Monday Pointers: February 22, 2010 Edition

D4:Chronicles of Drenai RPG

The late David Gemmell wrote great swords and sorcery. His longest, and I suspect most popular series, was the Drenai series. I was introduced to it via Legend when Gary Gygax's New Infinities Productions published it as Against the Horde. Now, Dareil over at The Madman's Cave gives us an RPG purpose built for that world. It has some interesting ideas, such as combat being a save against fear and your "score" as a product of your points for both heroic and anti-heroic actions. In spirit it reminds me a lot of Pendragon because it provides mechanics for the kinds of passions that drive Gemmell's characters. Well worth a look for those interested in swords and sorcery and experimental ideas.

D6:The Lost Fort: Roman and Medieval History

My historical interests via the SCA and boffer LARPS is sub-Roman and Anglo-Saxon England. This website is a great source for someone interested in that period by Gabriele Campbell. The pictures alone qualify as an entire blog of inspirational images for RPGers. I appologize to whoever in the OSR bloggosphere first posted this because I forgot to put it in my notes.

D8:Some Considerations of Polite Society

I'm of two minds on this post. One, I'm glad to see more people taking up the idea that RPG groups should meet basic standards of courtesy even if the stereotype and expectations of the gaming community are otherwise. In fact, that we should even as society is abandoning them. On the other hand, that we need it seems to reinforce the fact that Miss Manners Wouldn't Play D&D. On the gripping hand, the battle to restore etiquette, dark or otherwise, in our culture at learge and our community in particular can always use a new leader.

D10:How Many Books Will You Need for a Decade of Gaming

If you're Chris that number is five. Think about it, he got a decade of playing out of five books. That's old school and doubly so when you read the books he used.

D12:Play Style and "Fun"

Meanwhile, one of our young ones (who I don't want off my lawn but maybe she could mow it while she's over) takes on the theory geeks with some practical rules on playstyles. A lot of them are basics we probably know but don't think about. They also point out something we should remember when we discuss what "old school" means. It's not one playstyle but a bunch of mostly compatible. If Oddysey is the future of our hobby my great-grand kids will be playing D&D in a traditional style.

D13:People Link to Me

While I love being linked to I feel bad when I brag about it. So, at the very least I can make it a D13. That said, both of my posts this past Saturday were picked up at Old School Rant. I'm listed under "The Bad" but I think that's because my PDF topic is about what's wrong not that I'm wrong.

And that's a Monday wrap. If this isn't the biggest pointers (excluding the D13) it must be close. This week will have a delayed post in the Silver Age series (it was supposed to be this weekend while baby sitting server upgrades but the PDF rant pushed its way in instead). I have four of the things outlined so one should be finished already. We'll also have inspirational art, either a buried treasure or a review, and hopefully a follow-up from Dream Pod 9 (maybe we'll hear from White Wolf on the topic too).

Dream Pod 9 Responds

Having criticized Dream Pod 9's PDF pricing and having sent an email to their website's contact email address with a link to my post I believe I have a responsibility to share the company's response:

Thank you for the feedback, I'm going to bring up your email and concerns at our next staff meeting on this Monday night. I know we have not touched the price of the old ebooks since they were first put on sale when www.drivethrurpg.com started many years ago and we followed their pricing model at the start. I'll get back to you later this week and let you know what we decide.

Sincerely,
Robert Dubois
President Dream Pod 9

I got that on a Sunday morning. That alone deserves praise. I had figured a response was 50/50 at best and certainly wouldn't come before the work week.

Second, I think the point about following guidelines from many years ago and not checking them is a satisfying answer. As this is the long tail I doubt a lot of effort is put into analyzing and optimizing sales. Why? In any company that effort would have to justify the cost of analysis and updating. In an RPG company that choice is often one between optimizing the long tail as opposed to producing new product.

That said, the fact that he is bringing it up at a staff meeting when a customer makes it a concern shows a commitment to customer service and an understanding that the analysis might pay off.

I cannot say if DP9 will change their pricing, but I will say their prompt response and willingness to look at it has raised my opinion of the company. Historically that has been neutral to good. My rant wasn't one of anger but more frustration at a missed opportunity.

PDF Costs and Screwing Up the Long Tail

Yesterday reading MJ Harnish over at Gaming Brouhaha reminded me of a game I always wanted to run: Tribe 8. Now, my books are somewhere in Connecticut but I figured a trip to RPGNow could net me a low cost PDF. This was doubly true after I learned in the Wikipedia article on the game that the second edition player's handbook moved the timeline ahead fifteen years. Now, instead of wading through metaplot books to see where the world was going naturally I could build a quick timeline. Given one reason I never ran Tribe 8 was just how damned metaplot heavy it was this was great.

I haven't bought any Tribe 8 PDFs. Why? That second edition player's handbook that retailed for $29.95 is available for $24.95. Most of the rest of the line is a little better with the PDF selling at half the cost of the original print product. This still leaves the most inexpensive book at $7.95.

For comparison several of the books are available on eBay with shipping for less than the original cover price. That's for a physical item with no need to print out pages I need or want to mark up (although admittedly I often photocopy pages for mark-up). One book, Warrior Unbound, is actually available for exactly the same price with shipping from eBay as the PDF (it's a "Buy it now", not an auction). Moving to Amazon three copies of the first edition rulebook are under the $13.95 price of PDF. Given the second edition required an external rulesbook this isn't trivial. Finally, Alibris who is already courting me with a coupon has nearly the entire series as physical books for less than the PDFs.

Right now the PDFs have one advantage, immediacy. This would have been a huge score as the trip to RPGNow was an impulse. However, when getting the rules in PDF, with all the disadvantages for that format (readability, requires a machine at the table or printing out) is comparable to buying the physical product in terms of price I won't be buying. If the interest continues I'll purchase physical books at comparable or slightly higher prices.

While I'm concentrating on Tribe 8 Dreampod 9 is far from alone in this. White Wolf follows the same policy for the old World of Darkness. Contrast that with Fantasy Flight Games. Their very popular Midnight setting for D&D3 has no product priced at more than $10 and that's for the core setting book. The supplements are uniformly $7, a price nearly a dollar less than the cheapest Tribe 8 book. When it comes to impulse buying of PDFs $10 seems to be a good ceiling. At $10 I would be reading the core book again instead of writing this.

I understand that the pricing of PDFs as primary products or when they are directly competing with brand new, in print books is a complex subject. However, that's not what we're discussing here. Both the old World of Darkness and Tribe 8 last saw a physical book printed in 2004. Neither line is currently in print nor will be in the foreseeable future. For new players of the game lines or continuing players looking to add or replace material there are two markets: used products or publisher PDFs. Actually, there is a third, pirated PDFs. Only one of these three makes publishers any money.

These products have either been fully amortized or never will be. They are not major profit centers nor do the PDFs directly compete with another product stream from the publisher. In WW case they might compete against nWOD but then again so do used oWoD books and the same issue arise. Dreampod 9 and WW have both lost PDF sales from me due to their pricing. I suspect I'm far from alone. Reducing these lines to $10 for core and thicker books and $5 for adventures and thinner books might look like a large loss. However, given the probable sales volume at this point compared to the volume in the secondary market finding a sweet spot that increases sales while not leaving the money on the table shouldn't be that hard.

And everyone likes more revenue.

It May Be Five Years Old

and for 3.x but this ad speaks to the true power of tabletop in the video game age:

It's also why I haven't really gotten around to playing online. To me an RPG is sitting in a room with people I like playing a game and telling our story at the same time.

To me, that is the heart of the game and as old school as any dungeon crawl, home-made chart, or sandbox. The key thing is us in a room and our story.

Initiates of Mithras

Introduction

Mithras lead our people here when the false Emperor tried to lead them across the seas. He slew a bull in ritual and made its hide into his cloak. When he opened his cloak it became a door into his world. He had gathered us to help his people fight the great evil to the East only to find that during his wanderings they had tasted its corruption. Now we stand as a bulwark against that evil and its spreading corruption.

Those who were his closest followers learned the secrets of his ways and have taught those to worthy soldiers and others since we first came here. Now those initiated in the Mysteries of Mithras wander the world bringing light and purity to those threatened by darkness and corruption.

Class Statistics

Fights and saves as a fighter (but gains no special fighter abilities). May use any weapons, armor, and all magic items allowed fighters (with an exception, see the table).

At name level (Pater) they may create a Mithraeum, an underground windowless complex for the worship of Mithras. He will attract 5d6 individuals wishing to be initiated into the Mysteries (1st level Initates).

Experience	Level	Title	Hit Dice	Class Ability
0	1	Corax	1d8	Purify Food and Water (as per cleric spell)
1600	2	Nymphus	2d8	Light (as per cleric spell)
3200	3	Miles	3d8	Shield (as per magic-user spell)
9600	4	Miles	4d8
19,200	5	Leo	5d8	Thunder Bolts (magical bolts that always strike and do 2d4 damage)
40,000	6	Perses	6d8	Infravision
80,000	7	Heliodromus	7d8	Protection from Evil (10' radius)
160,000	8	Heliodromus	8d8
320,000	9	Pater	9d8	May use any magical staff or rod (but not wands)
420,000	10	Pater	9d8+1
+100,000	+1	Pater	+1

Ability Uses per Day

Level	Purify Food and Water	Light	Shield	Thunderbolts	Protection from Evil 10'
1	1	-	-	-	-
2	1	1	-	-	-
3	1	1	1	-	-
4	2	1	2	-	-
5	2	1	2	3	-
6	2	1	2	3	-
7	2	2	2	3	1
8	2	2	2	3	2
9	2	2	2	6	2
10	3	2	2	10	3
11	3	2	2	10	3
12	3	2	3	10	3
13	3	3	3	10	4
14	3	3	3	10	4
15	4	3	3	21	4
16	4	3	3	21	5
17	4	4	4	21	5
18	4	4	4	21	5
19	5	4	4	28	6
20	5	4	4	36	6

Notes:

1. This class was created using Erin Smale's Perfect Class and is designed for a Rules Cyclopedia game using no weapons mastery rules.
2. It should work fine in most of the retro-clones although if the RC abilities for fighters are not in use increase the XP required by 800/1600/3200/6400/13000/26000/52000/1040000 thereafter.
3. If playing a RC game using weapons mastery lower the XP by 400/800/1600/3200/8000/1600/32000/64000/128000 there after.
4. The titles are patterned after those in the Wikipedia article on the Mithratic Mysteries. The abilities are drawn from the symbols on the system.
5. Mithras was mostly worshipped by soliders so this is mostly a fighter class.
6. The abilities for the first eight levels are based on roughly the level 1-4 cleric progression. In Smale's system I rated this as roughly 1/3 cleric ability due to the cut off at 4th level and the inflexibility.
7. Infravision lasts 24 hours so instead of a per day usage I just made it a permenant ability.
8. The staff/rod usage is costed as scroll usage in Smale's system.
9. In my campaign world Mithras was someone from that world who came to earth during the early Roman Imperial period and wandered the empire gaining followers to succur his people who were under attack by a great evil. He lead some of the last legions of out Britain when Constantine III crossed the English Channel but instead of leading them to the Continent he lead them to the campaign world.

Suggestions are very welcome.

As per the licensing page the material in this box is available under Open Gaming License or the Creative Commons.

Inspirational Art: A Child's Book of Warriors pt. 1

One of my favorite things to have happen while preparing this series of posts is to be surprised. Having done a lot of modern art and planning to do more this week I got a surprise in my inbox.

Steve Poke runs a great public domain art blog and his latest post hit my email today. He presents some plates from a 1907 book A Children's Book of Warriors. Even better, he provides a pdf of it.



If you like sea battles between Vikings with horns (or wings in this case) on their helmets our first image today is a grand choice for inspiration. Add in the Christian overtones (see the caption) and I see a great battle. Even better, write an adventure or area using this picture's imagery with the story and settings of Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (one of the great D&D movies of all time) and you've got a winner. Though not quite as inspiring the black and white sea battle is also interesting.

I really recommend heading over to Steve's site and grabbing the entire book. It'll be the subject of next week's Inspirational Art post as well. I think children's fantasy from the late Victorian and Edwardian eras is a great untapped source of inspiration for D&D and other games.

D4: Easily the weirdest way to play Ron Edward's Sorcerer
Playing it where the demons are pokemon.

D6: Will the Traveller computer size arguments ever die.
James at Grognardia takes on the Traveller computer size issue and Rob at Bat in the Attic responds. You would think 30+ years later this would be over.

Just to add my two cents my opinion is look at the size of modern supercomputers. Now, explain to me why calculating warp jumps won't be several orders of magnitudes more complex than the multi-hour simulations I do at work using a room full of computer and instead could be done on a modern laptop. I really don't expect them to use room sized computers, but I also don't make the mistake of considering those calculations on the order of running a web server. How much volume do the Space Shuttle's computers take (yes, I know they're 30 years old but it's barely a Traveller cutter). Oh, and btw, while you were arguing the pirates got a firing solution with their out of date computer.

D8:Crom isn't the only god laughing
Ancient vaults gives us three asshole ancient astronauts who became minor deities in the campaign world. For some reason they remind me of Purple from David Gerrold and Larry Niven's The Flying Sorcerers except they do it on purpose. If you're doing science fantasy and want powerful aliens beyond the stars but don't want to go the Cthulthu route give these guys a look.

This week is looking good for content. We're going to have some inspirational art, a new character class, and the second Silver Age Appendix N entry (finally).

Apology to OwlCon Attendees

I know a couple of people were planning on doing my Swords & Wizardry, and Mazes & Minotaurs games this weekend at Owlcon.

However, I have found out I have to work this weekend. I may be in late Saturday but in order to not have people waiting on games that won't happen I have communicated to the con staff I won't be running them.

This is a huge disappointment as I looked forward to meeting you but after being unemployed from April to December 2005 work has to take priority.

Peace.

Buried Treasures: Mechanoid Invasion

When I went home for Christmas I looked through my games collection that still resides at my parents' house. Among the items I found in boxes that I was very glad I still had was the first roleplaying game Palladium Publishing produced, The Mechanoid Invasion and it's two sequels.

For those not familiar the series of three games/supplements describes the destruction of a human colony by the Mechanoids. They Mechaniods are an evil, insane, race of cyborgs. Think of the Borg but created while on a peyote trip after reading a decade of Rom: Spaceknight comics. In the first book, The Mechanoid Invasion the colonists are trying to fight off the Mechanoids. In the second book, The Journey, finding out that military assistance will be month's too late as the Mechanoids are tearing apart the planet for resources the colonist become the rats in the walls of the Mechanoid's asteriod sized mothership. Interestingly, this book is the only one that is isn't a stand alone game. Finally, in Homeworld, we reach the Mechanoid homeworld. The last is the longest book at 192 digest pages. The combined reprint is in normal RPG sized is about 200 pages.

Today Palladium has become the butt of jokes for most of the community for their gun porn, power creep, and recycling material. There is truth to that. In fact, if you get the original The Mechanoid Invasion you'll find material in the newest Palladium games word for word. Even in the third book you get material for the first repeats. The Balrog Destroyer super tank from The Journey is the first instance of the power creep and lack of internal logic that would characterize Rifts material.

However, ever good thing that people would say about Palladium in the next thirty years is in here too. The engine, which is an early D&D derivative, is functional for the game in place. Given the modern view that the Palladium engine is fine for fantasy but broken for modern systems people should look back. The gonzo imagination of Kevin Siembieda is on display. The various kinds of Mechanoids is creative as is the entire idea of the second book. At the time most people expected what we'd later see in Rifts with the Federation showing up with big ships and a power scale up. Instead we got microbe created magic and the ultimate reverse dungeon in space.

After the original digest books went out of print Palladium created a third stand alone game called The Mechanoids set between the first and third book of the original trilogy. While not quite as exciting it isn't a bad game. A decade later the Mechanoids would appear with mega-damage as yet another Rifts supplement. This is the least enjoyable version in my opinion but for several years was the easiest to find. However, about a decade ago the original books were gathered into a single volume pretty much intact. This big book is one of Palladium's first e-products and is available at RPGNow. The preview has a complete table of contents if you're considering any version of the reprint.

With the growing interest in science-fantasy this is truly a buried treasure. If you are using Mutant Future including Mechanoids in a variety of forms is an option. They'd fit well into Encounter Critical. I'm not sure they'd be too great for most science fantasy but I'd encourage someone using Jeff Rient's Alchemical Proposal to think about making it one supplement. In fact, if you want to do an OSR science fantasy game more from the science side than the fantasy side it it could be a good base game. Regardless, this is one game worth overcoming the post Rifts Palladium prejudices to take a look at.

Inspirational Art: Richard Hescox

This week's artist is Richard Hescox. The image to the left (source) is an illustration from Towers of Darkover. Like our last Richard this image features flying people. Blame it on having been a huge Runequest and through it mythology as much as fantasy literature fan back in the day. There is something about grand heroes who can, among other things, fly that really puts me in the fantasy mindset. I realize that goes against much of the grain of the OSR and early D&D by being destined to greatness. However, aspiring to it and being destined are not the same thing. I think a game where we encourage our players to aim at being flying women women who control grand psychic technology is very different from insuring they are. There is a heroic game in D&D as well

Our second image from Mr. Hescox (source) I think is more directly inspirational to OSR game masters. Is she a witch calling forth water the drowned, a sorcerer summing water spirits, a wizard animating water, or an alien like those seen in The Abyss. Actually, with the interest in science fantasy using this painting to inspiring the use of those creatures might not be beyond the pale, although they make me think Mutant Future more than D&D.