If you missed buying Death Frost Doom

have heart.  I just got the following email from Noble Knight Games:

RE: Death Frost Doom

I'm talking with them now, should hopefully be within a few weeks at the most. I'll drop you a line when they come back into stock.

Best Regards,
Aaron Leeder

So, if you haven't bought a copy it should be in next month or September.

If you don't know what I'm talking about well, let James Mal over at Grognardia give you a description and review.

Gaming Update: Markers for a Heartbreaker…

Back when I discussed our shift to Rolemaster I admitted I don’t really like D&D.  That’s not quite true.  I like D&D a lot except for a few things but they become deal breakers.  More and more I’m finding myself writing a heartbreaker for another try at “old school” gaming…probably more a retro-clone supplement more than a full on game.

That said, given we didn’t play last Friday and thus have no gaming update to make I thought I’d throw some markers for a retro-clone 1st generation derivative I might write:

Flatten the Hit Point Curve: While I have no problem with increasing hit points I do have a problem with the D&D curve and it’s a fairly common one: At first level even a fighter can be killed by a house cat and by 10th level the average Magic-User is roughly on par with a White Dragon in hit points (24 vs. 27).  There are a couple of ways to accomplish this: separate wound and fatigue points or just a flatter curve.

Lack of the Ability to Be Good at Things: I have discussed before why “skills” aren’t anti-old school when they are seen as what the character is good at as opposed to what he can do.  In City States of the Apocalypse I tried using the Tunnels & Trolls saving roll and talent system but they didn’t work out well due to poor design (and DMing) on my part.  Today I read a post on using FATE Aspects in C&C that was similar to my idea but not as game breaking.  I think I’ll look into something similar.

Magic Shouldn’t Be Unified: If there is one thing the first edition of The Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game got right it was the multiple types of magic-users.  Magic isn’t one method or set.  However, we don’t need a dozen classes either.  I’d say have three or four who do different things.  If you do real campaign time you can have an alchemist as one.  The spell slinger of D&D is another.  A more ritual oriented mage is a third.

Dungeons: I’ll admit I’m a Silver Age quest player more than a dungeon delver.  That said, there Tolkien/modern fantasy super world changing quest doesn’t appeal either.  Is there a middle ground, more of a “Knights of the Round Table” approach?

I’m sure I can come up with others but I think these three will be among the hallmarks of whatever system I come up with.

Gaming Update…

Last Friday my group finished up the character creation for our next game: Rolemaster.

The game has a name, a combo of the two suggested, which seems to indicate I’m headed for long running silliness: Six Savage Salvagers of the Seven Seas.  Before that they had named their ship the Incorrigible.  That seems to fit us.

Our framework is the characters are the officers of a salvage vessel in an archipeligo called The Beard that connects two contients.  On the eastern one is a large empire and a pseudo-Arabia.  The other is more secretive allowing trade and access only through a handful of ports.  The continents are also connected by a more northern archipeligo called The Brow.

The crew is somewhat Firefly like in that they take what jobs they can get and sometimes don’t worry too much about the morality of it all.

Interesting bits of trivia: the ships of the setting are more Chinese Junk than Western Cog/Crack.  This allows a smaller crew for a given size plus a little flavor.  Except for the Frenzing Barbar everyone is a spell caster, although only one pure one (and no hybrids).  Half the crew has a mysterious past (and the others haven’t provided backgrounds yet).  The only elves are aquatic and the only dwarves are Sea Dwarves (campaign secret: if you have the old Heroes magazine with the ships of Glorantha article those Dwarven ships roam the seas south of the beard towards the 10,000 Islands).

We don’t play this Friday so next week’s Tuesday post (gaming update) will be about my prep work for the first week.

My initial set to “An Alchemical Proposal”

Given I mentioned Jeff Rient's Alchemical Proposal in my last post I thought I should list my fantasy set for the challenge:

Rules

1. Core Rules: GORE
2. Similar Supplement: Monster Coliseum (AH Runequest supplement)
3. Dissimilar Supplement: Library of Bletherad from Palladium Books

Fluff

1. Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey
2. Coming of the Horseclans by Robert Adams
3. In Search of the Trojan War by Michael Wood.

No, I won’t give the one sentence outline like people are at Jeff’s blog.  That’s what we did in the old “pick three GURPS books” game.  This is something different.  This is an actual effort at synthesis as a form of creativity.

Alchemy of the Stars

So, inspired by Jeff Rient’s An Alchemical Proposal and a need to revisit how to go about doing my Imperial Space game given I won’t try to base it on OD&D I thought I’d try to boil it down to his rules + 2 supplements + 3 fluff standard.

Here is what I came up with:

Rules

1. Core Rules: GORE (what I picked for fantasy upon reading the original).
2. Similar rules supplement: Future World from the old Worlds of Wonder booked set.
3. Dissimilar rules supplement: Jedi Academy Sourcebook from the D6 Star Wars roleplaying game.
This book is not what I thought it was. I'll be looking for a psionics book of some kind.

Fluff

1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. Heretics of Dune
3. The Oresteia by Aeschylus

That’s it. Those six books are the canon sources for my Imperial Space game.

Winding down and starting up…

So, my second attempt at an old school game has been very successful.  Play has been nearly weekly for about five months, we’ve had a few character deaths, and I’ve had a blast.  I’ve especially enjoyed weaving pop culture references ranging from the Dresden Files to the old Friday the 13th: The Series to The Cask of Amontillado.  It is the most successful game I’ve run in a decade.

And I’m ending it, at least temporarily.

Why would I end the most successful game of mine in over ten years?  I could blame boredom but that’s too easy.  The problem is the game isn’t fun.

Now, before some old schooler goes on a Flame Princess style anti-fun rant hear me out.  City States is build on a desire to get back to my prime gaming roots as part of the old school movement.  But as I pointed out in a comment over at Grognardia despite having entered the hobby in the late 70s I am more in tune with D&D’s Silver Age (late 1st edition/early 2nd edition).  I think that is part of my issue.

I also poorly setup the sandbox aspect.  I didn’t communicate it well to players and only one really tried to drive his character.  But despite that I think I have to admit to my primary reason for boredom.

I don’t like D&D very much.  I was one of those guys in the late 70s/early 80s trying to fix D&D.  I bought RuneQuest as quickly as I could and played every system imaginable.  I was a big fan of The Fantasy Trip and later GURPS.  What playing D&D did for me was force to remember not only the good times I had playing it but the things that frustrated me.  While I can honestly say that they aren’t as bad as I remembered in the end OD&D isn’t, and probably never was, my game.

I’m sure someone from the old school movement will come to take my card, but you’ll have to pry it out of my hands along with my copy of Tunnels & Trolls.  You cannot deny the old school cred of a confirmed T&T referee.

Beyond that I’ve learned one other important lesson in this: I generally don’t do well with complex rules.  I’ve offered my group and all the players in the local club six options for a new Friday game as well as a second week night game.  Of the six three use very simple systems: Prose Descriptor Quality for two and Savage Worlds for one.  Of the three complex ones two are Basic Roleplaying variants and while the recent BRP book is a good three hundred pages either game is really about 50-100 pages of rules.  In fact, that was my goal: rules in under 100 pages for new games.  I’d also argue all three of these systems have a lot more reliance on the referee’s judgment than many modern games, especially PDQ.

What is the old man out? Rolemaster 2nd/Classic.  Yes, that is the antithesis of simple and ruling driven.  However, I’ve long thought a RM 2nd edition game in the Forgotten Realms had lots of potential and with three players interested in RM and the recent series over at The Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope on the  FR I’m willing to give it a swing, although I pitched it as two games: “Masters/Questers of the Forgotten Realms” with Rolemaster and Questers of the Middle Realms (a PDQ game) as possible rules respectively.

And now it is for us to continue...

Grognardia is reporting Dave Arneson has passed away.

Yes, there are many of the founding generation left but with Dave's passing the two names on those little brown books are gone. For a variety of reasons, both fair and foul, Dave's name is not associated with D&D the way Gary's is. But certainly in our little community he is remembered.

And we should not forget his passing means the last final burden of duty falls to us. Our creators have left us and now it is for us to continue their creation in a way it hasn't been yet, not even after Gary died.

As for Dave, I hope that now both he and Gary have gone on to a place where the old wounds are completely healed and they can once again enjoy together the game they gave us. As Scott over at World of Thool pointed out this is a capstone to two bad years but man, that is one hell of a set of tables they can have going up there.

A Musical Tangent

Tonight's Oscillator Series Show was a multiple band CD release party. Among the releases was the new boxed set by Great Unwashed Luminaries, which gather and releases their first three albums plus a bonus disk. This is worth mentioning here for five reasons:

1. I'm thanked in the liner notes.
2. The boxed set is called Saving Throw vs. Spell.
3. Their second album was Unearthed Arcana with songs: "Power Word: Stun", "Power Word: Blind", "Geas", and "Power Word: Kill".
4. The back cover art for that album includes part of the Holmes cover dragon.
5. All the CDs are numbered with a D20.

For those interested the set is a 25 copy limited edition for $10 at Sink Hole Texas, Inc

My entry in the intro game idea sweepstakes

Since both James have recently argued for an intro boxed set (here and here I'm going to be contrary and say "no, it isn't".

What we need is an RPG S&T.

It was James Edward Raggi IV who got me to realize it:

Now I'm envisioning a game book in the form of a magazine, 128 pages, with everything in it, and the Mentzer-style tutorial intro as an attached (centerpiece pull-out?) item. Attach a covermount CD with various optional rules and adventures and idea-builders and maybe historical essays on role-playing and different methods of playing.

Okay, first, imagine all those computer, art, and music mags with DVD ROMS on the cover, especially the ones from the UK (go to the bookstore and check them out if you don't know what I'm talking about). Imagine his 128 page magazine as one of those.

Re-arrange the content some. Each one has that intro Mentzer booklet in the center, matching the theme of the issue (we could use LL, BRPG, Four Color (the original Marvel had a similar booklet), Mutant Future, and the Star Frontiers clone). The rest of the magazine has a printed version of a bit more than BD&D...maybe levels 1-6, 1-2 full adventures, and those historical essays, an idea builder or two, an interview (every issue needs an interview...learn from music mags), a book column, and some ads.

The cover DVD ROM can have all of the free RPGs from the old school movement and maybe some others (Computer Music has a consistent and growing studio of computer instruments they recycle each much), new adventures, previews of comerical games, a podcast, and so on.

Put it out quarterly and sell it at the major book stores.

The hard part is dice. I'd say that pullout HAS to be d6 only. One, polyhedrons can be off putting. You might be able to include die but even if you can a dice roller can be on the DVD ROM and a pointer to "buy some D&D dice" which most bookstores carry for the full game would be great.

The mags I'm talking about cost $12-$18 here in the US. I think this is doable.

Score one for the old school...

One of the players in my Friday game surprised me when he accepted a spot in it. He's very much a modern RPG kind of guy. As in playtesting work on games like Noblis.

A few weeks back he said he wasn't really getting into it and might drop out but would give it a few more weeks.

Today he emailed me saying he's thinking of running B/X with mostly my houserules (but some mods). Would I be interested in playing?