If you're going to blog...

... be authentic. Expect a ration of shit for it.

So hi, I'm Michael / ChicagoWiz, I play D&D old school style and I'm part of a cantankerous community of RPG blogging bastards, some of which are challenged in the social skills (myself included), so expect to get nailed to wall at some point. Maybe even in extremely painful ways.

I'd advise you to take Raggi's advice to heart. (Yea, imagine me saying THAT. Hell is freezing over.)

#1 - Nobody is your friend (unless you know them as a friend face to face); #2 - they really don't give a fuck about you unless they're your friend; #3 - once you put yourself out there, you're a target; and #4 - expect butthurt when they twist in the knife into the things you care about and put yourself out there about.

#1- #4 are always in effect, but so should your defenses. Don't feel bad if you have to do what you have to do.

The TARGA takedown was a huge kick in the balls and yea, if I ever see the instigator of that shit face to face, probably the first words out of my mouth will be some combination of "fuck", "you" and "asshole" but as far as my participation in the old school blogging/gaming community drama, it's over, done, and I learned my lesson.

As far as someone devoting a blog post to hating your happy ass, been there, done that. Hell, at first I was all up in arms when whats-his-face wrote his little diatribe. I haven't reread it, but it's easy enough find (or he'll be happy to share it with you, I'm sure.)

Now, it's a fucking badge of honor. You can feel the same too. Just be authentic and true to what you feel inside.

And on those days when you're really pissed, just imagine a little bit of this:

Post Vacation (NSFW art)

So after 4 years, I finally had some time off. And apparently I missed Carcosa the Sequel. Well damn. Can't say I missed seeing the drama, because I had a blast exploring the East Coast, seeing whales and looking at the beauty of wild lands.

Not an Edition Warrior, but I have chosen a side...

... and it dates pre-2e.

You play what you want, great. Doesn't mean I'm going to go all kumbayah with 2e/3e/4e. I have no interest in them, no real use for them and they don't influence what I do with my game. If that makes me an "Edition Snob" - well, I'm fucking guilty as charged - kinda like "If it's wrong to be in love, I don't want to be right!"

Really? Why is there this sudden kumbayah all over the place? Why isn't it OK to just love what you love, play what you play and get the fuck on with it? Why do we have to shove banners and warm fuzzy phrases all over the place and pretend like we are all supposed to embrace something that we really just have no interest in, don't care about and won't give a second thought to past this post?

*sigh* I really am getting curmudgeonly, aren't I? Ah well...

(Edited to add)

I'm reminded of a phrase from the Hagakure:

"It is bad when one thing becomes two. One should not look for anything else in the Way of the Samurai. It is the same for anything that is called a Way. Therefore, it is inconsistent to hear something of the Way of Confucius or the Way of the Buddha, and say that this is the Way of the Samurai. If one understands things in this manner, he should be able to hear about all says and be more and more in accord with his own."

This is not inconsistent with how I feel about the way I play D&D.

DM Dilemma - It's OK to say "No"

I've gotten some very nice email inquiries and comments about the sandbox posts and I'm very appreciative of that, thank you. One of the common themes of the inquiries seems to be regarding my boundary of "no in-town adventures" so I thought I'd talk about that for a minute, because boundaries/edges and player expectations are a dilemma that I read about DM's having.

That "no in-town adventures" boundary came about as a result of adopting Ben Robbin's "West Marches" campaign style. I bought it whole-cloth, including the "You must begin/end in civilization" and "No in-town adventures - civilization is boring - wilderness is exciting!" themes. I'm extremely up front about that in my player handouts and game introductions. 

No capes! And no in-town adventures, dah'ling! Too ordinary!

Someone asked me "why" the restriction and it's a fair/good question. The best answer I can come up with is that I find them incredibly boring.

"But Michael!" you may gasp (and I've been asked in same emails). "What if the players want it!? What if they DEMAND it?!"

Simple. I would say "No."

Well, why I would do something that I have absolutely no interest in? Why would I waste their time and mine? Why is there the expectation that the DM is someone who simply supplies entertainment on demand (I really wanted to put "is supposed to be a whore?" here, but figured that would distract some. Wait, I did it. Oops...) to the players who are within their rights to expect whatever they want.

Crazy, right? I see this all over the place though - DMs who think that they have to do XYZ, or that the player's fun should come at the expense of the DM's fun. Bullshit.

Now I am clear and up front about what I will and won't do. I don't bait and switch and even if a long-running player got pissed and threatened to leave unless I provide an in-town adventure.. well... sorry man, thought it would work out, hope you find a game you can enjoy. That's not to say that I don't appreciate player input, that we don't discuss rules, that I ignore player requests or feelings. At the same time, I've got my own ya-yas. I've got what works for me and I know what doesn't work and trust me, an intrigue-filled, plot-rich mystery of Lord So-in-so who may be a vampire in the Enonian Keep zzzzzzZZZZzzzzz... huh? Wha'? Let me know what's beyond the woods over to the east in the wilderness. I may spend 10 days hex wandering, but by god I'm filling in my map and making plans for my keep to go there, my village to go there and I'll move those goblins right the fuck out! See? I'm cursing and getting all excited about the prospect. (Now you know why I needed 29,000odd hexes...)

Look, this isn't a post about why in-town scenarios suck. It's a post that says you as the DM have every right to run, to enjoy, to demand a game that you like as much as you try to provide a game that other people like. I know that in Chicago, I am extremely lucky to have a big population and lots of opportunties. I have a pool of players that enjoy the kind of game I run, that enjoy the way I do things. Not everyone has that... but in consideration, if I were in a player-poor environment, I still would not run in-town scenarios. Why would I play basketball if I suck at it and don't like it? Answer, I wouldn't. I'm not a masochist, emotional or otherwise. I'm not doing this to be of service to everyone else. I'm doing this to share what I do enjoy, to be with like-minded people and to have awesome games doing it.

So it's OK to say "no". It's OK to tell the players "you can't" and it's OK to set limits, boundaries and edges. Just be up front, be clear and be consistent. Be prepared to wow them with what you CAN do, with what you WANT to do and let the love of THAT shine through and you won't get asked for the things you don't want to do. 

The sandbox problems and the DM skill level

Yesterday's cross-blog discussion with JB of B/X Blackrazor over his post on sandbox gripes went surprisingly civil [1], so I thought I'd continue the discussion with some points that he brought up in his comment. They're good ones but most importantly, they reflect that issues with sandboxes end up being DM and DM skill specific, not necessarily a reflection on sandboxes in general. I tried to be very careful in disupting the myth about sandboxes, not to bash on JB's DM skills.

See for me, I AGREE that sandboxes should be "living/breathing/moving" things...that's exactly WHY I say they're a crap-ton of work! Or as I said in my whole quote:
"It requires a crap-ton of energy on the DM’s part to keep the campaign world LIVING/BREATHING/EVOLVING/RESOLVING..."
See? The work (and I'm just as lazy as the rest of y'all if not moreso) comes from trying to make a "living world;" that and the "keeping a couple steps ahead" of my players...which I don't do.

JB, I think you're overestimating how much work is involved - it's not as much as you might think, or made it be in your previous games.

The living/breathing world is a combination of how I see the world and how the players see the world. In so many ways, the players themselves shape the coming adventures. And while this may involve writing a sentence or two in a notebook as compared to the work of:

Players were expected to play their character/role in whatever scenario (I hesitate to even call them “adventures”) that the DM devised. The DM was expected to come up with adventures.

 I'd be willing to bet it's about the same amount of time. In truth, the time I spend ends up being more reactive than proactive.

Here's an example - I had a dungeon full of ko-balds in an area held by ko-balds. The players wiped them out. A few weeks later, the players wanted to go back. I grabbed an encounter table and rolled up an owlbear and goblins. Since goblins are in the next forest over, and once the owlbear was killed by the freaked out players, the players wondered out loud if the goblins were going to move in. BOOM! There's my future story line "GOBLINS MOVE INTO FORMER KOBOLD BASE - WAR IMMENENT?" That added flavor and set up stuff for the future.

My point is that staying ahead of the players, for me, has been a combination of some prep (probably about the same time it takes to prep a module or grab the latest ScoobyDo adventure and rewrite it in fantasy format) and more of figuring out how the world reacts to the players. I listen to how the players see the world and it helps me to guide my hand. It's not always the truth - my players have come up with some crazy shit that just doesn't fit the bill, but that's OK. Heroes often get derailed on red herrings and I'll let them, they'll figure it out.

There's another quote I want to pull and this one is from Matt Finch's first adventure design book. I'm bastardizing it a bit, but it's the same jist: "Meaningful player decisions should have meaningful results." (Actually, his full quote is: "A good adventure should maximize meaningful player decisions." but you can see how I derived my interpretation.)

The players guide the sandbox a lot more than I let on because that's my job. I'm a con artist. I'm a scammer. I have this great sandbox with all the pieces, but in truth, the players do as much of the building as I do, through the things they do, or the things they don't do. I'm not some improv wizard, if I was, I'd be making money in comedy than being a boring IT manager. When my players make meaningful decisions, I want it have consequences, even if not right away, but it will in the future.

So what constitutes a meaningful decision? Well, that's one of those things that each DM and each player is going to differ on. For me, meaningful decisions involve - where are the players going? How do they interact with the elements of the destination (monsters, important objects)? What do their actions result in? What would be the reaction of all those involved who are not PCs?

Each adventure is not a meaningful decision kind of adventure in a world sense. Sometimes a "kick the door, grab the loot, kill 'em all" is exactly that. That doesn't mean that the weird sword someone grabbed from a kill/loot game now doesn't have meaningful results later on. It could. I planted a magic sword a long time ago and then in a place of Chaos, it shattered. Nobody has asked why, or what to do, or how to pursue it, so it remains open, but there's that potential. I'm not going to beat the players about the head with it, but at the same time, that thread is there. It's a line in my notebook.

This is a long winded way of saying that the two steps ahead thing and the Just In Time creation doesn't have to be about DM skill in crafting worlds - it can be just as simple as letting the players do what they do best and then letting the world react to that. And if you really need inspiration, grab that d12. 1-2, the world reacts badly, 3-5 the world is unhappy, but waiting, 5-7, the world is neutal, doesn't care, 8-10 the world is OK, but wants to see more, 11-12 it's the best outcome for the players' interest. Done. Next!

Whew. OK, JB continues...

And while I WANT my players to be independent and "go off doing their own things," I have a shit-hard time reconciling MULTIPLE players wanting to do DIFFERENT things at once...ESPECIALLY in a campaign world where the "maps" are static, even if the "world" is not.

Uhh, don't. Let them do it. It's not your job. You set the stage. They play in it. If  they want to go in different directions, LET THEM! They'll figure it out, or they won't. Either way, you've done your job and you'll do your job as impartial referee.

Here's yet another example.

I have two main themes in my world - Chaos (the Dark Ones) is on the rise and the Bestials (orcs, goblyns, ko-balds) are wanting to kick human ass. My third theme is "you need gold. Lots of gold. There's riches out there. Go get it." but it's not the main oppositional them.

The first two YEARS of my campaign have seen the players wander from goal to goal. First, they wanted to clear out the monastery. No, they wanted to raid the ancient dwarf mine/kobold outpost. Wait, no, they want to explore the woods and rescue New Hope. No, wait, let's dig through the Inn and find the rumored magic sword. No, wait, wait... there's a second level the dwarf mines. Let's loot it! No, I found a map to a gold mine out in the Plains of Irecia. Let's go there! No, no, we should find my god's holy site! No, the chaos is stronger in the monastery, we have to clear it!

You get the point. :) They've finally focused lately and it shows. They've decided the orcs are too powerful right now and they want to eliminate the nearer threat of the chaos under the monastery.

And that's OK. They wandered, they had a good time, they learned and their skills as players have improved. My skill as a DM has hopefully improved.

Please forgive the length of this post, but there's another aspect I want to explore from JB's reply:

I was writing how they don't work for ME (at least the last three or four I've tried), and how there may be another "primitive" way of playing that still has some merits.
I think it's cool that you guys all do the sandbox thing...I think you have a lot of good tips for a newbie sandboxer like myself. So long as my players get to develop their own characters over time...strange as it might sound (coming from me) that's what I prefer to see more than the development of a campaign "world."

When I read your post yesterday, my goal in the rebuttal was to address the underlying myths that get perpetuated,  you just happened to hit a crap ton of them. There's no way in hell I can judge you for being a good or bad DM unless I play in your game, so I tried to be real careful about not coming at you, but at the underlying themes.

I think all good or skilled DMs have that same approach - allowing the players to develop their characters. I know I do. I'm perfectly happy to let the players farm mustard, go genocidal on the countryside or even let Enonia burn while they set up their own new town. I've been happy to let them figure their world out for the last 28 months because it's been fun, we've all been learning and we all are getting invested in what we do. That's independent of how we construct the world we all play in.

I'd also like to say that there is no primitive way, no better way, no ONETWUEWAY of making a world tick. Sandbox is a tool, just like story telling is another tool. I've happily and liberally stolen as much shit as I can from all the blogs I read and all the games that I've watched or played in. Every DM has their thing that works and their thing that doesn't. I know that each game I walk away from, I feel like there's a dozen things I could do better. I could describe rooms/exits/layouts better. I could set better atmosphere. Hell, my fucking combat rounds sometimes are like keystone kops because I get so excited about fighting that Philotomy's sequence falls out my ass and I can't remember who is doing what. But I try to learn and improve my skills.

We keep coming back to that skill thing - and each style of play takes a skill but I think all these skills can be learned. It may not be easy, but it's worth the attempt, if you're interested. I have about zero interest in running a plot-driven campaign, but I will stick my toe in it now and then to see what I can learn from the experience. If you don't like sandboxes, think they're shit, cool... but I hope you learn something from learning about them. To me, that's no different than trying new video games to learn tricks, or trying a new sport to exercise a different part of the body. I'm a firm believer that if we don't push at the envelope, we don't grow, we don't find new areas to explore - and that at the end of the day is what drives me to do the things I do... to grow, to learn, to learn new things and express the crap in my head in new ways.

Well, if you read all the way through, you're a trooper and thanks for hanging in there.

[1] Not that JB isn't civil, but my experiences in the past haven't been so good on these in other areas, so this was nice that I could say "bullshit" and someone got what I was saying. :)

The sandbox myths - they continue and I stomp 'em

The A to Z thing has really taken a lot more of my creative time/energy than I thought, so I was wondering WTF I was going to write about today, and JB over at B/X Blackrazor has given me the perfect subject.

JB writes some good shit, but I have to disagree with him perpetuating the myths of sandbox play.

• Players often end up with a “huh, don’t know what to do” attitude (looking for clues or suggestions or direction from the DM)
• Some players DO have a strong idea of what they want to do, but it’s “off the grid” (i.e. something the DM hasn’t prepped), leading to them being forced to go for the direction offered by the DM
• PCs spend a lot of time combing through “tavern want ads” which is no more or less ridiculous than DQ’s “Adventurer’s Guild” (aped by many computer fatasy RPGs since).
• The players (and sometimes the DM!) get BORED with the world/setting long before they’ve exhausted all the adventure avenues the DM bothered to prep, thus leading to (what I see as) a waste of the DM’s time and energy.
• It requires a crap-ton of energy on the DM’s part to keep the campaign world living/breathing/evolving/resolving as the PCs podunk around the imaginary country-side.

I wrote about this two years ago (JESUS! Two years ago!?! Who the hell was I two years ago??) and even run local workshops on 2 hour sandbox campaign preps, but like birth certificate disputes, gas prices and bad pennies, this one comes up again and again. So let's once again dispel the myths and have some discussion about it.

Players often end up with a “huh, don’t know what to do” attitude (looking for clues or suggestions or direction from the DM)


I think it's a fallacy that sandboxes don't provide hooks or opportunities to adventurers. What sandboxes don't do is beat the players about the head with the chosen adventure of the month. If the players decide that the opposition is too tough, they know there are other opportunities, or they go looking for them. I think a sandbox doesn't hide, but it also doesn't force - they are just there. If players are too afraid to enter the bar, local Merchants Guild, talk to the local priest or lord ... well...

I can honestly say that in the 2 1/2 years in my sandbox, or in the solo game, I haven't seen the players have a "what do we do now" attitude because I present a living world. If you don't believe me, go look at the list of quests from both campaigns. It doesn't take a lot to do that either... just have a sheet of paper and when the players talk to NPCs or you drop a clue or announce what has happened between games, keep a note of it. Trust me, properly motivated (ie., poor) players will remember that 6 months ago, you mentioned that there was rumors of a gold mine beyond the ko-bald/goblyn infested forests.

This isn't rocket science, but it's also not requiring you build a rocket. Just leave hints and clues and let events transpire to guide you to how those clues/events build and develop.

Some players DO have a strong idea of what they want to do, but it’s “off the grid” (i.e. something the DM hasn’t prepped), leading to them being forced to go for the direction offered by the DM

That is exactly what I want! It's a fallacy that the DM has to "prep" for every player decision, in fact that's why sandboxes work! You put the pieces in place. You set the stage, but you also have broad concepts and brush strokes for those moments when the players do want to go "go off grid" and you have clear boundaries.

One aspect of my campaign that I do not hide is that I will not run in-town, in-kingdom adventures. I just don't do it. If the players wanted to pursue some sort of internal vendetta against the King, I would not run such an adventure. That's not my game, that's not my campaign and I'm really damn comfortable with that decision. If I'm a baseball player, why am I going to insist that the tennis players get up on a mound and throw tennis balls like baseballs to me? I'm not an in-town intrigue kinda DM. So my players know what to expect and they know the boundaries of my sandbox.

Within that, there's a whole world for them to explore and there's nothing "off-grid". If they want to ride 10 days to the Sithasten mountains, do I have 10 dungeons prepped? Nope, but I also give them and myself enough leeway that I *can* come up with something. My deal with the players to run a game is they tell me about 3 to 4 days prior what the mission is they want to do and who's coming. And I prep. If game day comes and we suddenly shift gears, I have no problem asking them for 15 minutes to figure out what is going to go on ... and I make some serious notes, grab some great tools and away we go - within the broad brushstrokes of my world and based on where the world has dynamically flowed since the first time I wrote those ideas down.

PCs spend a lot of time combing through “tavern want ads” which is no more or less ridiculous than DQ’s “Adventurer’s Guild” (aped by many computer fatasy RPGs since).


I also have to respectfully say "So the fuck what?" No more ridiculous than 99% of what we do anyway - wandering monsters, encounter tables, d30 tables, etc. If the players want to go to the Merchants Guild Job board, what do I care? 99% of those jobs are boring and the players are going to end up not caring. And if they do, then that's the world they want to play in. I'll run mustard farmers. It's not all that hard to drop hints and hooks to take the PCs away from "want ads." (see #1 above) and sometimes you go with a trope because it works. I can honestly say that the only time the PCs went to the Merchant's Guild Job board in Skalfier in my online game is because that's the mechanism I use to introduce players into how my world is structured AND that's my mechanism for dropping hooks or giving players a bit of income till they get the lay of the land. I don't force them to do so, but that's also not their primary mechanism for finding things to done once they get their feet wet.

The players (and sometimes the DM!) get BORED with the world/setting long before they’ve exhausted all the adventure avenues the DM bothered to prep, thus leading to (what I see as) a waste of the DM’s time and energy.


That's an interesting observation because I don't think that reflects sandboxes as much as it reflects the type of games/players/DMs involved in the campaign. I don't have bored players and if I do, they end up causing their own messes that get them quickly involved soon enough. It's also a fallacy that DMs have to prep every adventure that the players are going to participate in. I'm constantly a "just in time" preparer. I'm maybe 2 game sessions out, unless I'm using a module or third party adventurer. If the players run into something that I'm not ready for, I invoke the 15 minute rule or I'm not afraid to put up the "Under construction" sign.

If players are bored - ask why? Sandboxes are not static worlds - they shouldn't be. I set the pieces in place, but I also wind up the key and start the little toy soldiers staggering about. If the players get involved, the world reacts. If the players don't get involved, the world moves on. Broad brustrokes, remember? I don't have to "waste [my] time and energy" until the players are ready. When they are, I'll meet them there.

It requires a crap-ton of energy on the DM’s part to keep the campaign world living/breathing/evolving/resolving as the PCs podunk around the imaginary country-side.


Bullshit. Pure and simple. This is the single-most biggest fallacy I have seen to date and I don't know how it persists. OK, if you look at World of Greyhawk, First Fantasy Campaign, Conley's Majestic Wilderlands and so on, yes it looks like a crap ton of energy - THAT HAS BEEN BUILT UP OVER ONE/MANY DECADES!

I started Dark Ages with three dungeons of 1st level only. One was James M's monastery. Took me 10 minutes to adapt it. I added another module (which I can't reveal - yet) as the 2nd and beyond levels. As the players go through it, I spend maybe 10 to 15 minutes adjusting stuff prior to a game. Another dungeon was generated through Gozzy's online tool and I spent about an hour stocking it and tweaking it. As the players cleared it out, and I dynamically refilled it, that took maybe 15 minutes. And so on.

The area around Enonia, my PC's homebase - I took an hour or two. The map you're gonna see this afternoon as my "L" entry - all 29,000 odd hexes? I have about 10 filled with some sort of crap. And this is a 28 month ongoing campaign.  My wife's solo campaign has nothing but one page maps for each 30 mile hex.  As I need them. And it takes me maybe 15 minutes per map to generate it, figure out the general "feel" for the area and have it ready. I probably spend way more time painting the minis for her game than the actual writing.

I don't think my campaign takes me any more energy than the work I see going on with the story-based games, with the "gonzo-include-em-all" games. Over the years, yea, it's gonna build some layers and you're gonna see a lot of work, but it's no different than a Pendragon campaign, a Battletech/Mechwarrior campaign, a *gasp* White Wolf campaign and so on. The fact that sandboxes are some mythical high energy requirement type of deal is perpetuated only because someone went down that path because they bought the fallacy.

You can do this. No, really. You just have to get away from the one central myth that I hope to crush as mercilessly as I can... that you have to spend a ton of time and energy to provide a living/breathing space for your players to play in without having some sort of railroad or just abandoning the idea altogether.

If all else fails, I think you can build an awesome starting point by taking a gander at  Jeff Rients "RPG Stud God"'s latest awesome work - the twenty questions for a campaign. I don't think, after answering those questions and sticking to my Myth Buster suggestions, any DM that can run a game would have a boring sandbox, unless they really want to believe those myths. And if that's the case, well, I can't help ya then.

OD&D Solo game w/wife - How one woman nearly starts a war

No miniatures were put on the table this game, nor were any attack dice thrown. The only table referenced in this game was the "Carousing" table from Jeff Rient's The Miscellaneum of Cinder. And yet we had a diplomatic incident, tons of roleplaying and lots of laughter. What else could you expect from a game?

The defeat of Alaxus netted the brave adventurers quite a bit of loot and some XP, but @thePrincessWife's character Aeli was lacking 550 XP to make fifth level. Being the generous and kind-hearted DM that I am (why did I just hear a ton of raspberries?) I offered her a chance at the carousing table for 275gp (I give double XP to go against the Carousing table) and even reminded her about the d30 rule. @thePrincessWife was hoping that she'd fail her saving throw...

I've never seen a "1" rolled on my d30 before, but she did it. That was not only a fail, it was an epic failure, the kind of failure that would have long lasting consequences for the character, the kind of failure where you hear a pin-drop and a gasp of breath... and then the gleeful laughter from @thePrincessWife as I made her roll her fate. A 7. According to Jeff's chart, that means: "Insult local person of rank. A successful Charisma check indicates the personage is amenable to some sort of apology and reparations."

Well crap. So far, Aeli has managed to completely befriend just about everyone of note in Valetown. It was going to be hard to find someone that might be insulted by her... hmm.. think, think, think... I asked for 5 minutes to figure out her fate. Flip over to Finch's City Encounter table, roll a few dice... no, I don't think a "local guard" counts as a local person of rank... hmm... roll again... "Sporgo Frogface, carrying the Pennant of the city’s Overlord, exhorting all to courage in the face of adversity, and loyalty to the city’s government, 1d6gp."

Well, doublecrap, there is no overlord to Valetown, so probably no Sporgo... although what kind of overbearing, stuffed shirt would be in Valetown, which is just a small farming/agricultural center, almost a market town kind of place...  Wait a minute... Sporgo's kinda like an ambassador. What ambassador would care about farming? One on a trade mission. What would be best for a stuffed shirt ambassador that Aeli could insult?

Only one answer - the hidebound, strictly-by-the-book, lawful-stick-up-the-rear Southron Empire! Prepared with a name "Gale Merry" (snicker), I introduced Aeli's carousing efforts. I asked @thePrincessWife how she would have insulted the honorable ambassador during her two day-long rip-roaring bash over killing the Minotaur Mage.

Her: "I step on his toes and call him a buffoon!"
Me: "OK, he looks down his nose at you, calls you a typical Northern drunk trollop and tells you to go home to your husband who should keep a leash on you."
Her (warming up): "Oh really? Well, I laugh at him and point to his 'wee weenie' and call it that. I also tell him to wear loose trousers or stuff something into those tight pants of his." (gales of laughter)
Me: "Well.. that's impressive! The ambassador's face goes beet red and he says the only loose thing around here is you and your lips! That any man who would want you would have to keep you locked up to keep you from running them so freely."
Her (really into it now): "Oh yea, I tell him that the only thing he needs to worry about locking up is his ugly pig wife from leaving him! Hahah! I'm insulting his wife now!"

At this point, her friend and NPC party-member Tironell intervenes and attempts with help from her henchmen, to hustle her away up the stairs. As she was being escorted out, the ambassador had a parting shot.

Me: "Well, he says I would expect no less of rudeness from the so called Hero of Valetown, a swine living among pigs!"
Her: "Yea? If you're lucky, we'll give you leftover slop!"

So at this point, she passes out and wakes up to find out she has to make amends to the good ambassador. At first, Aeli was going to blow it off, but when told that news would go back to Lord Risz, the noble who the governor of the area, and that word would be passed on to the King himself as the Ambassador was threatening to end his trade mission, her face fell and thus the making up happened. Aeli ran around town, spending a good chunk of gold to find the best dress possible and she agreed to give up the two large gems found in Alaxus's tomb.

The "apology" would have to be done according to strict Southron custom, which involved Aeli taking a submissive, secondary role while Tironell acted as a proxy for a male member of her family making amends. She had to enter, assume a bended knee position and hold the gems while Tironell gave the apology. Here's where the CHA check came in. Given she was of nobility, I deemed the difficulty "normal/easy" and made her roll 3d6 to equal or be less than 12.

15. She could not make a roll this game to save her life! @thePrincessWife told me how her sword scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaped across the floor and ruined the mood of the apology. While the ambassador took the gems (duh), he also declared that she should never step foot in Southron lands, lest she fall under his rules - an implied threat!

So while the apology temporarily assuaged the ambassador's anger, it's clear that Aeli now has a possible enemy! I wonder if she'll ever have to travel to the Southron empire...

I really enjoyed the chance to broaden Aeli's/@thePrincessWife's view of the world, introduce an element that could play into her future (should she ever need to travel that far) and see how she'd roleplay it, especially since Aeli's background was nobility. We had great fun and I always enjoy bringing an element into the game that we've not had a chance to explore - this time being the relationship between the Southron Empire and the Northern Kingdom. We didn't get a chance to play much more than this, but I'm looking forward to her next game as she deals with the aftermath of her successful adventure... and maybe even find more ways of draining her gold from her. I think I got about 1,000 gp through this whole carousing deal and aftermath - thanks Jeff!

Tids and bits

- As of the 3/13 AD&D Dark Ages game this past Sunday, we've reached the 50 game milestone. That's pretty damn cool! If I were a more prepared DM, I'd have some compiled statistics and trivia, but all I got is me trying to prep for the Garycon game. If I do have a dwarf visit from another realm, it's going to be epic... the last dwarf was seen about 257 years ago by elves. Visiting characters from other campaigns though... very cool!

- The online game keeps rolling and I may have a new player. Welcome Slatz! Good luck and don't pick up any dolls. :) You might also just start cursing Kellri right now, all my other players are. It seems to rain A LOT in Skalfier. For some reason, the players blame his CDD#4...

- I started painting my Sumerian DBA I/1a army last night and realized what all shiny-new army painting n00bs realize... this shit is hard! And I was just working on the flesh areas. This is not as easy as slopping together 18 or 25 orcs...

- Been ruminating about how I'll be incorporating a megadungeon into my campaign and realized this is going to be tricky with an already skittish bunch of folks who saw a high level (for my campaign) PC die and another fall the next game. The players are convincing themselves that they're not ready for what lies to the East, although I think this is more the first time they've really struggled. The world has presented them an opportunity and while I'm not going to push them there, they've opened Pandora's Box. I'm now walking a fine line between coming off as some sort of "you must follow my plot!" DM and presenting the consequences of their actions.

"Do you hear that sound, Mr. Anderson? That's the sound of inevitability..." - Agent Smith, The Matrix


Yea. Tricky. I know how I'll navigate it (without giving anything away to the players that read this blog. *waves* Hi there!) but it's gonna be tricky. You ever run into that?

Have a great weekend!

Zombie Fungi == Zombie Shriekers

(Inspired by joethelawyer's post and the Huffington Post article/BBC video here.)

Zombie Shrieker
Armor Class: 7
Move: 6" (60')
Hit Dice: 3
No. of attacks: 1 slam (Dmg. 1-8)

---

Special: Nil,  Frequency: Rare,  No. Appearing: 3-24,  

% in lair: Nil,  

Treasure Type: Nil,  Magical Resistance: Standard,  Intelligence: None,  Alignment: Neutral,  Size: Medium,  Psionic Ability: Campaign dependent, usually nil.)

The zombie shrieker is a horrid combination of a fungus and it's dead host. The zombie shrieker is not undead in the normal sense, rather it is an animated corpse controlled by the fungus in order to reproduce. The fungus spreads by releasing it's spores, infecting those who breathe the spores. Those infected will die a slow, painful death and then sprout stalks and tendrils, while still "moving" and even attacking other creatures near it in an attempt to be hit to cause the spores to release. It will periodically release a deafening shriek (1 round) in order to attract attackers, especially in response to light (within 30') or movement (within 10'). This shriek has a 50% chance of attracting wandering monsters in the round after.

Anyone attacking the zombie shrieker in anyway has a 50% chance per attack of causing the spores to release in a 1"x1"x1" cubic area. Any creature/person within that area must make a save vs. poison or be infected by the fungus. Infection will take 1d4+2 days to complete, at which time the creature is dead, but still animated for up to 2-24 days after by the fungus. Each day of infection causes the carrier to lose 1-3 points of each attribute, a zero score means the carrier is dead. In the latter half of the infection, the carrier will have an uncontrollable desire to be within as populated an area as possible or to stay around people.

A cure disease can remove the fungus from the carrier.

(On the XP side, you might want to give them the equivalent of 4HD XP, considering the special attack with the lethal spores and shriek.)

(This monster and its description is designated as Open Game Content.)

AD&D/OSRIC campaign - Sometimes the vise squeezes the other way

Sunday's AD&D game saw the players discover the reaction to their previous adventure in freeing the human prisoners and killing an orc shaman. The orcs have become more deadly, more organized and, most importantly, have learned to turn the tables on the players. This time, the orcs were using ambushes by suicide troopers, traps by multiple mounted patrols and using the players' habits against them - which resulted in a loss of another brave warrior. It also didn't help that the players lost a third of their group to a temporary paralysis from a disastrous encounter with giant wasps.

In coming back, the players found that the homefront has a new sheriff, and one that might not be as appreciative of the players as before. Time will tell ... alliances fall, only to see new opportunities and new challenges. The players ratcheted up the action and the orcs have responded, will the players?

I'm finding that I'm enjoying thinking about the reactions and the ways that the monsters will react now that the players are making their mark in the world. Make no mistake, disrupting the slave trade in enemy territory and killing a shaman was a definite mark and the orcs will not soon forget it. Now I'm looking forward to seeing how the players will react. It's a fine line thought. Squeeze the vise too much and the game becomes grim and hopeless. Don't raise the bar in response to the players and it becomes boring. The world will move without the players, but it will also move when the players have enough leverage. Things are starting to get very interesting.

Unfortunately, along with the death of another PC [1], I also learned that one of my longtime players, Lu, will be leaving us in April to go back overseas. In the time Lu's been with the campaign, he's taken his human thief, Irem, to fifth level - the highest of any of the players. He's a smart player, thoughtful and has adapted well to my campaign while also challenging me to come up with things in response to his play. Unfortunately, there are two avenues that had opened up during his time in the campaign that I won't be able to explore with him directly.

One was a bad roll on the Rient's Carousing Table. Lu found himself with a "black mark" on his forehead that faded... or did it? I actually was going to start exploring that again, but with his departure, we'll have to send that hook/path on to the realm of possibilities. The other avenue was a previous contact with a man with glowing eyes. Lu never returned to that contact, but who knows what the other players may find if they start turning over some rocks?

Well, in any rate, I plan on doing something special for Lu at our final game, which looks to be April 3rd.

I've made suggestions to Lu that he join my online/Google Wave game, but time will tell. He's going to be busy with his move and whatever happens, I wish him the best and a very heartfelt "THANK YOU" for playing at my table. Lu, you're welcome back anytime.

[1] - what is it about PC deaths coming in clusters. I've gone almost a year without any and now I've had two in two games. I knew that the players were ratcheting up the game, with exploring new areas/levels and riling up the orcs, but this seems to be very coinky-dinkal. It wasn't that the monsters were more powerful.. yellow mold and orcs.

Sidenote: I really enjoyed Monday's DM Dilemma discussion. Here are some of the topics I'm going to explore in future posts:

• Mounted combat - between two mounted combatants
• Poison and how it works
• Other spell interpretations

DM Dilemma: Charm Person

I thought that it might be useful to group some posts together under the heading of "DM Dilemma." We all run into things that cause us to scratch our heads, make rapid rulings on the fly, then we go back later and dig through the manuals and forum posts for some sort of inspiration on either solidifying a houserule or realizing we had it wrong in the first place. Dilemma might be a strong word, but it's a catchy title, so I'll go with it. I often find myself busy Monday morning looking up things that have puzzled me from the game from the weekend. I hope these posts are useful to some of you.

It's been my experience that players are pretty forgiving of a DM when the DM says "I'm ruling this way now, but I'm going to solidify my understanding to make it right for my campaign in the future." It's part and parcel to improving our skills as DMs, thus challenging our players to improve on their skills as players.

So... that said, I'll post my first "dilemma" which is more of a challenge...

So imagine this. You're a blood-thirsty orc leader. You are on a religious crusade to rid the earth of humans. You just sent your warriors to encircle a party of humans and you've watched this damn human spell-caster deal serious damage to them. In a bloodlust, you and your bodyguards charge the spell-caster, to remove the immediate threat. To your rear, a druid casts charm person on you. He then attempts to persuade you to stop your charge. (Imagine a bearded druid running after a charging orc yelling "Wait! Stop! That spellcaster means you no harm!")

As a DM, how do you rule how the charm has affected the orc?

Charm Person (druid) - AD&D Players Handbook

"The creature then will regard the druid who cast the spell as a trusted friend and ally to be heeded and protected. The spell does not enable the druid to control the charmed creature as if it were an automaton, but any word or action of the druid will be viewed in its most favorable way." 

(NOTE: the magic-user spell description refers to the druid version for effects)

I'll tell you what I did. The orc leader assessed that his new friend, although human, was no immediate threat to him or his orc troops.  He did not order his bodyguards to attack the druid. He assessed his new friend's entreaty to not attack the magic-user. While trusting that his new friend had the best intentions, the orc concluded the mage's continuing aggressive actions were the biggest threat to the orc's survival, as were the other humans attacking him and his friends. To not protect himself and his brothers would be suicide. So the orc leader attacked the mage and damn near killed him.

I think my players were a little surprised at the way I ruled on charm person and I've chewed on it all week and come to the conclusion that my initial ruling was the right one for my campaign/table. Charm Person is an amazingly powerful spell, but it's usefulness in the middle of combat, in the middle of a charge, is dubious. A charmed being doesn't go instantly stupid, nor does he somehow completely change his way of thinking in an obedient automaton. Rather, he has a changed data point to deal with - a powerful one, but only one.

In combat, with life and death on the line, charm person will have mixed results. In the middle of a charge, probably not nearly as much as at a moment of indecision, or if the target of the spell comes into a one-on-one with the charming spell caster. If this were a non-combat situation, the charm might have led to an extremely favorable result, depending on how the magic-user or druid steered the discussion.

Now, had the party ceased their attacks, this might have turned out different with regards to the charm. Weighing the threat versus the words of the druid would have led the orc leader to different conclusions and he would have found the datum of "the most favorable way to view the druid's words" to be more powerful than immediate survival.

It's an interesting spell and ruling to chew on.

Next week will be mounted combat, as I ran into this issue yesterday (3/13/2011) and it's going to take me a few days to chew on.

If there are any DM Dilemmas that you'd like to cover, please feel free to suggest or post your own and I'll link to it.

Re-imagining AD&D orcs and monsters

What a great topic to talk about (hattip to Grognardia)... except what a bad topic for me!

You see, I've done a lot to my orcs, and many other beasties in my AD&D world. My tabletop players have ran into more differences, changes and odd things that vary off of the standard AD&D definitions... but there's a lot more they haven't run into or figured out! I can't spill all the beans here So, I will try to give you some broad brush strokes of things they already know and see how we do.

In my Dark Ages campaign:

Orcs - are pig-faced and a bit larger/bulkier than humans. Their genesis is rumored, but the exact facts are lost to history. They are religious zealots, smart, cunning, have no problem with sunlight, are very militaristic, resemble Planet of the Apes gorillas in coloring, dress and armor. They will commit suicide rather than be captured. They remove the heads of their victims after battle, and burn the bodies. They do not leave bodies of their fellows behind. They are extremely racist and view humans and elves as no more than cattle or a sub-species. They may also be breeding hybrids of some sort for some reason.

There are some specific influences to my orcs and some clues here that may give you further insights. Orcs are right now the Big Bad Guys in my campaign and have the players full attention.

Kobolds - the players ran into a strange new type of kobold a couple of games ago - these are winged kobolds that spit poisonous saliva into players' faces. In my campaign, kobolds can climb walls and ceilings like spiders.

Troll Mages - take one orge mage, reskin it as a troll, merge the best of both monsters' abilities together and you have the feared troll that lives under the bridge right outside of Enonia in the Dale Woods. This guy is responsible for one near-TPK and a lot of angst. The players still plan on taking this guy out.

Trollkins - are the "children" of the troll mage. Mysterious and fey. So far, they seem curious and childlike, but extremely wise beyond what seems normal.

Dwarfs - are a lost race. They were once slaves to the Dark Ones (ancient evil beings of Chaos that ruled the lands) but once freed, they've not been seen since.

Elves - are a seafaring race, grouped by families/clans.

Dragons - are generated using EG Palmer's amazing Dragon Generator. First published in 2009, I have a copy of that in my "Best of Old School Blogs" folder. Now that is probably news to my players that dragons will not be dragons, but they'll learn soon enough. My tabletop players are already familiar with one, even though they don't realize it... or maybe they do!

One thing that is common for all my monsters. Unless otherwise specified in the Monster Manual, they're intelligent, ruthless and committed to their own best interests. They don't particularly fear the players. They have their own agendas and I prosecute those agendas to the best of my ability.

This has caused some issues, and led to one player being asked to not come back when he couldn't deal with the changes. In his mind, kobolds should be groveling at the feet of a first level character. In my mind, these are starving kobolds who are desperate enough to try and bluff their way into robbing the players, as far as they can, because they have NOTHING ELSE TO LOSE! I'm very proud of the players that I do have that were able to deal and adjust to the world as I've presented it. I think that's something to be aware of when you alter from the "norm".

I'm looking forward to reading the other entries in this meme. I hope you've enjoyed mine and if you have any questions about them, just ask! Stats are available - feel free to email me. Bryan, close your email, I won't send them to you. :P

AD&D/OSRIC campaign - Requiem for a warrior/mage

I had a post set up musing about charm person but events at last night's game are worthy of note. Last night, one of the more powerful characters, Teela the elven fighter/mage, played by Bryan N. fell.

The party crept into the strange room, populated by a large metal table and chairs. A very thick layer of dust covered the furniture, but strange ridges in a pattern could be seen in the dust covering, as if the table bore some strange symbols in its surface. At one corner of the table, the dust appeared disturbed, as if someone long ago had push it aside, the covering here was much lighter. The chairs around this area were lying on their backs, pushed away in a haphazard manner. 


The party was exploring an area of the Dwarf mines, searching again for the "Hall of Records" to find treasure. Their other paths had not been fruitful and they found themselves winding through rooms with corroded, rusting metal shelves and debris, gear-works and strange pipes.

Rhys, the ranger, moved over to the eastern wall to cover the other exit. Dargellon, the ranger, stayed close to Teela, peering at the table while Talos, the druid, hung back at the south entrance to the room. Teela looked at the disturbed dust and confidently swiped her arm over the table and strange symbols, which revealed themselves to be part of a map! 


"Look!" she said excitedly. "It's a map with ancient Dwarf symbols wri...." and then the dust "exploded" with a burst of yellow spores, filling the corner of the room her and Dargellon stood in!


Yea... Yellow Mold. This is the same Yellow Mold trap, in the same room, on the same table, that claimed a character almost two years ago.  Bryan's character moved the dust, the 50% chance of spores popping hit and then the dice rolled for saving throws. Both players opted to invoke the d30 rule to give themselves higher chances of rolling their saves.

Dargellon coughed and gasped, stumbling away from the cloud of spores as both Rhys and Talos shouted in horror at the sight. Dargellon hacked and spat phlegm a few times and stood up, his face pale. 


"I'm OK." he gasped. Then they both turned to look at Teela, who was lying on the floor next to the table. Her breath wheezed in gasps as she clawed at her throat and chest. The spores were settling down, but Teela's fate was already sealed.


Bryan needed to roll a 13 on the d30, he rolled a 7. The stunned looks on everyone's face, including mine, and even the store owner, who had been watching us play, told the tale. Teela was dead from poison. After 11 sessions over 14 months, gaining 10,354 XP, the third level fighter/third level mage was brought down. It was a pretty heavy moment and the mood grew extremely somber.

I gave Teela 6 turns to do as she wanted, I left it up to Bryan. Bryan plays another character, Jorann the cleric, and he willed most of his wealth and possessions to Jorann, which I allowed. Bryan has run both characters faithfully especially for moments where he might lose one. He's been cooperative in not linking the two as mules or trying to exploit them once we figured out how playing two characters worked best in my campaign. Teela had become a somewhat mysterious, but visible figure in the town of Enonia - becoming friends with the only NPC mage in town and serving as a type of informal ambassador for the Elven nation. She had faced terrible monsters, seen the effects of Chaos under the abandoned monastery of St. Eggyx and helped to explore the wild lands east of Enonia. This was someone that Bryan had put 14 months into, and it required consideration, respect and some understanding.

"Please give these to Jorann... and take what you need. I am almost gone." Teela gasped as her party members lay her gently on the ground. They had trekked as quick as they could to escape the mines, but civilization and help was just too far away. Her companions looked shocked and bereft and the two hirelings Aldred and Killas stood quietly in respect. 


The end was quick and merciful and Dargellon swore to take her to Jorann and pass word to the elves so that her family could bear her away.


Bryan stayed in the game as one of the hirelings and he had a good nature about it. Bryan and I had to come to an understanding early on of how things worked. Bryan's a good player, he knows the rules, he is skilled at many things and most importantly, he understands the fairness and risks of the game. He was disappointed, but he was a good sport. We all were sympathetic. It was hard for Bryan to shift out of "Teela" mode, and we all joked that somehow Teela had gotten into "Killa's head" as Killas suddenly seemed to know a great deal about the mines, similar to how Teela had known.

It was a shock, to see a powerful character like Teela be brought down by lowly Yellow Mold, but that's the game. The remaining party made sure to burn the mold and pushed on, facing an undead shadow which they killed with fire and the use of the druidic shillelagh spell. They pushed on to places dark and deep, but the Hall of Records eluded them and they were forced to turn back.

Silently, the party made their way back to Enonia. Their grim visages warned the usually inquisitive guards away, who watched in a bit of awe as the returning adventurers bore Teela's body between them. They made their way to the humble church of Tangorin where a distraught Jorann ushered them in. Slowly, the rumors started spreading that one of the mightiest of of the strange adventurers of Enonia had fallen in the deadly Dwarf mines.


Farewell, Teela. You were fun to have in my game and you will be missed.

Hot Elf Chick welcomes you to Classic/Old School D&D

What, you expected some anime-style shmexy babe? Ha! Not the way I roll - this is old school, baby. Horror could lurk around every corner, that pit trap may just contain a few of these and if you're prepared with the flasks of oil and spearmen in the second row, you'll stomp on this ugly creature and go looking for the loot that you're sure is somewhere ahead of you...

Now you've probably seen some posts with the same damn links to the same resources. I'd like to point you to some different, but invaluable resources that will probably benefit you right off, being that you're interested in the old school and I figure you already have the rules that you like to play...

Original D&D Message Board (1974 Little Brown Books and other out of print TSR games from the 70s - high signal to noise, extremely low drama)

Knights & Knaves Message Board (about as rabid of an AD&D board as you can get, but the best for AD&D - cranky bunch, but damn smart/experienced/worth the etiquette landmines to get to know)

Dragonsfoot Message Board (the longest running 'old school' Classic D&D forum, and tons, I mean literally tons of adventures and homebrew modules of quality, plus reviews and discussions/navel gazing.)

Jeff's Gameblog (Jeff Rients is one of the coolest DMs that I've ever run into and his posts are treasure troves of ideas)

Kellri's Classic Dungeon Designer #4 Encounter book - this + AD&D DMG could be the best D&D DM resource combo ever created. This book is invaluable for generating months of adventures)

Now, a bit of opinion for ya...

There's a lot of buzz, discussions and not a small amount of snarking over what "OSR" this and "Classic D&D" that means and even some thoughts to how much lint a navel on a D&D player can collect before you can shape it into a d20 or some shit... but if you're someone not familiar with this online D&D group of people who love the old school, original games, well... go look at any religious, political or teen-age-Justin-Bieber fan club and you'll get the idea. We're a cantankerous, creative, argumentative, self-absorbed, generous, passionate group of people who happen to love playing D&D - we just don't really know what the hell else to agree on.

So if you're feeling alone about Classic/old school D&D, take heart. You're not! It's a vibrant community. There are a lot of us continuing to play games and I'll testify to that. I've ran a 28 player Classic D&D marathon last week. I'm running an over two year old Advanced D&D campaign with two games this week - one tonight, one Sunday. I've got an online game set in the same AD&D campaign world and a smaller game/experiment in Shadowrun/Cyberpunk meets OD&D.

There are a lot of local conventions still being held and at almost everyone, there's someone running old school Classic D&D, or an out of print RPG. Ask around... do a google search or go visit the local gamestore - there are still a few around!

There are still a lot of us and we game. Hard, passionately, and with a lot of love. I hope to see you around.

Oh yea... and one final link. Joesky's blog. If you see a post on another D&D blog with a lot of "blah blah" and no "Joesky tax", you'll see Joesky getting VERY upset. You won't like making Joesky mad. Trust me. It's cool though. Joesky is one of those drunk dudes that somehow pulls wisdom out of his ass while throwing up on table, but making it look like the most fun thing possible.

Now... for my own Joesky tax, based on the pic above

d6 tricks to fool your players, like the title of this blog made you think I had an Evil DM Wednesday girl here...

1. On the next failed thief check or some sort of ability check or task, instead of failure, give them a false positive of the worst kind, make them paranoid for hours.

2. Classic Tomb of Horrors trap - open the door, the ceiling falls. Through the floor into the 10' pit trap underneath. 1d10 + 1d6 + (other damage you see fit to assign from spikes, boiling oil, poison gas, etc.)

3. Next combat, instead of describing everything, just have the monsters bum rush the players, surprise! "OK, you open the door and there are monsters. Roll for initiative." If the players want to take time to assess situation, that counts as their action - or they can just attack whatever is nearest.

4. That hot elven chick guide is really that horrible harpy vampire creature in the picture above. And she just cast charm person at your most powerful fighter as a 6th level MU. Save vs spells!

5.  You're in a 50'x50' room where there is an incredible treasure on the other side... and a maze of invisible walls which shift/rotate/slide like in the movie 13 Ghosts. And yes, there are wights here.

6.  The dust here is impregnated with oil or petroleum. You can smell it. Every round, for open flames, cumulative 5% chance of explosion like fireball at 6th level

Classic D&D Marathon - Recap

This past Saturday, I held a Classic D&D marathon at Unique Gifts & Games in Grayslake, IL. This follows the Classic D&D marathon from 2010. It was scheduled at 10 hours, I halted at 9 1/2 hours mainly because the players hit a logical stopping point and there was really nothing that could be done in 30 minutes.

First, I have to tip my hat to Ken and Kathleen, the owners of UGG, for making this a welcome event. We had half of the gaming area for a large table for 9 people and they were very accommodating. They also supplied freebies to give out to players and provided me a complimentary sandwich for dinner, that was much appreciated!

It was an awesome event! I had 28 people play throughout the day. I had two of my AD&D campaigners show up for about 8 hours of gaming. My youngest player was in the range of 7 to 10 years old - Juan - and he was a great player. I had a wide range of ages and genders play. The average session was about an hour or two, and I had complete table turn-overs almost the entire day. By the end of the day, I was exhausted, the players had tromped through the Isle of Dread and survived!

Yes, Isle of Dread - the great wilderness exploring module X1. I've had a soft spot for this module ever since the Expert box set came out - I remember diving into the box expecting great things and I was never disappointed. I remember killing many PCs on just the journey from the mainland to the island, as wandering monsters on the ocean are particularly deadly! My "rules" of choice was D&D - a huge mishmash of Holmes, OD&D and house-rules. I had my pregens from my 2010 B2 Keep on the Borderlands, so I bumped them to 4th level, updated the character sheets and away we went.

A side-note before the recap... in preparing the module, I was impressed once again by how easy it is to make this module your own. You've got a dragon, nasty dinosaurs, enough races to set at each others throats and lots of places to throw your own wrinkles. The downside was the heavy-handed wording of the module in how players should be wrestled/coddled/fudged into success. There are places where it seems as if the 2e "story first!" approach was already taking root, nine years early. Those admonitions can be easily ignored, but the proliferation of magic items in almost every treasure is not. For a one-shot, I really didn't care, but for a long-term campaign, depending on your magic flavor, this module could tilt it fast.

So I put in my special sauce - changed things, modified things to my liking, grabbed my S&W Ref Sheets to make wandering monster rolls easier (as well as have other tables handy) and threw the players onto the Island!

Stealing a page from Jeff Rients and Gilligan's Island, I started the game with combat as the players found themselves marooned...
Me: "OK, let's get started. You see skeletons in front of you and zombies are pulling themselves over the rails. Everyone else is pretty much dead. You have initiative. What do you do?"
Player: "What is going on? Where am I?"
Me: "Is your action to look around and assess the situation?"
Player: "No, no.. I'll attack the nearest undead!"
and so on...

The cleric made quick work of the undead and the players found themselves shipwrecked somewhere on the Isle of Dread. A quick search of the captain's quarters found a roughly drawn (by the DM right there) map of the coastline of the Isle of Dread.

"So where are we?" the players asked.
"Somewhere on that map." I replied.

That was some people's first introduction to Classic D&D as I had a couple of requests for "What do I need to roll to figure out where I am." (Answer: "Well, you can see you're on a beach, there's a huge mountain to the NW and ocean to your east and south. Jungle is to your west. You don't need to roll for that...") Once they got over that bit of a shock, characters picked up their gear and hiked along the beach. We had a brief segue with some harpies that charmed all the demi-humans (go figure) and then the players reached the village of Mora - the outpost of the Kingdom!

Upon learning that the next boat is 30 days out, the players began looking for opportunities to kill things and take stuff. The two teenage boys were all about looting and pillaging the village, but soon enough they were heading to the jungle with "Ron the Hunter" - a guy who had a really bad Aussie accent and a cowardly streak of hiding behind the adventurers until the monster was dead, then dashing forward to plant his boot and sword in its steaming carcass.

The first adventure found one the more unusual results of dice telling the story - the constant reappearance of the damn green dragon in the game. After melting two of the players with it's breath and clawing a third to death, the players gave up most of their magic items to the dragon who flew off. Bamf! Replacements appear and on they go. (Ya gotta love just dropping the veil of verisimilitude and concentrating on just playing) This dragon ended up showing up three more times (!!!) as a wandering monster.

The players hunted down a dinosaur that was eating a villager and netted some gold and good will from the natives. They returned to hunt more animals for gold and ran into some flying-squirrel-monkey-racoon things - the famous Phanatons of X1. After some non-verbal negotiation, the players convinced the phanaton to trust them and to do some trading of intricately carved doo-dads for silver.

One of my special sauces was to have a ton of hooks for each major encounter, both prior and within the encounter. The Neanderthals would want the players to go after the Lizard folk and vice versa. The Rakasta would ask the players to join them on hunts if reactions went well. If the Arachnae captured the players, they would force them to attack the Phanaton and so on. In this case, the Phanatons got the players to go hunt Arachnae.

That ongoing hook took up most of the day. Players died to poisonous snakes, giant - 24 foot tall giant - sloths (heh, wonder how that'll go down when you reach the Halls of Valhalla...) and other misfortunes. The biggest "kill" belonged to the slimy witch-doctor and his wandering monster band of 11 zombies. I threw Hold Person on the thief and cleric and had two to three zombies per other PC. Two PCs were killed in the melee. Three PCs fled and the held players were left to their fate...

In the end, everyone had a great time, got loot, killed things and felt good about helping out cute little spider monkey/squirrel/raccoon/George Lucas wannabe Ewok things. I spoke to a number of people about my AD&D campaign and may have netted another player or two and perhaps I'll be running campaign games at UGG. We'll see.

Thanks again to everyone that showed up and UGG!

Updated 3/11/2011:
Two players have posted their recaps, I thought I'd share them. Thanks again for playing!
The Delve Lord's recap
APlus's recap

I will be doing another Marathon next year, I'm just not sure what the hell I'll be running. Maybe a megadungeon... something bizarro... I've got a whole 11 months to think about it...

The strange places minis will take you

I'm just about finished doing up my special sauce for the X1 - Isle of Dread D&D Marathon this weekend, but tomorrow to Monday will be jam-packed, so this is gonna have to do it for the week. Hopefully I'll get my February minis photos completed and we'll have a nice post for Monday or Tuesday.

Speaking of miniatures, I've found that my hobby and my particular obsessions with getting the info on the particular figures I have takes me into some strange places. My minis have influenced the direction of my game at several points - most notable are the Otherworlds troll, the figure I'm using to represent Calypso (villian in @thePrincessWife's solo game), the figure that became the Mountain Ogre and the Otherworlds orc shamen holding a heart in his hand.

How so? Well, when I was constructing my Dark Ages world, I had just started putting together the OWM troll.  Putting him under a bridge on the main path to a tempting exploration destination came to me while assembling the big guy - making him a troll mage was probably the result of me slicing my finger open or something. If I feel pain... everyone feels it! The Mountain Ogre was a creation of imagination from having just played Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and looking at this figure and wondering how I could convert it away from the "Hellborne" look. The story wrote itself. The orc shamen influenced the game I just concluded on Sunday... what would be special that would cause so many orcs to show up? Hmm... shamen is doing some sort of sacrificial ritual... and that story wrote itself. The Calpyso figure was holding an orb and looking young and suave - and thus I've come up with more info on that villain and how he acts/thinks.

I also find myself discovering unusual things. For instance, did you know that FASA had released a game called Crucible that sounds an awful lot like they were wanting to take on WarHammer? (here, here and here). I found this out because I got a figure in a trade that I could not find or identify. It wasn't until I started a search based on the tiny words from the "slotta tab" on the bottom of this winged, demonic looking creature. "Olley" and "C 99 Ral Partha" led me to the photo on the left. Viola! Mystery figure found and a game that I had never heard of... and probably will never play. Sounds like it was an interesting game though.  (Picture is from collecting-miniatures.com - the Olley Armies wiki)

And yes, I am going to find some reason to stick this guy in one of my games somewhere!

Some people find their inspiration from the books and magazines they collect, I find a chunk of mine in my minis. How about you?

Kids D&D

I don't know how widely this has been talked about, but I just found Jimm Johnson's version of an attribute-less, extremely simple D&D game for kids. It's very much in the tradition of the microlite games. I'm talking the kind of game a four year old could play and enjoy, while remaining a bit faithful to the game we all love.

The PDFs (and picture of his sweet Dungeon Forge setup) can be found on his blog - The Contemptible Cube of Quazar - here at this link. Very nice and thank you, Jimm! I can't wait to give this a whirl.

AD&D/OSRIC campaign - Player's recap

Following yesterday's post, one of my players posted a recap from his character's POV. I really wanted to share it. For him, Sunday's AD&D adventure included:

• Winged kobolds that spit poison - I've been waiting for awhile to pull these guys out of the bestiary.
  
• A 3 to 1 monster/human ratio, at over 90 monsters in a little hamlet, we were in skirmish territory. I brought a lot of d20s. As soon as the players heard the NPC reveal what was going on, you could hear the needle scratching on the record as the players' initial plan went south in a hurry.
  
• Orcs riding warhorses and riding down players. The ranger took 15 points from one charge which got everyone's attention in a hurry. In this case, the treasure from the adventure wasn't gold, it was light warhorses. At 200+ gold a pop, and the ability to charge into battle and stay mounted, this was real profit.
  
• Orc shamen performing evil rituals by ripping the hearts out of human prisoners... and I managed to make the players all say some version of "yuck!" (@thePrincessWife jokingly asked me "What is WRONG with  you?!?" to which I replied "Hey, YOU married me...")
  
  The Orc Shamen from Otherworld Miniatures made an appearance, complete with heart and blood spattered arm/blood dripping from the heart. That picture is coming in a couple of days.
  
• The funniest wandering monster result I've had to make in a long time. I rolled a hit for an encounter on the day the players were going to ambush the goblins to free the human slaves. It was my not-zombie-but-zombie-like monsters - the Damned. Well, howinthehell do I work this out? While the players are figuring out their ambush, I'm rolling dice like mad to figure it out - do the PCs encounter them before or after the ambush (3 in 6), do the PCs find them or are they active, etc.... and it ends up that one of the hirelings sat on the grass-covered Damned in their somnolent slumber. Imagine a poor hireling sitting down in garbage disposal... that's about what it was like. The groans heard 'round the table as I pulled out the zombie miniatures was funny though...

AD&D/OSRIC campaign - Happiness is...

... surveying the wreckage that the PCs have caused over the campaign setting and enjoying the glorious chaos that will ensue as the world reacts.

... watching a miracle missile attack succeed with a natural 20 and derail the villians' plans.

... sacrificing a favorite NPC to save a PC and seeing real emotion from the players as "a short female scream is heard... then cut off and silence."

... watching half your monsters cut down by a well executed ambush and contemplating the screamings and cryings when you (the DM) pull off that same tactic in the future.

... hearing players say "Wow, that was an awesome/amazing/fun/crazy game!" as they pack up to leave.

I'm exhausted, mentally, from the game yesterday, so this is the extent of posting today. I'm going to be busy this week finishing up my tweaks and prep for the Classic D&D Marathon this coming Saturday (11am to 9pm at Unique Gifts & Games, Grayslake IL) using the X1 Isle of Dread module. Don't be surprised if you see Morrowind influences here... something about both module and setting go together like peanut butter and chocolate.

But man... what a cool game. Nothing like doing a warhorse charge on the players. Good thing the hirelings weren't there.. immediate morale check. Oh yea...

Taxation, again

My online AD&D group has just had almost the same exact reaction as my tabletop players had about 2 years ago when they came hauling a load of loot to the city gates... and then were stopped for inspection and taxation. The screamings... the wailings... the plotting of how to get around it... there were machinations that rivaled anything else in the game to avoid paying gold to the King.

I'm amused for two reasons. One, I don't charge for training to increase levels. I take care of that via taxation on goods brought in and in "cost of living" which I have a published formula and cost for. I confess that if I weren't so against training costs, from a personal "I don't like it" POV, this wouldn't be an issue. Second, from the perspective of their characters - taxation in this form would be normal. Yes, it can be avoided, but the lengths both the tabletop and online group wanted to go through would seem crazy to normal people in the imaginary world.

... and the players in my online game were coming up with some funny ways of getting around it... from casting charm person on the guard (there are multiple guards and people around... that would be an attack. A Bad Thing, especially for a 1st level guy that's probably not going to last long against guards.) to levitating over the wall with the loot... to trying to somehow transport the NPCs outside the city to to the loot...

I had this to say to them:

Me: BTW, just as a note... this is not unusual for this world as this would be the practice in almost all human cities and places where a goverment existed. Only in small villages, hamlets and places where mostly locals operated would this activity not appear. It's a common custom of taxing incoming goods/items that had been "found" or brought in or even items being shipped. 

Player: Do you mean that our backpacks are checked everytime we go into the walled part of the city, but since we're not usually carrying anything unusual we don't RP it? 

Me: No, you've just never presented the profile of a merchant or someone who has goods to be checked.

Look at it from the perspective of a guard. He probably is looking at 5 to 10 people a minute coming in, on a busy stretch. He'll look at what they're doing, if they've already entered and are leaving, what they're carrying, if they appear to be a merchant or not, if they have some sort of reason to be searched, etc. The times you've entered the cities, you've presented the profile of mere travelers. With urns, boxes and sacks, you're going to look a bit different.  

(Just as an aside, I'm astounded - again and I don't know why I should be - at how the brakes screech and the heads snap around and the "WTF"ing starts when I mention taxing ... imaginary... gold :D) 

So yes, you'll definitely look like merchants, you'll probably be stopped and checked. This would, from your character's perspectives, be business as usual and unless you really were interested in saving every last gp, most "ordinary" people would not go out of their way to avoid it.

I swear, I'm starting to channel Alexis more and more each day... ;)

BTW, this is not a bitch at my players, we've had a good discussion and they're actually more worried about the guards opening the urns that they wish to keep intact till they deliver them to the NPC. That's a valid concern and I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

It's just funny, to me, that they're doing the same thing my tabletop guys did 2 years ago.

Do your players do the same thing when you extract gold from them?