Old Guard Gaming Accoutrements

Apparently, Wizards of the Coast, do have something to offer me.

2012-01-20T17:34:00.000-08:00

Once again, I step away from the intertubes, and stuff happens. I'm sure everyone knows by now that Wizards of the coast are issuing a limited print run of AD&D hard backs. The Dungeon Masters Guide, Player's Handbook, and Monster Manual.

They're showing them with a black and white cover illustration by Erol Otus currently. I don't know it that's the final art for the covers, or only place holder art.

I'm a game hoarder, so I've got multiple copies of all the TSR hard backs, and they're in good to excellent condition. I don't need fresh copies, but I'll be going to check the game stores for them in April when they come out.
They will be excellent as gifts for new gamers, and I've seen comments concerning donating copies to local libraries. A most worthy action.
And, as some uncertain portion of the proceeds will go towards the Gygax Memorial, I won't feel so bad about giving money to that card game company.

I'm sure that if this print run sells out quickly, WOTC, or their Hasbro Overlords, will seriously consider continuing, even expanding the reprints into a side line.
I'd love to get quality reproductions of all the OD&D booklets. I don't have originals of those.

When WOTC pulled the PDFs of previous editions, it was an example of faulty corporate thinking. Most likely they saw other editions as competing for gamer dollars that would otherwise be spent on new editions. In doing this, they didn't move their customer base on to the new product, they shrank it.

You don't attempt to manage your customers, you cater to them.

WOTC would be better served, and so would we, if they viewed their portfolio of older edition material as a book publisher would,and not as a game/toy manufacturer does.

They could establish an in-house Old School Game Division, turn over the management of all the material they inherited from TSR, and begin republishing old games and books. They could also build a stable of freelancers who actually understand the OSR ethos to provide new material congenial to the old books.
It would cost Wizards next to nothing to mine the trove of old material they own, and pick out choice gems for re-issue.

This would free up the rest of WOTC to pursue the Editon of the Day, card games, hackysacks, whatever.

I don't expect WOTC to ever understand the whys and wherefores of TSR era D&D. I'd rather they just didn't keep trying to convert the non-believers to the edition of the moment. It's counter productive for them, and irrelevant to us.

5E: Wizards of the Coast have nothing to offer me.

2012-01-12T18:04:00.000-08:00

So, here comes 5E, as expected and right on schedule.

I’ve never been much of an edition warrior. This is mostly due to the fact that the inherent superiority of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons over all subsequent versions of the game is, of course, self-evident, and therefore requires no active defense on my part.

I didn’t do anything other than issue the standard grognardly snort, and roll my eyes when the news of 5E showed up in Forbes, of all places. I did go ahead and browse the forums and blogs to see what everyone had to say about it. And what WOTC themselves had to say.

I clipped a few quotes here and there that caught my attention, for one reason or another.

Robert Schwalb quoted @ ENWorld wrote: “Our primary goal is to produce a rules set that speaks to every incarnation of D&D. So if you are a diehard BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia enthusiast or have embraced 4th edition, loved 2nd edition, 3rd edition, or never moved on from 1st edition, we’re creating this game for you. Imagine a game where you can play the version of D&D you love best. And then imagine everyone plays at the same table, in the same adventure.”

“We seek to build a foundation for the long-term health and growth of D&D, one rooted in the vital traits that make D&D unique and special. We want a game that rises above differences of play styles, campaign settings, and editions, one that takes the fundamental essence of D&D and brings it to the forefront of the game. In short, we want a game that is as simple or complex as you please, its action focused on combat, intrigue, and exploration as you desire. We want a game that is unmistakably D&D, but one that can easily become your D&D, the game that you want to run and play.” –Mike Mearls

"The new edition is being conceived of as a modular, flexible system, easily customized to individual preferences. Just like a player makes his character, the Dungeon Master can make his ruleset. He might say ‘I’m going to run a military campaign, it’s going to be a lot of fighting’… so he’d use the combat chapter, drop in miniatures rules, and include the martial arts optional rules." –Mike Mearls

“Wizards of the Coast described the goal of the new iteration of D&D in the following way: "The goal of this project is to develop a universal rules system that takes from the best of every edition and get at the soul of what D&D is.”

"Our primary goal is to produce a rules set that speaks to every incarnation of D&D. So if you are a diehard BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia enthusiast or have embraced 4th edition, loved 2nd edition, 3rd edition, or never moved on from 1st edition, we’re creating this game for you. Imagine a game where you can play the version of D&D you love best. And then imagine everyone plays at the same table, in the same adventure. We aim to make a universal game system that lets you play the game in whatever way, whatever style, with whatever focus you want, whether you want to kick down doors and kill monsters, engage in high intrigue, intense roleplaying, or simply to immerse yourself in a shared world. We’re creating a game where the mechanics can be as complex or as light as you want them. We’re creating the game you want to play." - Robert Schwalb.

All of the above quoted statements sound great. They also sound like what I already do. They sound like what every gamer I know, also already does.

With AD&D as my foundation, I already mix and match rules and ideas pried from other games on a case by case, campaign by campaign basis to construct variations on The Game. I already build rulesets and alter classes to suit the play goals I, and my players, are after.

I’ve always made accommodations, within reason, for the play styles of the gamers at the table. I’ve always adjusted the mechanics to be congenial to the form of play desired. I already have everything WOTC are describing as their design goals.
And what’s more, I have the whole of the OSR, all the D&D forums, blogs and sites, and my own library of D&D publications to draw on for new ideas. That’s thousands of minds and millions of words of gaming fodder, and it’s still coming in every day.

WOTC just can’t compete with that. It’s like putting an iphone up against Deep Blue.

Even with the crowd sourcing input idea, they’re still not drawing on any ideas I don’t already have access to.

I also have to say that the invocations of ,”the soul of D&D” fall flat to me, since WOTC and the greater gaming community wouldn’t be in this situation, fractured, disconnected, and mutually hostile, if WOTC had any idea of what elements comprised the soul of D&D, or its, ” Fundamental essence”, in the first place.

Dungeons & Dragons has a long and rich life ahead of it, for many years to come, and in myriad forms. Wizards of the Coast, however, are not going to be the driving force behind it. We are.

Somebody back east is saying, "Why don't he write?"

2011-12-30T18:50:00.000-08:00

Undead for Torch&Sixgun

The Prairie Companion.

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 4
Move: 10"(100 feet)
Hit Dice: 3
% in lair: Encountered only near lair, and only after nightfall.
Treasure Type: Special, see below
No. of Attacks: 3
Damage/Attack: 2-8/2-8/1-6
Special Attacks: Importunate Mutter, Life Energy Drain.
Special Defenses: Unharmed by mortal weaponry.
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Average
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Size: M
Psionic Ability: Nil

Them what die alone on the prairie, don’t always rest easy in their grave-less sleep.

Those who end their days in solitary desperation sometimes rise and seek succor in the company of the living. A Prairie Companion is such an unliving creature. Existing forever in the state of lonesome fear which filled its final moments, it is drawn to the sounds of living camaraderie.

Should a party of the living encamp within gunshot of the place a Prairie Companion met its friendless end, there is a 25% chance, (cumulative per night), that it will rise and seek company to ease its endless loneliness.

It is never the generous or the good-hearted who become deathless creatures such as the Prairie Companions, however. Rather, in life they were of the sort who blamed others for their misfortune, and bitterly resented those who possessed contentment or good fortune.

As it approaches the campsite which attracted it, the Prairie Companion will begin its Importunate Mutter. It retells the story of its demise, it pleads for help, and it explains how it was not to blame for its unfortunate circumstances. All in a soft, begging spectral voice.

All who hear the Importunate Mutter must Save vs Charm. Those who fail the Save will fall into a state of deep and debilitating despair. They will be unable to summon the will to do anything other than sit and stare into the camp fire, (if there is one), and wallow in self pity and hopelessness.

If the Prairie Companion is not destroyed or driven off, it will circle the camp, muttering, until dawn, when it will return to its unresting place.
No healing of hit points through normal rest will occur while the Prairie Companion continues its muttering. No magical spell may be memorized, or granted by higher, (or lower), Powers, while the companion circles the camp.

No character or NPC who failed his save and fell under the spell of the Importunate Mutter, will have any memory of the past nights events when the sun rises again.

Each night the party remains in occupation of the encampment, the Prairie Companion will return at sundown. Each night its muttering will become louder, and angrier. It will begin to lay the blame for its terrible fate at the feet of the party. Each night it will approach more closely to the fire in its path about the camp.

As on the first night, all present must Save vs Charm or fall into despair. Those who failed the first night suffer a -1 penalty to Save, cumulative each time the Prairie Companion returns.

The Companion will return for a number of nights equal to the number of persons present in the camp.

On the final night, ranting incomprehensibly in rage at the unfairness of its death, the Prairie Companion will enter the camp and lay hands upon a random character or NPC. If the victim is not under the spell of the Importunate Mutter, the undead must roll to hit as in normal melee. If the victim is in the throes of the despairing charm, he will take no actions to defend himself.

In either case, the victim must Save vs Death Magic, or else have his life energy drained to the dregs by the terror wight. Those who do save will still take 2D8 in damage, and forever after suffer a fear of being alone. This life draining attack is not a power the Prairie Companion may draw on at any time. Rather, it must work up to it by way of the nightly visits and muttering.

After taking a life, the companion will vanish and return no more. Until the next time a party camps within gunshot of its earthly remains.

A Prairie Companion is not harmed by mortal weaponry. Only magic, silver, or holy iron may do it damage directly. A circle of Protection will prevent it from coming into a camp, and if established prior to the companion’s first visit, also lessen the effects of the Importunate Mutter.

As for myself, I haven't written here at the Old Guard Blog for a while because I just haven't had the time or the proper muse. Too many other things have drawn my attention and energy in the last couple of months.

I saw part of Dances with Wolves recently though. That bit with Timmons the wagon driver, when they happen upon the bleaching bones of some unfortunate out there, alone on the prairie, was always my favorite bit in that movie. I thought I'd work it into Torch&Sixgun, my AD&D/Weird West homebrew.

Why don't he write? Heh,heh,heh...

Cimmeria

2011-08-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

I remember

The dark woods, masking slopes of sombre hills,
The grey clouds' leaden everlasting arch;
The dusky streams that flowed without a sound,
And the lone winds that whispered down the passes.

Vista on vista marching, hills on hills,
Slope beyond slope, each dark with sullen trees,
Our gaunt land lay. So when a man climbed up
A rugged peak and gazed, his shaded eye
Saw but the endless vista - hill on hill,
Slope beyond slope, each hooded like its brothers.

It was a gloomy land that seemed to hold
All winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun,
With bare boughs rattling in the lonesome winds,
And the dark woodlands brooding over all,
Not even lightened by the rare dim sun
Which made squat shadows out of men; they called it
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and deep Night.

It was so long ago and far away
I have forgot the very name men called me.
The axe and flint-tipped spear are like dreams,
And hunts and wars are shadows. I recall
Only the stillness of that sombre land;
The clouds that piled forever on the hills,
The dimness of the everlasting woods.
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.

Oh, soul of mine, born out of shadowed hills,
To clouds and winds and ghosts that shun the sun,
How many deaths shall serve to break at last
This heritage which wraps me in the grey
Apparel of ghosts? I search my heart and find
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.

Cimmeria, by R.E.Howard, 1932.

Posted without permission, because I really like this poem, and Howard's works in general. And he's dead, and I don't make any profit from this blog, and I want you to see it, and I think its fair use, and IP laws are strangling culture and literature to death and making us all poorer for it. And I have a sense of ennui concerning the new Conan movie. And I haven't made up any new monsters for you lately.

Beware the Killer Blink Frogs!

2011-08-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

“I swear! It was sitting on that rock, big as a wolf! It jumped and just vanished, I don’t know where it….ARRRGGHHHH!”

Killer Blink Frog

Frequency: Vanishingly Rare
No. Appearing: 2-12, (2D6)
Armor Class: 7
Move: 6”, (walking), 220”, (blink-leap)
Hit Dice: 3
% in Lair: 80%
Treasure Type: Incidental
No. of Attacks: 3
Damage/Attack: 1-2/1-2/1-6, (claw, claw, bite)
Special Attacks: surprise 3/6, first attack from rear 50% of the time.
Special Defenses: instinctively blink if hit in melee.
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Low
Alignment: Neutral Hungry
Size: S, (3’-5’ body length)
Psionic Ability: Nil

Ferocious Giant Frogs armed with cat-like slashing claws, rows of saurian teeth, and covered in a coat of damp, blackish green hair-like bristles, Killer Blink Frogs display characteristics of both Killer Frogs and Blink Dogs.

How these monstrous aberrations came to be, no one knows, and in fact, no one cares to think about it very much. Better to simply avoid the horrid things if at all possible. Or try to kill them when it is not.

Killer Blink Frogs may be encountered in areas of marsh, swamp, wetland, lagoons, and bayous, along river bends, lakes or any other area of high humidity or perpetual moisture. There have been accounts of cave dwelling Killer Blink Frogs of phosphorescent whiteness seen about underground lakes and streams.

The frogs are voracious predators and attack without warning. Anything which moves is a likely target for their hunger.

If the frog pack is well fed and not hungry, they will sit about their water source/lair and bark to each other to reinforce their standing in the group. There is only a 10% chance of the frogs feeling satiated if encountered randomly.

At any other time the frogs will sit silently waiting for a likely meal to venture within striking distance. In the case of Killer Blink Frogs, this is a greater span than for ordinary giant frogs.

Once a Killer Blink Frog has sighted a possible meal, it attacks by leaping in the targets direction. As soon as the frog’s feet have left the ground, it Blinks, disappearing and then reappearing mid-leap, and only feet away from its victim.

The frog can attack from up to 220” feet away in a single round by this method. If it hits successfully, the victim must Save vs. Crushing Blow or be knocked to the ground by the impact, and also take double damage from the frog’s claw, claw, bite attack for that round.

If the frog misses its first attack, it has failed to judge the position of its intended victim and either fallen short in its blink-leap, or overshot its mark. There is a 50/50 chance of either way.

A killer blink frog will remain in contact with its victim and continue its attack unless wounded. The frog’s instinctive reaction to being hurt is to blink away in a random direction.

Roll D4 to determine direction of the blink, 1-in front of victim, 2-behind victim, 3- to the right of victim, 4- to the left of victim. Also roll D20 to determine the distance the frog travels in feet. 1=1’, 20=20’, etc.

If the frog is not severely wounded, or if it's very hungry, it will return to the attack on its next action.

During periods of heavy precipitation, or very dense fogs, a killer blink frog pack may go prowling across country, searching for prey. The frogs slowly proceed by leap-blinking one at a time until the whole pack is present in the new location, watching for likely victims for a time, and then repeating the process if nothing toothsome presents itself.

If randomly encountered, the frogs are most likely hunting in this manner and certain to attack.

Killer Blink Frogs are hierarchical in the manner of dogs and wolves, there will be an alpha male and female frog, but they do not hunt co-operatively. Instead, if the pack becomes aware of a meal at the same time, the alpha frog attacks first. Other frogs will attack other targets, but not the same targets. Only should a frog be killed or give up its attack will a lesser ranking frog attack that target.

Though they are silent when awaiting prey or actually hunting, Killer Blink Frogs will bark loudly and excitedly when attacking.

The Ruined Tepidarium. (insertable encounter)

Near to the heart of the broken ancient city, the PCs find the remains of the city’s public baths. The building sits on a foundation dais ten feet above street level. Only the tepidarium still holds water as its connection to the aqueducts’ remains in good condition.

The pool is 40’ wide and 120’ long. It is 2’ deep in one end, and 8’ deep in the other. At the deep end, most of the marble columns which supported the roof remain standing, but near to the shallow end, the columns collapsed in the Catastrophe and two have broken and fallen into the pool.

A pack of nine Killer Blink Frogs have made their lair in the tepidarium. Six of them sit at positions between the standing pillars at the deep end of the pool, while three, smaller, (only 1 hit die) frogs hide in the shallow end of the pool amongst the column fragments.

The large frogs, #1- 17 hp, #2-12hp, #3-12hp, #4*-13hp, #5-8hp, #6-14hps. The smaller frogs, #7-2hp, #8-3hp, #9-4hp.

• Frog # 4 recently devoured an unwary wererat which had come to the tepidarium for water. As a result, some inexplicable quirk of the laws of Spontaneous Generation has conferred upon the frog the ability to infect victims of its bite with a unique and especially disturbing form of lycanthropy.
Any PC bitten by frog #4 has a 50% chance, less his Constitution score, of contracting the transformative disease. The PC so infected will become a Blinking Killer Rat-Frog at the next dark of the moon(s).

The building may only be easily entered by climbing the stairs at the shallow end of the pool

Should PCs climb the stairs and enter the remains of the building, the frogs will immediately attack.

The largest frogs will leap-blink from the far end of the pool one at a time to attack each PC as they are noticed. Only one frog per PC will attack at any time. Only if a frog is killed or driven off will a lower ranking frog attack its former victim.

The small frogs in the pool are unlikely to attack unless attacked first, or unless a PC enters the pool, for any reason. This includes falling into the pool during melee.

At the bottom of the pool at the deep end is the remains of a wheel barrow which holds a cracked ceramic jug containing 1500 gps and a four dozen short rods of ivory worth around 450 gps, as well as the skeletal remains of the man who sought to wheel his savings to the docks during the Catastrophe, and who instead drowned in the tepidarium.

These things are hidden beneath a layer of water lilies which cover the surface of the pool.

There are also present, unfortunately, 1d4 Groin Leeches, (always attach themselves to the victim’s groin, as per the HackMaster Hacklopedia of Beasts IV), Groin Leech, AC: 8, HP: 1D4-1, Move: 3” on land, 6” swimming, No. of Attacks: 1, Damage/Attack: 1-3 blood drain, release their bite only with salt or fire

Top pic is clipped from the cover art for DA2- Temple of the Frog (1986). Art by Dennis Beauvais. There's just no finding art of a hairy killer frog online, but I always liked Beauvais' work on the Dragon Magazine covers.

The second pic is just funny, so I included it. I do stuff like that.

Honorable Mention! Dig it!

2011-08-03T19:15:00.000-07:00

Here's the winners in the Fight On! Big Book Of Random Tables contest. I got a couple honorable mentions for two of the 100 item random tables I put up here on the Blog.
I had completely forgotten that I'd entered this, until I got an email from the gracious Ignatius Umlaught the day before yesterday.

All these tables will be compiled into a Fight On! book, and it looks like it will be a very entertaining and useful tool for DMs.

The Honorable Mentions.

Planet Exploration Table, Chris Willrich
Magnificent Lagan, Jeff Wilcox
Exotic Intoxicants, Patrick Wetmore
100 Character Backgrounds, Anthony Westenberg
20 Random Alchemical Accidents, Buzz Tilford
Wandering Harlot Table, Adam Thornton
Defective Scroll Effects and
Sewer Features and Hazards, Bill Staeven
Incidents and Events in Town, Joel Sparks
Random Bag of Holding Contents and
Gladiators, Ricardo Signes
Broodings of the Barbarian, Jason Sholtis
30 Close Combat Concentration Breakers, Matthew Schmeer
Battle Scars and Sequelae, Igor Vinicius Sartorato
How to Make a Random Table, Scott W. Roberts
50 Things That Might Be Found In A ‘Dungeon Town’ Curio Shop and
Vile Poisons and
50 Things Found In A Fantasy Villain’s Lair, Richard Rittenhouse
Who Is That Drunkard? and
What the Prostitute Knows, Jim Richmond
Random Bar Encounters, Lawson Reilly
Random Cause of Death, Mr. Reaper
Exploring the Crags, Marc Pavone
100 Random Starting Items for Beginning Characters and
100 Odd, Level-Inappropriate, and Random Treasure Items, Gene Palmer
30 Sprite Curses, Mike Monaco
20 Unexpected Customs and Laws and
20 Reasons for Stuck Doors, Gary McCammon
Random Pirates & Buccaneers, Dyson Logos
Traumatic Adolescent Background Generator, Samuel Kisko
Elves, Kesher
Random City Generator, Nicholas Kariya
Random Secret Door Clues, Adam Flynn
Monster Motivations, Conrad W. Deitrick
Multiversal Table: We Ended Up Where?, Michael David Jr.
The Crate in the Back of the Hold and
Customize Your Mutant and ,
Alchemist’s Ale, David Coleman
Magic Weapon Table, Courtney Campbell
Curious Curative Corollary, BIU_sKrEEm
Falls Down A Pit, Lee Barber
Slum Encounters and
Weird Things In Rooms, Al

Special Honorable Mentions

Rudingoz, Patrice Crespy
Swashbuckling Adventure Generator, Ralph Mazza
The Dungeon is Trying to Eat You! Best Of, Remix!, James A. Smith
What’s in that Hole?, Matthew Schmeer
Drink Me, Eat Me, Mr. Reaper

Elite Honorable Mentions

Ruins, Joe Wetzel
What’s Happened To Those Dead Bodies You Left In The Dungeon Yesterday?, Roger S. G. Sorolla
Character Generation, Alex Schroeder and Adrian Shieh
Magical Research Results, Gavin Norman
Dwarves, Kesher
Exotic Traps, Mr. Reaper

Third Prize

One Page Monster Manual, Paolo Greco

Second Prize

Quick Hex Contents Generator, Al

Grand Prize

Feast, Samuel Kisko

Just how many OSR inspired D&D fan magazines are there now?

I know of Fight On!, Knockspell, Oubliette, I know there are others. Who am I forgetting?

Fun with Leeches and Flies!

2011-07-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

The common practice of leeching, whereby the spineless water parasites are affixed to those who are unwell with the intent that they should draw forth the bad blood or excessive humors which cause sickness, is in fact only ignorant superstition, and no help at all to those who have fallen ill.

The origin of this error lies in simple, unruned folk attempting to duplicate without sufficient understanding, the performance of Nahwalar’s Marvelous Thaumnivorous Leeches.

That most puissant Viviomancer and life-shaper, by dint of much effort and practice, achieved a spell whereby he might turn the natural actions of the leech to his own advantage and that of the sick he cared for.

This spell, when cast upon a suitable supply or number of ordinary leeches, alters them in such a way that they may be used to ameliorate some unhealthful conditions.
The degree of effect on the patient, and the conditions which may be treated, varies by the number of Thaumnivorous Leeches set to feeding upon him.

A single leech will suffice to draw forth any poison or venom by which the victim’s life is threatened. A victim of poison must receive the attentions of the leech within 4 rounds of the poisoning or envenomation in order to survive. Use of a single leech will cause the loss of one hit point in blood loss as the magically enhanced leeches draw mightily upon the vital fluids of the patient.
A leech which sucks poison will itself die afterwards.

Two leeches are sufficient to cure disease, either natural, or magically inflicted. This includes the infestation by fungal spoors and molds, but not other large parasites such as rot grubs. A pair of thaumnivorous leeches will inflict 4 points of damage upon the patient while removing all trace of disease from the body.

Three leeches must be used to clear the body of the effects of potions, dusts, or other ingested magics. The person so treated will incur 8 points of damage during the procedure.

A set of four leeches will end the effects of any sort of magical Curse, while also causing 16 points of damage to the leeched.

As with normal leeches, thaumnivorous leeches may be removed prior to satiation by the use of salt or fire.

Due to the Laws of Spontaneous Generation, it is wise to destroy by fire any leeches which have become engorged upon magic by their feeding. There is always a possibility that arcane mutation or alteration could bring about changes in a magic-sated thaumnivorous leech which may be infelicitous.

Also, there exists the possibility that a leech, employed upon multiple patients, may in some form transmit magical effects or disease which it had previously drawn from one patient to another.

The spell used to create the Marvelous Thaumnivorous Leeches is quite rare. It has been found to date only in the form of an enscrolled incantation. It prerequires a crystal vessel or decanter of fine workmanship with which to contain the leeches, sufficient solution of aqueous sortilagic fluid to fill the container, and at least four, and no more than eight leeches in good health, as well as a sprinkling of powdered gold and ivory dust.

The spell may of course be copied into a spell book rather than expended directly. All the standard costs and consequences of so doing apply.

Once created, the thaumnivorous leeches will survive within the crystal vessel handily until they are needed.

*Notes of warning, there have been reports that some scrolls containing the engenerative spell have either mistakes or deliberate malignancies written into them. Thaumnivorous Leeches created through the use of such a warped spell result in parasites which directly draw life energy from the patient in a manner similar to some undead. Victims of such leeches will lose one experience level and one hit die per leech attached to them, per round until death.

The Bloodfly Pin.

A large cloak or hat pin of bronze and ruby in the shape of a biting black fly, the Bloodfly Pin isn’t particularly attractive as a piece of jewelry, but it is effective as a magical deterrent.

Once per day, the wearer of the Bloodfly Pin may summon a cloud of vicious biting flies and direct them to swarm a given target. This target may be a single creature, or a designated space, such as a room.

If the target is a creature, the flies will inflict painful, maddening bites causing 1d4-1 pts of damage per round. If the target is a volume of space, then all living things within it will suffer 1 pt of damage per round they remain within it.

The fly swarm will remain for 1D6 rounds before dissipating.

The flies will fly into ears, nostrils and open mouths and make spell casting impossible. Horses and other touchy or high strung animals will bolt and run if attacked by the fly swarm.

The wearer of the pin will draw flies of the normal non biting sort at all times. Usually a half dozen or so will be found buzzing about the general area the pin wearer occupies.

The wearer will also develop a taste for overripe fruit.

If the wearer of the Bloodfly Pin should kill an insect for whatever reason, the next time he attempts to summon the fly swarm, the swarm will target him instead for the full duration of the summoning.

Insects will not attack the wearer of the pin unless attacked first. This includes giant types, but not intelligent insectoids. Intelligent insectoids such as Thri-Kreen, Aspis, etc… will generally feel non-hostile towards the wearer of the pin when first encountered. What happens afterwards is up to the pin bearer.
-------------------------------

It's deer fly season here, hot, humid, still, deer fly season. I hate the blasted things.

Google fetched for me the top pic from some wiki type site.
The second came from the Pictoral Arts blog. It's a sketch for a jewelry maker.

Greyhawk Wars meets Kelly's Heroes!

2011-07-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

I Watched Kelly’s Heroes last week on the Military Channel, I always loved that movie. If you haven’t seen it, this is the Wikipedia entry for it.

In World War II France in early September 1944, units of the 35th Infantry Division are nearing the town of Nancy when one of the division's platoons receives orders to pull out while under attack from the Germans (much to the dismay of the men, who are eager to get into Nancy in order to find a decent place to get some rest).

Kelly, a former lieutenant who'd been demoted to private as a scapegoat for being given orders to attack the wrong hill and wiping out half a Company of GI's, captures Colonel Dankhopf of German Intelligence. When Kelly notices his prisoner has a gold bar in his briefcase, he gets him drunk to try to get information about the gold. Before he is killed by an attacking German Tiger tank, the drunken Dankhopf blurts out that there is a cache of 14,000 gold bars (worth $16 million) stored in a bank vault 30 miles behind enemy lines in the town of Clermont (most likely Clermont-en-Argonne).

Kelly recruits the rest of his platoon, including skeptical Master Sergeant "Big Joe", to sneak off and steal it. Eventually, others have to be recruited (or invite themselves) into the scheme, such as an opportunistic supply sergeant "Crapgame"; a proto-beatnik Sherman tank commander, "Oddball"; and a number of stereotypical G.I.s presented as competent, but war-weary veterans who are as much fed up with their incompetent or self-serving superiors as they are with the Germans.

The expedition successfully breaks through a German held town during a mortar barrage that has been arranged by Kelly. They then meet bad fortune when an American fighter plane mistakes Kelly's group for the enemy, shooting up their vehicles and destroying them with rockets. They continue on foot and one of them dies in a minefield. Two others of their number then die in a battle on the minefield.

Meanwhile Oddball's tanks head along a railway line wiping out a German depot along the way, but their route is blocked when the last large bridge to Clermont is blown up by Allied bombers, prompting Oddball to let a bridge engineering unit in on the deal. When intercepted radio messages of the private raid are brought to the attention of gung-ho American Major General Colt, he misinterprets them as the efforts of aggressive patriots pushing forward on their own initiative and immediately rushes to the front line to exploit the "breakthrough".

Kelly's men race to reach the French town before their own army. There, they find it defended by three formidable Tiger I tanks with infantry support. The Americans are able to dispatch two of the Tigers and most if not all of the supporting German infantry. However, as they prepare to take on the last tank, which is parked right in front of the bank, Oddball's last Sherman breaks down, and it is found that the Sherman cannot be repaired due to a lack of needed replacement parts.
Powerless to defeat the heavily-armored behemoth, Kelly, Oddball and Big Joe square up like western gunfighters and walk purposefully in line towards it, prompting the commander to emerge from the turret. He and his crew are then offered a share of the loot, the tank blows the bank doors off and they divide up the gold ($875,000 per share).

They then go their separate ways, just managing to avoid meeting the still-oblivious Colt, who is delayed when the celebrating town residents are told he is Charles de Gaulle. Oddball and his crew ride out of town in a Tiger tank and SS uniforms, having used part of their share of the gold to buy them from the Germans. Kelly and his misfit heroes head off into the sunset, presumably en route to Switzerland where they can sit out the war and rest on the joys of numbered accounts.

I made a note years ago about writing a D&D scenario that would put an adventuring party in a Kelly’s Heroes type situation during the Greyhawk Wars, but I never went any farther with it.

The thing with setting up a D&D game around the plot of a movie is that it’s very difficult to replicate events without turning the game into a railroad. I really do not care for those. Railroad games just suck all the tension out of play.

So, I like to set up situations that will likely replicate the general feel of the movie and the pace of its events, but don’t require the PCs perform a pre written pantomime of the movie in order to progress.

I was thinking for the Greyhawk’s Heroes scenario, I’d have the PCs be impressed into the armies of Furyondy at the beginning of the war. Wyrd Greyhawk’s PCs aren’t normally Heroic Fantasy material. They tend to be hardscrabble, average Joes getting by on guts and black humor. Getting press ganged into a conflict between great uncaring powers would be par for the course.

The PCs would be in the position of Kelly and his platoon, while I’d have NPCs for the Big Joe, Crapgame, and Oddball analogue characters.

Looking for a good encampment spot, the PCs encounter a spy/courier of Iuz. The spy has a bag of gold coins and information on just where, thirty miles beyond the battle front, a great horde of looted treasure has been hidden for later shipment to Dorraka.

Of course the PCs want it. Risk your life for a fortune, or risk it for ten silvers a month and disciplinary beatings once a week, plus the chance of encampment cholera and being hacked to death by orcs, which would you, choose?

The game would be an overland hexcrawl through war torn territory and no man’s land, towns held by the forces of Iuz, scarred lands, and wild countryside. The PCs would have to avoid combat wherever possible in order to draw the least amount of attention to themselves if they want to have any chance of reaching their goal.

One of the best parts of the movie was that, in order to solve problems as they went along, Kelly’s Heroes had to keep enlisting the help of more and more other people, who in turn drew the attention, and greed, of still more people. Eventually, the allied command gets drawn into it and the movie becomes a race to reach the gold and escape before the whole U.S. army follows them to Clermont.

To mimic this, I’d add the Notoriety rules from the Dorrakka, City of Skulls module TSR put out for the Greyhawk Wars. (I can’t find my copy at the moment, so I don’t have the module number).

The notoriety rules are a system whereby the PCs accumulate points for high profile actions. As these points accumulate, they draw the attention of various other actors in the module, resulting in them taking appropriate actions of their own. Such as investigating, pursuing, etc…

I’d do the same thing, with PCs actions gaining them notoriety points as they progress, and these points gaining them first the attention of low level Furyondian officers, and then higher and higher up the chain of command as the PCs incurred more points.

If the PCs are clever and circumspect, they might make it all the way to the horde without drawing too much attention. If not, the Furyondian army might make it there right alongside them.

Once Kelly’s Heroes made it to Clermont, they had to deal with a squadron of three Tiger tanks guarding the gold. They knocked out two with surprise and maneuver, and then made a deal with the Commander of the remaining Tiger for a share of the gold.

To have a chance of a similar situation playing out in the game, I’d have to have a suitable foe in the destination village that couldn’t be defeated directly at first, but might be amenable to parley if placed in the weaker position.

I haven’t decided what that foe should be. A trio of young dragons under the domination of Iuz? Impressed former Shieldlander knights? Heavy armored elite hobgoblins? Devils? I’ve got to muse on that a bit yet.

Big Joe would be a Serjeant of Furyondal heavy foot the PCs would have to convince to go along with the plan. No rolling for it, I’d make the players role play it out with “Beegjoh” .

Crapgame would be a Provisioner , charged with securing supplies for the Furyondians. He’d also have thieves’ guild connections and many friends in low places. I might just call him,”Crapper”.

Oddball would be Sir Ohe DeBal, a Furyondian knight of petty nobility with a small squadron of chivalric heavy horse. For Wyrd Greyhawk, a fully armed and armored knight is the best analogue for a tank. 1600 lbs of horse, man, and iron isn’t something any spear pusher wants to get in the way of.

I’d play each of these NPCs just as their actors did in the movie, Telly Savalas for Beegjoh, Don Rickles for Crapper, and Donald Sutherland for Sir Ohe De Bal. Imagine Sutherland in wine stained armor as a black lotus smoking beatnik knight of Fortune.

“Ceaseth thou with thyne negative emanations, Sirrah! If thou dost believe the bridge shall be there, then so it shall!”

This is all I’ve written about the idea. If I do ever pull it together and run it, I’ll let you know how it plays out. If you do it, let me know how it goes. Game on!

Dungeons & Dragons Super Edition!

2011-07-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

So, let me throw this out there.

Instead of the death march to the land of diminishing returns that continuing down the path of perpetual new editions dooms Wizards of the Coast too, how about a multi-edition edition of Dungeons & Dragons?

The Game is built of multiple core components and elements that show up in all editions. Combat, Character Generation, Player Character Stats, Armor Class, Initiative, Surprise, etc… All the topics that we argue over and discuss on blogs and forums without end.

You could take these core elements as they are written in each edition and group them together to compare and contrast how each edition of The Game treats them.

Each edition is a product of the spirit of the times in which it was produced. Each one makes its own assumptions about what the game is meant to do, how to provide that outcome, and what players are looking for in the play experience.

Every edition made rule changes guided by these assumptions, and which edition you started with, and when, colors your view on what’s right and what’s wrong with the others.

Everybody knows I’m an AD&D guy, I don’t think there’s anything I can’t make it do with sufficient tinkering. But, I will readily admit to prying bits and pieces off of other editions, other RPGs, house rules gathered from blogs and forums, pretty much what ever catches my eye, and seeing if I like it in play. I think most of us, (the Old School blogosphere), do this without giving it a second thought.

You wouldn’t have to do every component of The Game, only the major ones which diverge significantly from previous editions. That would keep it from becoming the Encyclopedia of D&D. (though I would buy the Encyclopedia of D&D WOTC, if you're watching.)

You could present it by topic, say, Hit Points, and then the relevant sections from Original, AD&D, 2E, 3E, 3.5E, 4E, concerning what hit points are, how they are generated, how they are viewed in the game, and then a bit of considered commentary about why each edition makes changes, the different ways hit points are used to represent actual damage sustained, personal energy expended, near misses, luck, etc.

The hit points section could be followed by a bit about the various rules concerning when is dead really dead. Since there is always discussion about death at zero, death at -10 hps, deaths door rules, recovery from near death, I don’t want to go on the cart, yadda yadda.

The point of this book would be to create an Ala Carte Dungeons & Dragons which would allow DMs to pick and choose the elements from all editions that best suited their game and gaming sensibilities and build a personal edition. This is what we all really do anyway, at least, we of the Old School.

Of course, not all elements from all editions can be made to play nicely together. I don’t expect they could be made to do so by a Super Edition, still, having examples side by side of all the different ways that Combat, or Skills, or what have you have been treated in The Game would be horizon broadening for those unfamiliar with other ways of looking at things.

It’s my perception that newer generations of gamers are much less likely to have a do it yourself-make it your own attitude towards gaming. I think a book that actively encourages the idea of tinkering would go a long way towards changing this.
The majority of OSR bloggers and related forum posters are in their mid thirties and forties, I think I can safely assume, and they have been a fountainhead of creativity that I am overjoyed to drink from. However, I find it unsettling that the younger gamers seem to be the ones wearing blinkers about The Game and what it does. It’s supposed to be the kids who are wild and creative.

I can’t tell anyone to get off my lawn if they never jump fences. Dagnabit.

Not only Shields Shall Be Splintered!

2011-06-25T18:07:00.000-07:00

Trollsmyth's Shields Shall Be Splintered rule to give the shield more value in melee is one of my favorite house rule ideas to come out of the OSR blogosphere.

It's easy, simple to employ in The Game, and makes sense to my way of playing. It also gives a bit more juice to combat. Like a saving throw, it allows for an exiting narrow escape from a possible nasty end.

I like to roll it around in my mind. It has a tasty texture and rule symmetry that appeals to me. Thank you Trollsmyth!

This is how I phrased the rule for my own houserule document.

Any player character, who is employing a shield and takes damage in melee combat, can opt to instead have their shield take the damage. The shield will be shattered and must be discarded thereafter, but the character takes no damage from that particular attack.

I like it so much, I want to share the terror and excitement of that near brush with death with PCs of classes which normally don't carry shields.

So, I'm extending the rule to include hastily improvised shields. Things which might be snatched up in a desperate attempt to ward off an otherwise fatal blow.

Items such as a stool, a chair, a saddle, a halfling, etc..

This way, magic-users and thieves, who usually need all the protection they can get, have a rule to give them a last chance to escape a cleft skull.

Of course, same as with the shield, whatever object the PC grabs to serve as a shield is destroyed if made to absorb the damage the PC would have otherwise incurred.

*regarding the halfling. Only NPCs may be sacrificed in this manner. PCs may not be employed as hastily improvised shields by other PCs.

Pics are a nice medievalesque stool I found online, and a clip from a larger sketch by the mighty Jim Holloway, one of my favorite D&D artists.

The Scorned Blade, An all-humanoid NPC rival adventuring party

2011-06-19T20:40:00.000-07:00

The Scorned Blade is the chosen name of an adventuring company composed entirely of renegade and outcast humanoids. Lead by the hobgoblin Zarkutz, the Scorned Blade includes, two orcs, Grum and Cazag, a bugbear, Grug, three goblins, Snool, Bugum, and Pulc, and a gnoll called Hykic.

All are exiles, or outcasts from their tribes for one reason or another. This unsavory group is held together by the iron will and discipline of Zarkutz, that plus mutual need, and the fact that no one else will accept them. They are more than a match for the average party of low level characters because they work as a team and use every dirty trick they can muster.

Ambushing travelers has been their bread and butter, but Zarkutz entertains grim dreams of making a name for himself as human adventurers do, and returning in glory to revenge himself on those who forced him from the tribe.

To this end, he gathers what information he can in regards to lost treasures and magic. He also looks for the chance to capture alive any adventurers that may be able to teach skills that the Scorned Blade lacks. Zarkutz especially wants a thief to teach the goblins, and a magic-user to tutor Kazag.

Zarkutz: hobgoblin war-leader.

AC: 2, HP: 25, Move: 9, Int: above average, Alignment: Lawful Evil.
Zarkutz wears a combination of jazerant and plate armor, and carries a falchion, (dmg: 2-8) and hewing spear, (dmg: 1-6).

Having lost a power play within his tribe, Zarkutz was exiled with dishonor. The hobgoblin lusts for command and forged the Scorned Blade from other outcast humanoids he encountered simply to have something to lead.

He speaks common very well, and will be interested in talking with any player character party that doesn’t attack immediately. At least, any party he can't over come easily.

He will be willing to ally with adventurers if it is advantageous, and will adhere to the letter of any agreement made.

Zarkutz will attempt to impress the members of a weak party into the Scorned Blade if he can dominate them. He will, at the least, quickly begin issuing orders to any indecisive appearing allies.

Grug, bugbear.

AC: 4, HP: 30, Move: 9", Int: low, Alignment: Chaotic Evil.
Grug wears heavy bronze chainmail looted from the cairn of a firbolg giant. He carries also a large shield and great sword,(1d10+1 dmg), which he easily wields one handed.

Grug is very large for a bugbear. He is most enthusiastic, and not overly intelligent. Despite his chaotic nature, he applies himself to the strict lessons of Zarkutz, and as a result, he has become both a skillful and an erratic opponent.

If faced with multiple attackers, Grug's first attack will be to bash the closest target with his shield. Opponents of lesser mass must Save VS Crushing Blow or be knocked down, requiring two rounds to get back up.
Grug will use this time to attack the next closest target.

Grum, orc shaman.

AC: 7, HP: 8, Move: 9", Int: average, Alignment: Lawful Evil.
Spells available: cure light wounds, light.

A fanatic devotee of Baghrutu, Grum was driven out of his tribe by the dominant followers of Grumsh for the crime of heresy.
He wears studded leather, and fights hand to hand with gauntlets of ogre power, (18/00 str, +3 to hit, +6 dmg).

Grum will attempt to convert captured opponents to the worship of Baghrutu. He is passionate, but not eloquent.

His favored method of attack is to blind his opponent with his light spell, and then close to pummel with his iron gauntlets.

He would like to challenge Zarkutz for leadership, but secretly fears the ruthless hobgoblin.

Kazag, half-orc magic-user.

AC: 9, HP: 4, Move: 9", Int: very, Alignment: Neutral

Not brutal enough to live among orcs, yet not sensitive enough to live with humans, Kazag is selfish, unpleasant, weak willed, and greedy. He directs his spells as commanded by Zarkutz, but will never expose himself to direct attack. He is not to be trusted, and Zarkutz makes sure the goblins always accompany him. They serve as both protectors, and minders.

Kazag carries a dagger coated with golden adder venom, Save or suffer agonizing hallucinations for 1d4 days which completely incapacitate the victim.

His spell book holds, Burning Hands, Hold Portal, Identify, and Spider Climb, as well as Read Magic.

The goblins: Snool, Bugum, Poolc.

AC: 6, HP: 7, Move: 6", Int: average, Alignment: Lawful Evil.

Large for goblins, these three are brothers who were cast out for the pleasure murder of prisoners which their chief had intended to ransom.

Scouts and skirmishers, they will close for combat only if ordered by Zarkutz. Each carries four javelins, short swords and shields, and wears studded leather armor.

If the Scorned Blade should manage to capture a thief, Zarkutz intends to force him to teach the goblins his skills.

Hykic, Gnoll

AC: 5, HP: 14, Move: 9", Int: low-average, Alignment: Chaotic Evil.

There is a strong possibility that Hykic is mad. His sharp barking laugh, which seems to come at random moments, is irritating. He was driven from his clan for, "unwarranted cannibalism".
He is ferocious and reckless in combat, and Zarkutz employees him as a shock trooper to terrify and to herd targets into advantageous positions. He is without fear but obeys Zarkutz for reasons of his own.

Hykic wears armor of horn, leather and metal, and carries a long sword and a halberd.

Mally Goodbin, unfortunate halfling

AC: 10, HP: 4, Move: 9", Int: very, Alignment: Lawful Good.

Mally is a slave and cook to the Scorned Blade. Her ability to turn odds and ends into good food is what saved her life when her traveling party was ambushed. The humanoids had never had cooking of such flavor, and Zarkutz knows a fighting force moves on its stomach.

Hykic would like to eat her, and the goblins would enjoy murdering her, but the bugbear Grug considers her his pet, and to Zarkutz she is a tool to keep the group together.

The Scorned Blade is only slightly above the average of humanoid combatants statistically. The thing that makes them dangerous is the fact that they fight as would a well disciplined human adventuring party.

Zarkutz always attacks, and opens negotiations from a position of strength. He will not commit to a combat that he isn’t very sure of winning. There must also be a definite goal, or prize involved. Though, of course, he enjoys fighting as much as any hobgoblin, Zarkutz has priorities, and is not easily dissuaded.

If the Scorned Blade becomes aware of a PC party before the PCs are aware of them, Zarkutz will first determine the strength of possible foes, or new recruits, and then determine a course of action.

If the PCs are obviously too strong for the Scorned Blade, Zarkutz may either avoid them completely, or begin to shadow them, waiting for an opportunity to present itself.

If the PCs are judged to be on close to equal footing with the members of the Blade, Zarkutz will offer a truce, he speaks common quite well. The hobgoblin will use any conference to gather information about the party and its purpose. If the party is competent and willing, and there is gain in it, Zarkutz may offer an alliance of convenience, for a time. Treachery is possible if the information leads him to reevaluate his first assessment of the PCs. He will, however, abide by the letter of any deal or agreement arrived at in negotiation.

If the PCs are judged to be weak or at a disadvantage, then Zarkutz will most likely attack. Any useful survivors will find themselves conscripted into the Scorned Blade.

If the Scorned Blade attacks with Surprise, or otherwise gets to make the first move, they are coordinated and business like.

The goblins will hurl javelins from a distance, choosing unarmored targets such as magic-users first, clerics second. Grum and Kazgag will cast spells to cause confusion and damage from a distance, before Hykic, Grug, and Zarkutz move in to attack any obvious fighters. Grum will close to attack after expending his magic. Snool, Bugum, and Poolc will move in to melee once they have expended their missile weapons. They much prefer to gang up on a single, wounded opponent if possible.

Zarkutz directs the actions of the others and they obey him without question, at least during combat.

If the melee goes poorly, Zarkutz will order a withdrawal. If Zarkutz is himself killed, the others will flee.

This is a version of an NPC party I sent James at Grognardia for his MegaDungeon project a while back. I’m pretty sure that's dead in the water now, so I thought I’d share it with my blog buddies. You can, of course, easily up rate the Scorned Blade for higher level play. I made them with the intention of providing a thorny problem for experienced players running low level characters.

I think that’s about my favorite gaming scenario. Very good players running low to mid level characters who have to make do with what they’ve got. It just seems to have more juice to it, there’s more at stake somehow. High level play feels a bit too super hero-y to me for D&D.

Not that I don’t love super hero rpgs, mind you. I’ll have to tell you about the time we demolished most of downtown Indianapolis in a brawl with A.I.M. I guess I just don’t like peanut butter in my chocolate.

The top pic is cropped and lightened from the TSR Book of Humanoids, done by Sam Rackland I believe. I like it a lot, it illustrates why Old Schoolers know not to mock the single orc guarding a door.

You all know Erol Otus. Dig.

Insertable Encounters # 2 The Gallows at the Cross Roads

2011-06-15T19:37:00.000-07:00

Amongst those who seek to discern the form of the unknowable and define the shape of the ineffable arcane, few are the equal of Gyahzeere the Skryarch. Heretic priest of Boccob-Delleb and eldritch diviner, from his velvet cushioned marble throne-divan beneath the azure dome of his great sanctum psychomanteum; Gyahzeere seeks to know all that is unknown through the art of thaumaturgic extrospection.

Recently, ripples and perturbations in the arcaethosphere have pulled at the edges of his expansive consciousness. Disturbances of a texture and quality unfamiliar to the mystic seer of Urnst have draw his attention to the east and south, to that no-man’s land contested by Nyrond, the Bone March, and the Great Kingdom. The grim Lands of the Unending March.

Gyahzeere does not know what it is that causes the intermittent magical turbulences which intrude upon his prophetic divinations, yet he can discern that if it is not spell work, it is still magic of some sort, and powerful enough to resonate across many leagues.

As his magic has thus far provided him little insight into the matter, Gyahzeere now considers choosing a cat’s paw to send forth to reconnoiter directly. The Skryarch is a most generous employer; coin has little meaning to his ever questing soul. Prospective agents soon learn, however, that acting in the interests of Gyahzeere may bring most unsettling consequences.

Concurrently, as the diviner-mage ruminates on which path to understanding is the most applicable; another already near upon the source of the hidden magic has begun to gather up the loose threads of happenstance.

Hearozaul the Shining Priest, devotee of Pholtus, adherent of the Rightful Way, the curiosity of his brilliant mind piqued, has commenced to acquire and scribe accounts of inexplicable and apparently, “miraculous” events which have taken place within and about a large area which appears to center upon the town of Borlem.

The stories which Hearozaul has thus far gathered seem to have no relationship, one with another, and yet the Enlightener feels there must be one. He prays that Pholtus cast his revealing luminosity upon that which remains shadowed.

Among the accounts the Shining Priest has quilled upon the pages of his journal of inquiry to date;

That of the kind, but quite homely, goose girl who, before the very eyes of the shoemaker’s children, was enveloped in color and suddenly became a ravishing beauty.

The account of the four days rain of wine which fell only upon the estate of Samsar the Vintner, killing all of his grape vines.

The foul death of Wamsucsh the Usurer, the cause of whose demise was later found to be that a very large rat had somehow crawled up his arse, and there, died.

The beautiful music which played from thin air for the space of one hour in the taproom of the Blue Boar Inn.

The scrawny cow of the charitable crone of Duhn which began giving foaming ale rather than thin milk, and apparently still does so.

The tale of how Secoulm the Riff of Lunh met with his bizarre demise, vomiting forth gallons of urine before,” drowning “in the street, his lungs filled with piss.

Hearozaul has expended a great deal of his personal time upon investigating these happenings, but as yet, has reached no conclusions. Something turns aside his priestly magical enquiries. The constant threat of the inhuman raiders across the Harp commands the lion’s share of his attention. The infirmities of the fearful peasantry demand his action.

As his superiors in the order evince no interest in what they declare to be minor devilry or else random arcane circumstance, Hearozaul now muses over the possibility of hiring a spadesman to turn the ground in his stead and perhaps unoerth further clues to the puzzle which tugs at his robe.

Unknown to either the Priest of the Shining One or to the Master Skryer, the source of both the eldritch turbulence and the inexplicable occurrences is in fact, the worn and lonely gallows pole which stands at a dusty cross roads some small distance from Borlem.

In that endless moment before death and judgment, those who die by the noose upon the pole are spoken too by a voice which only they may hear.
The voice asks no bargains and makes no demands. It instead offers a final Wish to the condemned, requiring nothing in return. The only limit attached to the wish is that it may not prevent the death of the recipient.

All of the unexplained events, (save the music in the Blue Boar), are the results of the last wishes of those who have hung from the gallows pole. This is magic of no small power.

The source of the voice is unknown, likewise the reason for its offer. Not all who die upon the gallows at the crossroads are spoken too by the voice. Why some are granted this final “gift” and others are not is also unknown.

The gallows at the crossroad may be inserted into an existing campaign in many forms and serve many purposes. It may be that the PCs are hired as investigators by one or the other of the concerned parties. It may be that a friend, hireling, acquaintance or relative of the PCs dies on the gallows and by way of the wish embroils the PCs in unexpected events. If your group is sufficiently thespian in leanings, in may be that one of the PCs themselves swings from the pole.

The gallows may be used as a hook, or an entry point to adventure, and also as an end point.

The voice may belong to any number of beings, mortal, infernal or divine, or other. Perhaps the speaker gains in some way from the deaths of the hanged. Perhaps it only rewards those who died wrongly. Perhaps it offers the final wish as a test.

It may be that something lies buried beneath the pole, or perhaps nearby. The cross roads itself may be the center of the magic rather than the pole, certainly cross roads have the reputation of drawing the unoerthly. A gate of some sort may be connected to the cross roads.

I like to have things like this in The Game and simply not explain them. The imaginations of the players will often conjure forth more lurid and terrifying suspicions than I could have stated out myself. I love a thick atmosphere of mystery and weird fear to marinate the players in, before their PCs get eaten.

Star Wars campaign that never was. Shoot first like Han Solo!

2011-05-27T18:14:00.000-07:00

Above is a cover for an imaginary Han Solo novel that I ran into on Boing Boing,of all places. Its just art, not a real novel. Sorry to get your hopes up.
Its by Phil Noto, whose work I like, though he does tend to give women overly narrow hips.
Anyway, The image sparked my memory and I went rooting through the old game idea folders to retreive the bones of a Star Wars campaign that never quite jelled.
We, the game gang, had West End Games Star Wars RPG, and the idea was to have an campaign with a large number of characters whose lives mostly overlapped, but didn't always. This was probably 88, just after the WEG Star Wars came out.

I was going to trade off game mastering with one of the guys so that we could both play in the same campaign. We'd alternate games or go two for two or something along those lines as we both wanted to play, but somebody had to GM. The other players could with either of us GMing as we'd have multiple game directions running concurrently.

The game was to be sort of Star Wars meets A-Team plus "Caper" movie, with some Western themes thrown in. The party was to be a crew of rejects, rat bastards, whak-Os, and failed criminals, rebellion friendly but not active members of it.

Thrown together by fate, or maybe the Force, they find the battered hull of an old Republic era Intruder class torpedo boat and decide to make a career out of sucker punching the Empire.
The first few games would have centered on scrounging, stealing, trading for, or otherwise aquiring the parts and equipment to make the old boat functional. Then it would have been on to smuggling, piracy, bushwacking and otherwise sticking their thumbs in the eye of the Empire whenever possible.

Above and below are a couple of the sketches we worked up concerning the general design of the Intruder torpedo boat class.

The bottom drawing has a scout walker standing near the bow for scale. Also a speeder bike, a guy, and an R2 unit.

My character was an Imperial deserter, a renegade storm trooper named Izayah yaegr. (This was before storm troopers were clones, of course.)

In my character background I wrote, "A member of the Nova Demons swoop gang in his youth, Izayah joined the Empire after his wing of the demons was destroyed. His career as a storm trooper ended when he deserted after causing the death of an officer in a bizarre practical joke. Since he's been a smuggler, a gunman, and a real thorn in the ass of authority. Izayah will do just about anything to stick it too the Empire."

Izayah had one, intermittant and unreliable Force power, an inhumanly fast speed draw. Once per day he could roll to attempt it. It didn't guarantee a hit, but it did, if successful, give him the first shot regardless of the circumstances.

This game never did happen. I think mostly because we had a hard time trying to figure out how to apply WEG's rules to our AD&D gaming sensibilities. The WEG rules make some story driven assumptions about the game that were a bad fit for us.
We didn't realize that at the time, it just felt off somehow.

We started on an house rule adaptation, but it took too long, and enthusiasm flagged.

Is there a limbo, do you think, for campaigns that never happened?

Also, HAN SOLO SHOOTS FIRST!

Blogger fumbles again. I'm gonna make them roll on the self inflicted damage chart.

2011-05-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

Now I can't post comments on my own blog. I can comment on other blogs, and others can comment on my blog, but when I try to comment, I get stuck in this repeating loop of signing in, over and over.

Blogger says they're aware of the problem and are working on a fix.

This happening to anyone else?

Also, I wanted to say regarding the comments to my Stargate Universe post, I agree, Blueskreem. I hated the kinos and the communication stones too. The stones just became a crutch for the writers. They used them to write teeny drama on earth instead of sci-fi in space. The kinos just became another excuse for the shaky cam.

And Timeshadows, I would love to read whatever you have to say about Universe. Also, I thought Todd the Wraith was the single best antagonist on SGA. I always like those episodes where the SGA team is forced to work with Todd against their better judgement.

I figured we'd be sympatico on SGU, Dr Rotwang!

And Brutorz Bill, me too.

Stargate is dead. Long live Stargate!

2011-05-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

The last episode of Stargate Universe season 2, also the final episode of the series, aired a couple weeks ago, and while I had no great love for the show, I was not pleased by its demise.

This is mostly because I thought it still might have been possible to turn the show around, and because when it went, it took with it any chance of new movies or another series for the foreseeable future.

Stargate as a whole constitutes a mythos that rivals that of Star Trek in its breadth and detail. Universe, however, deliberately eschewed the majority of the elements which made its predecessors, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, so successful, and paid the price for it. In our current economic situation, it may have been a franchise killer in so doing.

Universe started hemorrhaging viewers early on, and just never recovered. This is directly the fault of the show runners and writers. With Stargate Universe they wanted a darker, grimmer stargate, more edgy, story driven instead of episodic, a character drama with a cast of flawed characters who, “weren’t supposed to be here”.

The problem with this approach is that ultimately, it’s not the writers who decide what is and is not “Stargate”, or any other show for that matter, it’s the fans. If this show had been launched without any connection to Stargate, it might have survived longer. Maybe even grown its own fan base. Making it a part of the Stargate story, however, brings with it preexisting expectations about what a Stargate show will be like. Universe did not deliver on these expectations, but brought an entirely different theme and feel that the majority of fan-voters felt were just not Stargatey enough.

I’m one of those who weren’t very pleased with the show. I think it was a showcase for just about everything that’s wrong with contemporary Science Fiction. Still I watched most of the episodes because I wanted it to get better, I wanted the writers to have a chance to recover from their hubris and listen to what the fans and ratings were telling them, and it was the only Stargate in town after all, sorta.

There were things I liked about the show very much. Ironically, the things I really liked about the show only magnified the contrast with the things I really didn’t like.

I really liked the Destiny, the Ancient starship the show was built around. The shape of the ship was based on a gate chevron, greatly elongated. The show was shot with such dim lighting that it’s hard to actually see the details of the model, and that’s a shame. I lightened the image of the Destiny here by 50% just so I could actually see the ship itself.
Now you can see the stepped levels of the hull, and the proto-Egypto-Ancient styling of the swooped command Ziggurat which supports the bridge. It’s an elegant design that conveys a sense of ancientness by its form. I actually felt bad for Destiny, a ship that awesome being trapped in a show that bad.

I liked the effects in general, especially the gauzy corona which envelopes the ship when Destiny employs its Faster-than-Light drive but remains in real space, rather than diving into hyperspace.

I also like the first generation stargate on board the Destiny. The entire ring of the gate spins in its base rather than having an inner track with locking chevrons like the SG-1 era gates. I think it looks a bit Deco/Art Modern. Much cooler than the lite-bright gates of the Pegasus galaxy in Stargate Atlantis.

I liked the back-story as well. Some uncertain millions of years ago, the Ancients built and launched Destiny to investigate a message or signal that they had discovered embedded in the cosmic background radiation which permeates the universe. A message apparently sent from very near to the beginning of time. A fleet of autonomous gate seeding ships preceded Destiny, manufacturing and placing stargates on appropriate worlds from galaxy to galaxy across the universe so that as Destiny followed, the Ancient crew could investigate and resupply.

That is a huge, romantic, classic science fiction notion. It’s the sort of theme that drives the great works of science fiction, the quest to discover the great unknown, the desire to know the universe. It’s also the kind of thing that you just don’t often encounter in modern sci-fi writing.

I really like the Ancients, or rather; I really like the original SG-1 era conception of the Ancients as the first technologically/spiritually advanced human race. The super advanced lost race is another theme of classic and pulp science fiction that later was mostly discarded by writers in favor of the ancient aliens idea.
I find the super aliens thing a little boring. It’s too easy to attribute to them whatever a writer needs without any real consideration. The idea that there have been multiple evolutions of humanity on earth pulls at my imagination much more.

Consider the changes humanity has experienced in the paltry few thousands of years we have recorded history for today. What might the Ancients have considered, attempted and experienced in millions of years? What insights might civilizations that cover eons have arrived at? Tackling the big questions of life, the universe, and everything is what Science Fiction was born to do.
That, and saving space-babes from bug-eyed monsters with a ray gun.
The best sci-fi does both at the same time.

Unfortunately, the Ancients became less interesting later in the series, and with Atlantis. The writers made them just another super alien race from another galaxy with the whole Ori story line in the last two, regrettable seasons of SG-1. And Stargate Atlantis managed to make them more and more mundane and less magnificent with every appearance and reference.

Exploding tumor device anyone?

What I didn’t like about Universe.

I hate the cinematography. I loathe reality-tv shaky camera with a white hot fire. Pan left, pan right, zoom in, zoom out, focus, unfocus, refocus, half screen, this irritates the crap out of me. The steady-cam was invented for a reason folks. Camera gimmicks are there to distract you from the fact that there is no writing going on.

The inevitable musical montage scene. This is another gimmick to fill in for a lack of good writing or dialogue. I like a good music video as much as the next guy, but in a tv show there has to be a good reason for it. You just can’t do it every single episode and not look like you’re phoning it in. Also, using the pop music of the day rather than an appropriate instrumental severely dates the show.

Shaky cam and Maroon 5 are going to be the mullet and saxophones albatross around this shows neck a few years down the road.

What I disliked the most, however, was the characters themselves. As with the regurgitated Battlestar Galactica, I was unsympathetic to their plight because they were all such terrible people.

Science fiction is escapism and there is nothing wrong with that. The thing we are attempting to escape, or ascend from is the mundane world with its unending stream of small, mean problems. All the crap we have to deal with on a daily basis. Science fiction allows us to consider the greater possibilities, to dream of the awesome.

Stargate Universe, with the exception of Nicholas Rush, was completely populated by just the sort of petty, small, unimaginative people that I want to escape from in science fiction. You can have a few such characters, in fact they are needed to contrast and compare with the protagonists, but when every character is one of, “the wrong people”, I just can’t care what happens to the feckless disfunctionistas.

Now Rush wasn’t a likeable character or a cookie cutter good person or standard issue sci-fi hero either, but he was complex, subtle, and had motivations that were above and beyond the run of the mill. Rush was the only character who displayed awe at the ancient purpose of the Destiny. The only character who grasped the greater meaning of Destiny’s mission. He wasn’t quite amoral, and certainly not the “evil scientist”, but obviously gave greater weight to understanding than to the needs of the rest of humanity.

However, because there was no other characters in the cast remotely as complex or interesting as Rush, or anyone with principles to balance Rush’s all consuming craving for knowledge at any cost, there wasn’t any tension or direction to the show. There was no counterweight character of sufficient gravitas to balance Rush. When he, or Destiny itself weren’t on the screen, watching the rest of the cast interact was like sitting in a Wallmart and observing the dysfunction pass by.

I don’t want these people in my science fiction. I have to deal with them every day in real life.

By contrast, the cosmic grandeur of the Destiny, and the quest of the Ancients to understand the meaning of the signal from the beginning of time made the characters of Stargate Universe seem all that much more petty and small and unworthy to be on that ship.

In the final episode, the crew has to go into stasis to conserve power while the Destiny crosses the void between galaxies in order to avoid an enemy they cannot out fight. Kid slacker genius Eli volunteers to be the odd man out and stay awake to pilot Destiny and try and fix the last stasis tube for himself.

There is a last musical montage, which actually works well since it’s a simple piano piece and not whiny alt-rock, and a final shot with Eli standing on the observation deck watching space fly by as Destiny shifts into its faster than light drive.
Destiny vanishes into the distant void of extra galactic space with its crew frozen in time.

I thought this was the best possible ending for the show, all things considered. The idea of that ancient vessel continuing its journey of millions of years in silence towards an unknown destiny, with its crew in unchanging sleep, possibly for thousands of years to come, is perfectly in sync with the classic science fiction of mighty ideas I love. The greater Stargate mythos is itself in stasis for the foreseeable future and I’m alright with that.

The possibilities are again endless.

Did every one manage to Save VS Blog-Fumble?

2011-05-13T19:02:00.000-07:00

I don't seem to have lost anything here, but some of the art blogs I like seem to have lost a post or two.

how about you guys?

Run! Blordels' turned into a... What the Gax is that,anyway!

2011-05-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

It's a Yragnereian Panathrope!

The inexplicable whimsies and enigmatic follies of the mighty Zagig are of course known to all who work or dabble in the Art. Only a very few, however, suspect the true depth of the arch mage’s inquiry into the hidden nature of the Oerth’s arcane aetherosphere and the ways in which it may be manipulated.

Before his disappearance, and unsupposed by most, Zagig had set into motion an unknown number of personal experiments, schemes, plots, and fancies fully capable of continuing to their respective ends without the direct supervision of the mad mage of Greyhawk.

Among them is a spell-like work of magic which even now propagates itself by its own volition hither and yon across the flanaess, though it is unrecognized for what it is. This self sufficient eldritch construction may have been meant to be a curse, or perhaps a jest, or else it may serve some other, as yet unseen greater purpose.

Whatever the reason for the Pananthropic Glamour, though it may bring glee to Zagig the Mad, wherever he may be, it is no humorous matter to those it visits itself upon.

A person or character who contracts, (or is cursed, or blessed), by the Pananthropic Glamour undergoes transformations into random forms either at certain times or which are triggered by certain circumstances. A person so afflicted is known as a Yragernerian Panathrope by the handful of wizards and sages who recognize the handiwork of Zagig the Inexplicable.

Though superficially the Glamour seems akin to lycanthropy or other such were-beast transformations, its effects are far more reaching and unpredictable.

The form which the victim takes is determined randomly at each transformation by rolling upon the random monster encounter table most applicable to the immediate environs. The person so “blessed by Zagig” completely becomes the creature chosen by chance, and will act in a manner appropriate to the monster he has become.

The victim may be overcome by the magic and transform at certain times, monthly, seasonally, annually, or other. Alternatively, the magic may be triggered by a given event. Such an event may be hearing the scream of a horse, a dog crossing the victim’s path, in the presence of wooden shoes, if the victim drinks beer, eats a muffin, takes a bath, takes off his hat, looks directly at the moon, stubs his toe, etc..

The triggering event need have no reasonable connection to the transformation. Somewhat like a taboo, or a geas, it is a forbidden occurrence which will invoke the power of the glamour and bring about a transformation. The triggering event should be chosen by the Dungeon Master and should have a reasonable chance of occurring at least once per game, if the Panathropic Glamour is contracted by a player character.

The duration of the transformation is also variable and follows no clear logic. The monster form may persist until sundown, sunup, lunch time, the next rain, the next holiday, until a joke is told, until the monster is struck by a pillow, the setting of the moon, until invited to tea, etc… This may be determined randomly from a prepared list of random events, or by DM fiat.

What exactly draws the glamour to an individual is unclear, though it appears to have at least a component of karmic justice, or possibly comeuppance for those who jeer at fate.

Also, persons who commit alignment violations in the presence of a carrier of the Glamour must save vs. spell or contract the magic themselves.

Due to the changing and chaotic nature of the Glamour, it may also be passed to others in various ways which depend upon the changes in each manifestation of the magic. Each victim of the glamour may pass the spell curse in a different manner. Such as by biting, slapping, kissing, spitting, making love, sneezing, laughing at, farting, sharing wine, etc. There need be no logical connection between the action which imparts the glamour and the nature of the glamour itself.

Such is the will of Zagig. He is the Egg-man, He is the Walrus! Koo-koo-katchoo!

A monster, and a magic item for the Weird West.

2011-04-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

Monsters are very rare in the Weird West, it just happens that PCs run into them more often than most folks. People keep to their towns and settlements for the most part; it’s the brave, the desperate, and the touched who dare the open range, the mountains and the deserts by their lonesome.

Likewise, items of a supernatural nature are exceeding rare. Powerful objects of the Art are always singular in nature. Minor arcane items are also very rare, but may possibly be replicated. PCs aren’t likely to be able to do this however.

Gundog, (hell hound of the weird west)

Frequency : Very Rare
No. Appearing : 1 or 1d6
Armor Class : 4
Move : 12”, 120’ per round
Hit Dice : 3-8
% in Lair : 10%
Treasure Type : C
No. of Attacks : 1
Damage/Attack : 1d10, (bite)
Special Attack : muzzle blast, damage as shotgun 1d10, or grape-shot 4d6, depending upon hit dice
Special Defenses : only takes half damage from gunpowder weapons
Magic Resistance : Standard
Intelligence : Low to Average, cunning
Alignment : Enigmatic Evil
Size : M to L
Psionic Ability : Nil

Legends say the Gundog haunts old battlefields or the sites of massacres. A great, black hound with iron teeth and burning ember eyes, the beast is wreathed in acrid gun smoke and leaves behind it paw prints which char the earth.

When the creature appears, its size and power seem to change to match the scale of the carnage which took place at the site. Where only a few were killed, the gundog has appeared but little larger than a wolf. At places where great battles have occurred, and many died by the gun, tales have it the beast grows to nearly the size of a horse.

It is unclear whether the Gundog is a single, immortal monster, or a type of creature of which there may be many. Conflicting tales are told of the Gundog. It is also unknown if it, or they, are supernatural in origin, or some sort of aberration.

Though in all tales the Gundog is a malevolent killer, it seems to choose its adversaries by the strength of the threat they may pose. A Gundog the size of a pony is said to have appeared with a roar like cannon fire the night after the battle of Shealho. It killed most of a cavalry patrol before vanishing, but completely ignored a group of refugees passing by.
The Gundog which appeared on the Dead man’s leg of the Chislem Trail paid no heed to a dozen cow punchers and instead went straight for Lightening Caleb Booker the infamous gunman. Lightening emptied both sixguns into the dog before it reached him and it disappeared in a cloud of brimstone. Or so they say.

In addition to the bite of its terrible jaws, the Gundog may employ its Muzzle Blast up to six times per combat. This is a sudden roaring bark which also discharges red hot shot as though a shotgun had fired from within the dog’s throat. The muzzle blast bark has the same range and effect as an actual shot gun. In larger accounts of the Gundog this weapon is equal in range and effect to grape shot fired from a cannon.

Somewhere, out there, maybe in a ramshackle ghost town or a ruined ranch house, is a battered cartridge box containing the Demon Bone Bullets of Father Callaghan.
The story goes, the Father, an easterner and city-slicker were’t all that strong in the faith himself, till circumstances found him sharing a stage coach with the fearsome Ezra Crumb.
Crumb, called by them who know as, “Ezra the Ghoul Scalper”, regaled the Father with many hair-raising tales of his encounters with the unnatural. Callaghan, more a man of science than a child of God, believed none of it. Though Ezra’s air of firm assurance and vivid powers of description caused him some unease as the night ride went on.

Ezra, as it turns out, were’t just traveling that night. He was a-hunting a diabolic thing called the Buckthorn Fiend. The wind had told Turning Cloud the Shaman that the fiend would come to the coach with the dark of the moon, and Ezra Crumb meant to see it got its trip back to hell.

When, round about midnight, the horses screamed and a yard of spiny black demon arm, plated in armor like a scorpion, came a-groping through the window, Father Callaghan found his faith real quick.

Though the coach was torn to flinders, the horses and both the driver and side man killed horribly, Crumb and Father Callaghan survived that desperate fight beneath the cold prairie stars. The Buckthorn Fiend was banished to the pit, its skull transfixed by the sainted iron of Crumb’s Arkansas toothpick, and from its bones the good Father fashioned 24 bullets of .52 caliber for the Sharps rifle.

Callaghan died in agony some few months later, poisoned by inhaling the demon bone dust kicked up by crafting the cartridges. Ezra Crumb is known to have expended some of the rounds in subsequent adventuring, but how many is unknown.

Each of the Demon Bone Bullets acts as a weapon of slaying. A successful hit with one is always a killshot. In addition, the bullets can hit creatures which otherwise are unharmed by mortal weaponry.
There is a 1 in 20 chance of a misfire each time one of these infernal cartridges is fired. Anyone who may find the old ammo box containing the bullets is advised to employ them with care. It is unlikely the demon bone is any less lethal than it was and a misfire could possibly throw deadly powder into the face of the rifleman.

Only an early model Sharps rifle is able to fire the Demon Bone Bullets.
****************

I've had very little time or creative mojo lately. There's a lot of stuff competing for my energy this spring. I've got images and feelings roiling around in my mind, game wise, but not enough time to spend on pulling them together. It'll come around eventually.

Here at O.G.G.A., we post no monster before its time.

Also, I think I'm going to get myself one of those reproduction Colt model 1860 army revolvers.

Torch & Sixgun; Weird West Adventure Via AD&D.

2011-04-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

Imagine an adventuring party consisting of Josey Wales, Rooster Cogburn, Brisco County jr, James West, and Jonah Hex, daring black mesas riddled with undead-haunted mines, lost and buried cities of the ancients, ghost towns, goblin infested badlands, cruel black mountains, and pitiless miles of open range, driven by the remorseless ecstasy of gold.

Starting from a base of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons standard rule set, with the following modifications. Rules default to AD&D in all cases not specifically altered.

Initiative may be either individual or group based depending upon circumstances. If the party is alert and moving as a group, then standard AD&D initiative determination applies. If the party is dispersed somewhat, engaged in various tasks, not immediately expecting attack, but not surprised, initiative is determined individually. Each character, npc, and monster involved rolls 1D20 + Dexterity bonus to determine order of actions.

Player Character armor class, (difficulty to hit), is determined by class, level and dexterity bonus if applicable, rather than by physical armor worn. Nothing bullet proof can be worn for any length of time, so little armor is used in the weird west. Each character class has a base AC bonus, this bonus increases with level to reflect the character’s accumulated experience in avoiding gettin’ shot.

The chance to hit with a gun at short range is determined by the AD&D melee combat charts. Almost all gun battles will occur at distances of less than twenty feet between combatants, so the majority of gun fights will be rolled for as “short range”. Medium and Long range shooting is modified by weapon type and character class. Non Fighter classes incur penalties when shooting at medium and long range targets.

Firearms are bolt action, single action, double action, lever action, or pump action, plus break open shotguns. Only Fighter Class characters can fire multiple shots per round. This is determined by the AD&D fighter’s level/attacks per round. Level 1-6, one shot/attack per round, level 7-12, three shots/attacks every two rounds, level 13 and up, two shots/attacks per round.

Firearm stats.

Derringer type pocket pistols do 1D4 dmg, +1 to hit at Medium range, +0 at Long range

Full-size handguns do 1D8 dmg, +1 to hit at Medium range, +0 at Long range

Shotguns do 1D10 dmg, +2 to hit at Medium range, +0 at Long range

Sawed off shotguns do 1D8 dmg, +1 to hit at Short/melee range, +0 at Medium range, +0 at Long range

Long guns/shoulder arms do 2D8 dmg, +2 to hit at Medium range, +1 at Long range

Dynamite sticks do 6D6 dmg, a save for half damage is possible if detonation is at least 10’ distant.

All melee weapons do damage per AD&D rules.

When gunfire damage is rolled after a successful hit, maximum damage indicates a kill shot, instant death. This applies to monsters, NPCs, and Player Characters alike. Characters, NPCs, and monsters above third level and/or three hit dice may attempt to Save vs. Death against a kill shot. Those who succeed take damage only and are not killed. Unique supernatural Monsters of the Abomination class, certain sorts of undead, and creatures with 11 or above hit dice are also immune from death by kill shot.

Classes include the Fighter, the Thinker, the Manipulator, and the No-Account. These classes are very broad archetypes just as are the AD&D classes.

Character generation follows AD&D rules. Character stats remain the same.

The Fighter

The fighter primarily makes his way in the world with his fists and his gun. Current and former military men of any sort, cowboys, roustabouts, athletes, brawlers, any person who is generally more disposed towards physical action over cerebral consideration, will fall under the “Fighter” category.

The T&S fighter has the same class requirements and advantages as the AD&D fighter. They attack on the AD&D fighter melee chart. They gain levels according to the AD&D fighter progression. They roll 1D10 per level for hit points, and also roll saving throws as AD&D fighters. Any sort of weapon is usable by fighters.

Torch & Sixgun fighters operate with the following alterations.

Fighters start with a base armor class of 8. This number drops by one for each experience level gained up to, and including the sixth. Thereafter, by one for every two levels gained.

A fighter may have a natural talent for a particular type of weapon. This gains him a +1 to hit with that type of weapon only. This bonus is very specific, as example, a pistol, not all guns, a saber, and not all melee weapons.

A fighter may make a called shot at third level and above. A called shot can only be taken when the fighter has time to line it up, such as with surprise or initiative, and not during melee or in melee range. A successful called shot is not necessarily a kill shot. It merely indicates the fighter hit exactly what he was aiming at. Damage is rolled normally and a kill shot may or may not result. Secondary results of the hit are for the DM to decide.

A fighter with a constitution score of 15 or above has got grit. This means that the fighter’s Hit Point Adjustment bonus may be subtracted from damage the character takes, in addition to adding to his hit point total. The grit bonus may not be applied to a kill shot that would have slain a character otherwise.

Yeh git shot in the face, son, an yer still gonna be stone daid.

The Thinker

The thinker primarily makes his way in the world with his mind. Scientists, engineers, doctors, scholars and academics, as well as sorcerers and preachers, any type of person who is generally more disposed to forethought and mental solutions over immediate physical action belongs to the Thinker character class.

The T&S thinker has generally the same class requirements and advantages as the AD&D magic-user. They attack on the magic-user melee chart. They gain levels according to the AD&D magic-user progression. They roll 1D6 per level for hit points, and roll saving throws as AD&D magic-users.

A thinker starts with a base armor class of 10. This number drops by one for every level up to and including the fifth. Thereafter the thinker’s AC improves by one step for every two levels of experience.

A thinker class character may familiarize himself with one weapon for every three levels of experience. A thinker may attempt to use any weapon, however, he suffers a -3 to hit penalty with any weapon he is not familiar with. A familiar weapon may be employed without penalty.

A thinker possesses the abilities of a Sage, as defined in the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide under expert hirelings, pg 31.

Added to this rule set for Player Character thinkers, the character’s Intelligence score carries a bonus that increases the number of minor fields of study the thinker has expertise in. An Intelligence score of 15 adds +1 minor field, 16 adds +2, 17 adds +3, 18 adds +4.

The Manipulator

The manipulator primarily makes his way in the world by influencing others to gain his ends. Gamblers, hucksters, snake oil salesmen, Politians, saloon girls, fancy-dans, merchants and traders all fall within the manipulator class. Any person who prefers to maneuver others into serving his ends rather than directly acting himself falls under the manipulator character class.

The manipulator has generally the same class requirements and advantages as the AD&D cleric. They attack on the AD&D cleric melee chart. They gain levels according to the AD&D cleric level progression. They roll 1D8 per level for hit points, and save as AD&D clerics. A manipulator starts with a base armor class of 9. This number drops by one for every level up to and including the fifth. Thereafter the manipulator’s AC improves by one step for every two levels of experience.

A manipulator must have a Wisdom score of at least 10. A manipulator may use pistols and handguns without penalty. Long guns, shot guns and heavy weapons incur a -3 to hit penalty.

A manipulator is capable of slick talking. This operates in a manner similar to the AD&D magic-user spell “suggestion”. By slick talking, the manipulator can often convince a listener of the wisdom of following a course of action that may or may not be the best idea for the listener, but will certainly benefit the manipulator. The object of a manipulator’s power of persuasion must save vs. spell or fall for the manipulator’s spiel.

If the manipulator’s target possesses a Wisdom score bonus, it is applied to the saving throw.

A person who is slick talked into a course of action that then turns out badly for the manipulator’s target, that person gains a +4 bonus against future attempts at slick talking.

If a manipulator attempts to slick talk a crowd, (a group of 5 or more), the crowd saves as its lowest level or hit die member. This is why Politian is a preferred avocation for the manipulator.

When engaging in games of chance where misdirection is a factor, the manipulator is at an advantage in being able to roll twice and choose the better number in any situation where the dice determine an in-game out come. This applies to in-game betting and gambling.

The No-Account

The no-account primarily makes his way in the world by leaching off of others and avoiding work himself. Thieves of all sorts, lay-a-bouts, hangers-on, drifters, shiftless shirkers, rustlers and claim-jumpers, any person who habitually appropriates the wealth of others without direct conflict falls under the no-account character class.

The no-account has generally the same class requirements and advantages as the AD&D thief. They attack on the AD&D thief melee chart. They gain levels according to the AD&D thief level progression. They roll 1D6 per level for hit points, and save as AD&D thieves. The no-account starts with a base armor class of 9. This number drops by one for every level up to and including the fifth. Thereafter the no-account’s AC improves by one step for every two levels of experience.

Somewhat ironically, in their pursuit of gain without the need of honest work, no-accounts often develop specialized skills. A no-account rolls 1D8 at character creation to determine how many of the AD&D thief skills he possesses. Then rolls again to determine which skills he knows. 1-Pick Pockets, 2-Open Locks, 3-Find/Remove Traps, 4-Move Silently, 5-Hide in Shadows, 6-Hear Noise, 7-Climb Walls, 8-Read Languages. These skills are administered according to AD&D rules.

All character classes are guidelines and subject to alteration to satisfy player needs for particular PC designs. Any abilities, bonuses or penalties given as a result will deviate minimally from the standard.

Once upon a time, in the Ancient West. Setting description.

No back history, no timeline, no specific date the campaign starts on. The game is meant to exist in a sort of Western Mythic Now. So, any event, technology, story, history, or person, fictional or otherwise, who exists at any point in a time frame from 1840-1900, can appear in the Weird West.

The campaign map covers all of North America between the Appalachians and the Rockies. That the rest of the world may be out there may be implied by inference due to the presence of people from other parts of the world. They are there, however, to fill various character roles traditional in westerns. The campaign won’t leave the West.

Magic items are always singular, or else extremely rare. As an example, consider the Ace of Winchesters from Hitman #16, (Garth Ennis & John McCrea), a rifle, “fashioned of halo-steel and hades-gems, bound with ivory of saints, designed to blast the very life from fiends…”.

Supernatural weapons and items will be unique and usually meant to serve a certain purpose. They will also have a severely limited number of uses before they are burned out.

Hit point recovery will also follow AD&D standard. One hit point restored per day of rest, four weeks rest returns hit points to maximum regardless.

Henchmen and hirelings become Sidekicks and Hired Hands.

New and altered AD&D monsters for Torch & Sixgun.

Unique dragons via the dragon generator, (which I’m considering updating)

The Painted Unicorn. I have this idea of an appaloosa unicorn roaming the Great Plains. No one who has ever taken a life can approach it unnoticed.

Yigs, Yig-sons. The yuan-ti reskinned as remnants of an ancient race of serpent men. From their hidden city beneath the Cerulean Mountain, the Yigs send out their most human like members to infiltrate human towns in order to bring back slaves, sacrifices, and… food.

Spirits of Place. Watering hole weirds, sand storm devils, ill winds, avalanche gremlins, etc…

Non standard undead. The Sundown Wailers, The Wagon Train, The Mountain Man.

Degenerate Ancients. In hidden cities and lost valleys. Malignant survivors of lost civilizations.

Badland Goblins. Fused with Quickling stats. Spare, boney, blindingly fast, and mercilessly cruel. “If them goblins gets aholt ah yeh, they’ll string you up by yurh thumbs and skin yeh with their teeth, boy!”

The Damned Stallion. Outside of Laerdin, there’s miles of black prairie. Apparently burned by fire years ago, it never regrows and yet the charred grass never crumbles away. The locals say a great bronze colored stallion courses the black prairie and that those who die out there, must ride the stallion to Hell.

And of course, a steady stream of regular old conniving, black hearted, rat-bastard scum.

**********

This is my start on a bolt-on house rule set for weird western adventure on an AD&D platform. I watched The Outlaw Josey Wales a couple weeks ago, and then just kept running into westerns on TV. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, El Dorado, High Plains Drifter, Open Range, Unforgiven. The really good westerns. I kept smelling mental gunsmoke and hearing the rutch of boots on dirty pine plank floors. Also, a couple of the guys at the part time job are into cowboy shooting and western reenactment. They have a lot to say about horses and shooting. The Wild West themes just sort of sank down and melded with the AD&D dungeoneering ethos I look at rpgs through.

I think I want something gritty and dangerous. I expect PCs to die fairly often. I’ll come up with something for army surgeons, folk remedies, country doctors and such, but I don’t think I’ll have any sort of commonly available “healing”, magic or otherwise.

I’m a bit leery of the degree to which the weird western tale has been infused with contemporary steampunk these days. I want stone cold gunslingers and horrific monsters in this campaign. No wacky inventions, steam robots, crazy professors or airships. I love Victorian era and classic science fiction, I cut my mind’s eye teeth on it, but the reimagining of it in steampunk has reached the point where it’s become self-referential and incorporated way too many modern attitudes. It’s disconnected from its source material to the point of caricature. Steampunk has become WOTC Jules Verne.

I want The Man with No Name with a cigar in his teeth in a desperate gun battle with blasphemous gibbering things in a maze of black tunnels beneath an ancient mesa.

I reckon I’ll whittle on this here rule set a mite bit longer, see what shapes up.

Under-rated items of adventuring equipage.

2011-03-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

Never dungeoneer without your oily rag.

Among the many uses of this inexpensive and over looked, but vital piece of equipment are;

The oily rag is an excellent way of protecting metal and leather from corrosion and damp. In areas of high humidity, especially salt mist or other rust promoting conditions, a daily wipe down with an oily rag will prevent mail from rusting, bowstrings from stretching, leather goods from distorting, etc…

Such considerations may be something hand waved by many Dungeon Masters, I however, am not one of them. Tee-hee! Well oiled mail is quiet and moves smoothly, rusty mail makes more noise and can constrain movement. If characters take no care of their equipment for enough time, those wearing armor may incur penalties regarding surprise and movement in melee. A bow string or crossbow cord stretched by moisture will cause significant penalties to hit and damage.

An oily rag can be used to leave directional marks when adventuring underground. An oily smear is less obtrusive than paint or pigments and can be left silently. Marking with a chisel or nail may make noise which draws unwanted attention. This method is especially recommended for use by a thief scouting ahead of the party.

An oily rag is handy to wipe the dust and grime of centuries from ancient carvings and runes. A clean inscription lessens the chance of mis-interpretation, as can sometimes happen.

An oily rag wrapped around the end of a sword sheath can serve as a makeshift torch in time of emergency. They also serve well as a fuse to light oil, explosives, or tapestries. I roll a D10 to get the number of rounds an improvised oily rag fuse will burn before setting alight whatever its been attached to.

An oily rag may be thrown or tossed, preferably afire, to gain a single round distraction from opponents of average or below intelligence.

A particularly oily rag may be laid where it will likely be stepped on as a trap. On the edges of precipices or on the third step from the top of a stairwell. The unsuspecting can easily slip on it with possibly serious consequences. My players call this, “the dungeon banana gag”.

Likewise, an oily rag can be used to leave a film of grease or oil on door handles, rings, or knobs. Those who are unaware of the lubricant will always fail their first attempt to turn the knob or handle. This fumble may be heard by the party and give them just enough time to prepare for their entrance. Unfortunately, clever monsters may also use this tactic.

Finally, an oily rag tied over the mouth and nostrils will prevent the inhalation of airborne mold spores, but not magic effects such as a stinking cloud.

As a DM I like to reward ingenuity in problem solving by players. I think that’s one of the most rewarding parts of actual play. When something comes right out of the blue that I hadn’t expected and changes the direction of the game, I can be downright gleeful. I find I like surprises and the random unexpected a lot more now than I did as a kid. Even when my finely tuned and thought out encounter is defeated by the offhand gonzo use of an oily rag.

Let the dice fall where they may!

Old things and rare my treasures are.

2011-03-17T19:57:00.000-07:00

Survivors beyond memory
Old things and rare my treasures are.
Times folded gates, fast closed to me,
These lonely sentinels unbar.

Years do not weary them, nor mar
Their power of ancient wizardry;
Things old and rare my treasures are
Enchantment seeking memory.

Scarred wreck of long forgotten war
Austere, unchanging, silently
Dream, and the drums faint and far
Arouse the blazoned years for me.

Enchantment wakens memory;
Old things and rare my treasures are.

A poem by Ewart Oakeshott.

I wrote previously of Ewart Oakeshott, the rightly respected scholar of the sword. The above poem refers to his own collection of historic swords, and the sense of connection with the far away and long ago they brought to him.

Some might deride this as nostalgia or fantasy, but the past is never past for me.

AD&D is my old treasure, but when I draw it from the sheath,its still as sharp as the day it was forged.

Up the Old Guard!

Cobblestone Fae; The Gutter Faeries and Shite Gnomes of the City.

2011-03-08T09:45:00.000-08:00

As I have described previously, the Arcane Law of Spontaneous Generation holds sway over life in Wyrd-Greyhawk, ruling over its poor cousin, evolution. The currents of aeldritch force which so mysteriously swirl and flow about the Oerth cause nature to vomit forth new and exotic forms of life with reckless abandon. Living things touched by magic may adapt to changing conditions with extraordinary speed. The majority of such creatures are singular and short-lived; some however, survive to found new species or races, for good or ill.

As areas of the Flanaess have come under the control of ever self centered and industrious mankind, the various sorts of petty faeries and little peoples indigenous to the land have adapted to live alongside man in his cities of stone and iron.

This is the origin of the manifold troublous little beings prosaically referred to as Gutter Faeries and Shite Gnomes. These appellations consider a wide variety of generally human-like creatures which fall into two broad catagories. The gutter faeries usually, but not always, being winged, and smaller than the shite gnomes, anywhere from two fingers in height to nearly a foot. The gnomes, not to be confused with the hill dwelling gnome race, range in height from a hand tall to as much as a foot and a half.

These creatures have been altered by the will of Mother Oerth to live with ease in alley, shingle, ditch and midden, rather than glade, grove, valley and river. Greatly influenced in character and appearance by the human cultures they dwell amongst, the gnomes and faeries of the cities vary in temperament and form from community to community, and even street by street. The dispositions of the human inhabitants are reflected in the traits displayed by the cobblestone fae.

In Chendyl the little beings are inoffensive, helpful even, though so unobtrusive as to be nearly forgotten. In less benign places, they become so as well. In Molag they are an ineradicable, though most deserved pox. The actions of the little creatures are shaped a great deal by the attitudes of the human city dwellers that surround them. In some places the tiny beings are nearly considered equal citizens, in others, the most pestiferous sort of vermin. The majority fall somewhere in between.

The little peoples of the cities find work and places for themselves as suits their varying natures. Often gutter faeries act as messengers for those able to deal with them. They may also be tasked to guard town gardens and orchards from birds and insects. They may also serve as spies and gatherers of news.

In each city in which they exist, cobblestone fae adapt in a way unique to their surroundings. In Curleem, famous for its ironworks, shite gnomes bear spikes of iron similar to the thorns of a fey bramble, but appearing as iron nails.

In Lurgn, travelers come to see the famous tumbling gnomes. The miniature acrobats perform for food and drink for any who pay them heed. Forming hoops of living gnomes, they roll down streets and between the legs astounded visitors. The manuver known as the Tower of Shite is the greatest crowd pleaser in the gnomes repertoire. Dozens of shite gnomes interlock their bodies to form a single man-shaped unit of a size equal to that of a Halfling. In this arrangement, they do battle with other shite towers, or drunken Halflings, to the raucous acclaim of the mob.

In the city gardens of Colomg, the sibilant singing and living lights of the fire faeries is likewise an attraction to visitors. Poaching of the faeries is strictly forbidden and cruelly punished. Thieves who are caught will lose the middle finger of their right hand. Guardsmen armed with man-catchers and finger-nips are always present in the gardens.

Those cobblestone fae unable to find work which allows them to mimic the doings of the larger folk become scavengers, gleaners, opportunists and thieves, gaining their livelihood from the city as foresters do the woods.

The gutter faeries of the city of Selm, in southern Ket, are wingless and appear as tiny, gorgeous women. They are enchanting beings, graceful in form and movement, with voices sweet as songbirds. As they do in all cities, the gutter faeries of Selm have adapted to play a role in the life of their city.

Selm is dominated by the temples of Mhyriss handmaiden of the Reaper, a goddess of love, beauty and death. The dead of the city are placed upon byres within the temples, and when night falls, numbers of the beautiful little cannibals come forth from their hiding places and devour the flesh of the bodies. In the morning, their spotless bones are engraved with prayer runes by the priests, later to be made into votive rattles for sale in the temples.

The gutter faeries of Selm are otherwise completely harmless and incapable of defending themselves.

In less reputable taverns, gutter faeries with bound wings and armed with needles may be forced to do mortal combat with starving rats for the betting pleasure of drunken patrons. Street vendors selling pasties and meat pies may claim to be serving fowl flesh, but gutter faeries cost nothing to he who has a bird net.

Shite gnomes commonly serve by clearing the streets of offal and manure, thus the origin of the name. Generally when this is the case, the gnomes are paid in small beer for their labor. They drink themselves stuporous each day, only to awaken at nightfall to again clear the cobbles of horse droppings and garbage. So long as the drink is forthcoming, the gnomes may be quite industrious. Deprived of their expected reward, however, they can become spiteful vandals and a problem worse than rats.

In some cities, the Gnome-gigger is more popular and better paid than the rat-catcher. Of note, Bekul the gnome spitter, late of Rel Mord, was known for his troupe of tame shite gnomes, which he had trained to be assassins of their own kind. His death, he was discovered with his head stuck in a chamber pot, suffocated, was cause for much mourning amongst the gnome troubled.

Some tales connect the fate of Bekul with the stories of one of the very few shite gnomes to achieve fame, or rather infamy, the dreaded Gnobbles the Snout-knocker.
A perverse creature whose elusiveness allowed his reign of terror to last for eight sleepless months, the shite gnome was a despicable villain, a thief and murderer. These ordinary crimes paled in comparison to Gnobbles especial peccadillo, the nasal rape of unconscious inebriates.

The sale of intoxicants all but ceased due to the Snout-Knocker’s nocturnal transgressions. None dared to indulge in drink, smoke, or sparkling powder for fear of falling victim to the miniscule violator of noses.

Of course, this greatly discommoded the thieves’ guild. Their profits were much reduced. While the Baron’s men had been unable to capture the demented little manikin, the Guild knows failure not at all. With the bait of a soused barmaid, and a brace of feisty terriers, Gnobbles the shite gnome met his messy end.

Gutter Faeries & Shite Gnomes

Frequency : Uncommon (GF), Common (SG)
No. Appearing : 1-20 (GF), 2-12 (SG)
Armor Class : 0 (GF), 5 (SG)
Move : 6”/18” (GF), 8” (SG)
Hit Dice : 1, 1 hp (GF), 1, max 3 hp (SG)
% in lair : 50% (GF), 35% (SG)
Treasure Type : Nil
No. of Attacks : 1
Damage/Attack : By weapon
Special Attacks : Variable, may possess natural weapons
Special Defenses : Variable
Magic Resistance : 10%
Intelligence : Semi to Very
Alignment : Variable, commonly the dominant local alignment
Size : S, 4”-8” tall (GF), Up to 1 ½’ tall (SG)
Psionic Ability : Nil

The cobblestone fae are those creatures of faerie which have adapted o live amongst mankind within their cities of stone, brick and bronze. In the eyes of many, they are less than their sylvan kin, sad, degenerate creatures in unnatural circumstances. Others consider them civilized examples for their wild cousins.

Extremely variable in form and appearance, they are commonly split into two categories, the gutter faeries and the shite gnomes. Broadly, Gutter faeries are smaller, winged and comely, while shite gnomes are larger, crude in word and deed and quite unattractive. This is a generalization as there is much overlap between the two types.

Both gutter faeries and shite gnomes may possess variations on any special defenses or other abilities displayed by their wild and uncivilized relatives. Most commonly shite gnomes have the ability to pass through any crack in any surface, like a wall or street, regardless of its size. Gutter faeries often possess the power of at will invisibility. Both types commonly have the ability to speak with rats, roaches, and pigeons.

*The first pic is a Frazetta sketch, most likely from a convention. I probably found it at Comic Art Fans.
The second is Russ Nicholson's Fiend Folio illustration for the Dark Creeper entry. I think Russ's work really made the Fiend Folio. I thought it was the perfect illo for the dreaded Gnobbles. Sleep tight.

How then, may the Friendly Local Game Store be saved?

2011-02-12T18:04:00.000-08:00

No matter which gaming forum I happen to be visiting, and I visit a lot of them, there is always a thread concerning the shortcomings of the Friendly Local Game Store.

The discussions revolve around stories of poor service, indifference from employees, shallow selection of products, problem customers, foul smells, etc… I know you’ve all heard, or have horror stories of your own about events you’ve witnessed in your FLGS. Plus, with the selection of game product available online, accessible without the threat of being cornered by some smelly duster wearer who won’t shut up about how his character kicked Wolverine’s ass, the brick and mortar game store itself is an endangered species, with fewer to be found every year.

The state of the economy is itself a major contributor to the decline of the FLGS, but there is nothing to be done about that. Instead, I want to discuss what can be done, by those who care about such things, to contribute to the survival of Game Stores.

To start out, I accept as a given that the internet is a superior delivery system, for what it can do. I can buy an item online quickly, efficiently, almost always less expensively, and from home. The net has a wider selection available, 24 hours a day, and I don’t have to spend time on the trip, or gas, or aggravation.

In these categories, a brick and mortar store will have a very difficult time competing. So, to survive, a game store has to offer something the internet can’t. When I come at a problem, I like to spin it 360 degrees and look at it from all angles. A retail environment is complex, with all the participants being driven by different perspectives and goals. You have to consider what each wants and why to see how to make a store function well.

I break the cast of characters down as, the owner/owners, the employees, and the customers.

Customers you can further subdivide into Regulars and Non-Regulars. Game store regulars you can again subdivide according to their specific enthusiasms, such as war gamers, card gamers, role-playing gamers, board gamers, etc…

Non-regulars include any first time visitors to the store and those who visit intermittently. The non regulars are a broad category and converting them to regulars whenever possible should be a major goal of owners and employees. These are the people who come into the store on a whim, or in search of a gift. They just saw the sign and thought of that favorite game from childhood. Maybe the customer is a teacher with some vague ideas of a game as a class room aide.

They don’t speak the gamer-cant, they aren’t certain what they want, but they came through the doors because they do want something that they think you might have. Every one of them is the owner’s chance to expand his stores customer base. Just like every other business out there, if the customer has a good experience, they’ll probably mention it to friends and family. If the customer has a bad experience, they will certainly tell everyone they know. Everyone who comes into your store automatically becomes a word of mouth advertiser for you. You fail them at your peril.

Retail always operates at the thin edge of the profit margin. I haven’t run a game store, but I have to assume that like any niche retail, you can’t afford to lose any business, no matter if it’s not the sort of business you envisioned the store doing when you began.

A lot of the times I’ve gone through game stores, they’ve been thinly stocked, or overly specialized in the item of the moment. Or they focus heavily on the personal favorite games of the owner and employees while ignoring other viable segments of the hobby.

In the hey-day of game stores, the boom time of D&D and the RPGs which followed it, the sheer force of the expansion of the hobby allowed game stores to thrive even if they weren’t well run. That time is over and it’s not coming back. The RPG boom was a cultural phenomenon of its time, like vans painted with fantasy scenes, and though I think they will always be around, they won’t ever regain the influence and presence they had in the early years. At least not in the same form they had, a real time, face to face table top game.

So, if you want to have a game store, have a game store. Not a magic card store, not a 4th edition D&D store, not a wargame store, not a chess store, not a heroclix store, a frick’n game store. Stock games.

Sure, some categories will be more popular in your area than others, but you are running a niche store competing for entertainment dollars against every other non-necessity purchase out there. A game store has to be broadly stocked in order to cast the widest net possible. You don’t have to have depth in categories which don’t move often, but they need to be represented on the shelf. It matters less what you as the owner think should be in your game store than it does what the customer thinks should be in your game store. If it says game store on your sign and not Magic card outlet, you better be prepared to satisfy the expectations of whoever comes in the door should they be looking for Risk.

I ordered some things at a local game store a while back, and I waited for the call but never heard back from them. I went back to the store a couple weeks later and found the item I wanted sitting on a shelf. It had apparently been successfully ordered, but when it came in, no one knew it was spoken for. By then my enthusiasm had cooled and I decided I didn’t really need it after all. When the kid taking down an order does it by writing an unreadable scribble on a 3” scrap of paper and pushing it under the keyboard, it’s a sign that the stores customer service system isn’t very good. Have an actual order form.

Finding and supplying the hard to acquire, out of print, or short run game product should be a specialty of game stores. I can get the new stuff easily from many sources in most cases. I want to walk into a game store and see rarities and forgotten treasures. I want the guy behind the counter to be a go-to guy who can get me the hard to find stuff. I want him to be interested in tracking down the things the customer wants if it’s not a regular item. This is also something which increases the value of the game store to its customers.

I personally see gaming, meaning the more specialized and complex games we talk about, RPGs, wargames, etc, as opposed to the simple board games of childhood, candyland, snakes and ladders, chess, etc, as a part of the Greater Fandom of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

I like to capitalize things.

So, Greater Fandom includes all that stuff that gamers also like to talk about and collect, comics, movies, Science Fiction and fantasy books, figures, t-shirts, paraphernalia, accoutrements, what-not and such. The game store will do well to selectively stock game related items in these categories as well. These are things that non-gamers who have come in searching for a gift may well pick up if you don’t have the answer to their vague desires in stock.

Comic book stores generally do a much better job of cross merchandising in this manner than do game stores. Comic book stores have loads of tie-in products that support the actual comics sales. Game stores, not so much. You have to sell a lot of comics to equal the price of a new RPG hardback book, minis and dice. Of course, those comic buyers will be back again next month to get the new issues. If there are comic stores nearby, I would suggest deliberately stocking these sorts of gaming related items in a complementary and not a repetitious way.

Meaning, if he leans DC, you go Marvel. If he sells movies, you sell books. You want to have on your shelves what he doesn’t have on his.

I’m not saying the comic store is your enemy, a rival for the entertainment dollars of the customers you share, certainly, but not the enemy. Actually, getting together with the comic book store, as well as other game stores, local game clubs, SCA groups, science fiction fan groups, LARPers, re-enactors, movie theatres, any other organization which has members whose interests are similar or complementary, can raise the public profile of the game store.

Sponsoring events or providing a place for them in the store or the parking lot can bring a lot of attention to the store. Of course this can be a minefield of possible disasters, but you know, who dares, wins.

If there is a convention in striking distance, get involved in it. Not just on the vendor floor, make your store known. Wrap one of your counter monkeys in foil and put a sandwich board on him and make him walk the con handing out flyers or coupons or the product you can’t get rid of. Con goers love crappy robot costumes.

Get the local radio show guy involved. These guys love to do the remote broadcast at goofy events. They especially love it if there are Star Trek nerds or costumed LARPers involved. Put a big yellow hoola-hoop on a stand in your parking lot. Get a little manikin and dress it up like a hobbit. Give away prizes to anybody who manages to throw the Halfling through the Ring. Get one of those mobile barbeque guys to sell burgers and dogs and rat on a stick.

If there is a local independent movie theatre, host a gamer movie night. Show Hawk the Slayer and Galaxy Quest or some other crappy game inspirational movie. Make the audience roll for movie marching order.

I’m also pretty sure this internet thing can somehow be harnessed to drive sales. I’m sure somebody is looking into that.

There is always a heluva lot to do in running a retail store, but if you sit behind the counter playing WOW online and waiting for customers to come to you in a failing economy, I’ll take your backpack to carry treasure in when you die.

What an unsuccessful game store owner might look like.

Creating an informal supportive association of related businesses and customer groups may help keep the game store afloat in hard times. Small, individually owned local stores actually have an advantage in this situation over large chain stores. Big chains are top down operations. At the store level the manager has very little control over operational decisions. That all comes from the corporate headquarters, and those guys usually have little in store experience and no flexibility.
The individual store owner can move quickly to take advantage of situations, and to create them. You need to be something of a ferengi in small business. Surf the Great Material Continuum game store owner!

What a sucessful game store owner might look like.

I expect that anyone who owns a store of whatever sort wants it to do well. A lot of game store owners double as managers, but it seems that most of them are gamers who decided to make their hobby a business. That’s not a problem if they are also business people and understand retail, but that’s often not the case. It is a problem when they go into opening a store unprepared and thinking more of having a cool place to talk about the games they love with people who share their interests, and less about their bottom line.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with wanting the game store to be a gathering place for those with the same interests. In fact, I think building a sense of community identity focused on the store is vitally important to ensuring its survival. Especially now, as the greater economy continues to decline. If however, the part of the equation that’s most important to the owner is the camaraderie with his gaming peers, then a game club or co-op with a game commissary attached is probably a better model for a business. My point is that the owner can’t lose sight of the thing that keeps a retail store alive, and that is, moving product out the door.

Are your employees Goofus or Gallant?

Small store owners often employ friends and relatives. That’s expected, but if you hire your gaming buddy to work in your store, don’t expect his behavior to change. Sales people are the face of a store. They make all the impressions on a customer about what the store is like.

I was in a store last month. There were two guys at the counter. One was making entries in the computer on the counter, he gave me a weak hi as I came in, and the other didn’t stop in his rant about whatever the hell he was ranting about. I don’t know if the guy actually has tourette’s or just lacks discretion. Every fourth word out of his mouth was the F-bomb. Finally the other guy said, “Man, cool it with saying F—k every F—king 5 seconds, F—k!”

About five minutes later, while I was rooting around, the first guy asked me if I was doing ok. I said yeah, and that was the total of my interaction with the staff while I was in the store. I actually signed up for some store club membership at this store maybe six years ago, nothing ever came of it.

I didn’t buy anything that day. Not because of the clerks behavior, but because there just wasn’t anything in the store that appealed to me. The selection has gradually been thinned down to new war gaming stuff, warhammer minis, boxed board games and puzzles, and three shelves of new school RPGs of various sorts.

Anyway, they wouldn’t have made any sales that day as they had nothing I wanted, but I would have been interested in some conversation about the state of local gaming, how the store was doing, the future of gaming, upcoming events, just shooting the breeze with fellow game enthusiasts.

If there had been any adults present.

Sure, I could have taken over and instigated and guided the conversation, but they just looked like nerdy deer in headlights whenever I looked their way. I just didn’t have the heart.

So, here’s the take away for game store owners. Hire people for their retail experience first and gaming experience second. Also don’t forget that gaming experience and product knowledge are not the same thing. If you hire good clerks who are interested in games even if they don’t have a lot of previous experience you’ll be better off. Product knowledge they can acquire, personality defects are much harder to get rid of.

Taking care of the Regulars and managing the fanboy

The core of store’s customer base, the regulars are those guys in at least weekly, and they almost always spend at least a few bucks. They will be the store’s most ardent supporters, and can be the backbone of store sales. If you take care of them, you may find they offer unexpected support in hard times. In the best situation, the regulars become unpaid auxiliaries to the store staff. They learn the store workings as well as the employees and if you lose somebody, or have an emergency, you may be able to hire one of the regulars to fill the spot on short notice.

Regulars can also become an information net as well, keeping the store manager apprised of events and happenings in the local scene, as well as providing valuable feedback on product lines. They can help shape the stores stock to maximum advantage.

You want the regulars to feel at home in the store, and always welcome. Like at a favorite corner bar.

Problem customers are a different matter. Everyone’s heard or seen the problem customer. Edition warriors, tellers of unending character tales, smelly, personal space invading, duster wearers who drive off other customers with their obnoxiousness.

Training your store staff to manage these people is important. Getting them away from non-regulars will keep you from losing sales. I’m not dumping on the less socially functional members of the gamer tribe to be mean here. I love the nutty bastards; it’s like watching a train wreck in progress. The fact is though; they will drive off potential customers who are important to the store if they are always present, loudly proclaiming the superiority of the Katanna over the MP5.

The store itself.

Game stores are usually small and cramped, retail space is costly if you don’t own the building and every square foot has to make money. A lot of stores just don’t have the space to devote to customer gaming tables, but I really think it’s a good idea if you can swing it.

A game in progress on the floor is always interesting and likely to draw attention from customers. Customers who buy stuff. The good kind.

The gamers you let play on the floor should be the sort with some self control though. They are also taken as a part of your store by the non-regular customers and if they swear and stink, it looks bad for the store.

The best situation is a second room or space devoted to gaming. The store can host game clubs or events without losing retail space or scaring non gamers. If you have to pay for it, you have to keep it in use though. Maybe allow the space to be reserved for private games for a fee.

If space is available in the store, a couple of chairs and a coffee table as a waiting room for non-gaming spouses is a good idea. Just make sure the staff know to keep the problem customers from hitting on them.

Also, if you want to play music in the store, you’re better off with movie soundtracks, tv show themes and news. You may love Slayer, but Aunt Nina who came in looking for that Dragon game won’t appreciate them.

I’ve got a lot more to say about game stores, but I’m getting tired and I have to get up early tomorrow.

If you’ve got something to add, I’ll be glad to hear it. If you want to post about game store solutions on your own blog, please do. I know game store owners read these blogs of ours, when they have time, heh.

Frodo! What is best in life?

2011-01-28T18:48:00.000-08:00

I ran into this somewhere online and of course, I saved it. Cause it makes me grin.

I can imagine Arnold's Conan hewing his way through orcs with lots of Schwarzeneggery vocal effects. "Nnngggraahhh! Awhhooghh! I kill you all! Get to the Choppah!" Maybe not the last one.

Truthfully though, I'd really like a fantasy movie with the scale and heroic theme of the LOTRs movies, and the gritty, joyous hack and slashery of the first Arnold Conan movie. Lets not talk about the second one.

I have a bad feeling about the oncoming Conan movie with Jason Momoa from Stargate Atlantis. I don't doubt Momoa is gonna give it his all, and from the pics of him I've seen in the role, he's looking the part, mostly.

It's just that the hollywood braintrust has done their usual hatchet job on Howard's work. Made up their own characters, pasted on the standard "seeks revenge" plot, and altered Conan to make the non-Howardian elements fit.

I just don't see why all of Howards Conan stories couldn't be treated in the same way they did Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories in that Jeremy Brett series. Or the Brother Cadfael stories, or the Hercule Poirot stories.

All most all the Conan work is short stories anyway. Why not a faithful run of one hour episodes?

I dig minis.

2011-01-19T20:26:00.000-08:00

You don't have to have minis to play The Game, but I think they're an enjoyable extension of the hobby. They also support the tactical combat facet of the game. I don't always use them, but there are definitley situations where having physical markers on a map to judge distance and spacial relationships in melee makes things much easier on the DM and forestalls disputes on the part of the players.
You don't get to argue about wether or not you were in range of that fireball. Look at the minis, man.

You can use dice or what have you, but minis are part of the history of the game. I think they're one of those things which are inherently D&D. A traditional accoutrement if you will. I like accoutrements.

These are pics of a few minis from my horde. I've got a lot of them. This group is mostly Ral Partha, Grenadier, and maybe Reaper or Games Workshop. I judge minis on a case by case basis. I'm not loyal to a particular maker.

These are from before I started using washes or much dry brushing. I'm just going to leave them as they are now though. My mini collection is kind of a record of my skill level at the time I worked on each one. They've all got memories attached to them as well.
Where I lived when I painted them, what was going on in my life, etc. They're like little lead memonics to me.

I like the work itself. The painting and fine work cleaning up the mold lines or splicing weapons is fun. Minis, like this blog, are one of those side pursuits associated with The Game that you can enjoy without actually playing.

They're also low cost. When I was a kid, I built tons of plastic model kits. I had one of those big movie Enterprises with the lights hanging in my bedroom.
The cost of kits is ridiculous now though. A 1/35th scale tamiya tank kit runs $49.99. Fat chance of that.

These two are older and cruder than the barbarians and the ogres above. The knight I just did for the NPC pool. The elf is one of several minis I've used to represent my oldest character. A grey elf fighter-magic-user called Byrandir or Bryn the Axe. He made it all the way to 10th level before I retired him. I know that's not high level by many perspectives, but it's the highest level character I ever had. My Greyhawk has no pity.

I love these little chunks of metal. Just in contemplation of them I'll sometimes have a thought that sets me off on some inspirational tangent of game ideas.

Do you guys have a particular source for minis that you prefer? I've never bought them on line. I prefer to handle things up close before I spend money on them. At this point however, all the FLG stores withing striking distance of me seem to have reduced their in store offerings to a small selection of stuff that doesn't appeal to me.
I'd spend some time kicking game stores but I'll save that for another post, it's late.

The Many Fold Thieves of Wyrd Greyhawk.

2010-12-13T11:15:00.000-08:00

Notes upon the subtle distinctions betwixt, and the hidden hierarchy of, the many fold thieves of Wyrd Greyhawk.

Those who commit theft or fraud may be thieves in action, yet not thieves in class.
The greater part of the NPC inhabitants of Wyrd Greyhawk are not classed characters at all, but merely 1 hit die Men as per the Monster Manual entry.

Persons generally seen as thieves, rogues, scoundrels, tricksters, beggars, knaves, or other such followers of underworld vocations may be practitioners of particular methods of illicit income generation without actually being Thief Class Characters.

In order to distinguish them from PC or NPC Thief Class Characters, they are referred to as Lesser Thieves. Such non-Thief thieves may have some ability in a particular type of thieving ability, such as a greater than normal chance of picking pockets, yet no other ability expected of a genuine Thief Class Character.

As an example; Luhn the Nip, Hit Dice: 1, (hp4), Armor Class: 9, Move: 12”, (120’ per round), Dagger, Special Ability: Pick Pockets as 5th level thief, (50%).
Luhn is a thief of opportunity. A barrel maker’s apprentice, during holidays, fairs, or other gatherings he uses his naturally deft hands, enhanced by a hornblade, a sliver of sharp horn glued to the edge of his thumb nail, to cut purses. Luhn is non-descript, lumpish and dull. Nothing about his appearance will indicate he is anything other than a stolid laborer. On occasion, Luhn allies with amenable barmaids or dancing girls willing to distract a mark in exchange for a share in the ill-gotten gains.

The majority of thieves that PCs might encounter are persons such as Luhn. Not professionals of the Class as are Player Character Class Thieves, but unclassed opportunists of varying degrees of skill and organization.

Such persons may have some skill in any one of the normal thief’s abilities and practice their trade accordingly. A scallywag with the ability to Climb Walls may specialize as a second-story man. A vagabond who can Hide in Shadows, or Move Silently might become an information broker. A scoundrel with the ability to Find/Remove Traps, or Open Locks could rely on breaking and entering.

Some of the more common types of lesser thieves include;

Curbers or Anglers, thieves who steal by reaching hooked staffs or canes through open windows to snatch whatever sellable object presents itself. Curbers may pretend to be blind men or elderly and infirm pedlars, so that their angling sticks may be taken for supports and not recognized for the thieves tools they are.

Divers, a sort of lesser thief-master, who commonly employs small boys, dissipated halflings, or perhaps gnomes of low character, to wriggle through small openings and steal, or open doors from within.

Bludgeoners, who rob only those they may attack from behind and only if they have surprise. They employ clubs, saps or similar weapons. Bludgeoners have a 55% chance of rendering a victim unconscious for 10 rounds if they successfully hit with surprise. If this attack fails, the bludgeoner will immediately retreat. They are not at all interested in a stand up fight.

Bawdy Baskets, itinerant female pedlars and whores of opportunity. With her basket of pins, ribbons, horn cups, caps, wooden spoons and other homely oddments, the bawdy basket seeks entrance into homes, ostensibly to peddle her wares. If the opportunity presents itself, she will be quick to engage in either pilferage or prostitution. A bawdy basket is also likely to act as the eyes of more aggressive thieves, relaying information on things worth stealing and methods of entrance.

Cleymsters are beggars of a most insistent sort who are experts in mimicking the effects of the most fearsome poxes and plagues as well as false sores and lesions. Cleymsters will relentlessly paw at and beg for coin from marks, who most often give them what they want in order to escape as quickly as possible. Occasionally they may work with a cutpurse or foist who takes advantage of the attention they draw in order to pick pockets. PCs who have never encountered a cleymster before will certainly be taken in by their appearance of illness unless they have cause to be suspicious.

Ignoblemen, are masters of confidence and pretense. Arrayed in costly clothing and finery, and attended by servants and footmen, an ignobleman pretends to membership in the aristocracy, usually a travelling noble of some far off land. Ostentatiously sweeping through some sleepy town, burgh, thorp or village, the ignobleman and his entourage will demand lodging, victuals and entertainment. Such is the force of the ignobleman’s manner and charisma that the truth of his assertions of authority and promises of payment are rarely questioned by the towns’ people.

For at time, the ignobleman and his retinue of thieves will live at the villager’s expense while stealing whatever they may, and then when the sham seems soon to be discovered, or the payments for their revelry come due, they will decamp in the night, taking with them whatever they may carry.

Charlatans are similarly confidence men, but usually choose a single, rich victim and spin a web of lies, tales, and false promises in order to lure the mark into willingly giving over his coin in expectation of greater returns on the investment. As does an Ignobleman, a Charlatan expertly pretends to a station or profession which will bestow respectability or expertise upon him in the eyes of the mark. Charlatans are often lesser thieves of high intelligence possessing the Thief’s Skill Read Person. (Read Person allows the thief a % chance to discover a person’s main motive, or greatest desire if able to engage them in conversation for a turn.)

Mobbers are groups of lesser thieves who engage in a sort of en masse pickpocketry. Once they have chosen a wealthy appearing target, the mobbers divide into two groups, blend with the crowd, and maneuver to place the mark between them. Once the target reaches an appropriate location, such as a busy street or market, the two groups suddenly, and loudly, “recognize” each other as deadly enemies and attack. The mark will be caught between them and quickly find himself on the bottom of a pile of flailing fists and thrashing legs. In moments, one group of mobbers will disengage and flee with the second in close pursuit. When the mark manages to pick himself up off the street, he will find that he has been stripped of every item of value which the mobbers might have observed, as well as any pieces of clothing which might have caught the dastards fancy.

The Upright Man. An Upright Man is as much a preyer upon thieves as he is himself a thief. He is acknowledged by the thieves of a given area as a sort of self-appointed Lord and judge. This position he acquires and maintains solely through force of personality, bullying, and manipulation.
An upright man may decide the outcome of conflicts between thieves. He may demand a share in the loot of others. He will rarely participate in the schemes of those he dominates. An upright man often insinuates, and in truth has, ties to the Thieves Guild of the nearest large city. An upright man may be feared by the thieves he encounters, avoided by them when possible, but will be deferred to if not obeyed.

This is only a partial listing of the many infamous specialties in which thieves of the lower sort may practice. The ingenuity and cleverness which they devote towards avoiding the necessity of honest work rivals that of the greatest engineer or artist.

These individuals may operate singly or in informal groups depending upon their preferred methods of thievery. These are not the powerful criminal organizations of the great cities generally referred to as Thieves Guilds, but rather transitory crews of independent thieves and vagabonds. These groups most commonly operate in lesser cities, towns and villages, at events or celebrations such as fairs and tournaments, and in traveler’s taverns, alehouses, brothels, baths and road side Inns.

Small crews are likely to practice a repertoire of grifts and doges depending upon the circumstances. Pretending to represent secular or religious powers in order to levy fraudulent taxes, the selling of false potions and charms, cheating at dice and rigging the outcome of “impromptu” contests with strangers, etc. Any such endeavor which promises the possibility of quick gains without the drudgery of practicing an honest trade.

The Guilds.

Only in the largest and richest cities may be found those shadowed companies known as Thieves Guilds. This term covers a broad assortment of criminal organizations of various sorts. Never will they operate openly as such, even in the most corrupt and decadent city they are hidden behind a veil of propriety and legitimacy.

As with the canting crews of the towns and countryside, no more than a few of the guild members are actually Thief Class Characters. The majority are lesser thieves, porters, teamsters, smugglers, officials of city and court, clerks, forgers, debasers of coin, thugs, enforcers, slayers, spies, fences, or other such 1 hit die Men.
It is likely that actual Thief, Fighter, and Assassin class NPCs of formidable ability hold most of the positions of power within the structure of a guild.

The difference between guild and crew is one of organization and culture as well as method of operation. The crews are often temporary and transient, with direct thievery and fraud of individuals as their goal. They do not survive losses of leaders or members, breaking apart and coming together as circumstances dictate, and moving where ever the pickings seem richest.

The guilds are permanent organizations which hold and control specific territory, usually penetrating government and business, often with complex traditions and subtle rules which are known only to those initiated into the thieves’ mysteries. Whereas the thieves of town and country employ their skills to support themselves as individuals, the members of a great city’s guild act as vassals of the guild master, or guild masters. A kind of criminal feudality in which vassal serves master and master provides for vassal. Though leadership may pass between individuals, this presents no threat to the existence of the guild itself. As they say in Rauxes, “Thieves may die, but the Guild is eternal.”

Simple thievery generates but a small part of the income of a guild. In fact, most of the known guilds do not allow pilfering by their members to get out of hand. The guilds thrive in the shadows and the notoriety brought by overt crime is bad for trade. PC thieves and thieves not affiliated with a guild will be closely watched by guild members if recognized for what they are.

Instead, guilds control and engage in crimes which provide a more steady and reliable stream of revenue.
Smuggling is one of the mainstays of guild business. In any given city there are things which are both desired by the populace, and forbidden to them by the Powers That Be. These things may be weapons, drink, intoxicating substances, etc, the guilds are pleased to supply such items at suitable prices, often passing on to the Forbidding Powers a portion of the proceeds. As illicit items command a greater price when sold under the table than they would if sold legally in an honest market, the portion which goes to the Forbidding Powers is likewise greater than if a simple tax were levied on the sale of said items.

In many cases it may be difficult to discern where the Thieves’ Guild ends and the government begins.

Gambling, in all its many forms, is also a favored guild enterprise. In any large city, the guild nearly always has a hand in any form of established gambling. From cock fighting and owlbear baiting to horse racing and pit fighting, from back room tavern dice games to lotteries and official raffles, the guild will be present in some way to collect its share of the proceeds. In many situations, the guild itself is the sponsor of the event, from behind its mask of legitimate enterprise. If not, certainly those in charge will be persuaded that partnership with the guild is in everyone’s best interests.

Prostitution is likewise most often controlled by the guild in any large city, either directly or indirectly. Successful wayfarers and adventurers, returning to civilization flush with victory and laden with loot, should always remember that the tarts, trollops and courtesans so eager to welcome them and celebrate their great deeds, are also likely the eyes and ears of the Guild. Beside the income generated by their expected skills, information gathering can pay handsomely.

The forgery, of licenses, writs, deeds, letters of passage, or of marquee, grants of authority to collect taxes, or other valuable documents is often also an important guild business.

The nature of the known Thieves Guilds varies greatly depending upon local culture. What may be expected of one may not be so of another.

The Thieves Guild of Rauxes, capital of the Great Kingdom, is baroque in character, subtle in action, immersed deeply in ritual and formal conduct, and evil without the merest glimmer of remorse.
The richest and most powerful, as well as the oldest known Guild, only the Guild of the city of Greyhawk itself rivals the influence of Rauxes.

The Guild of Rauxes is never referred to as such; no acknowledgment of any formal organization will ever be forthcoming from any member in good standing. Instead, the phrase, “Men of Understanding” is used to indicate association with the Guild. The usage arises from the habit of guild thieves to conclude negotiations with the words, “Do we have an understanding?”, or similar words to that effect. Likewise, the phrase, “It is understood that”, may be used to indicate the will of the Guild.

“ Fisilious the glass merchant has become somewhat dawdling in his gratuities. It is understood that this state of affairs cannot continue.”

The Men of Understanding pursue all avenues of illicit endeavor, but are most infamous for subterfuge in pursuit of information, which they broker to those unscrupulous enough to deal with them, assassination, blackmail, slave trading of specialized type, to satisfy rarified tastes, and other, darker, rumored businesses.

So adept at skullduggery are the Guild Thieves of Rauxes, that few King’s Spymasters are willing to risk their pawns in direct conflict with them. Even the insidious and deadly agents of the Scarlet Brotherhood have on more than one occasion, been out maneuvered and forced to withdraw by the ruthless Guild of Rauxes.

The existence of the Thieves Guild of the City of Greyhawk is commonly known, though it is still not talked about openly. Of all such organizations it is the one which most closely follows the form of an actual trade guild. The Guild of Greyhawk is pragmatic, well organized and business minded. Revenge is an indulgence which the Greyhawk thieves largely eschew. Thievery is a trade and a rival one day may become a partner the next day. Vengeance does not buy wine.

The guild of Niole Dra in Keoland is another creature altogether. Rather than forming a unified organization, the thieves of Niole Dra align themselves with a hand full of especially talented individuals to form schools of thievery.
The whole resembles a colony of rival artists, each of whom has a particular style and essential character and his own group of students, emulators and hangers-on.

The thieves of Niole Dra refer to themselves as the Skillful Players and this is a true indicator of the culture of the guild. Many of them are actors, musicians, and artists. Though, of course, they are thieves through and through, to the Skillful Players the act of thievery itself is of equal import as the loot gained thereby. The greater the daring and audacity of the theft, the greater the style and panache with which it is carried out, the more it is admired and its perpetrator acclaimed. Standing within the guild is adjudged by the style with which members carry out their acts of thievery.

Amongst those who have the knowledge and experience to judge, the Skillful Players are held to be both the least evil of thieves, and also the least dependable.

The Guild which operates from Rel Mord in Nyrond has an infamous reputation as a nest of clever schemers and robber lenders who practice complex frauds more often and with greater success than other guilds.
The Coin Counters of Rel Mord, as they are known, are swindlers of rich merchants and unwary aristocracy alike. The forgery of documents and counterfeiting of seals and coinage are also specialties of the changer-thieves. The guildsmen of Rel Mord have no qualms about the use of violence to achieve their goals, but it is never a first resort. Careful legal maneuvering, bribery and blackmail will be employed first, with paid assassins of the highest skill retained only when all else fails.

The Hard Bargainers of Irongate, are tough minded, unbending, cruel humored and loyal, at least towards each other. Smuggling is the major source of their income, and they care not what the cargo may be. The Irongate guild has ties to various pirate groups and is pleased to aid them in disposing of their ill gotten gains.
This is, of course, but a handful of examples of existing thieves guilds.

Assumptions about the nature of, and adjustments too, the Thief Player Character Class for Wyrd Greyhawk.

The purpose of the thief is to steal. This means the thief’s goal is to gain the greatest returns with the least effort and least personal danger. All but the most swashbuckling of thieves will normally avoid melee combat unless the situation is distinctly in their favor.

At the same time, the Player Character thief is no run of the mill knave. Lesser Thieves steal to avoid the effort of work. Guild thieves desire wealth, to be respected or feared, and the power bestowed by membership. The player Character thief is a cut above these unimaginative sorts of thieves. Though a scoundrel and a ne’er-do-well, the PC thief is often a bit of a madcap and a daredevil, with, “at least a diamond chip of the spirit of true adventure”, in the words of the Great Chronicler.

Lesser thieves would never risk life and limb to pluck the jewel eyes from a dark God’s idol when easy marks are to be had playing at tavern dice. Guild thieves would never dare dungeon corridors or ancient tombs when there are shop keeps to be muscled or black lotus of Greyhawk to be smuggled. Only Fortune’s fools, the Adventuring Thieves, risk all to win all.

The Thief Class of Wyrd Greyhawk is the 1E AD&D thief with minor adjustments.

The % chances for success of the thief’s abilities are assumed to be over and above the chance (determined by DM fiat) of a non-thief succeeding in an attempt to accomplish the same act. If an ordinary, non-classed man might have a 10% chance of hiding in shadows in a given situation, then a thief would have a base 10% chance, plus the percentage given due to his level of ability.

All thief PCs receive a +25% bonus to a single thief ability. Which skill receives the bonus may be determined randomly, or the player may be allowed to choose. This bonus is meant to reflect a natural talent for a particular skill. A certain aptitude in one area of thievery, “That lads a born cutpurse!”

No thief’s ability can ever exceed a 95% chance of success regardless of level or bonuses.

Expanded thief’s skills include; Read Person, see the Charlatan entry above, which requires a wisdom score of 12 or more. Also Assess Relative Value, which allows at thief to intuitively choose the most valuable item in a given collection of objects.

In a campaign which includes no demi-human PCs as party members, I also allow thief player characters to utilize the dwarf’s racial ability to Detect Grade or Slope in Passage, and Detect Sliding or Shifting Walls or Rooms as well as the elf’s racial ability to Detect Secret or Concealed Doors.
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Real world issues, a craptastic internet connection, and winter lassitude have really cut into my blog posting lately. It irks me. I'm not going away anytime soon though, so don't take me off your blog lists. I'll soldier on and eventually the stars will re align for the OGGA.

Koo-koo-katchoo!

Combat Avoidance Bonus to Armor Class.

2010-11-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

Combat Avoidance Bonus to Armor Class.

In melee combat, characters expending all their efforts in avoiding incoming attacks, rather than striking back when they have the opportunity, may gain an Armor Class bonus depending upon circumstances.

This bonus is applicable in situations where an unarmed PC is stalling for time to be rescued from attack, or in cases where the PC doesn’t actually wish to harm his attacker, such as when the attacker is a comrade who is being controlled magically or otherwise, by outside forces.

The amount of the bonus, and the way it is administered is left to the DM.

It may take the form of requiring the attacker to roll twice for each attack, and taking the lower number, thus increasing the chance of a miss. Or, the defender’s Dexterity bonus may be doubled, assuming the PC has one. Or, a simple +1, +2, etc, could be awarded to the AC of the combat shirker based upon the level of desperation the DM reads in the Player’s face.

Thieves, for whom the avoidance of combat is second nature, and Friars for whom physical adeptness is a practiced discipline, always have a base +1 Combat Avoidance Bonus in applicable situations, to which bonuses determined by any other method are added.
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I haven't been here on the bliggety-blog much in the last month. My internet connection became so unstable it was just about impossible to post anything or visit any of the sites I like. As it turns out, apparently the culprit was Trillian. It seems to have gotten jammed halfway through an update. It's straightened out now and seems to work fine as far as I can tell.

I've also spent alot of time clearing the dead trees out of the woods and turning them into firewood. The damn emerald ash borers have killed most of the ash trees and I'm going to have to replace them. I'm very interested in permaculture, so It's going to be mostly fruit and nut trees that will work in a semi open forest setting that I'll be looking into. We'll have to have something to eat when that moron Bernanke collapses the dollar.

The Scachamma. "It came from the river! Gleorg is devoured! Run fools!"

2010-10-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

Scachamma.

Frequency: Extremely rare.
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 3
Move: 75’ per round maximum
Hit Dice: 15
% in Lair: 80%
Treasure Type: Special
No. of Attacks: 2 per round
Damage/Attack: 4D6 bite, 1D6 tentacle lash, 1D8 per round crushing
Special Attacks: Maw Vortex, venomous facial tentacles
Special Defenses: Unharmed by blunt weapons, only takes ½ Damage from fire, immune to electrical attacks.
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Low
Alignment: Neutral
Size: L, 80’ long, 30’ wide at the shell
Psionic Ability: Nil

Far from even the dim and guttering flare of enlightenment cast across the Flanaess by the City of Greyhawk, beyond the hidden domain of the Scarlet Brothers, deep within the unmapped expanse of the endless, tangled jungles of unknown Hepmonaland, ancient horrors which would chill the blood of the most hardened slayers glither beneath the steaming emerald canopy.

Those who would venture there do so on the strength of tavern tales and rumors, for little is truly known of such distant places, so far removed from civilized lands.

One such tale fragment comes to us by way of the broken journal of Tilidus the Untoward, procurer of obscurities and late of Rel Astra. During his expedition in search of the nacreous Pearled Falcon, he struck deep into mysterious Hepmonaland.

An entry in that journal, salvaged from the sea, reads in part;

“The sound came upon the evening of the 34th day of the trek into the jungle. We had begun to set up the encampment for the night and gather fuel for the watch fires. From out of the darkness came a long, wailing whistle-like noise followed by four wetly metallic percussions of notable volume, though seemingly of some distance from our campsite.

The effect of this sound upon the savages was salutary. I have never seen such fear in men as was writ across their faces. They stopped in their tracks as though they had instantly become stone. When the sound was repeated a few moments later, they fled into the jungle shrieking, “Scachamma! Scachamma!”

Only the shaman, Guiligag, remained. The gnarled little man stood listening in the direction from which the sounds had come and fingering his bone wheel. After a short time he said to me, “It is across the river and moves north. We will not die tonight. Scachamma goes to pluck the Nahaup from the upland trees. They are sweeter than we.”

Nahaup is the name these people give to the creatures known to scholars as Su-monsters. That some creature might see such terrible beasts as easy prey amazed me. I asked him what manner of monster this Scachamma might be, and he replied thus.

“Scachamma is as a serpent, but also as is a snail. It carries its home with it when it goes to hunt. It is longer than the tallest tree. It is thicker than the river horse. No thing may fight it; all must run when Scachamma comes. The people throw monkeys into the river to keep Scachamma away. Most times it sleeps under the river. “

He leered at me with his sharp, filed teeth, “The men who are not taken by the jungle will return in the morning. We will speak no more of Scachamma. It may hear and come to see who speaks its name.”

I did not press the shaman further, though I wished to know more of this shelled serpent he claimed was the source of that strange and unoerthly call. I admit that I have begun to fear him and his primitive diablerie. I suspect that Guiligag has motives for aiding in my search for the pearled falcon which have nothing to do with those he has given.

What exactly the Scachamma is cannot be determined definitively from the information available. The monster is in general form serpentine and of gigantic size. Its features are somewhat more amphibian than reptilian. Though scaled, it is also covered in a heavy slime coat which protects it from fire. It also possesses an enormous calcareous shell similar in form to that of a sea snail.

Four whip like tentacles which may strike distances of up to 15 feet protrude from its head in pairs. One projects from either side of its glistening snout, and one each sprouts from above its bulbous orange eyes. Anyone struck by one of these tentacles must Save vs Poison or else take 1d6 damage from the viscous venom which drips from them. This venom causes intense pain and unless the victim saves successfully a second time, memory loss. For every point of damage caused by the venom, the victim will lose one day of memory. This can easily result in a magic-user losing all memorized spells, or other important information being lost.

Far more dangerous than its facial tentacles, however, is the monster’s Maw Vortex. Once every four rounds, the Scachamma can create a tremendous suction that functions as a sort of reverse breath weapon.

Creatures of man size or smaller within the area of effect, (equal in form and range to the breath weapon of an adult red dragon), will be literally sucked into the Scachamma’s mouth if they fail to Save vs Breath Weapon. In the following round they will be bitten for 4d6 points of damage, and in the round after that swallowed, dead or alive. Those swallowed alive may attempt to cut themselves free if devoured with weapon in hand. The creature’s powerful digestive acids will cause 1d8 points of damage per round.

The great weight of the creature’s massive body and that of its shell cause 1d8 points of crushing damage per round to any creature it might overrun. Though the Scachamma is slow, it does not tire. It will relentlessly pursue chosen victims so long as it does not lose sight of them.

Magical attacks employing cold will do full damage and also slow the monster’s movement by 50%.

The vast majority of its time; the creature spends asleep at the bottom of slow moving rivers, or in dark and wooded swamps. Only if disturbed or searching for food will it be encountered on the move.

The monster plays various roles unknowingly in the myths, stories, and religions of the inhabitants of Hepmonaland and parts of the Amedio peninsula. This may indicate that more than one such beast exists, or that the Scachamma is capable of crossing the Tilva Straits. As it has never been sighted at sea, it likely travels across the ocean bottom. The reactions of the indigenous peoples to those who inquire about or seek the Scachamma vary widely.

The Scachamma collects no treasure, though objects which are indigestible may remain within its gut. Some tales attribute magical properties to its shell. One of the small spikes or horns which project from it could bring great wealth if offered to the proper buyer.

• I think the Scachamma would easily fit into a Weird Tales or Sword & Planet type game with minimal modification. I generally run Wyrd Greyhawk as medievalesque-black folk tale, but it becomes steadily weirder the farther from the central flanaess adventurers travel. Hepmonaland becomes quite Lovecraftian and horror pulp.

* This monster was inspired by an entry at ShukerNature, the cryptozoology blog of Karl Shuker concerning the Sachamama, a weird beastie reported in Peru. The art is a redrawing of an image from a 16th century piece of Peruvian pottery depicting said beastie.

Here is the original post at Shuker's blog.

http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2010/10/sachamama-snake-in-shell.html

I'm an aficionado of all things Fortean, and that pursuit naturally provides more fodder for The Game. Dig it.

Nihilistic Motorcyclists! Who runs Bartertown? Chris Engle runs Bartertown!

2010-09-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

One of my earliest posts on this blog concerned Nihlistic Motorcyclists, a game I've had in my collection since the mid 80's. Through the magic of Google, the creator of the game recently came across that very post here on OGGA and sent me an etheric-mail.
I was very pleased to hear from him, and he's given me permission to repost that missive here.
As follows;

I finally googled Nihilistic Motorcyclists and found your blog entry from last year. You are one of maybe twenty people who ever owned this game. Cool!

I the Chris Engle who wrote this dog so I can tell you what became of it and Angel games.

I sent out samples of NM to the distributors in 1986 and got a letter back from Richard Tulhoka (Bureau 13) who said he found a copy of the game at the bottom of a trash can and that the mothers of America would kill me for printing it. That made me think and then pull the game from the market. Only about 25 copies of the thousand I printed ever sold and I pulped all but a handful of the rest. I learned a useful lesson from that about not pandering to the taste of the lowest common denominator. Subsequently Angel Games ceased to exist. I went back to grad school and having been working in Mental Health since then.

My gaming interests didn't end though. In 1988 I invented Engle Matrix Games and started working on spreading that idea. Basically a game that could be run using words rather than numbers where players made up whole scenes and then rolled to see if they happened or not. Now we call that Indie Role Play Gaming but in 88 it was just weird and no one got it. I persisted though and am now happy that my ideas are so old hat. I started Hamster Press in 1995 and have had a booth at Gen Con since a year after it moved to Indianapolis. I do my own production so I can afford to put out all my games but I'm now working on how to move to selling in stores. My story games are about murder mysteries, Cthulhu horror, spy, and dungeon crawls. All very tame and main stream.

When it comes to NM I am amazed at how well the scenario and flow of play hold up. It still works today. I haven't run a game of it in over twenty years (It really is too sick) but I don't see anything now that would say it couldn't still work and creep people out. For all the sick and twisted games that have come out since then I haven't heard of one that made people act as badly as NM does. It is a pure game - it is a behavior mod token system for heinous crime on helpless victims. I learned from this that players do what they are rewarded to do so after that I reward good behavior. With NM I stared into the void and it stared back at me. That was enough for me.

Oh and I learned that you NEED to proof read. I misspelled "police" for god's sake!

Chris Engle

BTW Now I live down outside Bloomington and work at IU. A group of us get together once a month and play Euro Games at the Union. Stop by my booth at Gen Con and say hi.
--
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games
http://HamsterPress.net

He's exactly right when he says there aren't any other games out there that so promote heinous actions on the part of the players. It's really astounding, the depths to which players will sink when there is an actual in-game rules reward system for committing atrocities.

The game does play fast and smoothly. It's in the category of rpgs referred to as "beer & pretzels games" today. It's probably more of a "whiskey and human ears" game in play though.

Nihilistic Motorcyclists did have a valuable lesson to teach, in an oblique manner. I like to think that I'm a nice guy, over all. I am introspective and contemplative by nature, and after playing this game a few times, I sort of felt bad about myself.
It's just an RPG, and I'm not of the camp that promotes the idea that RPGs are about self exploration. But I have to admit that Nihilistic Motorcyclists forced me to admit to myself that I'm capable of at least theoretically conceiving acts of no small evil.

No shocker there, today. But, as a teen we're all still learning what it means to be a human being, and when you realize you yourself have as much potential for evil as the next guy, it can be a bit disorienting.

I let chris know that I did gain something from the experience of playing Nihilistic Motorcyclists, expanded insight. This sure isn't a game to play with your kids though. It probably shouldn't be played by anyone actually. At least not by anyone with "issues" it might aggravate.

If you excised the Victory Points system, it would make the core of a nice bare bones post apocalyptic game.

When I asked Chris if I could use his email in a follow up post, he replied thus;

Sure you can. Please stress that after I realized what the game did I pulled if from the market. It just brings out the worst in people but in both our cases is seems to have steared us towards good.

I know its wrong but I can't help but feel a little pride that I wrote a game that remains more out there than anything that has followed. It was a very pure design (commit crimes for victory points - though at the cost of looking crazier and crazier) which is why it was so far out. Kind of "Kill Puppies for Satan" like. I'm glad I started using my powers for good (as the super heroes say).

Chris Engle

PS: If you come to Gen Con look for the booth with all the stuffied animals and dragons at. We pay the bills with plush.

I want to say thanks to Chris for letting me use his replies here on the bliggety-blog, and for creating that horrible,horrible game in the first place.
Nihilistic Motorcyclists has a place in RPG history now. A dark,scary place.

It also strikes me as hilarious that plushies are a part of Chris's business now. Maybe some commemorative Nihilistic Plushies could spice up the booth?
Who wouldn't want a nice fuzzy Toe-Cutter to take home from the con?

Clicking on the Nihilistic Motorcyclists tag in the Old Guard Guide sidebar will bring up the original post on the game from feb-09.

Can I play with madness? dabbling in skill systems.

2010-09-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

* Edit-
The above image was originally 7th son of a 7th son, an interior illustration from Iron Maiden's 1988 album of the same name. I suppose Photobucket took it down in keeping with their vague,arbitrary enforcement of their terms of service. I'm leaving the censored version up as a tribute to their sniveling obeisance to the dictates of the feckless,dying record industry.

The existence of a skill system in a game, and the willingness to use it, or not, is one of those points which is always a bone of contention in those discussions of, “Is this Old School, or not?”

I got on the D&D roadshow at the Holmes edition, which included the Thief class and its thieving skills matrix, so I’ve never been totally opposed to the idea of skill systems. At least in theory, that is. It’s that gap that exists between the theory of what a skill system can contribute to the game, and the facts of what it actually does in play, that prevents me from employing a fully fleshed skill system in my own game.

Skill systems were added to D&D, and made the heart of later RPGs, with the idea that they would expand the possible actions available to PCs. The perception was that actions not quantified by the rules as written were therefore not possible in the game, and the way to correct this was to add to the rules base.

I think this comes from an assumption that anything not expressly permitted, is forbidden. I have an unsubstantiated gut feeling that, in general, the proportion of the populace which thinks in this manner has been increasing for a long time now. I prefer the opposite mode of thought, that everything not expressly forbidden is permitted. And, you’d better have a really good reason for attempting to forbid me anything.

Anyway, what I’ve seen in games with a heavy reliance on skill systems is that rather than expanding the portfolio of actions available to characters, they actually reduce them. The existence of the skill system encourages an attitude towards viewing your character sheet as an armory or magazine of possible action choices. It is so, partially, but the problem arises when it also is seen as a list of the only actions possible. This is the point where players are in danger of falling into the trap of thinking that, “If it’s not on my character sheet, I can’t do it.”

The general attitude of the Old Guard towards this perception is very well summed up in this quote from a thread on RPGNet by Mike “Old Geezer” Mornard.

“Probably the most extreme case is a TETSNBN player wondering how to tie somebody up in my OD&D game because there was no “Use Rope” skill. I mean, Crom, “Use Rope”? What’s next, a “Tie Boots” skill? “Eat Food?” “Take Dump?”

That guy kills me.

First generation skill-less RPGs, by not instituting a frame work of defined skills, leave open the greater possibility of character action. Players of the mindset that requires a defined rule structure are uncomfortable with the rules looseness of Old Guard play. They want things spelled out on their character sheet, and they want a rules coded menu of action options.

I think this is fine, in a beginner level RPG experience, but it’s not the sort of Advanced D&D I like.

Don’t take that as an insult if you are in favor of skill systems, I’m not trying to pull your beard. What I’m saying is that skill systems are fine for what they actually do. And that is providing a structure for players and GMs to use in place of their own judgment. What they don’t actually do is increase the possibilities open to players. In cases where the participants are young and inexperienced, in life as well as in RPGs, skill systems provide a structure and framework which fills in for a lack of the knowledge and experience that’s required to feel comfortable with playing and DMing by fiat.

In a situation where a PC wants to attempt something about which you, the DM, knows nothing of in real life, having a skill system handy provides a guide line you can use to navigate that gap. This is a great help to starter gamers, training wheels if you will. The drawback is that if you have no fear of relying upon your own knowledge and judgment, a skill system becomes a hindrance and an encumbrance, eliminating possibilities and making the game less than it could be.

I will, of course, readily admit that I am somewhat grognardly in my attitude towards the precepts of contemporary gaming culture. I don’t agree that more is better, or that a system must be rigidly interlocking or else be seen as “broken”. I like to think that I’m genial in my disregard for modern gaming though. I don’t go out of my way to attack those who see things differently. The vast and inherent superiority of Old School games is self evident and requires no defense. Heh….

See above image for an illustration of what might be defined as, "somewhat grognardly".

I’ve never had any difficulty in making a judgment call, and sticking to it, in cases where a PC attempts something for which he has no rules defined success/failure mechanism. I consider the relevant factors and assign a probability, or a number to beat, and we go on from there. That’s all a skill system does anyway. I’m just more confident that I can take the relevant factors into account and make a decision on the fly that’s more closely applicable to the situation than a hard coded skill system could provide.

Now, it may be that I get away with this because I have players who have known me for a long time, and understand how I think. They know that if I employ Dungeon Master’s Fiat, it’s principled and reasoned and never arbitrary. I make a note of it when I have to fill in the gaps of the rules as written for expediency’s sake, and this becomes like referring to prior case law when similar situations arise later. I don’t allow the rules, or the lack of them to bog a game down. I encourage and expect “outside the dungeon” thinking from players. Some of the most exciting and entertaining gaming results from forcing PCs out of their comfort zones and into situations that require them to attempt actions for which their character class is totally maladapted, in circumstances most dire.

Skill systems tend to retard the willingness of players who are used to them to attempt actions which they do not specialize in, or have some rules established ability to perform. This is why I don’t, as a general rule, use them. I want players to surprise me with deeds of daring do and outlandish solutions to problems. With all the work that goes into DMing I expect a challenge and some entertainment at my end of the table too.

I do like the idea behind skill systems though, the thing that skill systems are meant to do, but don’t. That is, I think, to enhance the depth of the PC by adding layers of potential abilities.

I do this by breaking “skills” into three categories and administering them in an open ended manner.

Natural Talents, this is a list of traits, abilities, aptitudes, quirks, flaws, etc, which the PC was born with. This is always rolled randomly, no exceptions. The class of the character is of no matter and has no bearing on which Natural Talents he may be born with. I leave it to player choice if they want to roll on the Natural Talents list. Some, of course, have definite ideas about the sort of character they want to create and play and don’t want to chance the random results of the list. Others are happy to let chance have a say in character creation and interested in the challenge of running a possible oddball. There are no character building points involved, this is not a system which can be worked to PC advantage. These things are simply meant to add texture and depth to the PC. Some are advantageous, some are drawbacks, and some are normally neutral.

Learned Skills, This includes trade skills, political skills, folk ways, woods lore, etc, skills which the PC learned as a child or was taught prior to becoming a classed adventurer. I assign no rules mechanism to Learned Skills and administer them in an open-ended and common sense fashion. If a player wants his character to have been the son of a fisherman, we’ll have a discussion about just what Learned Skills the PC is entitled too. (What sort of fishing, where, with what equipment, etc,). I’ll write up a brief outline to add to the character sheet regarding the implications for the character’s abilities in-game, and that’s that. If a player wants to perform an action based on his Learned Skill list that I haven’t previously OK’d, he’s going to have to make a convincing argument for it, and quickly.

Minor Class Abilities, This includes all the small things that come along with learning to be a fighter, or a cleric, or a magic-user, or a thief. Each class has its own unique list of Minor Class Abilities. These also may be altered depending upon the character’s background history.

I do allow the possibility of PCs teaching other PCs Learned Skills and some Minor Class Abilities.

In cases where this is just about developing characterization, it’s only a matter of role playing it out. If the knowledge or skill gained may be used to affect the outcome of combat or other situations where the dice normally come into play, then learning the skill will require the PC to expend experience points. I don’t make this cheap, so the player’s got to really want it to make it worthwhile.

I’ll post the text of these categories when I get it transferred from notebooks to Word.

In other news, I barely avoided getting a ticket today for having an expired plate. I had no idea the thing was out of date, the BMV sent me no notice that it was about to expire. This is the second time this has happened to me, but I did have to pay a ticket last time. I really hate it when one branch of government screws up, and another branch punishes me for it. I won’t miss the BMV when the revolution comes.

Be not slovenly in the Art, lad. Lest ye call forth the Catarrhapillar!

2010-09-05T18:53:00.000-07:00

Catarrhapillar

Frequency: Extremely rare
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 4
Move: 6”, (60 feet per round)
Hit Dice: 6
% in lair: nil
Treasure Type: Special
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: 1d6+2, (bite)
Special Attacks: Mewling causes fear
Special Defenses: Catarrhal miasma
Magic Resistance: 40%
Intelligence: Animal-Low
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Size: L, (8 feet long, 300 lbs)
Psionic Ability: nil

When an attempt to summon and bind an infernal being of whatever sort fails badly, there is a chance, the magnitude of which depends upon various factors, that the imperfect summoning will call forth a Catarrhapillar, rather than the intended target.

This unfortunate happenstance is one reason among many for the mania would be diabolists have for attention to detail in their work, and with good reason.
A catarrhapillar, (or the catarrhapillar, it is unknown if the creature is singular, or of a kind), appears as a gigantic, demonic caterpillar-like beast. It has a broad, but shallow mouth filled with sharkish teeth, a single great baleful eye, and small horns or like protrusions upon its head.

The creature moves slowly, but with power. The rolling crepuscular undulation of its log thick body of fiendish muscle gives it strength equal to that of a stone giant when it comes to dealing with doors or other obstructions.

At all times the creature is enshrouded within a vile atmospheric exudation which it emits from its body. This is the catarrhal miasma. Any creature which comes within 1”, (10 feet), of the catarrhapillar must Save VS Poison or else suffer its effects. The miasma causes severe inflammation of the lungs and sinuses, as well as burning of the eyes and racking coughs. The weakness and heaving spasms effectively reduce the victim’s movement rate by 50% until he has been clear of the catarrhal miasma for 10 rounds.

In addition, the, (or a), catarrhapillar constantly emits the mewling. The mewling is a cry which sounds as though it were coming from a fearful infant calling for its mother, or the cries of abandoned kittens. All who hear the mewling and witness its actual source must Save VS Magic or feel Fear as per the spell.

Once brought to the prime material plane, a catarrhapillar has no goal other than to devour its summoner. It will ignore all other threats unless they come between it and its target. The creature is untiring and unrelenting. It will pursue its summoner without pause regardless of distance or obstacles. Even should a summoner remove himself from the catarrhapillar’s presence by teleportation or dimension door or other such magic, the monster will still sense the caster’s direction and distance and pursue at its best speed.

A catarrhapillar cannot be held or charmed or controlled in any way.

A catarrhapillar has no treasure as such, but may contain within its guts items or artifacts belonging to previous victims.
------------------------

I've been slow to post lately. It's because allergies make me stupid. I'm outside alot, and once I suck in that late summer pollen, I get dumber and dumber as the day goes on. I just can't seem to focus well enough to string words together.
If I take enough antihistamines to clear my head, I get that weird detached feeling of watching everything through camera eyes instead. I'm sure everybody at work thinks I'm high. Ah,well.

The pic is a clip from an Adams family cartoon. That thing creeping down the stairs just stuck in my imagination.

I wanted some sort of low level, but terrifying demonic creature. The idea with the catarrhapillar is have something that will evoke that fear of relentless pursuit you get in those dreams where you fall down a lot while being slowly chased by something horrible.

Wood smoke smells like Dungeons & Dragons to me.

2010-08-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

I was building a fire last week to do some back yard cooking, and as I was poking up the coals, the smell of the smoke brought back to mind a certain experience of D&D.
They say that sense memories associated with smell are the most powerful and long lasting. So, I thought I'd ask you guys what sort of things have associations with gaming in your minds. What triggers memories, or gaming related thoughts for you?

The reason that wood smoke makes me think of gaming is that we played alot of D&D at summer camp in Boy Scouts. Yeah, I was a scout. It was some of the most enjoyable time in my life. There isn't anywhere that I'm more at ease than in the woods. Science Fiction conventions and Renn faires are close though. Heh...

I know scouting is quite unfashionable and un-PC now. Anytime I run into a discussion of it online, it takes an awful bashing. That all goes right over my head I'm afraid. My experience of scouting has no connection to what everyone wants to attack it for today. Like my view of old guard gaming vs the popular view of same I suppose.
Anyway, at camp we had those big canvas wall tents with the wood frames that open at each end. What we did was set up our tents in a five pointed star shape, with the inside corners touching, and then cover the open center with a big dining fly. We supported the center like a big top with a pole cut on site. This gave us a very big indoor space for gaming.

Now I never experienced any flack for playing D&D as a kid. Our scoutmaster didn't care a whit. We may not have been your average scout troop though. At least, what we did as scouts doesn't seem to have much in common with what the internet thinks scouts do.

We dragged a stereo and several car batteries with us so we could blast AC/DC and Black Sabbath in camp. We brought coolers loaded with Cokes, candy bars and chips to sell to the other troops at usurious rates. Black Elk speaks, Tom Brown's woodscraft books and the teachings of Don Juan were passed around at night and were just as esteemed as the DMG and the Scout field manual.

During the day we'd go tromping around in the woods and do scout stuff, and at night we'd game until we passed out. It was D&D camp as much as it was scout camp.
Hmmm, I bet I could get some takers for an adult D&D camp now. What would you guys think of two weeks with nothing but gaming and camp cooking without distractions?
That's a mostly rhetorical question. I can't swing the time myself. It's a nice idea though.

So, what apparently non-gaming related thing makes you think of gaming?

The Swords of the Old Gods.

2010-08-13T19:54:00.000-07:00

On a sea washed spit of barren stone, on the bleak northern face of the frost glazed Thillonrian Peninsula, Three gigantic swords, ancient and worn, uprightly pierce the shore rock and stand in silent, unknown vigil beside the grey ocean.

Far larger even than the weapons of the greatest giants, the hoary blades, tarnished and pitted by millennia, are known to few, and are less than dim legend to most. Fractured tales and tattered bits of folklore tell of many stories attached to the mighty war brands.

Ullsepas of Seulm, The tale-gatherer and diviner, may Zagyg forgive his prying, related this to the Lord Grenell, Herzog of the North Province, in a secret missive sent by courier eagle.

“As was claimed by the Kettite before he succumbed to the duress of inquiry, a triad of mighty swords, unoerthly in dimension, does indeed stand beside the bitter sea. Their design encompasses many of the elements of the most ancient sword patterns of the pale Suelish barbarians which infest this cold and dismal place, but no creature which walks this world have I seen which could wield blades such as these.

At my first attempt to divine somewhat of the nature of the swords, I was struck down as though I were but an overreaching novice, though all wise precaution had been taken. The Lore imp I had summoned to aid me was burned to ash instanter. I lay senseless upon the black stone for hours, my mind filled to agony with visions I could neither understand, nor retreat from.

I saw endless boreal wilderness. I saw monsters of legend, vast, iron horned, brazen scaled. I saw men at feast, at love, and at war, but not men as we know, greater, without limit. My senses filled with time and smoke and the calling of crows, and the sting of salt water. But over all boomed and rolled the dark laughter. Wild and unending, deep with mirth and madness, beyond the understanding of mortal men.

When at last the vision waned and I again commanded my own form, I stood and found I was no longer alone on that barren shore. Squatting on his long shanks atop a sea spattered boulder was an old man of appearance most dire and strange. Though the cruel wind froze the spray where it fell upon the rocky shore, he wore no clothing other than a rough kilt of seal leather. His fan-like beard and unkempt mane of hair were snowy white, but they did not hide the sky blue eyes, wicked and distant, he turned upon me.

“Are you of the Cruski?” I asked him.

He gestured towards the standing swords with a rune-scribed arm, if the markings were tattoos or scars I could not tell. He spoke in the common tongue, heavy with the accents of the north.

“You seek to know the swords, many-cloaks? There are tales upon tales that speak of the swords. Some of them are so.”

The nails of his long, knotted fingers were heavy and sharp, like the talons of the golden sea eagle.

“I will tell you one, southern bird.” He slid down from the boulder and stood upright, a full head and a half taller than I.

“You know of Kord, of Lerg, of Beltar, Lendor and Syrul, do you not, wizardling? Gods of the cold people, but not the first.”

He gestured past me, to the swords.

“There were others before them, older”. He pointed to the nearest of the towering blades.

“Greater.”

His fingers twisted, they formed a runic symbol I did not recognize.

“The sword of Thoar.” He said, as an invocation. I observed that the runes wrapped around his arm in a continuous spiral from wrist to shoulder.

He pointed to the second sword. “The sword of Vor.”

He looked at me for a moment as his arm slowly arched to the last of the swords. “The sword of Uld.”

“These are forgotten gods? Gods no longer worshiped?” I asked of him.

“What is worship to the Gods? “ He responded. “Gods have no need of worship. It is for men who crave favor of the Gods, as the lowly wolf rolls on his back and bares his belly to the greater.”

He looked at me for five slow breaths with an expression of deep consideration on his face.

“The Three have been gone from here since long before the restless ones sailed south, to empire and decadence. Some say that they were driven out by their children, the young gods. Some say that they have gone to search between the stars for their stolen wives. Or that they have gone avyking against the gods of other worlds. Some say their swords were driven into the stone to mark their defeat and banishment. Some say they stand in remembrance of a great victory. Some say the Three themselves did thrust the swords into the oerth, to mark the way for their return. So that they would not forget from where they had come, or the wergild that was owed them.”

As he spoke, I watched as the blue of his eyes washed outward over the whites, until, save for the pit black pupils, his eyes were blue entire.

“Some of what is said is so. Some is so, but not so. It has been so long that even the truth has been worn by time.”

I will admit to you, Lord, that I felt fear and trepidation in the presence of the man. He smelt of wild and preternatural magic, and no little of it. If there was not madness in his glacial eyes, there was at least contempt of sanity.

Even as he spoke, I had begun a spell to hold him, so that I might more easily put him to the question and thus gain answers more clear in their meaning. He knew what I meant to do, I think, even before I began the binding. My power and skill in the Art is not small, as you well know, but I think he had but toyed with me from the beginning of our encounter.

He stooped suddenly, and with the nails of his bare hand, he slashed into the very rock beneath our feet, a rune of unknown meaning.

“Story time has ended little bird. Fly away now, before the ice takes your wings!”

In that moment before the completion of my own spell, I was suddenly seized by unseen talons and born up and into the sky. I felt mighty wings sweep the air above me, though I could see nothing of the creature which carried me. I believe that somehow the old man had called one of the tremendous eagles of the etheric plane to do his bidding and remove me from his domain.

The eagle carried me for many leagues before I was able to work my hands free of its grip and dispel the magic which had summoned it to this plane. I faced great difficulty in making my way alone through the hostile wilderness. It was some few weeks before I found a city worthy of representing civilization.

I consider now that our compact is dissolved. I will not again dare that uncaring land or face the inexplicable sorcery of the white-haired man. Not unless sufficient recompense and formidable allies be made available to me. If you would have further attempts made in this regard, send to me the Knight of Tatters and his winsome fey vassal, along with Slyr the Sharper and brother Fastandus and also thrice the coin formerly agreed upon.

Though the true nature and history of the Three Swords is uncertain and left to the Dungeon Master to determine, and to alter to fit his own campaign, some facts can be established.

The Swords create a powerful Magical Alteration Zone extending for approximately one mile in all directions, including to seaward, and also below ground level, and above into the sky.

The effects of the zone change according to the seasons in a steady pattern throughout the year. The Dungeon Master is free to assign alteration effects and months as he sees fit. (See the link in the Old Guard Guide sidebar to find the original post concerning Magical Alteration Zones.)

In addition, Wyrd Greyhawk’s version, The Swords of the Old Gods, presents the possibility that any characters coming within visual range of the ancient blades may chance Atavistic Possession.

The primal, elemental nature of the power of the Swords may magnify the inner nature of the player characters. As a characters choice of Class reflects who they are as a person, the PC’s class characteristics and stereotypical behaviors will become exaggerated and dangerously unbalanced.

When first sighting the Swords of the Old Gods, Player Characters must Save VS Magic, taking into account their individual Magical Attack Adjustment bonuses or penalties derived from their Wisdom Scores. Those who fail to save have fallen beneath the influence of the Swords.

A fighter may become a Shield-Biter. In this case, he always resorts to violence first to solve any problem. He gains +1 to hit and damage. He acts without regard for his own safety or that of his companions. He may continue to fight to -10 hit points. He also has a 15% chance of going battle mad in any combat which lasts more than six rounds. This is analogous to berserker rage and the shield-biter will attack all present until slain or subdued.

A thief may become a Magpie. Such a thief steals compulsively and without digression from friend and foe alike. A magpie becomes obsessed with anything denied him, a treasure item, a bottle of wine, a girl, etc. All thieves’ skills are boosted by 25%. Practicing the art of thievery becomes the be-all of a thief in the throes of atavistic possession.

A cleric may become a Godsman. In every situation requiring even the simplest and most inconsequential decision, the cleric will require time for theological reflection, to ensure that his actions do not conflict with dogma. A godsman casts spells at two levels higher than his actual experience level. He will also attempt to convert others to the worship of his god or gods at every occasion.

A magic-user may become an Eldritch Seer. He then perceives directly the lines and flows of arcane energy about him at all times. This results in a constant Detect Magic ability which never ceases. The magic-user casts spells as though two levels of experience higher than his actual level. He insists on using magic for even the most mundane tasks. He develops a disregard for all things not related directly to magic, and an obsessive need to possess any magical item he encounters. There is a 15% chance that some form of madness, chosen randomly from the Dungeon Master’s Guide, may strike the magic-user for every day that he remains in this state.

Once a character has fallen beneath the influence of the Swords, the Dungeon Master may wish to pass the player a note explaining the behavior changes he must portray. As with cases of PCs controlled by spell or monsters, the other members of the party who remain unaffected will have to figure out what has occurred and how to deal with it on their own.

Once affected by the power of the Swords, characters will remain so until they move outside of the area of effect of the Swords magical alteration zone. At this point they are allowed to attempt to Save VS Magic a second time. If they fail this second attempt, they will remain subject to the Atavistic Possession until such time as a Remove Curse spell may be bestowed upon them.

It should be noted that the atavistic possession bestows a sense of great freedom from social constraints and a feeling of clarity of purpose which is most gratifying. Those characters which are under its effects are unlikely to be co-operative with anyone seeking to return them to normal.

*The pics are of a Norwegian monument commemorating the battle of Hafrsfjord in 872. I bumbled into them whilst tooling about the internet and found them inspiring. Dig it.

Three Griffons, to kill your players.

2010-08-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

The Black Griffon of the Drachensgrabs.

Frequency: Unique
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 1
Move: 12”/330”, (120 feet per round on foot/330 feet per round in the air)
Hit Dice: 14, (112 hit points)
% in lair: 25%
Treasure Type: Special
No. of Attacks: 3
Damage/Attack: 2-16/2-16/2-20
Special Attacks: Scream of Battle, three times per day, the griffon’s scream will force all who hear it to Save VS Breath Weapon or immediately fumble their next action in fear.
Special Defenses: The griffon’s wings make no sound, it’s passage will not be noted if the creature is not seen.
Magic Resistance: 50%
Intelligence: Uncertain, accounts vary.
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Size: L
Psionic ability: Nil

Said to be more than twice the size of other known griffons, the great Black Griffon of the Drachensgrab Mountains is held by many to be a harbinger of disaster, its appearance an omen of coming events both terrible and important.

One week prior to the battle of Splintered Oaks, the Black Griffon was reported to have dropped without warning from a clear blue sky to slay and devour the favored war horse of Glewning, Duke of Dweryn. The death of Glewning, and the ruin of his House in the aftermath of his loss beneath the Splintered Oaks was later said to have been foreshadowed by the actions of the Black Griffon.

Some hold it was the griffon laid a curse upon Glewning and his kin by its actions, others that the beast was but an omen sent by the Fates, or Istus, like the dreaded Black Dog.

Some hold that it was merely chance, or perhaps an unfathomable jest of Zagig.

Many words have been spent beside late night watch fires in argument over the nature of the Black Griffon. Little of worth has been gained.

Certainly, the beast is a terrible opponent to face in combat. Upon this, all accounts do agree.
Even the most faithful of war horses will refuse to bear their riders within reach of the Black Griffon’s scythe-like talons.

Pladothemed the Infirm conjectures that the beast has a secret purpose. He has charted the sightings and the reported encounters with the Black, and believes that a pattern may be discerned in its movements. The Trembling wizard avows that the griffon wings forth to various places upon the Oerth in accordance to the arrival of certain dates of arcane relevance as noted in the common calendar of the Flaness.
The accuracy of Pladothemed’s theory is contested, however, as he refuses to reveal more.

Aclamng of Dyvers dismisses him as slovenly in his art, and as, “A senile fondler of Halflings!”

Tales concerning the Black Griffon are often contradictory regarding its behavior. Some have painted the creature as a benefactor of lost souls and a guardian of travelers, while others depict it as a remorseless killer with a cruel and malign humor. The truth may only be discovered by those who venture to seek the creature amongst the rocky spires of its home.

This of course, is no mean feat. The Black Griffon is said to nest in the shattered top of an ancient tower in the unknown heart of the Drachensgrab Mountains. Choked with orcs, goblin haunted, and infested with monsters little less formidable than the Black Griffon itself, only fools, the mad, and adventurers willingly dare the horrors of the Drachensgrabs.

Serpentine Griffon

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1-4
Armor Class: 3
Move: 10”/30”, (100 feet per round upon the ground/300 feet per round in the air)
Hit Dice: 8
% in Lair: 35%
Treasure Type:
No. of Attacks: 3
Damage/Attack: 1+1-6/1+1-6/1+1-10
Special Attacks: 50/50 chance for either; Spit venom to 100 feet, Save VS Poison or be paralyzed for 2d8 rounds, or, Constriction for 1d8 points of damage per round. Victim must successfully Bend Bars/Lift Gates to escape the griffon’s coils.
Special Defenses: Nil
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Low
Alignment: Neutral, (Evil)
Size: L, (up to 30 feet in length)
Psionic Ability: Nil

A griffon of this sort possesses the body and tail of a giant serpent, rather than that of a lion, after its eagle’s head, taloned forelegs, and sweeping wings.

Less often encountered than their cousins of the leonine type, they are more likely to be found serving as mounts or guardians than as free wild creatures. A serpentine griffon is at best an untrustworthy servitor, however. It requires constant reminders of its master’s power and will or else it is likely to indulge its own appetites at any opportunity.

Serpentine griffons are more commonly encountered in warm or southern regions. The lair of a serpentine griffon, if it is of their own choosing, will be a location that allows ample sunlight for basking, preferably on rock. They do not seek the heights to nest as do other griffons.

A serpentine griffon left to its own devices is likely to act in a manner similar to that of a dragon. It will find a lair to its liking and then demand food and tribute of passersby and the local inhabitants of the area.

Griffhound

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 2-8
Armor Class: 4
Move: 22”, (220 feet per round at a dead run)
Hit Dice: 4
% in Lair: 20%
Treasure Type: Incidental
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: 2-8
Special Attacks: Stoop, if a griffhound has sufficient space to reach its top speed in attack, (50 yards required), its first attack will do double damage, and also topple the victim if they fail to roll below their Strength score.
Special Defenses: Never surprised
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Animal
Alignment: Neutral
Size: M
Psionic Ability: Nil

Lean and tawny hunters, Griffhounds combine the features of hawks and coursing dogs as griffons do with those of eagles and lions.
Wingless, but with the head and clawed forelegs of a huge golden hawk and the body and haunches of a great sight hound, griffhounds hunt open land in small packs.
Griffhounds may be encountered in areas of savanna, steppe, desert, or other open range or grassland.

The creatures habitually lair atop the highest point of land within their range of vision. This extends for miles due to the keen sight of their hawk eyes.

The tremendous speed and great stamina they possess enables them to run down most any creature they choose as prey. The pack normally hunts by chasing the prey until it begins to tire. Each griffhound then makes a pass at the prey, slashing or biting on their way by. They continue to attack in rotation without stopping until the target falls. Their superior speed leaves very little time for the prey to strike back before the griffhound is out of reach. (-2 to hit penalty to those attempting to defend against griffhounds which have room to employ their running attack)

Griffhounds are roughly equal in size to the largest normal wolves, and while they are unlikely to attack humans or humanoids unless desperate, trapped or very hungry, once combat has begun they are fearless and need never check morale.

Though it would seem likely that griffhounds were at some point creatures created by deliberate magic, they are quite successful in their role as predators of open land and behave as natural animals.

As the only sort of griffonish beast which may be truly trust worthy when taken as a pup and well trained, perhaps due to its canine half, it goes without saying that griffhound eggs will fetch a good price if offered to the correct buyer.

Magical Alteration Zones of Wyrd Greyhawk, & four new spells from the Weighty Tome.

2010-07-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

Singular events of great moment, or the presence of objects of power or importance, magical, divine, infernal, or otherwise, leave impressions on the arcane aethosphere of Wyrd Oerth. Mighty works of magic, godly visitations or devilish intrusions, great conflicts or acts of infamy, leave behind them sumps, eddies, vortices, undertows, or other such disturbances in the normal ebb and flow of eldritch energies about the world.

These disturbances result in zones of magical alteration where normal spell casting is both dangerous and unpredictable. Any particular alteration zone will have a given % chance of causing a spell mishap to occur should an unwary magic-user attempt spell craft within its area of effect. This chance is determined by the Dungeon Master and should reflect the magnitude of the event which caused the aetheric impression originally.

If a spell is cast within an alteration zone, and a mishap is indicated, it may take several forms.

• A simple spell failure is possible. The spell’s energies are drawn into the disturbance with no effect.

• A spell alteration may take place. In some random fashion, the spell’s characteristics are altered. A fireball for example could manifest as a stream of flame that runs along the ground rather than a sphere which flies to its target. Alterations could potentially be helpful or a dangerous hindrance. The fire-stream in the above example could set other objects or persons alight as well as damage its intended target.

• An arcane wildfire could occur. In this case the spell runs out of control. It’s duration, range, area of effect, or power level could triple, quadruple, or the spell could become a permanent manifestation. In this last case, the spell is now drawing energy in a self sustaining manner from the currents about the arcane disturbance itself and has gone beyond the casters ability to end or control.

• A backfire may result. In this case the spell turns back upon the caster, delivering its full effect upon him.

• An unrelated magical manifestation accompanies the spell. A rainbow appears, sprites infest the casters beard, a wagon sized turd falls from the sky, etc. I employ parts of the 2E wild magic rules for this result.

• A spell-ghost occurs. This is not an undead spirit, but a re-manifestation of a spell which was cast previously within the alteration zone. The spell-ghost will take the form of a randomly determined spell which acts at one half of its standard strength. If the spell normally affects a target creature, the Dungeon Master must randomly determine who among the PCs and NPCs present the recipient of the magic is. If the random spell is one that increases in strength by level, the Dungeon Master must also determine the original casting level.

• A revelation strikes the spell caster. Previous or future events connected to the location of the alteration zone are revealed to the caster in an instantaneous vision. The caster is also stunned for 1d4 rounds.

• An arcane reverberation occurs. A wave of magical energy washes out from the locus of the alteration zone. This wave does no damage, but will be felt by all magic-using creatures within 1-100 miles, (2d10), of the disturbance. The reverberation will draw the attention of any such creature or person and may spur them to investigate its source. The reverberation will also be felt on both the astral and ethereal planes, as well as any other such plane which borders directly the prime material.

Famous magical alteration zones in Wyrd Greyhawk include, the Swords of the Old Gods, The Black Spiral of Ket, and the Mirror Water Pools. I intend to detail all of these in future posts.

When designating any particular space as a magical alteration zone, the Dungeon Master may roll 1d8 to choose the nature of potential mishaps, assign percentile chances to each possibility, or simply pre-choose which effect will be manifested in accordance with the circumstances of the zones origin.

If a magic-user is aware of the existence of a given magical alteration zone, he may cast spells normally within its area of effect if, before each attempt at casting, he successfully Saves VS Magic. Otherwise, a spell mishap is certain to occur.
Because of the danger presented by the existence of alteration zones, as well as the generally inconstant nature of magic in Wyrd Greyhawk, most masters include in their apprentices spell books a spell known as,

Discern Arcane Aethography

Level: 1
Range: Visual range of caster
Duration: 1 round
Area of Effect: N/A
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 3 rounds
Saving throw: N/A

If a magic-user has some indication or suspicion that the currents of magic are disturbed or unsettled in a given area due to past magic or other influences, the casting of Discern Arcane Aethography will reveal to him the nature of the disturbance and also what effect it may have upon his own spell casting.

As example, Sugraid the Spindly casts Discern Arcane Aethography upon encountering an ominous arch of living trees deep within the Old Forest. This reveals to him that spell casting here will result in an arcane reverberation unless he first Saves VS Spell successfully before each casting. As Sugraid has no wish to reveal his location or presence, he must refrain from magic-use within the alteration zones area of effect.

Magic-users with an Intelligence score of 16 or above who cast Discern Arcane Aethography prior to casting a second spell in areas outside of magical alteration zones will gather enough of a feel for the shape of magic in their immediate area that the following spell will act as though the magic-user were one level of experience higher than he actually is.

Remlap’s Arcane Inscriptor

Level: 3
Range: Centered directly upon caster
Duration: permanent
Area of Effect: up to a 10’ diameter circle, dependent upon available space.
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 6 rounds when pre-cast, 1 segment when activated.
Saving Throw: N/A

When activated, the Arcane Inscriptor instantly burns a magic circle, pentagram, thaumaturgic triangle, or other designated protective inscription into the surface the caster stands upon. Regardless of the nature of the surface, stone, wood, a grassy lawn, a lake, the chosen design will appear complete, unbroken, and legible. This inscription is permanent and may not be broken or erased.

The major portion of this spell is first cast in a secure location, with the magic-user drawing the desired protective inscription on the floor by hand. Then the spell is carried in the casters mind and only activated by the uttering of its final word.

The design created by the Arcane Inscriptor enhances the power of a single spell which is cast after its creation. The inscription created, and the spell enhanced by it must be related. A magic circle will enhance the spell, protection from evil, a pentagram will enhance summoning/binding spells, and a thaumaturgic triangle will enhance divinatory magic.

Specifics are left to the individual Dungeon master to tailor to their own taste.

Call forth the Guryms

Level: 2
Range: 20’
Duration: 1d6 rounds per level
Area of Effect: all within reach of the Guryms
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 round
Saving Throw: N/A

This spell when cast summons 1d4 of the Guryms per level of the caster. Creatures of the fey underworld, the Guryms are unaffected by other monster summoning spells or magic. Only this specific spell can call them to the prime material plane. The Guryms are completely and utterly uncontrollable. Immune to charm, hold, suggestion, paralysis, binding, or other such magic, they naturally possess an aura of free action and may not be physically bound, restrained, or contained. The caster will have no influence over the actions of the beastly little men. At the end of the given spell duration, the Guryms will fade back to their own dimension.

The Guryms appear as two and a half foot tall, extremely hairy men with disproportionately large heads, blazing blue eyes, and wide mouths filled with sharp teeth. They wear kilts or short pants but no other clothing.
When they appear, their actions are determined randomly. They may, attack all present, revel wildly, steal all things they lay hands on, eat anything ingestable, destroy all objects they can reach, or create art. Roll 1d8 to determine.

Guryms, AC: 4, Hit Dice: 2, Move: 140’ per round, Alignment: Chaotic, Special: unharmed by non-magical weapons, Those face slapped by a gurym will join them in whatever activity they are engaged in until they return to the fey underworld.

Clear the Air.

Level: 3
Range: 60’
Duration: 3 rounds
Area of Effect: Whatever enclosed space the caster occupies, or, 1000 cubic feet of outdoor space, per level
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 6 segments
Saving Throw: None

When this spell is cast, a stiff breeze of pure, cool air blows through the immediate area about the caster and instantly clears the air of smoke, smog, dust, spores, steam, gas or vapor and renders it clean and breathable.

The action of the spell also ends the effects of any magic which causes such atmospheric contamination, such as, stinking cloud, as well as shielding the caster from poison gas attacks such as green dragon breath.

The spell functions in a metaphoric sense as well. Clear the Air will also put an end to Charm and Suggestion or other such mind affecting magic. Recipients of the spell’s benefits may also feel a sense of clarity and inspiration. What may come of this is left to the Dungeon Master to decide.

Does anybody want to trade me for this White Wolf stuff?

2010-07-19T10:20:00.000-07:00

I went through a period of voracious collecting of any and all rpg material looking to mine ideas. My trawling netted stuff that didn't really mesh with my own gaming leanings just because I thought I could maybe squeeze something useful out of it.

Now I'm sorting and eliminating things as what I like becomes more clear to me, so I thought I'd see if any of youse guys would like to trade. None of this is rare, but it's in very good shape. If I took the stack to half-price books, they'd give me 1.25 and a kick in the ass,so if anyone has anything they'd like to just trade straight up, send me an e-mail and let me know.

I don't know what shipping cost would be, but if the exchange is roughly even, I'll pay to ship to you if you pay to ship your stuff to me.

If you only want 1 book, that's fine also, you don't have to take them all if you don't need them.

A couple of these have a bit of price tag goo on the cover, but other than that, they're clean and undamaged.

I've got, a Get of Fenris clanbook, the Horizon sourcebook for Mage, the Book of Shadows for Mage, the Nosferatu clanbook for Vampire, the Werewolf Players Guide, a Vampire the Masquerade hardback, a Mage the Ascension hardback, and a second edition Werewolf the Apocalypse hardback.

I'd like to have stuff like, Fading Suns material, Kenzer's Aces&Eights, Alternity stuff, Knights of the Dinner Table comics,( I'll have to check and see which ones I'm missing), and of course, old TSR or new OSR materials. I've probably already got a copy of the TSR stuff, but you never know. Whatever you'd like to trade, let me know.

I'm not interested in making a profit or getting a deal on this stuff, I'm just looking for an exchange of roughly equal value.

Will the real OSR please stand up? Oh look, they all did.

2010-07-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

Restoration, See above image.

This is the definition by which I navigate on matters concerning the Old School Renaissance.

In my mind, OSR is a term which describes new materials, games, rules, art, attitudes and philosophies towards role playing games which are derived from, consistent with, amenable too, or congenial with, those same elements of the original editions of the first generation of role playing games.

This is a broad definition, and each facet of it is subject to debate. That’s fine with me. One of my maxims is that, “All statements are generalizations,… generally.” When an apparent contradiction arises, it usually means I’m missing something, that I’m too close to the issue and I need to expand my focus to take in the bigger picture.

I think that the majority of conflicts, in all things, not only RPG discussions, are due to conflicting definitions. So, I try to be as forthright as I can be in sharing the meanings of the terms I use. Most especially here on the web, where 90% of the subtleties of interpersonal communication are stripped away and reduced to stark black and white lettering.

I don't think there is a single OSR. I think there is a multitude of overlapping personal OSR's, each sharing to a greater or lesser degree differing amounts of the various elements that are commonly perceived to make up Old School gaming. I don't think it's possible to sharply define what is and what isn't Old School, and I'm really only interested in general definitions anyway. I think it's porous, the borders are shifting and ill defined, and I like it like that.

At the dawn of role playing gaming, there were no limits. Rules were formulated and tested to see if they would provide the play experience the maker was seeking. There is a primal chaos at the naissance of any and all things which later grow and expand. Anything is possible at the beginning, but for there to be growth, choices have to be made and each choice made both provides structure, and eliminates possibilities. Order is required for growth, but too much order causes stagnation and death.

There have to be rules for The Game to be a game, and not just backyard make-believe, but as each later edition expanded the rules and further defined The Game, it also narrowed the range of possibilities at the same time. This is unavoidable, more rules means fewer real choices in the Game, just as bigger government means less liberty in real life.

The thing here is that there is a sweet spot on this sliding scale of imaginative chaos vs. rules order that I think of as Old Guard, or Old School if you like. Where exactly you see this sweet spot on the scale probably has a lot to do with your personal proclivities and also, at what point in rpg history you were introduced to the idea of role playing. For myself, it was the Holmes edition D&D, and immediately after, AD&D. That’s where I’m coming from.

Renaissance, See above image.

A renaissance is a re-birth, a second beginning, it is not a restoration.

I think a very great deal of the internal conflict, but not all, that I read is due to the confusion between the two terms. The camp that requires original rules purity is actually pursuing an Old School Restoration, rather than a renaissance. There is nothing wrong with this. This is the same attitude towards The Game that a classic car restorer has about returning a model T C-cab to original condition. It’s important for understanding and appreciation the history of the game to preserve attitudes, approaches and ephemera as well as the original rules themselves.
The conflict comes from a failure to recognize the different goals of the renaissance promoters and the restorationists.
This, I think, is the origin of the dogmatic absolutism that concerns some of our good fellow game bloggers. I myself don’t find the uber-grognards particularly troubling. Growing up in rural Indiana, I’ve had to deal with more than my share of obstinate, crusty old bastards and I just see them as part of the local color. I treat them like I do upper management, smile and nod and do what I’m going to do anyway.
I suppose the head-butting between the restoration and the renaissance is something like the disconnection between historical re-enactors and the Society for Creative Anachronism. Of course this is a generalization, don’t carp at me if you don’t like where you come down in this comparison. Heh…

Anyway, My Personal OSR is a renaissance and not a restoration. Full speed ahead! Damn the torpedos! I've got a bad feeling about this! It’s about reexamining the originals to figure out why I like them so damn much. It’s about rebuilding them in my own way. It’s about getting back to that root, that origin point, and examining, considering, and testing all the directions I can think of that The Game didn’t take the first time. And also in just creating materials that I enjoy that do work with the early editions as written. I see no contradiction in these approaches and I do them both concurrently. I appreciate that fully restored classic just as much as I appreciate all the work that goes into a modified hot rod roadster.

I get my kicks by exploring what it is that appeals to me about the old games, and building off of those elements to augment the experience of play. Testing the ideas, rules, approaches that others put forth, or are inspired by the experiments of others, to see what happens, and if I find them congenial to my game, lets me expand my horizons. If I don’t like where the experiment goes, that’s fine. I put the idea back on the shelf and start over. No harm done.

I love the OSR, or at least, I love my OSR. After a dozen or so years of thinking I was the last AD&D supporter on earth the online old game community has made it possible for me to blather on about My D&D to people who actually give a crap and to contribute what I can to the preservation and advancement of Old Guard Gaming. I love it because now I have the chance to contribute to The Game in a way that I couldn't back when it was created. I'd have given my left 20-sider to have been there at TSR at the beginning, but I missed that boat by a decade and it wasn't until I blundered into the online community that I had any chance of actually getting my game writing and ideas out there. It was this blog that brought me the chance to write for Rob Kuntz, which is of course, frikken awesome! My wife dosn't understand the girlish glee that brings me, but she's glad it makes me happy. It was the OSR that got me that chance. As an originator of The Game, Rob himself has no need of the OSR, but for myself, it was what reignited my fire for The Game and got me to actually start writing out all the stuff that clogs my head. The unembarassing stuff at least.

This is what I do. I can’t speak for anybody else and I’m not interested in doing so. I have enough NPCs to manage.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

The Spontaneous Creation of Magic Items in Play.

2010-07-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

I think of my Wyrd Greyhawk as a low magic campaign world, but in fact, it is awash in it. Magic is elemental, a fundamental natural force which permeates and penetrates all space and things in the game world, living and not. Wells and currents of magical energy dot the world, allowing for things and creatures that mundane physics would deny. Raw arcane force has properties and behaviors of it’s own, but these are not completely definable as they vary, shift, and change from time to time and place to place. The only reliable definition of magic is that, it is that which science is not.

The thing that is actually low in Wyrd Greyhawk is the PC’s ability to access and control magic, and employ it to do their bidding. Harnessing magic to create a magic item, or cast a spell is like building a water wheel in order to to use the power of a river to run a mill. Spell work or magic item creation require extensive knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as a proper location and the needed natural energy. Just as a water mill would require knowledge and skill in metallurgy, woodworking, stonemasonry, a basic understanding of physics, the necessary materials, and a strong flowing stream, so too does magic use have a great number of prerequisites.

These things are well beyond the scope of the vast majority of people in Wyrd Greyhawk. Creating a magic item requires knowledge of magic that would be on a level equal with the ability to build a wind turbine to generate electricity, from scratch, without formal schooling. Remember, there are no magic universities or schools in Wyrd Greyhawk, only individual archmages who may choose to take apprentices or not.

This makes the number of magic items and their availability to the PCs in The Game very low and infrequent, which is what the phrase “Low Magic” is commonly seen to mean in gaming terms. This allows me a game world steeped in eldritch glamour without having PC’s suffering Christmas Tree Syndrome and cheapening the weird and unsettling feeling I want magic to have. I actually employ parts of the 2E wild magic system under certain conditions to enhance the atmosphere and ensure that players never take magic for granted. But that’s a post for another day.

This post is about how the natural flow of background magic, combined with circumstance and motivating action on the part of PCs, as well as the good judgment of the DM, occasionally results in the spontaneous creation of magic items.

When a PC shows a particular liking for, and flare in the use of, a particular mundane item, I begin assigning that item Arcane Potential Points, (APPs). Each time that item is employed in a manner which is inventive, showy, changes the course of an encounter or adventure, increases that character’s stature or renown in some way, snatches victory from the jaws of defeat, or is above and beyond the ordinary in some way, I award the item 1 APP. Sometimes 2.

This is a measure of the natural magic of the game world being invested in and/or attracted to the item by the heroic or infamous actions of its wielder. Some events, desperate acts performed under duress or moments of incredible luck, cause ripples and reverberations in the arcane aether, drawing currents of magic towards objects and people. Such actions need not be good in nature, but must be of consequence. I don’t tell players this sort of thing, it’s above their paygrade.

Once an item has accumulated 10 APPs, it has a chance of spontaneously demonstrating magical abilities. This chance is equal to the weilder’s chance of Saving VS Magic. If the item fails the save, it will never become a spontaneous magic channel, end of story. If it succeeds, it has become a magic item.

The DM may proceed in several ways according to the goals of his particular play style from this point.

The magic may be rolled for randomly, using the magic item lists from whatever iteration of The Game you favor and adjusting the result to fit the item. This can be fun, but nonsensical. Which may or may not be a problem for you.

The magic may be dictated by the circumstances of the event which bestowed the final APP. A troll slaying may result in the sword bestowing regenerative abilities on its user. Knocking a thief off a wall with a staff might give the staff the power to cause vertigo or loss of balance on a hit, etc…. I tend to favor this approach myself; I like symmetry and sympathy in magic.

The magic may be related to the characters backstory if you run a story driven campaign. It could be that the character’s actions have activated some destined fate and the spontaneous magic item will in some way make possible a previously unknown or unreachable goal. You could easily retcon any number of plot points into the game in this manner.

The magic may be influenced by powers divine or infernal if such are present in some way at the moment of magical investiture. It may even be possible that the item could become cursed in some way if the final APP derives from an act of evil.

The magic may cause the item to become sentient in addition to whatever magical powers may be gained. In this case, the rules for dealing with intelligent swords come into play, with all that entails regarding power struggles between the PC and the item.

Weapons are the obvious items to become spontaneously magically charged, but any item which a character uses regularly in the requisite manner may possibly become magical. This especially applies to items which are intrinsic to the characters class. Items such as a thief’s favorite crowbar, a friar’s fighting gloves, a paladin’s spurs, or items like a frying pan, a banner, a blanket, etc… May begin to accumulate APPs, if through play they become a regular part of a character’s idiom.

This system allows for magic items to be inserted into a low magic campaign in a way that doesn’t lessen the weirdness of magic, and at a rate that is controllable by the DM. Magic items that come into being this way are very personal to the characters and are treated as having much more value than the generic sword +2 looted from orc hoard #47.

You may or may not wish to inform the players of the new magical power of their item. I find it entertaining to cause unexplained events and drop hints rather than outright announce these things. If the PCs get suspicious and drop some coin on sages and mages, they may find out what has happened, but probably not how, or why. The thing that makes magic, magic is its unpredictability and ultimate uncontrollability. Science is repeatable; magic may or may not be so.

The players don’t get to manipulate this system to create magic items as they wish. As a DM of the Old Guard, I don’t need proof of rules lawyery or bad faith manipulation to get all smitey, only suspicion of same.

The pic is a clip from the center of a Frazetta painting for Karl Edward Wagner's Kane. I dig it. In my fantasy afterlife, Frazetta sits in on Gary's game in the sky and does the character portraits.

Wyrd Greyhawk; "And the Goblins WILL get you, if you don't watch out!"

2010-06-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

Fear stalks the land in many guises. There are few who know it not.

Great Lords sit their thrones with knotted brows, brooding upon the depredations of dragons, the glory to be won by victory, the ruin brought by defeat. Mighty wizards dwell upon the machinations of their rivals, and mull the limits of their own mastery of magic. Untrustworthy servant that it is, and quick to turn in the hand of he who overreaches. Even those who speak with the Gods themselves carry hidden fears, for with the gift of secret wisdom comes knowledge of the endless Infernal forces which threaten the very existence of all things.

The fears of the great and puissant are not, however, the fears of the common man. Dragons, devils, and malign magic are threats that most know, but vaguely. As fearsome tales told by fireside and distant fables from olden days.

When the plowman pauses in his work to gaze across the furrowed fields and into the shadows of the tulgey woods, it is not the appearance of a great and ravening scaled beast which he fears. When the washerwoman halts in her labor amongst the stones, and warily glances upstream towards the river bend, she does not watch for a warlock to arrive in a flash of reeking vapor. When the cooper wakes in the night and hearkens after sounds in the darkness, it’s not the lustful roar of demons that he listens for.

Such perils are the domain of warriors, wizards, and priests. The peasantry fear that which they know, that which they have suffered by all too often. What the rustics and villagers fear most is the furtive rustle amongst the dim-lit groves, the sudden spiteful black arrow, and the mad, cruel laughter of the Goblins.

The goblins of Wyrd Greyhawk are one race, but of two sorts, the High, and the Low. The Low Goblins retain the standard statistics of AD&D goblins with only a few changes.

Goblins prey upon all other races as the circumstances may allow. They are conscious-less creatures who see all other living things as toys to be tormented for their own amusement, and as food. Cruel mirth is the force which motivates them. Goblins exult in malignant jokes and tricks, usually lethal in nature, visited upon the unsuspecting and helpless. Outright murder is commonly engaged in, but given time to prepare, goblins will always prefer that the death be entertaining for them, and humiliating for the victims.

Low Goblins range between 3 and 5 feet in height, with gray-green warty skin, broad mouths filled with pointed teeth, and lambent yellow eyes. There is much variety amongst them as to general physical conformation. They may be stocky as dwarves, or thin as elves. Some have been told of as sporting horns, others as being as hairy as a ram. There are no reliable reports which can be used to discern the true aspects of their appearance. Those who are learned conjecture that so close is the goblin’s connection to primal chaos that their very forms are subject to change with each generation.

Goblins make very few things for themselves, instead dressing in the clothing of previous victims and employing the weapons of those who have died at their hands. Goblins of the Low sort are most often encountered in groups of 6-24. When more are encountered, they will always be lead by a High Goblin.

All goblins are Chaotic Evil and not Lawful Evil. They are, in fact, so resistant to any sort of order that Low Goblins must check moral every 6th round in any endeavor,(combat, a march, construction, etc..), for which they have no heart. Failure of the moral check does not indicate fear, for though the goblins live to bring terror to others, they themselves feel that emotion but little. Rather, their inner chaos is of such intensity that they are unable to remain dedicated to any task to which they are not driven.

This moral check may be dispensed with if the low goblins are captained, or otherwise commanded by a High Goblin. A High Goblin Lord they will obey with gleeful abandon, even to the point of taking obviously suicidal actions if so commanded.

High Goblins

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1-6
Armor Class: 4, or by armor type.
Move: 12”, (120’ per round)
Hit Dice: 6
% In-Lair: 40%
Treasure Type: Nx4, Q
No. of Attacks: 2
Damage/Attack: 1-6, or by weapon
Special Attacks: Seeming, Curse, see below
Special Defenses: Shadow Step
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Highly Intelligent
Alignment: Chaotic Evil, exemplary so
Size: M
Psionic Ability: Nil

The High Goblins are beings of greater intelligence, subtlety, and sophistication than the jeering and cackling Low Goblins. Terribly, this makes their evil humor horrific in its depth and depravity. Those who find themselves within the power of the High Goblins may come to consider their captors witty and insightful. They may feel them to be wildly entertaining and fascinating hosts. This gives their eventual and certain betrayal and death much greater savor and delight from the twisted perspective of the goblins. Sauce for the goose, as it were.

High Goblins are rarely met in large groups. They prefer to live as individuals, Lording over clans of Low Goblins where their will is uncontested. Sometimes families or cabals of High Goblins orbit a particularly powerful, malign, or expansive individual whose force of personality allows him to influence others of his kind. Rarely does a High Goblin appear who can force sufficient numbers of his race to submit to his Lordship and claim the ephemeral title of Goblin King.

The High Goblins are tall and spare of build. They have sharper features than the Low Goblins, skin of a lighter grey, and red-gold eyes shining with sardonic joy from beneath lank, green-black hair. This, the true visage of the High Goblins is rarely seen by others for the “Noble Goblins” posses the inherent magical ability to create a Seeming. The Seeming is both a charm, and a disguise. Those who fail to Save VS Magic will see the High Goblin in whatever form it has chosen, and will perceive it as non-threatening, a friend or possible ally. High Goblins employ the Seeming to gain information, or to lead the trusting astray. They often choose to appear as rangers, elves, or hermits, beguiling travelers or those lost in the wilderness. Once a being has been taken in by the Seeming, it will remain in effect through multiple encounters with the same goblin until it has been lifted by a remove curse, or the goblin himself negates it by attacking the victim. A person may labor for years beneath the delusion of the seeming if it amuses the goblin to continue to string him along, or else it furthers some dark and intricate plot.

The goblins are as closely linked to evil as they are to chaos. Acts of evil, committed by those of non-evil alignment due to instigation by the goblins, temporarily enhance the inborn powers of the goblins.

As an example, goblins may travel by stepping into and out of shadow once per day. This ability allows them to cross distances of up to a mile instantly if shadows exist at both locations. This is the reason that dusk is called, “the Goblin hour”, by villagers and woodsmen. Normally, goblins lack the power to cross boundary lines or circumvent magical wards by stepping through shadow. Even a closed door, or scribed rune prevents entry by the goblins to the most humble cottage by stepping from the shadows.

If, however, through careful machinations the goblins have manipulated the occupants into evil action in some way, they gain sufficient power to enable them to overcome their normal limitations and gain access through the shadows. It must be an actual evil act on the part of the occupants, and not simply a thought or attitude in order for the goblins to gain entry, though even so small a thing as a blasphemous curse uttered in a moment of anger may prove fatal. At the DM’s discretion of course.

Any weapon, magical or not, acts as though Of Wounding in the hands of a High Goblin. Wounds inflicted will not heal naturally and will require magical or divine intervention. Lost hit points will not be regained until the damage has been dealt with by a cleric or magical healing.

A High Goblin may Curse a victim a single time, but if the curse is removed, may never curse that creature again. The curse will be minor, but difficult to deal with. As examples, lameness in one leg, cutting Movement rate in half, deafness, increasing the victim’s chance of being surprised, Confusion, the victim will shortly become lost if not always accompanied, etc… The DM is encouraged to be creative and fitting in inventing goblin curses, and the remedies thereof.

All goblins, both the Low, and the High, receive +1 to hit with the short bow. Their black shafted, spiral fletched arrows are often, (35% chance), smeared with concoctions which cause hallucinations or madness, (50% chance of either). Those struck must Save VS Poison to avoid the effects. Victims who suffer hallucinations will imagine attack by random monsters or catastrophic natural events, (floods, storms, earthquakes), and will act accordingly. Those struck by madness may rave and tear their own cloths, randomly attacking anyone near or hurting themselves. Hallucinations will last for 1d10 rounds, Madness for 2d10 rounds. There is a 10% chance of madness becoming permanent and requiring magical healing to correct.

Each High Goblin encountered has a 25% chance of magic-use with a spell-like form. Goblin magic requires no material components or spell books, though the effects of the wyrd-work are similar in outcome to wizard’s magic. Goblin spells are cast by a short, eerie chant or song which takes 1 round to complete. If a goblin is capable of magic, he may work spells of power roughly commensurate with up to the 4th level of magic use. A goblins ability to work magic is static; it does not increase in levels as does a human magic-user’s. Instead, a goblin may cast 7 spells per day of whatever power level.

As shown above concerning the goblin’s ability to step in and out of shadow, a High Goblin can for a time increase the power of his magic by tricking non-evil aligned creatures into acts of evil. If a High Goblin, through deceit, convinced one party member to unjustly betray another, the power of the next spell he chose to cast would be doubled. This is a complex situation and no set of rules can be written to address all of the possibilities which may arise, so the DM must proceed with all due diligence.

In creating goblin spells, the DM may choose in some random fashion from the magic-user spells of the first to the fourth level. The mechanics of the spells will remain the same, excepting for the single round casting time and the lack of a need for material components, but the visual and/or auditory effects of the spell will be altered to make them strange and unfamiliar to the Player Characters. Magic Missile will function in the game in the standard manner as written; however the glowing darts of magical energy are replaced by a number of large, iridescent hummingbirds which flash through the air emitting a grating whine and impale the target on their needle beaks before vanishing in a spurt of foul ectoplasm.
----------------------------------

The new job, putting in my garden, shop projects, etc, have eaten up most of my time this past month. I only got to work on the goblins in fits and starts. Honestly, I've also been so fascinated in watching the disintegration of civilization in real time that my attention was directed away from D&D. Ridiculous, I know. The march of events in the real world is predictable, unlike the randomness of The Game, but still, it's hard to look away from the train wreck even when you know how it's going to play out.

Heh...

The pic is Blix from Legend, the only Tom Cruise movie which refrained from sucking.

I don't really go to game conventions because...

2010-05-02T18:24:00.000-07:00

I prefer going to general sci-fi and fantasy conventions rather than actual gaming conventions. I’ve not gamed all that often with people I don’t already know well, though of course I’d be willing to make an exception for you. If you’re reading this blog, we’re probably simpatico, compadre.

The only tournament style game I ever played in was AD&D, of course, at the Emperor’s Birthday Convention, probably in 81 or 82. The Emperor’s Birthday was originally a wargaming con, but I hear it later amalgamated with Griffcon, and I think they’re both now defunct. It was here in Indiana, but I don’t remember where now. I’m sure one of you knows where it was and who put it on.

Anyway, my high school gaming circle at the time was probably 16 or so strong, with a core of 6 enthusiasts, including me. The others came and went, sometimes playing a lot for a while and then losing interest. We were self taught at playing The Game, we never had any older players to show us how it was done. I was the instigator, I started with the Holmes edition that Mom had found in a yard sale, and dragged all my buddies into it as fast as I could. We moved on to AD&D as soon as it came along. It was in big hardbacks man, how could it not be cooler? It said ADVANCED right on the cover!
So, somebody ran into a flyer for the Emperor’s Birthday con and we decided to register for the tournament. We were all excited to have a chance to play, “Real Big League D&D”, official and everything. I mean, you had to register and all that, that had to mean it was adult and serious and important, right?

We weren’t quite old enough to drive, so we all rode up to the con in a van driven by the father of one of the guys. We got situated at our table and waited for the DM. I don’t remember now if the game was an official TSR module, or something the DM wrote himself. I do remember that it sucked. Not the adventure itself, I never got the chance to read it, the actual play of the game sucked.

I love tension in the game. I like purple prose and lurid description. I want to smell the dank musty corridors, hear the rutch of nailed boots on stone and the ring of steel on bone. I came to D&D from literature and not wargaming, so in my mind, it's atmosphere and immersion that have precedence over calculation and tactics. Only by a little bit though, I do play to win and I won’t turn down a victory for characters sake.
EPs are EPs man, get em’ where you can.

The problem here was that at the Emperor’s Birthday game, our DM was Ben Stein. He had the most boring monotone presentation I’d ever encountered. Just imagine Stein’s voice saying, “You’ve come to a T in the passage. It proceeds both to the right and to the left. Which way do you go? Anybody…. Anybody…. Buehler?”

I’m not exaggerating much here, folks. We were all a bit dumfounded that it was even possible to suck all the excitement out of D&D. Some of our games ended in table flipping and fisticuffs, we even locked a player in his own car trunk one time. This guy was the most egregious example of, “You’re Doing It Wrong!” that I’ve ever encountered.

We might have stuck with it but for the second wrench in the works. When the DM arrived, he wasn’t alone. He brought along his son, probably about 11 years old, and announced he would be joining our party. We thought, “Uh, well, ok…” If the DM thought the kid was mature and experienced enough to game at a “Real Big League D&D Event”, surely everything would go fine.

Nope, the kid was ADHD before it was cool. He was a disaster, charging from one room to another without any party consultation, acting on his own, thieving from party members, recklessly attacking everything we encountered. we were horrified.
We knew this was a timed tournament, there were points to gather, goals to achieve, and we had a rabid badger as a party member. And he was the DM’s son, we were trapped.

Eventually though, a moment arrived when we could rid ourselves of the dungeon albatross and retain plausible deniability. The kid decided to don his ring of invisibility without consulting the party, and sneak across a rope bridge which spanned an underground chasm. There was a bugbear outpost on the other side, and he meant to get there first and steal the choicest treasure items before the rest of us could arrive.

At any other time, this would have been a laudable Old School maneuver. Something any of us might have done in game. But for ruining our first, “Real Big League D&D Event!”, it was the last straw.

As I was watching the bugbears, the DM mentioned to me that I saw the rope bridge begin to sway of its own accord. So of course I pointed and yelled, “Invisible Monster!”. The party opened up on the Rope Bridge, daggers, arrows, hand axes, and magic missiles went flying the length of it to transfix the “invisible monster!” The kid reappeared mid bridge, a pin cushion of adventuring hardware, and pitched over into the chasm. I think maybe the DM realized he was losing us and decided to sacrifice the kid to keep the game going. With great power comes great responsibility. Heh…

Even getting rid of the kid didn’t make the game much better though. The DM was a guy who probably should have stuck to Napoleonics. He just didn’t have the joie de vivre needed give the game life. After a bit, we started suiciding our characters in order to escape. There was a dealer’s room to check out and we were tired of the Underdark Death March. I deliberately set off an easily avoided poison needle trap and went hunting minis. After a couple stupid deaths, the DM caught on to what we were doing and started furiously fudging the dice in our favor so we wouldn’t be killed.

The guys got away with ridiculous maneuvers that would have gotten them stone dead if I was behind the screen. My buddy running a dwarf fighter managed to strangle a hill giant to death with his bare hands.

Now, I’ll still game with strangers if we seem to have some common ground. I had a pretty good game with a guy from work, his wife, and a friend of theirs a while back, but I’m not interested in schedualed convention games. That’s probably not fair from one crappy game so many years ago, but I’m ok with that.
Now, on the other hand, if I ever get to Garycon, I think I’d be pretty much assured that my fellow con-goers would be Old Guard compatible, and it would be an honor to die a messy death in their company.

Sunuvabitch! Blogger just ate my friggen post!

2010-04-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

Serves me right for not writing it out in Word first. Crap.

Bent a cam on the Difference Engine.

2010-04-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

I've been off the Aether-Net for a bit. One of the tertiary cams on my difference engine bent, metal fatigue most likely. Luckily my brother is and informational technologies electro-smith, and was able to combine the best components of mine old engine with those of a second.

The new and improved Old Guard difference engine is capable of far greater computational speed and power. The hammers just ring!

New posts will soon follow. Up the Irons!

The Dwarfs of Folklore vs the Dwarves of The Game.

2010-04-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

Along side the PC available Dwarves, I’m including the Dwarfs of folklore as monsters, (little m), cause I dig that black fairytale vibe. These are the venal, unpredictable and generally no good hairy little men who take advantage of lost travelers, trick the innocent into bad bargains, and steal young women and children who wander unprotected.

Dwarf of the Wild Wood.

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1-6, usually a single dwarf will be encountered
Armor Class: 4, or by armor type
Move: 12”, 120 feet in a round
Hit Dice: 4
% in lair: 40%
Treasure Type: F
No. of Attacks: 2
Damage/Attack: 1-4, or by weapon
Special Attacks: Misdirection
Special Defenses: Vanish
Magic Resistance: 15%
Intelligence: Very High
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral by default, but may be any non-good.
Size: S, variable, 2-4 feet tall on average.
Psionic Ability: nil

A lean and gnarled little man, with an avaricious leer and a sardonic glint in his eye, a dwarf of the wild wood is the last person an adventurer in a tight spot would hope to see. Cunning and venal tricksters, the dwarfs exult in taking advantage of those whom they chance to find in dire straits.

In fact, chance often has little to do with the encounter, as dwarfs lay traps and dig pits to capture the unwary or reckless traveler. It is the dwarfs practice to deny responsibility for the trap, and to offer aid to the unfortunate, but always at a great price.

They will require the victim’s word that he will not go back upon the bargain struck, and though the dwarfs have no sense of honor themselves, they are also bound by the literal words of the deal, and must also abide by it.

If an adventurer should manage to gain a position of advantage or at least of equality with a dwarf, he may be able to reach an agreement by which he may gain a great deal. The dwarfs are peerless crafters of metal and workers of inherent magic. Though not mighty spell casters, dwarfs are able to imbue great magical power in the work of their forges and furnaces. Jewelry, weapons and armor produced by dwarfs are often items of nearly artifact level puissance.

Dwarfs are also quite knowledgeable in areas of dark and hidden wisdom and may be consulted as though they were sages concerning subjects which a prudent adventurer may not wish to openly inquire after. Of course, a dwarf will drive a very hard bargain before providing such lore, and may leave out information which could prove deadly to the incautious. Let the buyer beware who chooses to do business with a dwarf.

A dwarf will rarely choose to engage in direct melee. Though dwarf made weapons can be fearsome, and the armor they craft formidable, they have little liking for putting themselves in danger. If seriously threatened, it is likely a dwarf will use his innate ability to Vanish. In a flash, or with a stamp of his foot, or by stepping into shadow, a dwarf may remove himself from a location of immanent danger once per day. This may function in a manner analogous to Dimension Door, Teleport, Passwall, Meld with Stone, or other standard spell as the DM sees fit.

A dwarf also possesses the power of Misdirection. A dwarf may divert the attention of those who fail to Save VS Spell by insinuation and inference once per day. In this manner a dwarf may cause others to change their plans or act in a way which advances the dwarf’s own agenda at the expense of their own original course.

As an example, Migrud, the dwarf who dwells near the wells of Ohlam, through Misdirection caused Sir Holgruh, Brulm of the Heavy Hand and Yeilasnia the Sharper to abandon their intention to seek the Wyrm’s Band, and instead confront the caravan of Mehulude at the Hoarnung ferry. This action allowed Migrud to steal the daughter of Mehulude in the confusion. Though the knavery was found out, to the shame of all involved, neither the dwarf, nor the girl were ever seen again.

Dwarfs are nearly always encountered as lone individuals as they are too paranoid and untrustworthy to often live in groups. If a group is encountered it is likely they are working a mine or managing some other source of wealth which requires at least some teamwork to acquire.

Encountered dwarfs are always male, it is uncertain that there even are female dwarfs and it is hinted darkly that this lack is the reason for the dwarf’s predilection towards woman theft.
Dwarfs vary in appearance and size, with skin often nut brown, sometimes black, and sometimes pale white. They have long and wild beards and unkempt hair. Dwarfs may dress in the height of fashion, or they may appear in filthy rags. In no case is it safe or wise to judge a dwarf’s prowess by his appearance.
Dwarfs tend to inhabit areas that are wild and uncharted, but near to a civilized land. They live in caves and mines, build huts or shacks in deep woods, or lurk close by waterfalls or riverbends.
Dwarfs are always aware of the passage of travelers through their land and watch avidly for the chance to gain by the misfortunes of others. If it is necessary to manufacture this misfortune then to a dwarf, so much sweeter is the gain.

Anything that becomes popular for any length of time tends to move further and further from its point of origin as the facets of it which attract the most attention are magnified by public perception and feedback on the original. Most things, art movements, political positions, musical styles, The Game, become self-referential at some point and move away from whatever originally attracted the majority of fans to them in the first place.
Getting at the root of The Game, and from that point considering and testing the directions in which it wasn’t explored is a big part of what the OSR is for, in my mind. Alongside with, and complementary to, building my personal iteration of Greyhawk , I’m revisiting the basic elements of the game to find their origins and see what happens when I look at them from a different direction. Just like the rest of you.

So, dwarfs. OD&D dwarves are largely Tolkien dwarves. The good professor humanized the dwarfs of folklore and fairytale and turned them into an organized and non-human, but relatable race. They have their own motivations and desires, but they reflect facets of human nature, stubbornness, greed, inflexibility, etc… the same as the orcs represent war on nature, militarism, destruction for its own sake.

As The Game has changed with new editions and materials, so have the portrayals of dwarves in The Game also changed. OD&D dwarves were, after the Tolkien version, non-magical, technologically oriented, stolid, hardworking, and unforgiving. There really wasn’t all that much written about the dwarves culture, but it was natural to default to Tolkien and to the cultures from which most of the original folktales he drew from, Scandinavian, Germanic,Celtic, English and so on.

Of course, that cultural feedback loop starts up quickly as a thing grows in popularity, and the most prominent features of what was written about dwarves were amalgamated with the same prominent features of the northern European cultures they had their roots in, and commonly perceived dwarf game culture began to rapidly expand.

Now, there is a sweet spot in the arc of development of whatever cultural fancy you want to talk about, where it is fully realized and detailed and distinct from its inspirational origin. After this point, caricature sets in, like gangrene, and the compounding stereotypes turn it into a joke. This shark-jumping occurs in every medium, and it’s pretty much unavoidable. It’s hard to pin point when it happened, but suddenly every dwarf was Foamy Tankard MacTankard, hard drinking, grim, stubborn, but loyal warrior/iron worker of the Stony Iron Hammer Shield Clan.

This is why there are renaissances. Of gaming, and otherwise.

I’m not about to throw out the Tolkienesque D&D dwarves as PC races, I’ll just scrape off the cultural cruft and try and restore them to original condition so I can add new cultural cruft that’s in keeping with my own sensibilities.

My favorite art depictions of pre shark jumping dwarves are always by Jim Holloway. This has a lot to do with the fact that Jim’s art has a sharp sense of fantastic realism and rough humor, as well as clean line work and good figure balance. The armor and weapons he depicts are just slightly fantasized versions of real world examples and believable to me and that’s important to my view of fantasy. Spikes, straps and ridiculous oversized weapons just kick me right out of suspension of disbelief.

This will be my starting point for redeveloping PC dwarves for Wyrd Greyhawk. If I decide it's needed. As with the paladin, the players don't care that much, so this is just for me. And you if it appeals to you.

These last two images are close ups that I've clipped out of larger pieces by Holloway. The originals you may find in the Holloway art thread at Dragonsfoot. These are new art, not previously appearing in published D&D material. Mr Holloway is planning a book of new illustrations, and I'll be glad to see it.

The top illustration is by Rackham, it's a small page decoration for The Rhinegold. The second image is a pic of Sutherland's illustration for the dwarf entry in the 1e Monster Manual.

Musical Inspiration.

2010-04-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

This is what I was listening to when I wrote the Wyrd-Paladin post.

Dead Can Dance- The Chant of the Paladin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrOjTMWf5eM

The God-Haunted Paladins of Wyrd Greyhawk. The pious sword is sharp.

2010-04-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

The word Paladin derives from the Latin palatinus, meaning, “attached to the palace”, and refers to the twelve Peers of Charlemagne. These men were seen as the best of the best, equal to the King in nobility, valor, and skill at arms. The term eventually came to be a descriptive title applied to those knights, of any country, which exemplified the virtues of the chivalric code, especially knightly prowess in battle.

The paladin character class of Wyrd Greyhawk has as its foundation the AD&D paladin listed in the Player’s Handbook. The changes I’m making to the class are as much a matter of enhancing the flavor and atmosphere of the setting as they are adjustments to the mechanics of the class. The minimum stat requirements remain the same, Str 12, Int 9, Wis 13, Con 9, except that I’m eliminating the Charisma minimum. The paladins of Wyrd Greyhawk are not necessarily leaders of men. Many of them could be seen as Hermit Knights, or armored street preachers, or martial mystics as much as the standard expectation of a devout and selfless fighting man who lives to protect the weak from evil.

My setting is heavily medievalesque, but not exclusively so. The medieval/chivalric themes and attitudes must be altered to fit a world of lusty pulp adventure where life is red in tooth and claw, and the things of the Outer Dark hunger after blood and souls. The paladin class is populated by characters who are Chivalric idealists, but Wyrd Greyhawk is a grim and earthy world and the paladin goes about his work knowing that the greater share of humanity is self interested and uncaring, and that living by his ideals will almost certainly cost him his life. He does so anyway, because Right must be served. Solomon Kane is probably the best fictional character model for what I’m shooting for with the Wyrd paladin.

The paladins of Wyrd Greyhawk are driven men. They are as they are because they can be nothing else. A paladin has been chosen by a God to promote his cause as an emissary and exemplar of the deity’s ethos. Always are the God’s eyes upon the paladin, always he feels the God’s guiding hand upon his shoulder. NPC paladins are very rare. A kingdom may have only a handful. Even Nyrond or Furyondy hold no more than a dozen paladins each. A PC paladin will be close to unique in the campaign, and unlikely to meet others of the class.

A paladin can only be of Lawful Good alignment. Only Gods of this alignment will have paladins in their service. In Wyrd Greyhawk this includes Pelor, Pholtus, Heironious, Cuthbert, the Great God, and The One God. A paladin may be devoted to one of these gods, or more than one, save in the case of the One God, whose worshippers acknowledge no other. Which ever of these Gods the paladin reveres will affect the priorities of his personal Code of Chivalry.

This code of knightly conduct which a paladin observes varies from place to place, with some aspects emphasized while others are downplayed depending upon the ethos of the divinity with which the paladin is associated. Honor, Duty and self sacrifice are at the core of all variants of the chivalric code. A knight should display such virtues as courage, a willingness to give his own life for another’s, mercy, valor in war, skill at arms, justice and protection for the poor or weak, fairness, obedience and faithfulness to his God, generosity, graciousness to women, etc…

The exact virtues and expectations of the code, as well as which aspects carry the most weight in determining the correct course of action a paladin should take in any given situation depend upon the virtues particular to each paladin’s version of the code. When a PC paladin is created, the exact nature of his code of chivalry must be defined in writing. Once the PC paladin’s code of chivalry has been determined, the DM must enforce it ruthlessly. Adherence to the code, or failure to do so, supersedes alignment as the determining factor in deciding whether or not a paladin has access to his paladin’s abilities.

The code of a paladin of Pholtus includes the following tenets, observed in this order of precedence.
1. Obedience to Law
2. Never shirk a just task
3. Defense of any charge unto death
4. Order is the path to Rightness
5. Noble service dutifully rendered
6. The light must be shown to those who know it not
7. Respect for peers and equals
8. Obedience and respect from those beneath your station
9. Protection and justice for the weak
10. Prowess in battle is the test of righteousness

The chivalrous code of a paladin of Heironeous or of Pelor will be different, containing elements that are the same, or which overlap, but likely in a different order of importance, and certainly including different ideals. This means that though all paladins are Lawful Good in alignment, they will by no means think and act alike. Conflict between paladins upholding different codes and others of Lawful Good alignment over the proper course of action in a given situation is not unlikely.

I’m using a version of the Hackmaster 4E Honor system to determine when a paladin may or may not draw on his class abilities. The paladin’s scores in the class’s prime requisites, Str, Int, Wis, Con, are averaged to yield a base Knightly Virtue Score. Violations of the paladin’s code of chivalry or alignment cause penalties to accrue. Exemplary conduct receives bonuses. If penalties push the paladin’s Knightly Virtue Score below its base value, his class abilities are diminished, or unavailable, and remain so until suitable penance has been made. Likewise, bonuses may increase the power or duration of a paladin’s abilities. Bonuses, however, are more difficult to earn, and do not carry over from day to day.

A paladin who violates the code of chivalry looses his paladin’s abilities, becoming an ordinary knight, but may regain them with effort. A paladin who violates his alignment, Falls, and is forever more, a mere fighter.

A paladin, who keeps the code and acts in accordance with his alignment, may;

1. Detect evil up to 600 feet away, as often as desired, providing that the paladin is concentrating on detecting the presence of evil and seeking it in the correct general direction.
2. A paladin makes all saving throws at +2.
3. A paladin may “lay on hands” once per day. This heals 2 hit points worth of damage per level of experience of the paladin. A paladin may only heal others in this manner, he may not heal himself.
4. A paladin is immune to all forms of disease.
5. Once per week, a paladin may cure disease of any sort, magical or natural in origin.
6. A paladin may create a 10 foot radius Circle of Protection from Evil so long as he concentrates on maintaining the protection and performs no other actions. He may move at ½ normal movement rate, but may not attack and maintain the protection at the same time.
7. At the 3rd level of experience, a paladin gains the ability to Rebuke the undead, demons, devils, or other similar malignant extra planar creatures in a manner similar to the cleric’s ability to Turn undead. Monsters in this category with hit dice equal to or fewer than the paladin’s experience level must Save or be driven from his immediate presence by the power of his holy words. Those who Save may still not approach the paladin unless attacked first.
8. If a paladin manages to gain possession of a “Holy Sword”, he may dispel magic in a 10 foot radius at the level of magic use equal to his level of experience. To do this, he must raise the sword, unsheathed, above his head and concentrate on no other task. Dispelling magic in this manner employs the power of the paladin’s divinity directly, and will invite the attention, and probable judgment of the deity.
9. A paladin, in straits most dire, may, 1% chance cumulative per level, receive divine aid in the form of an unexpected ally whose powers and abilities are just enough to level the field of battle and give the paladin a fighting chance of prevailing. The Cry for Succor is not to be given lightly, the paladin’s divine patron will consider it no small thing, and there will likely be strings attached. The paladin’s Knightly Virtue Score will add to or subtract from the chance of the divine patron sending aid. It is possible that the ally will become a henchman or boon companion at the DM’s discretion.
10. A paladin who receives divine healing from a cleric who reveres the same God as the paladin will always gain the maximum benefit possible from the spell.
11. Any normal creature the paladin employs as a mount will always give its utmost efforts.
12. A paladin gains +1 to initiative.

The standard AD&D restrictions on equipment remain in force.

1. A paladin may not own more than 10 total magic items, including 1 suit of armor, 1 shield, 4 weapons, and 4 magic items of other types.
2. A paladin may not retain wealth, keeping only enough coin to pay for his immediate needs until he reaches 10th level, after which point, he may keep monies sufficient to pay for the construction and staffing of a small castle.
3. A paladin will have only associates of congenial ethos if at all possible. It is very often not. Whether or not a paladin may interact with other PCs or NPCs of conflicting alignments, and for how long, or for what purpose, depends upon the paladin’s code of chivalry. The DM will pass hints to the player in the form of omens, feelings, or events to make the wishes of the paladin’s divine patron clear. Failure by the paladin to keep to his code will of course result in penalties being applied to his Knightly Virtue Score.

The paladin class is probably the least pulpy and Sword & Sorcery friendly class of any of the AD&D classes. Even the cleric is an easier fit, at least in my eyes, with its Van Helsing like origin as the nemesis of the infamous Sir Fang. The paladin come from a separate literary tradition, chivalrous romance, and approaches the themes of sword fantasy from the direction of a different set of assumptions about right, wrong, and the purpose of adventure.

This doesn’t make the paladin incompatible with the fighter, magic-user, thief, or cleric, or the world they inhabit, I don’t think. AD&D is an amalgamation of the many sorts of fantastic escapism popular at the time of it’s writing, as today’s editions are as well. The Wyrd-paladin is just my attempt to smooth the seams and joints between the paladin and the other classes, and also the version of Greyhawk I run.

I’m really just doing this for my own enjoyment; I don’t have any players who would consider running a paladin of any stripe. I think the class probably also suffers from all the contemporary social baggage it has to lug around as much as all the restrictions it carries in play. It seems to be largely assumed that a paladin is by definition a self righteous, holier than thou, jackass closet Nazi. I suppose it’s the sophisticated modern attitude that no person of religious devotion or feeling can also be a genuinely good and well meaning person.

The paladin is a necessary part of Wyrd Greyhawk though, even if no players chose to run one, they’re present in the game world. Meeting an NPC paladin is like dealing with a force of nature. They are not dissuaded or persuaded, and a God stands behind them. A powerful NPC paladin is something like a dragon of good, in so far as how the party must carefully consider what actions to take in dealing with him. A paladin is intractable, resolute, and a force to be reckoned with.

The black and white sketches are bits I've clipped from concept art for knights of Brettonia from Warhammer. I don't know who did the color piece, though I'm sure I've seen it used in some gaming product before. I just found it on the net labled,"monk". I like it though.

Attention Chgowiz! I will squash a fairy every day your blog remains down!

2010-03-25T20:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not screwing around here man. I mean it. I've got a yard full of the little buggers and I'm not afraid to mash 'em.

Your blog has been an important resource for gaming inspiration, for me, and I'm sure no few others. Please come back to the table and roll some dice. The OSR can't get by with just 136 of us.

Fellow bloggers, I ask for your support in this. Let's all squash fairies for Chgowiz!

The Cephalopisc, or, " 'Ware the flying Fishheads lad!"

2010-03-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

The Cephalopisc

Frequency: Very Rare

No. Appearing: 1-4

Armor Class: 4

Move: 1"(10 feet) on land, 6"(60 feet) underwater

Hit Dice: 2+3

% In Lair: 70%

Treasure Type: Nil

No. of Attacks: 1

Damage/Attacks: 1d4 (bite)

Special Attacks: Transformative Saliva

Special Defenses: nil

Magic Resistance: Standard

Intelligence: Low

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Size: S (3 feet long, 30-40 lbs)

Psionic Ability: Nil

Also called a Reedy Devil, or Flying Fish Head, the Cephalopisc is an ambush predator that some believe may have been created or altered for a specific purpose. The creatures lurk along shore lines in salt or brackish swamps or other bodies of water, blending in amongst the rushes and reeds with their spiny rays and fins.

From their camouflaged hiding places, the creatures call out, mimicking sounds that have attracted attention in the past, such as crying puppies, duck calls, or the bubbling laughter of water nymphs.

When a possible victim comes within 10 feet of the cephalopisc's hiding spot, the monster will hurl itself out of the water, directly at its intended target, and attempt to bite a hunk of flesh out of the hapless creature.

If it succeeds in this first attack, the saliva of the fish head will cause the victim to fall into convulsions for 10 rounds if they fail to Save VS Poison. During this time, if otherwise undefended, the victim is helpless against further biting attacks by the cephalopisc.

The monsters saliva has a further effect. Those who fail their save and experience the convulsions will be transformed into Sahuagin within 24 hours unless they receive the benefits of a Remove Curse.

Those transformed will have no memory of their former life, and will seek the sea as soon as possible.

The belly spines of the cephalopisc are stiff and it can employ them as clumsy, stilt like legs to move about slowly on land for a short time.

-----------------------------

The art is by the great Bernie Wrightson. It's clipped from the center of an all access pass to Meat Loaf's 1981 concert tour. Dig it man. Of course, I got the original scan at Golden Age Comic Book Stories. All hail Mr Door Tree!

It's been a few days since my last post, and that one was just a throw away place holder. I've taken a second job to supplement my income because nobody is buying weird one-off handmade furniture in a planetary depression, go figure eh?

Anyway, I'm sure this will cut into my blog time for the foreseeable future. I'm gonna shoot for two entries a week, but If I don't have something of quality or use to put up, I don't like to post just because. I'm all signal, no noise. Most of the time.

Here is a thought, a non-gaming thought that is. I try and keep this blog on point and not stray into other areas of interest to me, but I've been looking at economics as a hobby for the last six years or so, ever since I became suspicious that it was mostly built on bullshit.

Gamers are sharp tools, generally, so whether or not you've been considering this sort of thing, if I started a blog on our current financial/economic/energy/political situation, aimed at stimulating discussion amongst ourselves, would you fine ladies and gentlemen be interested?

Hmmm, have you guys seen this?

2010-03-11T18:56:00.000-08:00

I don't usually visit Something Awful, but I followed a link from Boing Boing, which I enjoy, even though it's clogged with moonbats.

I never know what to make of this sort of commentary about D&D by people outside the active game world. They seem like blathering philistines, but there is some oblique admiration for Gygax.

There are some nice little scans of Original D&D art, so, there's that.

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/dungeons-and-dragons/steve-old-gygax.php?page=1

The Wyrm of the Old Forest. Seek not for hidden knowledge, lest ye find it.

2010-02-27T14:14:00.000-08:00

The Wyrm of the Old Forest.

Dragons ravage, plunder, and devour in accordance with their cruel and avaricious natures. A pox upon the lands they stalk, they are never the less, generally understood to behave in a given manner. They can be fought by those who study and learn their motives, powers, and weaknesses. The same may not be said of the Wyrm of the Old Forest.

A monster of myth and a living fear of the unknown, the Wyrm comes and goes when it will. Sometimes leaving evidence of its passage, and sometimes not. The stories of the Wyrm are often vague and frustratingly contradictory. In some it is described as simply a ravening beast without thought, while in others the Wyrm asks probing and erudite questions of its captives. Various tales paint the Wyrm as a great serpent, as long as three galleys end to end, or as merely horse-sized. Some times it is spined and finned, sometimes with limbs, while others say it has none. Chrueleam the Lame, Boccob ward his soul, held that the Wyrm is more than a material creature, or perhaps less. The true nature of the Wyrm may never be known. Of the many who have sought it over the years, the majority have simply failed to find it at all. Often, decades pass between sightings of the creature. It would seem the Wyrm chooses the time and place, as well as the manner of its rare meetings with those who seek it, as well as those who do not. The Wyrm has been thought slain more than once, only to reappear inexplicably years later. The tales of encounters with the great drakonish serpent span many centuries, and offer conflicting accounts of its weird behavior, changing appearance, and inscrutable motives.

The Old Forest is itself a dread place of a character ancient and fey. The gloomy boles march on for leagues, giant trees which shroud the forest floor in eternal twilight and mute the sound of the wind to an eerie susurrus. This place is tacitly acknowledged by all as the domain of the Wyrm. Even the greatest of dragons respect the territory of the Aulde Serpent. More than one arrogant drake is said to have met its end in the iron coils of the Wyrm. The peasants who till the lands about the periphery of the Old Forest venture within it only in need. They gather what they must have with speed and deference and return to the sunny fields as quickly as they may. Ill sendings sometimes fall upon those who stay beneath the verdant canopy for too long, or who demand too much of the grim greenwood.

The Riff of Lurding Run and four of his men at arms were reportedly slain and devoured when they ventured into the Old forest in pursuit of an outlaw. The surviving armsmen told a wild tale about a monstrous snake with arms like a man and black eyes like pits, which fell on them as they stalked the criminal and which tore the Riff’s head from his shoulders with its clawed hands. A fisherman on the river Qwelling, which flows through the southern corner of the Old Forest, related to his fellows how he was watched from the shore by a beast he could not see for the shadows of the trees, but who’s eyes were large as an ogre’s fists and shone redly from the darkness. It is whispered that the daughter of the Baroness DurJaent was born with a cap of feathery, jewel toned scales adorning her head instead of fine coppery hair. The Baroness had earlier traveled by night through the Old Forest on her way to Kelb. As the child was sequestered, and the midwives killed, only the Baroness herself knows the truth behind the rumors, and no one has thus far been fool enough to ask her.

Procelleus of Nmand claimed that the epiphany which resulted in his Grand Arcanology came to him as a result of an exchange at a crossroads deep within the Old Forest betwixt himself and, “an ancient serpent of tremendous size, frilled and finned, with green-black scales and eyes that shone as like portals to the Hells.” After the words were done with, the Wyrm demanded but one of Procelleus baggage carriers as a toll for passage and wisdom. Said Procelleus on the matter, “as the man was a sluggard and suspected of thievery his fate weighed not so heavily on my mind.”

It was reported by a group of traveling players that they awoke during the night to find an enormous serpentine body encircling them on all sides, a veritable wall of gleaming black scales as thick as a bull just at the periphery of the light cast by their campfire. So large was the snake that they could see neither its head nor its tale. In utter terror, the actors prayed to the gods of the stage for deliverance and finally, as dawn neared, the great serpent moved off into the forest. As all actors are liars, the truth of this is uncertain, though many tales do seem to indicate the Wyrm is drawn to fires in the night.

The peasants and serfs who live near to the edges of the Old Forest will on occasion drive a sheep or goat into the woods to appease the Wyrm, should the signs indicate the wisdom of such action. Many such customs have grown up in the areas about the Old Forest. Travelers will notice shrines with serpentine motifs beside trails and roads. The rustics leave gifts meant to placate the Wyrm and earn its disregard, if not its favor. Wards against the serpent are carved on door lintels and gates. More than a few of the villages and thorps nearby the Old Forest hold annual rites believed to mollify the Wyrm, some of these rituals are darker than others. The Wyrm seems rarely to roam far from the forest, but appears not to be bound to it in any way. In a few tales the Wyrm has been seen many leagues from the borders of the Old Forest. It was the Wyrm which legend says brought down the bridge of Cusrus and toppled the Tower of Nul.

Ahriplagupulus, the Master Tanner of Glumn, is said to have stuck to his tale of meeting the Wyrm even when put to the question by the Enlighteners. The tanner insisted that he was not so very drunk when he found the Wyrm half inside his sheep barn and engaged in devouring some of his choicest ewes. With spirituous, if not spirited, courage, he demanded payment for his losses from the ancient serpent. It is the testimony of Ahriplagupulus that the Wyrm regarded him coldly for thirty heartbeats, and then vomited up the corpse of Ahd the Rivener. The Wyrm bade the tanner strip the bejeweled armor from the dead man as compensation for the sheep, and then, when he had done so, again swallowed up the body and simply faded from view and was gone. To test the truth of his assertions, the tanner was bound to a board and dunked in a well until he drowned. There was some understandable unrest, as the tanner was well liked by those who knew him. The Enlighteners were unmoved by the peoples protests, maintaining that mankind is perpetually at war with the unknown terrors of the night, and in this war against the terrors, innocents must sometimes, unfortunately, be sacrificed.

One rarely told tale tells of a place in the Old Forest where it is sometimes possible to converse with the Wyrm in relative safety. A huge drum of fluted stone, called the Plinth of Terrible Wisdom, lies half buried in the loam of the forest floor. It would seem to once have been a part of an enormous building column, but no other evidence of a structure remains nearby. The Plinth is 20 feet across, and 12 feet of it projects above the ground. Atop the stone cylinder, the surface is inscribed with the image of a serpent which encircles the stone and grips its tail in its mouth. The legend states that if a person stands upon the Plinth in the dark of the moon and calls to the Wyrm with its true name, it will slither forth from the night and willingly speak with the caller. So long as the caller does not leave the Plinth, the Wyrm will not attack. So the tale goes. None who now live can confirm the facts, so those who would speak with the Wyrm in this manner risk their lives and dare the Fates.

The Wyrm of the Old Forest.

AC: -2, HD: 16, (128 hps), MV: 12”, (120 feet per round), No. of Attacks/Damage: 2/2D6, (bite), 2D12, (Constriction), Special: Venom/Breath Weapon/Charm

The Wrym is a titanic serpent over 140 feet in length. Along its back, spiny fins or sails project at irregular intervals. Its scales are a deep greenish black, and its eyes reveal an intellect ancient and malign.

The Wyrm takes no damage from non-magical weapons. It is immune to Charm and Hold spells.

The Wyrm possesses a power of fascination. Anyone who listens to the Wyrm speak for more than 3 rounds must Save VS Magic or be entranced by it. The Wyrm may then lay a Geas upon the victim, commanding them to perform a service, or bring it an item or sometimes a person.

The Wyrm possesses a dragon-like breath weapon, but may use it only once per day. The Wyrm may breathe forth a billowing cloud of scintillant mist. The mist fills a cone shaped area 60 feet wide and 60 feet long. All things exposed to the mist, living or not, age 16d10 years if they fail to Save VS Breath Weapon.

There is a 50% chance of spell failure which affects any casting performed within 300 feet of the Wyrm. This chance of failure is lessened by 10% for every level over the tenth of the caster. This is something which is inherent in the Wyrm and not a power which it may direct.

The Wyrm’s great fangs inject a powerful venom which requires the victim to Save Vs Poison at -2 or die immediately. Those who manage to evade death must still suffer the venom’s secondary effects. There is a 25% chance of madness, of the variety which results in terrible hallucinations and violence. There is also a 25% chance of Enfeeblement, as the spell, and a 50% chance of a reoccurring transformation. Roll 2d10 to determine which of the secondary effects the victim incurs.

If the victim suffers the reoccurring transformation, then at each dark of the moon hence, he will transform into a man-serpent in all respects identical to an Abomination of the Yuan-Ti. In this form, the victim will be filled with insensate rage and bloodlust, and until dawn breaks, will attempt to kill all creatures that it encounters. A Remove Curse may, 40% chance, end the cycle of transformations. If this fails to stop the changes, the only option remaining is to convince the Wyrm itself to lift the curse. It may well be willing to do this; its motivations are convoluted and veiled. It has been said that bathing in the blood of the Wyrm will also end the transformations, but as no one has ever succeeded in doing so, the truth is uncertain.

If it successfully hits with its bite, the Wyrm may coil about and constrict an opponent if it chooses. This it generally only does with Larger than Man-Sized opponents. A victim ensnared in the coils of the Wyrm must have strength equal to that of a Frost Giant to have any chance of breaking free.
-----------------------------------

The Wyrm is one of my Monsters, capital M, a unique creature that does not necessarily have to abide by the rules of monster, little m, creation. These stats are not set in stone,and if you'd like to use a version in your own game, by all means do so.
You can use the Wyrm as a simple monster for combat, but the idea is to replicate the vague fear of the unknown that the Monsters of fairy tale and myth inspire because no one agrees on their definitions or limits.
Players should be unsettled by dealing with a thing which may not follow the expected rules, but you can't do this sort of thing all the time, or they'll accuse you of being arbitrary and unfair.
Monsters like this are best used in campaigns with players who relish the feeling of danger and immersion that mythic backgrounds create. The fun of a creature like the Wyrm is not just in fighting it, but in the connection it makes with the past history of the game world. It make the players feel their characters are a part of the world they inhabit to have them interact with features, such as a legendary Monster, that existed before them, and will exist after they've gone to that great character folder in the sky.

Space Nazis control the Moon!

2010-02-15T19:26:00.000-08:00

" Hoagland recently told the listeners of Coast2Coast AM that the Norway Spiral incident that occurred in December, right before President Obama journeyed to Norway to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, was a demonstration of the power of the "Space Nazis" that warned the president not to return Americans to the Moon. The Moon, as Hoagland also told the audience of the Conscious Life Expo in Los Angeles over the weekend, is where a group of Nazis fled at the end of World War II. And the "Space Nazis" are warring with the "secret space program" to keep Americans, and apparently any other country wanting to exceed low Earth orbit, from going to the Moon. "

This is a quote I lifted from todays round up of weird news at The Anomalist, a site I enjoy very much.
http://www.anomalist.com/

Here are a few more links to sites I like that are also likely to provide you with some excellent gaming ideas.

Cliff Pickover's RealityCarnival
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/realitycarnival.html

Cryptomundo, Bigfoot, loch Ness and more.
http://www.cryptomundo.com/

Cryptozoology online.
http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/

The Charles Fort Institute. Grandmaster of Damned Data.
http://www.forteana.org/

Keep a weather eye out for the Space Nazis ladies and gentlemen, the blackguards must not be allowed to deny us the Moon!

The Once and Future Game. Old Guard Gaming isn't going anywhere.

2010-02-13T20:57:00.000-08:00

I know a lot of old gamers worry about the future of The Game, but I’m confident it’s not going to die off anytime soon.

When we’re discussing the future of Old Guard gaming, I think we’re discussing three different, but closely related things. The future of Dungeons & Dragons, (OD&D, AD&D, and the Retro-clones), the future of Old School gaming style and philosophy, and also the future of table top Role Playing Games themselves.

Each of these is seen as under threat from the same sources. You’ve got computer role playing games and shooters, the merchandising mentality that tries to insert the need for continual purchases of add-ons like cards, minis, splatbooks and new editions, which fractures the hobby and creates factions, and the disinterest of the kids who are creating their own diceless and freeform types of role playing over the internet. I think each of these things will have its day, but I don’t think any of them are a lasting threat to Old Guard D&D, or table top role playing in general.

This is why.

Original Dungeons & Dragons is the foundation of role playing games. Love it or hate it, there is no going around that. All following RPGs are efforts to copy it, improve it, or defy it, and those that seek to repudiate its assumptions still owe their creation to the prior example of OD&D.

Because The Game is at the root of all the various forms that contemporary role playing has taken, it is the most broadly applicable. This is important because it’s not the super specialized form that survives over time, it’s the adaptable generalist. This applies to just about everything, not just rpgs. Music, art, science, work and technology etc... More and more complex forms of what ever you care to look at specialize in a smaller and smaller niches until the conditions that supported that specialization end and the super specialized form is no longer viable. Then the generalist fills the gap again, OD&D can be tweaked, modified, amalgamated, and kit-bashed to serve just about any style of play or genre of fiction.

Original D&D laid out the basis of role playing games. Imagination, negotiation, discussion, and adjudication hung on a framework of rules as guidelines, and the results of actions determined by the dice. The fashion pendulum of rpgs has swung over time, giving priority to different parts of this structure at different times. From story telling and the narrative approach which exalts imagination and down plays rules and dice mechanics, to the rules oriented near-wargame which disregards both story and the randomness of dice in favor of iron clad system. OD&D is the center point where the swing of the pendulum begins, and the appearance of the OSR is the first return to that point.

In my view, Old Guard gaming allows the DM to draw on each of these facets of good design as appropriate for his game. Rules, imagination, and dice driven randomness are a mutually supporting triumvirate which make for the best gaming experience when given equal weight at the table. This is what I mean when I say OD&D is a generalist system. Being small, open to interpretation, and without an assumed style of play that the rules enforce, it will always be able to provide a satisfying game experience when players become disenchanted with the play style du jour.
All subsequent rpgs distort this three-fold structure to some extent, in one direction or another. Doing this emphasizes one facet at the expense of the others, and may deliver a more sharply defined theme to the players, but it does so by limiting the greater utility of the game. Soon enough, some new fad of gaming will seize the attention of the larger population of gamerdom and draw their attention away, but it’s only a matter of time before the pendulum swings back through Old Guard territory again.

And it always will.
Table top role playing provides an experience that no other media can. It is active, uncertain, and collaborative in real time. With a crew of the sort of mad visionary weirdos that role playing games attract sitting around a table together, there is just no telling what’s going to happen. Movies, books and tv provide experiences that people may passively observe, and imagine themselves in, but have no ability to affect the outcome of. Channeling this same imagination through a game with rules and other players whose actions affect the events of the game creates a far more real and exciting experience.

I’ve often heard people say that the graphics of computer games are better than their imagination. I honestly find that a bit frustrating, they’re not better than mine. I find crpgs to be the poor cousins of table top games, confining and quickly drained of possibility. I doubt that the fans of crpgs are expecting the same things from them that the fans of table top are looking for. The utter unpredictability of face to face role playing games is the thing I most enjoy, and this is also the thing that other media cannot provide. This unpredictability is also the thing which Old Guard gaming excels at, while most contemporary game styles attempt to suppress randomness in favor of story, or system. That’s probably the reason that’s at the heart of why I think table top rpgs, OD&D, and Old Guard gaming are not going anywhere any time soon.

As far as its relevance to future generations of role players goes, OD&D is just as much the core idea of the role playing game as it is a specific set of rules for playing it. No matter what form the dominate style of role playing takes in the future, there will be a percentage of those players who have an interest in the origins of their hobby. These will be the players who keep The Game from fading into obscurity in between the swings of the pendulum of fashion after the last of the Grognards has gone to sit at Gary’s table in the sky.

The real dangers I see to table top role playing come more from Hasbro than from shifts in cultural tastes. WOTC largely gave up its ability to make decisions about how the game would be presented once it whored itself to big business. Hasbro is no more of a friend to the rpg hobby than Walmart is to Mom&Pop stores. By repeatedly altering the game with new editions that seek to capitalize on the perceived tastes of each successive generation of possible gamers, the current owners of the name move the game further and further from its origin. Each edition amounts to increasing specialization, in effect painting the game into a corner from which, at some point, it will not be able to escape.

Now, I pay little attention, generally, to WOTC editions of D&D, they do not provide what I desire. The thing that can’t be ignored however is that they control the public perception of what the name means and what is to be expected from playing Dungeons & Dragons. They will continue to publish new editions every few years in an attempt to keep the revenue stream steady, and each of these future editions will cater to whatever market research indicates is Trend of the Day. The game bearing the name, Dungeons & Dragons could become unrecognizable in a fairly short time.
This could still be circumvented by determined young students of the history of rpgs so long as copies of original systems are available. Of course, acquiring such materials was made that much more difficult when WOTC stopped sales of out of print edition materials in PDF. The retro-clones are the best that can be done at the moment, and I’m grateful for them. I just wish that their progenitors could once again be published directly.

The death and break up of Hasbro is one happy possibility I see in the near future. At the same time that escapism in all its forms becomes more popular as the economy deteriorates, Giants like Hasbro will become less able to capitalize on it. Toys are their major market, not rpgs, and they may well sell off underperformers like WOTC. Whether or not they would hang onto D&D, I don’t know. In the best possible scenario, a competent small company, run by someone who loves and understands The Game would acquire it.

Now that the feckless morons in Washington and the economic illiterates who advise them have committed us to facing a thing that will make the Great Depression look like a minor inconvenience, we’ll be able to test this theory of mine.

Won’t that be interesting kids?!

Considering Class Design Theories.

2010-02-09T19:33:00.000-08:00

I had a short, but thought provoking exchange with Zak S of Playing D&D with Porn Stars a few days ago in the comments of one of his recent posts. It started me considering just what it was I was doing when I think about a potential new class for The Game.
Everyone has basic assumptions about The Game that they absorbed when they first started to play. Depending on which edition you were first exposed to, you internalize views about D&D, how it’s played, what it’s about, how the rules are to be applied, etc… This really applies to everything, music, cars, whatever, first impressions set the standard and are difficult to overcome.

My first edition was the Holmes basic box, and then on to AD&D, where I’ve been happy to stay ever since, occasionally venturing out to plunder other systems and drag their choice bits back to my lair to see if they may be assimilated.

Resistance is futile.

Anyway, I think that when you are designing a character class for The Game, the degree of definition of the class will depend on what your vision of the game world entails, as much as which edition of the rules you are playing by, and what view you have about how those rules are to be applied. In my mind the notion of classes of people in the game world reflects the archetypes of the sorts of figures and characters in the fiction and literature that the game world is made of.
I think there is a sliding scale here that describes the degree of resolution you’re comfortable with in your version of The Game. The scale moves from very broad character types in OD&D, (a fighter class character can be anything from a pikeman to a cavalier to a gladiator to a goat herder with a rock), to the extremely and tightly defined classes of the newest edition, which run like Swiss watches, but are rigid and inflexible.

In the medieval world, society was seen as divided into three parts. Those who pray, those who fight, and those who work. These are broad, archetypal classes, similar to OD&D classes. You could add to this, those who use magic, and those who steal, and delete the workers and you’d have the standard line up of Cleric, Fighter, Magic-user, and Thief. Subclasses and refinements of these basic classes cover just about all the types of characters that make sense, to me, in the game. From this point, further character types, and increased definition of the abilities of those characters are more a matter of increasing the flavor and depth of the game world than they are of increasing player choice. Of course I’m not against that; I do it all the time. I see it as a matter of detailing and embellishing the game though, rather than fixing something that is, “broken.”

I think for a class to be fitting in the game, it should in fact simulate a group of people who appear in significant numbers in the game world. To actually rate a character class, there should be an actual occupational or social class of people to support the archetype. That’s where I’m coming from when I consider character classes; I’m trying to simulate in game terms a given archetype from what ever media, generally fantasy or science fiction, that has caught my eye, and that I think can be made to fit my game world.

This means that though I give the class advantages and disadvantages, whether or not it’s balanced against the other classes in the game isn’t really my top priority. The idea that all classes must be equal in effectiveness in all situations strikes me as bit creepily Marxist. I suppose it’s the spirit of the age infecting The Game. Though a PC is also a playing piece, I suppose the gamist point of view is not my primary one. It’s one of my assumptions that you play the game to simulate being a certain type of character and experience fantastic situations, more than to dominate or attempt to “win the game”. This may or may not be one assumption you share, but I expect good sportsmanship in my players and a co-operative spirit amongst them, as players if not as characters.

Any character class that leaves details open to interpretation, leaves them open to player abuse. That’s an acceptable risk to me as that’s something I can deal with. Openness in the rules is what makes them flexible enough to accommodate any eventuality. Bad faith players will face the iron gauntlet of retributive DM fiat. Like I’ve said, I was a ruthless min/maxer as a kid, but now I want a sense of immersion in the character and the world.

I don’t do voices though, and no singing.

In building a PC, I see two routes to creating an interesting character. You can go with the bare bones OD&D archetypal classes, fighter, Magic-user, cleric, and then create secondary rules to further flesh them out, or rely on negotiation between the player and the DM to determine what the PC can do, other than what is explicitly spelled out in the rules. This is the least restrictive and most free form method, at least as far as D&D goes.

I’m a Holmes/AD&D baby though, so I’m not adverse to skill systems like that introduced with the Thief class. I still think that role-playing by the players and description of the actions they want to perform and how, plus negotiation are the “best” way to run The Game, but, there will be times when it’s necessary to have a written skill system to fall back on. If the players encounter a problem they can’t solve that’s killing the game’s momentum and stalling play, if they are a shy or retiring group and don’t want to speak up, or the problem is trivial and holding up progress, I just default to rolling for it.

Just where it is on the character class creation scale that your preferences lie depends on your personal gaming philosophy and which edition of the rules formed the foundation of your assumptions about The Game. Of course, the edition you started with may not be the one you are philosophically predisposed to prefer. I think the rapid success and expansion of the OSR indicates that quite a few younger gamers are finding the earlier editions more to their taste than the newer ones. You don’t have to be old to be Old Guard.

The Spy character class; "The name is Bond, Fantastic-medieval Bond".

2010-02-05T10:13:00.000-08:00

The Spy Character Class.

The Spy is a character class specializing in information gathering, the theft or recovery of objects, and assassination. A spy may be an agent of a government body or a given Lord, a religious Leader or church, or a powerful mage or organization of magic-users. A spy may also be a free agent, offering his skills and services to those willing to pay for them. A spy may also work purely for his own immediate gain, without the direction of a patron if he so chooses.

A spy will never admit to his profession. Instead, a spy will employ a Cover Class, acting as though he were in fact, a fighter, thief, magic-user or cleric. Thief, fighter, or else merchant, tradesman, or courtier are the cover classes preferred by spies. Pretending to be a magic-user or cleric may put the spy in the position of being expected to perform magic of which he is not capable. Even the spy’s close companions and adventuring partners are unlikely to be privy to his true class status.

A spy always starts his career in the service of a given power. The training in espionage a spy requires can be taught by very few mentors and is even more hidden and esoteric than that of most schools of magic use. A first level spy will likely still be in the influence of the spy master who mentored him, if not in direct service to him. As a parting, or graduation gift, a spy master will often bestow upon his apprentice a list of contacts and bolt holes. These contacts will be people of various levels of social status who are allies of the spy master, or at least owe him a debt. They will aid the spy at need, to a degree.

In addition to the abilities he learns that directly involve spy craft, a spy learns a wide range of skills which are used to blend into the populations through which he must move unnoticed in the practice of his art. A spy may learn art appraisal, mercantile sense, horse breeding, iron working, or any other field of knowledge needed to support the guises he may work under. These skills and whether or not a dice mechanism is to be attached to them are left to the preferences of the Dungeon Master.

A spy is a competent combatant, attacking on the fighter matrix, but primarily operates by misdirection, stealth, and subterfuge. A spy will avoid melee unless reasonably certain of victory.

A spy can be of any alignment. Spies who are both Lawful and Good are, however, few and far between.

The spy class is open to all races.

A spy rolls D8 for hit points.

A spy may use any melee weapon without penalty. A spy may acquire weapon proficiencies in the same manner as would a fighter.

A spy who attacks with Surprise may assassinate his target as would an assassin class character of equal level.

A spy is always on the look-out for concealed or secret doors or hiding places and has been trained to find them. A spy has a 2 out of 6 chance of noticing such things upon entering a room. This increases to a 3 out of 6 chance if exclusively and actively searching.

Intelligence is the primary attribute of the spy. A spy must have an intelligence score no lower than 10. An intelligence score greater than 15 will give the spy a 10% bonus to experience points earned. A spy with a 15 or better intelligence will, at 9th level, have a 50% chance to learn an alignment language that is within two steps removed from his own.

A spy may wear armor which is consistent with that available to his Cover Class. Generally, a spy will prefer light, non-metallic armor, or depend upon magical protections rather than be encumbered by the heavy metal armor of the fighting man. A spy will be unable to employ either his thieving abilities, or perform an assassination if wearing armor other than leather, or studded leather.

A spy may Open Locks, Find/Remove Traps, Move Silently, Hide in Shadows, Listen at Doors, and Ascend/Descend Vertical Surfaces as would a thief of equal level. As with thieves, the spy’s chance to succeed in these endeavors is considered to be over and above that of a non-spy or unclassed character.

A spy may also Read Person. By observation of a given person, and/or directly engaging that person in conversation, a spy may be able to discern something of that person’s character or motivation. A spy has a base chance of 10% to Read Person at first level. This chance increases by 10% per level of experience, and a 1% bonus per point of intelligence over 10 is also accrued. It is wholly up to the Dungeon Master’s discretion what insights into the read person’s character or motivations the spy may gain by success.

A spy may also Disguise himself and/or Pose as another person in the pursuit of his goals. Disguise refers to physical changes in the spy’s appearance achieved by the use of wigs, clothing, prosthesis, or cosmetics. Pose refers to the spy’s ability to impersonate a given personage successfully. Ordinary NPCs that have no reason to suspect the spy is other than he presents himself will automatically be taken in by the disguise or pose. NPCs with class abilities who are wary, or have reason to be suspicious have a base 2% chance, cumulative per day of interaction with the spy, of realizing that the spy is not who he purports to be. Guardsmen, Shire-riffs, moneychangers, Lords and military officers are of the sorts of NPCs which would be wary of spies.

A spy’s class advancement follows the same numerical progression as the Thief’s.

A spy may contract hirelings, but will not attract henchmen. Rather, a spy will cultivate contacts. These persons are often of dubious nature, but may largely be counted on to help the spy in a pinch, providing information, victuals, a hiding place, or equipment.

At 10th level a spy becomes a spy master and if he wishes, may found a safe-hold and gather his own circle of spies. A spy master will create safe-holds in multiple locations. A safe-hold will always be hidden from common knowledge behind a front, such as a tavern, a school, or a bath house. Apprentice spies, properly vetted, may be sent to the safe-hold for training by contacts or former clients of the spy master. A high level Spy Master will not rule a demesne directly, as might a Fighter-Lord, but through his network of contacts, spies, and associates, is likely to have far greater influence on the course of events.

The spy is a reprioritization of the assassin, blended with the thief, plus some additions of my own to more closely simulate the sort of character you see in modern espionage fiction, but reshaped to fit a fantastic medieval game world. I think the class would fit in well in a setting or campaign that indulged in intrigue or the "Game of Houses" scenario.
The spy class abilities I've left fairly open ended as far as the mechanics go. I of course think that role playing out the read person, disguise, and pose abilities is the best way to go. You will have situations where the player, or DM may not feel up to it, or don't want to spend the game time on it though, so the mechanics are there as a back stop.
I also think it would be fun in a standard adventuring type of campaign. That PC that wears leather armor and claims to be a fighter, whom the party assumes to be a theif, might actually be a spy wearing a double cover class. Maybe he's a freelancer, maybe he reports to the Local Lord, maybe it goes higher than that.
Throw some rival NPC adventurers, the Tax-Monger, The Slave Merchants Guild, and the Unlicensed Purveyors of black lotus juice into the mix, and an honest, hard plundering party of adventurers may have a more difficult time in fencing their haul than they did in acquiring it.

Huzzah!

I'll be interested to hear any feedback, additions or changes that occur to you. This is my first draft of the idea, and I expect to make some changes.

Art wise, we've got some Mead Scheaffer(sp?), a Jeff Jones piece for Red Shadows, and a wood cut illustration I found somewhere.

The Universal Tarentino Game Mechanic.

2010-02-01T18:49:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago, Trollsmyth put up an interesting post concerning rules design.

http://trollsmyth.blogspot.com/2010/01/rules-and-rewards.html

Let me quote from the post here where he quotes JB 's post from B/X Blackrazor.
"Good game design rewards behavior meeting the objectives of play. "

"By which he means, an effective game rewards the sort of play that the game is intended to create. To whit, if you make the Tarantino Cinematic RPG, it should involve lots of people sitting around and communicating who they are as people by using pop culture references when discussing matters of morality and psychology, or invoking the creative process, punctuated by periods of horrendous and blood-spattering violence. "

This, of Course, sounds wonderful to me. I'd love a Tarentino themed game. The first time I saw Reservoir Dogs, I thought, "Hey, these characters talk like the guys and I do in real life". It's just that Tarentino characters get to shoot people while philosophizing instead of just drinking coffee.

Trollsmyth suggests an interesting mechanic to facilitate the Tarentino game experience, which I also like.

"So in our Tarantino game, maybe every character starts with an artistic obsession and a secret existential crisis that is referenced by those obsessions and a pile of poker chips. Getting another character (that is, the player, in this case) to agree with your argument as to the worthiness of your obsession earns you a poker chip, and two if you can turn their argument towards promoting the worth of one of your obsessions. However, if they guess your existential crisis, you have to surrender most of your chips to them, and those chips are the only things that will keep you alive in the extremely brutal combat that is always threatening to erupt."

This is a good thought, and applicable to a story oriented game. However, I avoid anything that feels like a "story reward" type mechanic. That way lies narrativism and story games, Ewwwww.
My preference is for creating a series of potential events in a game scenario that may or may not occur and may or may not influence each other. I don't plot out any over arching story line that leads to a climactic confrontation. Sure It'll probably happen, but the player characters determine by their actions just how the game will play out, not me.
Tarentino's movies feel like Old School gaming to me anyway. There's lots of competing characters, each with their own motivations, all crashing into each other and spinning off crazy situations that nobody could have planned. That's D&D to me.

So, how to bring the Cinematic Tarentino theme to the Old School game I like? This is what I'm thinking.

Every player picks a theme song for their character at the character generation phase of start up. Tarentino movies are chock full of atmospheric music that accompanies those brutal gun battles and combats along with the philosophical bone gnawing, without it his movies would lose alot of their impact, I think. Consider the use of Stealers Wheel in Reservior Dogs, you're not going to forget that bit with the straight razor and the gasoline any time soon.

Every player then rolls a 1d4 to determine the number of times per game that they can play their theme song. You'd have to have a stereo, or maybe and mp3 or other sound file player, with the chosen theme songs keyed up on it. A nice sounding system would be necessary, tiny tinny speakers would make the whole thing seem silly instead of funky grim and groovy.

PCs would have to have initiative, or surprise in order to declare a theme song action. So long as the song plays, that particular PC receives bonuses to his actions. Pluses to hit, increases in skill level, etc. Once the song comes to an end, the bonuses vanish. The power of the theme song bonus could increase with level, should any PC survive the game. I would sort of expect a Tarentino theme game to end in a TPK most of the time, that's part of the idiom.

The length of the song would be a real time limit on the duration of the theme song bonus. Most songs only last 3 or 4 minutes of real time, and that's not a lot in an RPG combat situation. Also, since the PC can only use the theme song a limited number of times per game, they aren't likely to waste it on frivolous events.

If more than one Player wants to employ the theme song bonus at the same time, I think I'd make them dice for it. Or maybe create some sort of character coolness index chart which would determine which character has more Tarentino in his veins. Yah, dig it, Daddy-O?

You could bolt this on to just about any RPG and make it work without too much trouble, I think.
Getting the music system set up satisfactorily and keeping the players from squabbling over songs would be the tougher part.
I think this would be a good way to inject some of that Pulp Fiction spirit into any game without having to work out a complete rule set just for it.

I was really thinking of this as applicable to modern gritty pulp and crime type gaming at first, but I think you could Tarentino just about any genre.

Basil Polidourus's Conan soundtrack has lots of great stuff for Sword & Sorcery type D&D gaming. I guess you could use just about anything that fit with the theme of your game

I'd use Johnny Cash for an Aces & Eights or other western character theme. "God'll cut you down", would be great tune for that. Or some of those spaghetti western themes like "the Ecstasy of Gold".

I think I'd like a little Monster Magnet for a Weird Planet type game.

In any case, this would be a way of incorporating the background music a lot of people like to play during games as an actual part of the game. I haven't tried this myself yet, but I'm sure the guys would be willing to give it a spin.

Warg Hound. Sit, stay, fetch my pipe and broad sword. Good boy, have a goblin.

2010-01-27T15:52:00.000-08:00

Warg Hound.

Frequency: Very Rare
No. appearing: 1-4
Armor Class: 5, or by armor type.
Move: 18",(180 feet per round), 16" if armored.
Hit Dice: 5
% in Lair: 40% (kennel)
Treasure Type: nil
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: 2-12 (bite)
Special Attacks: Savage or Hold, see below.
Special Defenses: Game, see below.
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Low
Alignment: Lawful Good
Size: L, (5 feet at the shoulder, 400 lbs)
Psionic Ability: Nil

As normal wolf hounds were bred to fight wolves, so has the warg hound been bred to combat wargs. It is assumed that magic of some sort played a role in the creation of these mighty dogs, but the facts of their origin are lost in the past.

The greater size, strength, and also the malevolent cunning of wargs required the creation of a dog of heroic stature and unrelenting nature. Warg hounds are loyal to the point of self sacrifice, obedient and eager to do battle with the enemies of their masters.

They are very intelligent dogs, and learn to work with men and horses in war. They are often armored in boiled leather with studs or metal plate, depending on the situation.

When used in hunting wargs or other unnaturally large or powerful creatures, such as owlbears, or the black boar of the forest, the dogs employ tactics specific to each creature.
Wargs will be run until exhausted, then held until the hunters arrive and dispatch it. An owlbear will be harried from many sides until worn down. The dogs will not allow it to choose a single target for its fury, instead alternating attacks from all sides.

Warg hounds are only found in areas where there is great need of them. The cost of housing, training, and feeding a dog the size of a cart pony are such that only warlike border lords, and boundary chieftains will maintain them.

If a warg hound hits successfully on it's first attack, the second round it will automatically Savage a man-sized or smaller target, vigorously shaking the victim for the same amount of damage as it's initial bite caused.

A larger than man-sized target the dog will Hold on a successful hit, gripping an extremity with iron determination in its powerful jaws. This will slow the targets movement rate by half. If a second Warg hound also successfully hits and Holds, the target is stopped completely, and easily killed by hunters or a third warg hound.

A warg hound is considered, Game, meaning it never needs to check morale and will not retreat or abandon other dogs or humans no matter the enemy faced. Also, a warg hound will continue to fight down to -10 hit points before death.

A warg hound is considered Lawful, in the sense that it is absolutely obedient to its master's commands. The great dogs crave purpose and order. The warg hounds are considered to be Good in that they are protective of humans and especially vigilant around children.

Warg hounds are bred to work, and not to a standard, so though they generally are short, or wire haired, they may be of any color or pattern. Most often, the warg hounds of the north are brindle, while those of the south are white.

The top pic is a Presa Canario, the the bottom is a trio of Dogo Argentino holding a wild boar.
These are fairly recently created breeds, purposely designed for hunting large and dangerous animals.

The idea for the Warg Hound popped into my head a couple days ago. It just seemed logical that people faced with extraordinary threats would created extraordinary responses to deal with them. I've been reading all the Tolkien talk about the blogosphere lately and the Professor's Wargs were one of those things that made an impression on me as young grognard.

So, I was sitting on the couch, watching the Dog Whisperer with the Pupster, my pitbull/labrador mix and Caesar got himself bitten by a big German Shepherd. The Pupster woofed, cause he likes to hear Caesar's voice, even if he doesn't learn much from the show.
That's when I thought, hmmm, in a game world, people would have to have some way of dealing with wargs and owlbears and such when there aren't any PCs around to save them. How do real world people deal with real world wolves and bears in a medieval setting? Big Dogs!

Insertable Encounters #1: Captain Yurik needs all hands.

2010-01-20T20:20:00.000-08:00

Although the fishing is rich in the Bay of Ceol, the fishers of the coast dare not to cast their nets beneath its murky waters. They speak of the matter to none, but know well that another sets his lures there, though he seeks men, and not fish.

Sunk deep below the choppy green water of the bay lies the ship of Yurik Blacktooth, once the most feared pirate of the coast. Few now remember the sight of his red sails on the horizon, or the terror that rolled before him. It is said that finally Yurik descended into such depravity that the sea itself reached up and sank his vessel to end his blasphemies. What act brought down the curse, or what power the pirate offended is a secret known to none now living.

What the fishermen will tell, should their closely held confidence be won, is that Yurik died, and yet he lives. He is seen on rare occasions, walking across the bottom of the bay, or stalking those who come near to the shore. The fishermen say that the pirate captain is cursed to remain below the waves and may not leave the confines of the bay until such time as he has gathered a new crew to man his ship.
In places near the shore, the gleam of gold may sometimes be discerned upon the seafloor. Though they are poor, the fisher folk let the treasure lie untouched; for they know that Yurik lurks nearby, waiting to seize any who would venture into the water.

Yurik Blacktooth, Unique undead, AC: 2, HD: 8, (64 hps), MV: 10”,(100 feet), NO.of Attacks/Damage: 2/1d10, Special: Drowning Touch.

Captain Yurik is an undead creature in a category of his own. He still appears to be a living man, though fish-pale and hungry eyed. His curse prevents him from leaving the water, or extending any part of himself above the waves. In order to draw victims within his grasp, Yurik has made tempting heaps of golden coins and treasure in shallow, (8’-12’ deep), water near the shore. He stays just out of sight in the hazy depths, eager to seize and slay any whose greed overcomes their caution.

Yurik will always concentrate his attacks on a single target. If he successfully hits with both of his attacks, then as well as the given damage, the victim must Save (VS Spell), or drown instantly.

If a drowned victim is rescued from the unliving pirates grip within 6 rounds, he can be resuscitated by clerical magic such as Heal, or Cure Heavy Wounds.
Yurik is no mindless undead, he will fight with a weapon if need be, but prefers to kill using his Drowning Touch if at all possible. His victims must be slain in this manner if they are to be of use to him in breaking his curse.

All those which Yurik slays, he will then bear back to the wreck of his ship. There they are reanimated as sea zombies and bound to the service of the remorseless raider.
When the day comes he has gathered a full crew complement, the ship will rise again to the surface, and Yurik will be free to leave the bay and resume his life of piracy.
Or rather, his unlife. Nothing will lift the whole of his curse. Only final and total destruction will end Yurik Blacktooth’s reign of terror.

* I'm going to put up one shot encounters like this that will be insertable in any game with a bit of willing modification on the part of the DM. I'm leaving them suggestive, but not completely nailed down, so that you can fill in or change things to suite your game world and style of play.

Captain Yurik was inspired by the pic at the top, of course. It's an illustration by the Mighty Howard Pyle and from his Book of Pirates, 1902. Do some image searching if you love classic pirate illustration, only maybe Frank Schoonover came close to Pyle in the great pirate art department.
Heh... pirate art department. "Arhhh! Today class, we be study'n impressionism, drink up me hearties and it'll be makin more sense tah yeh."

I found a bottle of jagermiester in the back of the fridge this evening. Buried treasure me lads, yo ho!

Ewart Oakeshott assures me that variable weapon damage is ok.

2010-01-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

Ewart Oakeshott, 1916-2002 was and is one of my favorite authorities on the medieval sword. It was Oakeshotts sword typology which really made clear to me the great variety of design and purpose of medieval European swords.

It was Oakeshott who refocused the attention of academia and collectors on the blade itself, instead of merely the swords furniture. Previous studies of swords tended to pay more attention to guards, hilts,and pommels than they did to the blade.
The blade is the sword, however. Oakeshott recognized the sword as a tool designed to perform a function, rather than a totem of war, or a ceremonial showpiece.

Oakeshott's typology concerns the blades shape, length, cross section, and structural design, and groups blades in families of related designs that show how the weapons evolved to overcome the improving defences they faced.
There has always been an arms race, it just used to be slower and more subtle.

Modern sensibilities tend to focus on the flashy weapons of kings and princes. Gold plated hilts and gem stone pommels are what you see in movies and fantasy art, along with ridiculously huge blades with extraneous flairs and curves that no man could actually lift, let alone use in melee.
That sort of thing disrupts my belief in the game world. I haven't any problem accepting a thousand pound, fire-breathing reptilian monster in a fantasy world. I suppose that's because it's not really much of a jump from dinosaurs to dragons.
A twenty pound sword however, makes me roll my eyes. I split alot of wood, with a 6 pound maul and a double bit axe. I play around some with the swords in my own collection, the largest of which is just over 4 pounds, and a two-hander. Actually using anything that weighs more than 4 pounds in melee combat is beyond the capabilities of most humans.

A melee weapon will be as heavy as it must to perform it's function, and no heavier. Speed in combat is more telling than force, and if you use a weapon that is so large it slows your attack, you will be killed by the guy who uses a less clumsy and faster killing tool.

So much for the real world.

In the Original Edition of The Game all weapons did D6 damage and many aficionados of OD&D and it's retro-clone, Swords&Wizardry use this system. It's fast, and straight forward and streamlines combat to keep the action moving quickly. From the stand point of game rules, it's eminently sensible and is in keeping with the Old School philosophy of rules light gaming.

These are all things I'm in favor of, but I'm an AD&D guy at heart, and I have no problem with variable weapon damage. I prefer the idea in fact. I'm willing to spend the extra few seconds to check a weapons damage rating if I don't already know it.

In an ideal situation, a dagger can kill as easily as a two handed sword, certainly. A single deep thrust from a six inch blade will let the life out of an opponent as surely as would loosing their head to the mighty swing of a four foot blade.

This ideal situation is something that almost never occurs in life though. If you were in a actual melee situation, I think I'm safe in assuming you'd rather be the one with the two handed sword and not the guy with the dagger. This is what I think the variable weapon damage accurately reflects.

Since AD&D/OD&D combat is abstract in nature, the difference in weapon damage is the difference in the potential harm the weapon can cause. Either the dagger doing d4 damage, or the two-handed sword doing 1d10 damage could kill with one blow, but the sword is more likely to do so.

At least at low level, where The Game is most true to life. I've only once had a character make it past 10th level myself. I just prefer low level gaming, it's more thrilling I think.

I've pasted in a few illustrations of portions of Oakeshott's sword typology from historicalweapons.com. These are just a few of the types covered in the full typology. There are sub-types within most categories. The typology covers viking age to renaissance sword types.

For some reason I don't understand, blogger is not allowing me to cut and paste links tonight.

So, you'll have to type these in for yourself if you would like to read more on the web about Ewart Oakeshott and his work.

myarmory.com has and excellent bio of the man, and a type by type example of the swords that make up the typology. There is also a wealth of other arms and armor related information if you're like me, a DM who dwells on that sort of thing.

oakeshott.org will take you to the Oakeshott Institute. The Institute houses Oakeshott's own sword collection and works to expand on his research.

Wyrd Greyhawk. Concerning Raise Dead, they don't come back the same.

2010-01-11T10:40:00.000-08:00

James over at Grognardia just put up an interesting post on his concerns about Raise Dead in his Dwimmermount campaign.
There's always been an interesting back and forth on Raise Dead, and it's effect on the play experience. Does it make the game less exciting and intense? Does it lessen the sting of death, since you can bring your PC back from the grave and soldier on? Is it contrary to the Sword&Sorcery foundation of the game?

There's plenty to say, pro and con on allowing the recovery of PCs from death. And I'm sure you've probably already chewed this over yourselves, and read all the arguments, so I'm just going to share what I do for Wyrd Greyhawk.

Raise Dead is not a spell or power that I allow Player Characters.
Only the most puissant of NPC Clerics, those with the ear of their god, are able to return the dead to life.

PCs who wish to raise a dead comrade will have to present their case to such a personage with care, and it will certainly not be cheap. In fact, it's likely to beggar them, or put them in the debt of the Cleric or his church to a great extent.
They may be tasked for a time, or for a set number of services to pay off the debt if they can't produce the wealth in coin or treasure.
There isn't a drive-up window for bringing the dead back from the grave, it's an event of divine gravity for the cleric and not considered lightly.

It's also not a Get-Out-Of-Death Free Card for the PC.

A PC raised from the dead will undergo a forced alignment change to match that of the Cleric, (and his god),who raised him. This will almost certainly change the PC's personality, and a Player has to be willing to go this route with the character if he wants to have him raised.

If the PC's new alignment is in conflict with his old class, he will be forced to adopt a new class that is acceptable. There is a 25% chance that the PC will experience a revelation and wish to become a cleric of the god who provided the divine power to raise him in any case. Even a shiftless murderer of a thief may find himself a,"born again believer" after tasting death.

If not, then the new class is treated as if dealing with a Dual Class Character under the AD&D rules. A PC who doesn't become a follower of the raising god is free to choose a new class if he likes, so long as it doesn't conflict with his new alignment.
The raised PC keeps his hit points, less a 10% penalty for having been DEAD, but starts over as a 1st level PC of the new class.

If the players are the type who just see a PC as a playing piece, they likely won't bother with raise dead or resurrection. They'll just roll up a new PC and Game-On. If they're the type who like to immerse themselves in the character, they'll likely enjoy the challenge of playing an altered version of their PC.

Win-win.

Raise Dead is not as big of a game-changer any more. The death of the PC isn't a trivial thing or a speed bump in PC advancement. In a sense, the original PC is still dead, and only players who really want that PC back in whatever form will go to all the trouble of getting him raised, since it will have an effect on the direction of the campaign.

That's what I do. Tah-Da!