Monday Pointers 2012-10-22

D4: Xylbocx Starcult
This is some of the best Hawkwind style science fantasy gonzo for D&D I've read in a while.

D6: Short Forms of Place Names in the UK
Sure, there is lots of naming stuff out there, but I like this summary of forms.

D8: Anachronisms
Not only anachronisms but creative ones at that. They are, however, not medieval for the most part. Regardless, I think they represent a classic trope of D&D.

D10: Spears of the Dawn
I'm sure most of my readers have seen it already, but I was a way for a couple of months. Finally, we're getting a Kevin Crawford fantasy game using the Stars Without Numbers take on B/X, something I'd been toying with doing anyway. The best part is he's putting it into the public domain if I read correctly.

D12: Real fighters use bows
Meanwhile RPGPundit is showing off the cover for a game also in the queue for me. If I could change one thing about the above it would be India over Africa for the setting. I've toyed with using India as source before but the richness of it is just daunting.

Monday Pointers August, 6th Edition

D4: Dungeons at Sea
Many dungeons use an abandoned fort as a theme. This list should provide some inspiration.

Inspirational Art: Luis Royo

This painting is by Luis Royo and was used as the cover for A Yoke of Magic by Robert Vardeman (which I'm currently reading).

A few quick descriptions from the novel of the riders and their mounts:

The three riders reined in and held their snorting mounts just beyond the ring of pale light cast by Lejena's campfire. Their horses pawed the earth, searing the ground wherever they touched; their hooves were afire.

As she neared, the foremost of the demon riders grasped a longsword forged from crystalline flame. It blazed brilliantly as it slid form a dark scabbard, tiny tongues of fire leaping and dancing along its entire length.

In the light of those hell-fired swords, Davin saw the heavy cowls pulled forward about their heads. No matter which way they turned, their faces - if they had any - remained cloaked in shadow. But the hands gripping those flaming blades were skeletal!

Between the images and the description all I can think is light-sabre wielding Nazgûl.

Random Campaign Idea in Pictures

So, lately I've been listening to this:

Which lead to me reading, for the first time, this:

While thinking about running:

Yet at the same time I'd like to run:

Where this:

Has always been associated with:

And I'm really excited to get this soon:

Now, post holocaust after the Martians is nothing new. The Aftermath rules suggest it and a later return of the Martians was the ruin for one of their playtest games (even including the human hunters of men the artillery man envisions). Still, the idea of a devastating Martian war where humanity, but not civilization, is saved by monsters and magicians could be fun.

Base on The World After and this, among others, it's clear I've internalized the D&D is the apocalypse trope. It's also clear that I prefer it not be nuclear war and have a strong bent on the Devil did it (the multiple images above, for those who don't recognize them, are from Prince of Darkness).

Monday Pointers, 2012.07.30/NCurve Edition

D4: Drow I could get behind
Like a lot of people I'm elfed out and looking for alternate types. So, making use of my all time favorite sci-fi bad guys...hell yeah.

D6: Visual Appendix N
Although I'm not a huge fan of movie/TV references to ground a campaign I look at this and think, "Can I play?"

Playing with History

Influenced by a old Jeff Rients post and prompted because the third has been on my mind today and the second the past week (actually about a week ago, but just finishing the post) here are some pseudo-historically based campaign ideas I've had:

Period	Campaign Idea	Notes	Probable Rules
About 110,000	Clark Aston Smith's Hyperborea set in Sangamonian interglacial period Greenland	When reading about Greenland due to reading The Tale of Satampra Zeiros I found this map and it's been the primary inspiration.	Of all the ideas this is the one most likely to have me drag out AD&D and believe it or not, second edition. Second edition seems like plays much closer to what I've called Intermediate D&D which I played in the early 80s than full blown AD&D. Also, I've never really played second.
871 AD	The Viking conquest of Britain during the reign of Alfred the Great.	Having long had an SCA persona who was a pre-Conquest Saxon Although for years he actually bridged the Conquest and went on the Crusades...as I spent time in I got more interested in Anglo-Saxon England. Afred's reign. Bernard Cornwell's The Saxon Stories would be the major literary influence.	Lamentations of the Flame Princess for the non-advancing fighter and the very dangerous magic which would be the halmark of the invading Vikings in constrast to the clerics of the Saxons.
late 1400s	The Valley of Mexico just before the Spainish Conquest (and possibly during).	This is the most recently inspired, by the pyramids episode of Out of Egypt which I watched on Netflix. I didn't realize that Teotihuacan was not of Aztec origin but in fact predates their culture. That alone sounds like an excellent megadungeon. Plus, Aztec culture, even the poor "I read Wikipedia and a overview book plus watched some TV" cultures that characterize D&D games (even ones based on the Middle Ages or Roman), is alien enough for most of the people who might play in my games to make it interesting.	While part of me wants to do straight OD&D with this one I suspect Runequest of some form (I've got 2nd and 3rd edition as well as BRP and GORE on the shelves and I'm open to either Mongoose version, 6th edition, or Open Quest). More than the other three I'd like to use An Echo Resounding with this one. The Valley of Mexico is perfectly sized for it at 3816sq miles. Remember, in Pre-Columbia America there are no beasts of burdern or riding animals so distances will always be driven by foot speed.

RPG Free Association

Matt's excellent Pars Fortuna includes all new spells. Reading them to build a list of 1st level spells for a new game that includes no stock spells I came across Miner's Nose which is described as "This spell grants the target the ability to magically smell precious metals and stones within 30 feet."

I immediately thought of this:


From Comics.org:

Once upon a time, there was a prince who was born in the shape of a donkey. He was the most beautiful, delightful, lovable little donkey in the world. But he was the saddest little donkey, too, for his greatest wish was to become a real human prince. Though he did not know it, there was one way he could become a human prince. But would he ever find the way?

The reason he was born that way was his father hired a wizard to help the barren queen give birth. When payment came due the king put copper at the bottom of the sacks of gold and the wizard smelled the different. Then the wizard cursed the child.

Outside of Scott at Huge Ruined Pile I don't see a lot of OSR people taking a lot of deliberate inspiration from fairy tales (this particular one is found in Grimm among other places). I don't know if Matt did here, but certainly his spell reminded me of a fairy tale (and wistfully...this particular comic was a favorite as a child).

Perhaps as much as Howard and Lovecraft we need to look at Grimm, Anderson, and Lang.

Monday Pointers, July 2, 2012

D4: Everchanging Book of Names
One of my favorite pieces of GM support software (in fact, one of only two RPG specific programs I use) is the Everchanging Book of Names. I have yet to see any OSR mention of it so I wanted to list it today. You can setup name parts and patterns that fit your world and let it generate away. Several books (sets of parts and patterns) are available include one for Greyhawk as well as other popular settings and literary sources. My favorite is, of course, Glorantha.

D6: Detailed Hexcrawl Rules
Justin has an interesting series of rules for running hexcrawls designed to keep the hexes behind the screen while players react to the environment.

D8: System Matters in the Sandbox
Ravencrowking has a multi-part discussion of why system aspects are needed for a sandbox to work. That he concludes the system in D&D 3.x and Type IV aren't conductive to sandbox play isn't a surprise. What I do find interesting is his conclusion on what currently available game beats out any version of D&D or retroclone for this position. By the reasoning he gives a retro-clone plus An Echo Resounding and Adventurer, Conqueror, King would meet the "best of show" standard as well.

D10: Nine Minute Campaign Design
Another one of those quick questions to get your setting down post that I've found useful.

D12: Crowd Funding by the Ton
Lamentations of the Flame Princess is trying to crowd fund 19 separate adventures. There are bundle options where you can get all that fund for much less than buying print plus pdf for each individually. If you are a Pembrooktonshire Gardening Society there are discounts on the bundles. It is Indiegogo, not Kickstarter, which means you pay upfront and get refunded if they don't fund. Given my two favorite OSR companies (LotFP and Sine Nomine) are effectively teaming up in it I'm most interested in seeing The House of Bone and Amber by Kevin Crawford (of Stars Without Number and Red Tide fame as well as the afore mentioned An Echo Resounding) although I'll be buying the bundle.

D20: Magical Pacts and Worshipful Machines
Speaking of Kevin Crawford we now have small free releases for Red Tide and Stars without Number.

Monster lists and the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis

So, Delta put up an interesting analysis of the LBB monster list, Original Monster Elegance. One of the things he noticed was the creatures were grouped by type and ordered, within type, by hit dice. You had humanoid types from half hit dice (kobolds) to 12 hit dice (giants). Similarly you had undead from half hit dice (skeletons) to 9 (vampires). In both cases the top monster had a variable range (8 to 12 for giants and 7-9 for vamps). After that you get, in Delta's words, a block of chimerical and serpent-like monstrosities, culminating with dragons, purple worms, and (on the flip) sea monsters.

Lately, I've been looking at the very common OSR idea of campaign unique monsters and spells. I wondered, what if you took the LBB groups and did the same thing uniquely. A group of humanoid monsters, a group of undead, and a group of...well, what do you call them, monster monsters.

There is this linguistic theory called linguistic relativity. Read the Wikipedia article for the detailed and not screwed up by me defition. I first heard of it as the Sapif-Whorf hypothesis in a Heinlein story (Gulf if memory serves). I've always understood it as "the words you have influence what you can think about" but Wikipedia tells me it's more complex than that. However, I think there is a kernal of truth.

See, when I was coming up with my three basic groups I was looking for a word to describe what Delta called "a block of chimerical and serpent-like monstrosities". Then, one hit me. I wrote down kaiju. At that moment, as silly as it might sound, just choosing the word to define the group of non-humanoid, non-undead monsters put it into focus. I immediately started thinking not only of Godzilla but Rodan and Gamera.

Maybe, in the end, the monsters won't end up that different. After all, they'll still be based on real animals in some way. I certainly don't want to create some "Japanese" setting. To be honest, if I wanted to use Japanese media as a primary inspiration it's more likely to be for a space fantasy game using Message from Space, The War in Space, Atragon, and so on. However, I do think choosing that word got me out of what I'll call the D&D mindset, the whole Elfy/Dwarfy thing.

Your Cleric is an Initiate

Most D&D style settings have a polytheistic religion that is simply either:

1. An overly simplified Catholicism with the various deities being similar to saints.
2. A modern mix of individual churches similar to Protestantism in the US.

I think we're missing a real opportunity.  While the first model is probably close enough to the state polytheistic faiths in the ancient and Classical worlds for the general faith of the people I think it misses the boat with clerics.

In the Classical world there were a series of religions variously known as mystery cults, mystery religions, or just mysteries.  Enough is known on two to even result in cult specific articles on Wikipedia: the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Mithraic Mysteries.  In fact, I wrote up a "race as class" version of Mithras a couple of years ago.

These cults were highly secretive and consisted of levels of initiation. The closest analog today is probably Masonic and similar orders as well as groups like The Golden Dawn. Based on that you might consider mystery cults to be more appropriate to magic-users.  While both groups are occult organizations the modern groups rely on intellectual understanding of the universe being increased instead of a divine revelation.  Both fit well in a campaign.

"But Herb," I hear you say, "how does this differ for being a follower of the god Foo in traditional D&D terms."  The biggest changes are social although some powers issues come up.  In the traditional D&D world your know that Foo's worshiper are healers so that's the temple you go to for healing.  With mystery cults you don't know much if anything about the faith including what powers they bestow or where to find a high priest of Foo or even the site of Foo worship.  In fact, even a PC cleric who is a member of Foo's mystery cult won't necessarily know the powers of those above him especially those significantly above him.  Thus, the indulgence system of gaining clerical favors (go to the temple and make a donation) is replaced with a series of investigations, favors traded, and possibly initiation for PCs.  Remember, much of the cult knowledge is secret and cannot be taught or shared.  This has ramifications for PCs (see below).

In terms of powers the customization would be similar in some ways to AD&D2 but different in others.  Instead of assigning schools to a given cult I would recommend drawing up several circles of initiation.  Each circle could consist of a mix of myths, symbols, titles, and spells becoming available as well as qualifications.  While certainly a level component should be part of a circle change other activities, such as quests or ritual combat similar to the Druid, the Monk, or the Paladin regaining status could be included at the higher levels.

One important idea is don't have the spells map to 2nd edition and later domains.  Mystery cults don't map well to normal deities of the "sun god", "rain god", "war god" style.  They are much closer to early conceptions of cults in Runequest.

The other important idea is secrecy.  Sure, your third circle cleric of the Foo mysteries recognizes that symbol as the sign of Bar from the myths of the Snafu over the wedding feast but you can't communicate those details to the party with risking a religious violation.

To give an example of circles, tomorrow I present my Initiate of Mithras as rules for a cleric.

Monday Pointers, 2012-06-04

D4: In Praise of the Comics Code
While I don't 100% agree with Eric about DC (which may be due to my love being The Legion of Superheroes instead of other groups) I think he has a point. Four color heroes are a meme for a reason and in abandoning that completely the supers have become less. Watchman was supposed to be a deconstruction not an inspriation. In a related note, my recent Lulu order included a print copy of Mystery Men.

D6: Several Cities in Time
Ckutalik is exploring building an underworld built of ruined cities under the current one in his setting. Not only is this an interesting idea, but very historical. In fact, although Pillagers of Troy was originally conceived as a Pavis/Big Rubble type set-up this might work better.

D8: Mother Goose is My Dungeon Master
There is this great bit in the series Sports Night where several characters wish they could have more good ideas. A lot of my fellow bloggers make me feel the same way.

D10: For the Ultimate Rules Lawyer
While the idea of building a game's rules from a blank page up via common law is a bit much in my experience most groups run by common law. For one, very few groups are single GM, single campaign all the time in my experience dating back to the late 70s. While by the 80s the "playing my character in Jim's campaign" style has been replaced by "this is my character in Jim's campaign" style it was still rotating GMs. Groups had common law that they used in all their games. You even had the legal factor of knowing a given judge's style affect how you played.

Unispirations

It's common for people to list the inspirations for their campaigns, but do you have uninspirations?

For example, The World After and it's earlier version City States of the Apocalypse had H. P. Lovecraft as an uninspiration. Although I do enjoy his writing I think he's overdone. One of his key ideas, humanity is insignificant on a cosmic scale, is completely opposite a key portion of both campaigns. In both, humanity, but it's own will, broke the entire cosmos.

It seems many, many gamers want to have Tolkien as an uninspiration but their results are mixed.

So, what are your uninspirations?

Further Notes to Myself for Yellow Book D&D

Expanding on my Chinese menu D&D (for those old enough to remember Chinese menus in that form):

Also take:
Holmes: five form alignment
ACKS: spell formula versus spell repertoire plus free casting from repertoire
Neoclassical Geek Revival: Level breakpoint achievement requirement, especially at level 15 and beyond.

Actually, how many people ever really get to level 36 in BECMI/RC or level 20 in AD&D. I know D&D3 was designed to get to level 20 in something like 18 months (which WotC found was normal time to reboot). I would think a similar philosophy was in effect with Type IV's 30 levels.

Still, assuming bi-weekly play over two years is 52 sessions or going up a level about every 4 sessions for 14th level (13 level increases). Assuming two weeks out of three (about my adult experience) it's 72 sessions or just under a level every 5. Even a very optimistic three out of four only gets 77 or a level every 5.5 sessions. That's assuming no character death.

Do we really need anything beyond BX or LL/AD&D with 14 and 20 level limits respectively.

D&D Next Characters

I haven't played or even finished reading through the playtest materials, but a quick glance at the Race:Class:Background:Theme system with just what's provided there are 400 potential combinations in the playtest.

Is anyone else trying to generate characters?

Also, why play a human? Is this something we'll see later? Should we be surprised that only one of five sample characters is human?

Reading Up On Remove Traps

One of the early OSR debates was about the theif. Did the thief break the original game by taking things that normally all characters could do, the big example being search for traps and remove them, into something only a specialized class could do. Cute a lot of hair splitting and word parsing about the topic. I won't rehash it all here but in working on my own version of a BX Companion as well as running a BX game I actually read the rules.

Here's what Moldvay has to say about the disarming traps thief ability:

remove small traps (such as poison needles)

However, on page 22 when discussing traps as part of the adventure:

Any character has a 1 in 6 chance of finding a trap when searching for one in the correct area. Any dwarf has a 2 in 6 chance (This does not apply to magical traps such as a sleep trap.

What's interesting here is the thief is listed as having both find and remove traps (with the same score) which begins at 10%. No details are given for the find part.

While OD&D doesn't give any numbers on finding traps that I can find it does have the same verbiage on springing traps (1 in 2) as Moldvay. Right before that section in Book 3 is the discussion on finding secret doors. It seems Moldvay's trap finding is just an application of those rules with dwarves instead of elves getting the demi-human advantage.

Moldvay's decription of disarming traps matches Greyhawk and Holmes pretty much word for word and both Greyhawk and Holmes do not mention finding traps, just removing them.

While Moldvay gives not description of the find part of the skill the AD&D Player's Handbook gives us the most detail of any early (1980 or earlier) set:

Finding/removing traps pertains to relatively small mechanical devices such as poisoned needles, spring blades,and the like. Finding is accomplished by inspection, and they are nullified by mechanical removal or by being renderedharmless.

This verbiage is pretty much intact in 2nd Edition AD&D with some additions:

The thief is trained to find small traps and alarms. These include poisoned needles, spring blades, deadly gases, and warning bells. This skill is not effective for finding deadfall ceilings, crushing walls, or other large, mechanical traps.

The addition of gases and spring blades make it a little more vague on where the line is even if an outer limit is set.

What I make from all of this is the thief's traps abilities are relatively weak. If you're allowing a thief to find pits, falling blocks, deadman's crossbows, or similar large scale traps with a simple role you've expanded this skill beyond what was intended. The same if you let him disarm such traps. Now, I'll admit that's how I long played and my experience with D&D3 and later seem to formalize that in their find and disable device skills.

However, if we unlearn what was in later additions and go back and read the thief the traps ability is a narrow one. Clearly, other characters can find large architectural traps and play skill is still needed to disarm them. That's probably a good dividing line: anything part of the dungeon or other structure is not a trap accessible to thief skills. A stand alone object the thief can pick up and move or simple mechanisms mounted to walls is accessible.

Name level group founding for a witch

Along with my idea of the dwarf as a fighter/cleric and hobbit as a fighter/thief I'd like to add classes for the other three combos.

Charlatan: Magic-user/theif who is a failed (or thrown out) apprentice who learned to live by his wits. At name level he can form a company of players.
Yogi: Cleric/theif (I wanted to avoid monk and mystic) who studied in the inscrutable $DIRECTION. At name level he can form a ashram.
Witch: Cleric/Magic-user who is a bit of a druid but also does spell potions from level one (as well as some others) similar to a Holmes magic-user and scrolls. I guess the obvious choice for their group is a coven but could there be other options.

One thing from column A, one from column B

So, I looked at all the versions of D&D I own and wondered if I had to include a feature from each in my games, which would I use. I've included the clones if I own physical copies.

OD&D: The castle rules from Book 3.
Holmes: Scroll creation for low level magic-users.
B/X: The baseline system for everything.
AD&D (both editions): Hobbits being mostly thieves, dwarves being clerics (so, now like the Elf being a fighter/magic-user, the hobbit is a fighter/thief, and the dwarf is a fighter/cleric).
BECMI/RC: Thirty-sixth level characters and fighter combat options.
D&D3: Interestingly enough, this turns out to be a tough one. Feats are covered by DD and if I wanted skills I'd use the DD system as well.
Type IV: It's Manual of the Planes, the one bit of assumed world I liked from it more than prior editions.
LotFP: The encumbrance system, attack modes for fighters, and the parry option. If I used my charlatan class (magic-user/thief combo) I'd base their player's company name level rules on the inn rules.
BX Companion: The high level thief traits. Possibly the mass combat rules.
ACKS: Ritual spells, high level magic user abilities (creation of half-breeds), cleave rule (for fighters only), and mortality table.
Dark Dungeons: Weapons feats and spell training/research rules. Thirty-sixth level demi-humans (I know they're an option in RC but DD assumes their use).
Neo-Classical Geek Revival: The various exploration and travel XP awards.

What A Lawful Good Party Looks Like

Ambassador Sarek: As I recall, I opposed your enlistment in Starfleet. It is possible that judgment was incorrect. Your associates are people of good character.
Spock: They are my friends.

I remember waiting for Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country to come out. My friends and I speculated how they were going to get out of the jam of stealing the Enterprise, sabotaging the Excelsior, going into interdicted space, blowing up the Enterprise, killing the crew of a Klingon ship, and stealing that ship.

The most common theory was they would be kicked out of Starfleet but get to keep the Klingon ship similar to rolling a scout ship while mustering out in Traveller. Of course, like Traveller, they would be subject to recall and thus become a kind of Starfleet black ops group. While that would be a great rpg or action film it would be bad Star Trek.

Instead the crew loads up and heads for Earth to stand trial for their offenses.

From Wikipedia

A Lawful Good character typically acts with compassion, and always with honor and a sense of duty.

Clearly the crew of the Enterprise had acted with compassion and duty towards their friend. They also had a sense of honor and duty to the Federation. A man of duty and honor does not flee from his crimes but stands trial for them and fights for his vindication and receives his punishment.

Still, when the Earth is attacked by an alien probe we could excuse the crew for not going to Earth. They are going to stand trial not to be attacked by aliens. Yet each and every crew member was sworn to defend the Federation and thus has a duty to protect it. They are honor bound to stand by that duty. So, they risk their lives to save a planet which wants to put them on trial.

Federation Council president: Captain Spock, you do not stand accused.
Spock: Mister President, I stand with my shipmates.

After successfully saving the future does the crew demand that their actions allow the slate to be wiped clean? No, they still present themselves for trial.

And Spock, out of loyalty to the people who sacrificed for him chooses to stand trial with them.

So, next time you're playing or dungeon mastering a paladin or other lawful good character and are running into the "good is stupid" or "good is dull and boring" or "good is inflexible" tap into the most successful crew in Starfleet for a model of lawful good behavior.

The Wraith of Monday Pointers

D4:So if RPGs are made of wood...
While not exactly my traditional point about TTRPG vs CRPG/MMORPG I think this is close.

The cost of plate now makes sense

I was reading Moldvay Basic this morning and I made a correlation that explained something. I had never understood why plate mail was so cheap (60gp) in B/X (and then BECMI and most of the clones) that a fighter will generally have it by second level with the normal treasure/creatures XP ratio and may have it as a starting character.

Here are the prices of armor in B/X:

Armor	Cost
Leather	20gp
Chain	40gp
Platemail	60gp
Shield	10gp

Which, when combined with AC gives us the following chart:

Description	AC	Cost	Cost per -1 from AC 9
Clothing only	9	0gp	0gp
Shield only	8	10gp	10gp
Leather	7	20gp	10gp
Leather and shield	6	30gp	10gp
Chain	5	40gp	10gp
Chain and shield	4	50gp	10gp
Platemail	3	60gp	10gp
Platemail and shield	2	70gp	10gp

The result is a nice, linear cost per gain in AC. This leaves me the option of finding true historical costs or creating my own mapping. Perhaps basing it on the square of the gain:

Description	AC	Cost	Cost per -1 from AC 9
Clothing only	9	0gp	0gp
Shield only	8	10gp	10gp
Leather	7	20gp	10gp
Leather and shield	6	30gp	10gp
Chain	5	80gp	20gp
Chain and shield	4	90gp	18gp
Platemail	3	180gp	30gp
Platemail and shield	2	190gp	27gp

Combined with my idea of awarding one XP per SP (and also reducing found treasure to 1/10 of the books list) that would mean a fighter would probably get platemail sometime between 3 and 4th level, which is consistent with my objectives.

Twenty Questions

It seems while I was busy working an idea swept the OSR blogs: identifying what is your D&D and the idea of personalized versions. I'm very glad to see this as I was considering writing about the idea that we should view AD&D as a fully worked example of writing your own D&D, basically the idea behind the Greyhawk and Blackhawk supplements on steroids.

So, my answers to Brendan's 20 Questions answered for Swords of the Red Sun (although The World After is pretty similar).

Ability scores generation method?
Roll 3d6 7 times and record them in order. You may swap any two and the results are your ability scores in Holmes order (ST, IQ, WS, CN, DX, CH) and your initial gold (last roll times 10).

How are death and dying handled?
Unconscious at 0 and dead at negative constitution.

What about raising the dead?
It has been done in legend but no local clerics or mages can do it. Think of fal tor pan at the end of Star Trek III.

How are replacement PCs handled?
As a general rule you come in with half your prior experience at the first logical place (or some value of logical place) for me to add your character.

Initiative: individual, group, or something else?
Group on a D6 then high to low, although I might experiment with a group roll with individual Dex bonus applied to the D6. Ties are simultaneous action.

Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work?
No.

Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet?
Not generally, but if players start observing and using it the monsters will do the same.

Can I hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly?
Generally no, but if you're trying some wild maneuver you might.

Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything?
Under the Red Sun things do not scale to you...you might have a cakewalk and you might need to run away, run away.

Level-draining monsters: yes or no?
Yes, but XP (down to the min for the next lowest level) only, not HP/to hit/etc.

Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death?
Yes, but generally not without you needing to be stupid (no save or die poison from most monsters for example).

How strictly are encumbrance & resources tracked?
About once every other session using the Lamentations of the Flame Princess system (with strength bonus applied to the cutoff points for levels).

What's required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure, or do I have to wait for down time?
Training for proficiencies (I will be using the Adventurer, Conqueror, King system) and spell training for mages. The system will use the weapon's mastery and spell learning rules from Dark Dungeons. I tend to hold all XP until you get back to a safe area so you really do wait for downtime. Also, I use the re-roll all hit dice and taking the higher of old or new rule until you hit name level.

What do I get experience for?
Travel, seeing unique and legendary things, killing monsters, killing named monsters, defeating human villains, and treasure. Normal monsters and treasure awards are straight out of Basic D&D (Moldvay) and the others are drawn from Neoclassical Geek Revival.

How are traps located? Description, dice rolling, or some combination?
Combination, but you generally get more results if you are descriptive.

Are retainers encouraged and how does morale work?
Yes and they are straight out of Basic D&D (Moldvay).

How do I identify magic items?
In town each item takes a day for an automatic identify. In the dungeon for immediate usage you can experiment in play or take a off camera experiment. Off camera you take a full turn (with wandering monster roll if enough time has passed) and your mage makes a saving throw. If he succeeds you figure it out. If not you get a wandering monster roll with +1 per turn you've been experimenting.

Can I buy magic items? Oh, come on: how about just potions?
Some low powered charms and fetishes (hedge magic) which includes some potions. If you ask about buying a Hammer of Thunderbolts you'll probably find several :)

Can I create magic items? When and how?
Yes, at level 15+. As an aside, this is the point when mages can learn more spells of a given level than they can cast per day (ie, moving to Companion escapes the B/X limits) and research brand new spells.

What about splitting the party?
It's your funeral.

Monday Pointers, Almost the end of January 2012

D4:If this isn't a Dying Earth curse it should be
So, Ancient Vaults gives us a bug covered in coins that also acts as a coin magnet. While the cursed dwarf idea they suggest isn't bad, having recently re-read Vance's classic tale (which is a huge influence on the current Swords of the Red Sun campaign I couldn't help but think this is a curse originally created for use on Cudgel himself.

D6:Pissing away treasure for fun and progress
Scott provides some easy rules for kickers to XP for treasure by disposing of it without profit, although if you're using Holmes scroll creation (which I highly recommend) low level Magic-Users get a boost. Still, it helps a little bit with the too much treasure required problem I have.

Plus, "cannibalizing orphans for necromantic rituals should be its own reward."

D8:A Runequest Geocities Remnant
Highlighting this page is a bit random. A sub-page is the first hit when you search on "lunar elves", which are one of the two kinds of elves in Swords of the Red Sun (the others are Imperial, or Draconic, Elves). Although we don't talk about it much in the OSR the early internet era had a huge number of pages about people's homebrew worlds (there was even an index at one point: Worlds in the Net). They are one of many bridges from now to the early DIY era of RPGs so I thought I'd point one out.

Clockwork Skeletons

Clockwork Skeletons
Armor Class:7[12]*
Hit Dice:2+2
Number of Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d6/weapon
Movement: 40
Number Appearing: 2d6, rarely found in wilderness
Save as: Fighter 1
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: None

The Clockwork, or Bronze, Skeleton is one of the last remaining magics of the Cult of the Machine God. A bronze skeleton powered by wires and gears these automatons are a standard guardian in their temples and caves. They have rudimentary brain matrices limited to knowing a patrol area, responding to alarms, recognizing friend and foe, and standing guard. They will not automatically attack unless what they are guarding is disturbed. Because of the wires and pulleys that make up their mechanics they are vulnerable to edged weapons unlike undead skeletons.

Because they are not true undead they cannot be turned by a cleric. They have a weird vulnerability to electricity that appears to confuse them, often causing them to run away in a random fashion or cease working. If a Clockwork Skeleton is targeted by an electrically based attack it and all skeletons within 40' of it react as if they were undead skeletons being faced by a cleric. Roll to turn undead at the level of the person wielding electricity. If turned they move about randomly without attacking. If destroyed they are not physically destroyed but merely freeze in place and cease functioning (if using BFRPG or similar games that interpret D as damaged instead of destroyed apply damage as per those rules).

It is said that the cult once had a secret to clothe these machines in artificial flesh and to allow them to speak, although in a stilted manner with little grace (phrases such as "Your clothes, give them to me" are recorded in stories involving them).

* For BFRPG add 1 to the AC, for LotFP use the conversion from DM book.

As per the licensing page the material in this box is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License or the Open Gaming License. Choose the license which best suits your purposes but I prefer the Creative Commons.

Actual Play: Gigabites Jan. 25

Again, no takers at the store although I did get into a convo with one of the Type IV players doing the Encounters stuff. They only have a few weeks left so maybe I'll get some interest between it ending and the next beginning.

In order to generate more interest I'm working on fliers for the local libraries and other locations. I'll share them as I get them done.

As excitement over the AD&D reprints grows I'm tempted to run it as AD&D including segment initiative and at least some tracking of spell components. We'll see.

I also have an interest in digging out Lords of Creation and seeing if I can get some interest in that, but I worry about giving into my ADD too much. First, get regular players or give up after eight weeks of no sign-ups.

Monday Pointers, Bonus Week Edition, January 23, 2012

D4:Playing with Lessnard
What would it be like to play a game run by a man who played with Gary, Dave, and in Phil Barker's early OD&D Empire of the Petal Throne game? Paul over at Blog of Holding has a three part report on playing with Mike Mornard (you may know him as Old Geezer on RPG.net).

D6:Magic Item: Earth's Ending
taichara is back. What, you're not familiar with the Hamsterish Hoard? Then you need to stop, right now, and go read some of the most creative content created for the Red Box (and adaptable everywhere) on the web.

A feat of integration

In my Basic Fantasy game I'm going to give fighters (and only fighters) feats on the same schedule as fighter bonus feats in Type III. As someone who has played fighters more than all other classes combined (at least, I suspect I have, and human fighters at that) I read with interest the preview article in Dragon 270 that introduced feats.

To make fighters more interesting without sacrificing the simplicity that aids new players, the designers made fighters masters of the feat.

There is a good idea there, but they screwed it up. They gave everyone feats. There is no reason to give everyone feats. Other classes had their own niche skills such as spells or stealth abilities. Yet, they still got combat progression and if magic-users were a tad fraigle for front like fighting clerics certainly weren't. One way to fix this social imbalance is to prevent the other classes from advancing in combat ability. This is the route taken by Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying Game and it has been routinely praised for it.

The other route I've seen taken around the OSR is some form of fighter options. Sword & Board, a supplement for BFRPG has them in the form of fighter professions, one taken at creation and another at name level. These range from various bonuses to AC, damage, to hit, and so on depending on circumstance to the ability to use magic user scrolls. Delta's Original Edition Delta includes a dozen fighter feats to be selected one every fourth level starting at fourth. They are about on par with the weakest of the S&B ones. I even reviewed a product that added them to weapons proficiencies. Clearly, the idea of feats as a form of fighter customization has caught on in the OSR at least a little.

The biggest complaint I hear about feats is "they limit what you can do, why can't anyone try to cut through an orc so much it carries to the next one." Looking back at the original conception of feats gives a bit of explanation:

Unlike skills, feats always work because they're bonuses, not abilities. For example, the Dodge feat lets you designate one opponent against whom your character gains a +1 bonus to Armor class. You don't have to roll for success; you just add the bonus

Had feats stuck to this system instead of the splatbook business model monster they became I doubt we'd have the "but they limit what you can do argument." The explanation also gives a clue as to how to avoid that problem. For people with feats the bonus is automatic. Want to try to dodge when you don't have the feat. Well, my a DEX roll and if you pass you get it but if you fail you lose you action this round as you stumble around. Everyone can try it, but someone who is good at it does it automatically without risk of penalty.

The reason I'm just using out of the box OGL feats is two fold. First, it's just easy to get a huge selection easily and even free. This means I can add it without much creativity except integrating what players choose. Second, consider it a fig leaf to players of newer editions who try my games. Their fighters will still get a bit of flair and they'll be exposed to one of the great things about the OSR: you can do what you want with it. I'll even find ways to use non-combat feats if they want them.

Actual Play: Gigabites Jan. 18

There was no actual play. This isn't a huge surprise as I only the posting on my blog. I've added one to the local D&D meetup page and I'll make some posters to hang this week.

I did, however, hang out, just hang out, at a game store for the first time in close to a decade. Gigabites is more coffee shop than game store really. They are mostly a minis store and have lots of those, Magic cards, and a handful of RPG stuff. They will order anything and are doing the WotC organized play for Type IV.

What did I do while hanging out? I sat down to do my first real adventure design using material from Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design. I've barely scratched the surface and couldn't give it an honest review but I will say this, using a mix of rolls, just reading the tables, and my scraps of inspiration I've already created a more interesting dungeon than anything I've done since high school. Admittedly until about 2008 I hadn't really written once since then (talking 1985 here) the ones I've tried to create since joining the OSR have been...generic and seemed identical.

Monday Pointers, MLK Day, January 16, 2012

D4:Slaying Giants
Noisms has a great discussion on different philosophies of encounters: the bunch of mooks to kill versus the big thing to gang up on. He has some great points on being in the bunch of mooks rut and why as you level up it should be more giant killing.

D6:Wandering Goblin Masacres
I also re-read this very insightful post at The Alexandrian on a specific type of encounter, the wandering monster. I can speak from experience that having wandering monsters completely changes the tenor of a Type IV game. When I played it we played with just the GM placed encounters. When I ran it, I used wandering monsters, in fact we probably had as many wandering monster fights are planned encounters. The pacing is entirely different. Enough, that I'd add "wandering monsters and random encounters" close to the top of a "old school vs. new school" list.

D8:Letter Writing
Grognardling has a very fun post arguing about how everyone should contribute to Type V D&D and follows through with his own desires. Not sure if I'll write my post but I found his very interesting. Probably my favorite of the commentary so far.

D10:The Orcs of Navarone
Remember playing with plastic army men? Beedo says it's the same thing as running a location based adventure.

D12:What's in a Name
A look back at naming your campaign and how that signified you were playing your D&D and the attitude that doing so was a good thing.

Come Out And Play

Starting this coming Wednesday, January 18, 2012, I'll be coming out to Gigabites Cafe in Marietta, Georgia to run a FLAILSNAILS game using Basic Fantasy Roleplaying as my home rules set (or as I like to call it, Intermediate D&D).

Start Time: 7:30pm
End Time: 11:00pm at the latest (it's when they close).

I'll have a sign so you can find me. I'll have pregens if you need them. I'm happy to teach and according to at least one person at the local D&D meetup my games are very newbie/haven't played in a while friendly (so bring your SO and/or kids).

And now, some inspiration video because fucking flailsnails.