Behind the Screen: Session 23--The Perfect Sandbox Session

In many ways Session 23 from last Sunday was the ideal of a Sandbox session.   The Griffons coming to the Badlands was the result of a random event card from the beginning of the previous session.   Bosco Smokey just happened to drop by and mention them.  The players put aside the treasure map for a griffon hunt, mostly because they didn't want the Bastardville guys to get what they wanted.  Then their decisions were made based on the Badlands map and the places they went were not created just to fill some dramatic necessity, they were organic to the setting.   Tower Graf didn't end up having anything to do with the griffons, but the hobgoblin battle was still cool and mildly profitable.   Finally, the D&D DMG and MM are so useful in providing wilderness encounters and treasures, there is such a richness and depth for sandbox play in those books.

The War Lord (1965)

I watched a movie this weekend called "The War Lord", starring Charlton Heston, from 1965.  I remember having seen it once 20-30 years ago and wanting to see it again.  It wasn't available on domestic DVD lately, and wasn't available on Netflix when I had that.   But, they played it on Encore Action recently and I TiVoed it.

It was a historical fiction piece, Charlton was a Norman knight in the 11th century, sent by his duke to defend a tower in the swamp country in Brittany.   When he arrives he fights off a raid by Frisians (first cousins to Vikings more or less).   His midget-clown captures the Frisian chief's son, but doesn't tell Charlton his rank.   Charlton, his brother, and their flunkies take over the tower and meet the peasant scum.  At first all is cool, then Charlton falls in love with the pig girl.   He also finds out that the peasants practice druidic paganism at night after the church services.   He then uses the old pagan custom of "rite of the master" to claim the pig woman for the night, on the night of her wedding.  The peasants are willing to put up with this, but the Christian priest and Charlton's brother are both outraged. 

Then, Charlton and the pig girl decide they are in love and he doesn't give her back to her husband in the morning.   The peasants are outraged.   Also, Charlton's brother abuses the midget-clown and enrages him.

Up to this point it had been pretty unbearable.  A lot of hair-pulling and flagrant mopery.   I had hoped the action would start up soon and it did.   The midget-clown convinces the peasants to send word the Frisians that the Normans had the chief's son as a slave in the tower.   An alliance of peasants and Frisians show up and beseige the tower.

I can't adequately describe how uncool the action was in the tower seige.   I've seen a lot of historcial action movies from the 60's that were pretty good (Spartacus, the Vikings, and El Cid to name a few).  But this was just dull.   I think more than anything it was the music.   The music actually made the action duller than it would have otherwise been.

Well, it ended up Charlton's brother riding away and bringing back help to raise the siege.  But, he acts like a total dick-hole and Charlton stabs him to death.   He then gives the Frisian boy back to his father, but then pig girl's husband stabs Charlton, who rides off into the sunset presumably to a slow death.

I now know why they rarely show this film and there hasn't been a huge demand for its release on DVD.   Lame, weak.

Beavis and Butt-head are back

I saw the new episode of Beavis and Butt-head from Thursday.   I must say it was pretty darn good.  It means I do now have to watch MTV once in a while, but other than that, all is right with the world.

I've got my tickets

I've got my tickets for "Cinematic Titanic"---seats D2, D4 for me and my brother.   All is right with the world.

Finally, back to the Badlands

I'm happy to see James fixing on building his monastery deep in the Badlands, as a challenge to Bastardville.    That was sort of what I had hoped would have happened ages ago.

I was a bit surprised as to just how little action has gone on inside Bastardville.   I think we've only had one session where people have poked around inside the town.   Since there were several lucrative dungeons nearby, I'd expected that people would have used it for a base more often.  But, I guess the taxes and fees were too high (not that I'd expected you guys to have paid them all in full each visit).

I suppose the whole paladin-warlock-lynchmob blow up got that all off course.

In any case, I'm interested to see a ramp up with Lucius Bastardo in the near future.

New Henchmen ideas

I've been thinking about making a few unique henchmen for the henchmen deck.   More like Earl of the Mountains, that would throw some more spice into the mix.

One example is "Mighty Stan, the Wheelbarrow Man" who's schtick is he has a decent strength, and a reasonably large pile of hit points (say 20 or so) but all he wants to do is push around a wheelbarrow full of gear in dangerous dungeons for money.

I've noticed that the Alchemists never seem to go over when they pop up in the deck.  No one seems to want to set up the lab and have the follow through to collect potions for analysis and recipes.

Nigel's tool kit

One of the interesting things about early D&D is the lack of a skills system.   Since there is no skill system, when you want to try something, you have to describe exactly what you are doing, and more importantly the tools or instruments with which you are attempting it.  In the earliest version of D&D there weren't any Thieves, so every attempt to disarm or detect a trap had to be described.  

I think this makes things much more interesting for several reasons.  First, for the more dramatically minded it makes for a more imaginative scene ("I use my 10 foot pole to gently left the cover of the box", as opposed to "I roll to remove traps").  Second, it makes every mundane item you carry around a possible lead or key to moving the adventure along.

In the last 2 adventures, I've loved being able to rummage through Nigel's professional tool kit.  I've used cigars to avoid a giant weasel,  chamulga oil to remove slime, acid to weaken a glass sphere, oil to burn a troll (hardly orginal, I'll concede), and crowbars and prybars for a host of reasons (mainly for the minions to do various things).   I kind of wished I had had some rakes and shovels, but what can you do?

Is it Astrology?

I just don't get it.

It's just like random luck.

I just don't understand Blogger Comments.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I can't seem to see any pattern to it.

The Cruelty of the Young

I was thinking about the early days of my gaming life.  I was around 16 or 17, and we were playing a game of Third Reich in the old basement.   The guy who was playing France rolled over and surrendered to Germany almsot immediately (just like in real life), he continued playing as the Vichy puppet government in the south of France (just like in real life).  The allied players were furious with him, and started calling him Vichy Sous for the rest of the game.

But it wasn't just for the rest of the game, it was, well, effectively forever.   We called the kid "Viche" for the remainder of the existance of the high school game group.   I imagine some of the group don't remember his actual name to this day, and just remember him as "Viche".

Well, there you go.

Bless you Alice

I was watching the "Music Choice" Stations on the cable, and on the rock station it had a song by Alice Cooper.   According to the title card, the song is brand new, 2011.

Wel,, the name of the song is "Bite Off Your Face", and all I can say is:

Bless you, Alice Cooper.

Posting Comments

For some reason, posting comments is a bit buggy.   Jason e-mailed me and said he couldn't get it to work posting as a "Name."  I had had trouble at one point this summer, but got it straightened out.

I tried again tonight, and at first it wouldn't work for me either, but then I got it to work, and after a series of tests, found it was working again.

So, my advice, is, if you intend to make a long comment, write it on another file first and then plan to paste it in.   Try a few times if it doesn't work the first time.

Warehouse 13

This summer I watched the current season of the SyFy original series "Warehouse 13."  I must admit that I really like the premise as guide to magic items for a fantasy campaign.  Each "artifact" in the series is a different magic item, each one unlike any others.   The magic items aren't created on purpose, but become magical spontaneous, linked to their famous owners.   So, one artifact might be Gallileo's telescope, another might be the binoculars from the Enola Gay.   Each one has a unique power, but also some "downside".

Behind the Screen: Session 19

It's been a while, but I did want to comment on Session 19.   I do really like having the Hackmaster monstrer books.  The variety of monsters are really useful.  I wanted a lawful undead that did something frightening, but didn't drain levels.  The possession power of the Haunt was great and I found it in a flash.  

I also wanted to test out the Summoner class in action.   In a narrow room, the Old Ones summoners made a decent fight of it, calling up a ton of summoned creatures.   Although, as a DM, I could have just given the bad guys tons of underlings.    I'd like to have seen a example on the PC's side.

And now a word from Andrew

Andrew has been working on a re-boot of our old Knights of Orion campaign for Savage Worlds, as the game that will follow our current D&D campaign.   He's asked me to post his pitch for the game, and so here it is:

In my spare time I've been writing a sequel to the Knights of Orion
game. For those of you who don't know about or don't remember the
original campaign you can find more information here:

http://www.lordsofhack.com/orion/

Here's my pitch for the new game:


The Kings of Orion

In the past, the Kingdom of Orion was an interstellar government
ruling over 1000 star systems in the Orion Galaxy. The government was
overseen by a single king, elected out of members of a royal line by a
representative assembly and serving for life. Each world maintained
its own separate planetary government and defense force while
providing tribute in the form of personnel and resources to the royal
government.

The kingdom was founded when the galaxy was in the grips of a
devastating interplanetary war against a “race” of robotic marauders
bent on destroying all organic life known only as "The Machines". For
over 500 years, the Kingdom of Orion oversaw the protection of member
worlds from outside threat and normalized trade relations between
worlds. All that changed when the Kingdom was plunged into civil war
after the abolition and execution of the Knightly order of Orion in
486 and the death of King Lothar VIII in Royal Year 505.

Several men with power took deadly steps to be named the next king.
After several initial quick and bloody conflicts, the kingdom was
shattered. Interstellar trade and travel ground to a halt in fear of
being destroyed for crossing an unknowable border or doing business
with the wrong people. Piracy became commonplace as warships were
called on to defend borders rather than police shipping lanes.
Communications between worlds dried up, and those without the means to
travel through interstellar space had to make due with whatever
resources they could muster on whatever rock they were on. The
kingdom’s worlds were divided up as each planet pledged their support
behind one of the main warlords. These five men are the new Kings of
Orion.

Now, it has been three decades of an uneasy armistice as the kings
re-arm themselves for the next round of interstellar war. A few men
have retaken the noble mantle of the Knights of Orion in hopes of
healing a shattered kingdom and protecting it from forces from outside
threatening to consume the kingdom whole. Are these heroes deserving
of their title, or are they just the useless dirtbags they seem to be?

New Reviews

I've been distracted with actually working for a living again this last month, but I'm getting back to blogging again.

Two Quick Reviews:

TERRA NOVA:   more properly Terra No-Way.   My god.   You create a show with freaking dinosaurs in it, and then make the major conflict be lame-O family drama and "It's hard to be the stupid chief" stuff.  Then every body does really stupid things, like seek out of the camp into dinosaur jungles for a swim.  And then, in 2 hours, you have maybe 5 minutes of actual dinosaurs.     Suck-tastic.

MORLOCKS:  a SyFy original movie, but somehow still better than Terra Nova.  The stupid romances and conspiracy stuff was pretty stupid.  You knew who was going to die as soon as that person appears.  Yet still, it was somehow better than Terra Nova.   It did deliver on the main promise of the movie, however, there were lots and lots of Morlocks.   It sucked, but it was still better than Terra Nova.

Napoleonic Rock, Paper, Scissors

A few years ago I read a bunch of Bernard Cornwell's "Sharpe's" series of historical novels set in the wars against Napoleon.   In the major battles, there was a sort of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" thing going on.  If the infantry formed up into a tight-packed square, it was invulnerable to cavalry charges; but it was then much more vulnerable to cannon fire.   If the infantry was spread out in a loose formation, it was pretty safe from cannon fire, but could get wiped out easily by a cavalry charge.

A sort of similar thing has been evidence in our D&D game.  If a party or group of monsters spreads out, then they can get swarmed, ganged up and royally bitch-slapped.  If the group goes all tight-formation, then they are a lot safer in melee, but much more vulnerable to spell attacks.

Bor prevents the game

I had to cancel the game this Sunday.  First, storm water started to leak into the bathroom downstairs in the game room.   It wasn't catastrophic, but from past experience, I knew that the basement was going to be a bit less than useful for game time.   It turns out things got even worse, about an hour before game time would have started, the power went out and we were in the dark for a few hours.

Everything's dry and re-lit now, and we'll try again in two weeks.

Almost went

I almost went to see the new Conan movie today.   But, finally chickened out when I read this quote in a review  "the audience I saw it with didn't so much leave the theatre as recoil from the theatre."

Deadly Disease for Druids

Last session people were freaking out about druids not being able to cure the tick disease.  I guess everyone at the table was completely blind, because Cure Disease is a 3rd level Druid spell, right there under Call Lightning.

Shopping Trip

I ordered the various volumes of the Hackmaster monster books that I don't have.  I guess waiting till now, I saved a whole bunch of money, since I paid about half the cover price, even including shipping.  All hail amazon.

Behind the Screen, Session 18

General Notes
I think that the feats went pretty well.  It makes fighters much more interesting.  Got ot see "Little Bastard" in action, that was fun.   Still, the guys really needed a wizard when taking on the orc horde.
What's with the inability to hit with a stupid javelin three times?

I was kind of disappointed that we didn't finish the dungeon this week.  I extremely enjoyed myself the session before when they were exploring level 2.  A giant set piece is fun now and again, but I like getting a whole bunch of encounters and pokings and proddings in.  Although, the guys missed two big treasure hauls that week in the dungeon level.

Below 0
The orc battle was a really narrow victory for the PCs.  There was a serious beat down of PC's-1 mortal wound and 1 killed.  Luckily they had the resources to reverse both results.  I must say that I'm really satisfied with the rules for falling below 0 hit points we've been using.   I want that delicate balance between instant-death and never-dead.  

The base rules for D&D was 0 hit points equals dead, but that's just a bit too rough, and doesn't model life or literature very well, there's no chance of having a wounded dude who needs to be carried or rescued.  It comes from miniature war games where you just want to know if a figure is on the field or not.

The alternative that evolved in the main rules was the slow bleed to -10 hit points, but I've found that most of the time this made it nearly impossible for anyone to get killed in combat. 

I like how since there's about a 1 in 3 chance of dying once you hit 0, it is very scary to do so, but it allows most to survive it.  It especially helps mercenaries and henchmen survive, while keeping everyone on their toes.   I think 50/50 would be too much, maybe 1 in 4 would be okay.

Literary Notes

I read a pretty good set of historical novels recently.  It was called "The Conquest Trilogy", consisting of three novels:  Mercenaries, Warriors and Conquest all written by Jack Ludlow.  They deal with the story of the sons of Tancred deHauteville, a minor Norman noble in the generation before William the Conquerer.   The sons, most importantly William "Iron Arm", Robert "Guiscard", and Roger made their way to Southern Italy as mercenaries but eventually conquerered all of Southern Italy and Sicily.  It's a true story and a rather incredible one.   Some of their children will go on to be major leaders of the first crusade as well.    I'd give the series a big positive reccommendation.

I've started watching the SyFy series "Haven", and noticed that it says it is based on the Steven King novel "The Colorado Kid", so I read the novel to see how it hooked up.   Man,  they were using the words "based on" in the most general sort of sense. None of the weird supernatural stuff in the series has anything to do with the book.  The town in the book isn't even called Haven.  None of the major characters of the series are in the book.  I think two minor series characters are based on the 2 main guys from the book, but they really don't do much.  I don't know why they bothered trying to link the two.

If you feel like reading the bible from cover to cover some time, I'd suggest that you can probably skip the book of Leviticus.   It's all descriptions of how to perform various sorts of burnt offerings, a little bit of law, and no action.

News from London

Here's an interesting and important game-related story out of the London riots:

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/looters-return-stuff-to-games-workshop-201108124191/

Feats of Arms Final Draft

I've gotten the final, "this is what we're going to use" draft of the Feats of Arms document ready and uploaded it to the usual place:

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

To this draft, I've added:
Jason's "Drinking Man" feat
A feat that allows you to chop the head off a horse
A proficiency in Siege Weapons

Also, I added a few notes about rules changes that are needed because of adding some of the feats.

So, everybody start picking feats for Sunday (but no picking feet on Sunday).

Best...Monster...Ever

Hack Master, Hacklopaedia of Beasts (4th edition), Volume VI, p66

"PHANTOM FOLLOWER (a.k.a. Wuss Spirit)

Description:  A Phantom follower appears as a ghostly apparition of its former self.  These undead creatures are the spirits of dead hirelings, followers, and level-0 NPC's.

Combat/Tactics: Phantom followers have returned from the Land of the Dead to accomplish a mission that could not complete in life.  Sometimes it is to exact revenge on a cruel master who mistreated him.  Other times it is to warn a good master of an impending doom.

Should it be prevented or misunderstood it becomes and wails a Howl of Despair.  All those who hear the the howl become profoundly sad.  Those affected get -4 to all morale rolls, save against Fear at -2, and get -2 to their AC."

Anyone seen Godric lately?

THIRD TIME FOR FEATS

Alright, I've made one more draft for the Feats of Arms document, and put it on the Badlands wiki at the usual place, replacing the previous draft: http://www.lordsofhack.com/home/doku.php?id=badlands

I've added a bunch of feats that Andrew and Jason asked for, and made a few notes to clarify a few things here and there.   I've added a couple more feats here and there too,   So, have another look if you are so inclined, and I'll put up a final draft at the end of the week before our next session.

I'm reckoning that we'll start using the feats of arms with our next game.

Summer Movie Round-up

THOR:  needed more smashing, less yacking.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS:   first class indeed.

GREEN LANTERN: not bad, not amazing, would have loved it when I was 15

CAPTAIN AMERICA:  best of the comic book films for the summer, not quite Batman Begins or Iron Man.

HARRY POTTER:  not as good as the previous, not as bad as the one before

COWBOYS AND ALIENS:  next time, more Keith Carradine.

To Feat or Not to Feat

I've replaced the first draft of the Feat of Arms document with Draft #2 on the Badlands Main page: http://www.lordsofhack.com/home/doku.php?id=badlands

I've added a bunch of new feats, from Bitchslap to Spear Catching to Unarmed Master.

I've also changed the text of some of the feats.

I added the Berserker's rage class ability as a mandatory first level Feat choice for Berserkers.  

I've also took the Fighter/Paladin/Ranger/Berserker ability to make multiple attacks against low-level opponents and turned it into a feat of arms.  So, warriors will have to chose it instead of getting it automatically.

I meant to get a feeling from the assembled crew as to whether we are ready to apply the feats of arms rules to the campaign at the next session.   Read over the document, and tell me whether we should use feats or not next time.

If anyone has comments on any of the feats of arms or are missing something we could add to the list please let me know.

Behind the Screen Session 17

MAP
I'm still pleased with the fully revealed map.   Although, there were a few problems with the map this time.  The two rooms where the Old Ones were encountered, were just a bit too small.  This was partially due to the fact that the maps were originally map on the "Campaign Mapper" software program, and when I moved them onto the large scale map, I had to squeeze things in a bit, or else each level would need more paper on the table, and 2-sheets seems a functional maximum.  It just so happened that those two rooms got squeezed more than I would have liked.   I should have been monitoring contents more closely as I transferred the map.  Nevertheless, narrow rooms do make things interesting, and help to negate some of the PC's numerical edge.

Mercenaries
I really think the players ought to confer about how many mercenaries they take into a dungeon.    Occasionally, I think they go a bit overboard.   In the early days, the party was mostly spell casters, and low on beef.  Now it's mostly beef and low on casters.  Having 12 mercenary troops seemed to me to be too many this time, and they ended up getting in the way much of the time.  I think that going for henchmen and cultivating them would be a smarter use of money, but it's up to them how they want to do it.  If they want to take in 50 raw recruits with clubs, they can do it.  The game is set up to handle them.  There are tales of Old School D&D where parties had bands of 60 berserkers following them around.  And on second thought, if they decide to keep moving and not leave the dungeon right now, they are still adequately staffed without needing reinforcements.

Totally Amazing Gnorris----NOOOOOOOOO!!!   
I was really disappointed.  He was a super character with awesome stats and a lot of potential.  The party needed another caster (although his initial spells kind of sucked) and really needed a thief.   Yet he gets head-critted by an arrow in an ambush by lousy goblins and dies.   Bummer.

Mercury and mercury, breaking Chekov's Gun
The puddle of mercury and the "place set for Mercury" had absolutely nothing to do with one another. Mercury (capital) is of course one of the old Ardean pagan gods, so he's likely to appear in this old pagan shrine.   As for the puddle, I just wanted something interesting to have poured out of the broken amphorae in the tick room, to draw players in.  I rolled on some random table until something useful came up--mercury. 

The writer Chekov said "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there."   This is the common literary trope called "Chekov's Gun."

When it comes to making a dungeon, however, I say "Fooey".  When you have a bunch of guys trying to figure things out, to unlock mysteries and finding treasure--as participants---then the more red herrings, inicidentals and unconnected details you can cram in the better.  The more predictable it is the worse it is. 

For example, when the players needed someway to attach the chair to the ceiling,  I never would have expected them to use the "Sticky Black Wax" from the covering of the stone jar to glue it up there.  I was delighted.  The wax was strictly there to cause paranoia about possible poison, but they found a use for it.   It's the genius of RPG's that any item is useable, new uses for any object can be devised, and the surprising is just around the corner.

Feat Schedule

At first, I was thinking that maybe Feats should be gained on the same schedule as Weapon Proficiencies; so for the four main classes for the first 10 levels:

Fighter  level 1: 4; level 4 +1, level 7 +1; level 10 +1  (7 total)
Cleric/Thief:   level 1 2,  level 5 +1, level 9 +1 (4 total)
Mage:  level 1 1, level 7 +1 (2 total)

This would require much fewer adjustment to the henchmen deck.  It would just mean adding 1 feat to each character.

So, maybe it would be better to smooth things out.  Each class only gets 1 feat at first level:

Fighters:  1 feat every level (10 total for levels 1-10)
Clerics/Thieves:  level 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 (5 total)
Mages:  level 1,6 (2 total)

or maybe have only Fighters getting them at first:

Fighters:   1 feat for every level (10 total for levels 1-10)
Clerics/Thieves:  2,4,6,8,10 (5 total)
Mages:  2, 7 (2 total)


The question would be what to do with Monks and SubClasses.   Clearly Illusionists, Summoners, and Canons would be treated as Mages.   I'd treat Assasins and Bards as Thieves (although maybe they'd get one more, I don't know).  I imagine it'd be best to treat Druids and Warlocks as Clerics for simplicity's sake, even though there is some minor argument  for making druids a little worse and warlocks a little better.

The question of Berserkers, Rangers and Paladins is a little trickier.  They have their own set of abilities which fighters lack.  It might be better to give them slightly fewer feats, but should it be as few as Clerics, or somewhere between Fighters and Clerics.

Monks are also tricky.  Maybe they should get the same as fighters, even though they have tons of special abilities already.  On the other, they seriously suck at low level, so any little bit helps.

Revealed Map, post-game

After trying the fully revealed giant graph paper maps, I noticed a few good and bad things (but mostly good things) about it in practice:

Good Thing: it made process of dungeoneering much faster. We had 12 combat encounters, plus additional trap and exploration encounters and a trip to town in a single session. It eliminated all the mapping questions and the tile setting.

Good Thing: it made tracking of search and movement turns much easier. As they moved and explored, we put a poker chip on the map to mark the location of the first person in line, and held the miniatures in marching order to the side. We just moved the chip a number of squares equal to the slowest party member's speed each turn, and rolled for wandering monsters every other turn. Whenever an ecounter or trap happened, we slid the miniatures onto the map.

Good Thing: Combat tactics were generally more interesting. It was easier for characters and monsters to move around and use the set-up of multiple rooms and corridors for gaining advantageous position. When wandering monsters showed up in corridors, it was especially interesting because it was a large party with many hirelings. The party was getting very stretched out, especially in narrow corridors, and so an attack at the rear was more easily able to be clearly visualized.

Good Thing: for some reason it was much easier to remember to call for "Open Door" checks for ordinary doors.

Bad Thing: Secret Doors are less easy to administer. You either have to put thme on the map, or hide them in the "shaded" empty areas, either way you need to decide that up front.

Bad Thing (theoretically): getting lost and tricks such as sloping passages and false stairs are not of much use. I listed this as theoretical, because I never really focused on those things to begin with.

Feats Progress

I roughed up a first draft of a document for adding Feats of Arms to our AD&D based rules.  I need to figure out the schedule by which characters get said feats, but that'll come.   I think my favorite new feat I've come up with is this one:

Little Bastard (talent)

Prerequisite:  gnome, Halfling, dwarf

Benefit: the character can break melee contact with an enemy without letting that enemy get a free attack against him, as long as that enemy is in contact with at least 1 other combatant on the escaping character’s side.

The entire document is on the Badlands main wiki page here:


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

Next game

Just so everyone knows, since you guys left the dungeon and decided to camp at Bastardville, heal up and sell treasure, we are going to advance the timeline to May 1st.   That way we can draw for hirelings again, since you used up the April draws at both Bastardville and Portchester already.  There's no huge hurry or timeline for the search, since the number of wandering woodsmen etc, hasn't reached crisis at the druid's house.

Preliminary List of Feats of Arms

I've been toying around with a list of Feats of Arms, many taken from 3rd edition, some inspired by 4th, others taken from Conan.  I should have looked over Savage Worlds again. Well, take a look at the list see if there are others you'd like to see:

Aimed Shot

Blind Fighting

Cleave

Daggerman

Dodge

Great Cleave

Hack on the Run

Horse Archer

Inspiring War Cry

Lead the Charge

Mobility

Mounted Combat

Power Attack

Powerful Charge

Rampage

Rapid Shot

Ride-By Attack

Shield Attack

Shield and Pike

Shot on the Run

Sunder

Sweep Attack

Terrifying War Cry

To-The-Hilt

Trample

Two-Weapon Fighting

War Dogs

Weapon Focus

A question of Feats

I'm toying around with some ideas about Feats.   I'm pretty definite on the idea that they will be strictly combat related.  There won't be any magic-related feats at all.  With the vast variety of spells, and the relative ease of making low-level scrolls, spell casting characters have enough options as it is, it's only the combatants that need some options to spice up their combat.  Now, all classes will have access to some Feats, but they will be strictly combat based feats.

The first question that arises is whether they should completely replace the system of "Weapon Proficiencies" present in the PHB.   I'm imagining that each class will get a free "Feat" that gives them the weapon selections that are germaine to their class, but can spend more to gain access to more weapons.  War Dogs would now be Feat, rather than a proficiency, and we'd have to change the fighter's bonus damage for proficient weapons. 

Combat Rules

I've been thinking a little a bit about the Gang-up bonus.   While I really like it, on the whole, there are a few issues that may need a few limits or tweaks.   I think we made need to put an upper limit to the bonus that can accrue.  I think that +10 or +11 is just too much.   There just isn't anything else in the game that gives any similar massive bonus.  Perhaps, either a +4 or +5 as a maximum on the gang-up bonus would be a good idea.   The problem is that large, single monsters are just at too much of a disadvantage against crowds.  On the other hand,  I would like to see a crowd of cave monkeys totally swarm a PC sometime.  I guess it bears some further thought.

I do want to re-integrate the Shield Sacrifice rule, and the Knock-back on a natural 15.  The shield sacrifice adds a bit of tactical balance (an immediate reduction on damage, in exchange for giving up the shield protection and possibly shield wall).  The knock-back gives a chance to chance position and push through lines that can shake things up. 

What I'd port in from 3rd edition D&D

There are 2 major things I would port in from D&D 3e

After plying around with the charts awhile, I do think the ascending AC and bonus system probably makes for a faster game.   Although the repeating 20's and the maximum of -10 (equivalent of ascending AC30) from AD&D 1e help keep AC explosion under control,  it still would be easier to do AC= target number.

Secondly,  I'd like to use some sort of system of Feats.  Having different combat guys having different moves and talents is fun.   While spell casters get new stuff all the time, fighters have to depend on magic items for new abilities.

Hackmaster and its Uses

I thought I'd speak about Hackmaster for a moment.  There have been 2 editions of Hackmaster.  The first was called Hackmaster 4th edition.  It was brought out when D&D was in its 3rd edition phase and was a licensed parody of AD&D first and 2nd edition.   It was meant to be "the game the Knights of the Dinner Table actually play."   As a piece of writing it's true genius.   It really took everything that was AD&D and turned it up to 11.   It blew everything way over the top.   It's character flaws and quirks system made the characters into physical and emotional cripples, if you weren't careful, and it's alignment tracking and honor system were mind-numbingly fiddly and impossible.

Nevertheless, there are 3 things of real use in the books.  First, the spell list.  It contains all the AD&D spells, plus a bunch of more entertaining spells that are fully compatible with AD&D  (skipping betty fireballs, sidewinder fireballs, and of course "Hurl Animal" spells all come to mind).   Second,  there are the magic items.  Again, the GMG contains all the magic items from AD&D, but also a host of additional ones.  I've used several of them as inspirations already, and plan to use some more.   Third, there are the monster books, of which 9 separate volumes were published (I have about half of them, I believe).  The good thing is that the monster stats are pretty much completely compatible with AD&D use, so they can be ported over with no trouble.   There are a huge number of monsters in the books, and a large number of variants to standard monsters.  So there aren't just orcs, there are Highland Orcs, orcs of the southern league, slaver orcs, orkin bandits, gibbering orcs and so forth.   The monster selection can really get the creative juices flowing for adventure ideas.

In addition to the things that are actually useful for an AD&D campaign directly, there are some interesting features that I find interesting from a rules perspective.   The central combat difference from AD&D was the "kicker", which was the process of giving every single monster, NPC, and character 20 extra hit points.  So a Hackmaster bandit would have 20+1d6 hit points, an Ogre (common), would have 20+4d8+1.    To balance this, there were several ways to increase damage inflicted:  first of all there was "penetration damage", whereby anytime you rolled max damage  on a die, you'd get another damage die (minus 1 point), much like Savage Worlds.   Second, on a natural 20, you'd score a critical hit (now, the critical hit system required rolling a d10,000, and adjusting it with a crazy series of modifiers, and 9 times out of 10 in practice you'd end up doing double damage, but the other times, watch out).

I like the idea of the kicker, and used it a few times, because I wanted some way to make level 0 guys actually worth having around, and actually be able to stick around for more than 10 seconds.  I think we've achieved that better in this campaign with the gang-up bonus and the "wound effect" roll for when people go below 0 hit points, but the kicker is an interesting method too.

The races and classes are a bit wilder too.  They have a bunch of sub-races (from Grunge Elves to Gnome Titans) and a variety of classes, from Berserkers and Barbarians, to Battlemages.  But, the thing I don't like is that the old AD&D "training for levels" is so darn integral to class balance (barbarians don't have to train, but have a hideously slow XP advancement rate) that you've got to use it.

The second edition of Hackmaster (5th edition), is what is coming out now.   So far, they've issued Hackmaster Basic, about which I've written before, and just now the Advanced Hackmaster Hacklopedia of Beasts.  I've gotten the PDF of the Hacklopedia, and have found it less useful than the older Hackmaster monster books.   The 5th edition Hackmaster is scrubbed free of parody and of impossible systems, (although not of attitude), and is meant to be a straight, playable game, but likewise is not directly convertable to AD&D like 4th edition.

Maps, Cards, and Retirees

Since we were only about 2/3 finished with the first level of the Cathedral Crypt, I large-scaled that one too.
Next thing I want to do is to map out on a bigger scale, the region in the Badlands where Boscovania is.  I think we could get some serious action out of putting a focus on that region.  It is sort of right where Portchester, the Realm of Dengwur, and the City State of Urvotz (the Old Ones) come together and with Bosco Tripod's out post there, it's the new Dodge City.

By the way, I'd like a few things from the players.  From Bob, I'd like my own copy of the map of Boscovania.   From Andrew and Jason, I'd like a 1-page (PDF) description of the establishments of your retired characters, enough that anyone DMing could use them.  If Andrew could also do one for the Mystic McFarley horse ranch, that'd be cool too.

I've been thinking about the "Green Deck".   I've added a few contacts (2 "fences" and 1 purchase opportunity).  It's been bringing back my idea for an event deck.  Orginally, it was going to be a separate deck that had a wide variety of events, from events that affected only 1 player, to events that effected the whole kingdom.   It's conceivable that I could roll the event deck into the Green Deck, but then the events might get totally swallowed up by the goods and contacts.  Should I proceed with the making the Event Deck, now that, for a while, I have the time?

Do we want to have a face-to-face DM pow-wow some time?  Meet for coffee or a drink or dinner or something?

No plot session

Once we get through the Cathedral Dungeon, I think we should think about having a no-plot session.   Meaning, we would come into the session with no DM inspired plot at all.  Each player has to decide what he wants to do for himself.   We could have 1-2 guys exploring the wilderness, others doing business in town, others searching for buried treasure.   We have enough tools to handle all this stuff on the fly, and can lead to a lot of interesting campaign development.

I realize now why I remember doing so much of that "in the old days" but not so much now.  It's really a matter of time.  In high school I could play several times a week, in college I could play for a very long time during the weekend and maybe once more during the week.  Now, with the every other week schedule, it just seems prudent to get on to a capital A adventure.

I'd kind of like to see an ebb and flow, of like 2-3 DM-driven games, then 1 PC driven game, where we could expect to have some "time of our own" at an interval.

Fully Revealed Map, revisited

I took some time today to make a full-scale map of the 2nd level of the cathedral crypt for Sunday.  I debated as to whether to include the secret doors/secret rooms, but finally decided just to put them on.   I added a few locked doors too.   I'm looking forward to trying the dungeon with a revealed map.  I'm suspecting that it should speed up play and get the flow going faster.

I think that with our method of putting out the tiles, we might as well see the whole map.   No one in the group maps any more, and we generally don't have enough empty areas to risk getting lost or disoriented.

I know I like to have between 20 and 30 rooms on a "level" of dungeon, and to have about 1/2 having monsters in them, the other half tricks, treasures or red-herring dressings.   But, the other guys go for about a dozen rooms with monsters in all of them (more or less).

Nothing is what you'd expect

I rant the Awesome Squad through 2 trips into random dungeon land.  Was surprised at a few things.  First of all, I expected Waldahar to be the real star, a really butch fighter with great stats and all, but he got poisoned TWICE, and if it had not been for the Mighty Sword, probably the lamest character, having memorized Slow Poison, he would have died both times. 

It also turned out that "terrain" was everything.  When they encountered a group of 12 orcs and a 3rd level magic user, it should have been a slaughter.   Tavish used a sleep spell and took out all the orcs, but then the enemy cast Stinking Cloud.  Since the party was coming up a 5' corridor the cloud hit Waldahar, Tavish and the Mighty Sword, knocking them out for 5 TURNS (50 minutes).  This also cut the party off from the enemies for 3 rounds, allowing the mage to get working on reviving the orcs.  Then the 3 weakest melee characters were left to hold off the orcs.   Tiberio used all his summoning spells to help, but since the corridor was only 5 feet wide, there was a lot of 1 guy vs. 1 guy fighting, and eventually the spell duration on the summonings ran out.  The enemy wizard never really got to cast another spell, since he was around 2 corners from the party, and eventually the orcs morale finally broke, saving the party.

The expeditions were not as profitable as one might expect.  They earned around 3000gp, but had to spend 2000 of that in saving Waldahar from poison.  They got a bunch of minor magic items, but none of them terribly useful to the members in question.

The jury is still out on the bard.  He had sleep spells, by random chance.  But, he couldn't use them the first expedition, since he was wearing armor.  The second expedition they were pretty useful,  He never really got to try his charm power (the stinking cloud prevented that).

 Lothar the thief did some good work doing the sword and dagger combination, but thieves still just live in the "I can almost fight" land.   But there was plenty of lock and trap work for both he a Steve to do.  I wasted Steve's phantasmal force in a ploy that really just tricked 2 orcs.  He had a hypnotism spell (which is different from Nigel's hypnotic pattern), but it turned out to be no good when he needed it (he couldn't speak orc, and needed to do so to give them a hypnotic suggestion). 

Tiberio's summonings were very useful.  It's like hirelings in a jar you don't have to pay.  I think it would be very useful for him to make some scrolls.

The Mighty Sword was the surprise hero.  Even if your scores are crap, if you've got a sword, armor and a bunch of spells, you can save the day.

A full report can be found here:

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

Fully Revealed Map and Corridors, and Doors

During one adventure in our "Fulton Horizons" campaign, "The Terrible Secret of Diceman's Fortress", and one adventure in the Slipstream campaign "Break Marlon out of Jail",  I drew the whole adventure map out on the big 3 foot paper with 1inch grids and revealed it to the players and we used it like a board-game board.   The conceit being that the players had computer access to the map of the compound in both cases and knew where they were.

It certainly does speed things up to do it that way.  It could be done with fantasy dungeons, if the players have a treasure map of the dungeon too.   It eliminates the need to fumble for tiles and makes the action clearer.   I doing the same thing now with the Awesome Squad' solo game.

One thing I noticed while drawing "Treasure Map Dungeon A", is that I'm much more likely to draw 5 foot wide corridors than 10 foot wide corridors.  The larger corridors look more like extended rooms or formal galleries than corridors when you draw them.  However,  fighting in 5 foot corridors is much nastier, brutish and drawn out than fighting in 10 foot corridors.  It's somewhat surprising the difference it makes.

The other thing I found myself doing was putting in Locked Doors on the map.  Maybe because Secret Doors didn't make sense for solo play, maybe because the mapping program I use for hidden maps doesn't have a locked door icon, so it seemed novel to put them in.   Having locked doors makes thieves even more useful and having a Bend Bars Lift Gates score of note to be more useful too.

Finally, when I was doing some solo work on the map, I found myself having the party use their "Open Doors" number to be able to open the doors (the normal, non-locked doors), just as Gary (peace be upon him) Gygax intended.   The idea being that dungeon doors are warped, rusted and stuck for the most part.  The practical result is that if no one in the party can open the door, it doesn't get open, and if the first person who tries, fails, there's no chance for the party to surprise the enemy.

I think the fact that the map is already laid out and no time is needed for set-up makes me more willing to attend to the details of real dungeoneering. 

There's definitely a trade off.  Revealing the map takes away some of the mystery, but it does make the adventure easier and faster to manage

Sample "Fence" or "Contact"

So, I tried to whip up a "fence" for the "green deck"

Contact:  Brownleaf Bennarrix
               neutral, half-elf, mu/thief, level 2/3

Location:  forest elf village of Volen, Badlands F8

Silver Buyer:  on a successful "employment" reaction check, Bennarrix will buy silver jewelry at full retail value.

I thought that since he is so far out of the way, he would have to make a good offer for the players to bother to go to meet him.  But, if they have only a few pieces of silver jewelry it would be worth the trouble (seeing as jewelry is so expensive.

The question remains,  is drawing the card a "one use ticket" or can the PC add him permanently as a contact?   I'd say that there could be some contacts that are permanent, others are "one shots", so I reckon it would have to be noted one way or the other on the card.

Buying and Selling

We've been talking about creating some NPC "fences" to add some variety to our treasure disposition.  I thought I'd re-post the "Buying and Selling" section of the Gear Book for the campaign, to put some things into perspective:

Buying and Selling

List price: each item has a price listed in silver, copper or gold pieces.  This is the retail price an adventurer can expect to pay in a town market or shop.

List price with an “R”:  if the price has an “R” after it, it is either rare, restricted, or requires special arrangements.  A player must get specific permission from the DM in order to buy the item and cannot just assume it is immediately available.

Loot price: items that have been captured as loot or plunder from raids or dungeon adventures can be sold at the town market for 1/3 of their list price.  A player can attempt to make a harder bargain.  Roll 1d20, add the character’s Charisma reaction bonus.  If the total is 14 or greater, the character gets 50% of list price.  If the total is 4 or less, he walks away with only 15%, shaking his head wondering how it happened.

Selling at Auction:  players can put up lots of goods for wholesale auction.  Find the total list price of each lot and roll 1d6 times 10% for the final value gotten at auction.

Fence price: goods that are stolen, illegal, or otherwise too hot to handle can be sold for 10% of their list price, assuming a fence can be found.  A thief character can always find a fence in his home town.  Thieves can find a fence in a new town 25% chance per week.  Non-thieves have a 5% chance per week of finding a fence.

Pawning Goods:  at a pawn-broker a character can deposit an item and get a loan equal to 25% of the list price.  If he pays the pawnbroker back 10% of the amount loaned within 6 months, he returns the pawned item.  If he fails to pay the money back, the broker puts the item up for sale (typically for 50% of list).  If you buy an item from a pawn-broker there is a 1 in 8 chance that it will turn out to be defective.

Buying at Auction:  sometimes rare goods are sold at auction (gems, jewelry, excellent wine etc).  If a PC is interested, roll 1d6 for the number of interested bidders.  For each bidder roll 3d6 x10% to get his maximum bid as a percentage of the list price, however, each “6” rolled results in another d6 added to the total (subsequent “6”’s result in additional d6’s).  Run the auction out with the various bidders dropping out when their maximum is reached.

We are thinking about creating a set of "special fence" cards to be shuffled into the henchmen/hirelings deck.  These would presumably be more on the lines of personal contacts that would buy specific goods at a higher rate than the 1/3 "loot price" or the 10% "fence" price.  

I'm starting to think that maybe we could put these contacts into the green "random items" deck, rather than the henchman deck.  I've bought a bunch more green index cards and that deck, so far, has had things of more interest to the low-level adventurer.   Of course, we'd have to change them to 3x5 from 4x6, but otherwise it would work.

More on the Awesome Squad

I also created a charter for the Awesome Squad.   The scheme is that they maintain their headquarters together and take one share of treasure to spend on the guards and improvements to the headquarters.  They always leave one party member at the headquarters to act as garrison captain, but that guy gets a share of whatever treasure the rest take when out on an expedition.

The charter is also posted on the wiki:
http://www.lordsofhack.com/home/doku.php?id=the_awesome_squad

Meet the Awesome Squad

I'm going to play some solo games during the next few weeks in order to get a feel for a few things and to help get the old brain working.  I created a party of 6 guys, each with 7000 experience points (half of what Nigel has).   If something happens to Nigel, I can then just pull in one of them instead.  But, I worked up a bunch of guys that are the kind of guys I like to play.

I've put their character sheets on the Badlands wiki at this page:
http://www.lordsofhack.com/home/doku.php?id=the_awesome_squad

But here's a summary of the characters:

Lothar:  human, thief, level 4.  Decent stats, straight thief, should be very useful in a dungeon, we'll see.  I've always wanted to do a straight human thief, but have never done so in D&D.  I did a thief/fighter combo in Conan, and a bandit in Warhammer, but not a plain old D&D thief.
Waldahar, human, fighter, level 3:  by far the best ability scores of the whole party (an 18, 2 17's and a 16), I've never rolled that well in my life.  He's the leader-type and the beefcake rolled into one.  I've set him up to either be able to attack with a pole-axe or a sword/dagger combo.
Steve McNasty:  gnome, thief/illusionist level 3/2, another in a long series of gnome illusionists in my illustrious career.  I think the combo (along with the mage-thief) to be one of the best.
Tavish Hardrock:  human, bard, level 4;  I really want to see how a bard works in practice.  The bard class we're using is the 2nd edition bard, back-fitted to 1st edition (actually very similar to the original D&D bard from the early Dragon magazine)  its sort of a thief/fighter/mage with various bits of each nerfed, with some additional charm and legend lore powers.   We'll see how useful he is.
The Mighty Sword: human, gothi of Tiwaz, level 4:  rolled really crap for stats.  I originally was going to make him a Druid, but he has a 15 and a 12 as his 2 best stats, and as a druid, the 15 would have had to be Charisma.  Making him a gothi (I wanted all the characters to be neutral, so cleric was out) at least allowed him to have 3 cure light wounds.  I chose Tiwaz, so he'd get the +1 to hit and damage with a sword, which should make him of some use in combat.  He's really just the party wound healer.
Terrific Tiberio:  human, summoner, level 3:  I wante dto give Summoner another try, since my first one was killed horribly in a solo adventure.  I thought the party could use another member, and a dedicated caster to boot.  He should be at least as useful as Nigel is.

Cash and Prizes

When it comes to handing out treasure, I'm struggling with the "prizes" part of cash and prizes.   Sometimes I wonder why I should bother handing out treasure in anything other than gold pieces.   Why give out a "gold and silver necklace worth 850gp" when it's just going to be hurled on the pile, sold and divided up?

There's a way to deal with it, of course.   It requires me to be more of a hard ass and to be less lazy about treasure.   The gold piece value should more clearly be stated to be "retail value."  If it's but on the pile and sold it should be worth 1/3 of the retail value (watching "Pawn Stars" long enough, you know it can't fetch more than 1/2 value).

But, here's where the character traits come in.  If someone is a jewelry collector, and gets the necklace, he would get 850 xp, as long as the jewelry was kept in his collection.  If he was a Lady's Man, he'd get 850 xp if he gave it to his lady.  

This solution would require me to be more attentive on the one hand, and would require us to "dice and choose" for all non-coin items, just like we do (sometimes) for magic items.   I know that Nigel has pretty much shoved the "dice and choose" method for magic items on the party whenever he's there.  That was deliberate, because I just freaking love doing that.  For me, it adds a lot to the whole treasure business.  I'd love to do it with all items too.   It would make treasure a lot more interesting on the whole.

But, treasure division is NOT the DM's perrogative, it is an in-character player-only process.  I can try to push it when Nigel is in play, but can't force the group to do it when I'm DM.

P.S.  I would like to get some more options for the Character Traits, and get some more clarity about some of the types. 

Thoughts on Initiative, Charisma, and Wisdom

I've been thinking about the method of rolling initiative.   What I wanted was to use the Old School method of rolling 1d6 by both sides and taking the higher of the two.  That's how it was done in the old days, and that's what seemed right.  However, having Charisma factoring into Initiative seemed to make a whole lot of sense, and helps to make it not a dump stat, so I allowed the highest Charisma character add a bonus based on his score to add to the roll.

In practice, however, I've been dissatisfied with the method.  The d6 range is just too small and any bonus at all ends up with the PC's nearly always winning, since most monsters don't have ability scores.  The last thing I want to do is give all the monsters ability scores, I mean that's one of the main reasons I decided to use first edition rather than 3rd or 4th. 

I think maybe I'll switch to d12 instead of d6.  That will make the chance for the bad guys to win slightly more often more within the realm of possiblity.

I've also been rolling some characters "The Awesome Squad" and noticed just how much Wisdom is the total dump stat.   Unless you're a cleric, there isn't much use in wisdom.   I don't know what could be done about that.   I am generally reminded that I prefer the Basic D&D ability score progression to the AD&D one, but sic transit gloria mundi now.

Post Game Report Badlands 15

I enjoyed doing the In Medias Res open again for a change of pace.  The intial battle with the Legion of the Damned was longer than I expected it to be.   But, the fights inside the dungeon were all pretty fast.  That's the thing about an old-school dungeon, you can get a surprisingly large number of battles in one session.

Original D&D, AD&D1e, AD&D2e, and Basic/Expert style D&D (all of which are essentially the same game) all have that particular virtue in common.   It starts to slow down in the 3e era and afterwards.

Let's see we had:  3 fights vs. Legion of the Damned, 1 vs. Undead Ogres, 1 vs. Ochre Jelly, 1 vs. tiny spiders, 1 vs. Goblins, 1 vs. Yellow Mold and 1 vs. the Spirit of Holy Aurelius.  9 fights in one night.   That's pretty good.  If we had skipped the Legion outside, we probably would have had a lot more.

I guess to be fair, the dungeon was originally designed for level 2-3 characters, and we had 3-5, but it's still pretty close.  If Peaches hadn't swiped those Keogtam's ointment last game, the body count would have been much, much higher, due to poison.  

I must say that Marlon's Kuman really deserved to die in the Yellow Mold room.  To keep poking the hangings after 2-3 guys were poisoned was bad enough, but to go back and keep doing it even after he was poisoned himself was really pretty boneheaded.

Speaking of boneheaded,  I am really, really going to enjoy clubbing Mallak, Peaches, Badaxe and Kuman over the head, over and over and over and over again for desecrating the tomb of Holy Aurelius and attacking his manifested spirit (especially since they did it in front of a crapload of witnesses who are members of the Church of Bor to one degree or another).

I'm going to regret this

Of course, the In Medias Res open I have set for tomorrow depends on one particular player showing up.  That person will almost certainly not show up.  So, I guess I should be making contingency plans.

Lords of Hack page

I've got all of the logs and portchester news entries updated on the Lords of Hack page.  I've also updated the characters page on the site.  Take a look, and if there is anything about your character that is incorrect and you'd like me to fix, let me know.

I also put all my character info about Nigel Mysterio (and please log-writers, it's Mysterio, NOT Mysterioso) on a PDF character sheet and uploaded it to the page.  Take a look, if you're curious.  If anyone who doesn't know how to upload documents to the page and wants to have his character sheet there too, just mail it to me.

It took me a little longer than I thought it would to get all the various bits and hunks of paper into a single file, but It should make it easier to update between each session.   I needed to buy a metric crapload of furniture to make my place liveable.  It's going to cost me 54gp per month to pay all the varlets I need.  I really should have some guards, but need to wait for the next deal-out.

Itching for a dungeon

I think that this coming Sunday that I'm going to try to run throught the prelimiaries as quickly as possible and get right to dungeoneering.   The last two times I DMed, I had to handle above ground events that gre out of Taglac's warlock connections.   Between those sessions, Jason was DMing.  I'm really itching to run a straight dungeon, and to spend as much time as possible running in the dungeon itself.

I think that this is going to have to involve a lot of prep work to shoot through some set up.  Especially since we are likely to have 3 new characters coming in, it may make the most sense to start the "rail-road", as much as I generally dislike that process.

Fargin Netflix and TiVo

I had thought that the combination of streaming Netflix and TiVo was the greatest thing since sliced bread.  But for the past week it just has turned to crap.  It goes into "retrieving" mode every 2 minutes, making it almost unwatchable, and now I find out that Neflix is going to yank "Babylon 5" on July 1st, right after I just got into re-watching the series.  Death to jerks.

Hackmaster Basic

I've been re-reading "Hackmaster Basic" which I got last year.  It isn't all too different from D&D in the big picture.   Hit points are a little different, CON plus either 5 or 10 bonus points plus a die from class.  But, you don't get a new hit die every level, just every second level.

The basic rules allow Fighters, Magic-users, Thieves, and Clerics (with alignment variation) and Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings. 

Spells are similar to D&D but there's a different list of spells each level (so you get 2nd level spells when you get to 2nd experience level).   Magic-users use spell points, but clerics do a straight spell-choice each day.

The main things that are different are in combat:
1) Initiative:  this is the biggest difference, instead of turns or rounds, each action has a time value.  You start the combat at second 1 and count up.  So its much more of a "real-time" emulator.
2) Defense:  the defender rolls a defense roll against attacks instead of having a fixed AC number.  Armor absorbs damage, but makes you easier to hit.  Shields get really complicated to use, but are pretty useful.

Additionally, the game, even in this basic version, has an elaborate Skill System.   I'm sort of put off by complicated skill systems in theory.   It seems to me that a lot of skills you take never get used, and they substitute rolls for coming up with cool plans.

I don't know whether it would be worth it to play this game rather than a D&D version.  They Hackmaster Advanced Monster Book (rumored to be enormous) is supposed to be coming out this summer.  Maybe I'll have a look.

Return to blogging

After several months hiatus (mostly from getting out of the habit during my surgery and its recovery), I am going to start posting again.

He's building a dungeon!

An amazing development of the campaign structure.   Marlon's warlock-summoner is building a secret lair.  It started as a hidden chamber underground to hide his evil cauldron and unholy water font.  However, he's been adding secret tunnels, extra chambers and evil plans to stock it with goblins to do the digging.  It grew organically from his desire to hide his chaotic trappings from the prying eyes of the church and from his desire to get XP from spending cash on his home.  However, what it really is is an honest to goodness dungeon.  One might wonder where dungeons come from, and here, without prompting, one has come into existence.

Portchester News

I won't be putting out a Portchester News this cycle, since we are stopped in mid-travel this time and did not advance to a new month.

Secret Doors

While, I both philosophically and practically appreciate the old school processes of wandering monsters, one thing that I'm getting disenchanted with are secret doors.  The players ending up missing some interesting stuff by not finding secret doors.  My effort gets wasted, they miss out on treasure (since I end up putting hidden treasures in secret rooms more often than not).   It doesn't help that the players don't have any elves who have a chance of sensing them even if they aren't looking.  I also don't really want to have the players spending hours searching every stretch of hallway.   Concealed doors are better, players are more likely to try to check behind pieces of furniture or piles of lumber etc.   They risk finding traps or monsters, but more of the concealed rooms are found.  I think I'm going to drastically limit secret doors to places where the players might have some clue or hint that something is missing or a way out is necessary.

Secret Origins of The Hall of Black Mirrors

Last week's dungeon had a strange convoluted origin story. 

The Name
At one point, I found a random dungeon generator on the web.  It produced a map, and for each room had a dungeon dressing (bad smell, puddle, breeze, etc), and possibly a monster, and possibly a treasure.  The monsters and treasures were from Basic D&D, and the dungeon dressing just a single phrase.

The best part of the generator is the names it gives to the whole dungeon.  I generated a dungeon, called "THE EBON HALL OF MIRRORS", which I thought was pretty cool.

The Place
I was using the info I had on Parsnak's lodge from The Return of the Trolls campaign to set up an AD&D adventure for our Badlands campaign.  The forest around the lodge had a lot of empty space and I was looking for some points of interest.  I decided, at one point, to put the pre-generated Ebon Hall of Mirrors onto that map, as a possible opportunity for the party to hunt for treasure.  It would probably have been a long series of expeditions, since the place had like 80 rooms in it.

The New Dungeon
After awhile, I decided that the pre-generated adventure was not really all that interesting.  So, I decided to re-design it from scratch.  I changed the name to "The Hall of Black Mirrors" and whipped up a new map of about 20 rooms (being about ideal for a session).  Then, it hit me, "hey, what's up with the black mirrors anyway?"   I decided to weave together the Parsnak lodge story to the dungeon more closely.  Since Parsnak had encountered the White Stag at his lodge, I decided that the Hall of Black Mirrors was the portal location where the Druidic gods had sent the stag to get Parsnak after he helped kill the elf queen under Lake Demurus.  Then it seemed natural that the black mirrrors would be the key to getting out of the dungeon.  I created the escape sequence and the clues and filled in the rest.   The dungeon was sort of a half-way house, the stopping point for gnomes and light elves and the servants of the Neutral gods who wanted to pass from the Spirit World to the Material Earth.

Wandering Monsters

I was just thinking about the philosophy of Wandering Monsters.  It's interesting that indoors and outdoors they serve opposite purposes in some ways.   In a dungeon, the wandering monster check exists as a balance against players wasting in-game time.  If not for wandering monster checks, then the players could just enter each room, and  say "we're staying here checking everything until all secret doors are found, all treasure discovered and until we bust open every chest."  With wandering monsters, players have to balance the risk of the monsters showing up with the possible rewards of taking a long time to search.  Wandering Monster checks also give some purpose to picking locks, knock spells etc, ways of opening doors and chests without bashing them with large hammers, since the bashing raises a racket and a monster check.

With Old School versions of D&D (basic, original, AD&D1), most experience points come from treasure, and monster experience is less important (especially at low levels).  Wandering Monsters in dungeons are usually lacking in treasure.  Therefore, wandering monsters are a drain on resources without any real reward and so are something that the players should be eager to avoid.  There existence forces the players to make choices about actions, and balance consequences, and I think that is a key to a good game session.

Using the game trappings of "turns" and a standard check roll and pre-made table, makes the monsters easier to take than if the DM were just to throw a "grudge monster" when he thought the players were wasting time.  I find the general scheme of a "objective" structure to be the best tool for running a game where the players don't feel like tools.

In wilderness travel, wandering monsters serve a different purpose.   They often have treasure with them and so can be actively sought by the players.   What they really exist to do is to slow down the real-world time spent in overland travel.   The existence of the wandering monster check makes overland travel a serious choice to be made.  It makes the world more vivid.   If the players take advantage of them, the wilderness wandering monster checks can be complete adventures in and of themselves.

Games like Savage Worlds and D&D4e, combats are longer to run and more involved to set up and to run out.  The real time length of running the encounters is a bit too much to justify the encounters.  I noticed in the Slipstream campaign that while we were supposed to run random encounters for space travel, and I tried to do it in the sessions I ran, it was an overwhelming time suck.  I ended up giving the crew a special high-speed engine just to cut down the number of encounter checks.   So, in many ways the uses of the wandering monster depends on quick and easy encounter resolution.

"Personal Business Session"

I was thinking that it might be cool to have a game session, in the not too distant future, that would be about "Personal Business."  Maybe even having Andrew and I sharing GM time.   We'd have to have each player come up with a personal goal for the session, some target, that would not involve the entire party and wouldn't involve a dungeon expedition.  For example, Marlon might want to score a big flock of black-wooled sheep,  Bob might want to find out who tried to kill him.  

I like how Marlon has got his own house and "secret" lair all set up, and would like to see more of that sort of thing happening.  Whether you develop fine living in Portchester (at mom's house or elsewhere), or some fortified base in the Badlands.

I'd toyed with the idea of having alternating "expedition" sessions and "home town" sessions, but need to give it a bit more thought as to just how the "home town" sessions would operate.

Bosco Smokey visits Squatters' Corners

July 27th,  Ardean Year 1420

I decided to take a cart full of cheap cigars that I couldn't sell in the Kingdom across the border into the Badlands.  I've heard that there's a decent sized settlement at Squatters' Corners, and it's closer than Bosco Crossings.  The biggest advantage is that one can reach Squatters' Corners in one day's travel from the southern border, so you don't have to spend the night outdoors in monster country.

You smell Squatters' Corners before you see it.  It smells strongly of animals and garbage.   The village is surrounded by a dirt rampart 30 feet wide and 20 feet high, with a 15 foot ditch around the outside.  The top of the rampart is thickly planted with tall thorn bushes, and I've heard tell that there are wooden and metal spikes hidden among the thorns.  There are 2 gates, one west one south.  Next to each gate is a wooden watch tower.  Above the gate is the town motto inscribed on a wooden plank.  It says "Mind your own business."

Inside the rampart there are no regular streets, instead there is a random scattering of wooden sheds, log cabins, plank-built houses, and even a few houses made of bricks salvaged from old villas from Ardean days.  There aren't really any business establishments in the village.  Most of the squatters farm small plots within a mile or two of the town, mostly root vegetables like turnips, since they aren't easily destroyed by passing monsters.  However, the chief pasttime of the people is "making a deal."  There are no taverns, but dozens of the squatters brew beer or ale in their houses and sell it to anyone who asks.  There are no tailors, but most of the women spend time sewing and repairing clothes.   A certain portion of the population are hunters, the wild pig population in the area being quite high.  Also, a certain portion of the people are pickers, scavaging the Ardean ruins in the area, or they are bandits sneaking across the border (of course some of the pickers and bandits are the same folk). 

There's a big open square in the center of the village, which acts as a public market every 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th of the month.   People come with excess goods and sell or swap.  I managed to unload my rancid cigars, mostly by swapping then for boar hides, which I sold at a decent profit in Portchester. 

There are no public buildings.  There's no courthouse, jail, arsenal or any such thing.  If there's a dispute a mob is summoned up and the complainers shout out their cases.  Whichever side gets the loudest shouts by the crowd is deemed the winner and must give way or get out of town.   Everyone in town is expected to do 1 day of gate-duty per month or else he gets pelted by dung by his neighbors.  Folks told me that occasionally a thug tries to set himself up as boss, but there is an immediate violent reaction to the attempt.  Each of the last 3 local bandits who tried to take over the town were killed by a local resident called Iron Frank, who otherwise keeps to himself.

There was no church until this month, when one cabin was purchased by an out-of-towner and a missionary curate was installed.  The people expected him to be preaching up a storm, but he seems to spend most of his time sitting by himself in the cabin drinking corn liquor.

There are a number of colorful characters in town, one calls himself Taglac, and is a big, ugly fellow (he might be a half-orc, but might just be ugly).  He has an exceptionally hairy body and goes around wearing a cloak that is covered by small bells.  This has led to the locals calling him 'Tinkerbell" behind his back.  He recently hired a large gang of squatters to build him an underground chamber outside the town.   He might have wanted it to be a secret, but there were 30-40 guys engaged in the digging, so everyone knows it's there.

Another notable resident is Granny Crawford, the town busy-body.  It's rumored that in her youth she got herself into serious legal trouble in Portchester and is outlawed, but no one has any details.  Now, she is famous for gossip and an extremely palatable turnip mush.

I doubt I'd make this place a regular stop on my rounds, but it's okay if you have stuff you want to dump in exchange for hides or Ardean bricks.   On the other hand, it's a lot more open and far less oppressive than trying to do business in Bastardville, where the "Bees" take a cut of everything and bully you the whole time.

Your pal,
Bosco Smokey

Movies

I watched 2 movies on TV recently, both of which are not exactly recent, but not exactly ancient:

The DaVinci Code:  I had read the book when it came out, and thought, to quote the emperor (Dom Deluise) in "History of the World, part 1"  "Nice, nice, not thrilling, but nice."   The movie was pretty much just like the book, and it does prove that you can make a book into a movie without doing violence to the story.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:  I had avoided watching this because everyone said it was so bad.  Actually, I didn't think that it was any stupider than any of the other Indiana Jones movies (putting aside surviving a nuclear bomb test by hiding in a refrigirator).  So, not as bad as I expected, nothing to write home about (although apparently something to write about from home).

Aggh

I really didn't realize it had been 2 weeks since I blogged here.   The last 2 weeks have been completely insane at work (which you might have guessed at if you've seen the local paper).  I think that the most grevious parts are over, so I can do more game stuff.

I did print out a bunch of cards for the hireling deck.  I updated the Professionals, Lenny the Stabber and Bull-buggering Jack and a few of the other henchmen who weren'tt correct.  I also added a handful of replacements and additional guys.

Of course, right after I wrote them up, I ran out of toner in my printer.   I ordered a new cartridge online and didn't get it until yesterday.   I was also having a problem with printing out cards on my printer.  It's real fussy about how you set up the file.   You have to set the size as 4" WIDE and 6" HIGH and then switch to landscape, any other set up just doesn't work.

I'm going to try to do a Portchester News tomorrow before the game.