Moral Compass

So. Let me be the first to admit that any "fame" (notoriety) or "fortune" (beer money) I have acquired in the RPG hobby is almost entirely due to the internet. 

And yet I am hopelessly naive about the business of using the internet in any kind of effective way. I have a (personal) Facebook page that I never update or look at. I have a Twitter account that I only use to follow local sports team reporters. I don't use Instagram or TikTok or..."Mammoth?" (that's a thing, right?) or even have the apps to access them.  I don't really worry about "cancel culture" or being "cancelled;" if the few hundred folks who check up on what I have to say suddenly stopped doing so, it really wouldn't affect me very much at all. I'd probably even continue writing books (slowly)...just because I've now, at this late point in my life, found that I enjoy the act of creating and self-publishing game material.

But, of course, I have the luxury of acting this way, because I don't rely on this RPG stuff as my livelihood. It is not my means of supporting (feeding) my family. It is not the way that I pay my rent. I can act in cavalier fashion, because if no one purchased another book from me or if I never wrote another blog post again, it would not affect my quality of life one iota. Hell, it might improve my quality of life, if I tossed everything aside and started a bagel shop or something (I don't know...just spitballing). I could still play D&D (with friends and family) even if no one outside my locale wanted anything to do with me...and to be clear there are VERY FEW people outside my locale (even in the RPG community) that even know I exist, even now. 

I'm just some dude: a faceless name in this niche of a niche hobby.

James Raggi is not a faceless name. In fact, as far as publishers go in the so-called "OSR" I daresay he's the BIGGEST name in the biz. Gavin Norman's OSE may sell more than Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but LotFP has been around longer. Dan Proctor and Stuart Marshall may have penned their retro-clones earlier, but the scope of their ambition was far more limited than Raggi. Goodman Games may be a powerhouse in the OSR world, but they have an entire team of individuals doing the work that Raggi has taken on his own shoulders...at least, that would be the assumption based on press releases (Joseph Goodman isn't quite the shameless self-promoter that Raggi has been over the years). 

Everyone else is 'small potatoes' in comparison...and with good reason. Raggi's impact on the OSR business has been immense. Turning his passion into a livelihood, as opposed to a garage-band hobby. Cranking out high quality product rather than vanity press releases. Pushing the envelope of artistry and taste and innovation within the OSR realm. Taking risks and blazing trails in ways that few, if any, had the gumption to do.

All that might make me sound like some kind of "super-fan" of Mr. Raggi. I'm not. I've purchased exactly two of his products over the years: a PDF of Death Frost Doom and a slim hardcover of LotFP volume 1, "Rules & Magic." Most of his products are simply items in which I have no interest. Many of the ideas that fascinate and entertain James as an artist and creator hold no water for me. It's not that I find the content abhorrent, revolting, or morally repugnant...it's just not 'my thing.' Same as I'm not into the cutesy D&D exemplified by Strixhaven Academy and such.

Likewise, I don't follow his blog these days (haven't for years, ever since it became mostly biz-related / promotional), or keep up on Raggi's role in whatever's the latest OSR drama. LotFP does, however, continue to exhibit it's own gravitational force in the waters I swim, and so I am at least peripherally aware that the company continues to limp along, existing.

On or around January 2nd, I had the chance to listen to Raggi's video declaration of "commercial suicide;" for those uninterested in the state of James's physical, mental, and financial health, I'd recommend skipping to minute 18 in the video. For those who don't want to bother, I can sum up pretty easily: going forward, James has decided that his company (LotFP) will publish products by artists and creators regardless of any controversy surrounding said individuals or any public outcry for giving such individuals a platform to express themselves creatively. 

I think I've listened to the entire screed some three times now (generally with the speed turned up), and I find myself 100% supportive of his position, his reasoning, and his moral compass. In fact, regardless of any commercial success or "suicide" that might result from such a stance, I think it's the only rational position...or position of integrity...that Raggi, as the man he professes to be, as the possibility he professes to believe in, can take.

Back in 2021 I wrote a post describing how I would henceforth forgo questions of politics (or opinion or belief) when it came to my gaming purchases...and, in part, this was due to with the fatigue of arguing politics and the downright inanity of trying to "vet" or police every product that crosses my path. Raggi's non-manifesto manifesto is a cry for logic and reason...a statement based in the fact that the internet (and social media) is not necessarily reality. For all any of my readers know, I may well be something extremely different from what I represent on this blog...people I've never met in person, but with whom I've had plenty of 'net interaction might be completely fictitious avatars representing, well, anything (any person) who has a finger that can poke at a keyboard.  Those of us who allow ourselves to be controlled by "internet opinion" or any story/rumor/gossip/scandal are...hoo-boy, we are asking for it.

But set all that aside (i.e. just keep it in the back of your mind while I write the next bit): we humans (yeah, all of us) are HUMANS...fallible humans. Some of us are real fuck-ups when it comes to getting along with our fellow humans on this planet...and, yet, there still exists within all of us the chance to create something of positive value for our fellows and (the possibility, at least) future generations...REGARDLESS of our failings.

Set aside the "gaming scene" for a second and let's look at a different scene: the National Football League.  The NFL is an industry that generates billions of dollars per year...it is gigantic. And, yet, the employees of this organization (players, coaches, owners, admin staff) contain individuals who are fallible humans. Some beat their domestic partners. Some are sexual predators. Some are rapists. A handful have been murderers. And many of these individuals could (in their younger years) have been accused of the same kind of BULLYING that schools have attempted to crack down in the last decade or two. 

And yet...and yet many of these people do HUGE, POSITIVE things for their communities, donating their time, their fame, their fortune to helping individuals in need. Visiting cancer wards in Children's hospitals on a weekly basis. Digging wells in Africa. Rebuilding homes wrecked by hurricanes. Donating millions to disenfranchised children and victims of domestic violence. Raising money for cancer research. And THAT is just the "charitable" aspect of the NFL...the NFL itself creates jobs and revenue for all the people whose livelihoods are tied to the sports: hotels and restaurants and bars and service industries and all that goes with the billions of dollars of television revenue. That's putting food on tables and gas in cars.

All that besides the entertainment the League brings...and besides the way sports teams galvanize communities, bringing together individuals of all different races and religions and beliefs in support of their hometown colors.

Some of the people in this world are real pieces of shit: guys like Harvey Weinstein for example. I'd imagine that many of his victims are happy that he was convicted in a court of law and is now in prison. Probably there are those who wish Weinstein's punishment had been harsher or had happened decades earlier (the allegations of his sexual predation and rapes extend back to 1980). 

But say Weinstein had been jailed and thrown out of the movie business decades earlier; what would be the impact on the lives of individuals. Weinstein was directly responsible for the launch of many young actors and filmmakers careers. His company produced many uplifting, moving, and groundbreaking films. He's been an activist and philanthropist on a number of health and social issues; he was a founding member and board director of the Robin Hood Foundation since 1988, raising hundreds of millions to fight poverty. Miramax (Weinstein's company) release and distribution of The Thin Blue Line in the that same year is directly credited with gaining the release of wrongly convicted death row inmate Randall Adams...I'd guess he'd have some nice things to say about Mr. Weinstein.

[this 2017 analysis of Academy Award acceptance speeches from 1966 to 2016 found that Weinstein had been thanked or praised in 34 speeches—as many times as God, and second only to Steven Spielberg]

Point being: Weinstein is an example of human potential...a person with the capacity for doing both good and evil in this world. Plenty of other examples are available, from Alfred Nobel ("the merchant of death") to Marion Zimmer Bradley (whose aid was invaluable in getting many young authors...especially female authors...their start in the publishing biz). The longer people are around on this planet, the more opportunities they have to do both good and bad. Doesn't mean we should condone harmful actions (harmful actions should be condemned), nor am I trying to imply in any way, shape, or form that "the end justifies the means," or that good actions excuse bad actors; they do not. I'm only pointing out that good can come from anyone.

Back to LotFP: Raggi is not about supporting "the good;" his concerns (aside from those of his profession) is supporting creativity and art without judgment...at least, without judgment on matters and concerns outside of the art being created. And as I wrote above, I support this position. If I were James, I'd be running out and soliciting creators from ALL points of the gaming spectrum, making LotFP a truly egalitarian publishing house catering to beliefs from every side of the market: left, right, center, and "weird."

Because creativity isn't bad...the act of creation is a positive thing. I truly believe that. Some acts of creation are more positive than others...greater or lesser lights, I suppose. But creation is better than destruction; far too much of the latter in our lives. Creating, sharing, building...people need more of this, as much as we can get, at least until our species reaches that enlightened stage where a critical mass understands that we are all part of one body, one world, one existence. 

[sorry, don't want to wax too philosophical, but one should realize that positive and negative are simply two forces going different directions and assigning one as "good" and one as "bad" is actually a mistake as both forces are necessary and essential for existence. However, as the vast majority of people on this planet tend to be unenlightened individuals who get bent out of shape over destructive forces...especially when those forces occur in our own lives...and tend to fear death and not see the eternality of the human soul, I think it's best to focus (at THIS STAGE of our species' development) on the less problematic (causing) side of the force equation, i.e. the positive, and let God handle the rest. For now]

Now, I am sure there are folks out there who feel that it is against their principals to support (i.e. pay money to) a company that supports (i.e. does business with / pays money to) individuals, talented or not, who are 'bad actors' (i.e. people who behave in a fashion one disapproves of). I grok that. I have principals that determine how and what I support, too (for example, I refuse to shop at Walmart...for many reasons). 

But I also recognize the truth and wisdom in Raggi's statement: just because a hate-filled person (say, Hitler) writes a hate-filled book (say, Mein Kampf) doesn't mean people who bother to read it will become hate-filled, any more than "bad" people who read, for example, The Bible will suddenly become holy, Godly types. I suppose there are "impressionable" types who are easily manipulated, but the sheer amount of manipulating material in the world today utterly dwarfs the tiny amount of game material being produced ANYwhere, let alone by one lone indie publisher in Finland. Imbeciles and the ignorant are likely to fall into vast pits of crazy long before they succumb to the influence of elf-game propaganda.

Creation is preferred to destruction. Vote with your wallet. Encourage better creations (whatever "better" means to you). But don't discourage the act of creation itself

I still can't say I'm a super-fan of James Raggi's LotFP imprint. But I am a fan of the possibility for which he stands. Hopefully, his health will improve in 2023 as a result of this new authenticity.

Happy Friday, folks. 

; )

Killing It Softly

All right...maybe a very SHORT blog post. 
; )

There is weirdness in the virtual (internet) air these days...anxiety over Dungeons & Dragons that I simply don't understand. Stuff about One D&D and the new OGL and the "death" of the game or the "death" of the OSR or...I don't know. Anxiety.

And I conclude this is just a cyclical thing, because Once Upon A Time, many years ago, I had similar anxieties. The Game Will Die. Go extinct...like the dodo. And my children's children's children will never know the joy of kicking in a dungeon door and sticking their imaginary blade in some fairytale monstrosity.

Alexis used to give me a hard time for worrying about that kind of thing. 

Who would carry on the legacy of D&D when all the old idiots like me had passed from this planet? Who would be left to understand the "right" way to play D&D?

*sigh*  It seems like every few years I have to take stock of my own past idiocies. It's a constant process of refinement called "living an introspective life."

Cyclical. I was recently hipped to this old Raggi blog post from waaaay back in 2008...never read it at the time, and only heard about it through this video post of him reading the transcript.  However, even if I had read it back in 2008, I'm afraid much of it would have been over my head...just as it is clear from the comments that much of it was over LOTS of folks' heads. The problem is, he is conflating multiple issues into a single rant and thereby burying (or at least, confusing) the kernels of truth that he'd hit upon. 

It's taken me decades of self-work and re-wiring analysis to synthesize this kind of thing. Here's probably the best bit:

You're not playing a game pretending to navigate your playing piece (called "a character") through some story where you get to be the hero! You are using the rules to pretend to be someone and experience and react as that person would though a dangerous world. Nothing more, and nothing less. If you want to be the hero...then you get to try. To guarantee success is to defeat the entire purpose of role-playing.

[if you want to read the most pertinent bits of the post, rather than the entire screed, I'd suggest beginning your read AFTER the indented tangent]

And, you see, to me that IS fun...if by 'fun' one means an enjoyable pastime that one wants to continue pursuing for the pleasure of it. Despite his provocative title, Raggi doesn't "hate fun;" he hate's a particular brand of time-wasting that some folks (including he himself!) lazily assign the convenient label of "fun."  

I can grok that. I've been hitting the holiday goodies and holiday booze a little too hard lately myself (and my waistline bears witness to the fact). Tis the season, as they say. And while it's all well and good to hate one's lax discipline in January (and vow to take steps to rectify the back-sliding), it's important that we appreciate just why we have this period of time when we "let ourselves go:" we are enjoying the company of our fellow humans and sharing a bond of seasonal joy (and stress!) together.

Which is, of course, one of the great benefits of the Great Game of Dungeons & Dragons. It helps us connect with our fellow humans, sharing joys and excitements and stresses with them in a fashion that is UN-likely to leave (real) folks dead and bleeding on the ground.

Has crass commercialism killed the spirit of Christmas? I realize that sometimes it can feel like this. But what IS the "spirit of Christmas?" It's not like Jesus (the dude my fellow Christians and I celebrate) was born on December 25th...that was simply the day the Romans celebrated their winter solstice festival...the darkest day of the year and the mark of the return to growing light in the world. Folks wanting to listen to cheerful music, decorate their homes with lights, give gifts, and eat/drink special foods with loved ones this time of year should feel little guilt in their holiday enjoyment...whether they're believers in Christ and His message or not! If you're celebrating your shared humanity...and not robbing and murdering folks...then you're probably showing more "Christmas spirit" than MANY of us display for MOST of the year.

I celebrate Christmas in my own way...just as I play Dungeons & Dragons in my own way. I have adapted holiday traditions of my mother's family, my father's family, and my wife's family, as well as creating traditions of my own for my own family. My children will synthesize these traditions and add their own twists and tweaks...just as they will do with their D&D games. Just as their children will do, some day down the road.

Will the continued commodification of D&D and the iron grip of corporate greed destroy D&D? Are you kidding me?

Pick up an extra copy of your favorite rule system (print on demand is still available for many books). Teach the game to someone young and imaginative. Pass along the rules to them to explore on their own. Share your joy. Engage with your fellow humans in a deep and meaningful way...one that is active rather than that of the passive consumer.

Doing this might assuage some of the anxiety. Maybe even cause it to dissipate entirely.

I (half-)joke that I'm an old man. "Old" is an extremely relative term. I'm not even 50 (that's next year), and my low impact, semi-healthful lifestyle has kept me at about the same level of fitness for a couple decades. Even so, I've been playing D&D for longer than many players have been ALIVE...that makes me a real geezer in relation to the gaming community.

Here's my "geezer wisdom" for my fellow gamers this holiday season. Worry less, play more. Play for the experience; play for the connections it makes with others. 

I'll talk at y'all in the New Year (or possibly, next week). Have a happy one, folks!

Killing Gods, Part 4

All right…that’s a long enough break since my last post on “killing gods.” More than enough. 

As a precursor, I need a moment to talk about the relationship between clerics and deities; I realize this will seem yet another digression, but it’s pertinent to the conversation. You see, this whole subject came up because I was unsatisfied with the way I feel (many) adventure designs of recent years have been unreasonable with their treatment of gods…but it’s quite possible that this trend (and my preferences) come in part from learning different styles of play. 

I will elaborate.

I’ve written before about the shift in perspective of What Exactly A Cleric Is that came about in 1983 with the publication of the Mentzer version of Basic. As I’ve recounted (often enough) this was NOT the brand of D&D by which I learned the game. The clerics in my first campaign (which I ran up till circa 1988) didn’t receive their spells from “the strength of their beliefs.” No. Un-uh. Spells come from the gods they worship…they are divine favors, pure and simple, miracles granted by higher powers. 

This is, of course, EXPLICIT in the text. The 1981 Moldvay Basic set described it thusly:

Since clerical spalls are divinely given, they do not have to be studied; the cleric need only rest and pray for them.

"Divinely given" is the key phrase here. I can understand if there is some confusion caused by the actual description of the cleric class in Moldvay; its text ("...they are trained in fighting and casting spells. As a cleric advances in level, he or she is granted the use of more and more spells...") could be interpreted as meaning that their magic is separate from their deity, that magical training is something only those who are initiated into the cult's higher secrets are taught. But unless Moldvay is speaking metaphorically (I don't think he is), the phrase divinely given in the Spell section makes clear just who is "granting" access to clerical magic...not higher level priests and patriarchs, but the god or goddess whom the cleric serves.

And Gygax is even more clear in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide:

It is well known to all experienced players that clerics, unlike magic-users, have their spells bestowed upon them by their respective deities.

The DMG text (page 38) goes on for more than half a page detailing exactly how clerics receive their magic directly from their gods, either by being divinely empowered (1st and 2nd level spells), bestowed upon them through intermediaries (saints, angels, demigods, etc. for 3rd through 5th level spells), or granted by direct communication with the deity itself (6th and 7th level spells). It is not a cleric's "inner strength," "strong beliefs," or "mystical training" that allows the character to create miracles...it is the god itself. A cleric with no god receives no magic. Period.

As said, Mentzer changes this in his 1983 Basic rulebook...a book I never owned until the 2000s, and certainly not the book I learned to play with. But a subtle shift in thinking is evident in TSR's publications as early as 1982. I refer here to two classic modules published that year: N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God and B4: The Lost City. I imagine both modules might be held up as inspirations for the works of recent designers I cited earlier, examples of "sword & sorcery" style adventures featuring "godlike beings" who are nothing more than actual (non-divine) monsters needing to be killed...respectively a spirit naga named Explictica Defilus and the tentacled monstrosity known as Zargon. These false gods, whether through longevity and fear or powerful mind control, have created cults of worship around themselves, followers who hold them in awe and carry out their "divine will, much as one might expect of followers duped by a charlatan.

And yet both modules include actual cleric followers of these monsters...clerics with the ability to access clerical magic. N1 has multiple clerics of Explictica using spells of up to 4th level (7th level clerics). B4 features Darius, a 6th cleric (also with access to spells up to 4th level) of the "cult of Zargon" as one of the Big Bads of the adventure. None of these characters make sense under the rules of the game; none of these characters should have ANY spells whatsoever.

Contrast this with the backstory found in the 1980 module C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan:

Eventually a new Archon mounted the throne in Pontylver, one who claimed [lawful neutral] Alia as her patron. The Temple of the Correct and Unalterable Way grew in followers and prestige, and as time passed, Myrrha noticed that her peers and superiors were becoming increasingly arrogant and arbitrary....Myrrha saw they were falling into the heresy of believing that law is concentrated in the individual and not the community. Investigating, she discovered a well-kept secret: many members of the ecclesiarchy were no longer able to cast high-level spells, thus proving their estrangement from their deity!

If N1 was properly designed (that is, written to follow the instructions laid out in the rule books), neither Abramo nor Misha would have access to clerical spells above 2nd level (and maybe not even those) and Gareth Primo would have no magic at all because a spirit naga is not a god and, thus, not capable of granting spells.

That is the game, folks, and I honestly don't think it's "open to interpretation." But...perhaps because of "satanic panic" pressure over the pretending to worship strange gods (see the 1982 Mazes and Monsters where Tom Hanks plays a batshit-crazy cleric)...TSR started to move away from its own rules. Started to say, hey, being a cleric isn't really about worshipping a god, it's about your character's training and "strong beliefs" manifesting powers...you're just a magic-user in priest's clothing and it doesn't matter whether you're worshipping the One True God or some tentacled space slug that crashed on the planet a thousand years ago. We aren't teaching children about the worship of strange pagan gods...heavens, no! There is no god except God, these are just strangely deluded fantasy priests. Pay no attention!

And you see that carried all the way down to today's designers. From Jason Sholtis's magnificent Operation Unfathomable:

...clerics operate under the delusion that their deities actually exist (they do not!). In truth, clerics are merely a distinct variety of magic-user, devoted to one or more of the ten thousand Gods of Order. Clerics manipulate chaos to achieve their results through the mental constructs of their religious practices, rather than rote memorization of arcane mummery.

From 2017's Lamentations of the Flame Princess (James Raggi):

Cleric magic is divinely inspired, and is granted to Clerics through prayer. Whether these powers are granted to Clerics by higher powers, if these higher powers are what the Cleric believes them to be, or if all Cleric spells are merely ritualized forms of sympathetic magic, are all subjects frequently debated...

I would include the 2018 adventure The Red Prophet Rises in this mix of confusion, in which a heretical priest (Khazra), mistakenly worshipping an ancient vampiric entity, still (inexplicably) retains access to the spells of a 6th level cleric of "the Bull God." Why? Is the Obelisk that Thirsts a divine entity? No. Does it serve the Bull God? No. One would think spells would be withheld from the priest, if only to inform him of his delusional apostasy.  Guy uses a sword in combat anyway.

These authors (and others) seem to have been influenced somewhat by these later (post-1982) influences when it comes to explaining the relationship between clerics and their gods. Which is to say, there is little relationship, if any. Any failure of clerical magic can simply be attributed to the cleric losing faith in herself: it is not the deity that withholds magic, but the cleric's own psychological barriers to accessing a purely internal mechanism. 

I'm not a big fan of that interpretation. It doesn't jibe with the D&D I learned to play. It is not the AD&D of Gygax; it runs counter to the DMG and the information found in Deities & Demigods. And while I'll be the first to admit to being a stodgy, groggy, grumpy old man when it comes to my D&D, I'd even say that it's not very "Sword & Sorcery," either...despite what (many of) these authors hope to emulate.

Because as discussed in my first post on the subject, much of D&D is inspired by fantasy fiction of the pulp variety...and in pulp fantasy you see PLENTY of deluded cultists following charlatans and false gods, but they aren't getting any magical powers by doing so. False priests don't get spells: they use tricks and psychoactive powders or rule through fear and tradition and superstition. Real magic linked to worship is generally called sorcery and rightly so, as it is linked to the favors granted by demonic entities...but such infernal divinities are still "divine," supernatural and extra-dimensional. Only divinities grant divine powers: when Jagreen Lern or Elric conjure in the names of their chaos gods, THEN magical stuff happens. 

But maybe I need to rein in a bit and bring this all back around to the subject at hand ("killing gods"). There is, I think, a certain prevalence or attitude or orientation in the Old School Role-playing circles that has wandered far afield from the game as it was originally envisioned. Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong. But here's how I see it:

• As Mike Mornard writes, the original designers "made up some shit they thought would be fun." It involved exploring strange environs, finding treasure, building worlds. It was inspired and influenced by adventure fiction, much of it "fantasy" in nature.
• As a game, D&D has a system; it has rules. It models something (a fantasy world of adventure) and the rules are applied to the thing it models (the fantasy world of adventure) up to and including things like "how/why a cleric gets spells" and "how many hit points a god like Zeus might have."
• That divine architect that Elric is always searching for? The supreme being that orders the lives of even the gods of his world? D&D has that, too: it's called the Dungeon Master. And just like Elric's "supreme being" (who would be Michael Moorcock...duh), the DM is not a creature to be encountered by the protagonists (in D&D's case, the player characters). The DM creates the world but is not OF the world. What will be encountered are game constructs, up to and including the gods that inhabit the game world.
• As a constructed fantasy world D&D has a cosmology. As a game that models a fantasy world, that cosmology can be exactly and minutely defined...right down to just how much damage Thor can do with a hammer blow, or how many greater devils inhabit the 3rd layer of the Nine Hells...should such info ever become necessary for play.
• The game (D&D) has parameters (structure) of play. It has assumptions and expectations of how play resolves.  These expectations of play resolution are determined by 1) the rules, 2) the way the rules model the world, and 3) the fiction that inspires the game...in that order. Don't (for example) tell me "well, Gandalf used a sword!" The inspiring fiction (#3) comes behind the rules (#1) and the modeled fantasy world (#2).

As originally conceived, Dungeons & Dragons was never about "telling stories." It was about playing a game of exploration and survival (adventure!) in a fantasy game world. However, some folks were quite unimaginative with how they worked within those parameters, creating murder-hobo funhouses of the poorest variety and this caused pushback in the form of front-loaded drama. We shall not wait for a story to emerge from our adventures! We shall make sure there is MEANING to these characters' (fake) lives!

Combine the success of that front-loaded drama (through company supported publications like Ravenloft and Dragonlance) with an imperative to cut anything perceived as controversial (i.e. impacting the bottom line) from a game now being marketed to children (this being the shift that began circa 1982), and one can readily see the consequences: we don't kill gods. We kill demons. We kill immortal liches. We kill creatures masquerading as gods. We kill surrogates in order to have our high stakes, high drama, emotionally invested play.

Because, originally, emotional investment in a character was mainly found in long-running (i.e high level) characters. And high level characters, by necessity, required greater challenges to stay engaged...tackling gods (modeled as part of the cosmology) and godlike beings (that giant ape from WG6) are a natural evolution of challenge for characters of the highest echelon, because lesser challenges don't cut it anymore. If you want to run a high level campaign, you're going to want to study up your copy of Sailor on the Seas of Fate because that's about "par" when it comes to suitable challenges. Good old Demogorgon has been a part of the D&D tapestry since 1976...and for good reason. 

[hell, I used to fight Demogorgon...on the playground...waaaay back before I ever laid eyes on ANY D&D book. Before I even opened my first box of the Dungeon! board game, even]

Not low level characters (I'm guessing).

Outside of WotC's latest-greatest editions, D&D designers have (mostly) moved away from front-loaded drama and railroad story arcs, but they've still passed some sort of threshold from which they can't seem to return. They want high stakes, high challenge, high weirdness in their adventure...but they don't want high level player characters. They want their players to continue playing "small ball" forever after, retiring (I suppose) should they ever, somehow, reach 8th or 10th level of play. "Too superheroic," is the refrain I hear. "The game is no fun after around 5th (or 6th or 7th) level."

Bull. Crap. But that discussion is for another post.

Throwing high level challenges (like godlings) into low level adventures is an attempt by designers to have their cake and eat it, too. It's an attempt to inject Elric-levels of amazeballs fantasy into the lives of grubby, Warhammer Fantasy-level adventurers in order to draw out low-level play while still keeping long-since-jaded players engaged with the game in front of them. Is that as bad as playing pre-generated snowflakes traveling the Dragonlance railroad? Absolutely not. But it's got to be grating after a while. It would certainly bug the shit out of me.

All right, that's it. I lied about this being the concluding post...just had too much more to say. The NEXT post will definitely be the conclusion to this series. 

That Scary New World

It's been a long while since I last wrote about Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and rereading my blog post from 2012, I see I wasn't all that flattering in my appraisal. To be fair, I was extremely tired at the time (thus prone to crankiness) with a new baby and whatnot. Today I am ALSO operating on less-than-optimal sleep, but I'd still like to revise my opinion...somewhat.

See, a couple-four weeks back I had the chance to catch most of that old Daniel Day Lewis film The Last of the Mohicans (based on James Fenimore Cooper's famous novel...but who has time to read 19th century novels these days), and I started to see how adventuring in the new world, with blade and musket, could be pretty darn cool, especially when paired with the supernatural backwoods evil found in stuff like Twin Peaks. Combining Disney's Pocahontas with Lovecraftian horror. It's a pretty heady mixture.

And while I'm NOT really a horror aficionado (certainly not of the zombie or splatter-film variety) creepy supernatural and the folks at odds - or in cahoots - with it, are something I find darn interesting. Also went and streamed that 2009 Solomon Kane film (as a follow-up), and while I found the movie...um, "less Kane" than I'd hoped for, it still had some nice little set pieces and a real call back to the days when folks were making films about the power of Christ as a shield against Satanic evil while NOT preaching to us about the need to accept Jesus as our savior.

[I mean, did attendance at Catholic Mass go up after The Exorcist hit the theaters? I'd guess the answer is "not substantially." But a lot of "Christian fantasy" the last couple decades seems squarely in the vein of proselytizing, and I'm not really into that]

[apologies to people who are, by the way]

Anyway, I went out and picked up a hard copy of Lamentations a couple days later...the latest hardcover copy (Rules and Magic), published in 2017. Wow.

Let me say that again: wow. Not only is it aesthetically beautiful, extremely practical, and the perfect size for use at the table, but it is completely no nonsense with its approach to defining its systems, The design of thing is absolutely wonderful, providing a tight interconnection with the assumed setting, and containing most everything one needs to play the game...except, of course, for the referee section.

Beautiful art; beautiful
economy of design.

Unfortunately for me, that's the whole reason I went looking for LotFP: I wanted a copy of the current referee guide so I could read about this scary 15th-17th century setting and how the adventure creation, monsters, etc. interacted with the LotFP "world." Because, as with (arguably) every edition of Dungeons & Dragons, there are unwritten expectations and presumptions of the setting to be found between the lines of the game system. LotFP is no different, but I wanted to see what Raggi had to say explicitly regarding that setting...in addition to rules interaction.

Welp, disappointed am I as Book 2 of the set isn't yet available for purchase. Yes, I understand I can get the old version, gratis, from the LotFP web site. Yes, I know there are folks writing adventures and campaigns for use with LotFP that I could pick up and use as a jumping off point (including older LotFP adventures). That's not really what I'm looking for...what I want is a beautiful little Referee Core Book to go along with this beautiful little Player Core Book. And I'm willing to wait (semi-patiently) for it.

Because the Player Core Book is a friggin' masterpiece.

Castle Gargantua

I started writing a post about Batgirl on Friday, but due to events and sickness (yes, I'm still sick, as is the rest of my family), I haven't got around to finishing it. Which is fine because it's a big, heaping wreck that needs to be rewritten anyway.

SO...this morning, finally had a chance to read Kabuki Kaiser's new monster of an adventure, Castle Gargantua. If the name is familiar, you may recall a prior review I did of his Ruins of the Undercity, back in 2013. Truth be told, as I reread what I wrote about RotU, it may not have been the most flattering review I could have given the thing, but I did like the book. There's nothing wrong with creatively adapting existing work (Fiend Folio, DMG) to a new type of madness. Then again, the place I was in (at the time) wasn't probably the best place for giving puffy reviews.

Today I'm in an even fouler mood...but I think I can still up the positivity. I only have a few minutes to write, however.

"Kabuki's Big Adventure"

Castle Gargantua is a huge (by my standards) adventure that clocks in at a bit more than 100 pages featuring a truly monumental site for exploration...a gigantic soaring castle, as tall as the Empire State Bulding with a scale six to eight times "normal." The adventurers enter through a pair of 90' high doors and can work their way through it's massive labyrinthine structure seeking anything that may still be left to be looted (the Castle has been plundered many times in the past, and it's a little picked over).

Sounds like some sort of typical, vanity-project megadungeon, yeah? Sure it does...but it's not.

While the game includes maps (by Dyson Logos, whose work is excellent, as usual), these are only used for a handful of specific locations/scenarios. For the most part, Castle Gargantua goes un-mapped, instead being coded with a number of themed areas: stone, blood, wine, gold, etc. When one enters an area, a handful of dice are rolled to generate the contents based on specific tables tied to the theme. Yes, this is random seeding of the dungeon (Castle Gargantua owes part of its inspiration to In Search of the Unknown), resulting in a different experience each time the dungeon is delved by a different group of players.

The themes repeat multiple times, but the exact order does not, and the whole thing is tracked on a simple "Chutes and Ladders" (i.e. "Snakes and Ladders") style table, color coded by theme and numbered from 1 (the entrance) to 35 (the "end," more or less). The random dungeon pieces Kaiser used in Ruins has been simplified and streamlined...you still have random room-shapes, but the organized theme helps give unity to the whole thing.

And the themes are pretty crazy...this is psychedelic-Gothic-mumbo-jumbo of a very high level. Bloodstone megaliths and hybrid golems, leprous troglodytes and monstrous angora cats, with wandering clockwork guardsmen that are rarely the same appearance twice. Plus the massive scale of the thing...where there are maps, it's 60' to the square with gigantic furniture designed to make one feel insignificant (or, at least, small and nervous). Personally, I love the idea, especially the idea that there are windows and balconies that might lead to unexpected methods of egress (or ingress) for enterprising players.

Unlike some products that feature random tables heavily, Castle Gargantua is not one where the rolling is required so often as to disrupt game play. In fact, a DM could simply plot the game ahead of time (via the random tables) in preparation for a session (not unlike the random stocking of B1 that is part of that module's prep). I guess I'd say the randomness is only as intrusive as you'd like it to be, unlike some adventures, or even systems (DCC, I'm looking at you).

All in all, it's a very tasty adventure, and the first "megadungeon" I've seen that I'd actually be interested in running. Castle Gargantua is ostensibly "system neutral," though it has a definite Lamentations of the Flame Princess vibe to it (not only with the gothic-horror themes but the use of terms like "specialist" instead of "thief." It's level neutral as well, being designed to scale based on the average party level, which makes it pretty nice for groups in the low-mid range. For me, I'd like to run it with Michael Thomas's Blueholme Prentice Rules...for all the gore and scandal, I think there's plenty of whimsy in the adventure, too. It reads much more like a dark fairytale to me than...well, than anything else I can remember seeing for Dungeons & Dragons, save (perhaps) for some of the old UK modules (still, those weren't terribly "dark"). It's still D&D, however.

If I have any real criticism of the thing (other than the fact that it will take more prep than most packaged adventures), it's that some of the encounters/weird traps look a little tough/tricky to run...problematic, even. This may just be me being sick and stuffed up in the head, but I had trouble grokking a couple of the set encounter areas (Mirror, Mirror and Third Lodge). And the Hall of Wondrous Pools just looks like a bear given the sheer size and scale of the thing. Even so, the thing is neat enough I'd be willing to give it a shot.

The PDF for Castle Gargantua can be purchased here for a measly $5 ($10 if you want it softcover, $20 for hardcover; PDF also comes with the print copy).

Of Fathers and Monsters

Welp, it’s time to start gearing up for June. Yeah, I realize it’s a little late to start “getting ready for June” but just take that as an indication of how busy the last couple weeks have been. Hell, I even missed FREE RPG DAY (more on that in a minute) not because I was busy but because I didn’t even realize it was going on!

I did have a happy Father’s Day, and I hope other folks did, too. Not to rub it in anyone’s face, but mine was very enjoyable…the family let me sleep in (all told I got something like 25 or 26 hours of sleep since Friday night…including naps…which is about double plus my usual amount over that same span). The wife made me breakfast, the boy and I got a long walk and some play-time, another nap, then a looong, much-needed massage followed by Guinness and meat pie at the local English-style pub, before picking up the boy from Grandma’s house.

Oh, yeah…and a new electric toothbrush. It’s been months since my teeth felt so clean.

I also had time to reflect a bit on fatherhood and my relationship with my own father. I got pampered a bit thanks to my (relatively easy) siring of a child, but really Father’s Day is about remembering our own fathers, much as we dads might think it’s about getting a day to hit the golf course, free of the usual household chores. 

All of us have fathers – men that without whom we wouldn’t be walking around, breathing air and reading blogs. It’s an inescapable, biological fact. Even if our fathers disappeared from our lives years ago (or even before we were born), they are responsible for our existence…as responsible as our mothers…and regardless of what judgment we might have on their ability at being a PARENT, we can be appreciative of the role they had in bringing us into this world. I mean, unless you wish you’d never been born or something (I think most of us enjoy living most of the time).

And yet there is so often a melancholy association with our fathers…even those of us with the great fortune to have fathers who were loving and present and not prone to raging bouts of asshole-ism. It’s different from dealing with one’s mother who we often continue to feel a certain amount of tenderness, even into adulthood (not to mention a need to please and the guilt of “not being a good enough child”). With one’s father, to have “tenderness” or “compassion” is almost to feel like having condescension or pity for the man…and that would seem to undermine that traditional role of “strength” that the father is supposed to have in the family dynamic. Offering your father sentimentality can feel like you’re calling the man weak…and so we instead try to approach him with a degree of “respect for his manliness” and (in practice) a certain aloof indifference to his own emotional needs.

And woe-betide the poor man whose made tragic choices in his life…whether ones that affected himself or his family or (most likely) both. He may already feel like a shlub and our only choice of behavior is either to A) pile onto the shit he already feels or B) ignore any pain or regret or guilt he may be feeling for the sake of maintaining that illusion of “father as strong man.”

Because I think we want our fathers to be strong men. Children grow up thinking of their parents as godlike, perfect beings anyway, but mother is allowed to be the comforter and tender-loving care-giver and father is supposed to be a solid rock. And while we lose illusions of our parents’ infallibility as we grow older and wiser and see them as “normal human beings” we still want them (perhaps subconsciously) to meet our idealistic expectations. Because we are their offspring. With respect to our fathers we want to be descended from “strong men.” That doesn’t mean “warriors” necessarily, and certainly not “angry tyrants” but STRONG…in their convictions perhaps, certainly in their ability to endure. Whether we are their sons or daughters, their genetics are in our DNA, and I don’t think there is a single person, in their secret heart-of-hearts, that wants to say “my father was a weak man.” Even if he abandoned our mother…even if he abandoned his children…we want to be able to chalk it up to youth, or ignorance, or an indiscretion, or a lack of compatibility.  Or even just that the man was an asshole…at least saying a person is stubborn and pig-headed and self-centered shows a type of strength (even if it’s not a very nice, good, or effective one).

But no one wants to say: my father was weak. Because what does that say about us, his children?

And because we won’t (secretly) allow our fathers the luxury of weakness, we often prevent ourselves from having an intimacy and closeness we might otherwise have. Perhaps it’s easier for daughters to enjoy MORE closeness with their fathers but regardless, if only one party in a relationship is given the space to be vulnerable, it’s tough to achieve a true intimacy. Even for those of us who enjoy an otherwise “good relationship” with our dear old dads.

Now having written all this, I should point out this is simply a reflection on “the state of things,” not a manifesto on how we need to change the world. By the time a person is in their 30s (and probably before that) we intellectually understand that our fathers are “only human.”

[we also intellectually know that someday we are going to DIE and we hide that from ourselves as well, pushing it to the back of our minds as a “low priority” consideration]

It’s not incredibly necessary (or even appropriate) to suddenly start denigrating our fathers (at least not any more than we already do), but I think it’s okay to acknowledge not only their lack of perfection (or strength), but ALSO:

A)     Our personal need and desire for them to be unreasonably strong (an unreasonable desire), and

B)     Our debt of gratitude to them for our lives…regardless of whether or not they meet our ideals or not, regardless of how competent or powerful or righteous or “strong” they are…or not.

Whether or not YOU are a good person or not (by which I mean “make positive choices in your action” or not), has nothing to do with your father…you have free will to make whatever choice of action you wish. On the other hand, without your father, you would not have been given the opportunity to make ANY choice AT ALL…because you owe your existence to him, like it or not.

*ahem* And that’s the extent of my Father’s Day reflections for this year.

[by the way…I could have waxed on for a few more pages about my own father’s foibles and fuck-ups and my on-going relationship with him, but I’ve decided to spare folks THAT, not out of embarrassment or shame but under the realization that my own father is far more interesting to ME than it is to my readers]

So...I missed Free RPG Day on Saturday which is just…ugh…now THAT is embarrassing. Usually, I’m there when the store opens and taking first swipe at any and all goodies on display. This year, I had no idea it was even this weekend…I haven’t been spending a lot o time on the internets the last week or so and it just wasn’t even on my radar. Sunday, I walked into Gary’s Games and saw a copy of LotFP’s adventure, Better Than Any Man, on display and was like, wow, you guys got THAT in stock? And I was told: No, it was part of the offerings for Free RPG Day the day before…the copy on display was the only one left over.

Crap.

Of course, I immediately picked it up, as well as Hall of Bones, a free adventure scenario for S&W. Other than these, the only thing left from Saturday was the Cosmic Patrol quickstart that I picked up (and blogged about) last year, which means my total haul for this years ended with a pair of OSR-generated adventures. Seeing as how it was Father’s Day and my family gave me time to lay on the couch and read uninterrupted (another infrequent luxury at my house) I can offer a couple thoughts on these two products:

“Hall of Bones” (for Swords & Wizardry): a fairly basic, low-level adventure. For me, the best part is the smooth inclusion of a basic rules overview (plus pre-gen characters) making this a fairly standalone game-adventure (just add dice and players).

I have to admit, I’m not a huge fan of S&W. I know a LOT of OSR-types like to ride that pony, but despite the art, layout, and modern sensibilities of game design, I prefer the original LBBs. And not just the romanticism of having brown-covered books…I mean I prefer the original scope and content of the rules. S&W over-steps (for my taste) in certain blanks...but those blanks are part  of the charm of the original game. Hmmm…I don’t mean this post to turn into a referendum/review of S&W so I’ll leave it at that.

The simplicity of S&W means that rules for “how to play” can be included in a 20 page adventure book making for a complete game, which is a pretty sweet feat. That being said, I found the adventure itself underwhelming. Yes, I realize it is an introductory adventure for 1^st level characters. It still felt a bit of “challenge lacking” for my taste, and the new monsters…well, I’ve created “intro scenarios” with unusual variations that I thought were better, so I guess that’s what I’m judging on. I’m a jerk…sue me.

“Better Than Any Man” (for Lamentations of the Flame Princess): I was truly surprised that this was even available a day later, though I’ve seen commenters on other blogs stating they’d choose to wait for a PDF rather than pick up a print-version. I guess their shelves are more crowded than my own (though the idea would seem crazy to anyone who’s actually seen my “game room” – my wife compares me to those hoarders you see on TV).

Better Than Any Man is an impressive piece of work. Not impressive in the quality of the art and production for a free offering on Free RPG Day…I think Raggi’s earned enough credit over the years that he can get such products funded via KickStarter with (comparatively) minimal effort. Even if I was NOT phobic of KS on general, technophobic principle, I don’t think my following would be enough to do what he does (plus, my following is a bit less focused than fans of LotFP). But, no, I don’t think an ambitious, free product like this is out of the scope of his ability.

No, what’s impressive is the adventure itself. I’ll be honest: I haven’t kept up with everything Raggi’s published. The last thing I actually paid for was Death Frost Doom…I came close to getting Vornheim, harcover Carcosa, and Grindhouse Edition LotFP when I ran across them at the game shop but two main considerations stopped me:

-        My funds have been tight enough of late to keep me from getting every impulsive want, and

-        LotFP is a version of D&D that I will probably never play.

Not because it’s not well done or doesn’t have great potential as a fantastic setting or even that LotFP’s house rules “tweaks” are bad. Most of ‘em are to the good. No, it’s just that B/X (or Holmes or OD&D) work good and are readily customizable, and I don’t need a “weird-horror” version of D&D seeing as that’s not my usual genre of fantasy adventuring.

[that being said, if I ever wanted to do a 15^th – 17^th century fantasy adventure game of the type typified in White Wolf “historical” WoD settings or even the more recent WITCH HUNTER of which I’ve blogged, I’d probably pick up SOME version of LotFP to use for the system. Right now I’ve been a little too busy with my own play-testing to try to entice my players into this type of game/setting]

However, lacking Raggi’s actual books, I lose the overall view of Raggi’s gradual development over time and numerous products. Reading an adventure like Better Than Any Man compared to Death Frost Doom just shows (to me anyway) a marked change in growth and maturity. DFD is special because it was waaaaay outside the box as far as adventures go and wasn’t afraid to plunge one’s campaign setting into an undead Armageddon by allowing the thing to run its (most natural) course. But even so, it felt much less like a “D&D” adventure and much more like Call of Cthulhu (or a CofC-style “investigation”) in a pseudo-fantasy-medieval setting. Which, as said, was pretty different, but somewhat unplayable depending on your average player’s expectation of game play.

BTAM, on the other hand, is definitely D&D. It is D&D with a setting and context, but it is still D&D. People may say it has a WHFRPG feel to it…from my point of view, WHFRPG was simply someone’s D&D heartbreaker set in a pseudo-historic setting. BTAM does away with the “pseudo” and works with actual historic events (like the 30 Year War), which is hip ‘cause…well, ‘cause I like that approach (it’s similar to what I’m doing with my 5AK setting, though Raggi doesn’t bother changing the names of countries and historic personas). BTAM actually provides several different types of adventure for exploration: a wilderness fraught by war (and including many random encounters) a couple dungeons (restrained in scope while still being interesting and carrying the signature creepiness of LotFP) and a political conflict of heroic proportions with the potential to save thousands of at-risk individuals from that most despicable of monsters, the human war machine. Nice.

Nice Familiar!

I only skimmed over the tentacled monsters (of which the one on the cover is but a single example), but drank deeply of the rest of the adventure. I found The Seven to be deep and well-written. and a fantastic, challenging puzzle for the PCs. I found the Mound to be the kind of adventure Hall of Bones wanted to be but wasn’t (sorry…). I found Goblin Hill to be the weakest part of the adventure, not because it’s not a suitable adventure, but because it feels a little cliché, both due to the over-the-top grisly horror and the insect-type villain that conjures to mind everything from Shadowrun’s  Queen Euphoria and District Nine to Naked Lunch and Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I found the wilderness encounters (like the Baroness) and the descriptions of towns caught in the throes of war and witch hysteria to be excellent.

There’s a LOT of good stuff in Better Than Any Man…it’s a nice little setting for a mini-campaign, and certainly one that can be expanded into major, year-spanning campaign involving the Swedish invasion, the 30 Year War, the horrors of organized religion unleashed by unscrupulous (or ignorant) zealots, and the underground cults of daemonic religions and eldritch horrors. In many ways, BTAM feels like the kind of game that WHFRPG always wanted to be, but never could be due to its failure to create adequate small-scale adventuring rules (especially with regard to magic) and its cumbersome career mechanic.

[oh, yeah…and the simple firearms mechanics Raggi includes are just about perfect, by the way…if I use firearms in my future B/X games, I’ll probably just steal these, assuming I’m not using LotFP as my base system. If Gygax/Arneson had used a simple system like this in OD&D, it might have saved decades of debate down the line]

If you didn’t have the chance to pick up Better Than Any Man at Free RPG Day, you might try finding it, if only as an example of what can be done to create a small campaign setting that provides a lot of meat for players without a shit-ton of dross. In some ways, it reminds me of my old Goblin-Wars campaign, but much more thoughtful and better organized. I’m not sure I’m terribly enthused about Raggi’s game world and themes, but the quality of the material is damn fine, and well worth looking at and possibly emulating.

ALL RIGHT…now that I’ve written up all that, I can get back to my planning of the month of June. Got a lot of stuff that needs “gearing up,” as I said.

: )

The New "Heartbreakers"

I am extremely tired, a result of staying up till after 1am the last few nights watching Olympics coverage and then getting up early-early-early (today was 4:30…beagles!). It’s all good stuff with a ton o compelling stories (natch), but my brain is doing a bit of a swimmy thing right now, so just bear with me as I meander a bit.

Spent much of the morning reading on-line reviews for two different RPGs: Adventurer-Conquerer-King System (ACKS) and Old School Hack (OSH). I don’t own either of these games (I don’t think…I might have downloaded OSH a while back, but if I did I don’t remember), and haven’t personally read ‘em (or have forgotten what I read), so you’ll have to take anything I say on either with a heaping grain of salt.

Both of these games could be considered part and parcel to what I call “D&D Mine” – that is, they’re new versions of old edition D&D games, deconstructed and rebuilt (not just re-flavored) by individuals who aren’t buying into the WotC program, understand the limitations of Old School D&D, and aren’t afraid to divorce themselves from standard D&D tropes. Unlike most Fantasy Heartbreakers (to which they certainly bear a certain resemblance) they seem built off a B/X or BECMI base foundation (including race-as-class design preference), though often borrowing mechanics from later editions (including 3rd & 4th edition). Also different from heartbreakers (at least as described by Ron Edwards) they make no great claims to innovations, but instead claim to ape, emulate, or conjure “Old School” flavor or values through the use of 21st century game design…in other words, bringing a post-modern sensibility to contribute to the old school “fun” of the game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) also falls into this category, as far as I’m concerned, and possibly Lamentations of the Flame Princess (LotFP). As with ACKS and OSH (wow, quite a proliferation of acronyms, huh?) I have yet to purchase either of these books…though I’ve read (and played) the Beta version of DCC and perused (briefly) the text of LotFP.

The question I suppose I’m circling around, deciding how to parse is this: just what do I think of this development?

NOT “what do I think of these games specifically?” because, as I said, I really haven’t taken a close enough look at any of ‘em (well, I did play the DCC beta for several weeks and my views were decidedly mixed and, in the end, more to the negative side). But rather what do I think of the tact of these publishers? What do I think of the idea as a CONCEPT?

And just to be clear, here’s the concept I’m talking about:

- Take B/X (or the early stages of BECMI/RC).
- Manipulate the rules to taste using 21st century sensibilities and old school attitude.
- Self-publish in an extremely polished, beautiful packaged form.

Do you see the difference between this and a “fantasy heartbreaker?” These games are not shy about paying tribute to their roots (even, one presumes, including boilerplate OGL language “just in case”). However, they are very different from retro-clones, which attempt to emulate their original editions as best as possible while a) filing off serial numbers, and b) correcting “over-sights” based on existing edition rules (see S&W and LL’s AEC for examples of what I mean).

So what do I think about the concept? Um…does it say something that I haven’t purchased any of ‘em?

On the one hand, they face the same challenge to their business model as an actual fantasy heartbreaker. Heck, they may be more challenged, since their target demographic isn’t newbies, but rather Old School aficionados who already have their favorite edition, retro-clone, or personal heartbreaker for use. On the other hand, the OSR as a group feels much more kind-hearted and open-minded and seem ready to regularly purchase books from their compatriots if only to support designers, steal ideas, and keep the movement going. It IS heady, inspiring stuff…not just the ease with which people can create and publish their games, but the sheer amount of creativity being shared around.

However, I still can’t help but feel that…well, shit…I don’t really know what I want to say here. Let me talk about each of these games in turn:

DCC: I’ve played this game and there’s a lot to like, especially some of the new ideas and concepts included in the game. Unfortunately, I dislike the execution of most of ‘em. For me, having played the game I will probably never buy it, despite the fantastic appearance of the book: it’s too big, too random, too bulky for the kind of game I like to run these days.

LotFP: Knowing what this game is all about and having read a couple of Raggi’s adventures, it would be difficult for me to purchase this one (except for the killer artwork), because I will probably never run it/play it. I’m just not that into the weird/horror genre as far as gaming goes. I mean, I love weird horror having grown up with Lovecraft and the Swamp Thing and those eerie Golden Key comics and Weird Tales and horror comics and such. But I’ve yet to find the game system that does the genre credit (No, Call of Cthulhu does not. No, World of Darkness does not. No, all those various zombie games on the market do not. No, just providing instruction to the GM as to how to set the mood is NOT enough). For Raggi, this is probably a fantastic system, facilitating him in the type of games he’d run anyway using a (tweaked) D&D system. For me, it’s not enough.

OSH: I’ll probably have to search my hard drive at home and see if I already have this, but jeez, I’m just not feeling the “awesome” that people dig on this game. I’m NOT really about the free-wheeling style, and so the central feature of the game (the “awesome” mechanic) doesn’t appeal to me much…just as the Feng Shui RPG doesn’t really do it for me. I already tried some similar ideas a while back but, well, my experience is that not all players ARE “awesome.” I’d rather provide players with CHOICES to make than wide-open metagame mechanics.

ACKS: ACKS, oh ACKS. I remember now (after reading half a dozen detailed reviews) why I didn’t pick this game up. Too depressing. From what I’ve read, it sounds A LOT like what my first stab at D&D Mine was going to look like: compressing BXC (including my B/X Companion) into the 14 levels of B/X and using tiers to distinguish different stages of development. There are other similarities, too (including high level “ritual magic” and undead that only go up to vampire), but this isn’t what bums me out. 270 pages. That’s just so…ugh. Not that I think my version of D&D Mine is going to be fitting into 64 pages (and that’s by design…I’d rather emulate the LBB format with the work I’m currently penning), but I really don’t expect it to be over 100 pages.

Is it fair to downgrade a product for a high page count? I don’t know…what I feel is that it’s pretty weird for these types of games to run to the length of ACKS or DCC or Hackmaster Basic. I know the page count gives the publisher the ability to include more art and a bigger font and longer, more detailed examples of play, etc. I know there’s precious little “padding” in these games and a book should include “just as many rules as it needs” to run an effective game.

And anyway, I’m rambling now (tired, right?). Like I said, I don’t know what I feel about these games. Except this: none of them really excite me. Not enough to make me want to play ‘em, let alone buy ‘em…but that’s not saying a whole lot. It’s been awhile since the last time I came across a game that really excited me (one of the reasons I keep writing my own); certainly I would not discourage someone from writing and publishing these games.

Do I think it’s a lost cause to do so? No. And I mean that on a number of levels: it’s a good mental exercise. While you may not make a living doing it, you can certainly make SOME money. And these games ARE fun (for some folks) to play…if only the games’ authors (which is why I call this concept “D&D Mine”). On the contrary, I want to see MORE of these things. Where’s Urutsk for goodness sake?

[that’s rhetorical…it is apparently in an editing phase at the moment]

Writing is a good thing. Sharing one’s creativity with others is a good thing. Supporting another’s art is a good thing. Playing games with others is (generally) a good thing. Building an open-minded, inspired and creative community is a good thing.

But excitement helps.

You know what? This is a stupid post. It’s obvious I need to get some sleep.

The Secret of the Keep on the Borderlands

For those who missed it, James Raggi is a genius.

In his latest greatest post over at LotFP, Raggi does a brief analysis of the old TSR adventure module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, including what he feels it does right and what it does NOT. His post includes a comparison between the treasure found in the Caves of Chaos (the local dungeon) and the treasure found in the Keep, with a startling realization: the Keep yields the bigger payday (in terms of magic items and outright treasure) than the Caves…by a wide mile.

Which reminded ME of something I realized years ago (or at least sniffed around) but subsequently forgot in my 20+ year hiatus from Dungeons & Dragons:

The Keep IS the target objective of the adventure.

That is to say, pillaging the keep should be the main goal of any adventuring party.

This becomes immediately apparent with a little scrutiny for any player that grew up pre-Mentzer, pre-2nd edition. After all, the Moldvay generation wasn’t taught PCs were supposed to be “heroic adventurers.” Instead, we were told that you should cannibalize your dead party member’s pack for treasure, and the only reason to take the “high road” is to keep on the good side of the party’s Lawful cleric. To folks like me, “rogue” isn’t a class…it’s the Tao of Adventuring.

Let’s talk about it.

Exhibit A: The title of the module.

Early TSR adventure modules don’t beat around the bush: the title inevitable tells you the TARGET OBJECTIVE of the adventure. The Tomb of Horrors. The Lost Shrine of Tamoachan. White Plume Mountain. The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. Aerie of the Slave Lords. If a PLACE is named in the module title, that place is the site the PCs are expected to explore, invade, and loot.

B2’s title is NOT “The Caves of Chaos.” It is THE KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS. Obviously, the Keep IS the target.

This explains the detailed key of the Keep, front and center to the module. The main “dungeon” is the Keep, a well-detailed, site-based adventure. Everything else is an afterthought. What’s the next section to the module after the Keep?

Adventure Outside the Keep

Indeed. Once you’re finished looting the Keep, then you can participate in other adventures outside. But the implication is one must first have an adventure or two within the Keep.

Exhibit B: The Key to the Keep

Every single man-at-arms and soldier is detailed in the Keep. Each tower, its contingent of men, info on their shifts, info on their supplies and armaments, is detailed…information that can only be useful in the case of an invasion. And yet no part of the module involves any incursion from the Caves, or the outlying monster communities (the lizard folk keep to their swamps and the bandits rob folks traveling the road). In fact, the implication is that while the Chaotic temple at the Caves has an interest in keeping tabs on the Keep, the humanoid tribes are too disorganized to launch an actual assault on the Keep.

This latter has been my primary motivation for adventuring parties I’ve run through B2: the threat that the humanoids might unite, and the need to exterminate them while they are still divided. Reasonable enough…but if that’s what the module is about, then why do we need to know how many soldiers staff the south tower and the number of crossbow bolts they carry?

Why indeed.

Why bother to describe the treasure in each location…the bank, the trader, the private apartments, the castellan’s fortress. Sure, one might want to know the magic items possessed by the Keep’s denizens in case a party needs a “reward” of some sort…by what the need to detail the coinage and treasure? Unless it is designed to be stolen. And if an NPC were to steal a jeweled set of writing implements (or whatever) why would the actual gp value of such an item be important to know?

It only becomes important for PCs who want to steal it and pawn it.

The Keep IS the objective.

Exhibit C: The Detailed Personalities of the Keep

While one can play D&D in the simple fashion of “kick in door, fight monster, steal treasure” (i.e. the dumb-dumb way), as an RPG the game shines when it highlights the features of an RPG: creative problem solving, negotiation and social interaction, outside-the-box thinking for overcoming challenges. The D&D game comes alive when players are forced to think as if they were present in their characters’ shoes.

The Keep offers far more opportunities for these “shiny moments” than the Caves of Chaos do.

The Caves, for the most part, are simple monster dens. The Keep has hooks and colorful personalities…from the easily seduced gate guard to the unscrupulous trader to the rivalry between the Keep’s curate and the visiting itinerant priest to the officers of the watch regularly found boozing it up in the tavern (implication: drunks).

The political implications of the Inner Bailey (invitation only) is especially interesting: in all the years I’ve run B2, no party has ever visited the inner bailey or the castellan’s fortress. Not only is it the seat of power for the dungeon/Keep, it is the lair of the baddest monster in the module (the castellan!) and the main treasure hole.

When you consider the Keep as a dungeon, the outer bailey is “Level 1” and the inner bailey is “Level 2.” And with that perspective, the Caves of Chaos (and the other minor adventures outside the Keep) become a means to an end…they are the “key” to gaining entry to the Inner Bailey. Only those who can “prove themselves” can get in to the IB (without mounting a suicidal frontal assault), and doing the Caves’ “sidequest” is the ticket to getting a spy or scout into the castellan’s sanctuary.

But you’ve got to take advantage of the opportunity. You’ve got to think outside-the-box. You have to approach the adventure as “GIVEN that the Keep is the objective, what’s the best way to crack this nut?”

Exhibit D: Floor Plans of the Keep

At the end of the module, the reader is instructed to draw up floor plans for individual buildings of the Keep. Not the dungeon…the Keep! Examples are given of the inn and maybe one other building (I don’t have my module in front of me at the moment).

Why would one need to draw floor plans of Keep structure? Because Gygax is trying to teach 10 year olds how to be decorators/designers/architects?

OR is it because it might be tactically useful to know the lay-out of the battleground when you’re fighting man-at-arms house to house?

I think the latter.

Now in all seriousness, it’s quite possible Gygax did NOT write B2 with the conscious idea that players should choose to assault the Keep. But even if it wasn’t conscious, he provided all the tools and information one needs to do so. Perhaps he felt that such should be an option (after all, the choices in an RPG are only limited by one’s imagination) but decided that stating so implicitly would be “sending the wrong message” (i.e. that over-throwing the one bastion of civilization in the area would be both good and desirable).

In fact, there ARE some inherent dangers in sacking the Keep, and not just dying at the end of a pole-arm. If the Keep SHOULD fall, there is a strong suggestion that it will open the way for humanoids to invade the civilized lands. Treasure taken from the Keep will still need to be pawned/changed somewhere (the nearby monsters aren’t likely to pay for it), which means finding a suitable fence, possibly requiring a dangerous over-land journey burdened by the loot of the Keep.

Of course, such a journey might be made easier if the PCs can wipe out the bandits prior to sacking the Keep (perhaps as part of a bid for that inner bailey invitation?)…or if the PCs co-opt and join the bandits for mutual profit (in the sacking of the Keep).

Oh, I dig it. So many more possibilities when you stop looking at the Keep on the Borderlands as a “home base” and start seeing it for what it REALLY is: a fat prize ready to be plucked by a band of ambitious cut-throat adventurers.

You know, a sleep spell knocks out a lot of men-at-arms.
; )

At least now I know...

...how to pronounce Raggi's name. Previously, I figured it sounded like Scooby-Doo's way of saying "Shaggy."

Just finished listening to the Save or Die podcast interview with LotFP's founder, and my first impression is "he doesn't sound so tough...I could probably take him a fair fight." Obviously, though, I would have to contend with all the weird sorcery he has at his beck-and-call.

; )

In all seriousness, the interview offers some fairly interesting insights into JER's origins, motivations and raison d'etre for doing that thing he does, including his reasons (business and otherwise) for doing his own version of the Adult Fantasy Role-Playing Game. I'd already heard or known a lot of what he talks about just from reading his blog the last couple years, so most of it wasn't too surprising...Raggi in person is not saying anything different from Raggi the writer, though perhaps in more polite tones.

I had NOT realized he was introduced to the game through Mentzer's red box Basic...is this the (conscious or not) inspiration for his Lamentation RPG's particular format? Possibly.

Anyway, I know a lot of folks find podcast's like this to be boring. For those who don't, SoD's latest ain't too bad.

: )

Old School? Really?

Another good time at the Mox last night. It’s always a good night when you don’t get fragged by your fellow player characters (well, truth be told, it’s often a pretty good night when you ARE fragged by your fellows…so long as you get in on some of the fragging yourself!).

However, good time or not, I am starting to get disenchanted with DCC.

I think Luke (our game master) is doing a good job of moderating/ref’ing the game, but it’s just not wowing me as a game. And I can point to a couple reasons why (gripes I don’t think I’ve aired till now):

1. Too many random tables.

Not only does the sheer bulk of tables cut down on the search & handling time of the game (i.e. it makes game play slower), it feels so, well, random at times. Now understand there are benefits to random tables, and I can think of several good reasons for a designer to include them:

• It prevents “boring” same-old-same-old game play by changing up the possible result of any given action.
• It provides the impartiality of a random roll, as opposed to leaving the craziness of low rolls or “fumbles” up to GM fiat (the latter of which might lead to hurt feelings).
• It provides real surprises (both good and bad).
• It showcases the designers’ creativity.

But it’s still too much random for my taste. Everything in moderation, right?

There are very few random tables I use in my own games. Um…like none really (really? Yeah, I guess not). Even the placement of treasure and monsters is done “by hand;” I suppose I do use tables for wandering monsters on occasion (it’s rare that I use wandering monsters at all, actually), but that’s about it. My random dice rolls are left for the frenzy of combat, the resolution of negotiation, and the riskiness of saving throws.

Everything else is pretty un-random in my games.

Sure, character generation has its random elements, and I’ve made my own random tables to aid in quick-building characters (random hats and peer associations for example). However, character creation is (generally speaking) PRE-play activity; once we call Game On, there won’t be a random roll until we need to check surprise.

With DCC, you roll randomly every time you cast a spell, or fumble, or crit, or invoke a clerical ability. Hell, we had to roll randomly for how well we CAROUSED last night…apparently, some of the characters party better than others.

Even if it wasn’t distracting looking up tables in the rules, I think “random” still gets tired pretty quickly.

2. Too much fiddly.

At what point does a game go from being Old School with D20 sensibilities to simply “D20 Light?” Is DCC supposed to be Old School just because it has some random tables and dwarf is a class instead of a race?

Maybe it’s supposed to be Old School because it has the terms “Dungeon Crawl” and “Classic” in the title?

I don’t know, man. But here’s what the blurb at Goodman Games says:

"Blah-blah-blah…your character is a treasure hunting rogue, etc...THEN:

Return to the glory days of fantasy with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Adventure as 1974 intended you to, with modern rules grounded in the origins of sword & sorcery. Fast play, cryptic secrets, and a mysterious past await you: turn the page…"

Okay, let’s take that 2nd paragraph apart a piece at a time.

“Return to the glory days of fantasy…”

Not sure which glory days Goodman is referencing, but I note that it says glory days of fantasy, not glory days of fantasy role-playing. That’s a fairly important difference.

“Adventure as 1974 intended you to…”

Again, what does this mean? When I first glossed over it in my reading I thought, “oh, it’s some kind of return to OD&D, right?” But maybe what they are really referring to is fantasy in the year 1974 and not fantasy role-playing.

Why? Because I can’t for the life of me how they figure OD&D intended people to adventure like THIS.

I’ve been rereading my Little Brown Books a bit lately…they’re a solid reference for anyone designing fantasy heartbreaker…and they look a LOT different from DCC. They are incredibly abstract, often incomplete, certainly open-ended. If they “intend” anything, it would seem they intend people to design and adventure in their own fantasy world with little to guide them but the roughest of rule outlines.

DCC is full of specific fiddly bits as well as specific systems for doing things…even if those systems are nothing more than “roll on this random table.” I mean, wow, it took a long ass time for the guy next to me to write up his 1st level elf (even with me helping) just because there are so many BITS. Action dice, attack dice, crit range, crit table, crit dice, initiative modifier, ability modifiers, saving throws, luck modifiers, luck type, luck dice, spells known, spells manifestation, mercurial magic, blah, blah, blah.

In 1974 you would have rolled six ability scores, picked a class, rolled gold and chose equipment, and then given your dude a name and alignment. I don’t think anyone could claim the game designers in 1974 intended the chargen (or game play) to be this specific.

“…with modern rules grounded in the origins of sword & sorcery.”

I think THIS may be the key part of the blurb. Modern rules (read “D20” or post-WotC certainly) coupled with the dark, weird, pulpy fantasy of the original literature: Smith, Leiber, Howard, Lovecraft. The choice of literary background/flavor is great and very different from the usual heroic inspirations: Dragonlance, Eberon, Forgotten Realms, whatever. And maybe it is this inspirational source material that requires the extensive use of randomness (in order to mimic the psychedelic craziness of old school S&S).

Then again, didn’t Raggi manage a “weird” version of D&D while still using a true Old School chassis for his game?

“Fast play, cryptic secrets, and a mysterious past await you…”

I really, really don’t know what this is supposed to mean. I mean, is it totally disingenuous or what? Play is fastER than D20, capable of handling 7-8 players without slowing to a glacial pace. But I certainly wouldn’t call it “fast.” We spent a long hour (plus) on our single combat encounter last night, and the battle included both area effect spells and truly weak-sauce opponents (scrap-metal automatons).

“Cryptic secrets?” The only real secret is how XP is supposed to be doled out…well, that and what the actual page count for spells will be in the final version (the Beta uses a single page for each spell…it spends 33 pages and only covers 1st level spells. Could the full book have 150+ pages for 5 levels of spells?!).

“Mysterious past?” My character last week was a pig herder. Any mystery was added by Yours Truly. This week’s character was a former indentured servant-turned-warrior. I suppose it’s mysterious how he became skilled with all weapons just a couple days after being barely proficient with a cudgel.

“Turn the page…”

I assume this means the reader is supposed to close the chapter on other games (like Pathfinder and 4th Edition D&D) and start a new one with DCC? Personally, I don’t mind the pretention and DCC isn’t terrible…especially when compared to the fiddlyness of PF and 4E.

But, man, after three weeks of play-testing, I am pretty sure DCC won’t be replacing B/X for me. It feels like it wants to be fun in a beer & pretzels kind of way, but just like HackMaster it’s a little too mentally intensive to allow that kind of play. Even cutting down the number of characters-to-players (none of us brought more than one this week), even having a couple-three weeks of practice with the rules (four weeks for some players), even with each of us having our own copy of the Beta rules right at hand (many having it on their eBooks)…even with ALL that AND a GM who was completely sober, even then…

*sigh*

I guess I just have mixed feelings. We (*I*) did have a lot of fun, BUT a lot of that was the company and the chemistry and, let’s face it, the constant flow of the liquid libation. And when you’re having fun, you can have a lot of patience for the failings of a game.

Until you run out of patience, I guess.