Once More Unto the Breach!

Question of the Day: To House Rule or Not to House Rule?

2012-02-02T11:36:00.003-05:00

Greetings, all! I don't have much time today, but I wanted to ask another question (geared mostly toward D&D and its spawn):

What is your stance on house rules? Do you avoid them totally, or do you use them to some degree? If you do use them, how extensive (or not) are your house rules? And what are the aspects of the game that you house rule?

For myself, I like to keep house rules to a minimum. I've limited myself to one 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper for house rules for my C&C campaign. And actually, only one side of the sheet has the house rules. The other side has rules from the Castle Keeper's Guide that I am using to augment the rules from the C&C Player's Handbook. So again, just one page of house rules.

My criteria these days for choosing a rule set to use is how much I would have to house rule to get a game I want to play. C&C is one of those games that I don't want to/need to house rule too much for it to do what I want it to do. When I find myself house ruling a game too much, that means (to me) that it's not one I want to play.

There is, however, something to be said for remembering to try playing a game for what it is (rules as written). Lord knows I have a hard time putting that into practice. I just dive automatically into tinkering for some reason. I'm trying to resolve/rethink that impulse in my mind right now with regard to Labyrinth Lord. I want to potentially run some LL games but I keep trying to house rule it too much (in my opinion). But I think I'm reaching a point where I'm accepting the game for what it is, rules as written.

Anyway, looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

P.S. I know JB at B/X Blackrazor has written about house rules, and his opinion is pretty clear, I think!

How Simple Do You Like It?

2012-01-31T20:58:00.004-05:00

It's no secret how much I love C&C, and by extension D&D. But I've found myself wondering if I can find an even simpler system.

I'm trying to find the right balance of simplicty for my current lifestyle. I think I can handle C&C, but sometimes I find myself craving specific things. Such as using a game that only needs d6's instead of all the other polyhedrons. Or a game that only has two or three ability scores. Or a game that has a limited number of skills and spells for players to choose from, meaning that I as GM would have less character options to contend with/memorize.

Or some combination of all of the above.

Again, I love my C&C and all that it offers me and my group. But as absurd as it sounds, sometimes I want a game that's even simpler! And not simpler in a "I'll just play Basic D&D instead of something based off of Advanced D&D" way. Part of what I've been feeling is a need to get away from D&D-based games, and all the associated mechanics.

Some of this might be motivated by gamer ADD, but like I said, it's also because my life seems to get getting busier all the time, as my job seeks to give me more and more responsibility and the kids are getting older.

I'm also looking for an RPG I can run in between sessions of my C&C game, on those nights when things just don't align and my regular campaign doesn't come together.

I know what you're saying: "Uh, Drance, you've only been back to playing table-top RPGs for about a year. You wanted to get back into some sort of D&D action specifically. And now you want to play a game that ISN'T some variation of D&D? You've got issues, man."

Tell me something I don't know.

I've also been fondly remembering my Amber Diceless RPG days of late. And I've been considering pulling out my copy of Barbarians of Lemuria again. Now, Amber may be diceless but that doesn't mean it's exactly simple. It takes a lot of consideration and connection between GM and players, and can get pretty intense with respect to descriptive detail and depth of interaction.

Anyway, the questions are:

1. Can you recommend a simple system that isn't one of the following: Any variation of Microlite, Dungeonslayers, Old School Hack, or Wizard Rogue Mage?

2. Does anyone have any experience with Advanced Fighting Fantasy or Dragon Warriors, and if so, are they fairly light? I'm assuming Dragon Warriors is not really that light (I have the Mongoose book, but haven't read it), but I could be wrong. Oh, and I have to admit that I've been getting very curious about British Old School games.

Another caveat: I'm also pretty familiar with Savage Worlds at this point, so you can skip suggesting that as well, if any of you think of suggesting that!

Sorry for the rambling. It's been one of those days. I know I'm not articulating things the way I want them to come out. I'm not completely happy with this post but I'm going to hit the publish button anyway! Throwing caution to the wind and all that bosh. Looking forward to hearing from you all.

To (mis)quote Edmund Burke...

2012-01-31T08:21:00.009-05:00

All that is necessary for the triumph of douchebaggery is that compassionate gamers type nothing.

I'm not into flame wars, but I'm also not into sitting back while some petty Internet tyrant lounges in his ivory tower and belittles people. Especially when the people being belittled are those that I respect.

'Nuff said. I'm over the latest example of such douchery in our little corner of the blogosphere. But never fear, I always keep my eyes peeled.

UPDATE: True to form, THAT GUY created a post speaking of/to yours truly. He calls it "DRAMA!" I would call it "He's overestimating his effect on me, by far."

I'm not angry in the least. Being angry would imply that I have an emotional attachment to the man. Not at all. What I do feel attached to is our community here in the gaming blogosphere. And when someone starts flinging their bad attitude around with impunity, I feel compelled to speak out. 'Nuff said.

And since it may never see the light of day, here's my comment on his "Drama" post:

You are overthinking all of this, man. I'm just an average guy. No grand conspiracy against you. Note that I haven't commented at all on your blog for some time now. It's only when you start attacking people and getting up on your proverbial high horse that I feel I should speak up.

If you don't want to hear a different opinion about your behavior, why are you out here on the Internet? You can't expect to get all pissy and abuse people verbally and not take some shit for it, right? You shouldn't be surprised when you get bile for bile.

I just call it like I see it. Is there really any denying that you come off pretty harsh on people, and perhaps needlessly so? That you browbeat others, and you go off at the slightest provocation? Am I wrong?

And it's just baffling. It's so easy to be nice to other people. And nice doesn't mean you're a pushover. You can still have strong opinions, stand firm for your beliefs, and be a nice guy.

Doesn't all that bile choke you, ever? I don't care if it's real or just some act you put on, that vitriol is not good for you or for the community. That's all I've ever said to you, and all that I will ever say. Just give people a break. I'm not trying to get you to leave the blog community. That's an impossibility, and nor would I want it. I feel you do have a lot to offer the community.

All your literary allusions and purple prose are not needed in this instance, my friend. Spend that energy being a cheery chap once in a while. It might do you wonders.

P.S. And can we stop assuming that I'm "miserable," I hate my life, I'm not happy with my gaming situation, I'm always angry, and all the other stuff you're assuming? This is all just obfuscation on your part to steer the conversation away from your bad attitude. You don't know anything about me, as I don't know anything about your real, non-Internet self.

All I'm talking about is how you come across on your blog, man. You just come across as a bully, or whiny. Or some combination of the two. That's all. It baffles me why people put up with your crap out here.

I bequeath the Stick in the Mud scepter to...

2012-01-30T21:01:00.005-05:00

King Nothing. And guess what, he's disappointed. Ruh roh! Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair.

This one's for you, Your Majesty:

Question of the Day: Can you use B/X and Labyrinth Lord together?

2012-01-26T09:53:00.001-05:00

Hi all, don't have much time to post today. But I wanted to ask another question, this one inspired by my re-readings of late. I've been delving once again into the pages of both the original B/X books as well as Labyrinth Lord. But since I have such limited time, one thing escapes me: true knowledge how the two would work together in actual use during a game session.

What I mean is, say I'm using the B/X books for reference and the players have copies of LL for reference. What problems would we run into, if any?

So, the question: can one safely use B/X and LL simultaneously during a game session and not get into trouble?

Question of the Day: The Caller!

2012-01-24T11:36:00.003-05:00

So, I've decided to start tapping more often into the gaming community we got going on here (the kids call that "crowdsourcing" these days, right?)!

Here's the question of the day (just regarding playing D&D): Does anyone currently use, or ever used, a caller for their game sessions? And by extension, do you designate a mapper? I've been reading Molday, Cook/Marsh, and Mentzer again, and in reading about the caller and mapper once more, it made me wonder how often this is actually used.

Personally, I've never seen this done. When I've run games and played in them, each player was asked on an individual basis by the DM regarding what the players were doing at any given time.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

EDIT: Oh, and I guess the logical extension to my question is "If you use a caller, tell me why."

Anyone else locked out of The Eternal Keep?

2012-01-22T09:05:00.002-05:00

Uh, yeah, so I've been trying to look at The Eternal Keep for the last day or so, and it won't let me get in! I keep getting a message that I need to be invited to read it or something like that. Anyone know what's going on? And if one needs to be invited to read it these days, how does one go about getting such an invitation?! Any help would be appreciated!

EDIT: Thanks for checking in, ADD Grognard, with the details! Since Blogger has been sucking again lately and I can't f-ing post comments to my own blog, I'm putting this edit in. Good luck with everything! I'll miss The Eternal Keep if it goes away! Maybe we should all make a mass exodus from Blogger. That might get them to get their shite together.

Between hope, wonder, and ambivalence...

2012-01-19T21:58:00.004-05:00

That's where I find myself, folks, in light of Wizards of the Coast's latest move: the announcement that they will be reprinting the 1E AD&D books that St. Gary laid down all those years ago. Wow. I really feel like this is surreal. Let's talk about this, shall we?

What is WotC up to? That's my gut reaction. Sorry to be cynical. But seriously. Are they really finally taking a page from the OSR, admitting that old editions have their place in the gaming world and not just some fringe movement? Are they giving props to the OSR, actually listening to long-time fans of the game's many incarnations from the last few decades? Do they want to play nice and live in harmony with fans of all editions of D&D? Is this an extension of the squishy 5E feelings that they're pushing?

Or is all this some ploy to steal the OSR's thunder? Because as expected, the news of 1E's reprinting (albeit a limited release, supposedly) has some OSR diehards crying foul. Why? Because, the diehards say, this will make OSRIC obsolete. Uh, I personally am not so sure about that. I can see how some might consider WotC re-releasing OOP edition as a move to quash the OSR. Every group has conspiracy theorists, right? I'm not so sure it would mean the end of all the retroclones, though. Ironically, some might find the clones to be more user-friendly, having given the old rules better organization, etc.

For me, these days, if I wanted to play in the 1E style, I would just keep playing Castles & Crusades. For me, C&C takes the spirit of 1E and blends it seamlessly with the best of the 3E mechanics (I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record, with the C&C love I constantly spout). I'm not sure I would even want to go back to the old 1E rules as originally written, as heretical as that may sound to some. But, let's keep in mind that Gary gave the C&C guys his blessings back in the day, so...there you go.

Is WotC just jumping on the bandwagon? That would be something of a victory for the OSR, eh? The movement has become something that WotC can no longer ignore, eh? I wonder what all the "This Is A Dying Hobby" doomsayers are thinking right now.

I've been so busy today that I haven't had time to do any reading on the 1E situation, so I don't know if WotC has released a longer statement as to why they are reprinting Gary's masterpiece. But between this and their "kumbaya" 5E love-fest ("it will bring all D&D lover's together!"), I'm really feeling a bit like I'm dreaming. I really don't know what to think at the moment. It seems to good to be true. Or at least to good to be kosher.

So I just wanted to vent. I sit here between hope, wonder, and ambivalence about all of these recent developments, and frankly I just don't know what to think. And I know I'm not alone. Thanks for listening to me babble. I'd love it if someone would babble back, to let me know what you're all thinking out there.

Interesting times we live in, eh?

UPDATE: Since I can't seem to post a comment to my own blog at the moment, I'll respond to all the people who stopped by through this update.

Chris Creel: Glad you got a laugh outta that! And I agree that there's a good likelyhood that 5E will take some inspiration from C&C (this opinion is no surprise given my *ahem* boner for C&C ;-).

Greyhawk Knight: Thanks for the insight, specifically the reminder that this is a limited print run. And those who don't want to plunk down the cash on the Hasbro of the Coast altar can also take up the OSRIC cause.

Martin: Hey there! Good to hear from you! How are things? Agreed on the hype factor on the part of WotC, the canny bastards! And you worked with WotC before, right (no judgement there, of course)? Who better than you to know their tactics? Yeah, this 1E reprint thing smacks of another olive branch that is designed to test the OSR interest in "official" D&D.

To Gwydion and all: thanks for the reminders of the real purpose behind the clones.

James and Tenkar: thats for stopping by and for helping to put things into perspective!

Paragons of Waterdeep: Session 13

2012-01-17T15:58:00.001-05:00

We had our “lucky 13th” session smack dab in the middle of the holidays, so not surprisingly only one player was able to show up. Bill arrived and was ready to go. He ran his Lathanderite cleric Oisin, as well as his wife Pam’s elven ranger Kale. The party wizard, Keseim (Player Wes absent), was still conveniently unconscious after being drugged by an arrow tipped with some sleep poison. The rogue Milo (Player Jamie absent) stormed off in a huff due to the fact that he was denied the chance to further pummel the Autumn Blade elf captive. He wasn’t seen for the rest of the session (again, conveniently ;-).

So, the party and their elven warriors were indeed saved by elves from an allied clan: the Summer Green clan. These newcomers, led by a ranger named Arilyn, revealed that their clan had been recently under attack by supposedly demonic forces from the eastern portion of the High Forest. This was worrisome, as the demon-controlled Hellgate Keep lies at the easternmost portion of the forest. The evil denizens of that fiend-ridden city had been responsible, in part, of the ancient elven realm of Eaerlann. However, small contingents of Summer Green elves, such as the one that had come to the party’s rescue, had managed to slip south when they heard that the Spring Dawn clan was in trouble.

After some debate as to what to do next (return to Kale’s clan, or track down the Autumn Blades and take the fight to them), the party decided to send a splinter group north to track down the Autumn Blades and test their strength. This group included the Summer Green elves, some elven warriors (led by the sometimes bumbling elven NPC named Otiver), Oisin, Kale, and Kale’s fellow Daughters of Mielikki rangers Karis and Rel. So this group struck out to see if they could hit back against their enemies.

After traveling for several hours tracking the very obvious movements of the Autumn Blades (they were obviously not trying to hide their tracks), the group came to the ruins of an elven-built watchtower. The Autumn Blade’s tracks led to the gaping entrance of the tower. The rangers snuck up to the tower and listened for sounds from within, but heard nothing. The group, convinced that the Autumn Blades were hiding within, decided to rush the interior of the tower and take the fight to their enemies.

The opening salvo of their attack would be a sonic attack spell cast by Oisin the cleric. When Oisin send his spell screaming through the entrance, the impact made the entire tower ring like a gigantic bell. Not long after, the sound of screeching emanated from the tower. This was followed by the emergence of two lizard-like humanoids from the tower’s entrance, which the group quickly identified as troglodytes.

The elven warriors who had taken up positions just outside the entrance cut the two creatures down quickly, with the help of arrows fired by the rangers. Then the warriors rushed into the tower as the first wave of the group’s attack. They were greeted by a ruined interior, at the center of which stood a spiral staircase leading up. Next to the staircase was a gaping hole in the floor. It was from this hole that more troglodytes began to clamber in what would become a flood of monstrous humanoids. The group fought valiantly, but was soon overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Several of the Summer Green clan elves were killed before the group was able to make good their retreat. The troglodytes gave up the chase quickly, seemingly unwilling to stray too far from the confines of the tower.

The session ended with the party heading back to where they had left the remainder of their companions.

To be continued…

It's All D&D to Me

2012-01-10T12:13:00.010-05:00

I'm just gonna go off here a bit. Just a short tidbit of brain spew, sort of an offspring of the post I wrote yesterday regarding what I consider the "flavors" of D&D (including Castles & Crusades, my preferred flavor, and the upcoming 5th edition of D&D). Please let me know if you agree or disagree.

Here goes, according to my brain:

OSRIC is D&D.

Labyrinth Lord is D&D.

Swords & Wizardry is D&D.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess is D&D.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is D&D.

[Insert title of D&D-inspired rule set] is D&D.

Are you seeing a theme here? A common thread?

Bottom line: for me, I don't care what you call it, it's all D&D. Like Shakespeare wrote, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

I don't care that there are small, medium, or large differences between the clones and the rules they emulate. I don't care how crazy the "house rules" found in rule sets like Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, and their ilk may be.

It's no accident that images of the original D&D Red Box grace the front of the three-ring binders I use for my GM's screen during my Castles & Crusades games. C&C is in many ways the successor of D&D. It's is a successor from a mechanics standpoint, as well as the spiritual successor. So when I'm using those rules, if someone asks me what I'm playing, I usually say "A version of D&D" or just "Dungeons and Dragons." If they ask for more detail, I'll get down to the nitty gritty, but otherwise, I see no difference between C&C and the system that gave birth to it/inspired it.

The same goes for all the clones and clones of clones out there. That's the main reason the Edition Wars make no sense to me.

Back to Castles & Crusades: It may have a different name, have some different terms scattered throughout (i.e. Castle Keeper instead of Dungeon Master), and differ in mechanics in some ways. But in the end, it captures the feel of both 1E and 3.X D&D, paying homage to both iterations. Yet, at the same time, it has aspects that make it its own creature, especially the mechanics of the SIEGE Engine.

I know this is all my opinion, and I'm not some sort of missionary that seeks to show others the "true way." This is just MY path to D&D nirvana. Yours no doubt differs.

I am curious to see what 5E will be. Heck, I may even get into the playtesting if I am able. But I already have my version of D&D that I enjoy above all others. And it's called Castles & Crusades.

Does anyone else out there feel the same? I'm sure I am not breaking any new ground here. Does anyone disagree? I know I've probably written the same sentiments on this blog before, but sometimes we need to be reminded of things. Lemme know your thoughts. Or am I just shouting into the void here?

*EDIT: I should mention that I also consider Pathfinder to be D&D by another name (wait, is that a stupid statement?). I would even venture to say the unthinkable: 4E is even D&D to me, though a vastly altered version. I can hear the outrage at that statement! I don't say 4E is D&D because it has the brand name and is currently in print (for a little while longer, at least). I say it because it bears at least some resemblance to the editions of the past. Though I would never play 4E, it still gets grudging acknowledgement from me. Heresy, I know...

New Year Ruminations

2012-01-09T12:27:00.002-05:00

What’s up, fellow gamers? I’ve been silent lately mostly due to being struck by a plague of sorts. I won’t go into the sucky details, but it’s been a pisser, let me tell you. I haven’t been prolific of late anyway, what with family life and my job kicking it up a notch.

Blah blah blah, whatever, right? Anyway, I wanted to get the new year started with regard to posting, so here goes with some general thoughts and stuff:

1) I need to get the Session 13 report up for my Paragons of Waterdeep campaign. Now that the holidays are over, I’m looking forward to having our game sessions get back to “normal.” Meaning that our group should be able to get together more often again, with a full complement of players. Here’s hoping…

2) I’ve been banging my head against the “edition wall” again, thanks to my old nemesis: gamer ADD. I’ve been obtaining all sorts of D&D editions/clones over the last year or so, and I’ve gone through a merry-go-round of dabbling in all of the stuff. When it comes to yours truly, I think the proliferation of clones only serves to confound me. Perhaps it’s my stage of life, and the inherent lack of time to devote to the hobby. I’ve speculated about all this before, but I don’t feel any closer to a solution. It’s a hard pill to swallow for me, being afflicted with such distractibility. Chalk it up to “bad” nostalgia, perhaps.

The bottom line? I am happy that there are a lot of clones out there, some of which represent rule sets close to the originals (i.e. OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, S&W) and those that could perhaps be considered published house rules (i.e. LotFP, Delving Deeper, ACK, DCC RPG, Crypts & Things, etc.). It makes for a heady mix of options from which we can all pick and choose, until one finds the right rules to suit one’s unique fancies.

For those that can keep a clear head while exploring all of the options out there, godspeed and enjoy! I envy you! But for me, I just find myself going into this house rule “death spiral” that goes on and on. As I’ve said before, my personal requirements make me seek out rules that I don’t have to tweak all that much. For me, that flavor is Castles & Crusades. It does what I want it to do, without me having to spend a lot of time on house rules. And as I’ve been toying with other systems, I find myself house ruling them to make them more like C&C. So I keep thinking to myself “I should just stick with C&C and not waste my time making other games more like C&C!” Ugh, I’m such a spaz.

Your results may vary. Different strokes and all that. I’m not going to go out and yell at people that my way is the one true way, though I’m not shy about telling people how much I love C&C and why I think it’s so great. It’s a solid system that I am proud to use/support, created by some great people. But again, I wish that I could divine the source of my gamer ADD and turn it off for once. I go through spells of it that are really annoying. It takes away from the time I should be devoting to C&C and my current campaign. The struggle goes on…

3) And of course there’s the news that has the blogosphere buzzing: the announcement that a 5th Edition of D&D is/has been in the works (as usual, Akrasia has the news well covered). I signed up for the “playtesting” thing. We’ll see what comes of this. I for one am trying to be open minded. I usually defer to the “giving them the benefit of the doubt” side of things. I would love it if D&D got some of its “cred” back. From reading other blogs, it seems like at least some of you out there agree with me. Of course, there are some of you who think failure is inevitable. I don’t think that WotC could ever create “one game to rule them all” and end the Edition Wars, but from what I’ve read it seems they are aspiring to that very goal. I think they got caught up in marketing-speak madness, which usually makes people spout all sorts of pie-in-the-sky claims. Good luck with all that, Mike Mearls… So, at the moment I’m trying to remain optimistic. But I’m sure that it won’t be good for my gamer ADD…

Ok, folks, that’s all for now. As usual, I will try my best to blog as much as I can in the weeks to come. Happy gaming!

Happy New Year, and Welcome to 2012!

2011-12-31T21:31:00.001-05:00

To one and all, hope you have a happy new year, and that you are all safe and merry in whatever place you call home. Thanks for a great year in roleplaying, and here's to another one ahead!

Joyous Winter Holidays to You!

2011-12-24T13:53:00.000-05:00

To all my gaming comrades out there, may you and yours have a happy holiday season! Here's to the year of gaming behind us, and to the gaming in the year to come!

Paragons of Waterdeep: Session 12

2011-12-21T15:38:00.002-05:00

Player Bill (running his Lathanderite cleric Oisin and Player Pam’s elven ranger Kale) and Player Jamie (running his rogue Milo) were in attendance for this session, in which we saw what happened in the aftermath of the skirmish with the elves of the Autumn Blade clan. After tending to the wounded and checking the dead, attentions turned to an Autumn Blade prisoner that had been trapped in the wizard Keseim’s web spell (by the way, Player Wes wasn’t at the session, so Keseim had conveniently been hit by an arrow coated with sleep-inducing toxins, and thus snoozed through the session).

After a somewhat lengthy debate between Oisin and Milo on how to question the prisoner (the conversation between a cleric of a lawful god and a rogue was, of course, a highlight of the session), they seemed to settle on the old “good cleric, bad rogue” routine. However, this seemed to degenerate in Milo taking over most of the questioning process. Oisin wanted no part in Milo’s increasingly, um, “persuasive” tactics. Said tactics included threatening the elf (who gave his name as Elashar) with climbing gear, namely pitons and hammer. As the questioning progressed (with Milo trying to pry information about the Autumn Blade’s intentions, movement, and numbers from the captive) and Elashar remaining tight-lipped and mocking, Milo drove pitons through the toes of elf’s boots, narrowly missing toes. While all this was going on, Oisin joined Kale and the other Daughters of Mielikki with the group (Rel and Karis) on a walk around the camp’s perimeter, to keep an eye out for another assault by the Autumn Blades.

Meanwhile, Milo’s questioning was whipping the Spring Dawn warriors into a frenzy of blood lust and revenge. The Autumn Blades, after all, had been bitter enemies of the Spring Dawn clan for many years. Milo finally became so frustrated with the prisoner that he suddenly insisted on fighting Elashar one-on-one. The elf was untied, and what followed was a down-and-dirty fist fight in a circle of cheering elven warriors. The combatants exchanged blows, while the crowd shouted and rooted for Milo to beat the Autumn Blade to a pulp.

All of this commotion soon attracted unwanted attention, however. As the fight progressed, Kale and her fellow rangers were the first to hear distant crashings through the trees. Eventually, an ettin, two heads grinning wickedly and wielding a large club, came barreling into the camp. The freakish giant smashed a couple of elven warriors with his massive weapon before the elves began to fight back.

Despite the new threat, Milo and Elashar continued their duel. Not long after the appearance of the first ettin, a second ettin appeared from the trees to cause more havoc. Despite the surprise and ferocity of the ettin attack, Oisin and Kale (along with the other Daughters of Mielikki and the elven warriors) led the group in overcoming the giants.

Around the time the second ettin attacked the group, Elashar began to back away from the contest with Milo, trying for a fighting retreat of sorts. Milo tried to snare him with a grappling hook (one of the rogue’s favorite tricks) but the elf was too nimble. Then Milo hurried to catch up with the Autumn Blade, but just as he did so an arrow suddenly protruded from the elf’s shoulder. As Elashar slumped into Milo’s chest, the rogue looked up to see yet another elf step from the trees. This newcomer, who had shot Elashar with the bow she held in her hand, wore a cloak pinned at the shoulder with a silver brooch worked into the image of a sun rising behind a blade of grass.

To be continued…

A Savage Evening with Solomon Kane

2011-12-08T10:58:00.002-05:00

Last night was game night at All Things Fun, and I was ready to run the next session of my Paragons of Waterdeep campaign. However, a couple of my players couldn't make it. The campaign is in a critical spot at the moment, so I felt it would be unfair for half the group to not be in on the action. So, luckily, Player Bill had brought some goodies: some of his Savage Worlds books.

Now, both Bill and Player Jamie are big into Savage Worlds, and have played it a lot. So they were able to school me pretty well. I've been trying to read up on the system, but I feel like this old dog can't learn new game systems very easily just by reading the books. I have to learn by playing, it seems. Anyway, I've been dying to learn how to play Savage Worlds, as the guys have been talking about it a lot since we all started gaming together.

Bill's big into the Solomon Kane setting. I've read some things about the setting, and I checked out the recent Del Rey collection of Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane stories a while back. The setting has interested me, and I was able to look past the racism eventually (it seemed even more prevalent than in the Conan stories). I've always liked the time period of the late 1600's/early 1700's. Throw in some of the supernatural, and I'm in!

Jamie and I created some characters, and Bill agreed to run us through a quick adventure. It was a bit of an adjustment to get into a skill-based game, versus a class-based game like C&C. And then there's the whole point-buy system versus rolling up stats, etc. But it was pretty cool, with attributes and skill ability being represented by different dice (d4 up through d12). It was pretty interesting to use some of the other dice more often, but a bit strange to not be rolling a d20 at all!

I created a brash and arrogant English swordsman named Benedict Zane. I took what's called a Hindrance with regard to arrogance, as well as a delusion Hindrance. Thus, not only is he a braggart, but Benedict also believes he gets advice and wisdom from the voice of St. George, that only he can hear (he sort of keeps this to himself, however).

Jamie created a magician-type of character by the name of Nicholas Margrave (I think that's the name). He has an Italian man-servant (whose name escapes me at the moment), and they are apparently on the run from a vengeful Italian merchant family. Our characters, of course, bumped into each other in an inn (some things never change), and we proceeded to head out into the night across some desolate English moors! There we encountered some wolves, who we fought off successfully.

It was all-in-all a great night! I was glad to finally get into Savage Worlds to see what all the fuss was about. I was pleasantly surprised with the system, and I am definitely interested in Bill running some more Solomon Kane when we need to take a break (or are forced to take a break) from my campaign.

Paragons of Waterdeep: Sesson 11

2011-12-05T12:54:00.003-05:00

Our heroes and their allies battle hostile elves and their lupine pets!

(The Wednesday Night C&C group at All Things Fun hasn't met in about three weeks, due to Thanksgiving as well as some conflicts in my schedule. Therefore, we haven't had a session of my campaign for a few weeks. I'm definitely suffering from RPG withdrawal! I sort of expected this time of year to slow us down, but I've used the time to keep planning all sorts of diabolical stuff for my players to encounter. At any rate, session 11 was pretty intense. Read on below...)

At the end of the last session, the party had reunited with elven ranger Kale's wood elf clan. Her people were still migrating westward through the High Forest, with the goal of getting away from the recent depridations of undead humanoids. Kale, along with Lathanderite cleric Oisin, human wizard Keseim, and Milo the rogue, found the clan was in a haggard state. Everywhere they looked, upon entering the temporary clan encampment, there could be seen worried and/or wounded elves.

They were reunited with Breonna, the leader of the elite rangers called the Daughters of Mielikki (of which Kale is a member) and the current (temporary) leader of the clan since the death of the former leader/voantir, Elaya. Breonna confirmed that the vo'an, being burdened with protecting the clan's non-combatants and the slow progress through the dense forest, was being harried by ambushes and hit-and-run attacks by their enemies, the elves of the Autumn Blade clan.

The party quickly decided to help the vo'an by creating a diversion. They selected volunteers from among the clan's warriors, ten healthy and five injured fighters. The injured fighters were to be a part of a plan to trick the Autumn Blades into attacking what would appear to be a weakened group of stragglers that would lag behind the rest of the vo'an. Also a part of the plan would be two other Daughters of Mielikki, Rel and Karis (good friends of Kale).

The next day the group began to set their plan into motion. Then, as the vo'an began to move again, the party's group began to slowly lag behind the main body of the vo'an, in the hopes of luring at least some of the Autumn Blades away from attacking the vo'an proper.

The party's group came to a halt, and they waited to see if any Autumn Blades would take the bait. Sure enough, it wasn't long before there was movement detected in the trees surrounding the group. Then, a pack of feral wolves leaped upon the party, and battle was joined. The group fought off the wolves for the most part, and the beasts retreated into the wood again. Then there came a volley of many arrows that slammed into the party's group. This was followed by at least a dozen Autumn Blade archers stepping into sight.

What followed was a pretty intense combat, aided by using Player Jamie's wet erase grid and our mix of paper minis (some I recently downloaded from the internet as well as a good number that came with the "Black Box" version of D&D that I've had lying around for ages...it was pretty cool to finally break those out for some gaming) as well as glass beads and even counters from Jamie's copy of the D&D 4E Monster Vault! The image at the top of this post was taken during the height of the action!

The battle was great, with our group's usual combination of great tactics, clever usage of spells (props to Keseim's player Wes!), and their skill in acting in concert and maximizing their class abilities (for instance, C&C rangers are pretty deadly, even at low levels).

The party and their allies fought off the Autumn Blades, who retreated into the wood after having a significant number of their people killed or wounded. That's where the session left off, with four of the party's elven warrior's killed.

To be continued...

Monday Inspiration: Elmore's Out of the Darkness

2011-11-28T15:43:00.004-05:00

This reminds me of Monday, rearing it's ugly head once more. Blech. I'm working on slaying this most horrible of days once again. The fight is almost over for another week...

P.S. Saw the recent Conan movie this weekend. You know, the one starring Jason Momoa as everyone's favorite barbarian? Holy crap, did it stink (IMHO). And I'm not just saying that because I really like the source material (but indeed, the movie was an affront to Howard's stories). It was really a boring entry in the fantasy film genre. Another missed opportunity...

Checking in from the depths of a long weekend...

2011-11-26T14:06:00.002-05:00

Hail, one and all! I hope all my fellow Americans are enjoying a long weekend, such as I am enjoying. I am having a great time with family, and also loving that I have time to do some casual reading.

I'm assuming that most of you know about the Chronicles of Prydain. I for one find it superior to the Chronicles of Narnia, but both have their merits. It's a matter of personal taste, of course. At any rate, I've decided to reread the Prydain Chronicles, and I'm really enjoying The Book of Three. I'm almost done, and can't wait to move on to The Black Cauldron. I can't wait until my kids are old enough to appreciate Prydain, Narnia, and Middle Earth, so I can read these wonderful tales with them.

I am also working my way through The New Death and Others by James Hutchings. I'll be writing a review of Jame's work soon (and perhaps a deeper discussion of Prydain).

Anyway, time to run off and do some more holiday relaxing, etc. Hope one and all are well out there!

P.S. One of the Encore channels on cable is showing all three Lord of the Rings movies all day long. I love the holidays! You can tune in at random times to such marathons and just drift away...

On Bein' Thankful for Roleplaying!

2011-11-23T14:18:00.000-05:00

Nothing profound about this post, everyone (and I think that my posting has been a bit more on the fluff side of late). I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. I also wanted to say that I'm definitely counting my blessings and giving thanks for the roleplaying I have going on in my life.

I sometimes have to sit back and remind myself how long I was "away from the table" before this past year or so. I'm very fortunate to have a great group to game with, and a great place to game. In reading other blogs, I see some lamenting their lack of ability to actually roleplay, rather than just blog about it. So I am fortunate indeed!

Thanks for reading, thanks for the community, and (as always) happy gaming!

Idle Musings: Elf Ear Length

2011-11-22T23:07:00.001-05:00

I for one can't stand those long, World of Warcraft elf ears. Is WoW to blame for the popularity of extra-large elf ears? Blech.

Gimme slightly pointed elf ears any day.

Of course, if the elf is being portrayed by Felicia Day, that's when I stop caring about the ears.

So, what are your preferred elf ears?

Oh, and for those who are hardcore about their elfish-ness, there's always body mod (of course this would also work for those Trekkers who wish to be more Vulcan).

Favorite OSR Products

2011-11-16T00:22:00.001-05:00

Brace yourself, bandwagon, 'cause I'm jumping on! This is my list for James at Underdark Gazette.

He asked, and I obey!

In no particular order:

Stonehell Dungeon
Swords & Wizardry Monster Compendium
Points of Light
Blackmarsh
Death Frost Doom
Encounter Magazine
Knockspell Magazine
Expeditious Retreat Press (all old school modules)
Goodman Games (all old school modules)
The Majestic Wilderlands

The Ultimate Non-Stick in the Mud is...

2011-11-15T22:19:00.000-05:00

Alexis Smolensk. Thanks for this. It was great to see the real person behind the huge volume of words written on that blog. For me, this proves that Alexis is more than just the curmudgeon he makes himself out to be on the blog. It was a bold stroke on his part, if you ask me. He came across as pretty down-to-earth, and that was refreshing. Changed my whole perspective on the guy, I have to say. It was conversational in tone and I think that's what stood out most for me.

Kudos to you, sir. You're definitely a braver soul than I. Major props, and happy gaming!

Just another messed-up Monday...

2011-11-14T16:40:00.001-05:00

I've written here at least once (over a year ago) about how much I hate Mondays. And that hasn't changed. In fact, it's gotten worse, that hatred. When last I posted about my disdain for the first workday of the week, I was actually in a comfy and familiar (albeit lower paying) job that I had been at for years. If only my then-self knew how much more Mondays would come to suck.

If you've been following this here blog, you know that I was downsized in February of 2011. In a flurry of job-hunting activity, I found my current position in record time (was only out of work for three weeks or so). Well, I'm about seven months into the new gig, and I'm still struggling to get the hang of the gig. I've never worked for a firm the size of my current employer (thousands of employees versus the less-than three hundred that I used to work with). And the position comes with much more stress, speed, and responsibility than my last job.

I know, cry me a river, right? I try to be thankful that I have a job, when so many don't. I try to get ahead of the game at the new gig but haven't yet been able to get my head above water. Part of it might be a bit of a crisis within. I'm questioning if I want to keep on with the stress of my type of work (proposal writing) and am also asking myself if an entirely new vocation shouldn't be in my plans for the future.

To add insult to Monday injury, this morning I discovered that something horrible has happened to the Axe and Hammer blog that once belonged to fellow blogger Grendelwulf (who, ironically, commented on my "Me versus Monday" post that I linked to above). He was one of the first bloggers I interacted with when I got into the RPG blogging game. GW, I hope you are still out there and fighting to get your blog back, whatever happened to it.

Depressed? You could say so. I'm feeling an eerie sensation that my current real-life pressures are going to have a deep impact on my gaming life. And perhaps sooner rather than later. You know how you can just feel these things?

And this thought is making me really, really angry. I'm getting squeezed from all sides with regard to my work, and I'm just feeling like there's no way out at the moment. But there is a way out. It will just take work. And the time for that work needs to come from somewhere. And unfortunately, the time will most likely be stripped away from my gaming life.

Sorry for being a downer. I figured I'd share with the group and see how much misery loves company, etc. For now, I'm NOT giving up on my Wednesday night gaming goodness. I just might be missing more Wednesdays in the near to mid-future, unfortunately. But then again, who knows? Tomorrow is another day.

If anyone can give me any intel on what happened to Grendelwulf, I'd appreciate it. In the meantime, I'll be searching for some inspiration...

Thank you to all those who serve and have ever served...

2011-11-11T11:29:00.000-05:00

Blog Word Verification as RPG Inspiration?

2011-11-08T15:04:00.001-05:00

Atom Kid, the mind behind blogs such as CROM! and Maximum Rock & Role Playing, recently wrote a post that I find to be nothing short of genius! It was a head-slapping moment for me, because I don't know why someone hasn't thought of it sooner (and if they have, then I don't know about it).

Atom Kid put forth an idea related to those Blogger word verifications that many blogs (mine included) require before a comment can be posted. What's the idea, you ask? Well, he thought it would be cool to use those zany words as the basis for names for characters, creatures, and places! Really cool and creative idea, right?!

Go here to read the post I'm talking about. I hope that Atom Kid continues with this project, and perhaps he wouldn't mind if I picked up the torch as well. If anything deserves to become a blogosphere meme, it's this one!

ALERT: Crypts & Things PDF Released!

2011-11-07T21:30:00.000-05:00

Attention, RPG blogosphere! Newt Newport of Sorcerer Under Mountain has released the PDF of his much-anticipated Swords & Wizardry variant called Crypts & Things! If you've read my blog at all in the last few weeks, you've probably read just a wee bit about this sword and sorcery-focused version of Matt Finch's beloved Original D&D retroclone.

Newt, that sly fellow, had scheduled the PDF release for mid-November. So imagine my surprise when I received an email from Mr. Newport with the C&T PDF attached! Talk about a pleasant surprise!

Anyway, I am going to no doubt lose some sleep tonight digging through the game. I've been itching to get my hands on this thing, as I've been dreaming of doing some hardcore sword and sorcery gaming!

Below is a video walkthrough of the book, conducted by Newt himself. I hope that it gets you as excited as me for this game! Do yourself a favor and get your own copy! From what I'm seeing just on an initial skim-through, you won't be disappointed!

Monday Inspiration: David Bowie's Ballad of the Adventurers

2011-11-07T16:15:00.001-05:00

[This always makes me think of 1st-level D&D characters still new to their adventuring careers]

Sickened by sun, with rainstorms lashing him rotten

A looted wreath crowning his tangled hair

Every moment of his youth apart from its dream was forgotten

Gone the roof overhead, but the sky was always there

Oh you, who are flung out, alike from heaven and from Hades

You murderers who've been so bitterly repaid

Why did you part from the mothers who nursed you as babies

It was peaceful and you slept and there you stayed

Still he explores and rakes the absinthe green oceans

Though his mother has given him up for lost

Grinning and cursing with a few odd tears of contrition

Always in search of that land where life seems best

Loafing through hells and flocked through paradises

Calm and grinning, with a vanishing face

At times he still dreams of a small field he recognises

With a blue sky overhead and nothing else

Thoughts upon my 100th post for 2011

2011-11-06T21:19:00.001-05:00

Hello fellow gamers! This is a pure fluff post, I suppose, because I'm just going to pat myself on the back for what is probably not a very impressive stat: this is my 100th post this year. Yeah, I know. Big deal, right?

But let me take the opportunity to say thanks to all who stop by and read. I try to return the favor when I can. I perhaps spend more time than I should cruising around the blogosphere. But then again, that time is worth it. Because I need the support system. I need to be reminded that there are like-minded souls out there, working hard to have adventures. Keeping the RPG flame alive.

That's why the cynical souls who say that we shouldn't trust each other, that your fellow bloggers are not your friends, blah blah blah, can frankly suck it. They can shut the F up. We may not know each other beyond our little virtual world here, but those who never took a chance never had a chance. So every day we take a chance and share our experiences, thoughts, inspirations, etc. with near-strangers. And that's alright by me.

Why? Because this hobby-that-isn't-just-a-hobby is important to all of us. It brings us together, our diverse group of dreamers. For what are we if not the lords of imagination, purveyors of dreams? We, who mourn the passing of our comrades (farewell, ChicagoWiz, and the rest who have gone before) and laugh in the face of those who proclaim that our dungeons suck. We, who are wary of those who claim to know the "true way" of how to roleplay. We know the truth: that any roleplaying is good roleplaying. Those who say otherwise are lost souls, and rightly so.

The name of my blog derives from the famous speech in Shakespeare's Henry V. I chose it originally because I was returning "once more unto the breach" of roleplaying. But now that title also reminds me that I have indeed found a "band of brothers" in this community of ours.

So, I dedicate this post to you, my fellow roleplayers. Hail, and well met! May your adventures always be plentiful! As always, I wish you happy gaming!

My TRPBTNTWA

2011-11-04T15:13:00.004-04:00

Look out, people! It's another RPG blogosphere meme! I'm actually going to participate in this one, since it's pretty short. This one is the brainchild of noisms at Monsters and Manuals. It's called "Things Role Playing Bloggers Tend Not To Write About" or TRPBTNTWA!

So, here goes:

Book binding: overall I've been pretty lucky with book bindings holding up well. Then again, I am a book snob and treat them like human babies when handling them. Plus, apparently a lot of recent RPGs have some binding problems. I am not encountering that, because for the most part I've been getting PDFs and having them spiral bound. It's so much better to be able to have a book lay flat, being able to fold it this way and that, etc.

"Doing a voice": despite having a lot of acting in my background, I don't really like to do voices. I usually like to describe how an NPCs voice sounds and let the player's imagination take over. I also like to change how I phrase things, alter my syntax and sentence structure, etc. in order to make an NPC's manner of speaking sound unique, rather than rely on some weird voice. However, there are times when I'm inspired and will do a voice. This is especially true if there's some comedic effect I'm going for (these go over much better than me trying to do an intimidating voice, which I am not sure I can make believable). Then there's times I like to do some gruff voices for grizzled warriors or haughty voices for wizards or nobles. But there's not much beyond that.

Breaks: These are usually just spur of the moment. If a player's had too much Dr. Pepper at the table and has to go, they usually just pop up for a quick pee. I've been considering calling breaks half way through a night's session, though. Just to stretch the legs, etc.

Description: This depends on the situation. It's all about context. If you're just entering another tavern, then there's not much need for description. But entering a specific NPC's lair, or some other place that's destined to be an important "set piece," then that calls for me to pull out the stops and slather on the details like only a true B.S. in English can! ;-) Simply put, there are places where you need to evoke a mood, and places that you don't.

Where do you strike the balance between "doing what your character would do" and "acting like a dickhead"?: This is a weird one for me because I play with a really great group of nice people at the moment, so there's not a dickhead to be found! But back in the day, as a kid playing the game, there were one or two guys who were dicks, DM and player alike. Those guys, we just stopped playing with them. Nuff said.

PC-on-PC violence: I think this goes hand-in-hand, more often than not, with the dickhead thing. Only dickheads tried to abuse fellow player's characters. Thus, we stopped playing with those guys. If I ever get into playing at conventions with strangers, I might start running in to more dickheads. But at the moment, I've got my small and close-knit band of like-minded gamers, who are a blessing!

How do you explain what a role playing game is to a stranger who is also a non-player?: I try to explain it simply for the most part. I say "It's board gaming without the board." Or I say "It's cooperative storytelling." Or "It's like acting, and our imaginations are the stage." Usually it's a combination of these. That's how I start out, and then try to explain the basics quickly, just a summary. Sometimes I feel like being glib and say "It's the adult version of playing pretend." But I usually try to not say that, because it might help to spread the anti-gaming stigma. I think that people who would never want to play an RPG will never be able to truly compute the concept, because it's something they would never want to do. So they don't try hard to understand. That's (sadly) how many people approach a lot of things in life, I think.

Alcohol at the table?: I wouldn't mind trying it. I think I've done it once, and we didn't have enough alcohol to get truly drunk while gaming.

What's acceptable to do to a PC whose player is absent from the session?: When I start a campaign, one of the things I do for the players is outline my ideas for what to do when a player is absent. I usually give them these options: when you're not here, I can A) use your player as an NPC and promise not to kill him/her or B) have your character become somehow indisposed for the session, either by falling unconscious, disappearing mysteriously, etc. This second option usually lends itself to some interesting plot developments and side quests once the player returns to the game in a later session. Either way, though, the character earns no XP for the session. I've tinkered with the idea of offer another option: if a player allows me to use their character as an NPC that could get killed, I will allow them to earn XP. But I'm still on the fence about that. Now, if during a session another player is willing to play another player's character, and the owner of said character is ok with it, that's another way that a character can earn XP (but the stand-in player needs to make good use of the borrowed character during the session).

So that's what I've got to say about that! What about you? Come on, everybody's doing it!

Call me Alice...

2011-11-04T13:27:00.001-04:00

...because I just slipped down the rabbit hole again. What rabbit hole, you ask? Why, the gaming blog rabbit hole! Surely you've taken that darkling path yourself! Down and down you go, clicking on link after link. You start out on one blog, then make the error of looking through that blog's list of links to other blogs. And on and on it goes, until, lo and behold, your entire lunch hour is gone! It's enough to drive one quite mad, and cause the afflicted to break into nonsensical rhyme...

Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves

Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe:

All mimsy were ye borogoves;

And ye mome raths outgrabe.

Have I mentioned Crypts & Things yet?

2011-11-02T09:00:00.004-04:00

"Is the soup ready yet?"

I may have already talked about this before on my blog, but I can't remember. ;-) Anyway there's a pretty cool Swords & Wizardry variant out there called Crypts & Things (the image above is one of the many illustrations in the book). Creator Newt Newport has taken the S&W rules as a foundation and made them more swords and sorcery-friendly.

The project is about to hit the streets, and a lot of people are buzzing about it and have put in their pre-orders (myself included). The PDF is slated for release in the next couple weeks, with the print release before the end of the year. They've almost reached their pre-order goal. So go check it out, and get in on the action!

Happy Halloween...

2011-10-31T10:34:00.000-04:00

Paragons of Waterdeep: Sessions 9 & 10

2011-10-28T12:14:00.008-04:00

At the end of Session 8, the party had just emerged from the sinister depths of a ruined temple, having defeated the evil being that dwelled there. Before they had a chance to regroup after their flight, a mysterious figure addressed them, saying “Welcome back, friends.”

The cloaked figure introduced himself as Doomguide Abelurd, a cleric of Kelemvor, the current god of death. The group discussed the recent events in the High Forest with Abelurd, who told the party that he was lured to the region due to strong emanations of undeath. Kelemvor abhors undeath, seeing it as an invasion upon his domain. In this Abelurd and the Lathanderite cleric Oisin found common ground, albeit from differing motivations.

From information imparted by the group and the location of the ruined temple, Abelurd surmised the possible identity of the being the group had just defeated. He told them they may have encountered a man named Ungotha, who had been a cleric of Myrkul centuries before, when the temple had still been active. Legends stated that Ungotha had turned to the worship of Velsharune, god of undeath, betraying his vows to Myrkul.

It was then that the elven wizardess Tanara awakened. She told the group that she had attempted to open the cave portal to Waterdeep through which the party had arrived days before, but was unable to do so. After that attempt, she decided to investigate the temple, and was overcome by the malevolent power there. She confirmed that the evil being in the temple had called himself Ungotha. There was no longer any doubt that Ungotha had made some pact with Velsharune to attain some sort of undead state.

It was then that the group noticed that Milo the rogue had disappeared (conveniently, since his player Jamie was not able to attend Session 9 ;-). A quick search of the area by Kale the elven ranger discovered his tracks, heading north.

It was decided that Tanara and Abelurd would head southeast to Evereska, the last major elven city on the continent. Tanara revealed that she is from that city. Now that the mystery of the portal stone and the location of Kurthrad’s tower was clarified, she felt it was time to return home and discuss her findings with her peers. Once she was ready to return to investigate the tower again, she would seek out the party’s assistance.

As for Abelurd, he said that his temple is located in the city of Westgate, far to the east on the Sea of Fallen Stars. He had decided to entreat his god to search for the spirit of Ungotha, and so doing gain confirmation of the vile necromancer-priest’s final demise.

The centaur NPC Narcoth volunteered to take the dwarf warrior Murzod’s body back to Mithral Hall. He then headed off to the northeast to find the rest of the party of dwarves that had gone on ahead.

This left the remaining party—Oisin, Kale, Keseim, and the elven fighter Otiver (NPC) to decide their next move. They chose to seek out Milo while they headed after Kale’s clan, in order to rejoin her people as they moved westward.

Kale lost Milo’s trail at a river, and while searching for it the party was attacked by bugbears. After making short work of the foul folk (C&C rangers are especially deadly against humanoids!), they rested for the night. They set off early the next morning, once Kale finally rediscovered Milo’s trail.

After hours of travel, the trail turned abruptly north into the depths of the High Forest. The party warily entered the trees. Keseim cast detect magic, and spotted emanations about 30 feet up a tree. As they cautiously approached, a huge winged form burst from the canopy above. It was a harpy, and it descended upon them in a fury. As the party fell into battle, a second harpy joined the fray. This second creature began to sing an eerie dirge, which most of the part was able to resist…except for the wizard Keseim! He was overwhelmed with the urge to climb a nearby tree in order to get closer to the harpies.

The rest of the group was able to kill the harpies. Keseim, no longer enchanted, continued to climb the tree to discover Milo tied with vines to a stout limb. The magic Keseim had detected had come from the magical dagger Milo had found in the ruined temple.

Milo was freed and the group enjoyed a short reunion before continuing onward. They rode hard across rough terrain, and by nightfall they reached the last location of Kale’s vo’an. The group made camp and settled in for the night. It was during Kale’s watch that she began to smell the scent of rot nearby. She woke the group to investigate. They finally noticed several sacks tied high up in some trees surrounding the campsite. Cutting down the sacks, they group found they contained the mutilated and dismembered bodies of elves. Kale recognized them as members of her clan.

Kale was familiar with the use of dead bodies to lure creatures in the High Forest. Someone (probably her clan’s sworn enemies, the Autumn Blades clan) had created an ambush. This tactic worked, as the group was suddenly attacked by a wyvern. A protracted and difficult fight ensued, but they were able to drive off the beast.

The next morning, Oisin used a spell to speak with the spirit of one of the slain elves. The spirit confirmed that they were indeed slain by Autumn Blades, and also told Oisin that a large force of Autumn Blades were pursuing Kale’s vo’an. This motivated the party to quickly resume their westward journey, in the hope of reuniting with the vo’an before the elves were overrun by their enemies.

During their rush to gain ground, the party barely avoided riding into an ambush set by a small force of Autumn Blade elves. They group decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and decided to avoid confronting a larger group of foes. Oisin cast a darkness spell over the party, and they rode onward. Since Oisin was the only one in the group able to see out of the darkness, he guided them as best he could verbally. There were a few close calls where PCs almost toppled from their horses, but the party was able to elude their pursuers (though Keseim was struck a grazing blow by one of many arrows that were shot by the Autumn Blades despite the darkness spell).

They group then encounter two of Kale’s fellow rangers, Karis and Aravel, who confirmed that the Spring Dawn clan was indeed being harried by the Autumn Blades. The group moved onward and finally reunited with the vo’an.

To be continued…

Preparing for a Hunt for the Roots

2011-10-27T15:15:00.002-04:00

Sorry if I sounded a bit melodramatic in my post yesterday about Gamer ADD, and how I'm "burning out" with regard to the amount of RPG material I've been reading of late. That's really what it was all about: me coming to the realization that I've been obsessively reading RPG rulebooks and accessories, to the point that I've been neglecting my other interests. It's also causing my brain to fry from all the information overload, and causing my mind to wander into all the possible future games I may someday run/play in.

Now, it's okay for me to be reading through my Castles & Crusades stuff on a regular basis. Because I'm running a C&C game that's been providing me and some great players with a fantastic bit of adventure! I'm really proud of our group and how we work really well together, and we're having a great time.

But in between all of that C&C research and game prep, I've been reading Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, the Rules Cyclopedia, B/X D&D, Barbarians of Lemuria, Conan the RPG, Talislanta, Dragon Age RPG, The One Ring RPG, OpenQuest, and others that I can't even remember at the moment.

And then add in my desire to read through the blogs that I follow, which I think is totally worth it (but again it takes up time and my limited brain space!). I also want to comment on people's posts and write my own posts. More time and brain space.

Add to that the fact that I've also been reading up on settings for Pathfinder, Blackmarsh, Points of Light, Greyhawk, Lankhmar, Elric!/Stormbringer, Earthdawn, Warhammer, Eberron, and on and on. And reading a bunch of modules, those from TSR, Goodman Games, Troll Lord Games, Paizo, Expeditious Retreat, etc. AND also bugging Newt Newport about Crypts & Things. AND bugging James at Grognardia about his Dwimmermount stuff.

So, can you see why I've been feeling burnt?! I've inundated myself, saturated myself with gaming stuff. To the point that I've completely stalled on my other great love: reading. Reading novels, and non-fiction.

In particular, it's taking me FOREVER to read Martin's A Dance with Dragons. Most people I know have already read it. Heck, one of my best friends is well into his SECOND reading!

And I've also been unable to watch any of my beloved History channel shows that are piling up on the DVR (much to the wife's chagrin)!

ARGH!

Whew. OK. Seriously, I need some detox. I need to put the ton of stuff aside for now, and just take a breather. Take a rest. Focus. I need to really be thankful for what I currently have going on gaming-wise. The rest of the gaming stuff will be there when I'm ready. It will keep.

So, here's the plan (and the reason for the title of my post): I am going to finish A Dance with Dragons. Then, I am going to do something I've been meaning to do for a long time, but have been putting off for too long: I'm going to finally read through the tales of Vance, Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, Burroughs, and all the rest who represent the roots of D&D. Give me Appendix N or give me death!

And in between reading up on those seminal tales, I will be focusing my gamer attentions on my current campaign.

Then comes the blogosphere. Followed by some TV.

But of course, all of the above comes after work and family.

Whew. I feel better now. Onward!

Gamer ADD and Burn-Out

2011-10-26T17:00:00.001-04:00

Hey folks! Just wanted to check in and ramble a bit. Been feeling a bit burnt over the last couple of days with regard to gaming. And I know why: Gamer ADD. I've let that hoary beast push my beleaguered brain to the edge of reason once again.

I will confront Gamer ADD and say "Ah yes, my old friend and enemy, I see you lurking over my shoulder. You're the cause of my unrelenting need to dig through my RPG book collection almost every night.

You push me to flip through all those pages and dream about campaigns that may never be. You make me obsess over thoughts of adventures yet to come.

You distract me from working on the campaign I am currently running...a living and breathing campaign with great players that depend on my ability to provide a fun and exciting experience almost every week. They are what's most important right now. Not you. Begone, I say! The power of St. Gygax compels you!"

Seriously, I am feeling like I need to strike back somehow at my old foe. I am feeling that I need to put away all the other books and stay away from them for a good while. I want to just carry around my Castles & Crusades books and the materials I am using for my current campaign. I don't want what I currently have going on to suffer at all due to my penchant for daydreaming about what could be.

I think I can do it. So, for the time being, until I am no longer feeling fried in the brain pan, I will gently put aside (for instance) my copies of Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry. Just for a while. And with them, I will put my embryonic thoughts of getting down to some Original/Basic/Classic D&D goodness on the shelf. I will set aside thoughts of race-as-class and all the other trappings. Just for a while. So the gray matter can cool down.

Though I am scared of what will happen when the PDF of Crypts & Things comes knocking...but I can't worry about that right now!

I need to do this for my peace of mind, and for the good of my actual gaming. No need to sacrifice the "what is" for the "what might be," right?

If you're out there reading this and you are feeling the Gamer ADD crunch at the moment, gimme an amen! Remind me that I'm not alone! I need the support right now!

Paragons of Waterdeep: Sessions 7 & 8

2011-10-22T14:28:00.004-04:00

At the table for these two pivotal sessions were Wes and his Calishite wizard Keseim, Pam and her elven ranger Kale, Bill and his cleric of Lathander named Oisin, and Jamie’s rogue named Milo. We picked up where we left off at the end of Session 6, with the group back in a hidden glade high in the Star Mount range in the High Forest. The group had just returned through a portal from the location of an ancient tower that was once the dwelling of an elven wizard named Kurthrad, who called himself “The Artificer.” They had fought against some of the constructs that dwell in the tower: a bull-like abraxus that expelled deadly green gas and some animated suits of armor.

Their centaur NPC, Quiron, was poisoned by the abraxus’ noxious exhalations. They had dragged him back through the portal, but he lay unconscious, his breathing shallow and his skin a deathly pallor. Narcoth, the other centaur NPC, told the group that a warrior of their tribe should die by a weapon’s touch, not slowly fade into death. That would be dishonorable. So he told them that he would put an end to Quiron’s suffering, whether they agreed or not. Indeed, he would fight the party if they tried to stop him. The party said they would not interfere, so Narcoth went about the task of ending his fellow’s life, and, as befits the traditions of the centaur people, they would leave his body for Nature to reclaim.

Afterward, the group discussed their next move, and decided that they would need to soon return to the ruined temple of Myrkul and attempt to finish off the evil force within. But they knew they would need some help, and decided to attempt to find the group of dwarves from Mithral Hall that they had met in the High Forest.

They came down from the mountains, and as they headed northeast, some of the group (except for Kale) began to hear the faint sound of a woman’s voice. The voice seemed to come from everywhere, and they heard whimpering as well as the words “…temple…pain…” As they stopped in confusion, they spied a small form emerge from the High Forest: it was Murzod the dwarf, one of the dwarves they had decided to seek out. When he approached the group, he said that he had been journeying with his fellows to Mithral Hall when he began to hear a woman’s voice, and his feet turned of their own accord back toward the east. The call had been leading him in the general direction of the ancient temple to Myrkul, a place he had not been before. The group took this as a sign that their fates crossed paths at the site of the evil temple, so they moved in all haste to that dark place.

Once at the ruined temple, they headed inside with some hesitation and preparation. But they encountered nothing but bones of orcs, gnolls, and goblins. They toyed with the idea of opening the door inscribed with the words goblinoid words for “Bad Here,” but ultimately decided to pass it by. When they came to the room where they slew a goodly number of evil humanoids, including the gnoll chieftan Gritznak, they decided to break up the bones they found there in an effort to cripple any animated skeletons that might form from them. As they broke up the bones, that’s when the temple seemed to breathe. Then bones began to swirl around the room in a storm of sharp fragments. The party managed to avoid getting shredded and fled down the nearby staircase to the lower level of the temple.

They were greeted by a dark corridor lined with doors at the bottom of the steps. As they slowly advanced, torches in hand and listening at doors, they began to hear moaning from somewhere ahead…and then the skittering of claws. This was followed by someone suddenly wailing “Gods, they’re coming back! Please, save me, oh gods of mercy!”

The group cautiously rounded a corner to see a flayed man chained to the wall of the passage. The flesh of his torso was peeled back to reveal his organs, and yet he still lived. The sound of claws grew louder, until a ghoul came out of the darkness ahead to feast on the exposed entrails of the man, whose wails became screams (can you tell it’s close to Halloween? ;-). The group sprang into action as several more ghouls rounded the corner and rushed at the party. Some blows were struck against the creatures before Oisin the Lathanderite turned the ghouls, causing them to flee back into the darkness. The group tried to talk to the unfortunate man on the wall, but all he did was rave about once being a part of a traveling group of performers.

They continued down the corridor and discovered three more flayed yet still living people, also former members of a group of troubadours that were captured by the evil humanoids that served the power of the evil temple. They pressed on through the gauntlet of these tortured souls, encountering two giant skeletons that were created from the bones of many different creatures. Once again, Oisin exhorted Lathander to make the undead flee, and the god answered, sending the things running before the party’s advance. The group then made similar short work of another pack of ghouls, using swords, arrows, and flame (the old flaming lamp oil trick!).

Their resources almost spent, the group passed a nervous night in the depths of the temple. They were able to rest and regain some strength before pressing on. They discovered the desiccated corpses of what looked to be a party of adventurers. Among the bodies they found an amulet, a well-crafted wizard’s staff, and a beautifully-made dagger, all of which radiated strong magic.

The party moved on, and came to a massive door of black iron. The front of the door was crafted to resemble a writhing mass of nude male and female bodies. As they approached the door, five twisted dog-like creatures—yeth hounds—with slavering jaws passed through the door as if they were as insubstantial as ghosts. The party engaged in a desperate battle once more. The beasts were not undead, so Oisin could not turn them. Milo the rogue used his newly-acquired dagger to good effect. His attacks on the hounds were devastating, causing the flesh of the beasts to burn. At one point, one of the hounds began to howl, and supernatural fear descended upon the party. The group was able to shake off the effects of the fear, however, and after slaying several of the hounds (which, as extraplanar creatures, faded into nothingness once killed), this caused the remainder to flee. Then the party steeled themselves and pushed open the massive door before them.

They entered a large chamber that was lit by guttering torches in sconces. The vaulted ceiling was lost in darkness. Along the walls were six giant statues of Myrkul. As was the case with all the other statues in the temple, they were carved into the “Grim Reaper” visage of the former god of death. However, the faces of these statues had been smashed off. At the other end of the room was a large stone altar, upon which lay the bound and unconscious form of Tanara, the elven wizard. And beyond her, on a dais, sat a dark-robed figure. Two yeth hounds sat at its feet, gazing balefully at the party with burning red eyes.

The party readied themselves for battle once more, and advanced slowly into the chamber. As they did so, the cloaked being stood slowly and welcomed them to his lair. He told them that he would use their blood and bodies to aid in the finalization of his resurrection and the continued growth of his army of the undead. He gave praise to a god named Velsharune, the god of undeath (who was never a friend to the gods of death, especially the current death god, Kelemvor). Velsharune was the source of the mysterious being’s power. The robed figure declared that the birth of an undead empire on the face of Faerun would begin with the sacrifice of Tanara.

The party decided to attack as the hooded figure began to advance toward Tanara with a large ceremonial dagger. An epic battle ensued, in which the robed being commanded yeth hounds as well as animated shadows to attack the group. Kale the ranger had a shadow drain her of strength at one point. The robed being cast arcane spells, one of which enchanted Murzod, who promptly turned and attacked members of the party. In the chaos of battle, the elven warrior Otiver (an NPC and clansman of Kale) struck Murzod a blow from behind, wounding him.

But the party had the divine power of Lathander on their side in the form of Oisin, who was able to turn many of the shadows summoned by their cloaked antagonist. This enraged the strange being, who pulled back its hood to show a fleshless head that revealed wet musculature and lidless eyes. The being cursed the cleric Oisin and the god Lathander, renewing his magical attacks. He summoned up a poisonous fog to choke the group, and flung bolts of green energy at them. Several of these struck the wizard Keseim at one point, almost killing him (took him down into negative hit points, but the cleric acted quickly to heal the wizard).

Slowly, the group turned the tide of battle, working well in unison until only the fleshless being remained. At that point, their opponent drew out a wicked mace that ended in a spiked metal head shaped like a skull. Then, he shrouded himself in magical darkness, and advanced on the group. A mighty blow from that evil weapon slew Murzod. Milo was also struck a grazing blow, and the touch of the weapon caused him to go blind!

The party attacked from all sides, desperately trying to damage an opponent that they could not see. Finally, Oisin challenged the being directly, causing their enemy to react in anger. The robed being strode from the shadows to deal a blow to the cleric. But it was Oisin who landed a crushing strike (Player Bill rolled a clutch natural 20 at that moment!), and at the same time the centaur Narcoth also struck with his enchanted scimitar. This onslaught brought the battle to an end, slaying their foe.

In the aftermath, the group only had time to heal some of their wounds and gather up the body of Murzod. Then the temple began to shake violently. They rushed through the dark corridors in a frantic race to reach the exit before the temple collapsed in on itself. They were able to make it back to the surface just as the temple withdrew back into the ground. The group had just collapsed to the ground in exhaustion when a nearby voice said, “Welcome back, friends.” The party looked up to see a dark figure standing in the shadow of the nearby woods.

To be continued...

Have you ordered YOUR copy of C&T yet?

2011-10-19T16:23:00.000-04:00

What? You haven't?! Well, then, you must go here immediately and do so! Come on, you know you want to. Everyone's doing it. Be one of us. One of us, one of us, ONE OF US, ONE OF US!

Alexis = NON-Stick in the Mud?!

2011-10-19T11:11:00.009-04:00

If it can be believed, Alexis has posted one of his rare examples of a (mostly) non-abusive (though he does use the term "idiot") and thoughtful post! I just know he's not really the arrogant, sadistic, grumpy guss he makes himself out to be!

My issue with Alexis is that he has some great insights, and his style of writing is interesting, but his delivery is so (artificially?) volatile that (I feel) he's doing himself a disservice. More people would benefit from his insight if he just laid off the schtick a bit. If you read some of the posts I've written about his blog, you'll see people who comment that they used to read his stuff until the ire got to be too much. It's a shame, because I believe he has so much to offer.

I think he's like the Christian Bale character in the film The Prestige. The character had to live a secret double life in order to maintain the illusion that he was a great magician. He could never let go and just be his true self, lest his true persona/life be revealed (thus spoiling the secret of his greatest illusion).

Alexis, I'm sorry I ever doubted you. This Non-Stick in the Mud Award is for you!

P.S. Alexis actually allowed a comment from me to appear on the post! Progress. But when I tried to reply to his true-to-form riposte, it has sadly not appeared (at this time). I guess he's trying to use selective comment approval to skew the discussion in his favor. Here's what I said back to him:

"I salute you, sir, for maintaining character, as always. I don't think I'm any more abusive or insulting than any of your writings here, if you ask me. But come now, didn't your post state that you think the internet is a "wonderful" place, warts and all? And listen, disagreement doesn't need to equal disrespect. I may be harsh sometimes, but that's because I am human, and therefore faulty. But perhaps I am only returning the ire that you project outward? Food for thought. And don't kid yourself by thinking that I sit around waiting for your posts. I just happen to keep an eye on the blogs I follow, that's all. No need to look for a stalker, now."

P.P.S. And I wasn't being "patronizing" (as Alexis thinks) when I wrote this comment on his post (which he approved):

"This was really a great post, and I'm not being sarcastic. Thanks for this. And no, I don't expect to change you when I post about you. I just feel the need to, as you say, call out the stupid things people say. But in your case, it's not usually stupid. Rather, it seems to be strangely angry and sadistic, and I post because I want to ask you "why?" Why present yourself this way? I try to keep reminding myself that you probably mean well, you want to give the hobby some tough love, and that this is part of a persona you wish to project (i.e. the curmudgeonly wise man?). But I still am so curious and confused as to why you choose to be so damned irascible! Thanks again, this was really good stuff, and a breath of fresh air from the Tao."

Bottom line: I do love the repartee that I share with the gentleman! May the verbal fencing never cease!

The return of the Stick in the Mud Award

2011-10-13T14:56:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone. It seems a certain someone doesn't like you again. Or rather, doesn't ever like you. Or rather, has never liked you. Ever. Even if you're a consistent "gentle reader." As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that a certain someone actually hates consistent readers more than those who disagree with this certain someone's perennially sadistic tone. Or at least, that's what I'm getting out of the post to which I've provided the link above.

Congrats to that certain someone, for once again earning the Stick in the Mud Award. Keep on telling us we're all idiots, please (especially your loyal readers, I'm sure they appreciate it). Keep on getting closer to a cardiac event due to ranting over a hobby, which like all hobbies should probably be fun. I once again thank all the gods that ever existed that a certain someone doesn't have any control whatsoever over the rest of the RPG community's ability to enjoy the games we play. Certain Someone, this Mud's for you!

How is everyone enjoying their October?

2011-10-11T11:19:00.000-04:00

I won't bore you with saying sorry for lack of posts, and move right on to my post! I know I am enjoying my favorite month, but I always feel like I am not doing enough to celebrate it. I've felt this way all my life. I always feel there is more I could be doing during Halloween Month, as I like to consider it.

In addition to that annual feeling, I am also feeling a bit sad about the warm temperatures that seem to have prevailed in recent years during October. I find myself missing the many crisp days of past Octobers. Many trees where I live seem to bypass the changing of colors, their leaves simply turning brown and falling off. There are some trees that still change, though, but this other trend is disturbing.

At any rate, as is my tradition during this time of year, I've picked up beloved tales of horror by Lovecraft and other authors and am rereading them lovingly. And since this is the first October since I've started gaming again in earnest, I've injected some horror into recent sessions.

If you love October, give a shout out to this greatest of months and let us know how you celebrate!

Crypts & Things available for pre-order!

2011-10-04T14:49:00.001-04:00

The Swords & Wizardry variant Crypts & Things is now available for pre-order! I've been very excited about the arrival of Newt Newport's brainchild, I have to say! It has me daydreaming of running some savage sword & sorcery-style adventures!

I've placed MY order! Go here to order YOURS!

In Praise of Castles & Crusades

2011-09-27T15:07:00.004-04:00

As I've mentioned in some recent posts, I've been dabbling in some Classic/Basic D&D (to use the terms interchangeably) and retroclones, with the idea that I may want to someday run a Classic D&D game. I have been feeling an urge to play Basic D&D, which I never really did back in my formative years. I've been yearning to do it up, with race-as-class and the rest of it.

But I have to say, as I've read through the original rules sets and their clones, I've found myself doing a lot of house ruling in my head. I've been trying to fight that impulse, and taking the advice of Philotomy to "play it for what it is." I've found that a lot of this mental house ruling stems from my good experiences playing Castles & Crusades.

It should be no secret to anyone who reads this blog that I love C&C. It is elegant. It is modular. I've been thinking that if, say, I want the race-as-class experience, I can use C&C for that. I can just restrict the races and classes that players are allowed to play (and not have to worry about pesky level limits to boot, something I'm not quite sure if I like). Ultimately, I have no fear that I can use C&C to emulate any era of D&D play. And frankly, I don't think it's harder to teach someone to play C&C than teaching them to play Classic D&D. In fact (at least for me at this point in time), it might even be easier to teach C&C to new players.

But still, there seems to just be something about the thought of actually using, say, the Moldvay Basic rules. But what is that something, exactly? Is it just the "bad" type of nostalgia that makes me want to play Basic D&D? Is it just the appeal of the "street cred" or gravitas that seems to come from playing the actual, original editions? Or is it something else?

I assume others out there have experienced this pattern of thought, this questioning of systems, this wondering if one is motivated by a dark form of nostalgia. If so, how have you dealt with this affliction? Please, let me know how you have fought with this questioning, this Gamer ADD, the rose-colored glasses.

In the end, I return to my old adage that any gaming is good gaming. I try to remember that I have a good bit of gaming going on almost every week, and I should be thankful for that. Because there are a lot of gamers out there who do not have the current luxury of being able to game even once a week, such as I do.

Again, I'm not anywhere near giving up on C&C and the current campaign I am running using those rules. But there's still something lurking in me that is thinking about running one-shots using Classic D&D rules. What is the impetus of this impulse, I ask you? The questioning continues...

Behold Cardhunter!

2011-09-27T12:30:00.000-04:00

Another day, another lazy blog post. Has anyone heard about Card Hunter? If so, is anyone else intrigued? I'm not really a video game player anymore, as I don't have the time to devote to it. And I much prefer table-top gaming, of course. But I might be able to get into this, as long as it supports casual play.

Another reason why Daffy is the best Looney Tune

2011-09-26T08:38:00.002-04:00

Come on, admit it. We all know Daffy is the best. He's the perfect foil for Bugs Bunny, and the far more interesting character. If you needed another reason why he dominates, check out the following. Simply awesome.

Thanks Daffy (and the powers-that-be behind this great bit of animation) for the mainstream nod to our little hobby. Yeah, I'm claiming this video for roleplaying. You got a problem with that?

Love the DCC Art, But Still Conflicted

2011-09-23T16:03:00.004-04:00

A little while ago, Al over at Beyond the Black Gate posted a link to a Goodman Games forum thread regarding their upcoming modules for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. And I have to say, I think they look awesome just from a pure art perspective. They definitely capture the old-school feel, and they make me excited to play. Check out the following (the first one is my favorite...what is that thing?!):

Now, that being said, pretty pictures aren't changing my mostly skeptical opinions of the game. In fact, pretty much the only thing I completely like about DCC so far is the art. The rest of the game, well...there's some interesting concepts in there. But it's still just another fantasy heartbreaker.

UPDATE: I just found this link that finally gives more details on the modules associated with these covers. I also checked out the Goodman Games forums to read through the DCC topics. I have to say that I do find myself impressed with how Goodman Games seems to be taking the gamer playtest input they are getting quite seriously. It seems that they will actually make some significant changes to the game based on the feedback.

Paragons of Waterdeep: Session 6

2011-09-18T22:28:00.009-04:00

Apologies for the long time between session posts. On a good note, this session was more than a full house! We had Player Wes back from a long stint at a summer gig that kept him away from the table. And GM Rich, the founder of the group, was in town and sat in on my game as a player (he took on the role of one of the NPCs). In addition, Jamie Albrecht of For a Fistful of Coppers fame stopped by to get in on the action! As you can read on his blog, he recently moved into the South Jersey area. I invited him to join our gaming goodness and sure enough he jumped right in with gusto!

I don’t have much time to do a huge recap, but I’ll try to hit all the major points. So, when last we left our merry band, they had found the secret location of the tower of an ancient elven wizard named Kurthrad the Artificer. Not long after their discovery, a being with the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the face of a bearded man stepped out onto the tower’s lowest balcony to confront them.

The wizard Vorath (an NPC, but once the character of a player named Glenn, who unfortunately has had to leave the group) had the temerity to start complaining to the creature, accusing it of trying to intimidate the party. The creature promptly caused the mouthy wizard to vanish. As quickly as Vorath vanished, another man appeared not far from where the wizard once stood. This newcomer was Milo, the rogue created by Jamie from For a Fistful of Coppers. Milo had once been a part of a group of adventurers who had found the tower. All he remembers is that he and his former group had climbed down from the sheer cliffs above the tower to reach it. He has no memory of what occurred after that. So he has no idea what happened to his former companions, and he has no idea how long he’s been in “limbo.”

It turned out that the strange being had been responsible for Milo’s predicament. As the group spoke with the being (which Player Wes’ wizard Keseim identified as a lammasu), they learned that the creature had taken up residence in the tower in order to keep what the lammasu called “the horrors” within the tower. Apparently, Kurthrad the Artificer wasn’t so benevolent, and had created all manner of diabolical constructs. So, the lammasu had made a mission of keeping the contents of the tower from escaping. It has also kept intruders from entering.

After some discussion with the being, during which the lammasu repeatedly told the group that they would not be allowed to enter the tower (for their own safety and, more importantly, sanity), the being agreed to protect the group as best it could until they could leave the small chasm in which the tower stood. As it turns out, the stone portal tablet the group had used to enter the chasm could only be used once a day. The lammasu told them that the evil power inside the tower was so great that it would take all of the enigmatic being’s power to keep the malevolent constructs in the tower overnight. With that, the lammasu returned to the depths of the tower.

Not long after, the massive iron door to the tower began to open with a screech. It was apparent that the lammasu had been unsuccessful in keeping the tower’s evil totally at bay! A metallic, bull-like creature emerged from the darkness within the tower, its hide gleaming gold. During the fight that followed, the rogue Milo attempted to entangle the thing’s legs with a grappling hook connected to a length of chain. He only succeeded in getting the hook stuck in one of the thing’s front legs. But Milo made the best of things, driving a spike through the chain and then into the ground. The group then decided to maneuver the bull construct (which Keseim the wizard identified as an abraxus) around the chasm until there was enough slack in the chain to allow them to finally entangle the thing.

During the battle, the abraxus began to emit a noxious green gas. The group did a decent job of resisting the effects, but one of their centaur NPCs, Quiron, succumbed to the gas and fell to the ground choking (the abraxus also gored the centaur pretty badly).

After a protracted combat that found the group struggling to penetrate the creature’s metallic hide, the group finally managed to trip up the abraxus and cause it to fall over. Once that happened, they made short work of it. Smashing open the thing’s skull, they plundered two large rubies and an even larger diamond from the head. The gems were obviously used in the making of the abraxus, and were apparently part of what focused the magical energies that brought it to life.

After that, the party had no choice but to trust in the promise of the lammasu to protect them overnight. The night was indeed uneventful. In the morning, however, it became apparent that the lammasu could no longer protect them, as the door to the tower once again opened, and out came five animated suits of armor.

Keseim the wizard began chanting the runes on the portal stone while the rest of the group, including their welcome new addition Milo, fought off the latest wave of constructs. The portal opened after three rounds of chanting by Keseim, and the group beat a hasty retreat (they had to drag the still-unconscious body of Quiron the centaur through).

The session ended with the party gratefully once again in the hidden crevasse from which they had teleported the day before. All in all, a good session that was sort of combat-intensive, as opposed to the session before it, which had been very heavy with regard to roleplaying. Most importantly, I was running a table full of the best players I’ve had the pleasure to game with in a long time! The next session is this Wednesday! Can’t wait!

To be continued...

EDIT: I forgot to mention that at one point during the session, Milo the rogue and Kale the ranger climbed up to the balcony on which the lammasu had appeared. Once there, they were struck by a wave of supernatural dread against which they had to fight mentally, lest they go mad! They vacated the balcony not long after that experience, suffice to say...

"...let me whisper it to you..."

2011-09-13T13:48:00.000-04:00

The Management apologizes for the recent lack of posting. In the meantime, we interrupt our normal programming to offer the following for your consideration (which we consider to be quite thrilling and cannot wait to view for ourselves):

The Whisperer in Darkness - Trailers

And the NON-Stick in the Mud of the Week Award goes to...

2011-09-09T12:47:00.003-04:00

Chris at Classic RPG Realms. In this post he laments not being able to continue to run a local school gaming club for kids. Now here's a person who's not sitting in some ivory tower, simply spouting tired and mean-spirited rhetoric (do I have to mention names of usual suspects at this point?). Here's a person who has been fighting the good fight, getting out and making an effort to game. And not only actually gaming, but spreading the gaming goodness to a new generation! That's more than commendable in my book. By doing what he's been doing, he is accomplishing so much more than any pontificating loud-mouth could ever hope to achieve when it comes to advancing the hobby.

So all of the above is the reason why I've given Chris the first-ever NON-Stick in the Mud of the Week Award (I know, I haven't actually been doing this award thing every week. Mea culpa). Keep up the good work, Chris, and get some well-deserved rest!

Paragons of Waterdeep: Sessions 4 & 5

2011-09-07T12:55:00.007-04:00

(This post contains the events of two sessions. I’ve done this because I have limited time to write this recap, but I don’t want too much more time to go by before getting this recap done.)

The party left the encampment of the high elf wizard Tanara, in order to return to the elven ranger Kale’s clan with news of what the group had discovered in the ruined temple of Myrkul, former God of Death. They were escorted by the White Owl tribe centaurs that had been helping Tanara, some of whom had accompanied the party to the ruined temple.

Once they were out of the mountains, they were met by another contingent of White Owls, led by a rather confrontational centaur named Oriseus. After some heated words with the two centaurs that had insisted on accompanied the party into the depths of the temple (Narcoth and Quiron), Oriseus banished them from the White Owl tribe. At that point, the party negotiated with the centaurs and managed to retain possession of the centaur-provided elk mounts they were using, for as long as it took for the party to return to Kale’s people. Once that was settled, the centaurs left the group to their own devices. Now tribeless, Narcoth and Quiron pledged themselves to the service of the party.

The party pressed on west, skirting the northern edge of the Star Mounts, between the mountains and the southern edge of the High Forest. At one point, they saw smoke from the trees and heard raucous voices. While they debated over whether or not to investigate, they heard screaming and sounds of combat. The ranger investigated and found a camp of dwarves fighting with a giant insect-like creature. Kale, seeing that three of the dwarves had already been killed by the creature, decided to take a chance and fired an arrow at the thing. This only served to make it angry at Kale, and it promptly chased her.

As Kale ran from the creature, she called to her party to warn them. The group prepared for battle. During the fighting that followed, the Cleric of Lathander named Leela (an NPC) was sprayed by a caustic substance spewed by the creature. The rest of the group watched in horror as her armor, clothes, and skin began to be eaten away by the fluid.

Also during the melee, one of the dwarves came out of the forest raving about how he didn’t want the party to “steal his prize,” and used a strange steel rod to fire a projectile (with a loud crashing sound the likes of which the group had never heard) at Quiron the centaur. The dwarf, of course, was using an arquebus, a very rare weapon in the Realms. The projectile took off half of Quiron’s ear, and the dwarf was reloading when his fellow dwarves wrestled him to the ground.

The party managed to kill the insectile creature, which turned out to be an ankheg. The dwarves had come from the dwarven city Mithral Hall to the High Forest to hunt big game, and had managed to capture the ankheg. But it had escaped its bonds when it was in their camp, killing three of the ten dwarves before Kale fired her arrow. The leader of the dwarven hunting party, Kalek, was bound by his fellows for firing upon the centaur. His second in command, Murzod, stated that his leader had gone too far. The dwarves intended to escort Kalek back to Mithral Hall for reprimand.

Leela was stabilized and saved from death by Oisin the cleric, but she was badly scarred by the acidic breath of the ankheg. The party rested overnight with the dwarves, and then moved out the next day with the promise of reuniting with the dwarves again if possible.

The going was not easy with the injured Leela. They stopped for a rest the next day, and she showed signs of a deep sadness born not only of her near-death experience and disfigurement, but also of the loss of her friend Nestor in Myrkul’s temple. During the rest, Kale and Leela heard a melodic piping noise that had a strange influence on them. Kale was able to easily shake off this influence, but Leela rose and began to walk toward the forest in a dream-like state. The party was forced to restrain her, and she fought them weakly as the group hurriedly moved on to the west. The group surmised that the strange music was that of a satyr somewhere in the nearby woods.

Finally, the group reached the vo’an of the Spring Dawn clan. Kale was very happy to be back among her people. She and her compatriots were welcomed warmly, especially by Kale’s fellow Daughters of Mielikki, the elite corps of rangers of which she is a member. The leader of the Daughters, Breonna, asked the party to join her in a private tent in order to discuss their journey. Rel and Karis, two other Daughters, also accompanied them. There, the party relayed all of the events that had befallen them since Kale went to Waterdeep.

Breonna, Rel, and Karis were concerned about the events at the ruined temple, but praised the group for their efforts. There had been more attacks by undead humanoids since Kale left, but they had been repulsed. But, not without a heavy cost. The leader of the clan, the voantir Elaya, had been injured during the attack and was near death. She was being ravaged by the plague that the undead seemed to carry. This lent a somber edge to the reunion.

Breonna feared the ultimate demise of the voantir, revealing that there was some dissension in the clan. There were three individuals in the clan that were making known their dissatisfaction with the voantir’s leadership. It was the voantir’s decision, for instance, to send Kale to Waterdeep to seek aid from human clerics. This did not sit well with many in the clan, as seeking help from outlanders is considered a sign of weakness.

The Daughters of Mielikki are traditionally aloof from political matters of the vo’an. But while Breonna was struggling to retain that detachment, others in the ranger sisterhood (including Rel and Karis) were pushing for unprecedented action: they believe it is a time for the Daughters to intervene and keep the clan from fracturing.

The Daughters suspect foul play was involved in the voantir’s injuries. They noticed elven tracks outside the vo’an that seem to indicate what would normally be considered unthinkable: an elf leading infected humanoids toward the vo’an. Even in the face of this evidence, Breonna was still reluctant to take a direct role in the growing political rifts in the clan.

After this grim discussion, Breonna left the group in order to inform the voantir that the party had arrived. There was limited access to the voantir at the request of her family, and Breonna was going to petition to have the party given permission to see the ailing leader.

It was then that Rel and Karis told the party that the Daughters of Mielikki had captured a human wizard who had wandered into the vo’an two weeks prior. The group was taken to the tent where the prisoner was being held, and they were introduced to Keseim (Player Wesley’s character). Keseim hails from Calimport, decadent capital of the southern nation of Calimshan. After some verbal sparring, in which Keseim seemed to excel, the group convinced the wizard to help them in their efforts (his other alternatives could have included indefinite captivity, or worse…)

Keseim and the wizard Vorath compared spellbooks, and Keseim learned a comprehend languages spell from Vorath. It was then that Kale remembered the rubbing of Tanara’s key stone tablet, which would supposedly open a doorway to the hidden tower of an ancient elven wizard called Kurthrad the Artificer. She showed Keseim the rubbing, and he was almost able to read the two remaining runes that Tanara was unable to decipher. He felt confident that once he had mastered the ability to cast the comprehend languages spell, he would be able to translate the last of the runes.

The group got much needed rest that night, with Leela being handed over to the care of the clan’s druids. The next morning, Breonna told the group that they were to be allowed to see the voantir. But when they arrived at the leader’s tent, they heard the sounds of weeping from within. They went in to discover the voantir had died suddenly. Breonna moved quickly to try and convince the family to keep the voantir’s death a secret for as long as possible, so as to prevent an immediate coup. Breonna told Kale and her group that before she died the voantir expressed gratitude for the party’s efforts, and had wanted to talk to them about the next steps on their quest to rid the High Forest of the undead humanoid plague. Now, the decision was left up to them.

While Breonna worked to decide how best to hold the clan together, the party deliberated their next move. They decided to head back east toward the ruined temple of Myrkul, but first they would have Keseim decode the key stone tablet’s runes and bring the information to Tanara.

Breonna returned to the group to tell them she had reluctantly decided to act as temporary leader of the vo’an, while telling the clan’s people that Voantir Elaya was still alive and giving orders through Breonna. The leader of the rangers had decided to lead the vo’an west, toward the very fringes of the High Forest and further away from danger. It was understood that this would make the safety of the vo’an further away from the party should they survive, but the safety of the clan needed to be preserved.

The party prepared to travel once again. They were able to enlist the aid of an elven wizard named Eanor and elven fighter Otiver (NPCs). So, provisioned and rested (and with elven-bred horses to ride, since the centaur-bred elk were released to return to the White Owls of their own accord), the group headed east once more, after farewells were said.

Oisin the cleric, Kale the elven ranger, the wizards Keseim and Vorath, the centaurs Narcoth and Quiron, and Eanor and Otiver made an uneventful journey back into the heights of the Star Mounts to the hidden crevasse in which Tanara was making her search for the hidden wizard’s tower. The party arrived to find nothing but the cold remains of a camp fire. There was no sign of any of the White Owl centaurs or Tanara. The party began to investigate the crevasse. Keseim cast a detect magic spell and spotted signs of an enchantment in a small stand of trees. Investigation revealed that the key stone tablet was hanging in a sack from a tree limb. As they cut the sack from the tree and retrieved the tablet, a strange rhythmic clicking could be heard approaching. The group prepared themselves for trouble.

They were shocked to see what looked like five halflings come charging from the trees. Except these halflings seemed to be made of some golden metal. The clicking was coming from them, but otherwise they made no sound as they approached. A fight ensued, and the party was able to destroy the strange constructs with minimal injuries to themselves. The constructs proved to be very nimble but fairly delicate, so blows focused on their flexible joints did well to immobilize them.

During the fight, Keseim (who had finally deciphered the runes) read the key stone tablet and began to chant the runes in a precise pattern that would open the doorway to the hidden tower. Upon completion, a portal opened and the party hurried through. The centaurs, suspicious of magic, had to be convinced to go through, but they eventually did so.

The group found themselves standing before a 100-foot-tall tower in a small depression somewhere in the mountains. They faced a huge iron door, and a balcony 30 feet above them (with four more balconies at 10-foot intervals above that).

They were considering what to do next when a loud roaring filled the depression, echoing around them in an ear-splitting din. The group looked up to see a large creature with the body of a lion, the wings of a bird, and the face of a bearded man step out onto the lowest balcony. The beast said in a loud, booming voice, “Who dares enter my realm?”

To be continued…

Thoughts after reading Moldvay’s Basic Set

2011-09-04T09:30:00.007-04:00

So, as part of my desire to read up on Classic or "Basic" D&D, I’ve read through Moldvay’s Basic Set. Here’s how I sum up my thoughts after reading it:

The nostalgia that I felt was heavy duty (again, I never played it when I was young, but it still reminded me in some ways of reading through the AD&D 1E books).

The only real difference that I could see between Moldvay Basic and Labyrinth Lord was the rules for attribute adjustment. It might be clearer to state that the only rules difference that matters to me is attribute adjustment, which I think is absent from Labyrinth Lord (then again, I haven’t read Labyrinth Lord from cover to cover, so I could be wrong). But really, I don't think that there are any other differences of any considerable size.

If I wanted to play by these rules or something like them, I’d rather play Labyrinth Lord.

This last statement is how I felt after finishing my read-through. I feel like Labyrinth Lord has a much better organization, appearance, and some small changes in the rules that make it much more accessible, at least to me at my current stage of life.

The big factors that appeal to me when thinking of running a Classic D&D game are:

Limited class options make it easier for the GM to remember class abilities and faster for players to create characters (even faster than Castles & Crusades/C&C, which is pretty quick when it comes to character creation).

Saving throw progression and other similar mechanics don’t require the thought process that goes into systems that require the GM to create target numbers for attribute checks (an issue I had with D&D 3E, but C&C mitigates much of the thought process with the SIEGE Engine system). If I ever thought there was a need for attribute checks in a Classic D&D game, I like the thought of making players roll under the appropriate attribute score. I’ve always felt that D&D attribute numbers were sort of useless, and their modifiers or lack thereof had more effect on the game (perhaps that was just my style of play back in the day…)

The four human races and the demihuman race-as-class options lend a certain archetypal/mythic aspect to the game that appeals to me. I have ideas for developing my own setting for use with Classic D&D rules, and using that in a future campaign.

How Classic D&D lends itself to a certain style of play that is appealing to me (i.e. simpler, faster, rules-light, archetypal/”mythic”). I truly believe that system influences style of play.

Actually, there’s one other big thought on my mind, as you can probably tell from all my references to C&C above: I still prefer C&C for my number-one go-to game. I love that system and its combination of AD&D and d20 D&D concepts. It’s the rules set that makes me want to do the least amount of house ruling. To me, at this point in my life, I find that “limited need for house ruling” is a big factor for me when it comes to a game system. This is mostly due, I think, to my limited free time for gaming. I would prefer to spend my time prepping for game time and actual play rather than rules tinkering. And less house rules means that players can depend mostly on published rules and not have to worry about tons of house rules that I might foist upon them.

While I was reading Labyrinth Lord, I found myself doing a lot of house ruling in my head. There were a lot of tweaks I found myself wanting to make. And in considering the changes, they were mostly efforts on my part to put C&C functionality into Classic D&D. Such as thinking about how to do attribute checks in Classic D&D in a manner that was satisfying to me.

I KNOW that this is a big heresy when it comes to Classic D&D play. I know there’s a rabid contingent of people, many many people out there, who would balk at my attribute check fixation. Trust me, I do so myself. In our C&C games, I try to minimize attribute checks when possible, resorting to asking my players to roleplay out the actions they want to accomplish as much as possible. Even if they are asked to make an attribute check, I still ask them to roleplay things out (and depending on how convincing they are, I will often give them bonuses to the associated rolls).

And come to think of it, instead of resorting to Classic D&D rules to get the Classic D&D “style” of gameplay (archetypal), I could very well just run C&C but restrict races and classes to what would be close to what is available in Classic D&D.

I am thinking of potentially asking my group if we could sometimes run Classic D&D one-shot sessions. Just so I can get a fix. One other aspect of Classic D&D that I like, funnily enough, is how deadly it can be. I would like to run a game that is more deadly and less about epic adventure. Again, this is just my own perception of game systems, but I find that AD&D/C&C (at least for me) lend themselves to more epic adventure style of play, where characters are more hardy at lower levels and therefore have a much greater chance of living to reach high levels and forging great destinies.

Anyway, there you have it, folks. For good or ill. Please give me your thoughts. I guess I’m on to read Moldvay Expert, and then on to Labyrinth Lord (for a more through read than I’ve ever given it).

Readin' Up on Basic/Classic/Just Plain D&D

2011-09-01T12:46:00.005-04:00

I was recently chastized for referring to Moldvay and Mentzer's sets as OD&D, and perhaps rightly so. Mea culpa. Again, I never actually played OD&D or Moldvay/Mentzer in my gaming career. I started out with AD&D from the get-go. I may have collected things such as the Rules Cyclopedia and the Big Black Box, but never played those versions.

[Just as an aside, I would personally like to call Moldvay / Mentzer's versions D&D, rather than Basic or Classic D&D. Basic doesn't seem to fit to me, since Moldvay had an Expert set, and Mentzer had the Expert / Companion / Master / Immortal sets to follow up his Basic. I would prefer to call the iterations Original D&D, D&D, and AD&D...but I suppose that might not be clear enough. Ah heck, I guess I'll stick to Classic D&D, then.]

It's only now that I'm dabbling in Original and Classic D&D. I purchased Lamentations of the Flame Princess as well as Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry. As stated above, I have a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia at home, and even managed to snag some PDFs of the books in Moldvay and Mentzer's sets. So now I have piles of original versions as well as clones...and I need to start studying up!

I know in the past I declared Mentzer's version of Classic D&D to be my go-to once I was ready to run some plain-old D&D, either using the RC or the books from the sets. Well, now I'm not so sure.

So, I've decided to start really reading up on the old Classic material. I'm picking a starting point as of now, and that is Moldvay/Cook/Marsh B/X. I'm not really sure where I will go from there. Any advice would be very welcome!

And BTW, where's Holmes fit in with all this? I frankly have no real interest in considering Holmes. I've glanced at his version, and seemed like just a jumble.

Anyway, I'm off to start studying. If I have time, I'll post some impressions. Wish me luck on my journey of discovery...

EDIT: I suppose I should have included a status update of where my head is at currently with regard to "preferred" editions, eh? At this point, Labyrinth Lord seems to have risen above the rest of the pack, both original editions and clones, in my estimation. But I would like to read Moldvay to see how things were originally published. Mentzer and the RC call out to me, perhaps just from nostalgia. But from my prior superficial scans of the contents of LL, the Mentzer-era stuff doesn't seem as "shiny" anymore...at least at the moment.

As for Swords & Wizardry, it's sort of slipping further down on the rungs of my affection. I like some aspects of it, but these aspects (spells, some class options) may be things that I steal for use with a game founded on LL. And I have no interest in gaining access to the original books that S&W is based upon. Is that heresy?

When it comes to Lamentations of the Flame Princess, it too is probably something from which I will steal ideas. For instance, I may use Raggi's d6-based thief skills instead of percentiles. That would probably be the major borrowing.

See how this can all be quite maddening?! Curse you once again, Gamer ADD!

A Yen for OD&D

2011-08-30T13:18:00.002-04:00

As you may know, I've been a part of a group that's been campaigning using Castles & Crusades since early this year. I've been a player and a GM in the group, and I have to say it's been an incredible experience. We're a small group, but what we lack in size we make up for in creativity, camaraderie, and lots of RPG experience. This group has fulfilled my long-time goal of finally gaming with new people. Until this year, I had only gamed with childhood friends. And it's been the true vehicle for the return to table-top roleplaying that I have yearned for since around 2007.

All that being said, there's the eternal spectre of Gamer ADD. I think I am a more-than-moderate sufferer of this dreaded condition.

So, perhaps I've fallen under the influence of JB over at B/X Blackrazor, but I've decided that, once our current C&C campaign runs its course, I would like to propose an OD&D game to my group.

This is my chance to finally game using OD&D rules, which I never really did...unless you count my recent, short-term use of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Deluxe Edition rules when gaming with a couple old friends on a few occasions. OD&D represents a more "mythic" play style to me, where characters are more archetypal, more "primal" if you will. This taps into my strong belief that game system plays a large role in determining style of play (a topic I've been meaning to post about for some time now, but haven't yet gotten around to it).

First of all, I'm pondering what system(s) to use. Do I use the original games, or do I use a retroclone? There's a certain something to the thought of playing with the originally published rules. But then again, there's the often greater clarity of rules and presentation of retroclones. At the moment, I'm considering a foundation of Labyrinth Lord with some aspects of Swords & Wizardry thrown in for good measure. But my goal now is to read up on original B/X as well as the retroclones I like (Labyrinth Lord and S&W) to see which has the functionality I need. Oops, almost forgot: I've also got the Rules Cyclopedia as well as the books from the Mentzer Basic and Expert sets. So, I've got some readin' and decidin' to do, as well as battlin' with nostalgia over practicality.

Any suggestions/advice would be welcome! (this includes my request for advice on dwarves from this recent post)

As for the world in which I would place the campaign, I am thinking that I will do a homebrew world. Roleplaying has been a way to fulfill my creative urges. There's a level of creativity in designing adventures and plot hooks. But then there's another level in worldbuilding that I've been missing. I have been worried about lack of time, but I think I have some ideas to get this going.

But again, all of this is just very preliminary. I have no intention of abandoning my current campaign, and expect our C&C goodness to keep rolling for a good while. Still, there's something to be said for a little daydream-brainstorm for future adventures...

And the Stick in the Mud of the Week Award goes to...

2011-08-29T16:56:00.015-04:00

Alexis at Tao of D&D. In this post he derides the recent "Build a Better GM" trend that hit the RPG blogosphere. He seems to have the impression that it was a fruitless effort. Or at least that's what I took from reading the post. I encourage everyone to read it and let me know what you think.

I for one felt the Build a Better GM meme was very enlightening, as it gave many perspectives on the art of running roleplaying games. It gave some food for thought, advice, and tips. But unlike Alexis, I didn't think anyone was trying to define in stone what makes "the perfect GM."

I don't understand this guy at all. Who spends so much time being so...angry? Standoffish? Curmudgeonly? Whatever you want to call it, I just can't fathom why someone would want to waste precious moments of life being so downright grumpy about a hobby. Being a grognard is one thing. But being Alexis is something entirely different.

In the past, I've tried to communicate with Alexis in what I thought to be a rational manner, questioning his particular scathing approach to RPG blogging. For my desire to understand more of his motivations and perhaps offer a different viewpoint, I've been "permabanned." He pretty much won't let any of my comments on his posts see the light of day. In fact, I take credit for his switch to moderating comments. So, in light of my inability to comment on his blog directly, I've decided to comment about his posts on my own blog. As Alexis might say, "My house, my rules."

(By the way, regarding the standoffish "my house, my rules, I can do whatever I want" approach to blogging: when you invite someone into your home, do you slap them in the face when they compliment your wallpaper? Just because you own a "domain," be it a home or a blog, doesn't necessarily mean that you have carte blanche to lash out at "guests" and be rude to them, even those guests that disagree with you. If you want to consider a blog to be a virtual house, then what about the ancient tradition of hospitality? Let me put things another way: I bet Gary Heidnik was a big believer in "my house, my rules, I can do whatever I want.")

On another level, I don't understand why so many people put up with his attitude. There are so many people who comment on his blog that he, in turn, berates. It's like going to a "wise man" (and I'm nowhere near actually considering Alexis a wise man) in order to obtain wisdom and being verbally abused at the same time.

Why do I care? I guess I keep expecting there to be a bottom to Alexis' well of disdain. I check in once in a while to see what vitriol he's spouting, and he never fails to deliver. I also think that the guy has a lot of good stuff to offer the blogosphere, but he wraps it in such a noxious package. Thus, there's also a failed opportunity here, in my opinion.

Isn't one of the myriad reasons we blog to connect with our fellows and share thoughts and celebrate our hobby together? But wherever humans gather, there are those who seek to deride for the sake of derision.

He's given tidbits of information about his motivations, and I feel like he's an incredibly intelligent person with a lot of personal pain from his past. So he's no longer much of a conundrum for me, I suppose. I guess I'm just confused why someone would take what most would consider a positive thing (sharing opinions/advice regarding GMing) and see it as something ultimately futile. Like Raistlin's hourglass eyes, which doomed him to see the decay in all things...

I guess everything truly is a matter of perception.

Alexis has stated that I seek to "change" him. That's not true at all. I wouldn't presume to try such a thing. Rather, my eternal statement to him is this: you don't like something in the blogosphere, so be it. But that doesn't mean you are better or smarter than the rest of us who do like it. And it definitely does not mean you are the arbiter of what is, and what is not, a worthwhile topic.

UPDATE: Alexis posted a "rebuttal" to this post, and someone commented "i would rather have a person be harsh and honest then nice and lie about what he truly thinks of things."

To this I ask: why do "harsh" and "honest" need to go together? Can't you be "nice" and "honest"? Is that's what becoming part of our culture, a belief that you have to be harsh to be honest? That's really depressing, if it has any truth to it.

A little something extra for Dwarves?

2011-08-29T09:00:00.002-04:00

So, if you're like me, you had to stand vigil as Hurricane Irene ripped up the east coast of the US. I was up all night Saturday into Sunday with my trusty Shop Vac, fighting back the waters that sought to spread across my basement. Now, we only really had spreading puddles to contend with for the most part. But it was coming in fast, and damned if I would let the storm win and soak my stuff (what little stuff we had left near the floor).

Anyway, I've been itching to get back to more regular posting, or at least posting a bit more frequently. And I have been looking forward to posting about something other than session reports...not that there's anything wrong with that.

So, here's the point of my post: I've read recently on another blog (damned if I can remember which one!) that OD&D dwarves get the shaft for the most part. They don't have cool magic like the elves, and even halflings can be more palatable as an OD&D race-as-class with their saving throws and stealth abilities.

Questions to you all: Do you think this "shafting" is a true one, or is it just grumbling? And, for those of you who do think that dwarves are short-changed, what would you do (house rule-wise) to beef them up as far as racial abilities are concerned?

I've dabbled with the idea of allowing dwarves to "enchant" one weapon per day, giving that weapon the ability to hit creatures that are only harmed by magical weapons. Or I would just say that dwarves themselves, no matter what weapon they use, can harm such creatures.

Can't wait to get your input!

UPDATE: Here's the post that inspired my post, it was over at Tenkar's Tavern! How could I have forgotten?! In rereading, I see Tenkar was specifically referring to dwarves in AD&D, not OD&D. But still...

The Stars must be Right! or My Tale of the Earthquake

2011-08-23T16:27:00.001-04:00

So, true story: I was in the Barnes & Noble near my work during lunch today, flipping through a new volume of obscure Lovecraft tales (his very early stuff, I guess) called Eldritch Tales. See cover image below:

Just as I was about to put the book back on the shelf and head back to work, I started to feel a shaking under my feet. I started to sway, and felt sick to my stomach, dizzy. I looked up at others around me and realized that it wasn't just me. The whole damned place was shaking.

Coincidence? I don't think so. Sorry everyone. It was my fault. I woke something up.

Seriously though, folks. I've lived in South Jersey all my life. If there was one thing I thought I would not have to worry about, it was earthquakes. Granted, it was just some moderate shaking here, and nothing was damaged, it seems. But, still, to have one's perceptions about one's environment proven wrong in such a dramatic way is unsettling.

Nothing is certain, folks. I got my reminder today, I suppose! As for me, I'm going to start brushing up on my cthonic, just in case!

Paragons of Waterdeep: Session 3

2011-08-23T12:12:00.005-04:00

At the end of session two, our intrepid band was still in the sinister ruins of an ancient temple of Myrkul, former god of death. Oisin, Cleric of Lathander (Player Bill) was paralyzed by the bite of a watch spider. The elven ranger Kale (Player Pam) rushed to his aid, attempting to use her knowledge of natural poisons to neutralize or at least slow the toxin. Nestor the thief (NPC) looked under the now-destroyed bed (under which the spider had been hiding) to find what appeared to be a wizard's staff. Nestor then found a wizard, bound and gagged on top of the ruined bed. He unbound the wizard to find that his name was Vorath (Player Glenn). Vorath had come to the sunken stone structure in order to find magical artifacts, and had been captured by orcs and goblins several days earlier. The staff under the bed belonged to Vorath and it was returned to him after some hasty introductions. The wizard was shown the magical spear that they party had found in the room. He cast read magic in order to read the runes carved into its shaft. The runes read “Spear of the Healer.” Kale decided to put the spear in Oisin's hand to see what would happen, and the cleric immediately began to recover from his poisoning.

Once Oisin had recovered, the party tried to figure out their next move. It turned out that Vorath and Oisin are both from the village of Amphail, north of Waterdeep. Vorath's mentor, Bartok, had recently passed away and left him a small house in Waterdeep. The house is supposed to contain magical secrets and is heavily warded. Vorath was taught the pass phrase “Happy half-orcs have halitosis” in order to enter the house. The wizard had considered going to Waterdeep, but was tempted by rumors of the sunken stone structure in the High Forest’s Star Mounts.

While talking and debating, the group was interrupted by a loud rumbling and sounds of a group of goblins and orcs coming from the hallway beyond the door. With the door still barred, they waited for the humanoids to pass. They then gathered up the magical spear, a set of ceremonial bracers encrusted with small gems, and 200 gold pieces before proceeding down the hallway to the north. There were no immediate signs of the humanoids.

They passed a door with the words “Bad Here” in orcish painted in blood (Kale was able to translate) and decided it was best not to open it. They then came to a small room that was full of hay and smelled of animals. There was a stairway going down in one corner. The party noticed three unusually large wolves asleep in the room. Kale, Vorath, and Nestor crept over to the wolves in order to dispatch them quietly and quickly. Vorath took out the first wolf flawlessly, followed by Nestor who dispatched the next wolf with a rogue's precision. Kale's wolf, however, awoke before she could kill it. So Kale, Nestor, and Vorath put the beast down together in a short fight. Suddenly, the group heard the sound of more humanoids coming from the hallway from which they had come. They decided to stand their ground and fight.

A seven-foot tall gnoll barreled into the room, snarling in rage upon seeing the dead wolves and the party. The gnoll announced himself as Gritznak and immediately pulled a large scimitar before charging. Goblins and orcs streamed in from the hallway behind Gritznak. Oisin smashed into Gritznak with his morningstar while trying to avoid blows from the enraged gnoll. Nestor threw daggers, while Vorath let fly with magic missiles. Kale immediately slew the first goblin to close ranks with the party. A pitched battle ensued, with most of the party in tight formation in a corner. They group became worried as the room filled with humanoids. Orcs with crossbows began firing at them until the centaurs broke ranks to charge the orcs. Nestor slipped out in order to try to get behind Gritznak, while Oisin traded blows with the gigantic gnoll. Leela stepped up to the front lines helping to fend off the waves of humanoids while Kale cut down one goblin after another with sure strokes of her sword. Finally, with dead humanoids all around, Oisin was able to land a crushing blow to Gritznak's side. Kale immediately sprung to finish the gnoll chieftain off, nearly severing his head with a two-handed swing of her bastard sword. It was then that Nestor shrieked as he was stuck in the leg with a goblin blade.

With Gritznak down, the party quickly dispatched the rest of the humanoids. Kale and Vorath removed a magical ring, a gold necklace, and a few gold and silver coins from Gritznak's body. The gnoll’s scimitar was also discovered to be enchanted. However, Nestor was lying on the ground in agony. Oisin removed the sword from the thief’s leg, to find the blade coated in sickly purple and green substance. To the group’s horror, the substance looked and smelled like the liquid they had seen oozing from the undead humanoids they had previously encountered. Oisin and Leela tried using healing spells, including the “Spear of the Healer,” which did not work. Kale looked closely at the wound in order to see if she could identify and slow any sort of natural toxin. She quickly determined that the source was not natural, and Nestor's leg began to turn black around the wound. Kale became determined to amputate Nestor's leg. She wiped her bastard sword and prepared for a clean two-handed swing. But Leela jumped in the way, sobbing and protesting.

While the group began to argue about what to do for Nestor, Kale heard a change in Leela’s sobs. The elven ranger looked over to see a now-undead Nestor gripping Leela’s arm with tremendous force and attempting to bite the cleric. Kale swung her sword, easily removing Nestor's head. It was then that the party then decided to make their retreat. Before they could leave the room, they noticed the blood of the dead humanoids being sucked into the stone floor. Then, the entire temple began to shake and shudder. They quickly gathered up a stunned Leela, lit the hay in the room on fire, and made their way back to the entrance of the ruin. They were praying that a certain stone slab that had sealed off the passage back to the ruined temple’s entrance was now no longer an obstacle.

As luck would have it, the shaking of the temple seemed to have dislodged the stone slab, and the party flooded into the room containing the statue of Myrkul. They found five animated skeletons blocking their path. Oisin called out to Lathander and turned all of the skeletons, and the party ran out of the temple’s entrance. There they found the remainder of the centaurs, who ran toward the party. Suddenly, there was another rumbling from the structure, and portions of the ruin appeared to push up from the ground. The party and the centaurs decided to put as much distance between themselves and the temple. They traveled for some time before setting up camp. During the night, the centaurs made it plain that they thought the party had made things worse for the White Owl tribe by stirring up the evil of the temple.

The next morning, the party and the centaurs made their way back up the mountains to the hidden crevasse. There they once again met with the high elf wizard Tanara. They recounted the tale of the ruined temple and introduced Vorath to her. Tanara was of course troubled by what they had to tell her. She told them that, while they were away, she had found a rune-covered stone tablet buried in the ground. She was only able to partially decipher the ancient script, but thought the table to be some sort of teleportation device that would take her to the hidden tower she sought.

After some discussion as to what to do next, Kale insisted that it was time to return to her people in order to tell them of what had happened. She had been sent for aid and had also found the most likely source for the undead plague, and therefore had to tell her people. The rest of the party agreed. Before setting out, Kale took a rubbing of Tanara’s tablet to show to the leader of her clan. Then, the group set off once more, this time for a journey to Kale’s vo’an…

To be continued…

Paragons of Waterdeep: Session 2

2011-08-22T10:11:00.006-04:00

The first session of my Paragons of Waterdeep campaign ended on a cliffhanger, with elf ranger Kale (Player Pam), Clerics of Lathander Oisin (Player Bill) and Leela (NPC), and Nestor (NPC) the thief making their way along a narrow mountain path in the fog when they found themselves facing a female centaur and her companions with bows drawn. The female centaur called out, “I've found them!” As it turns out, Kale recognized the centaurs as being from the White Owl tribe, a tribe with which her elven clan (the Spring Dawn clan) is not allied (and these particular White Owls thought that the party was a group of spies for the Fox centaur tribe, enemies of the White Owls).

Even though relations are shaky between Kale’s people and the White Owl clan, the adventuring party told the centaurs that they were hunting undead. This caught the centaurs' interest. The female centaur introduced herself as Floen, and she demanded that the party follow her. Reluctantly, the group followed the centaurs into a path plunging into a narrow crevasse in the steep, rocky face of the mountains. The party contemplated attacking the centaurs and making a hasty retreat, as the centaurs appeared to have trouble navigating the steep terrain. But ultimately curiosity regarding the centaurs’ destination won out.

Inside the crevasse was a centaur camp. Many of the White Owl tribe had been driven from the lower elevations by bands of undead humanoids. Apparently, the undead would not venture into these parts of the mountains. In order to gain the centaurs' trust, the party agreed to help the centaurs fight and find the source of the undead. Among the tribe, the group discovered a sun elf named Tanara, who explained that she had come to this part of the world in search of an ancient tower built by the elves. The tower had been built by the elven wizard Kurthrad. The wizard had been known to have made several magical artifacts. Tanara believes that the tower is located somewhere very close to the camp, and asked the party to remain and help her to search for it. She also told the party that some of the centaurs had been attacked by a strange magical force that caused them to lose some of their memories. Though the group was intrigued by the idea of searching the mountains for an ancient tower filled with magic items, their commitment to finding the source of the undead plague won out.

The White Owl centaurs explained that they believe the source of the undead to be a sunken stone structure that they had found protruding from the earth at the lower elevations. The following day, the group departed to investigate the ruin with six of the centaurs. The trek was uneventful until they made camp that night. The party posted a watch, and during Kale’s watch she noticed humanoid figures in the darkness shambling toward the camp. She awoke the rest of the party and they found themselves under attack by a mix of 12 undead orcs and goblins. Oisin was able to turn almost all of the undead while Kale, Leela, and the centaurs finished them off. The group noticed that some of the undead had open sores on them that leaked a sickly green and purple ichor. They party burned the bodies, careful not to touch the foul fluid.

The next morning the party set out again and finally arrived at the buried structure. When they arrived, they saw black stone protruding from the earth, as the centaurs’ described. The ruin radiated a strong sensation of evil, and they all were made a bit nervous when they looked into the gaping entrance that lead down into dark depths. It looked as if it had sunken into the ground long ago. Suddenly, five orcs, two goblins, and two gnolls charged from the entrance of the structure. After dispatching the humanoids, a voice from inside the ruin challenged the group, declaring itself as Gritsnak. Floen and most of the band of centaurs were reluctant to follow the party into the structure. Two of the younger male centaurs, however, decided to accompany the party, apparently seeking glory. The group entered the structure to find a large chamber containing a statue of the ancient god of the dead, Myrkul, who himself was slain during the Time of Troubles decades before. Carefully, they explored a hallway that split off from the main chamber. They passed several doors, and behind one they could hear the sounds of what they thought was undead shambling. The group shimmed that door shut just as something within started battering at the door. The party retreated back the way they had come, only to see a stone door sealing off their original entrance to the hallway. They proceeded down another hallway in the hopes of finding another way back to the entrance of the ruin. They opened a door to find themselves in a bed chamber. With the two centaurs covering the door, the rest of the party went inside.

Oisin cast detect magic and found a spear leaning against a wall that was magical, and also detected magic under a large four-posted canopy bed. As soon as Oisin announced his discoveries, Nestor the thief went to investigate under the bed. Suddenly, a giant spider erupted through the bed’s mattress to attack the party. Kale let fly with her bow, while Leela stuck the spider with the magic spear. Nestor scrambled out of the way defending himself with daggers. Oisin covered Nestor and Kale while attacking with his morningstar. A vicious battle ensued, with everyone attacking the spider while Oisin and Kale drew its attacks. Oisin was bitten by the spider. Everyone stayed in the fight for another round when Oisin discovered his muscles getting stiff. Realizing he didn't have long before the spider's poison took hold, Oisin cast Shield of Faith on Kale. With the aid of the Shield of Faith Kale was able to withstand a final desperate onslaught by the spider before finishing it with her sword. She and Leela turned to the sound of Oisin's morningstar hitting the ground as he collapsed, unconscious. It was then that the group heard the centaur’s slam the door to the room shut and bar it from the inside. One of them turned to the party and said “Something is coming."

To be continued...

Ye Olde Summer Slump

2011-08-18T11:49:00.002-04:00

Hey all out there in Blogsville! August is a rough time for me when it comes to free time. Both my kids are August babies, so their birthday plans eat up free time. As per usual, the rest of my free time is going to roleplaying, and some reading of novels and such. Actually, the novel reading time is being impacted by the RPG time, so the reading is slooooooow. I'm mucking my way through A Dance with Dragons as best I can. But my friends are blazing through it and wondering what's taking me so long ;-)

Anyway, apologies again for lack of posting. But I wanted to give you all a teaser (especially Reader Jimmy, who has recently asked me to start posting again!) of what's in the pipeline for me with regard to posts:

A recap of Session 2 of my Paragons of Waterdeep campaign
A post regarding my thoughts on whether or not Tolkien influenced OD&D and why I think this "issue" is a non-argument/no-brainer

Talk to you all soon, and as always, happy gaming!

Paragons of Waterdeep: Session 1

2011-08-05T11:07:00.005-04:00

Greetings all. Apologies once again for my infrequent postings of late. I wanted to take this change to post a recap of our first session. This is an embellishment of a recap provided by two of my players, to whom I am indebted. Without them, this recap would not be possible.

The campaign begins on the third day of Tarsakh in 1369 Dalereckoning, also known as the Year of the Gauntlet. The cleric of Lathander known as Oisin hails from the village of Amphil, which is three days north of Waterdeep.

The first session found Kale the elven ranger arriving in the City of Splendors. She is a member of a nomadic clan of wood elves in the High Forest. She is part of an elite group known as the Daughters of Mielikki, who serve to protect her clan from threats. The elves live in temporary settlements known as vo’ans. Kale was sent by the leader of her clan Elaya (also known as the vo’antir or voice of the vo’an) to seek aid from the Temple of Lathander in Waterdeep. The request stems from a steadily increasing number of undead humanoids (orcs, goblins, and gnolls) appearing in the High Forest. Kale’s clan has few clerics at the current time, and therefore does not have the means to easily combat the undead.

When Kale arrives at the Temple of Lathander, called the Spires of the Morning, Oisin and a newer member of the Lathanderite clergy named Leela were summoned by a higher-ranking cleric named Rorik. The two lower-ranked clerics learn of the plight of the elves, and Oisin and Leela are eager to help. However, Rorik is comfortable with his routine duties at the temple and seems to enjoy bureaucracy. The higher-ranked cleric says that he wants to further consider the idea with the other senior clergy and perhaps even the head of the temple.

After Rorik left them to wait for the decision from the senior clergy, Oisin and Leela took Kale to get some food, seeing as she had a long journey to Waterdeep. Leela took everyone to the Singing Sword Tavern, an establishment she used to frequent prior to joining the temple. At the tavern the three ran into an old friend of Leela's named Nestor. People in the tavern were overheard talking about some strange deaths in the city involving victims bursting into flames. The group, which now included Nestor, decided to leave the tavern and check out the site where the last victim (a trader's wife) had been found. The group searched the alley where the last victim had been found, discovering scorch marks and the scale of some sort of creature. While searching, the group was approached by several unsavory characters to which Nestor apparently owed a gambling debt. Oisin paid Nestor's debt in return for the rogue’s service to the temple.

Upon returning to the Spires of the Morning, the group met with an agitated Rorik, who informed them that Leela and Oisin were to go with Kale to her homeland in order to investigate the undead. Nestor, balking at the thought of the long journey to the High Forest, stated that he had a plan to get the group to the forest via a much faster route. But he would only do so if Oisin released Nestor from the outstanding debt. Oisin agreed to Nestor's terms and the group made arrangements to meet him the next day.

So the following day Oisin, Kale, and Leela met with Nestor to find that his plan involved using a teleportation portal to travel quickly to the High Forest. Nestor claimed to have a friend who is an apprentice of the powerful archwizard, Khelben Blackstaff. The apprentice said that he had discovered the portal in his fiancé’s basement. In order to use the portal, they would have to sneak into the fiancé’s parents’ house while everyone was home that morning. Kale refused to travel without her trusty elven-bred horse, so a compromise was reached and the group decided to take two of their four horses through the portal. The apprentice wanted payment for travel through the portal, so the group traded him the scale that they had found at the crime scene the night before. With the help of the apprentice's fiancé, they slipped into the house. With some tense moments, we got the pack horse through the back door and quickly through the portal then the rest of us went, along with Kale's horse while the fiance's parents kept calling her and asking what was going on.

The group emerged from the portal to find themselves in a cave with little light, with their pack horse was nowhere to be found. They made their way toward the entrance of the cave, guided by daylight. Kale's sharp elven senses picked up a creature moving outside the cave entrance. That’s when the group spotted the mutilated carcass of their pack horse just outside the entrance. Moments later, a blood-covered owlbear rushed into the cave and attacked. A desperate combat ensued, in which the cleric Leela was injured and had to fall back to heal. After a pitched battle, the owlbear was slain.

The group eventually emerged from the cave to find themselves on a narrow mountainside trail in a thick fog. With Kale in the lead, they carefully made their way along the trail, narrowly avoiding a place where the path would have crumbled beneath their feet and plunged them off a sharp drop. After several hours of travel, Kale heard the sound of horse hooves. Ahead of them, a female centaur emerged from the mists with a bow and arrow at the ready. The centaur, upon seeing the group, took aim and called over her shoulder “I’ve found them.”

To be continued…

2011-07-28T09:38:00.001-04:00

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2011/07/on-little-bit-of-past-reborn.html

Shadowgate

Happy B-Day to Gary and Other Things...

2011-07-27T22:40:00.000-04:00

I would be remiss if I didn't check in today, to add my voice to the chorus of happy birthday wishes to Gary!

I hope St. Gygax is looking down over me this week, as life has taken away my gaming activities on this particular Wednesday (my usual gaming night, as you probably know). But that has just made me all the more determined to get my game on next Wednesday, and has given me more time to refine my devious plots to unleash on my unsuspecting players...

Other random thoughts:

I'm missing being able to read blogs of late, and missing conversing with other bloggers I have grown to respect. I'm also missing being able to blog myself.

I'm looking forward to learning more about a couple games that are in the works: Adventurer Conqueror King and Crypts & Things.

Well, folks, that's all I have time for right now. Hope all is well out there in the blogosphere, and until next time, happy gaming!

A Voice from the Void: Checking In...

2011-07-22T12:57:00.001-04:00

Hello all out there in the blogosphere. I apologize for my long silences of late. I am still getting used to the demands of the current stage of my career, the excessive heat that is gripping the United States has moved its evil influence over my state, and the need to focus on my family life as a husband and father is as always of the utmost importance. All of this of course means that things such as blogging and other hobbies have been once again compromised, and rightly so.

Just know that I am focusing on what all of this blogging we are doing is about: actually gaming! What small spare time I have these days is going into my Wednesday night table-top game. I just had the first session of my Forgotten Realms campaign (which transitioned from a Dragonlance campaign for several reasons) and by all accounts my players were very happy with it. I am looking forward to getting a lot of sessions under my belt in the coming weeks.

It is summertime, however, and the number of players we have in our group fluctuates weekly. One of our gamemasters/players (and also the founder of our group) has moved away to other realms, sadly. Another player has had some life issues that have taken his gaming time from him of late. And yet another player is away working at a summer camp. That leaves, for now, myself and two players to forge ahead. Our hope is that our other two players will be able to join us again soon. But any gaming is great gaming, as far as I am concerned, and the three of us that were there this week put in some good adventuring. I hope to give you a good recap soon. But for now, I'll just give you one tidbit: a very upset owlbear was involved!

Anyway, that's where things stand. I am not blogging much at the moment in favor of roleplaying. I hope you can see that I have my priorities straight! Hope to write more soon. Until then, game on, my friends!

Paragons of Waterdeep: Moving Worlds

2011-07-14T23:04:00.001-04:00

So, my non-gaming life has asserted itself of late, specifically as it pertains to my work. I'm several months into my new job, and my workload is of course increasing all the time as I get the hang of things. So, this of course is putting more of a pinch on my time. And this of course means that something in my life has to give. As is all too often the case, one's hobbies are the sacrificial lambs.

However, this does not mean that my roleplaying days are over, not by a long shot. But, it does mean that I've had to re-evaluate the campaign I started very recently. I had set the campaign in the Dragonlance setting. This had been a long-time dream of mine: to run a game in the world that introduced me to fantasy fiction and Dungeons & Dragons. However, I have very limited resources when it comes to Dragonlance. I only have a couple of books to use for the setting. And there's also the urge in me to do it right. Meaning there's that certain flavor that makes Dragonlance what it is, and with my limited time I can't get that flavor right. I know, I sound like a perfectionist. And I guess I am.

But mostly I just want to run a good game for my Wednesday Night C&C group. So, in thinking about the future of my campaign, I realized that I needed to fall back on a setting with which I am more familiar, and for which I have many more books and other resources.

For me, that fallback world is the continent of Faerun on the world of Toril. I have more familiarity with the Forgotten Realms setting, having run some play-by-email games set in that world over the last couple of years. I've collected a lot of Realms materials in that time. It hit me that, while it would be great to run my long-awaited Dragonlance game, I need to return to the Realms.

But this is not a grudging return. Not at all. I really love the Forgotten Realms setting. I'm very comfortable with it, and I feel that it has a lot of potential. It never fails to inspire me, and I always seem to have good ideas for game sessions.

So, last night after our friend Rich ran his last City State of the Invincible Overlord session for the foreseeable future (he's moving away, unfortunately), I asked the rest of the group if they would bear with me and agree to shifting their characters from Krynn to Toril. They were very open minded and agreed! The good news is that there were only two sessions in the Dragonlance campaign with the current player characters. So there's not going to be much pain in the transition. Just need to do some minor tweaks, set up a new skeleton of back story, and have the cleric pick a new god ;-) I'm letting the characters keep the experience points they earned in the first two sessions, of course.

I have to say that I'm really excited about getting my campaign rolling full steam ahead! I am really looking forward to establishing a long-running game with our great group of players. I've decided to name the campaign Paragons of Waterdeep. Why? Well, only time will tell...

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to work and finalizing my plans...

Happy gaming, indeed!

Slaying Dragons

2011-07-14T22:13:00.001-04:00

When the last book came out in 2005, I was only married for about a year and had only been in my house for a bit longer. Now I've been in my house for almost seven years and I have two kids.

I have to admit, I'm intimidated by this tome that came to my doorstep. I am older now. With less time. And perhaps less endurance, less patience.

A book of this size is more of a challenge for me now.

Let's Dance!

2011-07-11T22:44:00.001-04:00

If you're like me, and probably millions of other addicts, tomorrow is something of a religious holiday. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you're not one of the lost souls who have been waiting in purgatory for a certain novel.

Yes, I'm talking about A Dance with Dragons.

It hits the US tomorrow. I pre-ordered mine months ago, of course. Mine is coming direct to my door. But tomorrow, I will stop by the Barnes & Noble near my work and see if I can't find a copy to thumb through during lunch. Just to see what I can expect when the tome gets to me.

So, is it safe to assume that the RPG blogosphere has more than its share of Song of Ice and Fire fans? If you're out there, please chime in and share your personal tale of obsession. What does the series mean to you? What is your favorite or least favorite book in the series? What did you think of the HBO series? And perhaps the most important question: are you or have you ever been involved in a campaign based in the world of Westeros?

For me, this series has been a huge part of my life for years now. It's been at times both a love affair and a bit of frustration. I'm not one of those who thought A Feast for Crows was far inferior to the first three novels. But at the same time, I can tell you that there were times that books 2 through 4 felt a lot like the author was almost too in love with his creation. I'm holding out hope that Martin will carry this series through to the end in a manner that delivers on the promise of the books. I await the fifth book with an open mind, and I am trying to temper my expectations. The HBO series did a decent job, but it's hard when you know how much detail had to be left out. And as for gaming in Westeros, so far I've only played the Fantasy Flight board game. But you can be sure that I've contemplated roleplaying in Martin's creation.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you crazy kids out there!

And for those of you who actually came here for the Bacon, here you go:

Friday Inspiration: Invictus

2011-07-08T09:07:00.001-04:00

This one is for Christian:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Status Update: Sturm und Drang

2011-07-07T22:56:00.001-04:00

"Oh noez! Bloggerz takin stuffs too seeriuz agin!"

So, there was the fairly recent temporary ostracism of Greg at Dark Horse Game Design. Then there was the very recent attack by the Your Dungeon is Suck person on Christian of Destination Unknown fame. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I will say this: don't worry about it and you're the lucky one, because you didn't have to experience the utter non-issue.

The one consolation for me personally during the recent stupidity is that no one, at least on the blogs I read, used the word "kerfuffle." That word drives me insane in the way that Curly goes crazy when he hears Larry play Pop Goes the Weasel on the violin.

Look, I'm not heartless. I felt really bad for Christian when he got upset at what YDIS Guy posted about him. I'm not sure why Christian took it so hard, but we all have our breaking points and sensitive spots. But the YDIS Guy is seriously just filling the cliched role of "personified antithesis." Every movement has one. There is that person that has to be the one who hates everything said movement stands for. And that person, or even persons in some cases, step into this role for any myriad of reasons. I'm not really interested in exploring any of those reasons.

Can we just agree that getting upset over something like Your Dungeon is Suck is like getting upset at the sky being blue. Blogs like YDIS are as common and par for the course as any other thing that you take for granted every day. There are these niches that exist in any human collective that we as creatures of habit slip into, whereever our species congregates. This is no different in this little virtual playground of ours. YDIS is filling one of many bland, vanilla, not really original at all roles. Again, this is such a non-issue.

I'm glad that Christian is back. I've been a follower of his for a while now, and he's been on my blogroll for the same amount of time. I applaud him for his candor on his blog, and for sharing so much of his real personal life in addition to his ups and downs at the gaming table. I say this as a person who likes to use blogging to share my gaming experiences with like-minded folks. But he, like the rest of us, has to be prepared for stray d-bags using our words against us. I have faith that Christian has come out of this wiser and stronger.

Now can we all go back to shaking our heads and chuckling lightly at blogs like YDIS for the silly curiosities they are?

As for me, the Wednesday night gaming has been going well. I've had to give over the GM chair to my friend Rich for the next few weeks, as work has been kicking it up a notch. But I intend to get back in the saddle by the end of the month at the latest, after I take some time to adjust to the new speed of the job. It still sucks to be the new guy at work, but it's sucking less all the time.

It turns out to be a good thing to have Rich take so much time to run his Invincible Overlord campaign, since he's leaving indefinitely around the end of the month. He's moving out of state for a great job opportunity. He's going to try and come back on occasion to game with us. He will be greatly missed.

There's also a new fellow named Glenn who joined us for a couple of sessions recently, and he's been a great fit. But he's unfortunately had some medical issues arise that have taken him away from our table. We're all hoping he gets well very soon.

One of our other players is working at a sort of summer camp and has been away. He's been trying to spread the good word of Castles & Crusades to the young folk at camp, but they've sort of been giving him blank stares. Kids these days. But at least he's fighing the good fight.

But our group is a resilient one, and I have no doubt that we'll somehow keep the gaming goodness going strong! I'm thankful to have found a great bunch of people to roleplay with, I'll tell you that much.

Anyway, thanks for listening as usual, and here's wishing happy and peaceful gaming to you all!

Dragon Age for free! DCC...not so much...

2011-07-05T22:31:00.001-04:00

Just thought I'd point something out:

The Free RPG Day offering for Dragon Age is available for free (35-page PDF) on DriveThruRPG.

The Free RPG Day offering for Dungeon Crawl Classics is available for $4.99 (16-page PDF) on RPG Now.

Hmm. Funny how some things are no longer free now that Free RPG Day is over. You get much more RPG goodness from the Dragon Age offering, including over twice the page count, for zero dollars. 'Nuff said, as far as I'm concerned. I have to say that I continue to be underwhelmed by the hype machine that is DCC. The system may be innovative and playable and have a great old school pedigree and flavor, but there's just something about how Goodman Games is going about "selling" the game that just rubs me the wrong way. I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this...

I am not a patriot, but I love my country

2011-07-04T22:13:00.000-04:00

To me, the word patriot, at least how it is used here in the United States, has become tainted. Tainted and hijacked by religious fundamentalists and partisan demagogues who simply pander to a constituency. These deviant elements in my society have corrupted our vernacular and twisted precious words to fit their agendas. Fuck them. I despise the politicians and the pundits and lobbyists and all the rest for what they have done to this country, despite my best efforts to use my vote to change things. No matter the politcal party, the little people get screwed. Plain and simple. And I hate it. Every day, I hate it.

So I am not a patriot, but I love my country. I hate how the aforementioned a-holes have caused many of our current and former allies to look down upon us. I wish there was something I could do besides plead with those in other countries like Canada and Great Britain to not think that all of us in the US are fucking retards. The state in which the US finds itself these days makes me deeply sad. But let me assure you, we are as diverse here as you are in your countries.

I may not be an "America can do no wrong" nut, but that doesn't mean that I don't love my country. You can simultaneously love and hate aspects of a thing.

Again, I ask that you not hold anything against my country. I know I can detect what I think is some cynicism toward the US out there in the blogosphere. I can't give you every example, but there's at least one example that makes me scratch my head. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from that one.

To my fellow Americans, I want to give you my sincere hope that you have a great Fourth of July. I want you to all feel as proud of our country as I do. And our country is really the people, the little people, the ones who go to work every day to provide for our families, the ones who fight in our wars. Not the fucking celebrities, the talking heads who try daily to instill us with fear over multiple media, the politicians who will betray us every time.

To you who are not Americans, I ask again for you to remember that we are not some mindless mass of drones that march in lockstep with what our leaders do in our name. We are individuals, just like you. Hell, we all love these games that we play, right? That's our lingua franca. I want you to know that the vast majority of us want a fellowship with you in other countries. We want you to know that we respect you and look to you for comradeship, even if our leaders make it seem that the US wants to give you all the cold shoulder.

Thanks for listening. As always, game on!

Another one slipped under my RPG radar...

2011-07-01T10:00:00.001-04:00

Welcome to July, everyone! Hope you fellow Americans are as excited as I am to be heading into a nice holiday weekend!
I am kicking off the new month with a "Doh!" post regarding another RPG that I did not know about until a day or so ago. First there was The One Ring, and now it's...

LEGENDS & LABYRINTHS!

While I will stick to my guns when it comes to "there's no such thing as too many RPGs," I have to say that I personnally am not interested in trying to play most of these new games coming out. Sure, I will probably take a good look and may even steal some ideas from them. But what it comes down to for me above all is time. That is my most limiting factor in this stage of my life. I need to focus on the systems I know well enough to GM/play, and that's D&D for me. I need time to prepare for games and maybe throw some blogging into the mix.

Maybe the cause of AND cure for my gamer ADD is time limitations. I need to continually remind myself of my limitations, and not let them drive me insane and cause me to flail around from one new shiny game to another. I have to focus on what is GOOD about my current game situation: I have a great core of dedicated gamers that I have met, we are able to meet pretty regularly, and we have a pretty good venue to play at. That's really all I could ask for at this moment in my life.

So count your roleplaying blessings if you are fortunate enough to be able to actually participate in games! As always, happy roleplaying and GAME ON!

leveling up

2011-06-29T16:44:00.001-04:00

http://recedingrules.blogspot.com/2011/06/party-based-level-progression.html

I've gone back and forth on this topic. Sometimes I wonder if I want to stick to good old XP because of bad nostalgia's sake. But I've been playing with the idea of letting characters level up after their players have participated in a certain number of sessions. I was thinking of setting it at five sessions. I think this depends on the group and how frequently it meets. I've been pretty lucky to be able to game for a while now almost every week (once a week). So if you can do about 50 sessions in a year, that's 10th level in a year for all characters involved. Not too shabby, I think. Thoughts?

I want it all, and I want it now!

2011-06-29T11:56:00.000-04:00

Check out Freddie's awesome chainmail gauntlet!

(I'm guessing that everyone is getting my reference here.)

I guess this is an offshoot of my chronic Gamer ADD, and maybe a symptom of limited time to game (although I have to say, for a guy with a family and all, I have been able to game at least once a week for a few months now...which is more than some others can claim). But I feel like I want to run/play so many different games RIGHT NOW! I want to use all those cool systems out there and dabble in multiple genres (fantasy, science fiction, western, etc)! Blargh!

Just needed to vent...

Anyone else feeling this way? Is that a stupid question?

Anyway, tonight is Wednesday Night C&C at All Things Fun! GM Rich is picking up his Invincible Overlord game again, so I will slip back into a player seat this week. Looking forward to it, since there was no game last week. Game on!

Hitting 50, Cyberpunk, and Technoir

2011-06-28T15:53:00.002-04:00

Hey now, I've reached 50 followers! Nice! Not bad for a fat kid from South Jersey! ;-) Seriously though, it's pretty cool to feel like there are people that value one's words. I hope it's because my rekindled passion for the hobby is coming through in my posts. It really is important to me to give something of value back to our little community here, even if it is just the tale of my musings on the hobby and stories of my actual gaming experiences. Anyway, I'll spare you the Sally Field act...

Now on to my other topic for this post:

My other great love besides fantasy fiction is cyberpunk. I don't care what the genre fiction pundits have to say about the supposed death of cyberpunk as a science fiction subgenre. It will always be alive in me as a fan. Gibson's Neuromancer is one of the books I've reread the most in my life (about 10 times). As I get older, I get something new out of it every time. I don't care about how the passage of time and the progression of technology makes some aspects of the book outdated. There is such a possibility as alternate futures and divergent technological development, just like there are alternate pasts to be explored (see cyberpunk's "sister" genre, steampunk).

I've owned the Cyberpunk 2020 RPG for over a decade but never played it. Same with Shadowrun (but frankly I couldn't stand the combination of magic and technology). I played Rifts here and there, but that also put too much emphasis on magic. I've considered using the Shadowrun and Rifts systems/worlds and stripping out the magic, however.

It's been one of my holy gaming grails to do some cyberpunk gaming someday. I was tempted to run a Matrix movie game using the online free system based on the D6 System that's been on the web for years now. But again, this never came to pass, due to the myriad circumstances I've talked about in my testimonial.

I just heard that there's a new game called Technoir in development, and it looks interesting. There's a beta that's been released, and I'm trying to find the time to delve into it. There's also a fund that's raising money to publish the game.

So, maybe once I get a goodly bit of fantasy gaming under my belt to really cement my return to the hobby, I can move on over to exploring some cyperpunk gaming. See you in the matrix (not the one inhabited by Keanu Reeves, either)!

DCC Typo and Basic D&D Attribute Checks

2011-06-26T18:34:00.002-04:00

So I was looking over the Dungeon Crawl Classics beta rules again, and also rereading the DCC Free RPG Day Adventure Starter, when I noticed the typo shown above in the Adventure Starter. Yes, it says "Mentzner" when it should read "Mentzer." To their credit, this typo doesn't exist in the DCC beta rules. I just thought I'd point it out, especially in light of my recent declaration of Mentzer's D&D being my non-Advanced D&D version of choice.

Anyway, I've been looking at sources like DCC and other game systems, as well as the blogosphere of course, for ideas for house rules pertaining to attribute checks. Now, before you all start commenting about how OD&D is about player skill and not character skill, and thus there is really no need for attribute checks, I only want a simple mechanic I can use in those instances where I feel that character skill would exceed player skill.

Plus, I've always felt that the D&D attributes should do something other than provide you with bonuses if you have a 13 or above. I've often thought that they were pretty useless, just sitting there, these numbers that don't really have any practical use. Unlike systems like Savage Worlds (where attributes are the dice you roll to perform tasks) or Dragon Age, where you roll 3d6 as in D&D but you only record the bonus the die roll result provides (so if you roll an 18 for your Strength, you have a bonus of 4 to add to Strength attribute checks...the bonus is what you record on your character sheet).

I've seen people espouse a xd6 check mechanic for D&D, and there's the d20 method. I was thinking of going with d20 and sometimes subtracting character level from the die roll if deemed appropriate.

So, my question to you is: what attribute check mechanic do you use for OD&D, if any, and please let me know the meat of your "system" and in what instances you use it. Looking forward to hearing from you all!

Facing Down the Beast

2011-06-23T22:30:00.004-04:00

So, instead of bitching about gamer ADD like I've been prone to do in the past, I decided to man-up and do what I should have done before: take all the RPGs that have been plaguing my mind and literally spreading them all out in front of me. Like a lineup of the usual suspects. And I gave them a good hard look, and some thought, and I was determined to come to some conclusions. And I think I've finally regained mastery of my gaming domain.

First there's Castles & Crusades, my number one game. The Sancho Panza to my Don Quixote. The Little John to my Robin Hood. The Riker to my Picard. I started out my gaming career with AD&D 1E/2E, and C&C to me is a near-perfect reimagining of those editions of the game. I like what Troll Lord Games has done with the system by incorporating the SIEGE Engine mechanic, bringing some 3E into the mix. I don't have to do much in the way of house ruling to get it to where I need it to be at my table. I will never need to go back to AD&D, because C&C has become the ideal version of those editions, to me.

Now, as I've said before, until recently I never actually played any version of basic/original/non-Advanced D&D. I bought the Rules Cyclopedia when it came out in the early 90's, and also bought the "Black Box" version of D&D, but never actually played them. I missed out on the whole boxed set thing entirely when I was a kid. The LBBs and all that Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, etc. jive was something I would have appreciated back then, I think...but I missed it all. I was just never exposed to it.

But looking back now, and having dabbled in OD&D (especially via Swords & Wizardry and Lamentations of the Flame Princess), I have become more and more enamored of OD&D and its clones. But looking through Moldvay, Mentzer, the Rules Cyclopedia, clones like Labyrinth Lord and S&W and LotFP and all the rest, I think that I feel strongly about actually using the original Mentzer books rather than a clone. I just like the look of the game, the layout of the books, the style, the art (as a confessed Elmore nut). There's just something about it that calls to me.

So, when I get the chance to run some OD&D, I'm going to use Mentzer, with some house rules I'm mulling over to add a bit of spice to things. I'm taking inspiration for my house rules from many sources on the web and blogosphere, as well as from other games. This includes the beta version of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG.

Now, there are some other various games that have also been tempting me with their shininess. Games such as Barbarians of Lemuria, Dragon Age, and even that game based in Middle Earth called The One Ring that I just learned about YESTERDAY! Yes, gamer ADD has no mercy. Heck, I just really discovered a lot to like about Dragon Age less than a week ago, on Free RPG Day. All of these various other games I have lumped together as potential candidates, but I have used a bit of reality to temper my expectations. These miscellaneous games are nice and all, but I either don't own them, they haven't been published yet, or they would take time to learn that I just don't seem to have these days.

Above all, I'm totally dedicated to the Dragonlance game I am currently running, and have no intention of sacrificing it in order to jump into OD&D right now. And especially not for some new shiny game that would require a whole new cycle of reading rules, learning rules, teaching rules to others, etc. I've been waiting a looooong time to do a Dragonlance campaign, and I have met a great group of gamers who make running the game a pleasure.

Wow, it feels good to get that all out! All it took was standing up to the beast!

Did you know about The One Ring?

2011-06-22T21:40:00.007-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted for a few days, I've been tied up with work. My usual Wednesday night game didn't happen tonight, so I'm at home and tooling around the Internet, thinking about what to post since it's been too long since I last wrote something here. And as I was wandering around, I chanced upon The One Ring: Adventures Over the Edge of the Wild!

Did anyone out there know about this upcoming RPG?! Of course, I am intrigued to no end! One of my fantasies has been to run a campaign in Middle Earth, and apparently I'm not the only one with that hankering! I assumed I would use one of the various incarnations of D&D as the rules behind a Lord of the Rings game, and get some setting help from the MERP books I own and other resources. But this discovery of mine tonight seems to have changed the game, no pun intended!

Anyone have any intel on this? Is anyone as excited as I am? I need a prescription medication for Gamer ADD!

*UPDATE: Go here for more details!

Free RPG Day and Other Stuff

2011-06-19T15:50:00.001-04:00

A peek behind my screen on Free RPG Day!
(note to my players: look away right now!)

It was a pretty busy gaming week for me. The Wednesday Night C&C group met once again at All Things Fun. I ran the second session of my Dragonlance campaign, and it was a great time (with our Solamnic Knight again providing much amusement). This week was different, however, in the fact that we had two new players join us, for a total of six! One is named Glenn, who was very enthusiastic to be getting into some old school gaming (for him that means doing more roleplaying than rollplaying). He had come to the store that night to get into D&D 4E Encounters or whatever they call it. But the store's owner Ed and I talked him into converting to Castles & Crusades! Score one for the old school! We were also joined by a fellow named Josh, who seemed to be curious about C&C but I'm not sure if he'll really be willing to stick with it (he seemed to be torn between C&C and D&D 4E).

Anyway, suddenly having six players was a bit of an adjustment for me. I think I did a fair job of adapting. I have to admit that I am most comfortable with four players. At least, that's the group size I've had for most of my life when I was running a game. So I think I could get used to running games for more players as time goes on and I shake off more of the rust from my GM skills. Looking back, it was cool to have the challenge thrust upon me unexpectedly. The group said that I did a good job with the game, so I am trusting them to tell me the truth! ;-) A part of me still feels strongly that the sweet spot for roleplaying is five players tops. Any more than that and I think that the roleplaying has to be reduced in favor of more combat/hack & slash. I am very sensitive toward keeping players from waiting around too long, and in my experience any more than five players and things start to get slow. Or maybe that's just something lacking in my GM skills. Who knows? I'm also pretty tired right now so I'm surely not doing this subject much justice.

As an aside, Wednesday nights are of course D&D Encounters nights. And there are several games of D&D running at the game store around us. We are surrounded on those nights by larger groups of rather loud gamers. It sometimes makes it hard for this old man to hear, and generally makes me grumpy. Again, I'm old. Just neededto vent that.

Anyway, as I posted last week, I agreed to run a C&C game at All Things Fun on Free RPG Day. I was pretty eager and a bit nervous to do so, because I was interested in helping to spread the good word of C&C/old school gaming (clarification: old school gaming means the following to me: lots of roleplaying character/NPC interactions; trying to resolve a good portion of non-combat through roleplaying rather than rolling dice; a rules light system that doesn't involve a lot of feats, skills, combat manouvers, etc.; a good balance of roleplaying/puzzle solving/combat; and a good dose of humor when appropriate). I wanted to do a good job representing C&C and old school gaming.

When Saturday arrived, I headed out to All Things Fun and set up shop. Glenn, our newest addition, showed up early as well. So while I did my final prep he and I chatted about gaming, life, etc. Then two of the Wednesday Night C&C regulars (Bill and Pam) showed up as well. It was good to have the three of them there as support. So the game session was slated to start at 2 PM. As the moment drew close, I waited expectantly for some newbies. And waited. And waited some more. It was about quarter after 2 PM when I decided to start the session and just throw any late arrivals into the mix as they joined in.

Well, the session went three hours, and no newbs. I was pretty disappointed in that fact. Of course there were a lot of players for the D&D games going on around us. I guess there's no beating the name recognition of D&D, right? Ah well, we had a good time regardless!

As for the free stuff, I have to say that I was a bit underwhelmed by most of what I saw. I distinctly remember feeling like Free RPG Day 2010 found me agonizing over what freebies to choose. This year I had no such feeling. I picked up the Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure starter and the Dragon Age quickstart guide, and was not drawn to anything else.

Just like everyone else lately, I've given my first impressions of DCC. I have to say that, upon reflection, I may have come across as being harsh in my thoughts, and those thoughts were based on a beta test rules set. But I have to reiterate that my judgement wasn't really toward the viability of the system. It seems like a very solid set of rules that is playable, light, flexible, and ultimately fun. It does, therefore, seem "old school" in nature. I just feel like there was a ton of hype leading up to the beta release about the game being some revolution in old school gaming. And that's what I really had an issue with. That and the fact that the hype also seemed to portray the game as having significant innovations that would set it apart. And while there are some interesting mechanics, it still seems like a heavily house ruled D&D.

I feel like there's a growing trend toward the term "old school gaming" becoming hijacked. It seems like more and more gaming systems are coming down the proverbial pike that are claiming to be old school. And I'm beginning to wonder if that label is being applied more and more as a marketing spin rather than an actual badge of honor or pride.

That's where I come to Dragon Age. I found the words "old school" on back of the quickstart guide, and I rolled my eyes. Here we go again. But as I flipped through the rules, I found myself liking what I saw. Here was a game that didn't seem like D&D. There was something interesting in a game that just uses the d6. The artwork grabbed me, and the rules had some things I really enjoyed. Now, I've written a lot on this blog about my Gamer ADD, but this seemed somehow different. I might need to write a whole separate post about this Dragon Age thing...

This interest in Dragon Age made me think about what I may be craving. There seems to be a part of me that wants a system that's not based on the bones of D&D. There's a part of me that's always been interested in finding an old school system that's not a variation of D&D. That's why I've always been intrigued by Rolemaster, Hackmaster, Tunnels & Trolls, Dragon Warriors, and the like. D&D was so central to my entrance into gaming that systems not based on its DNA are fascinating to me.

So I find myself torn between my love and reverence for old D&D and an interest in exploring games that have an old school mentality but are based on entirely different systems. For me, I enjoy C&C because of its D&D roots and what the game does with those roots. C&C has a combination of aspects that make it a system of choice for me. Playing C&C and exploring the old D&D games gives me a comforting connection to a strong gaming tradition. However, there's something to be said for branching out and exploring new territory.

Anyway, that's enough of my blathering for now. Hope everyone's having a great day, and I'll talk to you soon.

P.S. On my way home from Free RPG Day, I stopped at a small comic book store that I had forgotten existed. My fellow gamer Bill told me that they have a lot of old D&D stuff there for sale, so I had to stop in. While I was there I scored a very pristine copy of the 1E D&D Monster Manual (the printing with the dragon and the pegasi on the cover). Nice!

Happy Gaming Father's Day to All!

2011-06-19T10:29:00.000-04:00

Hey all! Sorry for the blogger silence for the last few days. But it was silent for a good reason: I was either gaming or preparing to game! Time well spent indeed! Anyway, I just wanted to write a quick post to wish all my fellow gaming fathers out there a Happy Father's Day! I hope it's a good one for you all!

I will post again later today to talk about my gaming experiences this week, both my usual Wednesday night game and what I did on Free RPG Day.

Rewriting (Blog) History

2011-06-14T18:11:00.004-04:00

Have you ever gone back over your old posts and decided that you needed to make some changes? I know that a lot of people go back and do updates to the bodies of posts. I've done small updates once or twice (literally).

What about going back to add some more labels/tags/keywords/ whatever you want to call them? I was reading old posts and I noticed that a lot of them (perhaps unfortunately) involve me talking about Gamer ADD. It's sort of scary how often I seem to be inflicted by that rough beast that slouches toward the gaming table to be born (apologies to Yeats). So I decided to go back and add "Gamer ADD" as a label for those (and future) posts.

So, what's your personal feeling/policy on editing old posts (with regard to text, labels, whatever)? I'm pretty comfortable with adding/removing/changing labels. I sort of obsess about labels. I should probably consider some advice on how to label posts effectively, if such training exists! But going back to edit swathes of text seems somehow a violation of what I was feeling at the time a post was written.

And how far back do you go? I added the "Gamer ADD" label to some fairly old posts!

Anyway, thoughts?

This T is for Jeff Rients

2011-06-14T10:41:00.001-04:00

I think it's safe to assume that Jeff Rients of Jeff's Gameblog is obsessed with Mr. T. So Jeff, here's a little treasure I found on a street sign near my work in Southern New Jersey:

Mr. T is indeed everywhere!

Still Seeking Advice on Running a C&C Game on Free RPG Day

2011-06-13T09:30:00.003-04:00

I just wanted to repost Saturday's request for advice from the blogosphere. Here is the original post. I am running a session of C&C on Free RPG Day this coming Saturday at All Things Fun. I'm treating it as a mini-con of sorts, and this is the first time ever that I'll be running a game for strangers who just walk into a game store. Any advice is welcome! Thanks.

Invoking St. Gygax and Seeking Advice

2011-06-11T16:29:00.000-04:00

Thus spake Gygax: "I cannot stress too much the importance of having mystery in the world setting...what the fantasy game world setting must provide is the environment to enable the participant to regain that feeling of the marvelous and inexplicable. The milieu is the vast stage upon which will be played countless dramas, and a few comedies and tragedies as well. What awaits, who will triumph, how events will turn out must never be fully answered. To do so brings one to an end as surely as does the last page of a novel...the milieu will be never-ending, unfold gradually, and always have some new mystery to explore, some challenge to overcome."

I saw the above quote on Grendelwulf's blog recently, and it really lit the fires of inspiration in me. It made me eager to game, and it made me anxious to experience that sense of wonder Gary talks about in connection with gaming. In it I hear the echoes of Bilbo Baggins singing about how the road goes ever on...

I feel like I need some good mojo from St. Gygax soon, since I volunteered to run a Castles & Crusades session on Free RPG Day next Saturday. I'll be running the session at All Things Fun, of course. The owners, Ed and Dina Evans, really wanted C&C to be represented that day.

So on Free RPG Day, I want to foster the sense of wonder that is the hallmark of a good gaming session. And I want to do a good job and represent the game system well, as I have a lot of admiration for Troll Lord Games and their game (not to mention that I really like Ed and Dina and their store).

Am I putting to much pressure on myself? I think that's probably the case, since I know myself and I have a tendency to be my own worst critic.

I've decided that I want to treat Free RPG Day at All Things Fun like a miniature convention. I want to prepare a good session, and enable anyone who plays to get a good idea of the system as well as get a character together quickly, so that we can maximize actual playing time.

So, I'm asking you all for advice on how I can make the most of the session next Saturday. I've never run a game for strangers at an event like this, so this is going to be another milestone for me. I figured I would perhaps bring some pregenerated characters. That seemed to be the most sensible thing to do. But what else should I do to prepare, what should I expect, etc. Any input is much appreciated!

Why do we bother with all this blogging?

2011-06-11T15:08:00.003-04:00

Over the past year, I've encountered two different kinds of bloggers that confuse me to no end. Let's call these two types the "elitist" and the "nihilist."

The Elitist

The elitist in the RPG blogoshere is the person who does not just give their opinion. If these types of bloggers just gave their opinions on things, they would be like the rest of us in the majority (or what I would like to consider to be the majority): gamers having civil discourse and tolerating the opinions of others, and ultimately engaging in lively conversation and calm debate.

The elitist expresses their opinion AND attacks the opinions of others, and/or attacks other people personally. I'm continually dumbfounded that some people have the gall to think that they are the ultimate arbiters of some sort of universal truth when it comes to gaming. They seem to think they know what the best game system is, or what the best way to game is, and declare those who don't think otherwise as being idiots.

But the elitist is perhaps more easily understood than the nihilist. The nihilist's motivations are much murkier. The elitist is perhaps most often motivated by pride or vanity. But the nihilist is a more perplexing creature.

The Nihilist

The nihilist is a blogger who expresses confusion at why other people have opinions. These types will go out of their way to declare whole topics of conversation as being pointless. They usually tend to chime in on any of the topic trends that periodically sweep the blogosphere (such as the recent arrival of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG on the scene, or the controversial Lamentations of the Flame Princess Grindhouse Edition). But when they chime in, it's to state that the whole discussion is totally without merit and they can't understand why people are talking about the subject at hand. And that's it.

Again, the elitist seems to be much more understandable. They're here to attempt to lord over a scrap of the Internet, they hold forth and make declarations from their ivory towers, and demand to be acknowledged as masters of the subject matter.

But I guess the nihilist is so confusing to me because I wonder why they even bother to be a part of the blogosphere. Are they just trying to be sticks in the mud? This last thought is not satisfying to me, because there are at least bloggers like the minds behind Your Dungeon is Suck and Joeskythedungeonbrawler who are clearly putting on a persona and actually can be entertaining to read. They can actually be creative in their bashing and obviously put effort into their blogs. And their level of dedication to gaming is obvious (to me at least), so their apparent loathing for other gamers or certain game systems is really (to my understanding) rooted in a deep-seated love for the hobby.

The nihilist is really not that entertaining when they are poo-pooing topics, and they put no effort into their posts. And more often than not, they don't seem to really enjoy gaming.

Why do the nihilists stick around? If they are that confounded and are so unwilling to converse other than to say "this is stupid," they why don't they just stop reading/writing and do something else with their time? I guess I'm just so mindful of how I spend my limited free time that I guess I just couldn't fathom spending that time on something from which I derive no pleasure.

So why ARE we all doing this blogging thing? I believe it's because gamers are often people for whom gaming was/is a bit of solace. A safe harbor where imagination can soar and remove us temporarily from the pressures of life. They are those who appreciate the ancient tradition of storytelling. Or they just get a kick out of slaying and reaping kingly reward. Whatever the case may be, blogging allows our eclectic group of hobbyists to share thoughts, read other people's perspectives, seek advice, commiserate, celebrate, find kindred spirits, etcetera.

Anyone want to put forth any thoughts on these types, especially the nihilist? Am I just being naive? Are these types more often than not putting on facades and just playing roles? I guess that last possibility is somewhat ironic, eh?

System, Style of Play, and Heroes

2011-06-09T23:09:00.004-04:00

So, yeah, a LOT of bloggers have written about their thoughts on the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG beta since its release yesterday morning. Akrasia put together a small list of blogs besides his own that commented on DCC, but now the number of bloggers that have “reviewed” the beta rules has exploded! Yes, for good or ill, the DCC RPG has stirred up the blogosphere. Every blog from Grognardia to Your Dungeon is Suck has chimed in on the subject.

I still think that it’s sort of gimmicky, and an attempt to tap into the ever-growing OSR movement. I’m not faulting Goodman Games for the attempt. But I think they really turned on the spin machine. The beta version of the game seems, to me, to be trying too hard to be old school, whatever old school really is. Seriously, the definition of old school (not that I think there should be one) is a moving target. Does old school refer to games from a certain era? Is it a style of play? Is it rules light? Is it a combination of these things? I suppose the real answer is that old school gaming is whatever each gamer wants it to be. So trying to publish a "truly" old school game is like trying to hit a rapidly moving target. What Goodman Games has done is put forth its own version of an old school game. I know that it’s great for people to be passionate about what they do. But I think Goodman went a little too heavy on the hype, and it may be that they’ve sort of created a level of expectation that no game can live up to. Or I could be totally wrong.

Some have taken issue with DCC’s statement that player characters using the system are not heroes. Again, I think the company took hold of what it thought are the foundation stones of old school gaming and ran with those ideas. But they might have run too far. Are they saying that in old school gaming the PCs are not heroic? Does game system determine such a thing as whether or not a player can create/play a heroic character?

I’m a huge Joseph Campbell fan. I loved Hero with a Thousand Faces. After I read that book, I looked at the early versions of D&D as being about playing archetypes. The strict division of classes brings forth very archetypal roles: the warrior, the healer, the trickster, the magician…and also mythological beings such as dwarves, elves, etc. I’m not really sure off the top of my head the genesis behind the classes that Gygax and Arneson created for their original game (maybe someone can enlighten me!), but they do seem to tap into some ancient archetypes.

Sure, those early versions of D&D gave you most of your experience from treasure and killing things. But is that because the creators were still steeped in the more mechanical world of wargaming? Did they not really consider the roleplaying aspect in those early days? I guess what I’m saying is that they probably didn’t purposefully make D&D just about slaying and treasure. The game was a new offshoot of miniature gaming, which probably never really involved a lot of roleplaying.

So for Goodman Games to make it such a badge of honor, and declare characters as not being heroes, just seems a bit, well, short sighted. It seems wrong-headed.

All of this makes me think of some recent posts I read regarding system and style of play. I totally agree that the rules of particular game systems can indeed lend themselves to different styles of play. The early D&D games lend themselves to more hack and slash styles of play, perhaps, as well as a focus on gaining treasure. But as time went on, some gamers sought to add more “depth” to characters and their games. The later versions of the game began to focus on making characters more like individuals, rather than broad archetypes. The characters started to develop whole lives, with backgrounds that could become quite detailed. I think Pathfinder made 3rd Edition more "cinematic," so characters are still individuals but more like those you see in movies (i.e. larger than life). Now, 4E has pushed the characters into the realm of superheroes, who are powerful right from the start.

And this is ok, because change is natural. This is why I’m a believer in the recent “I’m with D&D” pseudo-movement (something of a reaction against Edition Wars). There’s no reason to deride those who play different editions, because different editions facilitate different styles of play.

Now, can you play a long campaign that’s heavy on plots and intrigue and interaction with NPCs using OD&D? Absolutely. Can you use 3.5 Edition to just do dungeon crawls? Sure! Therein lies the power of imagination and the individual tastes of gamers. So it is possible to overcome the influence of system on style of play.

So I believe that gamers just need to pick the system they're most comfortable with and have fun. I think each system has its obvious pros and cons. But they also have their own variation on the theme of heroes. Yes, that’s right, I said heroes. There are many different types of heroes. And they all need not be knights in shining armor. Some can be uncivilized or even self-serving. But does that mean that they cannot be heroes? And speaking of knights, don’t they need to gather up treasure too?

So again, to assume that old school roleplaying is not populated by at least some heroes is sort of strange. It makes Goodman Games seem somewhat out of touch with the real roots and motivations of the OSR.

To take my own admonition to “play and let play” to heart, I won’t fault anyone who falls in love with DCC and makes it their game of choice. I just think it was a poor choice on the part of Goodman Games to make it seem like they sought to create the “perfect” old school game that would tap into some conception of an OSR zeitgeist. Now, I know that the company never stated such a thing. But it sure seemed like they were trying really hard to make all of us think so.

NOTE: The DCC RPG's stance on heroes has sparked something of a "side" controversy, and other people besides me are giving their opinions on the matter. Things are getting more and more meta all the time ;-) Take a look here and here, for example.

My Impressions of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG

2011-06-08T22:19:00.004-04:00

Yep, it’s time to talk about the elephant in the blogosphere.

Perhaps something of a caveat is in order before I get into my impressions on Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG (hereafter referred to as DCC), the latest and arguably greatest roleplaying phenomenon to come down the proverbial pike since…take your pick: Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, Castles & Crusades, Hackmaster Basic, OpenQuest, etcetera etcetera ad infinitum.

Here’s the caveat: I’m grumpy today. It’s in the 90’s here in good old Southern New Jersey. It’s not even summer. These temperatures are no doubt going to be the norm from now on thanks to climate change. I miss my nice full springtime. I dread the disappearance of the equinoxes. Another part of the caveat: perhaps the massive solar flare of yesterday has affected my mind.

Now the third and perhaps most pertinent part of the caveat: for good or ill, I usually don’t react well to hype. Whenever something seems to be super popular (or infamous), my gut reaction is to distrust said hype (again, whether the hype is positive or negative). But I’m trying to set that knee-jerk reaction aside, as well as my grumpiness, when I write about DCC in a moment. I am not going to do an in-depth review per se, but I wanted to give some impressions as I scan through it, in the spirit of sharing.

Let me open by saying that there certainly was a lot of blogosphere hype leading up to the game’s beta release today. I think we can all agree on that. That hype did ignite my knee-jerk negativity toward anything trendy. But even putting that aside, there still seems something a wee bit suspect about how much positive press DCC was getting seemingly sight unseen. To me, it sounded like a few DCC insiders were active in the blogosphere in order to lay some groundwork before the release. I guess that could be considered “astroturfing” (i.e. a false grass roots movement) to get the OSR crowd primed for the game.

Now all that said, I’m trying not to be so skeptical. I don’t really want to believe all that. But it’s still strange to me that there was so much of a positive buzz surrounding the game before the beta. I guess some of the big OSR movers and shakers could have gotten advance copies of the beta, given their influence in the blogosphere. Anyway, just something to think about…

Now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest, let me spend some time going over some impressions as I go through the beta.

First of all, the art. I know there’s been some negative and positive reactions to the art. Some see it as too plentiful and/or too “professional” for a game that claims to be “old school.” Personally, I like it. I never got the whole “old school must equal amateur art” thing. I think those who feel that way are just being overwhelmed by nostalgia. To me, the art is not too obtrusive, adding just the right amount of balance and breaking up the text nicely. I like the juxtaposition of the comic strip pieces and the more serious depictions of adventurers. The comics seem inspired by the old strips one might find in the old Dragon magazines. I really love the little touches of homage, like the drawing on page 17 that’s a recreation of the AD&D alignment drawing.

I’m not down with the Zocchi dice thing. If I actually play the game, I’ll be resorting to rolling the appropriate old fashioned, even-numbered dice and dividing as needed (if possible, as I believe there are some Zocchi dice that are not so easily divisible). Ultimately, my opinion is that this usage of "weird" dice is mostly just a gimmick, and that just doesn't sit well with me.

I like the “How is this game different” bit near the beginning. That was quite helpful. BUT it also sort of telegraphs the fact that the game is really for gamers, don’t you think? It makes it seem to me that there was never any real hope that the game will be discovered by newbies to the hobby. This might tap into one of the broader arguments in the OSR regarding whether or not the old-school gaming phenomenon will be able to pull in many new gamers (or if those who make up the OSR really want to have new blood brought in at all). On the other hand, perhaps Goodman Games is hoping the veterans will seek to introduce a new generation of gamers to the old-school style. That’s the possibility that makes me feel the happiest, and I hope that was the intention, since I’m one of those bleeding heart old school gamers who wants everyone to just get along when it comes to roleplaying (translation: screw the edition wars!).

Anyway, I’m glad that the game goes out of its way to proclaim that there are no attacks of opportunity. I HATE attacks of opportunity above all other latter-day D&D “additions.” This and some of the other declarations make it seem like the guys at Goodman Games are tapped into the OSR zeitgeist, if there is such a thing. All I know is, it made me smile. But that’s all because of personal preference.

I was intrigued by the mechanic that would allow wizards to NOT lose spells once they are cast. It’s like some semi-Vancian magic system, something that might appeal to gamers who are perennially turned off by the relative weakness of low-level magic users.

The game seems rather complicated in some areas, at least when it comes to the usual simplicity of old school games. For instance, I’ve tried to think about a quick and easy counterspell mechanic that can be used with Castles & Crusades. I’ve always dreamed of having mage duels in my games. It was cool to see the spell duel rules in DCC. I’m heartened to see someone feels the way I do. BUT their spell dueling system seems complicated to me. Lots of steps involved. Now, I may just be getting old and have limited free time, and that’s why I prefer very rules-light systems. So take all this with a grain of salt.

I know, I know, I’ve stumbled into the dangerous realm of “does old school mean rules light or not.” I don’t necessarily think that old school games need to be super-duper rules light, but they are at least lighter for the most part. Let’s not get into that whole mess right now.

As far as skill checks are concerned, I wasn’t impressed with what was shown in the beta rules. They’re just ported over from D&D 3.0/3.5 whole cloth. Blah. I’m not really upset by the use of skill checks. I just don’t see anything innovative about what DCC is doing here. Heck, my beloved Castles & Crusades uses skill checks, just a slightly different take on the mechanic. I just hope that they don’t go touting this aspect of the game as revolutionary.

This and other aspects of the game that I’m reading don’t strike me as terribly different from what has come before. And wasn’t DCC touted as being something innovative? To tell you the truth, it really seems like someone did a really professional job on a house-ruled, “Frankenstein’s monster” system that borrows a little bit of everything from the various fantasy RPGs that have existed over the last three or so decades.

So bottom line: I don’t feel a real urge to play this game once the full version comes out. I think there was a lot of hype about it being innovative, but that was mostly just advertising for lack of a better word. I don’t fault Goodman Games for trying to add another facet to the OSR diamond. I won’t even get all skeptical and cynical and claim that Goodman just did it to cash in on the OSR (unlike WotC, who I am convinced are trying to cash in on the OSR). I am sure that the Goodman folks are passionate and honest folk with good intentions. But while I can appreciate the homage to the origins of the hobby, and I think there are some ideas they put forth that are intriguing and fresh, there isn’t enough “new” when it comes to DCC to truly make it the game-changer (no pun intended) it was made out to be. It’s another potentially solid addition to the wondrous variety of games on the market. Now, depending on your stance on the whole topic of whether or not there can be too many games to choose from, this can be a good or bad thing. Me, I can sometimes swing back and forth, but most of the time I think the more the merrier.

Of course, this is all based on the beta rules. I might take a look at a copy of the full rules once they hit the street.

So there you have it. I’ve added my opinion to the growing cacophony. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on DCC if you’re so inclined.

UPDATE: I also forgot to mention that I'm also grumpy because I didn't get to go to my regular Wednesday Night C&C session! Grrr...

What I (Re)discovered When Looking at 1E and 2E AD&D

2011-06-07T09:32:00.001-04:00

Just a quick note about my lack of recall regarding 1E and 2E AD&D and how I was shocked to relearn something about those two editions: I was flipping through PDFs of the 1E and 2E Player's Handbooks last night. I was looking at character classes and races. And I was shocked that I had forgotten that 1E is pretty restrictive when it comes to what classes the demihuman races can take. It's not much different from what was in OD&D, as far as I am concerned. Then I looked at the 2E PHB and saw it was much less restrictive.

During my return to gaming over the last couple years, I was under the impression that 1E and 2E were very similar when it came to allowed race/class combinations. My memory was obviously flawed! Despite my disdain for 2E (which is probably due mostly to the unsavory characters I was gaming with during my 2E era), I think I would much rather play that edition that 1E due to the difference in race/class restrictions. In its own way, 2E is closer to my current game of choice, Castles & Crusades, than 1E.

I feel pretty sheepish at the moment. Ah, what a journey of rediscovery I am on!

Question: Alignment in RPGs?

2011-06-06T22:49:00.000-04:00

Hail one and all! So, as usual, I don't have the time to write at length about anything (and trust me, I have a lot of ideas and it's killing me). But I feel like my blog's getting more traffic these days, so I thought I'd just put up a question to pose to the readers on days when I can't write much. I've tried to ask a lot of questions on the blog over the last year, but didn't have much hope of getting answers until now. I've even thought about either reposting old questions or seeing if people would be willing to comment on old question posts. Everyone is welcome to check out my old posts with the "questions" tag.

Anyway, today's question is: what do you think about alignment in RPGs? Personally, it's one of those rules that I've sort of had players address on their character sheets (like encumbrance) but never really bothered to enforce or use very often during the course of play. And I don't see any practical application in the game, except when it comes to spells that repel/detect certain alignments.

So is alignment just supposed to be a mechanical device, or is it supposed to also serve as some sort of roleplaying guide/aspect? I guess the best answer would be that alignment, like any other rule in a game, is a suggestion only, and gamers are free to pick and choose what they want to use.

So what role, if any, does alignment play in your games?

After the Dawning: Session 1

2011-06-02T15:26:00.000-04:00

I can't write nearly as much as I'd like about this milestone, but I wanted to report that I ran the first session of my After the Dawning campaign last night. It takes place in the Dragonlance setting. The usual Wednesday Night C&C gang (of which I am happily a part) at All Things Fun! got down to business on the world of Krynn! Thanks once again to the group for letting me take on the GM's chair.

It may sound strange, but this was pretty much the first time I ever ran a table-top game for players other than my friends from childhood/high school. It sounds strange when I read it! Sure, I've run PBEM/play-by-chat games on and off since 2007, but that's of course much different than sitting face-to-face with new acquaintances.

I feel that I'm very fortunate to have found a group of like-minded gamers who are not only great gamers but great people. This experience has helped me get over the last shreds of my trepidation regarding extending my gaming realm beyond my long-time friends.

Regarding my statement of not being able to write much, I fear that will be a trend with regard to my writing on the blog in general, not to mention when it comes to recaps. I'd love to do detailed, well-written recaps, but that might not be in the cards (at least not for the near future). With limited free time, I need to prioritize my efforts. Prepping for game time and actually playing are my priorities. That means writing on the blog and keeping my campaign's Obsidian Portal page up to date are going to have to fall by the wayside.

That being said, I know that at least one of my players intends to do some recaps in the voice of his character, a certain not-so-humble Knight of Solamnia! If any of my other players would ever see fit to do the same, that would be wonderful (no pressure, though, seriously guys)!

Speaking of the knight, he had the best line of the session. When a goblin was taunting the group from afar and licked the blade of his rusty short sword, the knight yelled out "You'll get lockjaw!"

That's all I can write for now. MAYBE I can get some time coming up to write an addendum to this post in order to give at least a bit more detail about the session. I just didn't want too much time to pass before I wrote at least something about the session. Talk to you soon, and happy gaming!

Pics from Wednesday Night C&C

2011-05-30T22:13:00.000-04:00

Well, the old timer (me) decided to try his hand again at downloading some pics from his cellphone's camera. I know how to do it, but I don't do it often enough. I snapped a couple of photos last Wednesday night at the weekly game I'm in at All Things Fun. Here's a shot of the table, including C&C Castle Keeper's screen, a map of the City State of the Invincible Overlord, and a can of Dr. Pepper, the official drink of C&C.

Here's a shot of my copy of the C&C PHB, and my character sheet and dice:

This Wednesday night I debut my Dragonlance campaign! Can't wait!

Down the OSR blog rabbit hole...

2011-05-30T15:45:00.001-04:00

In January, I was pondering/"complaining about" the wide range (perhaps too wide) of RPG options out there for us old-school types. Well, today I am wondering if there are too many blogs! Well, perhaps I'm not thinking that there are too many. Perhaps I am just wishing that I had enough time to fully explore our little corner of the blogosphere. I wish I could read all of the blogs that I encounter to their fullest extent. The winding maze of blogs could almost be considered a type of megadungeon, if one wants to look at it that way. It's definitely an adventure, and a daunting quest indeed!

For example, today I was reading one of the first blogs I ever encountered: Paladin in Citadel. And I went against my better judgment and glanced at the site's blogroll. And I was like Alice, tripping and falling down the rabbit hole. I found a blog called The Chronicles of Ganth that I am finding very interesting. Also during my wanderings I found a blog called Tales from the Tower. I'm having a lot of fun reading the actual-play recaps there.

But every new blog I find leads me ever deeper, thanks to their blogrolls...it gets to the point that I have to just step away from the laptop before I venture too far into the depths...

Giving thanks on a Happy Memorial Day

2011-05-30T14:35:00.000-04:00

Happy Memorial Day to all, especially those who are serving in the military or served in the past. I can't imagine what that sacrifice of time away from home and family would be like, let alone the giving up of one's life for the greater good. We are in debt to those who have fought for us, no matter what we may think about the conflicts into which they were thrust. We always support the troops.

I usually take this weekend to contemplate my life at the moment and my current circumstances. I am giving thanks for my wonderful wife and kids, and the fact that I have a job, even if sometimes said job stresses me out! I am also thankful for having some time to roleplay! I've had some pretty good luck when it comes to finding a new group to game with, since my old friends and I don't get together nearly as much as we would like.

It's also a good time to show my appreciation to all of the great bloggers I've met over the last year. Thanks for all the great conversation, debate, advice, and for providing your unique perspectives on the hobby. You've been the network I never had when I was roleplaying as a young teenager. I think a resolution of mine for the coming year will be to go to a big convention if I am able. I would love one to come to Philadelphia sometime soon! I don't think I can make it to Gencon or one of the other big gaming staples, but something local to me would be nice. Bottom line, I would love to keep expanding my network of local gamers.

So I give thanks for my life and liberty, and for roleplaying as well and all my fellow gamers out there. I just need to work on being this thankful every day of the year, and not just on three-day holiday weekends!

A quick check-in from the daily grind's front lines

2011-05-26T12:24:00.000-04:00

Salutations, fellow gamers! I've been inundated with work this week, and as you can see posting has been slow. I've been at the new job for about two months, and now that I'm getting into the swing of things I'm being handed more work. And one of my coworkers just went out on maternity leave, so that adds to the pile on my plate as well. Stupid adult responsibility.

But all that hasn't stopped my gaming efforts! Had another great Invincible Overlord session at All Things Fun! last night. Wednesday nights are now officially the best night of the week! I can't get into the nitty gritty details of the session, but at the end of the night our characters were pushing a huge chest of gold in a "Viking" funeral boat on wheels back to our base of operations. We took the gold and the boat from a necromancer that we slew. He was running a sort of medieval funeral parlor, of course.

I also wanted to point out something I observed: I sometimes take a moment to eavesdrop on the other games going on around us (ATF hosts some other gaming groups on Wednesday nights, and it gets quite noisy). I believe we are sandwiched by two D&D 4E games. And when I listen to those games, I usually hear them talking about looking up spell effects, or a rule. In general, it sounds like they're doing a lot less actual roleplaying than us. And I don't think any other table sounds like they're having nearly as much fun as ours!

Anyway, next Wednesday night I debut my Dragonlance campaign, and I'll alternate Wednesdays with Rich, who is running the Invincible Overlord game. I can't wait to get back behind the screen! Wish me luck. Gotta run, but until next time, happy gaming!

Are YOU with D&D?

2011-05-23T21:58:00.002-04:00

Hi all. I haven't been able to post over the last few days due to work and family. I am becoming much busier by the day at my new job, so that unfortunately means that my blogging during the day will be slowing down/sporadic. I have to sacrifice something in favor of spending time to actually game/prepare to game. As always, I do what I can when I can. Anyway, enough of all that. On to the real topic of this post:

Has anyone read the "I'm with D&D" post over at The Other Side blog? Take a look if you haven't, and let me know your thoughts. What is your stance on the many editions of D&D? Are you an egalitarian, or a staunch partisan? I for one have a "play and let play" stance on things for the most part. Any kind of D&D is D&D, alright! What's most important to me is that people are actually playing! Now, does that mean I love the 4E incarnation? No. I am not a huge fan of editions 2 through 4 of D&D, actually. And I have just truly started to delve into OD&D, and find some issues with that venerable beast as well. Give me 1E any day! But if people are as passionate about other versions, so be it. Who am I to tell them what should be their game of choice? I could write posts that go on about what I find offensive about a particular edition, but always with the caveat of "this is my opinion." If you love it, play it.

I've been called "mealy" for my opinions. So be it. Mealy I may be, but at least I'm not a "flaming" uber-nerd who's sole purpose is to extend one's ire for a D&D edition to actually attacking those who play said edition. That's a level of meta-dorkness to which I will not descend.

Currently, I am playing using Castles & Crusades, which has been dubbed a 1E/3.5E hybrid. But I am also increasingly interested in Labyrinth Lord, a clone of Moldvay/Cook/Marsh B/X. I see C&C as a means to do more "story-driven" roleplaying, whereas LL to me would be used at my table for a more "traditional" version of D&D that focuses on the sandbox-y, dungeon crawl "slay and loot" approach. I know some of you are groaning right now at my mention of story in conjunction with D&D. I might need to do a separate post on my thoughts regarding the use of certain editions depending on what style of game you want to run. This post may also include my thoughts on playing strong archetypes versus more "individualized" characters, etc. I may have to rethink my stance on other editions, and accept that each has their merit based on what style of play you seek to foster.

D&D-related Videos and Flash Mobs

2011-05-19T11:05:00.012-04:00

A few blogs have recently posted the following videos, and I found them amusing, so I decided to repost them here for your consideration:

All of this made me remember the following:

Then there's this goodness surrounding someone calling himself the Dungeon Bastard. Here's his PSA video:

I have to admit that these unfortunately made me think of all those videos of people dancing to the horrendous "Tonight's Gonna Be a Good Night" song by the Black Eyed Peas. It also made me think of flash mob videos for some reason. And that got me thinking...so here's a thought and a question:

I feel like there needs to be a D&D "flash mob" phenomenon, where people spontaneously start playing D&D in public places. What do you all think of that?

Reflections on the Occasion of My 100th Post

2011-05-17T23:14:00.006-04:00

Well, here’s my 100th post! Maybe not a huge milestone. Especially considering that my blog’s been around for about 11 months now. But I figured I’d celebrate the event. So, instead of waiting for June 30th (the actual one-year anniversary of Once More Unto the Breach!) to do a look back at the last year, I’ll take this opportunity to do so.

As stated in a recent post, I want to take a look at my progress over the last year as far as actual gaming is concerned, refocus on the purpose of my blog and consider what I might do differently going forward, and perhaps make some predictions on what the future may hold.

Year in Review

I started this blog with no real strong purpose or purposes behind it. I suppose many blogs are started in that way, actually. I knew I wanted to join in the discussion of this old-school renaissance I had discovered and with which I had become enamored. I shared my personal gaming history, as I had seen many others do. I knew that I wanted to tap into the community to perhaps find some like-minded folks and get some advice on how to finally return to the hobby. I feel that I have accomplished both of these things.

It’s been great sharing stories and experiences, learning more about the roots and history of D&D and roleplaying in general, and learning about the retroclones and other game systems not based on TSR’s products.

I’ve accomplished my goal of getting back into gaming. I’ve done some gaming with my old friends, but I’ve also had a “breakthrough” of sorts, and discovered that I can have roleplaying without my old group. It just took breaking out of my association with my old group and gaming, as the two had been interchangeable in my mind for decades. It also took finding the right people.

I tried Pathfinder but I realized that I am truly a rules-light and old-school-minded gamer. There were false starts other than my very brief Pathfinder stint, such as my attempt to return to play-by-chat/email gaming, which I had been doing with varying degrees of success since 2007. But I quickly discovered that I really wanted to get back to the physical tabletop.

I’ve explored the local gaming scene to the best of my abilities. There aren’t many FLGS’s in southern New Jersey. Due to a recent major change in my work situation, I found myself closer to All Things Fun! during the work week. ATF is, IMHO, the best FLGS in the area.

I went to my first gaming convention this year: TrollCon East. I might be tempted to try my hand at attending other cons in the future.

My present includes keeping the gaming going on Wednesday nights at All Things Fun! I’m playing in a great campaign there. And, after talking to the Wednesday night group, I’ve convinced them to let me run a game on alternating weeks! I’m planning on getting a Dragonlance campaign going, the first time I’ve ever tried to run a game on the world of Krynn. This is a campaign that’s about two decades in the making! No pressure, right?

Purpose and Refocus

I may not have known all of the reasons behind my desire to create a gaming blog when I started one, but I have a better idea of the purpose I want it to serve now. I want the blog to continue to serve as a means to share my gaming experiences with kindred spirits. I want to continue to read about other gamer’s experiences and find common ground. You’re all my support system. And I hope that I can also provide said support. We can help keep each other company in what can, paradoxically, be a lonely hobby. Yes, we may be surrounded by other gamers, but there are times when we find our pastime being viewed with copious misunderstanding and an almost institutionalized disdain. The existence of the many RPG blogs keeps me inspired. I hope you look forward to hearing more about my trials and travails as much as I look forward to hearing more about yours. So I’ll continue to share tales of my roleplaying sessions, on both sides of the GM’s screen.

All that being said, I have no illusions that my gaming life is all that interesting. Therefore, I hope to provide some more “useful” content, such as book and game reviews, new spells, magic items, thoughts on gaming “philosophy,” and more. Again, I’m presuming a lot here when I say “useful.” That remains to be seen. But yeah, like everyone else, I could be paying the JoeSky Tax more often.

The Future

So, like I said, I’m working on getting a Dragonlance campaign going with my new gaming group. And of course I look forward to more adventures in the City State of the Invincible Overlord! Bottom line, I am having an incredible time on Wednesday nights, and I hope that continues for many Wednesdays to come!

I’m a total Castles & Crusades believer. That being said, I do have to push aside the occasional bout of gamer ADD! I’ve found myself more and more interested in the Moldvay Basic and Expert sets, and by extension Labyrinth Lord. I am also enamored of the Core and Complete incarnations of Swords & Wizardry. This boils down to the fact that I intend on running some games using some combination of these rules. Maybe it’s because I’ve read so much goodness about how many people are having a great time with them.

A couple of the Wednesday Night C&C folks have told me more about Savage Worlds, and I find myself intrigued by that game system. It seems like a good set of rules to use if one wanted to run a game set in the Old West, or even a mythical version of the Old West. As a matter of fact, I’ve always been a huge fan of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series…

OK, I have to cut myself off there! In all, it’s been a great year all around! I look forward to what the next year may hold! As always, happy gaming!

This Thing of Ours...

2011-05-11T09:57:00.004-04:00

The title of this post is a reference to the euphemism the mobsters in the Sopranos used to refer to their, er, occupation. It makes me think of another group of people that might have members unwilling to share the truth of what they do: gamers. I think you'll agree that many of us downplay or outright hide or penchant for roleplaying from most of the people we know in our lives.

There are, of course, degrees of this reticence. Some gamers might talk openly with just a few good friends about the entirety of their love for the hobby, but never breathe a word to anyone else. Some might be alright with letting anyone they know get just a hint of what they're into. And there are so many other variations on this theme.

I personally talk to my wife and a few old friends openly, and there may be occasional acquaintances that I might let a hint or two slip out, but otherwise I keep things on the down low. Except for the occasional reading of RPG products in public, which I like to do sometimes in the off chance of meeting another gamer...and to challenge myself to let go of worrying about the roleplaying stigma that pop culture has bestowed upon the larger public.

The one newbie gamer I know in my group absolutely does not want anyone beyond our group to know any hint of his recent gaming efforts. Not even his wife. Especially not his wife.

So here's the question of the day: how do you fly your roleplaying flag, if at all? Who do you trust with the truth? Do you shout it proud for all to hear? Or is it a dirty little secret? Or something entirely different?

Early-Afternoon Reflections & Some Gamer ADD

2011-05-10T08:11:00.014-04:00

Well, as I near my 100th post, I've been reflecting on the events in my renewed roleplaying career since June of last year. That's when I started this blog. I don't really have time to do a year-in-review post at the moment, but I might do something like that for the actual 100th post. I want to take a look at my progress over the last year as far as actual gaming is concerned, refocus on the purpose of my blog and consider what I might do differently going forward, and perhaps make some predictions on what the future may hold. On the matter of roleplaying, I definitely feel like I need to make my own destiny, so the future will truly only be what I make it. And there's a part of me that is saying "You've been doing this for a year and you only have 100 posts?! Weak!"

I also wanted to report that I am currently suffering Gamer ADD again. This time, of all things, I find myself longing to possess the Mentzer Basic and Expert box sets. I know, I know, there are those out there that are going to start saying that the Moldvay Basic and Cook/Marsh Expert are superior, and that Mentzer's work is a "kiddified" version of D&D. I wish I had copies of all of those sets, so I could compare for myself. QUESTION: can anyone give me a summary of the differences, and the pros and cons of each? I am sure that there has to be such a comparison out there in the blogosphere. Oh, and I'm not sure if I should bring the Holmes thing into the mix...ugh.

I have a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia, so I technically don't need the Mentzer stuff. But I dug up some PDFs of the Mentzer books on the Internet, and I find myself enamored by them. Why? I have to admit that I'm not really sure. It might be pure nostalgia, and not necessarily the good kind. As some of you may know by now, I never really played "regular" D&D. I started out playing Advanced D&D as a kid. I may have been around the D&D books (like the Rules Cyclopedia) but my friends and I never used that other stuff. We were 1E PHB, DMG, and MM all the way.

Maybe the Mentzer stuff appeals on a very shallow level, since they contain a lot of art from Larry Elmore. Elmore was also the primary artist for the early Dragonlance novels, and we all know how I feel about Dragonlance by now.

It's only in recent years that I've payed more attention to the OD&D works. I've stated here before that I didn't really care to learn the difference between Holmes and Moldvay and Mentzer, but it's sort of seeping in through osmosis. Yet I find myself getting more and more curious about those box sets. Maybe it's a seed of gamer puritanism within me. Sure, I could use Labyrinth Lord or Swords & Wizardry or some other retroclone. But there's something about using the original books that somehow appeals.

Oy, it's enough to drive one insane! For now, I need to return a bit to reality and stick to the good gaming I have going on at the moment. Enough with the grass is greener stuff, right?

Let's Hear It for 35!

2011-05-09T12:07:00.003-04:00

Ay, I've got 35 followers (a.k.a. Minions) as of today! That's one follower for every year I've been alive! Not bad for a guy who doesn't really post that often (I would love to do so more often...working on it...)

You like me, you really like me! Though, I'm not entirely sure why you like me! Are my posts interesting enough for you guys? Maybe my more recent stuff has been a bit more engaging. I know I've mostly been posting the ups and downs of my gaming situation. There's not much here in the way of deep musings or gaming "philosophy," and I haven't been posting a lot of usable materials such as maps, magic items, adventure hooks, etc. (though I have always intended to do so...maybe someday...)

So maybe some of you just like hearing personal stories of someone actually trying to play/run games?

Ok, I'll go ahead and formally ask the question of you, the reader: why do you follow/read my humble blog?

The "N" Word

2011-05-06T15:59:00.002-04:00

I just thought I’d expand upon my view of nostalgia that I briefly touched upon in my “Dragonlance love” post from earlier today:

We're all hit with nostalgia now and then. It all depends on how you view nostalgia, though, that makes the difference. In many of the blogs I read, the "n" word is viewed in a negative light, and is treated as something that is ultimately a frivolous and non-productive emotion. I personally feel that there can be negative or positive nostalgia.

If your nostalgia does not inhibit you from moving forward, then it is probably a good thing. Take me, for instance. I feel that nostalgia for the gaming days of my youth led me to discover the OSR, which in turn bolstered my long-dreamt-of return to table-top gaming. Thus the oft-dreaded "n" served a purpose: it motivated me to become active and "fight" to return to the hobby (and to create a blog to help focus my efforts and also to tap into a community for a morale boost).

However, a “bad” reaction to my nostalgia might have caused me to passively skim through some retroclones, then maybe spend/“waste” some time flipping lazily through some of the old game books I have in my bookshelf, and then shelve everything again in despair.

This may be an oversimplification, as many factors went into my return to RPGs. You can learn more by reading my gamer testimonial.

All that said, I personally would NOT want to go back and use the actual AD&D 1st edition books. I actually recently took a look at PDF copies of the old triumvirate (PHB, DMG, and MM), and I have to say I quickly discovered that they did not appeal to my current, much older, self with all my adult duties and limited time. I appreciate the efforts of the creators of the ‘clones, because they have done the work of reorganizing the old rules into a form that I can use with minimal time and effort.

Hope this all makes sense. It’s late on a Friday afternoon, after all.

For the Love of Dragonlance

2011-05-06T09:41:00.004-04:00

I was originally going to write a post called “In Defense of Dragonlance,” and make my best attempt at crafting a manifesto of sorts. I imagined that I would, with one post, make a bold stand against all the supposed haters of that setting and sweep away their arguments in one fell swoop.

But I’ve thought better of all that. Mainly because I realized that I don’t really have any problems with what I’ve seen written about Dragonlance on gaming blogs. Specifically, a post entitled “How Dragonlance Ruined Everything” written by preeminent RPG sage James Maliszewski was going to be a particular target of my nascent ire. How dare he state such a thing?!

I took some time to reread his post, since I hadn’t read it in a long time. And I came to remember what I had forgotten: what James discusses in his post and what I feel about Dragonlance literally exist in two different realms.

James approaches the setting from a practical direction. The gist of his post, to try and simplify it for the sake of brevity (I encourage you to read it for yourself), is that Dragonlance set into motion some bad trends for Dungeons & Dragons. TSR used the setting to springboard into a direction that saw the game become less about sandbox play and more about creating “story,” in a negative sense. By “story” I think James is referring to the pitfall of railroading. Story here refers to a trend toward consciously trying to “force” a D&D campaign to make some sort of narrative sense from game session to game session. For James, the “story” of a roleplaying campaign should be something that one sees in retrospect, after many game sessions have passed and the players’ characters have gone through many adventures.

This is really no different from the process of writing a novel. The author must complete the writing of the novel before it truly becomes a cohesive story. One can also look at the events of the Lord of the Rings books. The novels that compose the series are actually the recounting of the quest to destroy the One Ring by Frodo Baggins as a sort of memoir. This memoir would eventually become a book called the Red Book of Westmarch in Frodo’s world (the Red Book also includes Bilbo’s own tale, There and Back Again, which in our world is The Hobbit).

So, to relate all of this to roleplaying, the exploits of player characters in a campaign are what become the story. One should never worry about creating a cohesive story while a campaign is being played.

So, I agree with James. I’ve looked through the original Dragonlance modules over the years and I have to say, I do not like how they were executed. Why were they so geared toward pregenerated characters, having players adhere for the most part to how events unfolded in the novels? There was no need to have done things that way. TSR could very well have published modules that, for instance, were set during the War of the Lance, but the players could be given the choice of what they wanted to do during the war. In other words, TSR could have made it clear that there was no need to adhere to the Dragonlance canon, and that they could create alternate events in the war in the usual organic way that RPG campaigns play out.

Yes, in reading James’ post again, I can’t say that I can refute any of his opinions. And actually, I wouldn’t want to do so. This is because my connection, my affection, for Dragonlance has nothing to do with the practical end of things. It has nothing to do with the modules, TSR’s potential use of the setting as a means of creating a “franchise” that would generate steady revenue, or the impact of the setting and the novels on the course of D&D’s evolution.

I can read James’ post and agree with it freely, because my approach to Dragonlance is purely emotional, rather than practical. You might even call it nostalgia, but I believe it’s the good kind of nostalgia. I’ve stated before on this blog my thoughts on how there are different types of nostalgia. Nostalgia that is an obsession with one’s long-lost youth is negative. Nostalgia that is a subtle and grounded cherishing of what once was is, I believe, positive, and may even give rise to a new perspective on the object of one’s nostalgia. This refreshed view of something from one’s past may even be a means of reinvigorating what was long lost from one’s life.

This is how I view rolelplaying in my current life. I had spent years mourning over how long it had been since I roleplayed. Once I gave that up, I was free to set aside thoughts of the hobby for some time, and then return to it again years later with a more positive attitude. It is this attitude that I am now fostering, and I see it as the energy behind my current return to the table-top.

So it really doesn’t matter to me whether or not Dragonlance had an adverse effect on D&D or the hobby as a whole. Indeed, as a side note, I’ve always thought of roleplaying as a grass roots effort at its heart. Once you get the rule books home from the store, you can choose to shut out the future developments of the game and its publisher and do what you want with it, with no ill effects. You don’t need to go to conventions, you don’t need to buy every splatbook, unless that’s how you approach the hobby.

What really matters to me is that Dragonlance novels were the start of my lifelong love affair with fantasy. Now, I know that some would argue that that is a sad fact. It would have been better if I had discovered Tolkien, Howard, Leiber, Vance, or any of the other luminaries that are credited with forging the foundations of fantasy literature as we now know it. I refute such a thought, because as I sit here today, I have far more books on my shelves that do not carry the Dragonlance logo. The novels by Weis and Hickman, and other Dragonlance authors, brought me into the genre. From there, I moved on to discover the classics as well as the writings of more recent generations of fantasy authors.

As I stated in my gamer testimonial on this blog, Stormblade by Nancy Varian Berberick was the first Dragonlance novel I read. It was the first fantasy novel I read. I remember feeling a strong connection to the genre from the very first chapter. I intend to reread the novel, having read it over 20 years ago. I don’t know if it will stand the test of time as far as its actual execution as a novel, but I know that that won’t change the place the book has in my personal evolution. I’ll always have a soft spot for it, and the other early Dragonlance novels.

I want to chronicle my rereading of Stormblade here on the blog, to give you my thoughts and impressions as I go through this seminal book in my personal gaming life.

I’ve also been feeling like I need to resurrect my plans to run a campaign set on the world of Krynn. But I will be sure not to railroad my players. I will be sure to tell any players who are well versed in the Dragonlance setting that they should not expect my campaign to adhere to the developments in the novels.

In all, I do feel it’s high time for me to revisit my Dragonlance roots. That means some rereading. And this rereading, like nostalgia, may lead to a new appreciation. And perhaps something more…