought about the Atruaghin, so maybe I'm just a huge bigot, but I once balked at the notion of a Native American-style culture in my medieval fantasy world. Of course, this new version is more Late Roman/Dark Ages than "medieval", but you know what I mean, I hope. Anyway, a single illustration in a gamebook managed to change my mind:
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<br>A Kioga tribeswoman, from <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/witchworld/"><i>GURPS Witch World</i></a>
<br>Illustration by <a href="http://mythwood.blogspot.com/">Larry MacDougall</a>
<p>Such was the power of that simple illustration (and the context in which the associated culture was presented, I guess) over me that I've been quite comfortable with the idea ever since. Maybe it's because it leans harder toward "Barbarian" than toward "Old West"? More Northeastern Woodlands tribe than Southwestern? I can't put my finger on it, exactly, but somehow it makes the notion work for me.
<p>I also made sure to include Mystara's native <a href="http://roncarney.com/mystara/rakastas.php">Rakastas</a> as a playable race, so I'd have an equivalent of the Khajiit. At this point they're basically the Romani of the setting, wandering the Empire and dwelling in nomadic encampments, as per their original descriptions.
<p>There's more, but at this point a lot of stuff is kind of embryonic, and most of the other regions are, to my knowledge, relatively unaltered (aside from the greater Imperial presence thing). The first adventure will take place in the Soderfjord Jarldoms, to emulate Skyrim's Nordic setting, but fortunately, it can go anywhere we want after that.
<p>As far as the actual game system I'm using goes, I was originally going to use <a href="http://www.stargazergames.eu/games/warrior-rogue-mage/"><i>Warrior, Rogue and Mage</i></a>. The concept of this simple system matched up perfectly with what I was aiming for: a classless system in which any PC can fight, pick locks, cast spells, whatever. And I'd been hoping to get some use out of it for a long time. However, where it wasn't quite clicking for me was in the area of skills. <i>WR&M</i> is based on exploding d6s, using a roll-over-the-difficulty-rating system. You either have a skill or you don't; if you do, it adds 2 to your roll and may give you extra benefits here and there. That's cool and good and all, but not <i>quite</i> what I wanted for this particular game.
<p>Instead, I decided to go with <i>Basic RolePlaying</i>. I've always liked <i>BRP</i>'s method of character improvement, where every adventure in which you successfully use one of your skills, you get a chance to improve it. That fit perfectly with the Elder Scrolls system, as well as allowing anyone to use magic without worrying about character classes. It's slightly more complex than <i>WR&M</i>, but if the boys can handle <i>GURPS 4e</i> and <i>Earthdawn</i>, they can handle this. I've been going back and forth on which iteration of <i>BRP</i> to use: right now <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuneQuest"><i>RuneQuest</i></a> (the 1984 Avalon Hill edition) is in first place with <a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=97239"><i>Legend</i></a> and some version of <a href="http://rpggeek.com/rpg/2087/magic-world"><i>Magic World</i></a> vying for second.
<p>Okay, off to get lunch. More later.Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-27804516135778438132011-10-30T13:25:00.000-07:002011-10-30T13:37:45.258-07:00Save vs. CholesterolI am on a number of emailing lists, as I imagine most people are. One of them is a free newsletter from <a href="http://spesmagna.com/">Spes Magna Games</a> called <i>Quid Novi?</i> which features short articles on things you can use for your <i>D&D 3.5/Pathfinder</i> games. Recently the author suffered from a heart attack - he's okay now - but apparently this had an effect on him, which doesn't surprise me in the least. Given the generally rotten health of most gamers (including myself), heart attacks loom large on the list of likely maladies a gamer might suffer. In this case, he didn't even have any health problems, so I guess you never really know.
<p>So, in case you had a good game use for it - maybe a spell or magic item that rapidly ages a character, or a character who has been noted as being overweight - here's the <i>D&D</i> stats for heart attacks, courtesy of Mark Chance of Spes Magna Games:
<blockquote><p><b>Awful Afflictions - "My myocardium is infarcting!"</b>
<p><i>Shortness of breath. Shooting pains. Tightness in the chest. A cold sweat and clammy skin.</i>
<p><b>Heart Attack</b>
<br><b>Type</b> disease; <b>Save</b> Fort DC 20
<br><b>Onset</b> 1 day; <b>Frequency</b> special (see description)
<br><b>Effect</b> 1d4 Str and 1d4 Con plus fatigue (see description); <b>Cure</b> 2 saves
<p><b>Description</b> A heart attack often strikes without warning. It causes loss of strength and health, and the victim is easily fatigued. Even though a heart attack can be treated via Heal as if it were a disease, it inflicts damage quickly. A new Fort save must be made every minute. The fatigue effect remains until all ability damage is healed. For a more severe heart attack, raise the damage to 1d6 or 1d8 of Str and Con damage and increase the fatigue to exhausted.</blockquote>Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-68730012017300138952011-10-13T21:40:00.000-07:002011-10-13T21:40:34.738-07:00While idly paging through some of my old PDF copies of <i>Dragon</i> Magazine, I was reminded of the strange variety of articles that used to be printed there. It was far less of a TSR company organ in the earlier days of its run, and for a long time I remember enjoying the issues that I bought or somehow inherited (thanks, Adam!) because of the articles about games other than <i>AD&D</i>.
<p>Anyway, I happened across this old relic and thought I'd share it here, as a reminder of the magazine's early eclecticism (if that actually is a word); from <i>Dragon</i> #44, December 1980:
<p><i><b>C. S. Lewis's
<br>REEPICHEEP</b>
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<p><b>7th-level Fighter</b>
<br>ALIGNMENT: Lawful Good
<br>HIT POINTS: 67
<br>ARMOR CLASS: 3
<br>NO. OF ATTACKS: 3/2
<br>DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6 (+3)
<br>HIT BONUS: +1
<br>MOVE: 9"
<br>PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil
<br>STRENGTH: 18/01
<br>INTELLIGENCE: 12
<br>WISDOM: 9
<br>DEXTERITY: 18/52
<br>CONSTITUTION: 18/37
<br>CHARISMA: 15
<p>Reepicheep is a halfling-sized, intelligent mouse who walks erect on his hind legs. His fur is dark, nearly black. A thin band of gold passes around his head and under one ear. A long crimson feather sticks out of the gold band. He sometimes wears a long red cloak and is never without his rapier slung from his leather belt. The effect of all this finery is bold and striking.
<p>Reepicheep is the most valiant of all the Talking Beasts of Narnia and Chief Mouse of the realm. He is a courtier and a warrior, companion to Prince Caspian of Narnia, and a hero who won undying glory in the second Battle of Beruna.
<p>Reepicheep is the epitome of a gracious cavalier. His manners are extremely courteous and he retains his nonchalance under even the most dangerous circumstances. Reepicheep does not take kindly to insults or fancied insults and he is likely to challenge the offending party to a duel of honor. If the invitation to a duel is not accepted, he will belabor the offending party with the flat of his sword to teach the miscreant a lesson in manners. Reepicheep is extremely touchy about his short height.
<p>Reepicheep abhors bullies, cowards and villains in general. His reaction to evil is similar to that of a paladin. He also hates unfair fights, and, all other things being equal, he will always side with the underdog.
<p>When Reepicheep was a baby mouse in his cradle, a dryad woman spoke this verse over him:
<p>"Where sky and water meet,
<br>Where the waves grow sweet,
<br>Doubt not Reepicheep
<br>To find all you seek,
<br>There in the utter East."
<p>As Reepicheep says: "I do not know what it means. But the spell of it has been on me all my life." Because of the ambiguous prophecy, or perhaps merely from wanderlust, Reepicheep constantly wanders in search of adventure. Usually he journeys eastward, but wherever he travels he upholds his honor in battle, befriends the needy, and defends the helpless.
<p>Written by Tom Moldvay</i>
<p>Another thing I always remembered about old <i>AD&D</i> material was how ridiculously inflated the ability scores were for characters adapted from fiction. Reepicheep has 18/01 Strength?! And check it out: Dex 18/52 and Con 18/37. I've never seen any ability score aside from Strength go into 18+ percentiles, but Reep's got two. I mean, I know he's cool and all, but I have to question the reasoning behind these stats.
<p>So not only could you have Reep show up in one of your games to spank down your uppity PCs, but with this issue of <i>Dragon</i> you can also settle the age-old locker room question: Who would win in a fight - Reepicheep or Professor Challenger? (<i>Clue:</i> He's a 16th-level Fighter with "special Sage abilities" and a Strength of 18/90.)
Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-80957982923495712162011-09-24T23:04:00.000-07:002011-09-24T23:08:48.669-07:00The Un-MenEver read <i>GURPS Fantasy II: The Mad Lands</i>? Me, neither. I mean, I skimmed it once or twice when I saw it in the game store years ago, but it never grabbed me enough to buy it. Don't get me wrong, it could be pretty awesome, but I didn't have the opportunity to find out.
<p>One cool idea I remember from the setting, though, was the way monsters were conceived. I don't mean in the "dim lighting and lots of booze" sort of way, but all of the monsters that I remember being mentioned were once Men that had been cursed by the gods, which as you might have gathered from the book's title, were crazy. And not just because they dropped Coke bottles from the sky.
<p>My hazy memory tells me that each breed of monster was monstrous because the gods had stolen something from them that made them human. So these Men-driven-mad wandered the highly-dangerous wilderlands outside of the villages in a very much "Points of Light" kind of way, and each one had different behaviors and [twisted] desires that drove them. All of them, the shamans said, were murderously jealous of Men...
<p>Bearing that in mind, I jotted down a list of monsters like this, just to see what I could come up with:
<p>The Skinless
<br>The Eyeless
<br>The Voiceless
<br>The Breathless
<br>The Legless
<br>The Hairless
<br>The Armless
<br>The Legless
<br>The Boneless
<br>The Mindless
<br>The Heartless
<p>Obviously, some of them are more <i>Fiend Folio</i> 1e-worthy than others, but some of them, I think, have some creepy possibilities. A lot of them struck me as horrors from "Silent Hill," all mottled skin and flesh-masked stumbly freaks. If you go beyond the obvious handicap of a missing body part and read it as more metaphorical, you can end up with some pretty unpleasant terrors.Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-7852544581358078192011-09-08T22:27:00.000-07:002011-09-08T22:27:41.728-07:00Underground Shrine Map<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFAOrISK656zzEFhmXhZdSX8sKxsHPECm1a1tooqt8ZhxmT9iboo8dwObb893gYHhyphenhyphen0IO9rgLvEwGgcO9DQD9V2pxKPGrJEjIY8QqO_aX61oo7cU3ixoK8U7Eo_0Y6z4tkw_7-NERGYqyF/s1600/Underground-Shrine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="262" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFAOrISK656zzEFhmXhZdSX8sKxsHPECm1a1tooqt8ZhxmT9iboo8dwObb893gYHhyphenhyphen0IO9rgLvEwGgcO9DQD9V2pxKPGrJEjIY8QqO_aX61oo7cU3ixoK8U7Eo_0Y6z4tkw_7-NERGYqyF/s400/Underground-Shrine.jpg" /></a></div><br />
While trying to work out some tech-related frustrations (Photoshop + Wacom tablet does not always do what I will it to), I spent a little time today doodling by hand. Inspired by Dyson of <a href="http://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/">A Character For Every Game</a>, I drew a dungeon map on an index card, making it up as I went. Mostly I did it because I wanted to mimic his crosshatching style, which, for whatever reason, seems to give his maps an extra visual punch that I really like. I was using a .5mm rolling ball pen on a single index card instead of a .7mm gel pen in a moleskin like he uses, so it doesn't have the same smooth, dark quality his maps have. I prefer .5 for pretty much everything else, so I may have to snag a .7 somewhere just for this purpose, and draw on top of a few layers of paper.<br />
<br />
This reminded me of another artist's game maps that I've attempted to emulate in the past to mixed results. In the <i>WFRP</i> 1st Edition book <i>Death's Dark Shadow</i>, Ian Cooke had a cool way of representing forests in his maps. Here's a snippet from one of them:<br />
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I started doodling another map, using a technique similar to this to represent the earth and stone areas outside the dungeon walls. I'll have to scan it and post it here when I finish, since I think the concept I eventually emerged with was kind of fun. It's not done yet, though, so it'll have to wait until next time.<br />
<br />
Anyway, regarding this map: as I drew it out, it seemed to me that it was probably an underground shrine, either someplace that had been built on top of by folks who weren't too particular about preserving it, or perhaps deliberately hidden from surface detection by the worshipers who frequented it. As you can see from the old map symbols (at least, the ones included in Mentzer Red Box <i>Basic D&D</i>), the entrance is through a trap door in the ceiling of the domed shrine; presumably one uses a rope ladder or some similar contrivance to descend into it.<br />
<br />
One alternate possibility is that the chamber is entered via a magical mirror held by one of the statues in the alcoves there...<br />
<br />
What is that rough-hewn secret chamber for? Was that created by someone other than the shrine's architects?<br />
<br />
What caused the doorway to cave in? What was originally behind that door?<br />
<br />
What's the deal with the well that features a submerged [further] subterranean passage to the pool in the secret chamber? Is it some sort of trick where a con-man puts on a costume of some sort (kept in the chests), swims through the passage and emerges from the well into a dimly-lit chamber filled with hallucinogenic incense? Is that part of the initiation of acolytes? Or is it an escape route, should the shrine be invaded by the authorities? Or is the passage sloped so that coin offerings dropped into the well end up in the pool, to be collected by the priest later and gathered up into the chests?<br />
<br />
I dunno - you figure it out.Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-48467757028056013232011-04-08T13:01:00.000-07:002011-04-08T13:01:32.140-07:00HeroMachine 3While trying to figure out some character designs, I went through my bookmarks to call up the old HeroMachine 2.5 website, hoping to stir a bit of creativity and help me flesh some character design ideas I've been developing.<br />
<br />
Lo and behold, there is a Version 3 Alpha of the HeroMachine, and having created a character or four with it, I can confidently proclaim that verily, it rocketh. The improvements they've made on it are fantastic, allowing me to do a lot of things that the previous version didn't. The end result is not only a HeroMachine that has more options than before, but one which allows me to better manipulate what I put up on the screen.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.heromachine.com/heromachine-3-lab/">Check it out here</a>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc_G_WCNLKerAuKewpmhX5r50kmWWpirWewD0DiEIwdJroCBuY7RWC94Q5ghoNUzrgzaEHm7NQ_2Z800SwxM7aqON_1WKy7dcjyySa5F67Ke6jnNkiQjptY9MTTI3gmEQRr42AXsXz9fr3/s1600/Futura.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="400" width="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc_G_WCNLKerAuKewpmhX5r50kmWWpirWewD0DiEIwdJroCBuY7RWC94Q5ghoNUzrgzaEHm7NQ_2Z800SwxM7aqON_1WKy7dcjyySa5F67Ke6jnNkiQjptY9MTTI3gmEQRr42AXsXz9fr3/s400/Futura.jpg" /></a></div>Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-26191051924148771982011-04-03T15:13:00.000-07:002011-04-03T15:23:54.529-07:00Six (Well, Seven) Angry MenI finally got around to finishing the last drawing of the WWI soldiers from <i>No Man's Land</i>. In case you're interested, or ever feel like running the adventure yourself and don't like the original illustrations, feel free to use these. Looking over the descriptions in the character sheets again, I'm thinking Grimm should look uglier and Mason should be thinner, but oh, well. My drawings are closer than the original illustrations...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9GBq7bMguK9nXNeCu3WQZGVJ7TH2UL-8bvqGDliS3e7c9BOAkoEQ983jb6fSdi32NpbONQIuATOwoEJ6nyKsaSYyVtppkl0V5HjMrAtsS0ZPg-mY-CVDXaXzHKtwEkylzFmh2Jhty63T7/s1600/Cpl-Grimm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="247" width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9GBq7bMguK9nXNeCu3WQZGVJ7TH2UL-8bvqGDliS3e7c9BOAkoEQ983jb6fSdi32NpbONQIuATOwoEJ6nyKsaSYyVtppkl0V5HjMrAtsS0ZPg-mY-CVDXaXzHKtwEkylzFmh2Jhty63T7/s400/Cpl-Grimm.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXxk5BkeMzYh_ZeUWkf_pMWsP-Y57s3XZ8p0MK_Zwftb6Ptlcs5gX_SXaQsuWJUC5_c9bzl3cfkKogapHxrBD7tFtYgw5bbXQ1owJ7LQB23tkxOiUA-ZtWAJA2yLaDl4aySB3EZ0jDZCnH/s1600/Pvt-Martin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="247" width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXxk5BkeMzYh_ZeUWkf_pMWsP-Y57s3XZ8p0MK_Zwftb6Ptlcs5gX_SXaQsuWJUC5_c9bzl3cfkKogapHxrBD7tFtYgw5bbXQ1owJ7LQB23tkxOiUA-ZtWAJA2yLaDl4aySB3EZ0jDZCnH/s400/Pvt-Martin.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE2a0n5PY8sghGj4trROu_IldBPi0lrm9jaRJl90SQ9D7zpeVFu2goL6YcO7qrwD9dEF_Jrc1l8CEBPwBDPB_vHYApQLGGTF0LTlnzPZ-TczLDtObT_NaU17ueAwO1JX52eM4W6xo-nnkg/s1600/Pvt-Mason.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="247" width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE2a0n5PY8sghGj4trROu_IldBPi0lrm9jaRJl90SQ9D7zpeVFu2goL6YcO7qrwD9dEF_Jrc1l8CEBPwBDPB_vHYApQLGGTF0LTlnzPZ-TczLDtObT_NaU17ueAwO1JX52eM4W6xo-nnkg/s400/Pvt-Mason.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilaSxH26gtnJhXWu24ieuwe2vSb25N7Sae5p7arIaNrCXMtg1tgH8W4lycEvqAZ7suo3XG1CjYZFxzhdyjP1VN7Vf0JoQjwTYXtXZ01JSucnD1UKrqGNNBiNbfuCuiFvzD485lLyXLwYYC/s1600/Pvt-McNalley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="247" width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilaSxH26gtnJhXWu24ieuwe2vSb25N7Sae5p7arIaNrCXMtg1tgH8W4lycEvqAZ7suo3XG1CjYZFxzhdyjP1VN7Vf0JoQjwTYXtXZ01JSucnD1UKrqGNNBiNbfuCuiFvzD485lLyXLwYYC/s400/Pvt-McNalley.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJXhY1n422UUqJyzsdck9YbZplVolZ2TyDcbNvhtZ8facKh-CKI0PEYpmjedCKLF9tqZHpzJ2O297b6BoVKd6IJFmXdMK92Ggr1w8sZhqluGmlhh39BYKwTaG9xp1NoGGO9dYIK6SEuJZQ/s1600/Pvt-Ryan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="247" width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJXhY1n422UUqJyzsdck9YbZplVolZ2TyDcbNvhtZ8facKh-CKI0PEYpmjedCKLF9tqZHpzJ2O297b6BoVKd6IJFmXdMK92Ggr1w8sZhqluGmlhh39BYKwTaG9xp1NoGGO9dYIK6SEuJZQ/s400/Pvt-Ryan.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOiVsREulo8Gd6F6twbhLWoWQagN6uhT0X7cjhvXxsMuW4MYnfIm0GFjp6519StLtS3PHvWrjIi7w7j9ZahTxivcAfBo_yfm5HI_Aj2pc8z9ewR7dWhLWrAHzUHrDIuDRuuRtJ6uDCwGkT/s1600/Sgt-Maddox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="247" width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOiVsREulo8Gd6F6twbhLWoWQagN6uhT0X7cjhvXxsMuW4MYnfIm0GFjp6519StLtS3PHvWrjIi7w7j9ZahTxivcAfBo_yfm5HI_Aj2pc8z9ewR7dWhLWrAHzUHrDIuDRuuRtJ6uDCwGkT/s400/Sgt-Maddox.jpg" /></a></div><br />
You'd have to settle for one of the pre-gens being in a different outfit, though:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaFQ1H-a_maRUMmklCPAf8warMoJaJclSZoH4xZ82w4OG1oyh49rvA1nI_Q2TTxg3WmWa7tbUs7KWc2yH3FFe8T0s16SPyMILfIHGiadT3mR2XpujrzX6Fhd3JLQ39sGFe2ao0xWd66LcD/s1600/Pvt-Anthony-Bishop-1918.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="329" width="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaFQ1H-a_maRUMmklCPAf8warMoJaJclSZoH4xZ82w4OG1oyh49rvA1nI_Q2TTxg3WmWa7tbUs7KWc2yH3FFe8T0s16SPyMILfIHGiadT3mR2XpujrzX6Fhd3JLQ39sGFe2ao0xWd66LcD/s400/Pvt-Anthony-Bishop-1918.jpg" /></a></div>Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-67733726673015628412011-03-30T14:54:00.000-07:002011-03-30T15:12:19.024-07:00Call of Cthulhu: The Great WarPartially at the insistence of Mr. Slusser (and partly due to my sentiment that I've been waiting until his children were old enough that they could entertain themselves so we could play a horror RPG again as we did Back In The Day), I've started to run a <i>Call of Cthulhu</i> play-by-post game. The aforementioned Mr. Slusser has quite familiarized himself with Lovecraft's work recently, and for the longest time I've wanted to attempt to run a full <i>CoC</i> campaign. Whether this is a lofty or misguided desire remains to be seen, considering the infamous mortality rate of <i>CoC</i> Investigators, but I've long has a document on my hard drive putting published and amateur <i>CoC</i> adventures I own into chronological order. I've also got notes on their respective geographical locations and people/circumstances that said scenarios use to hook the PCs with. <i>CoC</i> scenarios are also well-known for MacGuffins like "You have a distant uncle who..." or "An old school chum writes..." so I thought it would be a good idea, were I to run a campaign, to have a listing of them all in order to more easily fit them into his character's background.<br />
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The other thing I've long wanted to do is begin the campaign with what must have been an event looming large (psychologically, if nothing else) in many 1920s Investigators' backgrounds: World War I. I long ago purchased the tournament scenario <i>No Man's Land</i>, which takes place in the Ardennes Forest in 1918. As it happens, I tried to run it - suggested props and all - for Slusser's bachelor party. We only got about a third of the way through the scenario, and because I insisted on keeping the windows open to let in the cold (as the scenario also suggests), he ended up with a sore throat. But I think we had some fun.<br />
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...and yes, I <i>am</i> a huge nerd, thank you for asking. I had the silly notion that a night of gaming with the groomsmen would be more representative of our bachelorhood than a night of uncomfortably avoiding each others' eyes as a San Bernardino stripper offered lapdances in a voice ragged from nicotine, with a grand finale of drunken vomiting in the parking lot at 3am.<br />
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Anyway. Despite the scenario's faults (and there are a few), I thought <i>No Man's Land</i> would be a great introduction to a campaign. So now I'm getting my chance. He's also agreed to use one of the pre-gen characters from the scenario, which I've tweaked in spots to better accommodate the aforementioned scenario hooks, relatives, etc. Since one of <i>NML</i>'s more glaring faults is, ahem, the artwork (which, apologies to the artist, is the worst illustrative work I've ever seen in <i>any</i> RPG product), I've taken the liberty of re-drawing the characters. That part has also proven to be lots of fun for me.<br />
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We talked about possible methods to play this game. Since Skype's been totally unreliable lately (delivering messages hours after they were posted, not informing each other when we're both online, etc.) and using it would require some schedule juggling, we opted for play-by-post. Despite using some fine sites for gaming in the past (Roleplay Online, Rondak's Portal), we thought that Google Docs would work well enough.<br />
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We've only just begun, but so far it's done a nice job. The newest iteration allows you to post comments in Post-It Note format off the right side of the document, highlighting the part of the text you're specifically commenting on. So I have text and pictures/illustrations either posted in the body of the text or linked to from these Comments. I can also post requests for dice rolls and rules discussions there. And, of course, when you share a document with your player(s), it lets you know when someone's updated the document (that is, posted their turn) by boldfacing the doc title on your Google Docs main page (it can also send you an email).<br />
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Where Google Docs is currently failing me is in regards to posting images. It used to allow you to wrap the text around your images, like one usually sees in books. However, in the latest version, this feature seems to have been removed for the most part. Now the picture you want to post has to sit on one line of text, meaning big, gaping blank spots. I don't understand how anyone at Google would think this was an improvement.<br />
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So now we're off, beginning in a foxhole on the Western Front in early October, 1918. We'll see how far our burgeoning Investigator gets!Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-2181992070763429542011-03-23T17:57:00.000-07:002011-03-23T17:58:56.703-07:00Quick PostJust a brief few words for right now. I'm about to drive back home for the evening, but the weather forecast looks pretty bleak for the rest of the week: snow, snow, and in case we didn't get the memo, snow.<br />
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The last few times it's snowed, our power has gone out (so if you don't see any new posts from me in the next day or two, you'll know it's because I'm cut off from the rest of the planet). My wife's grumbling aside, I've always enjoyed our power outages. Yeah, it sucks not to be able to go online or use my computer for longer than an hour before the battery dies, but I always enjoyed doing stuff by candlelight. Also, everyone comes into the living room to gather around the fireplace as the rest of the house gets cold, so it's a perfect excuse to, you know, interact with each other. And play games.<br />
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Nothing reminds me of Old School gaming like power outages, because they force me to remember what I used to spend my time doing before we had computers more advanced than a Commodore 64 and consoles better than an Atari 2600. And as much as I love my computer, the internet, and all the goodies those two combined give me as a gamer, there's nothing to compare with the feeling of writing up an adventure or drawing up a dungeon on graph paper by candlelight. That's some straight-up nostalgia there.<br />
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This time, we're going to be ready for the inevitable blackouts. My wife and I are stopping at Target on the way home to pick up a new edition of Trivial Pursuit. We played our old copy with my parents last blackout, and as it turns out none of us remember 1981 with much degree of clarity. This might surprise you to learn, but things that were considered trivial in '81 only become more trivial after three decades. Sadly, a cursory Bing search shows that Hasbro doesn't make the cards-only specialty sets for Trivial Pursuit any more, so we're going to have to buy the full game again if we want new questions. Oh, well - hopefully that'll set us up until 2041.Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-49800585042196486412011-03-13T20:50:00.000-07:002011-03-13T20:50:45.937-07:00Wyzards - 1st Session ReportI ran my first session of <i><b>Wyzards</b></i> for the boys last night, and they seemed to have a good time. We started a bit late for a variety of reasons, which is par for the course in my experience. Best the boys get used to that now. They had already been giving some thought to what characters they wanted to play. N created Kodo Sanslasher, Brass Mage, and C created Slando Klindoran, Red Mage. They seemed to enjoy describing details about their characters' personalities, appearance and assorted quirks, though there was some initial disappointment that I wasn't allowing anyone to play a werewolf or a wolf beastman (which had been the plan for the original game I was going to run, in a different gameworld). I explained a bit of background about the Order of the Ivory Citadel - having pictures helped immensely, as I suspected it would - but once again I was reminded of the fact that, while the boys may have been more interested in the background information than I believe my sister's kids would have been, it's still tough to get across all of the information I'm used to trying to convey. And the fact of the matter is, it's better to convey those details through gameplay rather than giving an infodump before anyone gets to do anything. I need to bear that in mind for future games, and not just the ones I run for the kids.<br />
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Anyway, once stats were rolled up (3d6, assigned by choice) and important details written down, we finally got underway. Our 1st-level Magi began a brief adventure within the walls of the Ivory Citadel, being fetched by a Green Robe apprentice they knew - named Sarai - who breathlessly asked them for help. She and her friend Ardil had been exploring the Lower Catacombs of the Citadel, a place clearly marked as off-limits, when the floor gave way and Ardil fell into a chamber beneath. The boys dutifully ran off to help. Dad created a Boggart character (more about this in my next post), but had to put his daughter to bed so he didn't play for long. After some time spent running up and down the massive Spiraling Stair (which I decided on the spur of the moment was the central connecting structure of the Citadel), visiting the laboratories and workshops of their respective masters, the Magi hammered an iron rod into the floor, tied a rope around it, and descended into the pitch-dark tunnels beneath. Finding that Ardil was nowhere to be seen, they explored further into the darkness. They spotted kobolds, avoided confronting any of them, and then discovered a giant fungal forest, lit by luminescent growths. By the end of the session, they had found that the missing apprentice had been somehow abducted by mushroom men (Myconids), who had him in some kind of hypnotic trance. Through use of their magic and stealth, they freed Ardil from his trance, but the myconids released spores of alarm, and bats began to descend from the darkness between the stalactites. <i>"...And that's where we'll stop for tonight!"</i><br />
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The boys were eager to use their spells, of course, and there were many moments where they thought to use spells to aid them only to discover that their spells didn't quite work the way they were hoping. For example, N wanted to use his <i>message</i> spell to tell Ardil they were looking for him, but unfortunately this would have required them to know where Ardil was. But N used his magic creatively and often; the next big challenge for him is going to be when he runs out of Mana Points in the next session, as he'd spent over half by this session's end. I don't recall whether C cast any spells at all this session, and for a guy playing what was basically a combat mage, he was always the first to suggest turning back and avoiding trouble. But perhaps it might make sense for a combat mage to realize the best way to win a fight is not to get in one at all...?<br />
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Two things cropped up that I wanted to note here because I've encountered them in all of the games I've run for kids.<br />
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First, the boys have a tendency to describe not only what their character does, but what happens after that. They've been made aware of the distinction between the role of Player and the role of GM, but they still slip every now and then and begin narrating results. This was something that my sister's kids did, too, and I had to keep reminding them that this wasn't how the game was played. There's a little indy gamer voice in the back of my head that tells me I shouldn't come down too hard on that desire, and to be honest I've tried to remain open-minded about that sort of thing. Once or twice I've taken some narration that they "suggested" and said, "Yeah, in fact, that's <i>exactly</i> what happens." But as Mr. Slusser pointed out to me a while ago, the boys are used to just narrating themselves out of story complications, and so playing in the traditional RPG mode should give them a bit of problem-solving discipline.<br />
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The other thing that came up - more with the Slusser boys than my sister's kids, though I've encountered it with other children as well - was a desire to roll on a stat for the sake of rolling on a stat, rather than just doing so when the GM called for it. I think what was happening was that, because I had called for them to make stat-based rolls in order to accomplish certain tasks, they got it into their heads that the key to dealing with failure was simply to roll again and hope for a better result, as opposed to trying something different. I don't mean that they weren't willing to try something more than once; I mean that they were slipping into metagame thinking, right down to the terms they used in describing what their characters would do: "I'm going to Dex-roll to get across the forest of mushrooms." Perhaps if I were to resort to die-rolling less often, it would encourage them to think in problem-solving terms? Yet everybody likes rolling dice, and I don't think I'm being excessive about it. I'm not certain, but it's a tendency I am curious about.Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-86177447024861202242011-03-09T09:40:00.000-08:002011-03-09T09:40:40.934-08:00Mana PointsI've had some thoughts about magic in my <i>Microlite20</i> games, especially in light of the <i><b>Wyzards</i></b> setting I came up with.<br />
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As written, <i>M20</i> uses a spell point system of sorts. It allows Mages access to all the spells in their level, but levies a point cost on every spell cast, to be subtracted from the Mage's Hit Points. I see how that can work conceptually, especially if you view Hit Points as a narrative abstraction - casting spells makes the Mage weaker, and if you cast enough spells he'll be utterly spent, falling unconscious. It reminds me a bit of hermetic magic in <i>Shadowrun</i>, where mages channel spell energy from the Astral Plane into the material plane by shooting it through their central nervous systems, an act which often results in physical trauma or Drain.<br />
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However, I can't say that I've ever been crazy about that rule in <i>M20</i>. Yes, it offers a limit to how many spells a Mage can cast in an encounter, but... I'm not sure. Something about it rubs me the wrong way, and I'm having a difficult time putting my finger on what it is.<br />
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So instead, when I ran <i>M20</i> for my sister's kids, I introduced the concept of Mana Points, drawing from <i>GURPS Magic</i> and World of Warcraft. It's a spell-point system in which you have a number of Mana Points equal to your Hit Points, though they're tallied separately from HP. Thus, you can expend your personal reservoir of magical energy but still be on your feet and able to fight or run as the situation demands.<br />
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It's possible that this introduces a game-imbalancing element. I'm not really mechanics-savvy enough to know, personally, though right now I can recall reading an early interview with Gary Gygax in which he expressed his dislike of spell point mechanics for precisely that reason. Having said that, this doesn't bother me overmuch. My players generally care far more about character concept over mechanical advantage, so if they have a Fighter character in mind, that's what they're going to play, regardless of whether a Cleric might perform better, for example.<br />
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Continuing with the concept of Mana Points, I thought that my <i><b>Wyzards</i></b> setting, with its emphasis on Mage characters, could benefit from a few more options.<br />
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Mana Points are primarily recovered through rest. In the world of <i><b>Wyzards</i></b>, there are other methods by which one can acquire MP.<br />
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Drawing inspiration from <i>WFRP</i>, <i>GURPS</i> and <i>Ars Magica</i>, and supplements like Ronin Arts' <i>101 Arcane Spell Components Revised</i>, here are some of the possibilities I came up with:<br />
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<b>Mana Regions.</b> Certain areas "generate" more mana than others; in in-game terms, they are magical places: secluded waterfalls, ancient standing stones, deep dark forest groves, etc. A Mage can draw mana from these places to fuel his spells. Some regions are aspected toward one particular college of magic or purpose - a mouldering graveyard under the light of the full moon might offer mana only for Necromancy spells. The site of a historic siege might yield mana for Abjuration spells.<br />
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<b>Material Components.</b> I've always liked the idea of material components, though I've never actually run a game in which I forced a player to keep track of such things. This option adds it as a possibility that a player might want to take advantage of, since it would improve his character's spellcasting ability. Like mana regions, certain items and artifacts attract mana to themselves, which can be withdrawn by a Mage. They might operate much like mana regions, with aspected mana and so on, but it might be more fun to add some other effects, like increasing spell duration or range, or just snazzy special effects. Like material components in <i>AD&D</i>, the items might be consumed in the casting. I'll probably decide that on a case-by-case basis.<br />
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<b>Unraveling.</b> Mages might be able to draw mana out of their own souls, doing damage to themselves in the process. This is kind of a last-ditch effort to get mana, for use in those times when you're down to 0 MP and something's about to cave in your skull. It would cause Hit Point loss as per <i>M20</i> RAW, but to make it more interesting it might also cause other problems, such as troubling dreams, a weakening of the constitution or will, an increased susceptibility to enchantment or possession, or something else.<br />
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In regards to spell choice, since I'm going with an organization that stresses the different Colleges of magic, I think I'm going to need a greater selection of spells to begin the game with. I want to be sure that someone who specializes in, say, Abjuration, doesn't end up shortchanged compared to a Necromancer or Evoker. I've certainly got enough supplements to find the spells necessary to fill that need, so I doubt that will be a problem. In <i>M20</i>, Mages can cast any spell of a level equal to or below 1/2 their class level, rounded up. The RAW specifies that just because a Mage can cast any spell, it doesn't mean he should, and I embrace that philosophy. I want a Mage's spells to reflect his College/Order of choice, just as I would want a Cleric's spells (prayers, miracles, whatever - I've never liked the terms "cleric spells" or "divine magic") to be appropriate for their patron deity. So adding to the list of available spells should assist me in accomplishing this.<br />
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I decided in my last <i>M20</i> game that Mages would begin the game with a repertoire of spells equal to half their Mind score, and I think I'll stick with that. Magi of the Ivory Citadel always begin with <i>arcane mark</i>, <i>detect magic</i> and <i>read magic</i>; the rest of the spells are up to the player. However, for the purposes of running this game for Slusser's sons, I think I'll choose their spells for them ahead of time. This time around, I'd like to get the game started as soon as possible, and I know they could easily get bogged down in spell selection. There'll also be the temptation for the boys to select the same spells as each other - which admittedly may be less of a possibility in a <i><b>Wyzards</b></i> game than it would have been in the straight <i>M20</i> game I ran for my sister's kids - so I want to be sure that each character will have their own specialties and "signature" spells to make them feel unique and complimentary to each other. Maybe next time I'll let them look over the spell lists and choose their own.<br />
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One of the things I'm looking forward to doing with this game is inspiring the PCs to look for spellbooks and lost lore in order to obtain new spells. I've always liked that idea, but again, I've never really been in the position to introduce that into a game.<br />
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I'm considering one last change to the <i>M20</i> rules, which I did with my nephew and nieces. Instead of the three attributes Strength, Dexterity and Mind, I think I'd like to have the full six attributes of regular <i>D&D</i>. Part of the reason is that I like the granularity (if that's the right word) that mechanically represents a more varied range of personalities and traits. The other part of the reason is that I remember RPGs - <i>AD&D</i> especially, with its Gygaxian prose - being responsible for increasing my vocabulary. I'd like to encourage the kids to learn words like "Constitution", "Dexterity" and "Charisma".<br />
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I'm also going to stick with the Old School Style rules, eschewing Skills for Primary/Secondary/Minor skill rolls, based on the descriptions of the characters' interests, hobbies and specializations. This should encourage the boys to think more about their characters' identities and personalities (which has never really been a problem for them, in my experience) and further avoid the homogeneity that could arise from both of them playing Mages.Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-62297581623868883872011-03-06T22:47:00.000-08:002011-03-06T23:41:48.844-08:00Wyzards<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyE2IHE08tTIOS_x9F6DPBYLJs6yME-ejkocMT7ONtgVS8_EDF3mnxm-AVzMlJ8Sdx8nD_mz8YcOtlMLRc9bBu0bvZwIit6m7GTGOQqay7YkGXzxNXi1GWmPUSbdspj1zjjzIO1VBLDvCC/s1600/Wizards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="286" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyE2IHE08tTIOS_x9F6DPBYLJs6yME-ejkocMT7ONtgVS8_EDF3mnxm-AVzMlJ8Sdx8nD_mz8YcOtlMLRc9bBu0bvZwIit6m7GTGOQqay7YkGXzxNXi1GWmPUSbdspj1zjjzIO1VBLDvCC/s400/Wizards.jpg" /></a></div><br />
My friend's sons have been getting into the <i>Harry Potter</i> books.<br />
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We had a snowstorm last weekend that knocked out our power for a few days. My sister's kids (ages 9, 9 and 6) came over and I ran a <i>Microlite20 Old School Style</i> game for them (though I just called it "Dungeons & Dragons" and felt quite good doing so), which we all enjoyed. Well, I enjoyed it up until they started getting goofy and sabotaging each other's attempts to escape a cell they'd been imprisoned in. But we'd been playing for about four hours by then, which is a pretty long time to get a 9 year-old to focus on one activity aside from watching TV or playing video games, it seems to me, so I count the experience as positive overall.<br />
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Anyway, having had this experience, I've been in the mood to run the game for my friend's sons. We've roleplayed before - <i>Teenagers From Outer Space</i> and <i>Earthdawn</i> - though I don't think I've actually run a game for them yet. When Cataclysm came out for WoW, they got excited about the idea of playing Worgen characters. They've also been interested in our fantasy LARP, which includes animal-based Beastmen, so it made sense to me to run a game for them set in Xaria, the setting of our LARP. That way, they could become more familiar with the setting and thus be groomed for the day when they're ready to start as LARP players*, and they would also have an in-game excuse for being anthropomorphic wolves.<br />
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Anyway, back to whatever this has to do with Harry Potter.<br />
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While I was toying with the idea of running said <i>D&D</i> game for the boys, I was made aware of their recent interest in the Potterverse and so I began to think about a fantasy setting in which the primary focus was an order of Wizards. <br />
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I liked the idea of different Houses, each with its own character, history, philosophy and so on. I looked at a variety of games and settings that include this concept: <i>Redhurst Academy of Magic</i>, <i>Ars Magica's</i> Order of Hermes, <i>WFRP's</i> Imperial Colleges of Magic, to mention the ones that influenced me the most.<br />
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(I also looked at <i>GURPS Witch World's</i> color-based colleges of magic, but in the end I concluded that I specifically wanted a <i>D&D</i> world, and so the division that made the most sense was along the lines of <i>D&D</i> magical schools. This is not the time to go fiddling with the <i>D&D</i> magic system...)<br />
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I went back to <i>The Complete Wizard's Handbook</i> for <i>2nd Edition AD&D</i>, and began scouring that book for its suggestions of what the personality types of different specialist Mages would be like. I incorporated those ideas into the ones I'd already started developing based on my own preconceived notions and the inspirations I'd gotten from <i>WFRP</i> and <i>Ars Magica</i>. A couple of the names, like Aegis and Mordant, are straight from <i>Redhurst</i>. <br />
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I'm not 100% happy with it yet (for example, Volkheart sounds too close to Voldemort for my liking), and I haven't decided anything about the world in which this order would be set, whether I would use something pre-made, modify an existing setting I already have, or make something out of whole cloth, etc. The cosmology so far is heavily cribbed from <i>Witch World</i>, with its palpable presence of Light and Shadow (I'll probably include Quan Iron, as well, just because I've always liked the idea), but still requiring a few other details to flesh out. Something else I need to consider is whether this means that the vast majority of Wyzards are specialist mages, and mages which draw from all of the colleges of magic are rare prodigies?<br />
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Granted, it's not necessary to come up with everything right now, and if I were to run this for my friend's sons, I don't know how much the boys would even be interested in that kind of background stuff. I feel like those details would certainly have been lost on my sister's kids, who played characters like "Merlin, Jr." and "Harry Potter the Girl" (yes, that <i>was</i> what Niece #2 named her character. I'll have to make a post in the future about that game session). But it does make <i>me</i> happy to create it.<br />
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Also, as I was working on this stuff, I happened across this <a href="http://www.rpg.net/columns/soap/soap163.phtml">analysis of alignment in the Potterverse</a> written by Sandy Antunes, and came to realize how well it works. As much as I like the ninefold alignment system of <i>AD&D-3.5e</i>, I have to admit this four-fold system intrigues me, and meshes nicely with the Four Humours...<br />
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Nonetheless, here are the results of my brainstorming, for your perusal:<br />
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<b>WYZARDS</b><br />
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<b>Wyzards</b> is a <i>D&D</i> game world centered around the exploits of the Magi of the Ivory Citadel and their fight against their ancient enemies, the Shadow-Brethren of the Eldritch Oath.<br />
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The Magi of the Ivory Citadel is an ancient order of wizards devoted to protecting the land from all manner of non-political dangers. It was formed ages ago by a council of independent wizards who believed that magic was too volatile and dangerous to be learned without being accompanied by a guiding philosophy. And so these founders - the original White Magi, the Archmagi of the White Robes - created the eight Colleges of Magic, though each College came to be associated with their names. The Magi wear different colors to signify their House affiliation, though individual fashion choices vary widely between idiosyncratic and eccentric wizards. The one color they do not wear, however, is black; black signifies the Shadow. House Mordant once wore black robes, but after a great betrayal rent the order, they renounced them forever, wearing humble brown robes instead.<br />
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<b>The Magi of the Ivory Citadel</b><br />
The Magi are a collection of Orders - sometimes called Houses - governed by the Archmagi of the White Robes. Each Order is represented by an Archmage of that house; when one retires or dies, the other Archmagi elect the most appropriate member of the old Archmage’s Order to replace him.<br />
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Each Order is named for its original founding member.<br />
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<i><b>The Amaranthine Order of Aegis</b></i><br />
Also known as the Violet Robes, House Aegis specializes in Abjuration, protective magic. They are responsible for the protective magics that shroud the Ivory Citadel. Violet Magi think of themselves as protectors, with a heroic mindset but an unfortunate tendency to try to control others "for the greater good." On the whole they are thoughtful, orderly, gentle and soft-spoken, going out of their way not to attract attention. They care a great deal about family, compassion and selflessness.<br />
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<i><b>The Xanthous Order of Fabricae</i></b><br />
The Golden Robes specialize in Conjuration. They are often the mouthpiece of the Order to the outside world, assisting in travel, carrying messages to far-off places and acting as ambassadors to the nobility. They tend toward arrogance and smugness, but are also confident, courageous and bright. They show a definite tendency toward laziness as they grow further along in their studies - anything worth doing can be accomplished through the use of summoned creatures and teleportation.<br />
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<i><b>The Cerulean Order of Oculus</i></b><br />
The Blue Robes specialize in Divination. They are quite knowledgeable in many lores, cautious and deliberate in their actions, and strikingly insightful into the workings of men's minds. As a result, House Oculus is best known for its Inquisitors, who police the Ivory Citadel for wrongdoers. Perhaps the wisest of all wizards, Blue Magi are loners at heart who do not make close friends easily, and many have succumbed to cynicism and distrust due to the things their divinations have revealed about the nature of men. But all are respected for their ability to see what is yet to come.<br />
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<i><b>The Verdant Order of Ynamor</i></b><br />
The Green Robes specialize in Enchantment. Ynamor was an Elf, and his legacy lives on in the Verdant Order, which maintains close ties to the mysterious realm of the Fey. The Green Magi tend to be charismatic, physically attractive people; sensitive, passionate and caring, but given to romanticism that easily leads to hedonistic tendencies. They believe in the sanctity of life and nature. They are commonly one of the voices of reason in the Order. They also share ambassadorial duties with the Gold Magi.<br />
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<i><b>The Crimson Order of Volkheart</i></b><br />
Also known as the Red Robes, House Volkheart specializes in Evocation. The Crimson Order produces many powerful magi, the most respected of which are the battlemages known as the Knights of the Staff, or the Wizards Militant. They are serious-minded, intense and determined wizards, but are often overeager to prove themselves in combat. They are natural leaders, fearless and authoritative; however, in terms of personality they tend to be introspective and emotionally distant.<br />
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<i><b>The Mazarine Order of Chimaeron</i></b><br />
The Indigo Robes specialize in Illusion. They are known for two things: their extensive spy networks and their boisterous parties. They tend to be flamboyant and outgoing, remarkably creative and well-versed in the arts. Though possessed of sharp minds, they are not particularly deep thinkers; pragmatists by nature, believing in little but the impermanence of all things.<br />
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<i><b>The Umber Order of Mordant</i></b><br />
Also known as the Brown Robes, Mordant Magi are Necromancers. They are often misunderstood and blamed for evildoing and corruption even within the Ivory Citadel. In truth, they know better than anyone the dangers that the Shadow poses, as they are tempted by it daily but also see its pitfalls firsthand. They have a spirit of competition which leads them to seek out conflict, much like the Red Magi, but their pride has been laid low in the past. They fight against the Shadow-Brethren with greater zeal than any other Order.<br />
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<i><b>The Ocherous Order of Thauvissus</i></b><br />
Traditionally House Thauvissus has been named for their Saffron Robes, but in recent generations they have tended more and more toward the wearing of Brass, taking on a steampunk appearance. They specialize in Transmutation, and are typically curious, sharp-minded and deeply analytical. They are natural tinkerers, more interested in objects than people. The Brass Mages are alchemists and inventors without peer, obsessive collectors and clear thinkers, but they do not much care for discussions of morality and ethics, seeing such things as entirely dependent upon existing conditions which are seldom permanent.<br />
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<b>The Shadow-Brethren of the Eldritch Oath</b><br />
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The Shadow-Brethren, also known as the Shadow-sworn, are the dark reflection of the Magi of the Ivory Citadel. They exist in opposition to the philosophies of the Magi, seeing them as tyrants, meddlers and misguided fools. Though they are often scattered across the known lands, forming cells, cults, covens and coteries to avoid detection and infiltration, they generally operate with a loose hierarchy, as they all serve the Twilight Court of Shadow.<br />
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The Eldritch Oath to which their full title refers is an ancient dark pact that each member of the Brethren has taken. They have pledged to serve the Twilight Court, the Shadow Masters, demons and devils who inhabit the realm of Shadow and long to cover the world in darkness. The Shadow-Brethren are their eyes, mouths and hands, always doing their bidding even when they believe themselves to be acting of their own volition.<br />
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The Shadow-Brethren often possess personality traits that are the skewed, sinful versions of their Ivory Citadel opponents (something akin to Antitribu from <i>Vampire: The Masquerade</i> - as I understand it).<br />
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<i>*It should be noted that they have actually participated in our LARP, but only as NPCs.</i>Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-17935730377131341702011-03-04T15:51:00.000-08:002011-03-06T23:42:54.818-08:00Go Play OSR!Yeah, it's been over a year since I posted here. That's not because I haven't been gaming, I'm pleased to say, but blogging has taken a backseat to living life. <br />
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That's the excuse I'm going with, anyway.<br />
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The truth of the matter is that when I first began blogging years ago, I did so because I had moved across the country from my friends and family in order to attend art school, and blogging was a pleasant way to let them know what was going on in my life. Since I've graduated and returned to my home state, I haven't felt as much need to type lengthy descriptions of my day-to-day life. With Facebook and Twitter, I feel even less of a need to devote time to such efforts.<br />
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But the nice thing about having a game blog is that it gives me a place to put my thoughts where others might see them. Yeah, sure, part of it is sheer vanity - every gamer has a desire to share the fruits of their creativity with others and receive some kind of recognition for being the innovative genius they always thought they were. But also, quite sincerely, I don't know if I'll ever use a lot of the ideas I get, so hopefully by putting them out here in the ether, someone will find them and get some use out of them even if I don't.<br />
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Anyway, back to the look of things. Blogger has made some nice changes since the last time I was here, so I've cobbled together a new banner which is probably too big and doesn't show any gaming paraphernalia. I've changed the body font to something with serifs and the title fonts to some pleasantly <i>Warhammer</i>-ish typefaces. I'll probably get around to updating my links before long.<br />
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One other new thing is the "Freak Flags" I've hung up in the top right corner. The one on the right is an older one: it's the "Go Play" logo, which identifies me as a roleplaying gamer, inside an icthyus symbol, identifying me as a Christian. The basic philosophy of Go Play (which is discussed at some length <a href="http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=280355">here</a>; the last post on page 8 is a fine summary) is essentially this: games were meant for playing, so go play them! It's not meant as a slam on those who are discussing their favorite games, or those who are prevented from playing due to their circumstances, but rather it's a light-hearted reminder of what we were meant to do with these things. It's also a kick in my own pants to remind me not to get caught up in the potentially endless process of game prep, the irrational "stage fright"-like fear of pre-game jitters, and other mental traps. No game will be perfect, and the games in which I have to improvise usually end up being the more fun and exciting ones. So <i>go play!</i><br />
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The symbol on the left is much newer, and might require a bit of unpacking. OSR means Old School Renaissance or Old School Rules (or a dozen other terms); Bing it and you'll find a slew of blogs written by people who are playing older editions of <i>Dungeons & Dragons</i>, as well as a lot of other "old school" games, like <i>Runequest</i> and <i>Classic Traveller</i>. Recently a discussion began within these circles, spearheaded by the likes of <a href="http://xbowvsbuddha.blogspot.com/2011/02/d-is-dead.html">Dr. Rotwang!</a>, <a href="http://jrients.blogspot.com/2011/03/ampersand.html">Jeff Rients</a>, <a href="http://originaleditionfantasy.blogspot.com/2011/03/osr-manifesto.html">Thomas Denmark</a> and others, in which the future of the <i>Dungeons & Dragons</i> brand is considered an entirely separate, unconnected entity to the game itself. WotC can do what they like with the brand, but what we're playing - be it the original white box <i>D&D</i>, <i>BECMI</i>, <i>AD&D</i> 1st or 2nd Edition, or even 3e/3.5 - is no less "Dungeons & Dragons" than the edition currently in print.<br />
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I happen to agree with the sentiments in this discussion. As I discussed to some small degree <a href="http://headofvecna.blogspot.com/2009/03/modeling-after-mmorpgs.html">in an earlier post</a>, I didn't buy 4e when it came out, and I'm still not really interested in it. When WotC abruptly ceased selling older edition material in PDF format, it really felt like they were telling us they weren't interested in our money any longer. As others have stated, it felt like they fired us as customers. I'm not saying this to stir rancor with newer players or people who have made the jump to 4e and have never looked back. I'm totally uninterested in Edition Wars. If you enjoy playing 4th edition, <i>awesome</i> - more power to you.<br />
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Like the Go Play symbol, the OSR logo isn't meant to be a slam against those who play and enjoy 4th Edition <i>D&D</i>, or any edition that may come after it. Instead, as Thomas Demnark outlined, it's meant to represent that:<br />
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<blockquote><i>1. The product is compatible with the original white box (or wood-grain box) edition of the worlds first and most famous fantasy RPG.<br />
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2. That's it.</i></blockquote><br />
As he explained in the comments section on that thread,<br />
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<blockquote><i>I see it as a group of people still passionate about the game they fell in love with as a kid. The only unifying factor being that it all sprouted from that little white box published in '74.</i></blockquote><br />
The symbol was originally created by <a href="http://maximumrockroleplaying.blogspot.com/2010/07/osr-logo.html">Chad Thorson</a>, who generously suggested that anyone who wanted to use it or modify it was free to do so. The version I have here is one I modified to my liking, with a parchment background and some graph paper within the letters OSR to represent the dungeon-crawling, mapping, graphic roots iconic to Old School gaming.<br />
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My posting it on this blog basically means I prefer to play older editions of <i>Dungeons & Dragons</i>, as well as being interested in other out-of-print games. The material I post here may be for any number of game systems, though admittedly the majority of what I post will be system-agnostic. I'm not really a crunch-and-mechanics guy.<br />
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To me, though, the OSR symbol also embraces an underlying philosophy, as Rotwang! said: games which are no longer supported by the companies that published them aren't "dead." So long as you keep running your old game with your friends, that game is <i>alive</i>.Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-57088855495590794262010-01-22T15:02:00.000-08:002010-01-22T15:09:21.941-08:00Gamers Helping HaitiI learned of this through <a href="http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/">Fear the Boot</a>, my favorite gaming podcast.<br /><br /><a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/rpg_haiti.php?&SRC=haiti#prodlist">DriveThruRPG</a> is offering a huge deal through the rest of January called Gamers Help Haiti. By donating $20 (which will go to Doctors Without Borders), you will receive a free bundle of PDF gaming material worth over $1000, including the <span style="font-style:italic;">Serenity</span> RPG and the <span style="font-style:italic;">Cortex</span> RPG System book (the system <span style="font-style:italic;">Serenity</span> uses), <span style="font-style:italic;">Chronica Feudalis</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Dork Covenant</span> (the first <a href="http://www.dorktower.com/">Dork Tower</a> comic collection), and a bunch of other cool-looking stuff.<br /><br />So far they've raised $93,560 to help Haiti. Pretty sweet!Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-54796455634002053752009-07-05T22:18:00.000-07:002009-07-05T22:48:29.927-07:00The Fourth World, For The Third TimeToday I learned that one of my original gaming group's old standbys, <span style="font-style:italic;">Earthdawn</span>, is going to be seeing a new edition. Mongoose Publishing, a British game company known primarily for producing D20 games based on properties such as <span style="font-style:italic;">Babylon 5</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Slaine</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Starship Troopers</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Conan</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Judge Dredd</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Lone Wolf</span>, will be producing <span style="font-style:italic;">Earthdawn Third Edition</span> sometime later this year. There was a time when this would have made me somewhat concerned, as Mongoose's early D20 books were a little sloppily edited and characterized with the sort of large font sizes that were typical of, say, AEG's <span style="font-style:italic;">7th Sea</span>. But Mongoose seems to be doing well with the newest iteration of <span style="font-style:italic;">Traveller</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Paranoia</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">RuneQuest</span>, which uses their own systems, and despite their good intentions, I think it would be difficult to disappoint to the degree that Living Room Games did with <span style="font-style:italic;">Earthdawn 2nd Edition</span>. <br /><br />Mongoose has PDF previews available on <a href="http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/detail.php?qsID=1700">their website</a>. I haven't yet looked closely at what snippets they've shown (which includes a table of contents) so I'm unaware of what changes they'll be making to the rules. But they've already taken a step in the right direction by having Jeff Laubenstein design the covers of the <span style="font-style:italic;">Player's Guide</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Gamemaster's Guide</span> (and dang, they look cool).<br /><br />Prior to this, <a href="http://www.earthdawn.com/">RedBrick Limited</a> had been keeping the flame alive, is it were, and doing quite well. The quality of their work has been consistently high, and I've been glad to hear of their adoption of <span style="font-style:italic;">Fading Suns</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Blue Planet</span>, dead games with brilliant settings. Unfortunately, they're based in New Zealand, and with the price hike for printing through Lulu, purchasing their books hasn't really been a possibility for me. Furthermore, with the change of hands, RedBrick will be phasing out the availability of their <span style="font-style:italic;">Earthdawn Classic</span> publications. The two core books (which are the most expensive) will only be available until the end of this month. While I would very much like to purchase them both before then, I honestly don't know if I can swing that. It would be hard to justify to my wife when I already own the original books. I've wanted to see how RedBrick re-organized the rules for some time now.<br /><br />On the plus side, while the Mongoose books will likely be expensive, at least they should be available at game stores in the U.S., so it's conceivable that I'll be able to purchase them with Christmas money or something.Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-15361664251560204332009-03-25T23:57:00.000-07:002009-03-26T01:19:51.822-07:00The 'Good' Old DaysI recently came into possession of a few PDF scans of the very first issues of <span style="font-style:italic;">Dragon Magazine</span>, back in the 1970s when it was known as <span style="font-style:italic;">The Dragon</span>. It featured authors such as Fritz Leiber* and Gardner Fox coupled with some truly awful artwork and articles that really demonstrate how the roleplaying game in those days was only just beginning to distinguish itself from the wargaming hobby.<br /><br />On one hand, you've got interesting articles describing how to wargame the Battle of Five Armies from <span style="font-style:italic;">The Hobbit</span>, or innovative tables to determine the circumstances of a character's birth. On the other hand, you've got some striking relics of the era, such as a cartoon poking fun at the recycling craze (adventurers run from a "Recyclosaurus", who wears a t-shirt that reads 'Ecology Now!' and munches on a can of 'Tree Frog Beer'), and truly odd articles like "The Idiot Class", which describes an NPC that player characters can hire "to confuse the enemy so that it will run away, attack a wall, commit Hari Kari, eat all its treasure or some related act, just so it will not attack the troop." Suddenly <span style="font-style:italic;">Gamma World</span> seems like a pillar of sanity.<br /><br />Lest we forget that there was a time when gaming was an almost exclusively male hobby (and, as the TV show "Life On Mars" tries to tell us, the 70s were a very different culture), one needs only look to a truly insulting article titled "Notes on Women & Magic - Bringing the Distaff Gamer into <span style="font-style:italic;">D&D</span>". The author stipulates that female characters should not be able to fight as well as their male counterparts (though they "in some ways surpass men as thieves"; mid-level female thieves get to be titled "Succubus." Was the author in the middle of a nasty divorce?), and that the Charisma ability score should be replaced by <span style="font-style:italic;">Beauty</span>, which is "important to thieves, fighters and magic users." It is further noted that "Clerics may not use beauty if they are lawful or neutral. Chaotic clerics may use their beauty score." "Fighting Women (warriors) may incorporate the spells of Seduction, Charm Men or <span style="font-style:italic;">Charm Humanoid Monster</span> depending upon their level and beauty scores (see spells of seduction, et al). Women's strength scores range from 2-14." <span style="font-style:italic;">(Emphasis mine)</span><br /><br />In case you were wondering what 'Humanoid Monsters' might include, here's the list given: "Hobgoblins, Ogres, Trolls, Giants, Mummies, Vampires, Gargoyles, WereWolves (either shape), Werebear (man only), Lizard Men and Centaurs."<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">...Dang.</span> I don't know what women do for mummies, exactly, or why wolves are turned on by women while bears aren't, but I don't really feel like speculating.<br /><br />Perhaps it's telling that in a number of the illustrations there is a recurring character who looks like a fairyland elf (you know, the kind with pointy shoes and hat that peaks in a curl?) and is always smoking some sort of hallucinogenic substance from a <span style="font-style:italic;">suspiciously</span>-shaped pipe...<br /><br /><br /><br />*A surreal and amusing article where he tries to explain wargaming to Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. <br /><br />One of my favorite lines: <span style="font-style:italic;">"Oh, so they fight only with their minds?" Fafhrd said. "That sounds sick to me. I keep my mind solely for enshrining the images of beautiful women."</span><br /><br />Also: <span style="font-style:italic;">"About these wargamers or mind-fighters," the Mouser said, turning back to me. "I'll wager some of 'em aren't above using a real knife under the table, especially if the games goes against 'em."<br /><br />"A man could keep on playing a table game, though hamstrung," Fafhrd put in.</span>Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-92094969358103076552009-03-23T19:08:00.000-07:002009-03-23T19:58:19.027-07:00Modeling After MMORPGsThere's been a lot of talk about how <span style="font-style:italic;">4th Edition D&D</span> attempts to emulate many of the features of MMORPGs. I don't have any firsthand experience of this; I haven't played <span style="font-style:italic;">4th Edition</span>, and my decision to pass on the entire thing was based on a lack of disposable income and the realization that I already have all of the editions of <span style="font-style:italic;">D&D</span> I'll ever need to play <span style="font-style:italic;">D&D</span>. I've got Moldvay <span style="font-style:italic;">Basic/Expert D&D</span> and a half-dozen variants on it (<span style="font-style:italic;">Labyrinth Lord</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Basic Fantasy</span>, etc.) if I want a simple, nostalgic game, I've got <span style="font-style:italic;">True20</span> if I want a simple version of <span style="font-style:italic;">d20</span>, I've got <span style="font-style:italic;">Microlite20</span> if I want a REALLY simple version of <span style="font-style:italic;">d20</span>, I've got <span style="font-style:italic;">OSRIC</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Swords & Wizardry</span> if I want a REALLY nostalgic game...and I've got <span style="font-style:italic;">D&D 3e</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">3.5</span>, with about a million supplements for that system.<br /><br />So I didn't really feel a need to remain cutting-edge. In fact, I rather enjoy being a little behind the times, because all of the books I use suddenly start getting cheaper.<br /><br />Back to the point, one of the complaints people seem to have with <span style="font-style:italic;">4th Edition</span> is that it attempts to emulate many aspects of "World of Warcraft" and other MMORPGs. While I'm sure you could easily look up any number of threads about this on RPGnet's <span style="font-style:italic;">d20</span> forum (though I'm guessing you'll have to navigate a fair amount of flames), the gist of it seems to be that a) there are things a pen-and-paper RPG can do that a computer game can't, and b) vice-versa. Trying to mold a PnP RPG after a computer game may be an exercise in futility; if the idea is to attract MMORPG players to the tabletop gaming hobby, why present them with a product that tries do what their computer-based game does better? Wouldn't it be better to focus on the unique aspects of tabletop gaming?<br /><br />Well, people seem to react both ways - some people like it, others hate it. My impressions after reading some of these reviews put me in the camp of "I'd play if someone wanted to run it, but I'm not interested in buying it, much less running it." Still, I'm intrigued by the idea of adopting certain aspects of MMORPGs to tabletop games.<br /><br />Leave it to <a href="http://paizo.com/">Paizo Publishing</a> to come up with an interesting way of accomplishing this. For those outside the loop, Paizo is a company that took over the publishing of <span style="font-style:italic;">Dragon</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Dungeon</span> magazines when <span style="font-style:italic;">3rd Edition D&D</span> came out. The quality of that venerable company organ boosted noticeably; the artwork was gorgeous, the articles were interesting, the adventures were interesting, and the entire enterprise was given a much-needed injection of fun. Shortly before <span style="font-style:italic;">4th Edition</span> was formally announced (if I'm remembering my timeline correctly), Wizards of the Coast decided to repossess both publications from Paizo in preparation to take the magazines to an online-only format. I think. I haven't really kept up with what WotC did with them after getting them back from Paizo. Anyway, shortly after that came WotC's decision to leave the Open Gaming License and the <span style="font-style:italic;">d20 System</span> behind, and the ultimatum to third-party publishers: you can publish works for <span style="font-style:italic;">4th Edition</span> (the GSL, I think is what that license is called) <span style="font-style:italic;">or</span> for d20/OGL, but not both. While most companies took the <span style="font-style:italic;">4th Edition</span> route, Paizo seemed to think there was still a large enough market for d20 (possibly based on the sizable outcry that <span style="font-style:italic;">4th Edition</span> came too soon / <span style="font-style:italic;">3.5</span> is good enough for me) and stuck with the OGL. They published the <span style="font-style:italic;">Pathfinder RPG</span>, what they describe as "<span style="font-style:italic;">D&D 3.75</span>". While the rules have met with a bit of criticism for being even more "overpowered" than its predecessor, the quality of Paizo's design and content seems to have made this a feasible business decision.<br /><br />One of the nice things Paizo does is periodically send out free PDF preview copies of upcoming publications. They did this with the <span style="font-style:italic;">Pathfinder RPG</span>, and more recently, they've done it with their campaign setting book, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Legacy of Fire Player's Guide</span>. Aside from being a fantastic model for how to make a player's guide to a campaign world, <span style="font-style:italic;">Legacy of Fire</span> introduces something they explicitly describe as MMORPG-inspired: Achievement Feats. My knee-jerk reaction is to say, "<span style="font-style:italic;">This</span> is how you adapt ideas from MMORPG mechanics to a tabletop medium." It takes the <span style="font-style:italic;">3rd Edition</span> concept of Feats - special abilities that characters can do that are kind of like skills or powers or spells, which you accumulate as you progress in level - and adds a "World of Warcraft"-inspired twist: Achievement Feats are feats your character can earn by accomplishing certain tasks in the campaign, just like Achievements in "WoW". For example, you can earn "Healer's Touch" after curing a cumulative total of 1,000 hit points of damage for other creatures using healing spells; this feat treats your healing spells as if they were Maximized (as per the Maximize Spell feat), so long as they are cast upon others. "All Gnolls Must Die" can be earned if your character delivers the killing blow to 20 gnolls, hyenas, dire hyenas, werehyenas, jackalweres, or minions of Lamashtu; as long as you carry some sort of trophy harvested from a gnoll, you gain a morale bonus to all your Will saves and a competence bonus when fighting that variety of monster. They're not game-breaking, and while they require a bit more bookkeeping and planning on the part of the player who wants to attain them, Achievement Feats can be used by a creative GM to encourage PCs to accomplish something pertinent to their campaign.<br /><br />I thought that was pretty sweet.Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-3020702768012337912009-02-21T18:46:00.001-08:002009-02-21T18:47:20.317-08:00Level 1 HumanIf my wife and I ever do have children, I now know <a href="http://www.jinx.com/minigeeks/baby/video_games/level_1_human_creeper.html">what to get for them</a>.Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-47110144374322339522009-02-19T09:12:00.000-08:002009-02-19T10:04:38.470-08:00The Day Everything ChangedFebruary, 2009. That's going to go down in history as the month everything changed.<br /><br />Sure, 1999 is what everyone remembers. Those were grim times for everyone. After the 1980s, I thought I'd never have to live in fear of nuclear war again, but things quickly turned south and we'd barely had enough time to take a breath before we were at war again, and the threat was looming over our heads again. If the NEACaPS had ever gotten nukes, I think we might have seen the West Coast go up in mushroom clouds. Really, it was just a matter of time - that was what was on everyone's minds, I think. So it's a good thing that the Stranger came.<br /><br />Look, I'll be honest with you - I was never a proponent of Unification. I kept pointing to the litany of evils the old United Nations was involved with - internal corruption, financial misdeeds, turning a blind eye to genocides while their own troops were committing atrocities... It's like democracy - it sounds like a great idea until you actually meet some of the people who are allowed to vote. America was unique, I said; other countries don't think like us. A vast portion of the world is composed of tyrannies and theocracies that have anything <span style="font-style:italic;">but</span> human rights in mind. Why would we want to place ourselves under their jurisdiction?<br /><br />But the utopians got their wish. After the Global Civil War, I guess everyone was tired of being afraid. The one good thing that's come out of this whole thing is that people started looking at each other as fellow human beings, rather than a package of "otherness". I always believed that the One World Government would come - as a Christian, it's one of the things you associate with the reign of the Antichrist - but I guess I never really believed I'd live to see it. It's eerie. Don't get me wrong, I was happy as the next guy when the War ended, but I kept wondering, "What's next? What's the next big axe to hang over our necks?"<br /><br />So if you think about it, these last ten years have been amazing. But what happened this month...<br /><br />Maybe it was inevitable. I mean, the Stranger came from somewhere, right? Someone built it - who knows how long ago, really - so it stood to reason that someone would come to get it. You know, you see all these movies about aliens coming to Earth, and most of them are of the "Mars Attacks!" variety. We've had that particular phobia since, what, H.G. Wells? But there was also "Close Encounters", and "E.T.", and "Star Trek"...it seemed more likely that anyone who came so far would want to be diplomatic, at least. There were scientists who insisted that their psychologies might be utterly alien to us - that we would be incapable of understanding each other. But I think that, while I agreed that it was a possibility, I privately thought it might be more like what Lewis proposed: any other intelligent life out there would either be sinless and enjoying communion with God, or fallen creatures like us. I suspected we'd be able to understand each other to a degree that would surprise the scientists. And to a longtime science fiction geek like me, that possibility kept me excited even when the details of the Unification troubled me.<br /><br />So I think I was right, and unfortunately, they turned out to be of the Fallen variety. All we know about them is that they thought nothing of coming to Earth with guns blazing, and that they're huge. Well, I guess we know more than that - if the allegations are correct (and the attack footage proves that the UEG knew <span style="font-style:italic;">something</span> all along that they didn't tell anyone about), then hopefully we're going to start hearing a lot more about what our leaders know about the Giants.<br /><br />Not that we can do anything about it. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKyT-g05V-Y&feature=PlayList&p=F05774BA208C1D19&index=0&playnext=1">They took the SDF-1 and left. They <span style="font-style:italic;">took</span> Macross Island, for crying out loud.</a> Who knows what else they can do? What do we do if they decide to come back?Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-75708947073060280582008-11-05T12:30:00.000-08:002008-11-05T13:18:51.082-08:00Heirs of the HoodNot entirely certain why, but as I was trying to fall asleep last night I began to think about Robin Hood. I had been thinking about Sean Connery, because one of the characters in my NaNoWriMo novel is "played" by him in my imagination. Sean Connery, of course, played King Richard <span style="font-style:italic;">Coeur de Leon</span> as a cameo in "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102798/">Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves</a>," but he also played Robin himself in "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075147/">Robin and Marian</a>."<br /><br />The movie looks at an older Robin (in real history, it would only be about five years after Richard's return to England), a trusted captain of King Richard, reluctantly fighting on behalf of his liege in France. Robin doesn't like it and, after Richard gets killed, returns to England with Little John. He finds out that Marian is a nun, and goes to see her. Somehow the Sheriff of Nottingham becomes his enemy again; I don't really remember how it all happens. I have only vague memories of the movie, and while I recall it being fairly dull, depressing, and at times, a little disturbing (why isn't Robin wearing any pants?), the concept behind the film - whatever happened to Robin Hood? - always interested me.<br /><br />I started to think about how "Prince of Thieves" ended, with Robin and Marian's wedding. Robin's noble status is presumably restored by King Richard, so he's got to have a manor and all that attends a feudal lord. Presumably - given not only the social obligations, but also their passionate love for each other and the lack of contraceptives - they'd start making some babies.<br /><br />So how about a medieval campaign in which all of the PCs are Robin and Marian's children? Their parentage signifies them as "special" (in that glowy Player Character way), and they'd likely have no end of interesting patrons who would have influenced the development of their abilities and political ideals along the way. How many of the Merry Men are still around? How many of them have gone straight and are honest peasants now, and how many are still outlaws? As a landed lord, was Robin forced to issue justice and hunt them down? Or does he turn a blind eye to them out of gratitude for their past deeds?<br /><br />(Wikipedia tells me that in the earliest tales, Robin is a yeoman - a commoner. The trend of later tales turning him into a nobleman suggests to my modern American mind a strain of elitist thought - "only a nobleman could or would choose to lead commoners in a just cause" - but for the moment I'm ignoring all of that and focusing on the image of Robin Hood that's currently most recognized.)<br /><br />At first I was looking at it as a sort of investigation of what happens when the rebel outcast becomes The Establishment. But as I started reading up on the events following Robin's royal pardon, another story began to present itself.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />1189</span> - King Henry II dies; Richard I becomes King of England and goes on Crusade. He doesn't take Jerusalem, but negotiates a truce that allows access for pilgrims.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1190-1191</span> - John attempts to overthrow William Longchamp, the Bishop of Ely and Richard's justiciar. John promises the city of London (who likes John more) the right to govern itself as a commune in return for recognition as Richard's heir presumptive. Robin of Loxley, Earl of Huntingdon, begins his opposition of John.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1192</span> - Richard is taken prisoner by the Duke of Austria as he returns from Crusade. Robin urges his fellow nobles to collect his ransom, but is made into an outlaw by John's machinations. Robin becomes the leader of the Merry Men of Sherwood, stealing from the nobility to pay for Richard's ransom (going with the Good Guy model, this is what he does with <span style="font-style:italic;">his share</span> of the loot, the rest going to aid the poor and oppressed).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1194</span> - Richard's ransom paid, the king returns to England in February. He restores Robin's status as Earl of Huntingdon, puts down John's rebellion and pardons him for trying to steal his authority. He is crowned again in March - in case there's any doubt about his claim to the throne - and names John his heir. Robin and Marian wed. Richard leaves England for France in May.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1199</span> - Richard dies in Chaluz, slain by an arrow fired by the boy Peter Basile. He pardons the boy, then dies. Mercadier, his faithful freebooter companion, has the boy flayed alive and hung. John Lackland becomes King of England, but faces revolt in the name of Arthur of Brittany, son of his dead brother Geoffrey. <span style="font-style:italic;">[5 years after Robin + Marian]</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1200</span> - Mercadier dies, assassinated by another freebooter in John's service. Philip II recognizes John over Arthur of Brittany (who, by modern standards, has a better claim than John). <span style="font-style:italic;">[6 years after Robin + Marian]</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1203</span> - Arthur attempts to kidnap his own grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, at Mirebeau, but is defeated and captured by John's forces. Arthur is imprisoned first at Falaise and then at Rouen. No one is certain what ultimately happens to him. In addition to capturing Arthur, John also captures his sister, his niece Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany. She will remain a prisoner until her death in 1241. Through deeds such as these, John acquires a reputation for ruthlessness. <span style="font-style:italic;">[9 years after Robin + Marian]</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1205</span> - In hope of avoiding trouble in England and Wales while he's away fighting for his French lands, John forms an alliance by marrying off his illegitimate daughter, Joan, to the Welsh prince Llywelyn the Great. John begins a dispute with Pope Innocent III over who would become Archbishop of Canterbury. This conflict will last until 1213. <span style="font-style:italic;">[11 years after Robin + Marian]</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />1207-8</span> - Franciscan order is founded.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1208</span> - Albigensian Crusade against Cathar heretics in southern France begins, continuing until 1229. Philip Augustus is strengthened by ruining southern nobles. <span style="font-style:italic;">[14 years after Robin + Marian]</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1209</span> - John is excommunicated, and England is placed under Papal interdict. No religious services, including baptisms and burials, are allowed. Some of his barons rebel against John. Cambridge University is founded. <span style="font-style:italic;">[15 years after Robin + Marian]</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1211</span> - John puts down the Welsh Uprising. <span style="font-style:italic;">[17 years after Robin + Marian]</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1213</span> - Innocent threatens England with a Crusade led by Philip Augustus of France. Philip wants to place his son Louis, the future Louis IX on the English throne. John, suspicious of the military support his barons would offer, submits to the Pope, making England a papal fief. Innocent III quickly calls off the Crusade that he never really had any intention of carrying out. <span style="font-style:italic;">[19 years after Robin + Marian]</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1214</span> - John turns his attention back to his overseas interests. The European wars culminate in defeat at the Battle of Bouvines, which forces the king to accept an unfavorable peace with France. The defeat finally turns the largest part of his barons against him, joining those who rebelled at his excommunication. The nobles join together and demand concessions. <span style="font-style:italic;">[20 years after Robin + Marian]</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1215</span> - John meets the rebel nobles' leaders at Runnymede, near London on 15 June to seal the Great Charter (Magna Carta). Because he signs under duress, however, John receives approval from his overlord the Pope to break his word as soon as hostilities cease, provoking the First Barons' War and an invited French invasion by Prince Louis of France (whom the majority of the English barons have invited to replace John on the throne). John travels around the country to oppose the rebel forces, including a personal two month siege of the rebel-held Rochester Castle. <span style="font-style:italic;">[21 years after Robin + Marian]</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1216</span> - Retreating from the French invasion, John takes a safe route around the marshy area of the Wash to avoid the rebel-held area of East Anglia. His slow baggage train (including the Crown Jewels), however, take a direct route across it and is lost to the unexpected incoming tide. This loss deals John a terrible blow, which affects his health and state of mind. Succumbing to dysentery and moving from place to place, he stays one night at Sleaford Castle before dying on 18 (or 19) October, at Newark Castle (then in Lincolnshire, now on Nottingham's border with that county). Numerous, possibly fictitious, accounts soon circulate after his death that he had been killed by poisoned ale, poisoned plums, or a "surfeit of peaches." John's nine year-old son succeeds him and becomes King Henry III of England. <span style="font-style:italic;">[22 years after Robin + Marian]</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1217</span> - Although Louis continues to claim the English throne, the barons switch their allegiance to the new king, forcing Louis to give up his claim and sign the Treaty of Lambeth. <span style="font-style:italic;">[23 years after Robin + Marian]</span><br /><br />So, the way I read it, the PCs take after their parents and oppose King John as he makes England's situation worse by the year. They might rally and/or champion the barons who fight against John, and could play a role in the stirring the ideals of the Magna Carta*. <br /><br />John himself makes for an interesting villain. His reign is characterized as one of the most disastrous in English history. He functions as an efficient ruler, good at administrative detail, and is sought out as a judge in the Royal Courts for his fair-mindedness. However, he is suspicious, unscrupulous, lecherous (he had many illegitimate offspring and was accused of being envious of many of his barons and kinfolk, seducing their more attractive daughters and sisters), and mistrusted. His crisis-prone career is sabotaged repeatedly by the halfheartedness with which his vassals support him, and the energy with which some of them oppose him. He lost approval of the English barons by taxing them in ways that were outside those traditionally allowed by feudal overlords. He allowed for the tax called scutage, where payment is made instead of providing knights (as required by feudal law); this became particularly unpopular.<br /><br />There's also the question of whatever happened to Arthur of Brittany. A new Merry Man, anybody?<br /><br />Add these large-scale political events to that all of the other fun stuff that could happen in Medieval England, and I think it has the makings of a great campaign.<br /><br />Heck, I might do something comics-related with this idea...<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">*It bears pointing out that John was pretty good with legal wrangling, and there is speculation that John made it so the document undermined the barons' power by extending rights to commoners, in order to get back at them. This being a primarily cinematic campaign, however, I don't know to what degree this would be a triumph on John's part as it is a chance for egalitarian-minded PCs to play a part in the creation of modern democracy.</span>Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-52064878741092831082008-10-31T07:49:00.001-07:002008-10-31T11:56:32.789-07:00Halloween HorrorI think of Halloween as the holiday when I traditionally run a horror game.<br /><br />This is wishful thinking, though. I don't know if I actually ever managed to do this as any kind of tradition in the past; I know I always <span style="font-style:italic;">wanted</span> to, and I have run a horror game once or twice on Halloween for friends in the past, but it was a long time ago, and certainly never often enough to qualify as a "tradition". <br /><br />When I was younger, I avoided the horror genre. I had a lot of nightmares growing up, and had no desire to be scared further by frightening images or unpleasant thoughts. I scorned horror movies and ignored horror novels. But this all changed the first time I played a horror RPG.<br /><br />I can't recall, exactly, what the first horror RPG I played was, but the first one I can remember GMing was <a href="http://www.chaosium.com/article.php?story_id=87"><span style="font-style:italic;">Call of Cthulhu</span></a>. <a href="http://www.palladiumbooks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=1001&Product_Code=700"><span style="font-style:italic;">Beyond the Supernatural</span></a> was another early one. Something about the use of atmospheric elements like the flickering light of candles, spooky music on a stereo, and the occasional assistance of nature herself, with howling wind or chilling fog setting in, made the horror game different. I found the ability to scare others while remaining in control of the situation - I knew the adventure plot, I knew what was coming and had some idea of how to deliver it in order to cause tension and apprehension in my player(s). And yet, I was not immune from that sense of fear, either, as I was to discover after walking back to my car alone in the pitch dark after a late horror game session... Through that experience, I came to understand that the horror genre is an art, requiring a certain skill to pull off well; I suddenly found that I could watch horror movies and scrutinize them. I could judge whether they were actually creating horror, or just relying upon gore or "startles" to creep out their audiences. I bought Ken Hite's must-have book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nightmares-Mine-Rolemaster-Standard-System/dp/1558063676"><span style="font-style:italic;">Nightmares of Mine</span></a> (and, later, his edition of <span style="font-style:italic;">GURPS Horror</span>) and began to really take a close look at horror.<br /><br />Now, here I am years later, with a desire to continue playing my copy of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz3ufaZCoVw">Silent Hill 3</a>, but being a little apprehensive about turning the lights off and immersing myself in that world again.<br /><br />I haven't been able to run or play a horror adventure in many years. In fact, I think it was just before the Slussers had children - or was it when Slusser got married? - that I ran a horror game. Since horror is so dependent upon building atmosphere, having any kind of distraction is a big problem, much moreso than with any other genre of RPG I can think of. <br /><br />I miss it quite a bit. There's something that horror games give you that no other game can. And it's one of the very few RPG genres where it's okay if your character dies. In fact, it's almost expected.<br /><br />Here's a quick look at the horror games I own (and would love to run tonight, if I could):<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Call of Cthulhu</span> - The granddaddy of cosmic horror, this game still appeals to me. I think it's more to do with its default historical setting of 1920s New England than its nihilistic cosmology, but I can't claim to be completely immune to its charms. I have long desired to run an entire campaign, beginning with the World War I scenario <span style="font-style:italic;">No Man's Land</span>, and following those PCs (those that survive, anyway) through their subsequent brushes with the Cthulhu Mythos across the 1920s (I've got a few). I would love to do this someday. Maybe when I'm in the nursing home.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">D20 Call of Cthulhu</span> - I don't know how well this handles running <span style="font-style:italic;">CoC</span> adventures; the D20 system can get cumbersome at times, and if you have to stop the game to look up rules, you may as well kiss that precious creepy atmosphere goodbye. Few systems seem to lend themselves to rules lawyers (and their pet arguments) as well as <span style="font-style:italic;">Dungeons & Dragons</span>, and D20 carries on that tradition. Having said that, this book is amazingly well-written, offering not only a decent conversion of the game to D20, but also providing some priceless advice on running horror games - indeed, running games of <span style="font-style:italic;">any</span> genre. This one is oriented on playing in the modern day, rather than <span style="font-style:italic;">CoC</span>'s other traditional settings of the Roaring 20s or the Victorian 1890s. Speaking of modern day Cthulhu...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.delta-green.com/"><span style="font-style:italic;">Delta Green</span></a> - <span style="font-style:italic;">Call of Cthulhu</span> meets <span style="font-style:italic;">The X-Files</span>. After the Innsmouth Raid of 1927, the American government begins to pick up on the fact that there's Something Going On... In <span style="font-style:italic;">DG</span>, you play a government employee who becomes a member of an illegal government conspiracy group, the aforementioned Delta Green. Emphasis on the <span style="font-style:italic;">illegal</span>: this involves not only horror, but also heavy doses of paranoia. This is notable for being one of the most well-written and researched campaign settings I've ever seen, and I'd love to run some of the scenarios presented in these books.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/index.php?line=intro"><span style="font-style:italic;">The (New) World of Darkness</span></a> - White Wolf's game of generic horror. While you can use it as the basis for a world that includes Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, and all of the other White Wolf traditional game lines, <span style="font-style:italic;">nWoD</span> is nice in that you don't have to. With this edition, you can run any kind of modern horror game. I think it's a perfect fit for Silent Hill, myself, and I have at least two adventures I'd like to run that take place in that quiet mountain town...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/Horror/"><span style="font-style:italic;">GURPS Horror</span></a> - Duh. The third edition is written by Ken Hite, and is much different than the previous editions of the book. This one unfortunately cuts out the description of Victorian London, but in its place gives you one of the best in-depth examinations of horror tropes and themes to be found outside <span style="font-style:italic;">Nightmares of Mine</span>. This book is gold for its explanations of where the tropes came from, and thus, how to best capitalize on them.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.chillrpg.com/"><span style="font-style:italic;">Chill</span></a> - This was the classic go-to for horror with the <a href="http://www.xaria.org/">Campaign</a> folks, and after reading the gamebooks I can see what the draw is. The secret horror-fighting society SAVE is a simple and brilliant excuse to bring "average Joe" PCs together to face the supernatural on a semi-regular basis. I, however, prefer the notion of the Society as a beleaguered, scattered, cryptic and more-or-less impoverished organization than the centralized, well-funded group that the game book seems to describe. More <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosicrucian">Rosicrucians</a> than CIA, thanks. If you're looking for this game, make sure to look up the Mayfair edition, as the original Pacesetter edition was more humor-oriented.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.btvsrpg.com/"><span style="font-style:italic;">Buffy the Vampire Slayer</span></a> and <a href="http://www.angelrpg.com/"><span style="font-style:italic;">Angel RPGs</span></a> - These are more recent purchases, and they utilize the excellent Cinematic Unisystem roleplaying game...uh...system. Written in a chatty, humorous, but not annoying (unless you don't like Joss Whedon-style dialog) style, these games not only capture the feel of the television shows perfectly, they also provide a rules framework for a wide variety of games. One could just as easily run a <span style="font-style:italic;">Hellboy </span>campaign, a superhero game, or a straight-up modern action game with these rules. Check out what people are doing with it on <a href="http://edenstudiosdiscussionboards.yuku.com/">Eden Studios' forums</a>... I have <span style="font-style:italic;">eight</span> seasons (no joke) of an Angel RPG campaign completely outlined. It's called <span style="font-style:italic;">Spooks</span> (no, not <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/spooks/index.shtml">this one</a>); it begins in Buffy/Angelverse Los Angeles circa 1938 and follows the formation and early years of The Initiative, the shadowy organization that would show up as a semi-antagonist in "Buffy" Season Four. I'd love to run this, but I question whether I've got the chops to run such a long campaign set in the World War II era. I can handle fantasy games and <span style="font-style:italic;">Shadowrun</span> for that long, perhaps, but would I be able to stay in the mood for film noir and pulp-horror adventure with a sense of humor but unexpected depth, darkness, and character development for such an extended period? Well, it's worth a try... C'mon, it's got Nazis! Who doesn't like beating up Nazis?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sjgames.com/hellboy/"><span style="font-style:italic;">Hellboy</span></a> - While <span style="font-style:italic;">GURPS Lite 3rd Edition</span> is an okay fit for this one, I think that <span style="font-style:italic;">Angel</span>'s Cinematic Unisystem would do a better job. Nonetheless, this is the sourcebook on Hellboy, chock full of awesome Mignola illustrations. If you haven't read the comic... Well, <a href="http://www.hellboy.com/_rev1/3_onlinecomics.html">here. Read it.</a> The gist of this is that you work for a government agency that deals with the paranormal (and often part of someone's mythology, like Baba Yaga). Hellboy is one of their primary agents. He usually deals with said paranormal by beating it senseless while issuing longsuffering one-liners. Notable in that your agent could be a normal person, but it's also quite likely that your agent is something supernatural. Characters in <span style="font-style:italic;">Hellboy</span> have included a fishman, a pyrokinetic, a homonculus, and an ectoplasmic spirit. One of Hellboy's primary villains is Rasputin. <span style="font-style:italic;">THE</span> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasputin">Rasputin</a>. And, you know, Nazis. Dang, this would make for a fun campaign.<br /><br /><a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=17216&it=1&filters=0_0_0"><span style="font-style:italic;">Dark*Matter</span></a> - Going deeper into X-Files territory than the television show ever did, this is one of the best modern conspiracy-horror books I've ever seen. It presents data on a wide range of popular and obscure conspiracies, monsters, and paranormal topics that we hear about in the real world, and presents multiple options on how to run them in a campaign. It also presents a loose cosmological explanation for what's going on, and offers an organization for PCs to work for, the Hoffmann Institute. It's a little more potent an organization than I would normally like for such a game, but it can still work; in fact, watching <a href="http://www.fox.com/programming/shows/new/fringe.htm">"Fringe"</a> gives me a pretty solid idea of how it could be an intriguing, mysterious, and paranoia-inducing employer for characters (imagine being an employee of Massive Dynamic...). All this in a nicely-illustrated hardbound book!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.pigames.net/store/default.php?cPath=86"><span style="font-style:italic;">Ghostories </span></a>- A generic engine for running horror adventures. I love simple rules systems. I love cheap, easily-affordable games. PIG's <span style="font-style:italic;">Ghostories </span>gives me both of those things. When you're running a horror game, you really want to have a game system that doesn't interfere with the narrative or slow things down as people start looking up rules - that's an atmosphere-killer, and building atmosphere is absolutely <span style="font-style:italic;">crucial</span> to running a horror game. It's also compatible with their other <span style="font-style:italic;">genre Diversion i</span> games, meaning I can use it in conjunction with their western game <span style="font-style:italic;">Coyote Trail</span> as my system conversion for <span style="font-style:italic;">Deadlands</span>. Speaking of...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.peginc.com/games.html"><span style="font-style:italic;">Deadlands: The Weird West</span></a> - This Old West Horror game has a lot of potential, and I own most of the books published for this game, which is quite a few. <span style="font-style:italic;">Deadlands </span>is all over the map - it incorporates not only horror, but also pulp action and steampunk; it describes itself as "Spaghetti Western with Meat". The result is a game that can be played in a variety of styles...but personally, I'd like to run it dark and atmospheric.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.atlas-games.com/overtheedge/index.php"><span style="font-style:italic;">Over the Edge</span></a> - Not exclusively a horror game, but certainly heavy on those elements. This is a rules-light, surrealism-heavy game reminiscent of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098936/">"Twin Peaks"</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411008/">"Lost"</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cats-Cradle-Kurt-Vonnegut/dp/038533348X"><span style="font-style:italic;">Cat's Cradle</span></a>, and Burroughs novels. It comes with a thoroughly detailed modern-day setting, the Mediterranean island of al-Amarja, and a catalog of all the weird stuff going on there. I have a campaign-starter in mind already - that of CIA agents investigating possible al-Qaeda cell activity - but this manages to be such a wide-open game that any type of character and any type of background could conceivably work. All you need is a reason to come to the obscure island. All the rest is done for you, really. This is an excellent example of the "sandbox" setting presented for a modern day game.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.gbfans.com/games/"><span style="font-style:italic;">Ghostbusters</span></a> - Old and out of print but still pretty brilliant, from a game rules standpoint (Fear not, though - click on that link and be reconnected with that spirit from the past). West End Games made this, arguably one of the best entry-level RPGs on the market. While the adventures I've seen for it are pretty goofy (a little more than I would like for what is admittedly a comedy game), this game is wonderful in that it parodies the structure and feel of <span style="font-style:italic;">Call of Cthulhu</span> scenarios so well. Made by many of the same people who brought you <span style="font-style:italic;">Paranoia</span>... As fun as the original system is, were I to run it today, I'd use the even easier-to-learn-and-run <a href="http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm"><span style="font-style:italic;">Risus</span></a> system by S. John Ross...who admits that the <span style="font-style:italic;">Ghostbusters RPG</span> was a major influence. Oh, and that's free, too.<br /><br />Well, that's all I can think of at the moment, though I've got the nagging suspicion that I've forgotten something. Anyway, I look forward to the day when I can run a spooky game once more.<br /><br />Happy Halloween!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">EDIT:</span> I did remember something. I don't actually own the Palladium game, and I wouldn't use the system, but I liked the idea, with some modification: <span style="font-style:italic;">Nightbane</span>. The premise is that while you think you're a normal person, you are in actuality a monstrous, extra-dimensional being who just happens to be walking around in a human body most of the time. Or are you just its vessel? Are you going crazy, or is this what you really are?<br /><br />I also just remembered <span style="font-style:italic;">Hunter: The Reckoning</span>. You become endowed by the mysterious Messengers with mystic powers with which to fight the supernatural. I have rather a lot of adventure ideas for this one, too.<br /><br />Okay, enough for now - I'm starving!Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-532241816209304627.post-62861227663284963082008-10-30T10:45:00.000-07:002008-10-30T10:46:10.478-07:00CAPVT MVNDIAncient Rome is one of my perennial favorites in terms of settings. I'm not entirely certain why I find it so fascinating, except perhaps because we seem to know so much about it. There are so many similarities between we postmodern Americans and the ancient Romans, and yet at the same time, there are differences that really make them seem quite alien at times. <br /><br />Take, for example, the Roman virtues, which are nicely illustrated in the RPG <a href="http://www.fvlminata.com/"><span style="font-style:italic;">FVLMINATA: Armed With Lightning</span></a>. As an example of Duty and Respect, the book proposes a situation based on historical precedent: You find yourself in a civil war. Both sides suffer heavy losses. Your sister's fiancee fought for the other side and was slain. Your sister does not show up for your victory celebration, choosing instead to attend the funeral of her betrothed. As a good Roman, what do you do? Run her through with your gladius for being unpatriotic. One must remember that Christian virtues such as Love, Hope, and Forgiveness were unusual, and often ran counter to typical Roman thinking.<br /><br />Anyway, I've accumulated a number of books on ancient Rome and find myself coming back to it constantly. I have a couple of maps of Rome (and one of Ostia, Rome's primary port), lots of illustrations, and at least three RPGs devoted to the setting. For quite some time, I've been wanting to convert the <a href="http://www.greenronin.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=1001&Product_Code=grr1002e&Category_Code=2">Green Ronin <span style="font-style:italic;">Freeport</span></a> adventure trilogy to a Roman setting. I've also worked to some degree on a comic project in which the protagonist is a <span style="font-style:italic;">vigile</span>, a night watchman. I often describe the project as "Law and Order" set in Ancient Rome. My research on that led me to do some general research on the topic of crime, the forms it takes, the kinds of organizations that profit from it, and so on.<br /><br />Then an idea was sparked after I participated in a discussion thread on RPGnet. While talking about the notion of "sandbox settings", in which there is no metaplot to speak of, but the setting is created to enable Player Characters as much freedom over their activities as possible. There is sufficient detail in these settings (or the means are present to <span style="font-style:italic;">create</span> sufficient detail off the cuff, on demand) that the Players can choose what they want their characters to do, where they want them to go, and basically follow their own personal goals without the GM trying to railroad them to following a preconceived plot. A good example of this is the "Grand Theft Auto" series of video games. There is an overarching plot, but players are not bound to follow it. Instead, you can spend as much time as you want driving through the city, committing various crimes (because, let's face it, if a game <span style="font-style:italic;">allows</span> you to crash into things, drive like a maniac, and beat people senseless, most of us will do it at least once) as you like. MMORPGs sometimes have an element of this, too. But no video game (thus far, anyway) can really capture the freedom a Player can enjoy in a tabletop RPG designed with this purpose.<br /><br />Cutting to the chase, someone starting talking about "Grand Theft Auto" in various settings, and someone mentioned Ancient Rome (referring to the idea with the groan-inducing term 'Tiberpunk'). That started my gears turning. <span style="font-style:italic;">FVLMINATA</span> does a nice job of breaking down Rome into its various neighborhoods, giving a fair description of the feel and typical content of each neighborhood in the city. This made it easier to figure out what kinds of crimes might occur where, and where ethnic and economic tensions might make things more <span style="font-style:italic;">interesting</span>.<br /><br />I thought of the various ethnic groups in Rome which would likely band together for protection, possibly forming gangs to that end. There might be something akin to terrorists, fighting to bring down the Roman government and re-establish their freedom (like the Egyptians or the Celts, perhaps). There would certainly be a black market of some sort, and cartels dealing in proscribed goods. Senators would likely have agents working on the streets toward various ends (especially since Senators were forbidden by law to make profits from business, which I'm certain they would try to skirt around), adding potential extra danger to interfering with any given criminal activity - you never know if you're disrupting a powerful Senator's income! There are the sports teams and their fans, which were such a potent political force in later Byzantium that they caused such riots as to threaten the Emperor's rule. You've also got the regular run of muggers and other petty crooks - Nero himself was supposed to have snuck out to roam the city at night, mugging people... And, of course, there would likely be vigilante groups dealing with all of the above chaos, trying to restore order to the <span style="font-style:italic;">viae</span> in their own way.<br /><br />Thus, the basis for CAPVT MVNDI. <span style="font-style:italic;">Caput Mundi</span> was a nickname for the city of Rome, meaning "the head of the entire world." This game would be a sandbox setting, in which the PCs are free to roam and explore as they will. Player Characters could work for law enforcement, being police/detectives or lawyers, rooting out and fighting crime while dealing with a sometimes corrupt government; or they could be up-and-coming criminals trying to make a place for themselves in a wicked old city.<br /><br />On a tangentially related note, I watched the pilot episode of the short-lived television show <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118451/">"Roar"</a> on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VItgbPnUGQs&feature=related">YouTube</a> yesterday. Notable now, perhaps, for starring Heath Ledger as the show's protagonist, it was set in a Celtic Britain that is held (or being invaded by, as the episode's conclusion suggests) the Romans. I don't know exactly when it's supposed to take place, but given that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Longinus">Longinus</a> shows up and mentions that he's 400 years old, I'm guessing it must be sometime around 365 AD (assuming he was about 35 when Jesus was crucified). This would mean that the Roman hold on Britain would only last about another 45 years before the Romans there declare their independence and are told by the Emperor to "look to their own safety." I just looked up some data on Rome at that time and it seems to jive with one or two other things I noticed in the show (for example, one of the Roman noble characters present seems to insist on a monotheistic faith; 365 would be post-Constantine). The show has a little bit of cheese - things that probably looked good on paper but came across as a little hokey in live action - and the Hero's Journey structure was pretty apparent to me, but it wasn't bad. The pilot episode is pretty self-contained, like a miniature movie, so while I think there could have been more open ends to entice the viewer to continue watching the series, I am kind of interested in seeing where next they went with it.<br /><br />Watching the episode made me think, not for the first time, that a game in which players play Celts fighting Roman domination of their lands could make for an interesting campaign.Devin Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00944849659698291143noreply@blogger.com2