Game On!

It is not without irony that a single sentence explaining not only why I play RPGs, but why I play TTRPGs and not MMORPGs is in a video about why it's okay to play MMORPGs:

<a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/browse?mkt=en-us&from=&vid=8cb424dc-cbdb-40be-90c5-8fb450462d2f&from=en-us" target="_new" title="Season 4 - Music Video - &quot;Game On&quot;">Video: Season 4 - Music Video - &quot;Game On&quot;</a>

Then again, I have a weakness for Bollywood.

Two Years

Today marks two years since my first post, on literary influences on my gaming. The immediate impetus to begin was a post on media influences by James Raggi. At that time I had been reading a handful of old school blogs, principally Lamentations of the Flame Princes, Grognardia, and the now gone Wilderlands/OD&D blog by HUGE RUINED PILE's Scott.

Excluding this post there have been 179 entries. I didn't start using any tracking software until November 30, 2009 when I added Google Analytics which has run except for one day when I broke it while changing templates. As I write I've had 18,063 page views over 12,932 visits.

Top five popular posts:

1. Miss Manners Wouldn't Play D&D with 666 page views. This should surprise no one.
2. Inspirational Art: Ken Kelly with 629 page views. This post almost always has at least one view a day and will probably over take the Miss Manners post by year's end.
3. An Adult Hobby Now? with 477 page views. This is quite a surprise for an off the cuff post.
4. Not A Golden Age But A Gilded Agewith 315 page views.
5. The Current TARGA BS with 252 page views. Scandal always sells.

Top five traffic sources:

1. Feedburner
2. Direct (no link)
3. Lamentations of the Flame Princess (I'm big in Finland!)
4. Jeff's Gamesblog
5. Grognardia

Here's hoping you'll still be here in another two years and here's hoping I have more than doubled the number of useful posts as well as improved the signal to noise ratio.

The Wolrd After: The Hierarchy

The Hierarchy is the sponsor of most clerics. It is the oldest institution of man, being the only one to pre-date The Harrowing of the World. Interestingly, even the most senior members of it know little more than the rest of the world of true nature of The Harrowing.

Dedicated to order and the preservation of that order The Hierarchy embraces only two principles, justice and wraith. The maintenance of civilization is their first and only real goal. As such many members of the The Hierarchy may be cruel or even evil in maintaining order. While the Hierarchy has never endorsed torture, tyranny, or similar practices they have accepted them both from their agents and others as long as civilization is preserved by them. This dedication to order often brings them into conflict with elves, who see themselves as agents of chaos to positive ends.

The Hierarchy takes no official position on the cause or result of The Harrowing but they have been known to be opening to fighting along side Devils against the Demons intent on consuming the world. In fact, the only absolute penalty of death endorsed by the Hierarchy is consorting with Demons.

Finally, just because The Hierarchy is a large, structured organization that does not believe it is uniform in its believes or even teachings. While all Hierarchs have absolute rule over clerics in their district (generally a single city) the office of Principal Hierarch has gone empty since the days of The Harrowing. The Principal Hierarch of the time was killed in The Harrowing and although a successor was proclaimed a few days later in Quavveniec he disappeared within a handful of days himself. The reason no successor has been named to this day is a cause of much speculation among the laity and minor clerics.

Many Members of the Hierarchy (Roll a d20 three times)
1	Endorse physical punishment for crime (flogging, stocks, etc)
2	Study a formal school of painting, music, or sculpture
3	Use a handled baton as both their primary weapon and staff of office.
4	Are trained in dispersing mobs
5	Can practice law in many City States
6	Play rugby
7	Believe that spreading team sports encourages order
8	Have training in some form of traditional medicine (herbalism, therapeutic massage, acupuncture, etc)
9	Are celibate
10	Will walk everywhere unless the speed is riding is absolutely necessary
11	Eat dates or lamb whenever they can
12	Have spent time as a shepherd
13	Use bronze greaves and bracers
14	Are exceptional mathematicians
15	Invent it
16	Invent it
17	Invent it
18	Invent it
19	Invent it
20	Invent it

Some Members of the Hierarchy (Roll a d16)
1	Have the means (such as a true name) to summon a minor Devil.
2	Have an irrational fear and hatred of elves.
3	Believe elves are the unholy spawn of Demons and women.
4	Have served as part of the internal guard of a City State in the past
5	Are trained in raising mobs
6	Play cricket
7	Discourage games of chance or individual achievement
8	Wear only black and white
9	Tend to blame witches (those who traffic with Demons) for bad events
10	Wear bronze helmets
11	Believe general poverty helps prevent chaos from spreading.
12	Invent it
13	Invent it
14	Invent it
15	Invent it
16	Invent it

Common Traveling Gear for The Hierarchy (Roll a d16 1d3 times prior to spending starting gold)
1	A combination staff of office/weapon (similar to a modern police nightstick)
2	A copy of "The General Commentary on the Black Law"
3	A token of office from the guard force of a City State
4	A set of prayer beads
5	A book of common prayers
6	Incense and a censer
7	Paper, pens, and ink
8	Personal seal and wax
9	A bronze holy symbol (generally a sun cross or a simplified Celtic Cross)
10	Reading glasses
11	Brushes and pigments
12	Blessed incense and a thurible
13	A shepherd's crook
14	Invent it
15	Invent it
16	Invent it

This work by Herbert Nowell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Random Thoughts...

Last night while helping grout ceramic tile for a friend I came up with some ideas for the a Barony Generation system for Wanderer Book 3. Apparently that mock-up got lots of people back in the day.

I also have figured out a solution to my pathways problem, at least in terms of why the dimension warping nature of Santuario Nero isn't routinely used over more mundane travel.

Scott's DVDs look very cool, but I wonder about the legality. Still, following his link there is a lot I'd like to get...beyond the Warren horror one of the Gold Key disks has plenty, although not all, of Magnus, Robot Fighter who was my favorite thing to read at the barber shop as a kid. I bought them when I saw them, which was rarely.

While I'm recruiting for the new City State of the Apocalypse campaign I'm still trying to decide on a rules set, most specifically house rules. I really want to try something very minimal to allow organic growth a la Dwimmermount the urge to play around is hard. One thing I've given some thought is semi-3.x saving throws. Instead of building my own chart or importing others to the one type saving throw of S&W I thought of dividing up saving throws by attribute (I already know I'll be adopting a B/X style bonus for my game). While level will still be the main factor in saving throws this should also create a stronger class flavor: in general fighters will save in tests of strength while magic-users will in test of intellect.

The other thing I'd really like to get into the game are constitution and charisma prime attribute classes. I have no idea on the former and the later easily defaults to bard so it can't be that. I think the best bet is to go through my source material and find outstandingly hardy and inspiring characters to build the classes from.

As I've been filling in the Random List I've thought of posting updates. However, that seems a bit much. Is there any interest in a separate page for Appendix N: City States of the Apocalypse?

The World After: A Bit More On Elves

This post is an addition to CSotA: Elves.

The thing most people in the World After (how people in the City States tend to refer to their entire world) ask about elves is where the elves came from.

No one wants to know this more than the elves themselves. All elves appear in the world as adults with no clear memory of life before. The location and time of their appearance seem to be random, at least to date no scholar, elf or human (not even the famed Parkin of the Still Pastures), has found a pattern to their appearance. No elf in the World After has born or fathered a child, despite two clear and obvious genders.

In general elves know three things about elves when they appear in the world. They know they come from the forgotten island of Rutas. They know they can, in fact, have children both among themselves and with humans or at least could in the past. Finally, they know they are the children of creative chaos. The last causes no end of problems with The Hierarchy.

Note on the Cleric posts: For those who saw the autoposted entries on cleric they will appear this week. I didn't realize how rusty my creativity is, but trying to write Devil's in the Details charts is tough. They pack an amazing amount of world design into a small space and aren't easily grooved creativity. The only thing harder for me is dungeon set pieces.

Monday Pointers: July 26, 2010

D4:Weird Adventures
Trey at The Sorcerer's Skull has announced his blog posts about The City will become a setting product for Classic D&D style games. I have to love the cover which is a brilliant homage to both the original PHB and classic pulps such as Weird Tales. I am bit surprised no pulp classes will be added, but it is just a setting not a full game.

D6:In my world drunken masters use the number of drinks so far this session
An old post, from last year, but one I just read. The idea of kung fu numbers reminds me a bit of cherries in Unknown Armies and are exactly the kind of low rules, low impact thing I've come to love in games. I don't need pages of rules to do cool stuff, just an imagination trigger. Like random tables, one that springs surprises on you tends to work best.

D8:Speaking of more combat crunch
The comments on the above link lead me to this post over at Sham's Grog and Blog that introduces 15 modules (plug-ins) that can add options to your D&D combat. What's interesting is you could probably mix up which ones you use when to get the right feel for a given combat.

The World After: Races and Classes

Nothing completely definitive...more leaving myself a note, but I figured making the notes public is part of blogging (except for those super secret notes in my notebooks for PCs to discover).

Anyway, planned initial races and classes (no race/class split): fighters, clerics, magic-users, elves (using the old D&D pick every day fighter/m-u class), dwarves, and some kind of "other skills" class. I'm torn on how to do the last. I'm waiting to see how the specialist works. I remember someone (maybe Rob at Bat in the Attic) had a similar class. Or I may run with a talents and SR class of my own design.

The World After: If strict time records are not kept

you cannot have a meaningful campaign.

Yes, I reversed the clauses because the conditional makes a better post title.

While The Harrowing post may obscure this, this campaign is set in a version of our world (made slightly less explicit both for meta-game and personal religious reasons). As such the calendar is made easier on me in that I'll use the basic Gregorian one.

In order to add a bit of atmosphere and account for the campaign's starting location, however, I won't be using the normal English names for the days of the week or months of the year. Instead, I'll be using Italian ones.

The start date will be Lunedì, Aprile 16. I know the AD year is 23*25 years past The Harrowing, but the campaign year I'll figure out when I need to.

The World After: Elves

So, elves...

Elves are the bane of the fantasy roleplaying game. To get an idea of how tired elves have gotten Talislanta has been advertising "No elves" since 1987, a date closer to the original publication of D&D than it is to to today by almost a factor of two. More recently Sirth of the Scrolls at Scrolls of Lankhmar talked about boring elves and dwarves (and complimented my sea dwarves from a game last year...thanks Sirth).

That said any game which starts from the premise "Using a virgin old school rules set, create a megadungeon and minor surroundings, add players, and then see where it goes" is going to have elves. None of my potential systems: OD&D, Holmes (with one of the fan expansions), Moldavy/Cook/Marsh (with the upcoming Companion), BECMI, RC, S&W, Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy Roleplaying, Dark Dungeons, or even Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying lets me escape elves (maybe the last does).

So, elves...

Right now I'm looking at a handful of options to make them unique. First, to look as far from Tolkien as I can I've included one issue of a story set in Marvel's Weirdworld as part of my alchemical formula. I'm tempted to add an issue of Elfquest.

Second, regardless of what rules set I will use, elves will use the OD&D convention of selecting once a day what class they will be. Yes, even in T&T (if I use it) we're going to give this a shot.

Finally, I'm going to take up the Devil in the Details idea from Fight On! #1 (which also adds something to my canon). My tables are below. However, to encourage player input you'll notice six entries on the first table and five entries on the second and third are "invent it". I plan on doing this to some degree for all DitD tables to encourage player creation.

Many Elves (Roll a d20 three times)
1	Have only three fingers (plus a thumb)
2	Are about four feet tall
3	Play a musical instrument very well
4	Wear only leather clothing
5	Know how to juggle more than three items at a time
6	Wear circlets on their head or neck
7	Enjoy playing practical jokes
8	Paint a personal sigil on trees as they enter and leave a forest
9	Speak the language of brooks and trees
10	Have elaborate tattoos on their arms and/or legs
11	Worship change and chance or a deity of them
12	Collect things in fives, twenty-fives, and twenty-threes
13	Refuse to go about during a new moon
14	Eat nothing but meat
15	Invent it
16	Invent it
17	Invent it
18	Invent it
19	Invent it
20	Invent it

Some Elves (Roll a d16)
1	Have a small forest animal companion
2	Refuse to wear clothing while at home
3	Cannot swim
4	Have elaborate facial tattoos
5	Are allergic to horses
6	Will only eat meat they have hunted themselves (although they need not have killed it themselves)
7	Wear jewelry that frames their face
8	Will not use metal tools
9	Have hair below their waist when loose
10	Prefer human lovers to elven ones
11	Prefer to sleep during sunlight
12	Invent it
13	Invent it
14	Invent it
15	Invent it
16	Invent it

Common Traveling Gear for Elves (Roll a d16 1d3 times prior to spending starting gold)
1	A small musical instrument
2	Pressed leaves or flowers from their home
3	Razor sharp wooden hair sticks
4	A long, stone tipped spear
5	A bagh nakh
6	Bowl and spoon formed from wood grown bound in that form (non-magical)
7	Body Paints
8	Seeds of twenty-three flowers and herbs from their home
9	A set of several wooden dice with a die cup
10	Jerky of their own making
11	A pot with a bonsai tree
12	Invent it
13	Invent it
14	Invent it
15	Invent it
16	Invent it

Some days you should set auto post...

Or you'll get two posts posting out of order.

For those wondering where the Hierarchy and the Cults went, they'll be back next week.

The World After: The Harrowing of Creation

The world was created by The Creator also called the Architect of Creation. In this he was aided by lesser beings who, by his grace, could tap into the source of creation. In the end, some of his agents desired Creation for themselves and rebelled. They were cast from the heights of Creation to its lowest depths.

From there the Fallen, as they were called, whispered in the ears of the Architect's greatest creation, man. Man could tap the source of creation not by the grace of the Architect for he had given them a piece of it as their birthright. Yet man, tempted by the Fallen, often came to desire more of that power and thus was Creation corrupted by man's desires beyond his abilities.

The Creator gave a promise that when certain signs were fulfilled those who were worthy would be called to him and together they would create and enjoy a new and better Creation. The worthy would be separated from the unworthy in a final conflict with the Fallen.

Yet somehow man conspired with the Fallen to bring the final conflict before the signs were fulfilled. In one dark night the Fallen were released upon Creation. As they tore at Creation men fought them and other men, leaving the world scarred and blasted. Yet, in the end the Fallen remained unopposed by, at least as far as man could see, by the Architect. As such they appeared poised to rule the world. This is the Harrowing.

Yet the Fallen did not stay within the world as its rulers. They retreated to their depths and although the Hierarchy of the Throne and the Cults of the Thousand Saints agree they are more present in the world than before they do not rule it. Yet man can still touch the source of creation and priests may still call upon the power of the Architect and his Saints within the world.

What happened that they do not rule the world? Some claimed the Fallen overthrew him and either killed him or drove him from Creation only to find they had no desire to rule. Others claimed that the promise was fulfilled and those who remained, both among man and the Fallen, have been abandoned in the old Creation which is beginning to decay away. The later point to the coming of Demons as proof that the world is ending. Those of the first theory counter Demons have gained their purchase because the Fallen (also called Devils) have refused to rule and thus maintain Creation.

And what does man do in this age? He does as he always has: lives, loves, fights, seeks treasure, strives to do good, and often does evil. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Buried Treasures: Old School RPG Magazines and Fanzines

Because I can't keep track I thought I'd create a list of RPG fanzines and magazines dedicated to pre-3.x D&D, clones of it, and T&T. Images are the most current issue. The order is not meant to be a comment, but just reflects the order I remembered them.


If I missed your magazine or you'd like the link or thumbnail changed please drop me a line. I'm only interested in those still being actively produced (I'm unsure of the status of Green Devil Face so I didn't list it).

Inspirational Art: John Martin's Pandemonium

Given the topic of recent posts looking to art concerning Hell for inspiration seems natural. This painting, however, has a second advantage in it is the first subject of this series where I have seen the original in person. John Martin was an English romantic painter of the first half of the 19th century. His paintings, not surprisingly, deal mostly with mythic and Biblical subjects.

Pandemonium is Milton's Palace of Hell in Paradise Lost. In my first inspirational book for City States of the Apocalypse Blish follows Dante's vision of Hell. In fact, the city of Dis is called forth into the world in part of the novel. I would like to bring that idea forward to the CSotA but perhaps not with Dante.

Looking at this painting we get great ideas for the trapping of devils in the setting. The hosts of Hell look more Greek than Medieval. Perhaps the ceremonial wear of those who follow the Devil would be not that of a friar or priest, but a hoplite. Given the Fallen are fallen angels can we use their imagery for powers of light of well and how their followers, at least those in the field and outside of monasteries, should appear. I would remind readers that modern Catholic ecclesiastical garb is inspired by that of Roman courtiers, a by-product of the Church's place in the late empire.

Paladins as hoplites instead of knights. I think I'll run with that.

The World After: Naming the megadungeon

Some names for the megadungeon, all drawn from its back story:

Foro Nel Mondo
Bocca Dell'inferno
Rottura della Creazione
Rottura nella Creazione
Ware Sorte Awersa Di s (shorten to Ware Sorte Awersa?)
Sorte avversa degli articoli
Buco Nero
Santuario Nero

Hmmm...Santuario Nero...I guess that's a good name to start. Not too exciting if you translate it, but I suspect I'll deform it some more along the way.

Random Campaign Idea: The Last God

At the dawn of time the gods who inhabited the Astral Sea warred with the Old Ones from beyond the known universe. Aberrant monsters of the Far Realm they sought to unmake creation. The gods were hard pressed and imbued the mortals with their powers to join in the battle. In the end the Old Ones were driven from the moral world and it's parallels as well as the Astral Sea. However, many gods fell and a handful of openings to the Far Realms permitted the servants of the Old Ones to corrupt creation.

For a time the gods worked to heal the world and mortals hunted down the fell servants but the Old Ones were not permanently deterred. Again the Old Ones struck and were defeated yet more gods fell. Like the tides breaking upon the shore each war ended with reality preserved but more of the gods, and often their planes within the Astral Sea, destroyed. Each time more of the Old One's servants remained behind.

Now, a thousand years after the last war, the world awaits its fate. The Last God imbues his servants with the power to destroy the aberrant monsters while runepriests join mystery cults dedicated to fallen gods to learn their powers. Other mortals, knowing that the gods are spent and the defense of the world falls to them, have taken to walking arcane paths and making fell pacts to garner power to defeat the Old Ones and their servants. The Fey wilds have sent forth their own champions and even beings of Elemental Chaos have stepped into the world to prepare for its next defense.

Yet even before that can begin the world must be cleansed of the corruption left by the Old Ones, including the promises of power to persevere against them or even among them. It seems no place is pure and no power lies uncorrupted.

This idea comes from two primary sources and one secondary source. The primary sources are James Raggi's how to make D&D metal and Palladium Book's Old Ones. The secondary source is Charnel Gods, a supplement to Sorcerer which has no web presence that I can find.

The principle idea behind the setting is an ongoing war for the universe between the gods and Cthuvian Old Ones. As the gods beat off each attack their numbers diminished faster than their ability to regenerate. Now, the Last God prepares for his final battle by empowering servants, while men try to claim both the powers of the fallen gods as well learn the powers of creation directly.

Meanwhile, these wars have corrupted the world itself. Most power is now seduced by servants of the Old Ones and the world wars among itself as much as it tries to heal and prepare. The characters are new heroes rising to fight the corruption of the world only to risk seduction by it. Those who persevere beyond that seduction can rise to defend creation itself.

I originally conceived this for my restricted classes and races 4e campaign.

How Much Does a Gold Piece Weigh?

According to S&W and most other old school rules there are 10 coins/pound regardless of type.

How much is that in real world terms? Roughly 8 modern US quarters.

The problem with this becomes more apparent when you consider older (1950s) US quarters which were silver. It took about 7.25 of them to equal one silver piece. Pennies, actual copper pennies, run a little over half that weight implying 12-13 pennies per copper piece.

I think I'm going to run with items roughly the weight of a silver quarter being a coin in game terms. The ratio would be about 116 coins per pound. Just to make life easy I'll probably go with either 100 coins/pound or 96 coins/pound. I realize this creates issue with the use of encumbrance to make players be choosy on treasure, but I'm doubtful this will be as damaging as it might seem.

The World After: Devils vs. Demons

Popular parlance tends to use the words devil and demon interchangeably (except when Devil is used as a proper noun for the leader of the Fallen) as the minions of Hell and Fallen Angels. D&D (and as a consequence much of gaming) does pretty much the same thing, mostly mutating them into parallel hierarchies of lawful evil and chaotic evil extra-planar beings (the inherent contradiction of a chaotic evil hierarchy mostly ignored).

However, if you look at the bullet points for the City States of the Apocalypse setting they are not the same thing or even parallel things. At least they shouldn't be even though I fell into that trap with the original. The two relevant points, rewritten to take that into account are (change in bold):

• The world is mostly blasted waste from man's war with the minions of Hell. The war was a success in that the Fallen were limited in their ability to rule but the world was destroyed in the process.
• Due to man's disruption of prophecy the world itself may be undermined and denizions of a new underworld are chewing at its foundations, which troubles everyone.

Those denizions of a new underwold were based on the ideas of a first creation from Ken Hite's GURPS Cabal among other sources. Originally, following Hite, I was going to call these beings quillip. However, I think demons is a better term.

So, some bullet points about devils and demons in the world of the City States:

Devils
• Are beings dedicated to Creation and its preservation.
• Are interested in control more than destruction, seeing the later as a means to an end
• By rebellion are cut off from the power of creation itself
• Are great sources of information about creation
• As an example of how the prior two interact: most devils can teach a magic user any spell, but could not create a new one (this is important, as spells are rare and hard to find.
• When the chips are down are more interested in fighting demons (to preserve Creation and the devils' quest for power) than in allying with them to harm humanity.
• Are members of a hierarchy and have similarities vertically and horizontally within it.

Demons
• Are from beyond Creation and consider it at best irrelevant and at worst an affront to them
• Have interests beyond the knowledge of mortals, but generally have little desire for power in Creation. Such power is just a means to their ends.
• As forces of Chaos their agenda quite often is destruction for destruction's sake (at least as can be discerned by those in Creation)
• Often have knowledge beyond Creation such as how to tap primal chaos (which Creation was built from) but little knowledge within it
• Probably don't know the spell you're looking for but can help you create new spells by tapping primal chaos (whose side effects you may not like)
• Are unique (no two demons are the same) and have highly varying (and changing) relationships with each other.

The biggest places I can see this coming into the game early are spell learning and the agendas of certain inhabitants of the yet to be named megadungeon (among other areas).

Monday Pointers: July 19, 2010

D4:DC, the Line of Stars
Zak explains why DC comics are like pre-89 RPGs and thus why both are better than Marvel comics and Vampire. Okay, maybe that last part is just me and he only draws some great parallels between the two big US comic companies and the two "eras" of D&D among other games. Still, a great read.

D6:Forget BP, get Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser
Over at Scrolls of Lankhmar, Srith has an interesting post about Fritz Leiber being discussed in the Wall Street Journal in the context of the Deepwater Horizon spill.

D8:Why Gamma World Wizards Love Radioactive Cocaine
And the heavy metal-gaming connection continues. Cyclopeatron suggest a campaign idea centered around a post holocaust band. This reminds me a lot of the "Grunge Warriors" strips from KoDT but still rocks. You have to give him major props for the title too.

D10:Encounters for the Rest of Us
Newbie DM brings up the idea of a community group that creates a parallel to D&D Encounters. I wonder if some of us devoted to older games could get such a thing going, but with bi-weekly instead of weekly installments.

D12:So, You Sure You Want to Go into that Giant Ant Hill
Matt at Land of Nod posts a video showing just what goes into an ant hill of the Savannah really looks like inside.

Got Confirmation...

Of my order for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying Game.

Do you have yours?

The World After: Substance to the Random List

Last week, as I was abandoning my idea of running a 4e game (I like playing it but just couldn't bring myself to read the books enough to prep) and thinking about giving something akin to a mega-dungeon centered campaign I came up with a random list of inspirational materials and created items I'd want to have.

Having decided to return to at least the ideas that initially sparked City States of the Apocalypse I started to make that list more concrete.

Old School Rules Set:Back to the drawing boards on this one...

Random Comics: I have one (of ten) selected and it could be very influential. Warriors of the Shadow Realm is set in Marvel's Weird World. Weird World has a very 70s take on both elves and dwarves. The elves remind me a lot of Elfquest (an issue of which might join the 10 pre-1980s comics). Interesting, based on both the illustration and text of the LBB I suspect a Weird World elf is much closer to Gygax's vision than all the Tolkien influenced elves that now over-run the hobby. Expect more on this topic next week.

80s "Metal" fantasy novel: The Lady of the Snowmist by Offut, which I just brought back from El Paso last month. The last of his War of the Gods on Earth books and the reason I bought the first two back in the 80s it's the one I never got around to reading back then. The tone is very different from what people think of for T&T and the Weird World comics. I like that. It's a random element, but I'll read it red notebook (and maybe blue notebook as well) in hand.

Notebooks: I wrote about a gaming table notebook with letter index tabs for keeping track of creation in play. I still intend to do that but from the same huge box of notebooks I've pulled two others fro megadungeon notes (blue) and campaign world notes (red) to keep next to me while reading source material. The blue notebook already has two entries: an outline of levels 1-3 in terms of shape and my first inhabitants, the Green Tunics.

This is the best I've felt about campaign prep in a long time. Much better than my last two clone games.

Is the plural of megadungeon simply megadungeon...

So, in returning to my megadungeon idea from the original City States game I realized there were three reasonable places to put it. Each is unique and in my inspiration has what is required. I thought I faced a tough choice.

Or do I?

If the megadungeon is a mythic underworld does it have to be in a single location. We're not talking multiple entrances like most have, but multiple locations such that it can be entered in places as separated in our world as America's Stonehenge, The Seattle Underground, and Carlsbad Caverns (which while not my goal here, if I wanted a megadungeon for my Demon Haunted World this would work).

Nor I am talking about something like the Underdark in the Forgotten Realms. There would be no realistic sense of distance or magical gates that connected the sections. You could simply walk through a normal dungeon region and walk out thousands of miles away. The problem, of course, is how to justify this without making it a valid route of travel for people. If that was so the dungeon, or at least the trade routes, would be controlled by some power for that purpose. Although, as an idea, that alone isn't too bad if used sparingly.

Return to the City States

If you look at the reading box to the left I'm reading James Blish's The Devil's Day. I wrote about it setting inspiration early in this blog. I hadn't read it in years when I wrote that. However, it would inspire my short lived LL campaign from last year.

That I am reading it is distinctly related to that game, sitting down and reading all of James M's Dwimmermount posts, and this morning's random list.

Fall is coming which is campaign starting season around here and I want to run two or three things (life? what's that?) and one is Tunnels & Trolls. I think T&T has great potential as the core game for a game firmly in the old school and it answers most of my complaints about D&D.

So, I'm returning to the City States, but with several differences. I had an original megadungeon idea that I didn't run with and will this time. The setting won't be near the White City, although I won't eliminate it either. It will be closer to a location currently called Verteidigung, which is the megadungeon. That's over a thousand miles from the White City.

I also picked up four PDFs yesterday which I hope to use: The Dungeon Alphabet, Random Esoteric Creature Generator for Classic Fantasy Role-Playing Games and their Modern Simulacra, and both volumes of Mythmere's Adventure Design Deskbook. Look for reviews as I actually put them through their paces.

I'll be using T&T both because I like it more and certain assumptions in it work better with my ideas than D&D. Specifically I'll be using a mildly house ruled 7.5 (mainly toning down the characteristic growth rate) and I'm sure rules will evolve during play assuming I find players.

A Random List of Things For a D&D World

If I wanted to create a minimal D&D world designed for discovery through play a here's a random list of things I'd want to have/create:

• An 80 page spiral notebook with letter tabs with the following page counts for each letter tied to first letter frequency in English (combining J-K, P-Q, X-Z) for a glossary to fill in during play.
• Ten random pre-80s comic books on any theme
• A Horseclans or similar 80s pulp fantasy novel
• One old school rules set from D&D (up to 2e), T&T, the retro-clones, and EPT....the shorter the better.
• One each of pre-100 The Dragon, Knockspell/Fight On!
• A list of languages
• A list of names, male and female, for two cultures.
• Two levels of a mega-dungeon
• Three unique monsters
• A villain one step ahead of the character
• A rival party of adventurers (unless I knew I'd have two groups)
• A legend of ancient Rutas or treasure that references forgotten Rutas
• A brief history of the current age 8751 words in length (give or take)

Howard Names for the Lazy

Robert E. Howard's Hyborian age uses a lazy man's nation building: take historic cultures in stereotype, apply an archaic name, and viola fantasy world.

Okay, maybe not quite that lazy but not far off either and certainly a D&D tradition. The hard part is finding the archaic names.

Enter Wikipedia.

Old Charts: Jump Lines

Something it seems most people don't realize about the LBB of Traveller is they were revised at least once. I have both the early and later versions and there are two differences that jump out at you.

1. The layout is better. Some headings and spacers are added and charts are gathered together.
2. The various forms from the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society have been added.

However, I have one difference that I honestly thought I imagined until I got my old books from my parent's home last month.

The original LBB had a a table for determining jump routes. You compared the starport types of two worlds to their jump distance and the result was a number to roll or exceed on a D6 for their to be a jump route.

JUMP ROUTES
World Pair	----Jump Distance----
	Jump-1	Jump-2	Jump-3	Jump-4
A-A	1	2	4	5
A-B	1	3	4	5
A-C	1	4	6	-
A-D	1	5	-	-
A-E	2	-	-	-
B-B	1	3	4	6
B-C	2	4	6	-
B-D	3	6	-	-
B-E	4	-	-	-
C-C	3	6	-	-
C-D	4	-	-	-
C-E	4	-	-	-
D-D	4	-	-	-
D-E	5	-	-	-
E-E	6	-	-	-

Some points to note. The table is not linear on either access and only goes to jump-4 despite the tech including up to jump-6. This implies an assumed tech level that allows at least some jump-4 ships. B drives provide jump-4 on a 100 ton ship and H drives do for 400 ton ships. Drives up to H appear at tech level 10.

The chart emphasizes the importance of type A starports which automatically connect via established jump routes to adjacent starports of type-D or better and to those of type-E 83% of the time. Only C or better starports will establish jump-2 routes and even then at most half the time.

I don't know why this was dropped from the revised LBB but I'm glad to have it back. Like any random table it might create odd results. Still, figuring out why there is a jump-1 route running a series of D and E ports for five parsecs from an A port which doesn't even connect to an A port two parsecs away is just the creativity you want to spark.

Now to fit in Dracula...

So, on and I'm off I've been trying to figure out how to turn Jeff Reint's description of D&D: "You play Conan, I play Gandalf. We team up to fight Dracula" into a setting.

First, you can cheat a little and substitute Merlin for Gandalf. Second, we know Cimmeria was north of Pictland.

So, Merlin, Picts, decadent empires, and a struggle for a better world...

This screams a setting resembling northern England circa 475-500 with the last druids resurgent as Rome and the Christian Empire retreat and great barbarian warriors carve their own kingdoms out of the chaos.

If I could only fit Dracula into it.

The Quest for Monday Pointers: July 12, 2010

D4:Old School Gaming in the Digital Underground
Chgowiz (you did know he was back, right) find the heart of the OSR in The Humpty Dance. Who says we're a niche.

D6:Getting Metal in Your Game
Meanwhile the OSR's official Metalhead lays down his formula for making D&D metal. I'm looking to make the Friday of my fall of insanity a D&D Essentials game that I wanted to be metal. I'll be adopting some of Jim's idea with the struggle for heroes to be not to fall to that fate but instead become the fallen heroes of the next generation's legends. If I make it to level 21 doomed Epic destinies only.

D8:Shakespeare Was Willing to Kill PCs
Meanwhile Zak goes all high art with a post about how character death is good. In fact, it's a plot hook to top all other plot hooks.

The Oddity of Blog Readers

Last week I published a brief post about seeing games prominently displayed in Hastings. I went on to speculate that maybe this was a sign we have become an adult hobby like hex and chit wargaming was in its day.

I had my single highest number of visits ever. Even more than the day my manners post was made.

The biggest day ever had two posts, one a Shatner picture and the other was linked to by James at Grognardia.

In fact, the post last Friday is already my third most viewed post, behind the Ken Kelly art post and the above mentioned manners one.

Even at that it is at roughly 2/3 the views of the much older (and liked by Playing D&D with Porn Stars for crying out loud) manners post.

Yet that huge traffic generated exactly one comment.

I'll admit that boggles my imagination.

Metal Fantasy: A Reading List

If I said I wanted to read metal fantasy novels or stories, what pops into your mind first and foremost.

Remember, I said read, not watch.

An Aside...

Monday Pointers returns next week and I was adding my entries. No surprise, but one is from Zak S.'s blog.

Thus, a brief aside about Zak is in order. When I first started reading his blog I was jealous because he was, well, playing D&D with porn stars. I'm male and over 40 so I came of age when D&D was for guys who didn't get dates, even with ugly and/or frigid girls so I was insanely jealous. I'm still jealous of him but I'm more jealous of his players because his game is that good.

Anyone can play D&D with porn stars, but a good DM is a thing to treasure.

Insanity...

Games here tend to be tied to the school year (College Station...gee, wonder what the main industry is)...

I always have more things I want to run than I do...

So, I'm wonder.

Weekly games, as DM, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Insanity or bliss?

Catching Up Reading

I let the "what I'm reading" section get out of date. Below are books finished but never noted and the books are current.

For those wondering, yes I am anticipating a new RPG showing up (Wednesday the 7th according to UPS).

An Adult Hobby Now?

I noticed something unusual at my local Hastings stores.

RPGs are front and center in a feature display this month.

Two things struck me about this display:

1. It wasn't just D&D, but Pathfinder, CoC, and some White Wolf.
2. It was surrounded by adult displays, not next to the Twilight or HP stuff.

The display also had a variety of other gamer games such as Settlers.

Barnes and Noble now carries the complete Settlers line, most of Munchkin, and even more gamer type games.

I've long said this era is our second chance to become not the teen fad of the 80s (I don't want that back) but the stable, adult hobby hex and chit wargaming was from the early 60s through the mid-80s.

While Avalon Hill games in that era were not the end all/be all of wargaming (SPI was much more the grognard's choice) they were the public end of the game. Regular toy stores and Hallmark stores carried a variety of their games. Hobby stores generally had them and, depending on emphasis, a sprinkling to a vast selection of alternatives. Most people bought an AH game or two, played them, and that was that. A small handful became serious AH players and expanded into the hobby.

The ongoing presence of D&D in major book sellers could easily supply the AH phase and the occasional CoC or WW game being present (also, Hastings has Dragon Age, but not up front) as well as internet searches could provide that sprinkling that shows the handful who want to move deeper what is there.

In this context I have high hopes for the new Essentials line. With a bit of luck and hiding the crazy aunts and uncles in the attic, WotC is giving us an opening to do the early 80s not the way they happened but the way they could have.