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.

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?"

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.

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.

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.

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.

Monday Pointers, DragonCon 2011 Edition

D4: The breadth of inspiration
Rob Knutz's recollection of where many items in his and Gary's early campaign drew inspiration.  If you think that because you're playing a fantasy game means Iron Man comics and the products of Campbell's Golden Age are off limits you really need to read this.  He explains much better (by showing, not telling) the idea I was after with the big list.

D6: Opening Pandora's Box again
Timeshadows is right.  I've played T&T since 1979 and it's my go to game for one-shots and convention games.  Which is why I'm running it at Consticon.

D8: A Far Northern Land
Thanks to Lin Carter's anthology Lost Worlds, specifically his two "collaborations" with Clark Ashton Smith I got interested in the idea of a Greenland that was tropical and temperate instead of covered in an ice sheet. Wikipedia identifies Smith's Hyperborea with Greenland although I'm not sure why (anyone got some pointers on that). Regardless, Wikipedia also provides us a map of Greenland sans glaciers with an awesome inland sea.

D10: Infinite Stars
Stars Without Number now has its own fanzine.  While you're grooving in post-Scream space check out the game's blog (just click on its title) for a bunch of clippings: little editions including some previews of  a Terra Post Dust supplement and the merchant version of Skyward Steel as well as adding wizards from your favorite old school game to SWN.  You could also use SWN's psi class as an alternative to supplement three psionics.

Monday Pointers, August 22, 2011

D4: We are more metal than you, period
Just go listen...it's all about the lyrics.

D6: Taking a bite out of the dungeon
While this class might seem odd or useless I think it's classic golden age D&D where anything is possible.

D8: Sexy wood nymphs no more
Over on The Barbaric Frontier M.P. provides us with a horrific take on the dryad.

D10: The only thing we have to fear
An interesting alternative rule for "save for flee" horror effects.

D12: Don't use rules to be lazy
Although the author focused on 4th edition you could argue the trend started with AD&D or maybe even Greyhawk itself.  So when you read it don't get hung up on the title or the specific game mentioned.  Grok the idea.

Monday Pointers, August 15, 2011

D4: If this is half-baked I wish I baked half as well as Tim
So, Tim over on The Other Side has a great idea on how to run a campaign using, in succession, every version of D&D treating all non-advanced or numbered editions as one (which is reasonable).  My biggest question is would I portray the core NPC as Bob Newhart or Noah Wyle.

D6: Evolution of the Rust Monster
If only Darwin knew the possibilities he had discovered.

D8: The List
Want an original, clone, or riff on TSR D&D here's a great starting point.

D10: You have to have your local nitro play it though
Over at Mule Abides a series of posts have been going through book 2 of the LBB, Monsters & Treasures.  It expects a lot of intelligent magic swords and they could have big effects on the world.

Monday Pointers, August 1st Edition

D4: G+ Game Tips and FAQ for those going to Constantcon 2011
How big is Constantcon 2011? Big enough that my "I play RPGs as a social activity which means other people in a room not chatting on the Internet" self is going.

I may even try to run a game.

D6: My newly found blogging love
Very interesting ideas and very prolific.

D8: Orientalist Adventures
A very old (April 2008) post but one I read for the first time last week.  It really got me thinking and had me looking to buy a copy of AD&D OA, which I've never owned.  His challenge to use the old rules but just gut the meta-data (classes, spells, etc) has come to fruition at least once with Matt's Pars Fortuna.  It would be interesting to do an Indian Adventures (IA) that was a mismash of everything from the Mahabharata forward.  Instead of cavaliers we'd have bow specialists who ride in chariots while the general fighter would remain the same.  Assassins (or thieves if just doing B/X versions) would be replaced by the thugee. I'm not knowledgeable enough to suggest variations of clerics (lots of options, but how to make them "Indian" in some generic western stereotype sense) or magic-users.

D10: Fantasy India D&D Resources

Someone gathered what they could find in physical books at Amazon though. He does mention the pdf only Sahasra which is for 3.5.  There are several books which are on my wish list.

D12: Need A New TV Series?
One last link on the India theme is this series from the late 80s of the Mahabharata.  I've watched the first episode and enjoyed it although I suspect I'm missing most of it.  Sadly, it is not on Netflix although Michael Woods's The Story of India is (also in book form).  His  In Search of the Dark Ages and In Search of the Trojan War have been useful in the past (the former has no TV series, the later's series is also on Netflix) and I suspect all of his books are a good source for GMs.

Monday Pointers

D4:What Do You Need for a Sandbox I
D6:What Do You Need for a Sandbox II

With the effort to create a setting to the point to start a campaign having some guideposts is a good idea.

D8:Boons
Yet another great way to build characters not on what they can do but what they're good at doing. The Pars Fortuna rules he published use this system and look like a great supplement to any old school game.

D10:Relationships Sandbox
Hill Cantons looks at what may be the earliest use of a relationships chart to build a campaign with rules from TSR's Top Secret. Later posts are providing a worked example.

D12:A Semi-random Encounter System
I like this one page wilderness system that creates semi-random encounters not from tables but from what you placed on the map. The only long term issue I can see is managing turn-over.

D13:Grognardia Inspired by PtGPtB
Okay, not really, but his latest Pulp Fantasy Library post does cover a novel I wrote about in Silver Age Appendix N a while back so I figured a cheap link to get hits up is a "valid" D13. The post featuring the cover art is my most popular post of all time.

Monday Pointers

D4:Old School Prestige Classes
This could meld well with Zak's location based feats idea as well. Also, notice the blog itself is now part of the blogroll.

D6:Alernate XP
If I ever run True20 this might be what I use for advancement instead of the system Chronicles of Ramlar, despite the principle reason I own the later is its experience system.

D8:Magical Traditions
I like this quick and dirty way of determining spells for new characters. It would mesh nicely with the idea of having specialist magic-users from 2nd/3rd edition (easily portable to OD&D) be based on a tradition instead of a college. What if Hurgh's spells are forever banned to students of Rhialto due to incompatible theories of magic?

Monday Pointers

D4:Bastard Serpent
A sea monster related to Chinese Dragons might seem a basic monster. What really stood out for me with this one is how it's a worked example of using folk lore instead of fantasy fiction, and an older book of folk lore at that, to create a unique but believable monster. Sadly the book has not made it to Project Gutenberg (although that gives me an idea for a May theme/challenge).

D6:The Value of Not Defining Your Terms
Sir Larkins has been riffing on "which 13-14th century" the Forgotten Realms resembled. However, the best take so far is "BC or AD?". Just remember, if you take this path consider dawn age magic which was inspired by Imperishable Fame.

D8:Grindhouse Gaming
Let's be honest, most of our gaming is already.

D10:Erotic Fantasy via Lamentations of the Flame Princess (NSFW)
Luna, the model used for the Flame Princess herself snake demon the Flame Princess faces off against on the cover, is featured in the erotic horror section of Fangoria magazine. Not safe for work.

D13:An Awesome Shout Out
As you might have noticed D13 is for waving my own flag. This week Mythmere himself has given me a shout out and I just have to brag.

Monday Pointers: Less the Fool Edition

D4:You Don't Need a Hex to Crawl
Ix provides a hex less crawl through the Kingdom of Ignorance in Northwestern Glorantha. It's designed for the Doomquest micro-RQ hack in Fight On! issue 11. This really strikes me for a couple of reasons. First, it's Glorantha, a setting I've loved since first owning RQ2 back in 1980. Second, like a lot of OSR oriented people I love collections of charts that I can use to GM on the fly. Third, I like how he has it set-up in terms of what the hexless means. I'm not sure if this is original to these posts or even Ix but it's new to me. I think it could adapt really well to the Tuesday night D&D4 campaign whose focus is shifting after the TPK-1 in early March.

D6:The Best Things in Gaming Are Free
Well, maybe not all of them. Still, as this list of free material for Labyrinth Lord shows you could arguably have a life-time RPG hobby and only buy dice, pencils, and paper. While it won't stop me from buying stuff it's good to have a reminder that our hobby is one that doesn't take much money (or space given this is all electronic).

D8:End Times for The B/X Companion
No, it's not going away because of WotC lawyers but more mundane end of a printing press. Actually, Blackrazor has the 3rd printing ready and lets us know it'll be the last saddle stitched (and maybe last period). If, like me, you've been tardy in ordering one times a wasting so get it now. Also, once this sells out he'll start work on the PDF version so, if you're waiting for PDF, buy a hard copy.

D10:The One Reboot I Enjoyed
Matt stumbles upon what is really happening to many OSR types in this post. I know, after reading it, it's what happened to me. When I first saw Basic Fantasy Roleplaying it did that to me. In fact, this blog is the reaction to the process that began with that discovery along with James Raggi IV's 101 Days of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (which despite being a couple of years old at that time I hadn't read until then due to his posting later about finding players with flyers).

D12:Deluxe Megadungeon on the Horizon
I know Castle of the Archmage can be had free but this looks well worth it.

D13:I've Gotten Over 40 XP and Leveled Up
I'd like to thank everyone who has followed me as I'm now A Thinker

Monday Pointers: Out Like a Lamb Edition

D4:Favored and Unfavored Abilities
Here's a cool little house rule for generating ability scores. It's from an abandoned attempted at the Fantasy Heartbreaker exercise by Mike Holmes and related by Ron Edwards in the second fantasy heartbreaker article. The irony is I found Madcat's blog looking up one of my favorite heartbreakers, Fifth Cycle. Regardless, I think this idea will work it's way into The World After, at least for generating non-humans.

D6:Produce a Setting Almanac, not Encyclopedia
This one is a bit old, but given I've got two posts in the hopper today that reference it I figured I should link to it. Zak, about to produce his first published setting, argues prose is the wrong way to present a setting. Instead we should have game rules materials: random charts, classes, lists, etc.

D8:Yet This is An Encyclopedia
The hot thing last week in the OSR seemed to be our very own wiki with many exhortations to link your favorite things.

D10:A Truly Random Contest
So, Fight On is having a random tables contest. The winners get to roll on a series of treasure tables for their prize.

D12:Not An April's Fools
This Friday is the pre-order day for LotFPWFRPG: Grindhouse Edition and Vornheim (which is the above mentioned setting by Zak). I will be as close to #1 as possible to the point of considering writing a bot to do it.

Two posts in the hopper today (as in almost done) plus Thursday I'll be putting up a "to be filled in as I go" index for the post a letter a day in April.

Monday Pointers: In Like a Lion 2011

D4:Art from the Greatest Gonzo RPG of All Time
Most people think Rifts is the ultimate kitchen sink game and in many ways it is. However, the greatest gonzo game in terms of raw inspiration in a small package is Lords of Creation by none other than Tom Moldvay. The art at the link is from the game and if those pictures plus the rules light set of your choice can't spark adventure I probably wouldn't enjoy your table.

D6:Another great description of why D&D (and games like it work)
After playing some indy games Zak decides:
I think D&D works like this: the rules, setting, and DM are relatively serious (or at least intense) so you--the player--don't have to be. You can be drunk and play the goofiest half-troll half-gnome bard in the world and the game will keep chugging along and being a game full of twists and challenges and unexpected delights for all (including the drunk gnome) because it's pre-loaded with serious business.
I think that's a pretty serious insight both into why D&D is top of the heap (which Pathfinder outselling branded D&D doesn't change. I also think this explains why Palladium survives...it's this attitude turned up to 11.

D8:Forget the drip, she'll cost me XP
The Land of Nod presents a very interesting alignment system which provides XP bonuses or awards based on behavior. Better yet Matt walks us through it's logic so you could easily adapt it to your own worldview.

D10:D&D is Dead
Over at "I Waste the Buddha with my Crossbow" a declaration of the death of D&D. What's interesting is this is a pattern I've seen in the boffer LARP world twice with Amtgard (which survived it) and with Dagorhir (which split into two organizations, Belegarth being the other). When you create something that isn't a thing unto itself but a platform for others to build on with their own imagination you run this risk when you release it, that one day it will have a life of its own separate from you. You can either embrace that and be a light in this new world or try to take it back and make all the rules. I have yet to see the later succeed.

Monday Pointers: President's Day

D4: 101 Days of Ersatz D&D
Maybe a slightly unfair thread name, but it works. For those who aren't familiar with RPG.net, for a while a popular thread was "101 Days of X" where someone, in order to combat gamer ADD, decided they would only read/play/run/etc a given system for 101 days. The latest covers Palladium Fantasy. I have briefly discussed an older Palladium game, The Mechanoids before. I love Palladium's stuff and although the system used to get me very wound up one side effect of being in the OSR is caring about that a bit less. It was one of the two systems featured in RPG Legos and the little discussed Dark Etiquette RPG has its roots in my efforts to "fix" Rifts.

D6:Choosing which class to be is for sissies... changelings roll for it.
Jeff Rients gives us an interesting take on changelings for OD&D type games complete with random class progression.

D8:For Extra Pages
Erin is back at THe Welsh Piper with a new edition of Basic Chimera close to being out. I'm glad his sabbatical was only January and part of February in length. I'm also excited about a new Basic Chimera as it's one of two games I'm looking at for an actual campaign in a very changed The Demon Haunted Wordl.

Monday Pointers: The I hate V-day Edition

D4:Sure, they had Chariots but did they have magic items
Over at Grognardia James M. makes an interesting, but justifiable, addition to his Pulp Fantasy Library: Chariots of the Gods. For those of you who aren't survivors of the 70s this is the iconic "space aliens built the pyramids" book. It's not the most interesting (I reserve that for The Sirius Mystery: New Scientific Evidence of Alien Contact 5,000 Years Ago) but it is the iconic tome. If you want some science fantasy weirdness or an alternate conspiracy for your Mulder and Scully to run into it's a great choice.

D6:Herb's Horrendous Hiccups
Want a free copy of the next edition of Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy RPG? Well, come up with a prizing winning level one magic user spell. Even if you don't come up with the winning entry you'll have helped create a great resource of first level spells available under the OGL.

D8:My Memory, it is strange
Of course, the first ancient aliens appearance in the OSR to my memory was the heavy influence of Richard S. Shaver's tales of underground mind controlling dero had on Scott's World of Thool. Although the brilliant and very odd Thool is gone for a large part you can still find Shaver's works online.

It's been a short list today, but I've been busy. For those wondering where this weekend's posts went, I screwed up and posted notes for upcoming entries, but starting this week Inspirational Art will start alternating with Inspired Creations which will draw on prior iterations of Inspirational Art for actual things I'm trying to use in game.

Speaking of in game, I'm looking to start an alternate Sunday evenings campaign set in The World After. Long term I'd like to start a third campaign as well for the alternate days featuring the latest ideas for A Demon Haunted World.

Finally, I hope to get a summary of the first four sessions of Crusade Beyond the Door up this week, hopefully followed by tomorrow's fifth session.

Monday Pointers: January 24, 2011

D4:Racial Subtypes
Why limit yourself to high elves, dark elves, and wood elves when you can have brutal elves and deep elves? This d12 table (which you have to give love just for using the d12) givens you 11 subtypes for any non-human race with ability modifiers and descriptions as well as a hybrid options.

D6:It's the End of the World as We Know It and I Feel Fine
Underdark Gazette gives us 30 ways to shake up your fantasy world...including your entire pantheon having to save or die.

D8:Strange Trails
Over at The Sorcerer's Skull, a preview of his upcoming Weird Adventures booklet is up. I'm really grooving on his pulp adventures version of D&D which is more explicit than LotFP change to the default setting.

D10:Every Character a Mindflayer
The Chicago Wizard (no, not Harry, the cool biker one) proposes OD&D psionics based on Gygax's original mindflayer rules from the Strategic Review. While I might add another power or two I think he's on to something.