Behind the Screen, Badlands #2

It was our first full length session.  There were quite a few things I noticed.

The Treasure Economy:  one of the things I really always liked about the first few versions of D&D was the importance of treasure.   Up until  AD&D 2e, treasure was the main source of XP.   I wanted to put focus on treasure as a campaign goal, but at the same time I wanted it to be a bit more interesting.  The way most people played AD&D in the old days, you just piled up the treasure, and maybe spent tons of it for level training, but many people even skipped that expense. 

I will give 4e a little credit for making treasure be spendable in a useful form for magic items, even though I really hated the philosophy of "treasure packets", i.e., giving the PC's the amount of treasure they "ought to have" at a given point.   That really just rubs me the wrong way in a variety of directions. 

What I wanted was for the players to have to make real choices about spending their treasure.   The various levels of maintenance, for example, will reward spending in that area with better hit point rolls.   Spending money on hirelings is of immense benefit, of course.  There are also a whole series of herbs and herbal medicines which can have a big impact.  Magicians of all stripes can spend money on scrolls or the equivalent right from the beginning, and the expense is significant, but not out of reach.   So, on the one hand these various expenditures have immediate utilitarian pay offs.  All of them may result in a more successful expedition.   However, the players have to balance that with the spending of treasure to get experience points.  Money spent in this area not only helps advance the character in level, but develops the character's personality (like Apollo's mom expenses and Bosco Tripod's fashionable clothing) and will eventually help to develop the setting and the character's place in the setting.  But, the main thing is there is a real set of choices, a real set of decisions to be made.  For me, I think that is an important part of a long-term campaign. 

I'm really happy to see those choices impacting right away.  The expense of the wergild was money that could have gone to maintenance, hirelings, equipment or experience, but it was essentially lost, but it was necessary so Bosco Tripod and Rig could return to Portchester.  At the beginning of next session, for another example, the players are going to have hard choices to make about levels of maintenance.  Some may regret experience expenditures already made.   There may be some tough decisions about whether to cut prospective hirelings in for a treasure share (I mean fighting hirelings, not the assorted torch boys and pack haulers they've gotten so far).  

Beefcake:  it is interesting that this session we had a wizard, a thief and 2 clerics.  No fighters at all, and a fighter was missed.   They really needed some beefcake and they should really get some for next time.  At the beginning of the session I'll draw 1d6 cards for available hirelings at Bastardville, with any luck some of them should be either first level fighters or small groups of mercenaries.   It would make like easier if they got some hack-burger helpers.  Because even Angry Steve with his ten-foot pole was somewhat useful in the wasp fight, because he added to the "gang-up" bonus.   I had thought that Octavius' 2 war dogs would have been more useful, but they made the classic mistake of running up to the large group of enemies, while leaving the rest of the party behind.  That never works.   Maybe they'll be more useful next time.

Gibbering Roderick, a.k.a. the Great Cornholio.  He was interesting and turned out to be useful too.  The party realizes that he is some sort of highly impared cleric, but haven't deciphered the nature of his quirks yet. 

Parsnak's Treasure:  I loved setting this adventure up.  It was so cool taking Marlon's lodge and expenditures from the previous campaign and making them into a "dungeon" and  treasure for this one.  I was a little disappointed that they didn't open Dengwur's skeleton box on the table, but it was probably for the best as the skeletons inside might have kicked their asses.   It was in that Return of the Trolls campaign that I first tested the spending for experience system, and this adventure shows how that system really ties character into setting.  If I have the discipline and don't succumb to gamer ADD, I'd really like to keep developing this particular setting over time, rather than creating a fresh world each time we start a fantasy campaign.  Being able to revist things developed by the players makes the setting come more alive.

Oh, My, God, It's MONSTROSO!  boy, going to AD&D 1e combat is quite a shock.  After playing d20/3e for so long and playing 4e and Savage Worlds, it's quite a jar to have such a hard time in combat.  Man, the lack of modifiers makes it really, really hard for players to hit AC4.   Even AC6 and AC7 require some effort.   It takes a bit of getting used to. 
        The rolling of hit points randomly makes things interesting too.  In 3e, they suggested that you use average hit points, in 4e the dice disappeared completely.    It was fascinating to me that the giant wasp was 4 HD and had 30 hit points, while the Lion was 5+2 hit die and had 13 hit points.  It makes the world that much more surprising and, well, dangerous.
        It was some good luck that the White Stag succombed to the sleep spell.  Otherwise it might have put a wold of hurt on the party, although it was about as dangerous as the wasp.

Danger:  that's something I noticed too, just how dangerous everything was.  In Slipstream it was just shy of impossible to die.  If you use the -10 hit point rules (optional in AD&D1e,  mandatory in 3e) it really is quite rare for anyone to die.   I wanted things to be more dangerous than that.  So, I plotted a course between super-old school  0 hit points equals dead and the -10 rule.  I used a system whereby you have about a 1/3 chance of dying if you reach 0 hit points.   I used a similar system for Return of the Trolls, but we had a generous "throw a chip for a re-roll" system that made it very rare for someone to get a deadly wound.
         Those re-rolls were the biggest bug of Return of the Trolls.  In fact, I wanted to get away from re-rolls as much as I could.  We've been using them so much in so many games, and I've found that they really take away much of the sense of risk.
         The risk was back and it was more than evident this session.   It was what I wanted, but nevertheless it will take some getting used to in practice.   Part of the reason I played my solo-game was to get my self desensitized toward killing characters.  I figured that if I risked (and as it turned out killed) my own, it would be easier to smash others.  Again, I think it makes the game more exciting, but it does take some serious getting used to.  
        I was really hoping to avoid a TPK the first real adventure, and through the poor rolling of the wasp, and the sleep spell of Apollo managed to do so.  But I have to harden myself to the possibility that someone, apart from Jason of course, who manages to find the way to die in any system, will get killed now and again.

Herbs and Poison:  the various herbal concoctions I put in the gear book give a chance for a second saving throw against various deadly effects.  I am a bit uncomfortable with the deadliness of poison, luckily they had 2-5 days to treat the giant wasp poison and they could save 2 party members.   But, I have to stop being a baby about it.  I was thinking about allowing the chance to get a re-save with herbs to be automatic if the herbs were treated with a CLW or Bless spell.  That might be all right, although it does kind of make Slow Poison spell redundant.

Adventure Leads 11/28

Here are the adventure leads I'll be handing out this afternoon, for those who want a sneak peak.

ADVENTURE LEADS:  NOVEMBER 28, 2010

1.  THE PIG GAMBIT:  The hedge wizard, Titus Fronto, an old acquaintance of some of the players, has a scheme in mind.   He is a bit vague about details, but has said that the scheme is “technically” illegal, but is a license to coin money, and will strike a blow against the forces of chaos.  Next Step:  go meet Titus Fronto at the Red Barley Inn in the farmers’ ward.

2. FOLLOW THE MADMAN:  a mad old beggar at the southern gate of town has been gibbering there for ages.   He never asks for money or food or anything, but looks for armed men and begs for someone to take him to Bastardville, muttering that it will profit you well to do so.   Next Step: go to Farmer’s Gate and find the beggar, prepare to go to Bastardville.

3.  PARSNAK’S TREASURE:  on the first of the month, one of you saw some journal pages in the market, at the stall of Tinker McFeeley, a Westerling Picker (salvager), it seemed to be from the journal of the translator of Parsnak I, before he became Khan of the Therks under Dengwur.  The pages describe Parnsak’s hunting lodge, at the northern edge of the Elfwood.  Parsnak apparently kept various valuables in covered storage pits in the forest around his lodge.   Next Step:  either head off to the Elf Wood, or find Tinker McFeeley.

4. PREPARE FOR THE TRIAL:  today is April 4^th,  Rig Antonius, Angry Steve, and Bosco Tripod will have to answer for the killings of Yerkmenric and Bosco Stan on the 20^th.  Next Step: find oathmen and prepare a case.  You can simply wait out the time, or start adventuring in the meantime.  

5.  YOUNG WITHERSPOON:  an apprentice alchemist by the name of Young Witherspoon says that his father, Old Witherspoon recently disappeared.  He went into a ruin called the Dungeon of Roderic-Smag, a notorious death trap near Bog Town.  He warns anyone against going there.   Next Step: go to Bog-town and explore the dungeon.

6. EXPLORE THE WORLD:  go wherever you want.  East, you run into the Old Ones and their Orc hordes. South you run into the Badlands, a wide-open wilderness, including Bastardville, a center of ruin-salvaging and banditry.  West, you run into the Caturiges tribe and their druid guides. 

Blogging Catch-up

I usually try to blog more often than this, but this past week I had to stay at work till 8:30 on 2 nights for parent-teacher conferences and so forth.   Today, however, I got a lot of hobby stuff done. 

Hall of Black Mirrors: I finished another D&D dungeon today.   A few months ago I had printed out a random dungeon called "Ebon Hall of Mirrors" from a website.  I liked the title, and put the dungeon on one of the maps for another adventure.  However, when I actually looked through the random output, I was pretty disappointed.   The map looked kind of awesome, but many of the rooom would be very difficult to describe in play.
        Also, there were like 100 rooms in the dungeon.   A great many of them were empty, apart from some noise or smell.  I find that a good dungeon level should have from 15 to 30 rooms, any less then there is no real choice or sense of exploration, it is in fact a lair rather than a dungeon.  Any more than 30 it becomes too daunting and the players feel that it can never be conquered or acheived.  If too many are empty it becomes less than exciting. 
      So, I modified the title to the Hall of Black Mirrors, whipped up a 20-room map and completely re-did the dungeon from scratch.  I must admit I've gotten to like the Campaign Mapper software  (a stripped-down version of Campaign Cartographer, made for the AD&D 2nd edtion core rules CD) for dungeons more and more.  I'd always used if for outdoors and towns, but it really makes making a dungeon level fast and easy.   About half the rooms have monsters, and all of them have something noticeable, something that might seem to be a monster, seem to be a treasure, or actually be a treasure.
      I also put in a magic item inspired by something from Knights of the Dinner Table.   Well, maybe the gang will end up in the Hall of Black Mirrors, maybe not.   They'll have plenty of choices on Sunday.

Miniatures:  my order from last week (Sorceresses, Cavemen, Bats and Snakes) came on Tuesday, and I got them all finished with painting today.  In box remains empty and up to date.

Adventure Leads:  last session I handed adventure leads out to individual members of the party.  I think this time I will create a single document and have them share the leads as a group.  It may be a bit more meta-gamey, but it may put the choices and options into better focus.

A Formal Summons

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

Let it be known that his Majesty King Osmund II, of the House of Osric, summons the men known as Rig Antonius and Angry Steve to answer for the killing of the halfling Bosco Stan.

Let it be also known that his Majesty also summons the halfling Bosco Tripod to answer for the killing of the man Yerkmenric.

All three of these defendants should appear at the Hall of the Kings in Portchester Town, on the 20th of April or be branded as outlaws.

All parties should have their 12 oathmen present on that date.

The short, miserable career of the Amazing Sigbald

Well, I gave solo-gaming a try.  I decided to let The Amazing Sigbald have a short dungeon-jaunt.  The parameters were that I would use the standard campaign rules for hirelings, and the DMG random dungeon rules, which were made for solo play.

I couldn't catch a break on hiring NPC's.   The squad of bandits I really wanted, and the wizard and the fighter-mu, who would have done, all refused to join up.  I had a +1 charisma bonus, so I only needed to roll a 6 or better on  a d20 for each one, but no, the only guy who joined up with me was Old Witherspoon the Alchemist.   Witherspoon had nothing going for him except a fairly large store of hit points (4d4, and I somehow rolled maximum). 

The first random dungeon we went into was all weird and full of dead ends.  We could have climbed down a "Chimney 2 levels down" but that seemed like complete suicide.  So, we had to leave.

The second dungeon was a little better at first, but then we hit a "trap" which was a wall sliding to cut us off from behind.  We were then trapped in the dungeon and had to keep going forward until we found a way out.  We entered a chamber and were attacked by piercers.  Here our terrible magic-user attack rolls, and the piercers' high AC (3) really punished us.   WItherspoon notched his dagger, I dropped mine.  My summoned Guardian did alright, killing the weaker one, and taking a few blows, but we eventually were all killed.  I thought about running, but we were trapped, and there was nowhere to run.

I was a little surprised, I actually had been afraid that Sigbald was going to be more useless than he was.  A little bit of luck going my way, might have pulled the thing out.

As the man said, blank character sheets, like life, are cheap.

Miniatures

Well, after keeping my in-box of miniatures completely empty for 2 weeks, I bought a few to work on over Thanksgiving.  I got some snakes, bats, cavemen and evil sorcereress.  From now on, I'm keeping it moderate in number, well within short-term painting capability.

I had my eyes on some Cavemen especially for awhile, and read that megaminiatures was going to raise their prices, due to rising tin prices, so I had to strike while the iron was stil $1.50.

Knock Down

The provisional rule I've been using for Knockdowns (  a roll of maximum damage for a weapon of 1d6 or greater will knock prone any target of the same or smaller size) has me a little uneasy.  I like the effect, I like the simplicity and elegance, but I dislike the math.   The way it stands, a short sword will knock guys down more often than longswords, which will in turn knock down people more often than 2-handed swords.

I don't want the rule to get really complicated, but I want it to be reasonable.

The only solution I can see is to limit the effect to 2-handed weapons only (and to the attacks of large monsters). 

Should I make the limitation?  Drop the rule?  Ingore the unbalanced effect and let it stand as is?
Any thoughts?

Behind the Screen: Badlands #1

Last night we had the first session of the Badlands campaign.  The actual adventure time was pretty short, since we had to finish the last encounter of the Slipstream game, and roll up characters.  Nevertheless, I got a number of impressions to chew over.

The Meet-Up:  I really hadn't had a meet-up idea in mind.  At one point early in the planning I was considering having the players already be part of a charted exploration company, in a similar fashion to the Brown Trousers campaign, but decided not to go down the same road again.   Andrew threw out a lot of good ideas (all from the same orphanage, all from the same school etc.).   But once the characters were finally settled, it was to Raymond Chandler that my mind quickly turned (as it often does).
       "Why would 5 of these hard-nosed mooks band together in this crazy world?  Only three possible reasons:  a dame, a big score, or somebody betrayed them and left them alive." (Raymond Chandler "Fake Story I didn't Write", Fake Publisher: Fake Town:  1939).
       Of course, they all met because some jerk swindled them and left them standing around holding their johnsons.  So, enter Bosco Stan who had swindled them out of "charter application money" and we were off and running.  I decided to make him a halfling, rather than a gnome, because I would have made the gnome too clever and he would have surely escaped, halflings always get caught.

The Flunky Deck:  my deck of hirelings, lackeys and mercenaries was immediately useful.  Chuck pulled a card from the property deck that said he could draw a free hireling for a month, and he got Angry Steve the Pack Hauler, who was immediately a scream, and turned Chuck's fighter into Angry Chuck's Fighter.    Later Noah hired "Loud Larry" who was also a scream, shouting at everything.  I might have come up with similar guys on the spot, but they probably wouldn't have been as cool as what I had put in the deck.

Hit Points:  the players took little damage, so I can't say how the extra die will work out for them, but I am convinced that systems where the bad guys, at least, roll for hit points really has its good side.  I made Bosco Stan a 2nd level thief, with 3d6 hit points.  I just happened to roll 3 sixes (where were they when I was rolling a character?).  As a result, Bosco took a whole lot of beating before he went down, which was pretty awesome.

30-Sided Character:  when I was searching for my old DM screen, I found an old booklet called "The 30 Sided Character" which the Armoury published, presumably to sell 30-sided dice.  It was filled with a large number of random tables (with 30 entries each).  The "People You Meet in a Tavern" was a life-saver and gave us Yerkmenric the Lawyer,  the 3 dancing girls and lute player, Sammy the Bouncer at the Pie-shop, and the 3 nomads (not the names, but the description).  These results really set the parameters of the encounters.

Wound Table:  the wound table is going to be pretty deadly.  It's going to be really important to avoid going below 0 hit points, since there's a 1 in 3 chance of ending up dead each time.  I like that they tried to subdue Bosco Stan, but he died anyway.  If you beat someone into unconscioussness, they die sometimes.

Rolling Characters:  I had forgotten how long it takes to roll up characters.  I suppose it was the fact that so many people were doing it at once.  One on One would have made things faster.  I also suppose I should make up a few pre-gens in case we need them.

Today's the Day

As we ready to begin the new game,  I'd like to quote "Crutch" from this month's issue of Knights of the Dinner Table:

"But you know what that Gary fella wrote in the introduction to the player's handbook.
'Blank character sheets, like life, come cheap.'"

Just one more thing

I've edited together the info about replacement characters, the DM share, Wills, promoting henchmen, and absent players.   It's a one-page document, but is posted on the wiki document page:

http://www.lordsofhack.com/home/doku.php?id=badlands

DM's share

Since I expect some of the players to take a turn as DM now and again.  I think we ought to stick to our old practice of giving the character of whoever DM's a number of experience points equal to the average earned by party for the session.  But, since money is pretty important, I think we ought to give the player an amount of money equal to one half of what the PC's earned for the session. This would not come from the PC's actual treasure, but would represent money that the DM's PC earned while "off stage". 

New entries

Related to the replacement question, I reckon that a policy on new people joining the campaign should be established up front.   I'd be in favor of letting new guys enter at 1 level below the average level of the party.  Although maybe making it 75% of the average XP points would be more even, since a thief level and magic-user level are quite different things.

Replacement Characters

I thought that we'd need a rule for replacement characters.  We used the following rule during "Return of the Trolls" and thought that it would work for AD&D too:

When a character is killed or retires during the course of a campaign, his replacement will begin with a certain portion of the original character’s Experience points.

The base value is 50% of the original character’s total, modified as follows:

Manner of Character’s Death

            Cowardly or Pathetic                          -15%

            Ordinary                                              +0%

            Totally Metal                                        +15%

The determination above is made by majority vote of those at the table.

Character’s Funeral

            Character becomes undead               -35%

Character’s body is eaten                   -25%

            Body not recovered                             -15%

            Quick Burial                                        +0%

            Elaborate Funeral                               +10%

            Most Expensive Funeral So Far         +20%

ON THE OTHER HAND:

If we wanted to play hardball, like real men, I suppose we could make replacement characters start at first level.    This would encourage the cultivation of henchmen as prospective replacements.           

Adventure Preview

I have several possible adventures worked up for you to start with.  Here are a couple of previews of adventure leads:

Pig Rustlin':  Your old pal, the hedge wizard Fronto has cooked up an awesome scheme.  He won't give you the details yet, but it involves pigs, it is "technically" illegal, and is a license to print money.

City Slickers II:  the legend of Parsnak's gold: the other day you saw some battered pages in the market.  These pages apparently came from the diary of the interpreter to Parsnak, who founded the current Therkish chieftainly line.  In the book were directions to Parsnak's hunting lodge, which he established during the year or so he lived in the Portchester area.  The diary also says that Parsnak buried valueables at various points in the forest around the lodge.  Maybe you could get your hands on the pages and find that treasure.

Follow the Madman:  a crazy old beggar who hangs out near the Farmers' Gate of the city hasn't been begging for money, rather he's begging for heroes to go on a mysterious quest southwards, toward Bastardville.   He won't give details, just keeps twitching and muttering that you won't be sorry if you take him there.

One More Thing

I've also added a 1-page combat reference sheet to wiki.

Anarchy Out, Walking In

There's a point in the Venture Brothers episode "Escape to the House of Mummies, part 2" where Brock Sampsom turns to the "camera" and says "This is getting STUPID!"   I've finally reached the "This is getting STUPID" moment with the TV show "Sons of Anarchy."   The first season was pretty good, a look at the lives and problems of motorcycle dirtbags.   It was never in doubt that even though they were the center of focus of the series, they were, in fact, dirtbags.   Also, they were in conflict with other dirtbags and had problems that dirtbags might have (rather like the Sopranos on motorcycles).

The second season started to get slightly stupid.  The conflict was against a guy who owned a cigar store, but led a secret neo-nazi group.  It was still somewhat interesting, if getting more and more far fetched all the time.  

This third season is just plain stupid.   The hero's infant son was kidnapped by an Irish terrorist-gangster guy and then the Irish guy gets killed, and for some unfathomable reason, some other Irish guys won't give the son back, and now the motorcycle gang has gone to Ireland.  The writers even had some Mexicans kill off the only honest cop in the gang's hometown, I really don't know why, I don't know, maybe because he was making his dirtbag heroes look bad?

Bleck,   Season pass cancelled.

The new Walking Dead series, however, is pretty good so far, so it's taking the place of the rolling dirtbags.

All Campaign Documents Complete and Finalized

Well, gentlemen, the time has finally come.  I have put together Final Versions of all the campaign houserule documents and general setting information.   I have replaced all the older drafts with the final versions on the wiki site, and all the documents are available for download herein:

http://www.lordsofhack.com/home/doku.php?id=badlands

The documents include:
Combat Rules (modifications to regular AD&D combat and compilement of modifiers etc.)
You should all read through this document once to get the drift of combat procedures

Character Rules (minor changes to classes and races, additional classes for player use)
You should probably read through this once before we roll up guys.  Also, get familiar with the Spending for Experience Rules.

Campaign Rules (some rules governing the larger campaign sequence, NPCs, Dogs etc)
This is more behind the scenes stuff, and things that will be the DM's concern.  Not much need to read this unless you're into the whole picture and want to know how the whole dealing with NPC's is going to work.

Gear Book  (complete list of all normal equipment from arms to food to buildings and NPC spell casting)
This is the most important document, if you have easy access to a printer, this would be the one document to print out and bring along.

Magic Book (a few spell modifications, new rules for item construction, spells for Summoners)
This is mostly important for Summoners, and magic-users who plan to make magic items, otherwise just give it a glance.

Setting Booklet (a run down of a large amount of info on the city-state of Portchester, the Province of Gatavia where it is located, description of the world's alignment and religion system, character name generation, and much much more).   If you are generally interested in settings and want your character to fit in, read through this.  If you just want to show up and hack things, you needn't bother.

Portchester Filled In

I've gotten Portchester all roughed-in now.  I have a large-scale map, drawn by hand. based on Portus Nardo from the last campaign.   Then I made 1 "Campaign Mapper" computer-made map for the central section of each of the 5 Wards of the city.   I used a lot of your suggestions, which were very helpful, thanks one and all.

Stuff in the City

I'm putting the city of Portchester details together.  Is there anything that needs to be there that I may forget?

Halloween Board Game Re-cap

Our Sunday session was Jason, Bob, Chuck and I.   We played 2 games of "Betrayal on Haunted Hill"  where we explored a haunted house until one of us turned traitor and spooky stuff happened.   In the first game, Jason turned traitor, knifed Chuck to death and sent firebats against me.  But, Bob finished the exorcism ritual and he and I survived.   The second game, Jason turned traitor AGAIN, shrunk us down to mouse size and unleashed his cat against us.   The cat ate Bob, Chuck and me and so Jason won the game.

After dinner we played a card-game called Gloom, wherein you had to make your "family" miserable and then kill them off, while trying to cheer up the families of the other players.  Chuck won that game, I seem to remember.

Finally, we played an awesome game of Robo-Rally.  We raced our robots around a factory floor blasting each other with industrial lasers.  Bob finally won that game, although I was doing pretty well near the end. 

All in all, good Halloween action.

A Miniature Victory

The day has finally come.  As of Sunday, my "To Be Painted" bins are both completely empty.  I gave my last 3 unpainted "Special Collectors Edition" miniatures (which I had been given as free bonuses with old orders) away as prizes for our Halloween Board Game Night.   Now, I am back to paint as I go.  Never thought I'd see the day.

Character Sheets

Just a question for the entire crew.  On a scale of 1 to 10, how important do you find having a pre-printed character sheet.   I know I usually prefer writing my characters on plain paper.  I'm working on a sheet for the campaign, but wanted to know how much time should waste on it.