... and I play in a land where all the men are bearded, and all the women are redheads.
This week anyway.
Photo by me, which is why I'm not in it. Not that you guys want to see me in another photo ever again. ;)
Showing posts with label My Campaign. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Campaign. Show all posts
Sunday, January 4, 2009
I play.
... and I play in a land where all the men are bearded, and all the women are redheads.
This week anyway.
Photo by me, which is why I'm not in it. Not that you guys want to see me in another photo ever again. ;)
Friday, December 19, 2008
A Weighty Issue
Encumbrance.
Players don't want to track it because it's just pure paperwork to do something that hinders their character.
The referee doesn't want to do it because he's got his own crap to take care of without worrying about every coin that every character is carrying.
But I believe encumbrance is important, and not just for "realism" reasons.
Encumbrance affects movement rate, which becomes an issue when needing to run from a monster. Can you outrun the monster? Can you if you drop that big fat sack of loot you're carrying? Can you outrun the dumb bugger who won't drop his big fat sack of loot?
Loot or equipment? My current campaign is plagued with a lot of oil flask bombings, which I'm admittedly soft on. But every coin, if 10 coins = 1 pound, creates a dilemma. "Do we need this many torches? This many flasks? Or do we want this treasure instead?"
I like that it creates choices.
My main problem in enforcing encumbrance isn't keeping track of the weight. That's easy. The problem is a measure of capacity.
You know, the guys carrying a ten foot pole, a lantern, shield, sword, plus having holy water, oil flasks, and his scrolls and potions at the ready. He's also carrying the group's treasure and mapping. And if something happens while he's checking for secret doors, this is all at hand anyway.
Because I'm dealing with five to eight people and dealing with the environment and its inhabitants too, I can miss this. I'm not even sure if this is happening. I'm just suspecting that it might be. Yeah, I keep everyone's character sheet between sessions, but a simple list of equipment ("It's on my horse!") isn't enough for a conviction. It's not that I think they're cheating or anything, it's just that if I'm not keeping track or seeming to care much, why would they?
I need a solution to this. Here is what I am going to try.
Index cards!
Every player will have two index cards standing folded in front of him at the table, each representing one hand of the adventurer. One side of the fold will be non-combat, the other combat. And I can enforce some simple rules:
Torch or lantern takes up a hand.
Shield takes up a hand (I won't believe that an adventurer is walking around for hours with a shield strapped to a raised arm carrying something else).
A non-empty sack takes up a hand.
Mapping takes up two hands (did your character buy his mapping paper?)
Weapon takes up a hand.
A staff takes up a hand, can't be stuffed in a sack or anything.
Each player will also have an index card representing his body (belts and straps to hold things), one representing his backpack (they've all got one, and your characters should too!), and one for each sack or other container being carried.
Carried items will not be placed on a general "equipment sheet," but on these index cards, in order to regulate the carrying capacities of each item. I shudder to think how much stuff some of my players might have stuffed in a sack, you know? No "group treasure" list, unless somebody's backpack is the group treasure receptacle.
I'll tell them it's up to them to keep track of their items, and I have the right to "audit" their equipment lists at any time however often I want. On first infraction, I issue a warning. On second infraction, I confiscate one of their packs (preferably one with the party treasure or the mystic key to open the important doodad) and say they dropped it somewhere and dungeon filth carried it off...
What do you think?
Players don't want to track it because it's just pure paperwork to do something that hinders their character.
The referee doesn't want to do it because he's got his own crap to take care of without worrying about every coin that every character is carrying.
But I believe encumbrance is important, and not just for "realism" reasons.
Encumbrance affects movement rate, which becomes an issue when needing to run from a monster. Can you outrun the monster? Can you if you drop that big fat sack of loot you're carrying? Can you outrun the dumb bugger who won't drop his big fat sack of loot?
Loot or equipment? My current campaign is plagued with a lot of oil flask bombings, which I'm admittedly soft on. But every coin, if 10 coins = 1 pound, creates a dilemma. "Do we need this many torches? This many flasks? Or do we want this treasure instead?"
I like that it creates choices.
My main problem in enforcing encumbrance isn't keeping track of the weight. That's easy. The problem is a measure of capacity.
You know, the guys carrying a ten foot pole, a lantern, shield, sword, plus having holy water, oil flasks, and his scrolls and potions at the ready. He's also carrying the group's treasure and mapping. And if something happens while he's checking for secret doors, this is all at hand anyway.
Because I'm dealing with five to eight people and dealing with the environment and its inhabitants too, I can miss this. I'm not even sure if this is happening. I'm just suspecting that it might be. Yeah, I keep everyone's character sheet between sessions, but a simple list of equipment ("It's on my horse!") isn't enough for a conviction. It's not that I think they're cheating or anything, it's just that if I'm not keeping track or seeming to care much, why would they?
I need a solution to this. Here is what I am going to try.
Index cards!
Every player will have two index cards standing folded in front of him at the table, each representing one hand of the adventurer. One side of the fold will be non-combat, the other combat. And I can enforce some simple rules:
Torch or lantern takes up a hand.
Shield takes up a hand (I won't believe that an adventurer is walking around for hours with a shield strapped to a raised arm carrying something else).
A non-empty sack takes up a hand.
Mapping takes up two hands (did your character buy his mapping paper?)
Weapon takes up a hand.
A staff takes up a hand, can't be stuffed in a sack or anything.
Each player will also have an index card representing his body (belts and straps to hold things), one representing his backpack (they've all got one, and your characters should too!), and one for each sack or other container being carried.
Carried items will not be placed on a general "equipment sheet," but on these index cards, in order to regulate the carrying capacities of each item. I shudder to think how much stuff some of my players might have stuffed in a sack, you know? No "group treasure" list, unless somebody's backpack is the group treasure receptacle.
I'll tell them it's up to them to keep track of their items, and I have the right to "audit" their equipment lists at any time however often I want. On first infraction, I issue a warning. On second infraction, I confiscate one of their packs (preferably one with the party treasure or the mystic key to open the important doodad) and say they dropped it somewhere and dungeon filth carried it off...
What do you think?
Thursday, October 23, 2008
My Current Campaign Activities
For my weekly game, I have an old dwarven shrine to detail and flesh out and present on Sunday. Straightforward.
For the secondary campaign... with the OD&D rules hack... well... that's turned into a ridiculous project. Here's where I am with it:
Character creation and definition is done. Seven classes: Fighting Man, Magic-User, Cleric, Dwarf, Hobbit, Elf, and Gnome. 3d6, down the line, with original box ability score bonuses (ha!).
The demi-human classes have little bits to make them... different: The Dwarf is from Dragon #3, with my adding in that they can not use magic items at all, and I'm wondering whether I am going to make them completely immune to magic at all as well. This would mean healing spells and potions don't work either, so it's not just an easy choice to avoid fireballs. The Hobbit is basically the Thief class from Greyhawk with some flavor added. The Elf is the Druid class (so they get a different spell list than mages), with elfy flavor, with the added restriction that they absolutely may not touch iron or steel, and take damage if they do. The Gnome is the illusionist class, and able to cast spells if wearing magic armor.
Money will use a silver standard. Beginning money is 3d6x10 sp. But... the prices remain in gold pieces as they are. Beginning adventurers will be running around with spears and leather armor, hoping to win enough loot to buy such a grand weapon as a sword, and then the impossible dream of a horse and a suit of plate mail armor... All of the treasure tables have been shifted so what used to be sp are now cp, gp are now sp, pp are now gp, and the old electrum and copper columns went bye-bye. Gems and jewelry retain their gp value though.
XP will be awarded as the original box set states. It's a little bit more bookkeeping, but nothing too big. I like the idea that a 5th level guy can adventure with a 2nd level guy and the 5th level guy, even with an equal split of gross XP, nets far less than the 2nd level guy. This will be for monsters only though... gold will still be on a 1=1 basis to prevent "No, no, when we ran I only dropped the orc loot, not the minotaur loot!" arguments. OD&D experience point bonuses for prime requisites (gnome = CHA, hobbit = DEX, dwarf = CON, elf = SOL).
Combat will be the Man-to-Man system in Chainmail, initiative determined by weapon speeds and all. To handle combat with monsters, I'm adding a few armor types to the table and a few monster attack types, with easy conversion notes (1 - 3HD monsters with claw attacks use Claw 1, 4-7HD use Claw 2, 8+ use Claw 3, for example). I need to get away from the "Alternate Combat System" altogether with this campaign. All HD and damage dice are d6.
Most of the actual rules (not like OD&D gives many... :P) will come from Mentzer and Labyrinth Lord, depending on what I find easier.
The spell lists are directly from the AD&D Players Handbook (not enough choice and detail in the OD&D books), with lots of editing made (thank god for pdf cut and pasting). Gone are all mentions of segments and components and damage is all converted to d6s. Clerics have absolutely no direct offense spells now (and Blade Barrier becomes the Barrier spell from the Mentzer versions). I nearly just used the Mentzer version of the spells, but with a piss-poor Druid (Elf in my campaign) spell list and nothing for Illusionists (Gnomes), it would look crappy to take half the spells from one source and half from another. Oh, and everyone must keep spell books. Or "prayer books" in the cleric's case.
Magic items will be a mix of Mentzer (weapons and armor from the Expert and Companion rules, for sure!) and AD&D (miscellaneous items!), edited to conform to the above rules changes. All random tables changed to bell-curve probabilities so things like potions and scrolls will really show up a lot more.
Mentzer monsters for the most part (they seem easier to convert for my purposes, and boy do I love the Morale stat being right there), and then a modified version of my Creature Generator (to take into account the different way I'm handling monster attacks and armor in this campaign) for anything wild...
It's been a most edifying journey these past few weeks of flipping between AD&D and OD&D and Mentzer and Basic Fantasy RPG and OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord and Chainmail to put together my ultimate little D&D of my own. Comments and suggestions please.
For the secondary campaign... with the OD&D rules hack... well... that's turned into a ridiculous project. Here's where I am with it:
Character creation and definition is done. Seven classes: Fighting Man, Magic-User, Cleric, Dwarf, Hobbit, Elf, and Gnome. 3d6, down the line, with original box ability score bonuses (ha!).
The demi-human classes have little bits to make them... different: The Dwarf is from Dragon #3, with my adding in that they can not use magic items at all, and I'm wondering whether I am going to make them completely immune to magic at all as well. This would mean healing spells and potions don't work either, so it's not just an easy choice to avoid fireballs. The Hobbit is basically the Thief class from Greyhawk with some flavor added. The Elf is the Druid class (so they get a different spell list than mages), with elfy flavor, with the added restriction that they absolutely may not touch iron or steel, and take damage if they do. The Gnome is the illusionist class, and able to cast spells if wearing magic armor.
Money will use a silver standard. Beginning money is 3d6x10 sp. But... the prices remain in gold pieces as they are. Beginning adventurers will be running around with spears and leather armor, hoping to win enough loot to buy such a grand weapon as a sword, and then the impossible dream of a horse and a suit of plate mail armor... All of the treasure tables have been shifted so what used to be sp are now cp, gp are now sp, pp are now gp, and the old electrum and copper columns went bye-bye. Gems and jewelry retain their gp value though.
XP will be awarded as the original box set states. It's a little bit more bookkeeping, but nothing too big. I like the idea that a 5th level guy can adventure with a 2nd level guy and the 5th level guy, even with an equal split of gross XP, nets far less than the 2nd level guy. This will be for monsters only though... gold will still be on a 1=1 basis to prevent "No, no, when we ran I only dropped the orc loot, not the minotaur loot!" arguments. OD&D experience point bonuses for prime requisites (gnome = CHA, hobbit = DEX, dwarf = CON, elf = SOL).
Combat will be the Man-to-Man system in Chainmail, initiative determined by weapon speeds and all. To handle combat with monsters, I'm adding a few armor types to the table and a few monster attack types, with easy conversion notes (1 - 3HD monsters with claw attacks use Claw 1, 4-7HD use Claw 2, 8+ use Claw 3, for example). I need to get away from the "Alternate Combat System" altogether with this campaign. All HD and damage dice are d6.
Most of the actual rules (not like OD&D gives many... :P) will come from Mentzer and Labyrinth Lord, depending on what I find easier.
The spell lists are directly from the AD&D Players Handbook (not enough choice and detail in the OD&D books), with lots of editing made (thank god for pdf cut and pasting). Gone are all mentions of segments and components and damage is all converted to d6s. Clerics have absolutely no direct offense spells now (and Blade Barrier becomes the Barrier spell from the Mentzer versions). I nearly just used the Mentzer version of the spells, but with a piss-poor Druid (Elf in my campaign) spell list and nothing for Illusionists (Gnomes), it would look crappy to take half the spells from one source and half from another. Oh, and everyone must keep spell books. Or "prayer books" in the cleric's case.
Magic items will be a mix of Mentzer (weapons and armor from the Expert and Companion rules, for sure!) and AD&D (miscellaneous items!), edited to conform to the above rules changes. All random tables changed to bell-curve probabilities so things like potions and scrolls will really show up a lot more.
Mentzer monsters for the most part (they seem easier to convert for my purposes, and boy do I love the Morale stat being right there), and then a modified version of my Creature Generator (to take into account the different way I'm handling monster attacks and armor in this campaign) for anything wild...
It's been a most edifying journey these past few weeks of flipping between AD&D and OD&D and Mentzer and Basic Fantasy RPG and OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord and Chainmail to put together my ultimate little D&D of my own. Comments and suggestions please.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Pulped Justice
A couple sessions back I ran the Ruined Monastery adventure (James Maliszewski's contribution to Fight On! #1). In my version, Melchert was a half-goblin cleric, and the purpose of the Monastery and this level was to seal off and guard the lower crypts, which were of ancient and evil origin.
Anyway, they capture Melchert alive. They charm him and question him. And when they have their information... they pass judgement. One of the clerics, armed with a maul, takes a full swing at their bound prisoner to finish him off, execution style. It did so much damage I ruled that it completely crushed his head, sending skull bits, brains, and teeth all over the room.
And considering what he was and what he worshipped, this was considered a righteous act by most, if not all, of the people in the room.
This past session, the PCs were deep in the crypts and cut off from escape by THOUSANDS of undead that awoke behind them. To find a way out, they searched several VIP crypts... and found a vampire. (Mind you, the party was all 1st level save for one 2nd level character). The vampire made them a simple deal: He'll tell them how to get out but they have to transport his coffin to an agreed-on location two days' journey north. Or, he can just kill them.
The fun part is one of the other party members was in another room... and found the way out on his own.
So the vampire's deal changed. "Transport me or die."
So now two party members, including a cleric (not the same one that executed Melchert), are oathbound to transport this vampire's coffin, and protect him from harm.
The complications to throw at them are rather obvious, wouldn't you say?
And the taint of the evil cult's temple and crypts below the Monastery, previously guarded by Saint Gagyx the Grey, has seeped into the world.
Anyway, they capture Melchert alive. They charm him and question him. And when they have their information... they pass judgement. One of the clerics, armed with a maul, takes a full swing at their bound prisoner to finish him off, execution style. It did so much damage I ruled that it completely crushed his head, sending skull bits, brains, and teeth all over the room.
And considering what he was and what he worshipped, this was considered a righteous act by most, if not all, of the people in the room.
This past session, the PCs were deep in the crypts and cut off from escape by THOUSANDS of undead that awoke behind them. To find a way out, they searched several VIP crypts... and found a vampire. (Mind you, the party was all 1st level save for one 2nd level character). The vampire made them a simple deal: He'll tell them how to get out but they have to transport his coffin to an agreed-on location two days' journey north. Or, he can just kill them.
The fun part is one of the other party members was in another room... and found the way out on his own.
So the vampire's deal changed. "Transport me or die."
So now two party members, including a cleric (not the same one that executed Melchert), are oathbound to transport this vampire's coffin, and protect him from harm.
The complications to throw at them are rather obvious, wouldn't you say?
And the taint of the evil cult's temple and crypts below the Monastery, previously guarded by Saint Gagyx the Grey, has seeped into the world.
Reader Participation
For players:
- What would you have done when the righteous cleric, a member of your party for purposes of this question, declares she's going to execute the helpless worshipper of evil?
- What would you do realizing two members of your party, undoubtedly good people, are transporting an evil creature, basically to freedom, and are oathbound to do so and make sure no harm comes to it?
For referees:
- How would you handle the execution as a referee? (We're using BFRPG, so there are no official alignments, although I still keep track of basic Good/Evil stuff "unofficially." But your game may use alignments, and this cleric had acted roughly NG through previous play... and my players pretty much thought of the execution as a Lawful act, if not a Good one.)
- What difficulties would you throw at the characters transporting the vampire?
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Post-Ropecon! Gaming theory on Killing PCs!
OK. ay ay ay. Learned a lot of things.
A- The staff is really friendly. I really need to publicly thank Janne Lahdenperä for holding my hand through the early hours of the con... being a foreigner that couldn't read the website enough to know what the hell to do after I was accepted for running games (and I waited until the last day to register for that as it is), and not knowing even where to go or what to do when I arrived... he was very patient and helpful.
B- Don't schedule games on Sunday. Go all night Friday (which I did), all night Saturday (which I didn't), but people aren't going to do Jack Shit on Sunday. Neither planned adventure had players. Two people ended up playing a pick-up AD&D game with me, both characters died, so that brings the total body count to 17 PCs I killed over the weekend.
C- Don't sleep on the convention floor. Schedule to start Friday and Saturday afternoon, go home at sunrise, sleep, come back in time for the next afternoon. Sleep is important. Otherwise you're in the third row falling asleep during Chris Pramas' presentation on world-building in RPGs and even when I got focused I wasn't able to grill him on a few things like I wanted. I bet he gets a kick out of the Creature Generator's intro. But I'm 33 now... going two days without proper food and sleep isn't something I should do anymore. One day is enough. :D This year I ran 15.5 hours of games at the con. Next year, I am going to aim for 24. And I'll see if I can arrange everything early enough to get in the official program.
D- Do play more games. I never get to fucking PLAY anything. In Helsinki, it's the worst. I mean, I can set up my game and it's fair to say, "Game's in English." I really wouldn't feel right trying to join another game (at a con or someone's home game) and making all of them change how they speak for me. My Sunday 10am-2pm game was a total bust, no sign-ups, so I got to play a two hour demo of A Dirty World run by Greg Stolze. I'm not so interested in film noir (which is the focus of the game... example... I'm falsely accused of murder... I find out the murdered man has a kept mistress and we visit her apartment... when we get there, there's someone inside clomping around; it's obviously not her. Do we bust in and demand to know what's going on, or do I figure that just maybe this is unconnected to our plot (a red herring!) and that maybe it's someone that has no connection to us at all, so maybe we should knock because an accused killer doesn't need any more problems than he's got? Guess what I did?), but I enjoyed the game (Stolze certainly had a cracking little scenario for his demo), but I was mainly interested in checking out how the One Roll Engine worked. I liked it. I really liked it. If it's like that for all the ORE games (is it? Someone tell me), I really want to play Reign.
But I would never *run* it. See, this whole traditional D&D thing... that's mainly a "MY GAME" thing. When it comes to *playing* I'm wide open. No late-edition D&D, no White Wolf. Otherwise... I really, really like the idea of playing a lot of these "story games" and things like that, I'd love to play Sorcerer, and I'm aching to play Dogs in the Vineyard (I've run it a couple times), but the GM would have to be on his toes because I'm a bastard as a player. :D But I want to play mystery/investigation stuff, I want I want I want I want... :P But it's even hard for me to play actual real D&D (TSR stuff) because I'll start attempting to turn their game into my game and I'll be really angry if it's a completely bad mix. Kind of like how a bad country song doesn't bother me, but a bad heavy metal song infuriates me. I'm too close to it.
E- It's really depressing that I have real trouble connecting to people I have anything in common with. Nobody I know, or date, can listen to me talk about my hobbies. Or if I force them, they have nothing to contribute. (and contribution is really what I'm after...) Here I was in a convention with thousands of gamers of various stripes, and I had no idea how to talk to any of them if I didn't already know them or if they weren't coming to play my game. I mean, I have my group here, but I don't socialize with those guys. I've tried socializing with one of them, but... resistance from that side. :P Life lesson: If I have something to say to someone outside of bed, chances are I'm not going to get very far into their life. And if I'm hanging around someone quite a bit, chances are I don't have much to say to them that they want to hear, and vice versa.
OK, sorry, no more personal bullshit in this blog. :D
F- Players like to get fucked over in a game. Really. I killed 17 PCs this weekend. Five survived.
While playing Tomb of Horrors overnight Friday to Saturday, I noticed that while they were frustrated and pulling their hair out, they also cheered and laughed and smiled as their characters got blasted and fried and disintegrated and sex-changed and everything. Even after 3am, when a character died, the player stuck around to watch the rest of the game. There are a couple of conditions to this "player likes to get fucked over" thing though.
You have to be impartial about it. When the characters died in all these games, I don't believe any of them thought "The GM was out to get me!" They knew I was running the scenarios as written. I wasn't out to get them, they were in a dangerous spot and dangerous things happen to people who go there.
They have to know that they didn't have to die. This, I think, is key. Instant death no escape... not good. "I made a bad decision and my character croaked," fair play. One thing I do after TPKs or "Screw this, we're leaving!" situations, if the group won't return to the location, is give away all the secrets. "You missed this, this, and this." Explain how they could have survived a trap, or whatever. It lets them know that success was possible, they just didn't do it right. Which helps enthusiasm and morale more than if they just think they got hosed by an impossible adventure. Tomb of Horrors is a mighty deadly place, but it's not unbeatable. You just have to make a lot of good decisions to get through. Or maybe use more augury (they bypassed the false entrances this way!) and other divination spells a lot.
Here's how the deaths happened this weekend:
Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan... while examining the liquid light well, the voice from above calls out... "Accept the gift of Liquid Light! Climb down the well!" He did. Can't blame the GM for that one.
Hidden Shrine... Xilonen. Two characters made a run for it... didn't work. These guys engaged a lot of situations they could have avoided, and they didn't check all possible paths before deciding to dash through danger. Not my fault. :D
Tomb of Horrors... in the Chapel of Evil... they were stuck and not sure what to do. The paladin detected good instead of evil, so maybe making an offering was what was needed to open up a passage? One guy sacrificed a chicken (four guys that never played D&D before were there... and I gave them the PHB equipment lists to outfit their character with... heh) at the altar. When the blood hit... ZZAAAPPP lightning bolt! And when the altar was glowing fiery red, somebody had the idea to pour holy water on it... BOOOOOM!!! Totally not my fault.
Tomb of Horrors... Three died past the Locked Oaken Door. Into the lava! "I run forward!" OK, this is a mean trap, but still... if the floor is beginning to tilt, you go back to stable ground, right? Right? Not my fault.
They could not find that (didn't even look for) the secret door in that third pit. It's a marvelous setup. Make the players so frickin sick of the pits that by the time they hit the third one, they know it's there and it's a quick "We do the same thing," that they did to bypass the first two. They don't even think about the pit. haha! So they were STUCK. No clue what to do. So two of them decide that The Face of the Great Green Devil in the first room must go somewhere. Yeah. To oblivion. Two more. Not my fault.
White Plume Mountain: If you grab Wave, the crab is going to attack you and only you, right? Guarding that thing is the only purpose it serves, right? Not my fault.
White Plume Mountain: That copper-plated heat corridor is BRUTAL. Especially when the clerics bought the silver holy symbols so they're in the pile with the rest of the hot stuff being pulled across. When those ghouls attack the group of unarmored people... heeheehee. Nobody died in this encounter, but three were paralyzed. A wizard with his spells just about depleted, and a cleric keeping the ghouls turned and in their little side-room. Then the 1 in 12 chance for wandering monsters pays off as they wait for the paralyzation to wear off. I was rolling wandering monsters checks out in the open, so no foul there. It was an invisible stalker. So suddenly the cleric is attacked by something he can barely see (standing water in the passage so it wasn't completely invisible and undetectable, I gave -2 instead of -4 to hit). Dead. Magic-user runs away. Invisible Stalker has a 4 course meal.
OK, that's just bad luck. But the first guy through the passage actually found the secret door to the ghouls, but did not look inside! He didn't have any light to see in (it was all in the hands of his comrades before the heat passage)... and I ruled the ghouls wouldn't charge out for one person when there's obviously many more to come (from all the communication down the hall). Maybe these were my fault.
And then from my own adventure today... again involving ghouls. Two characters in a barn... the door has been barred from the outside, but it's established that the hay loft is open. So. You've defeated the evil priest, and the two ghouls are turned and cowering in the corner. Do you leave the barn through the hayloft and burn the place down... or do you charge the ghouls, breaking the turning, and end up paralyzed (3 attacks per round... deadly!) and eaten? Guess what they did? Not my fault!
Anyway, I think my own campaign is going to get a bit more peppy next week.
And I think I need to go ahead with that adventure anthology where it's designed to TPK whoever runs through it by means of sheer bad decision-making on the PCs part. The "Without a scratch or all dead, depending on the choices they make," kind of thing, which seems pretty Weird Tales and sword and sorcery to me.
Shall I playtest those scenarios with my group first? :D :D :D Do I really want to eat those four siders?
A- The staff is really friendly. I really need to publicly thank Janne Lahdenperä for holding my hand through the early hours of the con... being a foreigner that couldn't read the website enough to know what the hell to do after I was accepted for running games (and I waited until the last day to register for that as it is), and not knowing even where to go or what to do when I arrived... he was very patient and helpful.
B- Don't schedule games on Sunday. Go all night Friday (which I did), all night Saturday (which I didn't), but people aren't going to do Jack Shit on Sunday. Neither planned adventure had players. Two people ended up playing a pick-up AD&D game with me, both characters died, so that brings the total body count to 17 PCs I killed over the weekend.
C- Don't sleep on the convention floor. Schedule to start Friday and Saturday afternoon, go home at sunrise, sleep, come back in time for the next afternoon. Sleep is important. Otherwise you're in the third row falling asleep during Chris Pramas' presentation on world-building in RPGs and even when I got focused I wasn't able to grill him on a few things like I wanted. I bet he gets a kick out of the Creature Generator's intro. But I'm 33 now... going two days without proper food and sleep isn't something I should do anymore. One day is enough. :D This year I ran 15.5 hours of games at the con. Next year, I am going to aim for 24. And I'll see if I can arrange everything early enough to get in the official program.
D- Do play more games. I never get to fucking PLAY anything. In Helsinki, it's the worst. I mean, I can set up my game and it's fair to say, "Game's in English." I really wouldn't feel right trying to join another game (at a con or someone's home game) and making all of them change how they speak for me. My Sunday 10am-2pm game was a total bust, no sign-ups, so I got to play a two hour demo of A Dirty World run by Greg Stolze. I'm not so interested in film noir (which is the focus of the game... example... I'm falsely accused of murder... I find out the murdered man has a kept mistress and we visit her apartment... when we get there, there's someone inside clomping around; it's obviously not her. Do we bust in and demand to know what's going on, or do I figure that just maybe this is unconnected to our plot (a red herring!) and that maybe it's someone that has no connection to us at all, so maybe we should knock because an accused killer doesn't need any more problems than he's got? Guess what I did?), but I enjoyed the game (Stolze certainly had a cracking little scenario for his demo), but I was mainly interested in checking out how the One Roll Engine worked. I liked it. I really liked it. If it's like that for all the ORE games (is it? Someone tell me), I really want to play Reign.
But I would never *run* it. See, this whole traditional D&D thing... that's mainly a "MY GAME" thing. When it comes to *playing* I'm wide open. No late-edition D&D, no White Wolf. Otherwise... I really, really like the idea of playing a lot of these "story games" and things like that, I'd love to play Sorcerer, and I'm aching to play Dogs in the Vineyard (I've run it a couple times), but the GM would have to be on his toes because I'm a bastard as a player. :D But I want to play mystery/investigation stuff, I want I want I want I want... :P But it's even hard for me to play actual real D&D (TSR stuff) because I'll start attempting to turn their game into my game and I'll be really angry if it's a completely bad mix. Kind of like how a bad country song doesn't bother me, but a bad heavy metal song infuriates me. I'm too close to it.
E- It's really depressing that I have real trouble connecting to people I have anything in common with. Nobody I know, or date, can listen to me talk about my hobbies. Or if I force them, they have nothing to contribute. (and contribution is really what I'm after...) Here I was in a convention with thousands of gamers of various stripes, and I had no idea how to talk to any of them if I didn't already know them or if they weren't coming to play my game. I mean, I have my group here, but I don't socialize with those guys. I've tried socializing with one of them, but... resistance from that side. :P Life lesson: If I have something to say to someone outside of bed, chances are I'm not going to get very far into their life. And if I'm hanging around someone quite a bit, chances are I don't have much to say to them that they want to hear, and vice versa.
OK, sorry, no more personal bullshit in this blog. :D
F- Players like to get fucked over in a game. Really. I killed 17 PCs this weekend. Five survived.
While playing Tomb of Horrors overnight Friday to Saturday, I noticed that while they were frustrated and pulling their hair out, they also cheered and laughed and smiled as their characters got blasted and fried and disintegrated and sex-changed and everything. Even after 3am, when a character died, the player stuck around to watch the rest of the game. There are a couple of conditions to this "player likes to get fucked over" thing though.
You have to be impartial about it. When the characters died in all these games, I don't believe any of them thought "The GM was out to get me!" They knew I was running the scenarios as written. I wasn't out to get them, they were in a dangerous spot and dangerous things happen to people who go there.
They have to know that they didn't have to die. This, I think, is key. Instant death no escape... not good. "I made a bad decision and my character croaked," fair play. One thing I do after TPKs or "Screw this, we're leaving!" situations, if the group won't return to the location, is give away all the secrets. "You missed this, this, and this." Explain how they could have survived a trap, or whatever. It lets them know that success was possible, they just didn't do it right. Which helps enthusiasm and morale more than if they just think they got hosed by an impossible adventure. Tomb of Horrors is a mighty deadly place, but it's not unbeatable. You just have to make a lot of good decisions to get through. Or maybe use more augury (they bypassed the false entrances this way!) and other divination spells a lot.
Here's how the deaths happened this weekend:
Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan... while examining the liquid light well, the voice from above calls out... "Accept the gift of Liquid Light! Climb down the well!" He did. Can't blame the GM for that one.
Hidden Shrine... Xilonen. Two characters made a run for it... didn't work. These guys engaged a lot of situations they could have avoided, and they didn't check all possible paths before deciding to dash through danger. Not my fault. :D
Tomb of Horrors... in the Chapel of Evil... they were stuck and not sure what to do. The paladin detected good instead of evil, so maybe making an offering was what was needed to open up a passage? One guy sacrificed a chicken (four guys that never played D&D before were there... and I gave them the PHB equipment lists to outfit their character with... heh) at the altar. When the blood hit... ZZAAAPPP lightning bolt! And when the altar was glowing fiery red, somebody had the idea to pour holy water on it... BOOOOOM!!! Totally not my fault.
Tomb of Horrors... Three died past the Locked Oaken Door. Into the lava! "I run forward!" OK, this is a mean trap, but still... if the floor is beginning to tilt, you go back to stable ground, right? Right? Not my fault.
They could not find that (didn't even look for) the secret door in that third pit. It's a marvelous setup. Make the players so frickin sick of the pits that by the time they hit the third one, they know it's there and it's a quick "We do the same thing," that they did to bypass the first two. They don't even think about the pit. haha! So they were STUCK. No clue what to do. So two of them decide that The Face of the Great Green Devil in the first room must go somewhere. Yeah. To oblivion. Two more. Not my fault.
White Plume Mountain: If you grab Wave, the crab is going to attack you and only you, right? Guarding that thing is the only purpose it serves, right? Not my fault.
White Plume Mountain: That copper-plated heat corridor is BRUTAL. Especially when the clerics bought the silver holy symbols so they're in the pile with the rest of the hot stuff being pulled across. When those ghouls attack the group of unarmored people... heeheehee. Nobody died in this encounter, but three were paralyzed. A wizard with his spells just about depleted, and a cleric keeping the ghouls turned and in their little side-room. Then the 1 in 12 chance for wandering monsters pays off as they wait for the paralyzation to wear off. I was rolling wandering monsters checks out in the open, so no foul there. It was an invisible stalker. So suddenly the cleric is attacked by something he can barely see (standing water in the passage so it wasn't completely invisible and undetectable, I gave -2 instead of -4 to hit). Dead. Magic-user runs away. Invisible Stalker has a 4 course meal.
OK, that's just bad luck. But the first guy through the passage actually found the secret door to the ghouls, but did not look inside! He didn't have any light to see in (it was all in the hands of his comrades before the heat passage)... and I ruled the ghouls wouldn't charge out for one person when there's obviously many more to come (from all the communication down the hall). Maybe these were my fault.
And then from my own adventure today... again involving ghouls. Two characters in a barn... the door has been barred from the outside, but it's established that the hay loft is open. So. You've defeated the evil priest, and the two ghouls are turned and cowering in the corner. Do you leave the barn through the hayloft and burn the place down... or do you charge the ghouls, breaking the turning, and end up paralyzed (3 attacks per round... deadly!) and eaten? Guess what they did? Not my fault!
Anyway, I think my own campaign is going to get a bit more peppy next week.
And I think I need to go ahead with that adventure anthology where it's designed to TPK whoever runs through it by means of sheer bad decision-making on the PCs part. The "Without a scratch or all dead, depending on the choices they make," kind of thing, which seems pretty Weird Tales and sword and sorcery to me.
Shall I playtest those scenarios with my group first? :D :D :D Do I really want to eat those four siders?
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Adventure Hooks!
Ahhh, my setting. That map was drawn in 1990. Being 15 and coming up with some of those names... ay ay ay. Anyway, I erased the Empire's old name, and just made it "The Empire." Sparnburg, Tarrog, and Murdonland are part of the Empire as well.
Anyway, there's a two week break from my campaign, as many people were busy this week, and next week is Ropecon. In the meantime, I'm offering up these little hooks to my players, so they can tell me what kind of adventure they want to go on for next time (their characters are presently in the Pernell capital):
- Merchant is looking to hire bodyguards for a trading expedition to the northern tribal lands.
- A merchant says he was swindled by a wizard in eastern Pernell... wants "collection" work done.
- Merchants are always looking for guards for their caravans hauling dangerous monsters and wild beasts to the capital of the Empire for the arena games...
- Prospectors in Northeast Pernell tell of a ruined monastery in the mountains that has been defiled and tainted by Chaos...
- A village towards Tawrburg has expelled its priest and closed down the church - and church officials in Pernell want someone to investigate.
- In eastern Sparnburg, they're offering hard coin for goblin scalps...
- Stone Hold (located in the mountains between Sparnburg and Pernell) authorities are looking for 'outside help' in clearing ancient tombs and lingering traces of undead
- Petty nobles along the eastern edge of the Empire are always looking to hire mercenaries in their battles against neighboring nobles. Oppressed peasants are always sending someone into Pernell looking for someone to lead their revolt...
- There are the dwarves from the first adventure, and the underground dwellers from last adventure, if you want to follow-up there...
- Pot luck! Explore and run into a random scenario that I pull out of my folder.
Which would you choose? Why?
Monday, July 28, 2008
The First Two Adventures
'allo...
The first three sessions of my BFRPG campaign are in the books. There were two "missions" completed in that time, take-your-time exploration-and-mystery adventures, because I wanted to see how these guys operated... and the first two sessions only had a few players, and heavy action with a small number of 1st level BFRPG characters would be a massacre. I won't give "session reports," but I'll describe the adventure setup for the two.
Adventure 1
A remote mining village at the end of civilization is celebrating a late spring/early summer festival. The six most beautiful couples are getting married, and then the next day the husbands compete in "games." The games continue, day after day, until one of the men dies (Consider it a sword-and-sorcery version of "Extreme Sports."). The day after that happens, his new bride is taken up a mountain, bedecked in expensive jewels, and sacrificed to the "spirits of the mountain" who ensure that there are no raiders, earthquakes, avalanches, cave-ins, or any other sort of catastrophe.
Facts:
So how do the PCs get involved? The well-to-do family of one of the "lucky women" getting married is secretly unhappy with the whole situation. The festival attracts a good number of travelers who want to see the games, and this family has spies among the festival crowd listening for people who express displeasure with the whole thing. (The PCs will say how screwed up this is when they ask what the festival actually is, right?) The family will then basically beg these anarchic dissidents to save their daughter, if she is "chosen," take her far away from this place, and of course keep the jewels as payment. But they have to do it without letting the villagers know that everything didn't go as planned - they'd panic. The family isn't concerned about the dragon (they know) getting pissed; they're confident that a few more sacrifices hastily put together would solve any situation.
So that's the adventure. I'm telling you, the look on players' faces when they start to think their first level characters are going to deal with a dragon... priceless.
Adventure 2
There's a missing geologist in a dangerous area! His brother will pay money for his return. The PCs are given his last known location, and going there, they learn where the guy went up in the mountains...
There's an old manor house up in the mountains, but its been abandoned for a long time. The place was built over a volcanic cavern, and the house was built amongst strange stone formations. Volcanic steam is breaking through these formations, so the inside of the house is just full of steam and heat and the entire place is filled with a REALLY LOUD ROAR so it's impossible to talk to other people in the place.
... it's also haunted by a banshee, which is bound to the house during the day, but may wander the whole grounds at night. So when the PCs first encounter it in the house, it screams... but they can't hear the scream. That's good for getting characters to shit their pants.
Investigating the house reveals the owners were a human man and an elven woman...
... Investigating the grounds reveals that one end of the manor grounds ends in a cliff... and the family graveyard is slowly falling off the cliff, with shattered coffins and remains far below, and some caskets sticking halfway out the cliff... but the grave of the lady of the house has been dug up, and the ring finger on her left hand is missing...
Down the cliff a bit is a ledge with a cave with steam flowing out of it... and there's a decent sized cavern complex in there, and of course there's the geologist's body, and of course he's got the ring.
A simple setup, I think. The PCs took the ring and reburied it with the woman's body, ending the haunting. Now, they didn't have to, as the banshee couldn't pursue them off the grounds... but they did, and then stayed the next night on the grounds... now I'd written the adventure so that returning the ring to the corpse "dispels" the banshee. If this was a proper sword and sorcery tale, the haunting would still continue and the PCs sticking around would have been dead, dead, dead. :P
I've run this adventure twice, once in Vaasa and now in Helsinki. Decent for first level characters, but perhaps overdoing the verisimilitude of the area made for a lot of empty, boring areas to explore.
This time I'd added a bonus thingy to the cavern complex... basically an entrance to a grander underground cavern where I had notes for a four-tribe version of Red Nails to be going on. They didn't go for it... they'd achieved their objective, and chasing after strange things wasn't a good way to stay alive.
Good thing I'd only detailed the entrance area and not the entire scenario down there. ;)
First session had four players, second had three, and the third session had six players. And there are a couple more wanting to join the campaign that couldn't start quite now. But now with the party up to "standard" D&D strength, I can throw more time-urgent and action-oriented adventures at them... and since I've seen how they operate for a bit now, I can tailor the hooks to them and try to push their individual buttons.
Next game might not be for a few weeks (so many players have other plans next Sunday, and the following Sunday is Ropecon...), but I'll let you know how that works out.
The first three sessions of my BFRPG campaign are in the books. There were two "missions" completed in that time, take-your-time exploration-and-mystery adventures, because I wanted to see how these guys operated... and the first two sessions only had a few players, and heavy action with a small number of 1st level BFRPG characters would be a massacre. I won't give "session reports," but I'll describe the adventure setup for the two.
Adventure 1
A remote mining village at the end of civilization is celebrating a late spring/early summer festival. The six most beautiful couples are getting married, and then the next day the husbands compete in "games." The games continue, day after day, until one of the men dies (Consider it a sword-and-sorcery version of "Extreme Sports."). The day after that happens, his new bride is taken up a mountain, bedecked in expensive jewels, and sacrificed to the "spirits of the mountain" who ensure that there are no raiders, earthquakes, avalanches, cave-ins, or any other sort of catastrophe.
Facts:
- The village does this every five years.
- There have been no raiders or bandits or plague or seismic or mine problems for hundreds of years, so the villagers all very much believe in this whole ritual.
- The couples feel honored to be selected, and in fact a common problem with the "games" is the participants falling all over each other to be the one to die.
- There are no "spirits." The girl is brought up the mountain and chained to a post as a sacrifice to a dragon that protects the valley. The "spirits" are a story put forth by the town authorities and clergy in order to prevent interference. Nobody wants to mess with spirits, but you say "dragon" and every idiot within a thousand miles with a sword and dreams of glory is going to show up to try and kill it.
- ... but the dragon died decades ago. Of old age. The first to come across the body were a tribe of goblins who cleared the place out, and when the sacrifice was brought up the mountain, they had their way with the sacrificed girl and robbed her. But then the dwarves of the mountains showed up, slaughtered the goblins, and took a look at the situation. The dwarves knew that the human's mining area was rich and would provide gold and ore for hundreds of years, and they knew that humans spread like roaches over the world. By keeping the humans satisfied and happy here, the dwarves would be able to have the rest of the range to themselves for a good long while, even by dwarven standards. So the dwarves make sure (through human agents) that the humans in the area are well educated about proper mining techniques to prevent accidents, and they make sure the territory is secure from monsters and bandits. And every five years, the dwarves sit in the dragon cave with a flamethrower device (for "there really is a dragon!" purposes) and when the girl is chained in front of the cave, the dwarves come and strip her of valuables... and leave her there. Letting her go would mean the whole scheme is unraveled, they don't want to take her with them, and killing her would just seem cruel. So for decades now, the young woman expecting to be taken by a dragon (they do tell the poor girl) instead dies of starvation, dehydration, and exposure.
So how do the PCs get involved? The well-to-do family of one of the "lucky women" getting married is secretly unhappy with the whole situation. The festival attracts a good number of travelers who want to see the games, and this family has spies among the festival crowd listening for people who express displeasure with the whole thing. (The PCs will say how screwed up this is when they ask what the festival actually is, right?) The family will then basically beg these anarchic dissidents to save their daughter, if she is "chosen," take her far away from this place, and of course keep the jewels as payment. But they have to do it without letting the villagers know that everything didn't go as planned - they'd panic. The family isn't concerned about the dragon (they know) getting pissed; they're confident that a few more sacrifices hastily put together would solve any situation.
So that's the adventure. I'm telling you, the look on players' faces when they start to think their first level characters are going to deal with a dragon... priceless.
Adventure 2
There's a missing geologist in a dangerous area! His brother will pay money for his return. The PCs are given his last known location, and going there, they learn where the guy went up in the mountains...
There's an old manor house up in the mountains, but its been abandoned for a long time. The place was built over a volcanic cavern, and the house was built amongst strange stone formations. Volcanic steam is breaking through these formations, so the inside of the house is just full of steam and heat and the entire place is filled with a REALLY LOUD ROAR so it's impossible to talk to other people in the place.
... it's also haunted by a banshee, which is bound to the house during the day, but may wander the whole grounds at night. So when the PCs first encounter it in the house, it screams... but they can't hear the scream. That's good for getting characters to shit their pants.
Investigating the house reveals the owners were a human man and an elven woman...
... Investigating the grounds reveals that one end of the manor grounds ends in a cliff... and the family graveyard is slowly falling off the cliff, with shattered coffins and remains far below, and some caskets sticking halfway out the cliff... but the grave of the lady of the house has been dug up, and the ring finger on her left hand is missing...
Down the cliff a bit is a ledge with a cave with steam flowing out of it... and there's a decent sized cavern complex in there, and of course there's the geologist's body, and of course he's got the ring.
A simple setup, I think. The PCs took the ring and reburied it with the woman's body, ending the haunting. Now, they didn't have to, as the banshee couldn't pursue them off the grounds... but they did, and then stayed the next night on the grounds... now I'd written the adventure so that returning the ring to the corpse "dispels" the banshee. If this was a proper sword and sorcery tale, the haunting would still continue and the PCs sticking around would have been dead, dead, dead. :P
I've run this adventure twice, once in Vaasa and now in Helsinki. Decent for first level characters, but perhaps overdoing the verisimilitude of the area made for a lot of empty, boring areas to explore.
This time I'd added a bonus thingy to the cavern complex... basically an entrance to a grander underground cavern where I had notes for a four-tribe version of Red Nails to be going on. They didn't go for it... they'd achieved their objective, and chasing after strange things wasn't a good way to stay alive.
Good thing I'd only detailed the entrance area and not the entire scenario down there. ;)
First session had four players, second had three, and the third session had six players. And there are a couple more wanting to join the campaign that couldn't start quite now. But now with the party up to "standard" D&D strength, I can throw more time-urgent and action-oriented adventures at them... and since I've seen how they operate for a bit now, I can tailor the hooks to them and try to push their individual buttons.
Next game might not be for a few weeks (so many players have other plans next Sunday, and the following Sunday is Ropecon...), but I'll let you know how that works out.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Media Influences
So much has been said about the literary influences of D&D.
Now that's all great for the theorists, historians, pundits, and commentators.
But what about the influences of the individual campaign?
You know, when referees sit down to design their campaigns and adventures, I really don't think they are wondering if they're staying true to the influences of the game. Obviously someone well-versed in those influences is going to internalize them and they'll show through to some degree no matter what, but I think a referee's choices can make it perfectly clear what's influencing them, what drives them to create and go through the bother to run a game for other people in the first place.
So... I challenge the role-playing blogosphere (and I know you are reading... :P) to name the primary influences in your personal game, so we get a flavor not of what set of rules you decide to use, but what kind of game people can expect to play with you! Minimum five. No maximum. Plus include what people might assume influences you that you actually reject. Bonus points for detail and explanation!
Mine:
Dario Argento This guy's work is awesome. Even when he's bad, he's evocative, and when he's good, he's great. His films combine dreamy fairy tales, brutal and explicit violence, murder mysteries, and often odd sexual situations. I mean, what kind of sick freak writes and directs a scene with his daughter getting violently raped? ay ay ay. But the sense of wonder in films like Suspiria and Phenomena, the complete mind-freak of Inferno, and the classic whodunit? of Tenebrae and Deep Red... And I'll be honest, when I imagine the set-pieces that I set up, I imagine them in the rich colors and sweeping tracking shots that are an Argento trademark.
Edgar Allan Poe The master, above all others, ever. Description and atmosphere galore. Fall of the House of Usher. Ligeia. Masque of the Red Death. Murders in the Rue Morgue. Just, everything. Everything, even his journalistic essay about furniture, causes the brain to blossom and expand in ways that modern writing just doesn't do. ahhhh, when I describe locations and try to impart atmosphere into an adventure for my players, I am attempting (and badly failing, I might add) to channel Poe. And his poem Alone, awesomely turned into music by Arcturus, could have been written about me.
HP Lovecraft Of course. Isn't it too obvious to say this? Dark and dreaming and uncaring gods beyond the understanding of mortal man. It's important that adventurers in D&D never feel at home in the lightless, foreboding places they explore, or else the essence and atmosphere of the setting is lost. The dark gods are the dark gods. They have no stats, no motivation, no physical presence. They just inspire insane cultists to perform sadistic and blasphemous deeds in their name. And their places of worship will drive you insane. It doesn't matter if you're first level or thirtieth, when you are on the turf of the gods, all you are is a pesky little mortal. Did that shadow in the corner just move? Oh sh--
Jules Verne and HG Wells Maybe this is cheating by naming them both as one choice, but 19th century science fiction is just the best. Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea? Journey to the Center of the Earth? How about Wells' Invisible Man? Island of Dr. Moreau? Time Machine? War of the Worlds? Lots of strange things, wondrous locations, and bizarre happenings in these stories. I also like how a lot of what happens is beyond the control of the protagonists in the story, and their victories have nothing to do with their power over the antagonists. I'd love to get away with a War of the Worlds-style adventure... where the PCs can do nothing but run, the enemies go away on their own, and the meat of the thing is in their interactions with other survivors, and their own introspection. I have no idea how to pull that off in a way that doesn't come across as "haha, wimps, see my awesome monsters overpower alla yous!"
Hammer Film Productions Now I'm not the most well-versed in this sort of thing, but I've seen a few (Captain Cronos: Vampire Hunter!), and they all largely had a very similar visual style, and they unanimously treated their subjects dead serious, as if these situations were actually happening to these people. But, and I don't know if it was a result of the time period's filming technology ( I'd suspect not because other films of the same time period didn't look or feel this way), but there was also an unreality that permeated everything. That juxtaposition of unreality and in-story seriousness makes every one of these things classic... whether it's Hound of the Baskervilles or Rasputin the Mad Monk... films such as Blood on Satan's Claw and Witchfinder General, while not Hammer films, cover much of the same territory and have a similar style.
Bonus dude:
John Carpenter I hate to say this, because on a lot of levels he's a bit of a hack. But when he's on... fuckin' a. Assault on Precinct 13, imagine that turned into a D&D scenario. You're defending a fortified position, not hoping to win, but hoping to break the attacker's morale so they break off... for now. Not victory, but waiting for a relieving force on the way. The Fog is almost too obvious in its adventure applications (by the way, I'm talking about the originals, not the shit-ass remakes). Escape from New York is almost set up like a cliche D&D adventure, going from encounter to encounter with a major railroad. :P The Thing... come on. :) Isolate the PCs, and have a monster that takes you over without you knowing it, but the referee notes what the infected character does when he's on his own. It would be a cruel, perhaps campaign ending campaign (of course the PCs having magic would mitigate this... if they used it right), but damn... I can dream, right? Big Trouble in Little China is a good template for an action-adventure adventure, and Prince of Darkness could be great gaming.
What are not influences:
Dungeons and Dragons Is this heresy? I don't look to the rules to tell me what the game is about, and I don't pull inspiration from adventure modules. OK, maybe Tomb of Horror. Deconstruction or playing with tropes is just... no! Don't do it! I don't want to recreate the past, I don't want to pay tribute to what used to be. D&D, the traditional stuff, is merely the language I use to express my ideas through gaming. I'm fluent enough in D&D that I can play and make art with the language and not just speak in literal phrases. That it and I share literary tastes make pre-2e D&D quite compatible with James Edward Raggi 4e.
Lord of the Rings I love Lord of the Rings. Love it. The book version, not the movies. It's awful for my gaming preferences though. The overarching history, involvement of Great Powers in the here and now, wise old elves, a distinct lack of... civilization, and... I dunno. I don't want to be Middle-Earth.
... and who knows what's not entering my mind at this moment that I could write about.
Now that's all great for the theorists, historians, pundits, and commentators.
But what about the influences of the individual campaign?
You know, when referees sit down to design their campaigns and adventures, I really don't think they are wondering if they're staying true to the influences of the game. Obviously someone well-versed in those influences is going to internalize them and they'll show through to some degree no matter what, but I think a referee's choices can make it perfectly clear what's influencing them, what drives them to create and go through the bother to run a game for other people in the first place.
So... I challenge the role-playing blogosphere (and I know you are reading... :P) to name the primary influences in your personal game, so we get a flavor not of what set of rules you decide to use, but what kind of game people can expect to play with you! Minimum five. No maximum. Plus include what people might assume influences you that you actually reject. Bonus points for detail and explanation!
Mine:
Dario Argento This guy's work is awesome. Even when he's bad, he's evocative, and when he's good, he's great. His films combine dreamy fairy tales, brutal and explicit violence, murder mysteries, and often odd sexual situations. I mean, what kind of sick freak writes and directs a scene with his daughter getting violently raped? ay ay ay. But the sense of wonder in films like Suspiria and Phenomena, the complete mind-freak of Inferno, and the classic whodunit? of Tenebrae and Deep Red... And I'll be honest, when I imagine the set-pieces that I set up, I imagine them in the rich colors and sweeping tracking shots that are an Argento trademark.
Edgar Allan Poe The master, above all others, ever. Description and atmosphere galore. Fall of the House of Usher. Ligeia. Masque of the Red Death. Murders in the Rue Morgue. Just, everything. Everything, even his journalistic essay about furniture, causes the brain to blossom and expand in ways that modern writing just doesn't do. ahhhh, when I describe locations and try to impart atmosphere into an adventure for my players, I am attempting (and badly failing, I might add) to channel Poe. And his poem Alone, awesomely turned into music by Arcturus, could have been written about me.
HP Lovecraft Of course. Isn't it too obvious to say this? Dark and dreaming and uncaring gods beyond the understanding of mortal man. It's important that adventurers in D&D never feel at home in the lightless, foreboding places they explore, or else the essence and atmosphere of the setting is lost. The dark gods are the dark gods. They have no stats, no motivation, no physical presence. They just inspire insane cultists to perform sadistic and blasphemous deeds in their name. And their places of worship will drive you insane. It doesn't matter if you're first level or thirtieth, when you are on the turf of the gods, all you are is a pesky little mortal. Did that shadow in the corner just move? Oh sh--
Jules Verne and HG Wells Maybe this is cheating by naming them both as one choice, but 19th century science fiction is just the best. Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea? Journey to the Center of the Earth? How about Wells' Invisible Man? Island of Dr. Moreau? Time Machine? War of the Worlds? Lots of strange things, wondrous locations, and bizarre happenings in these stories. I also like how a lot of what happens is beyond the control of the protagonists in the story, and their victories have nothing to do with their power over the antagonists. I'd love to get away with a War of the Worlds-style adventure... where the PCs can do nothing but run, the enemies go away on their own, and the meat of the thing is in their interactions with other survivors, and their own introspection. I have no idea how to pull that off in a way that doesn't come across as "haha, wimps, see my awesome monsters overpower alla yous!"
Hammer Film Productions Now I'm not the most well-versed in this sort of thing, but I've seen a few (Captain Cronos: Vampire Hunter!), and they all largely had a very similar visual style, and they unanimously treated their subjects dead serious, as if these situations were actually happening to these people. But, and I don't know if it was a result of the time period's filming technology ( I'd suspect not because other films of the same time period didn't look or feel this way), but there was also an unreality that permeated everything. That juxtaposition of unreality and in-story seriousness makes every one of these things classic... whether it's Hound of the Baskervilles or Rasputin the Mad Monk... films such as Blood on Satan's Claw and Witchfinder General, while not Hammer films, cover much of the same territory and have a similar style.
Bonus dude:
John Carpenter I hate to say this, because on a lot of levels he's a bit of a hack. But when he's on... fuckin' a. Assault on Precinct 13, imagine that turned into a D&D scenario. You're defending a fortified position, not hoping to win, but hoping to break the attacker's morale so they break off... for now. Not victory, but waiting for a relieving force on the way. The Fog is almost too obvious in its adventure applications (by the way, I'm talking about the originals, not the shit-ass remakes). Escape from New York is almost set up like a cliche D&D adventure, going from encounter to encounter with a major railroad. :P The Thing... come on. :) Isolate the PCs, and have a monster that takes you over without you knowing it, but the referee notes what the infected character does when he's on his own. It would be a cruel, perhaps campaign ending campaign (of course the PCs having magic would mitigate this... if they used it right), but damn... I can dream, right? Big Trouble in Little China is a good template for an action-adventure adventure, and Prince of Darkness could be great gaming.
What are not influences:
Dungeons and Dragons Is this heresy? I don't look to the rules to tell me what the game is about, and I don't pull inspiration from adventure modules. OK, maybe Tomb of Horror. Deconstruction or playing with tropes is just... no! Don't do it! I don't want to recreate the past, I don't want to pay tribute to what used to be. D&D, the traditional stuff, is merely the language I use to express my ideas through gaming. I'm fluent enough in D&D that I can play and make art with the language and not just speak in literal phrases. That it and I share literary tastes make pre-2e D&D quite compatible with James Edward Raggi 4e.
Lord of the Rings I love Lord of the Rings. Love it. The book version, not the movies. It's awful for my gaming preferences though. The overarching history, involvement of Great Powers in the here and now, wise old elves, a distinct lack of... civilization, and... I dunno. I don't want to be Middle-Earth.
... and who knows what's not entering my mind at this moment that I could write about.
Monday, June 16, 2008
My Campaign's Experience Rules
This isn't anything groundbreaking or unusual, but "How I Do It" posts are a good way for someone to tell me that there's a better way to do it, so... get to it!
I approve of the traditional editions' method of earning experience. Monsters are worth some, but not too much, and the most experience comes from treasure. (even though this post appears a couple days after the fact, I did write this post the day before I saw this... I hate when that happens, this concurrent thinking stuff.)
It's a great system. It encourages players to want to avoid random encounters (not much to gain, with a lot to lose) which means they hurry along, and it influences them to plan to attempt to avoid needless fights if they can get the treasure without it.
It also discourages the "I kill all the squirrels and beggars for the XP!" style of play that Hackmaster often parodies. Or did back when they did the issues up through those appearing in Bundle of Trouble 17, anyway.
But the standard distribution of experience bothers me a bit. Just by grabbing the big gem and getting back to town with it means you level up? Good game mechanism, but I can't think of a way to translate that to in-game explanations.
So...
Experience from foes slain during an adventure count for experience, which are evenly divided between all living characters at the end of the session. I really don't care to do bookkeeping to show that three characters died halfway through so their replacements shouldn't get experience from the part of the adventure previous to that... aghgh aghghgh ahghgh. No. PCs get full shares, retainers get half shares.
Otherwise, only money spent on training, or completely wasteful non-game activities, counts for experience. The training option is easily accountable with in-game explanations. No specific set-up or rules for this either. Just be somewhere in civilization (so no in-dungeon or in-the-wilds leveling up) and say "I spend 5,000gp for experience." Whether it's a wizard studying something, or a cleric in meditative prayer sacrificing expensive nothings, or whatever, that's all there is to it.
As far as wasteful in-game activities... this is more genre emulation than anything else. "I have a big gem? Boozing and whoring for a fortnight!" You do that enough, obviously you're important in the world. ;)
This means that money spent on things that are needed by the party can't be used to gain experience! Choices, choices. That means how much the party pays their retainers has a direct impact on how quickly those guys level too...
This may lead to excessive looting of the bodies. "This orc's underwear has to be worth a copper for raw materials at least!" First, I require strict accounting of encumbrance. Second, I rule that any armor worn by an opponent is utterly ruined if that guy is killed in combat. If you're wailing on some armored foe until he dies, obviously his armor gets shredded up, right? Yeah. Unless it's an obvious exception like a sleep spell/cut the throat scenario.
Also, when disposing of non-coin valuables, value is relative and dependent on haggling. To simulate this without actually haggling over every bauble, I have the seller make a reaction roll when selling items... and the percentage of the "actual value" they get from the item is determined by how well the merchant/fence reacts to them. Charisma becomes more important. And do characters trust each other enough to give all the goodies to the character with the highest charisma to sell? There is nothing to prevent him from skimming cash off the transactions...
I approve of the traditional editions' method of earning experience. Monsters are worth some, but not too much, and the most experience comes from treasure. (even though this post appears a couple days after the fact, I did write this post the day before I saw this... I hate when that happens, this concurrent thinking stuff.)
It's a great system. It encourages players to want to avoid random encounters (not much to gain, with a lot to lose) which means they hurry along, and it influences them to plan to attempt to avoid needless fights if they can get the treasure without it.
It also discourages the "I kill all the squirrels and beggars for the XP!" style of play that Hackmaster often parodies. Or did back when they did the issues up through those appearing in Bundle of Trouble 17, anyway.
But the standard distribution of experience bothers me a bit. Just by grabbing the big gem and getting back to town with it means you level up? Good game mechanism, but I can't think of a way to translate that to in-game explanations.
So...
Experience from foes slain during an adventure count for experience, which are evenly divided between all living characters at the end of the session. I really don't care to do bookkeeping to show that three characters died halfway through so their replacements shouldn't get experience from the part of the adventure previous to that... aghgh aghghgh ahghgh. No. PCs get full shares, retainers get half shares.
Otherwise, only money spent on training, or completely wasteful non-game activities, counts for experience. The training option is easily accountable with in-game explanations. No specific set-up or rules for this either. Just be somewhere in civilization (so no in-dungeon or in-the-wilds leveling up) and say "I spend 5,000gp for experience." Whether it's a wizard studying something, or a cleric in meditative prayer sacrificing expensive nothings, or whatever, that's all there is to it.
As far as wasteful in-game activities... this is more genre emulation than anything else. "I have a big gem? Boozing and whoring for a fortnight!" You do that enough, obviously you're important in the world. ;)
This means that money spent on things that are needed by the party can't be used to gain experience! Choices, choices. That means how much the party pays their retainers has a direct impact on how quickly those guys level too...
This may lead to excessive looting of the bodies. "This orc's underwear has to be worth a copper for raw materials at least!" First, I require strict accounting of encumbrance. Second, I rule that any armor worn by an opponent is utterly ruined if that guy is killed in combat. If you're wailing on some armored foe until he dies, obviously his armor gets shredded up, right? Yeah. Unless it's an obvious exception like a sleep spell/cut the throat scenario.
Also, when disposing of non-coin valuables, value is relative and dependent on haggling. To simulate this without actually haggling over every bauble, I have the seller make a reaction roll when selling items... and the percentage of the "actual value" they get from the item is determined by how well the merchant/fence reacts to them. Charisma becomes more important. And do characters trust each other enough to give all the goodies to the character with the highest charisma to sell? There is nothing to prevent him from skimming cash off the transactions...
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
First Level Appropriate Challenges
So the other thing that I'm not sure what to do about in my upcoming campaign...
What do the PCs do at first level?
First level characters are not weak. When you compare them to a party of regular men-at-arms, it's pretty obvious that a first level party has it all over a regular bunch of mercenaries.
But first level characters aren't very well suited for extended adventuring. A single blow from a normal melee weapon can potentially take the toughest PC out of the fight when they're first level. The difference between a one sided fight (in the PCs' favor) and a massacre (in the monsters' favor) can come down to initiative. You just can't risk violence and expect to come out of an adventure alive.
Which is as it should be. A brand new first level party is not a group of heroes-in-training. They're a bunch of talented yobbos who are about to hit that crossroads: Wealth and power, or death. And nobody knows which it'll be. PC death when everyone is first level should be a constant concern and a probability more than a possibility. Handing anything to the players cheapens advancement and levels, and I like the idea of a group of 4th or 5th level characters knowing that the wasted meat of dozens of would-be adventurers prove the point of how dangerous this life is.
But first level really does encourage the 15 minute adventuring day. In one encounter, the magic-user is pretty much guaranteed to use his one spell, and if anyone takes any hit for more than 1 or 2 hit points' damage, then the cleric is going to use his one spell (which is almost always cure light wounds, right?)... if the cleric gets that first level spell at all. If more than one person is hurt, the party has to pull back.
So what's the answer? More NPC interactions to decrease the physical danger? Yeah, they'll be at first level forever for all the XP that way of playing provides - and I go for the Monsters + Treasure method of granting experience... no "story awards" because I shouldn't be encouraging them to move along any particular storyline.
Then there's the Puzzle Dungeon. Give them puzzles and tricks and traps that may be avoided. There is always danger but it's danger in avoidable form. This can keep things interesting but giving so much treasure away in places like this to allow everyone to level up just seems like handwaving first level.
How do the original modules do it? They create grinders. Fresh-off-the-turnip-truck first levelers are going to get squashed walking into the moathouse near Homlett, or marching straight into an orc cave in the Caves of Chaos... not to mention the impossibility of the Horror on the Hill, the large enemy encounter groups in Palace of the Silver Princess and more.
Remember the opening starter bit in Mentzer's Basic set: Character death. Remember the example of play in the 1E DMG: Character death.
The poor bastards were never supposed to face "first level challenges" in a way that they really have a chance to survive as a group with no casualties!
... and here I was considering a "pest control" adventure with a bunch of giant rats and giant centipedes for the "first level" appropriate challenge.
Nah.
So then... what?
What do the PCs do at first level?
First level characters are not weak. When you compare them to a party of regular men-at-arms, it's pretty obvious that a first level party has it all over a regular bunch of mercenaries.
But first level characters aren't very well suited for extended adventuring. A single blow from a normal melee weapon can potentially take the toughest PC out of the fight when they're first level. The difference between a one sided fight (in the PCs' favor) and a massacre (in the monsters' favor) can come down to initiative. You just can't risk violence and expect to come out of an adventure alive.
Which is as it should be. A brand new first level party is not a group of heroes-in-training. They're a bunch of talented yobbos who are about to hit that crossroads: Wealth and power, or death. And nobody knows which it'll be. PC death when everyone is first level should be a constant concern and a probability more than a possibility. Handing anything to the players cheapens advancement and levels, and I like the idea of a group of 4th or 5th level characters knowing that the wasted meat of dozens of would-be adventurers prove the point of how dangerous this life is.
But first level really does encourage the 15 minute adventuring day. In one encounter, the magic-user is pretty much guaranteed to use his one spell, and if anyone takes any hit for more than 1 or 2 hit points' damage, then the cleric is going to use his one spell (which is almost always cure light wounds, right?)... if the cleric gets that first level spell at all. If more than one person is hurt, the party has to pull back.
So what's the answer? More NPC interactions to decrease the physical danger? Yeah, they'll be at first level forever for all the XP that way of playing provides - and I go for the Monsters + Treasure method of granting experience... no "story awards" because I shouldn't be encouraging them to move along any particular storyline.
Then there's the Puzzle Dungeon. Give them puzzles and tricks and traps that may be avoided. There is always danger but it's danger in avoidable form. This can keep things interesting but giving so much treasure away in places like this to allow everyone to level up just seems like handwaving first level.
How do the original modules do it? They create grinders. Fresh-off-the-turnip-truck first levelers are going to get squashed walking into the moathouse near Homlett, or marching straight into an orc cave in the Caves of Chaos... not to mention the impossibility of the Horror on the Hill, the large enemy encounter groups in Palace of the Silver Princess and more.
Remember the opening starter bit in Mentzer's Basic set: Character death. Remember the example of play in the 1E DMG: Character death.
The poor bastards were never supposed to face "first level challenges" in a way that they really have a chance to survive as a group with no casualties!
... and here I was considering a "pest control" adventure with a bunch of giant rats and giant centipedes for the "first level" appropriate challenge.
Nah.
So then... what?
Monday, June 9, 2008
Tools of the Trade
My campaign tools!
First up is the rulebook. I'm using the Basic Fantasy RPG, but I prefer digest (or its European cousin, the A5) sized books for ease of handling and transportation, and coil binding for stays-open-on-the-table use. Now, BFRPG makes this easy: It is downloadable as an Open Office document as well as a pdf, so grabbing the text in order to do a new layout is convenient and easy. The booklet shown here was done using the version 64 rules, and I'll be doing up a few of the latest version (65 is out, 66, or BFRPG Second Edition, is out soon) when the game starts.
Next up is basic supplies. Pictured is a pad of graph paper (fun fact: graph paper, not lined paper, is standard in notebooks here in Finland so I didn't need to lug my graph paper all the way from the States), a regular notebook (again smaller sized), and a mechanical pencil. I normally don't use mechanical pencils, but finding an electric pencil sharpener in Finland seems to be harder than finding a virgin in a whorehouse...
Next up is dice. After moving to Helsinki, I bought a new set of dice (from Fantasiapelit, a most excellent game store), which is the white set (my "paladin set") pictured. But whenever I travel to a new town and visit a game store there, I must buy a set of dice. I'm in Lappeenranta this week (yes, I bring my basic gaming supplies with me when I travel... what?), and I visited the Fantasiapelit here (not nearly as impressive as the one in Helsinki, but the town is 1/20th the size) intending to buy a set of metal dice. They just have a great *clunk* factor hitting the table. But I wanted the silver ones, not the copper or the gold. They only had the copper and the gold! So what to buy? When I was in Lappeenranta in January, I had bought a pricey set of "rune" dice, that were embellished with all sorts of cool looking nonsense. But they weren't all that easy to read at the table! And I didn't want just another normal set of dice... so when I saw the really big set of dice (those blue ones in the picture), I had to have them! I chose blue because I don't have a set of blue dice and never have... And these rather large dice are for more than novelty value. I make most rolls in plain sight, but when using normal-sized dice, only the people sitting right next to me can see the rolls... maybe if I use the bigger dice, more people at the table will be able to see it, which really makes rolling out in the open more effective.
The referee screen is in the back of the shot. This screen is actually an AD&D 1e screen (with the 1983 DMG cover as an illustration, not the older one with the really cool wraparound painting) with a pasted-on sheet with all the Unearthed Arcana Weapon vs AC Type tables on there. I won't actually use the screen for rules or charts since I'm using a bit of a different system, but having a proper screen is still cool anyway.
The 1E DMG is absolutely indispensible for any D&D referee! The amount of pure inspiration and arcane lore, even if you're not using the rules, is simply awesome. Extensions of some of this stuff, such as Troll Lord's Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds series (which I don't cart around the country when I travel), are also most helpful.
The Random Esoteric Creature Generator for Classic Fantasy Role-Playing Games and Their Modern Simulacra. Really, if I wasn't going to use it in my game, I'd have no right trying to sell it to you to use in yours.
... plus my brain, but, well... you wouldn't want to see a picture of that.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Character Death
hmmm.
So the campaign is going to begin soon, probably in the next couple weeks. I've got everything figured out except for two things...
One of the things I haven't figured out is how to handle character death. Early edition D&D is deadly, and the Basic systems deadliest. When any successful weapon strike could potentially kill any first level character, there will be character deaths. Or maybe continuously if they don't learn that "CHARGE!" isn't often going to be the smart thing to do. ;) I figure I'm going to tell the group to not even put their characters on a proper character sheet until they hit second level - when the characters level up, the players will feel a sense of accomplishment.
When a character dies... what to do?
Obviously the player rolls up a new character and re-enters play immediately. But... what's the death penalty?
In my AD&D campaign, the new character was to be one level less than the dead character, with the minimum experience for that level. In my last BFRPG campaign, PCs got to keep the last level they gained, and the new character, of whatever class, begins again with the minimum XP for that level.
I'm torn. I believe there should be a penalty for character death. Not that it matters much if you lose a first level character (and a healthy boatload of early PC deaths does demonstrate how powerful - or heroic - a higher level character really is, instead of just making it a background assumption like games where PCs have "plot protection"), but what to do about higher level PCs that bite the big one?
Raise Dead/Resurrection is going to be very rare or non-existent in my campaign. Dead is dead.
If the penalty is too steep (everyone automatically starts as a 1st level character, from scratch), then it's going to be more of a pain in the ass for all the PCs to adventure together. If the penalty is too slight, then perhaps the players won't take too good care of their characters...
So where's the balance?
One idea is that the PC would take control of one of their retainers/henchmen... which would encourage players to take them on in the first place, and they'd perhaps be a bit more enthusiastic about the same soaking up experience and treasure... and take good care of them.
Any other ideas out there?
So the campaign is going to begin soon, probably in the next couple weeks. I've got everything figured out except for two things...
One of the things I haven't figured out is how to handle character death. Early edition D&D is deadly, and the Basic systems deadliest. When any successful weapon strike could potentially kill any first level character, there will be character deaths. Or maybe continuously if they don't learn that "CHARGE!" isn't often going to be the smart thing to do. ;) I figure I'm going to tell the group to not even put their characters on a proper character sheet until they hit second level - when the characters level up, the players will feel a sense of accomplishment.
When a character dies... what to do?
Obviously the player rolls up a new character and re-enters play immediately. But... what's the death penalty?
In my AD&D campaign, the new character was to be one level less than the dead character, with the minimum experience for that level. In my last BFRPG campaign, PCs got to keep the last level they gained, and the new character, of whatever class, begins again with the minimum XP for that level.
I'm torn. I believe there should be a penalty for character death. Not that it matters much if you lose a first level character (and a healthy boatload of early PC deaths does demonstrate how powerful - or heroic - a higher level character really is, instead of just making it a background assumption like games where PCs have "plot protection"), but what to do about higher level PCs that bite the big one?
Raise Dead/Resurrection is going to be very rare or non-existent in my campaign. Dead is dead.
If the penalty is too steep (everyone automatically starts as a 1st level character, from scratch), then it's going to be more of a pain in the ass for all the PCs to adventure together. If the penalty is too slight, then perhaps the players won't take too good care of their characters...
So where's the balance?
One idea is that the PC would take control of one of their retainers/henchmen... which would encourage players to take them on in the first place, and they'd perhaps be a bit more enthusiastic about the same soaking up experience and treasure... and take good care of them.
Any other ideas out there?
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
"It's Just a Game"
The game has put me in contact with many people all over the world for almost a quarter of a century. I met my oldest friend on this planet because of the game. Whenever I move to a new town, whether within the same country or in some far corner of the world, it's the gamer community that I find people to hang out with and find things to do with.
The game has been the gateway to much of the literature that has shaped my mind. Howard, via Conan comics, came first, but the game opened the door to Tolkien and then to the TSR hackwork novels and eventually to the works of Leiber, Moorcock, Howard (proper), Wells, Verne, Lovecraft, and a growing list of fine 19th century and early 20th century authors. Now I read it for its own sake, but the game was the gate.
The game has been my creative inspiration since I was a child. It inspired me to write, first the fiction (I should post it, some of my 1997 stories have recently been recovered... awful), which led to the metal zine, and now to RPG work.
The game allowed me to actually have an intellect. The fantastic wordplay and frequent use of mathematics (and I'd come up with house rules that required ridiculously more complex math than anything in the rules, but I did it because of the game) increased my appreciation of English and math, and I excelled in those classes. Trying to be more "authentic" within the game led to my love of reading history books, for fun, outside of any classroom or academic reasons. The game showed me that mainstream society could be completely full of shit and that authority figures were never to be blindly trusted, because as a child I was able to see through the Satanic Panic as a complete farce. As it turns out, not only did the police, teachers, "journalists," clergy, and the "good kids" not know anything about D&D (while claiming they knew all about it and how dangerous it was)... but as I learned later they didn't know very much about Satanism, either.
The game is how many people, in the thousands, formerly in the millions, spend time with like-minded people exercising their minds in a social situation for the pure joy of it.
No. It's not just a game. And if that's all you think it is, you really have forfeited the right to be taken seriously on any matters concerning this hobby.
The game has been the gateway to much of the literature that has shaped my mind. Howard, via Conan comics, came first, but the game opened the door to Tolkien and then to the TSR hackwork novels and eventually to the works of Leiber, Moorcock, Howard (proper), Wells, Verne, Lovecraft, and a growing list of fine 19th century and early 20th century authors. Now I read it for its own sake, but the game was the gate.
The game has been my creative inspiration since I was a child. It inspired me to write, first the fiction (I should post it, some of my 1997 stories have recently been recovered... awful), which led to the metal zine, and now to RPG work.
The game allowed me to actually have an intellect. The fantastic wordplay and frequent use of mathematics (and I'd come up with house rules that required ridiculously more complex math than anything in the rules, but I did it because of the game) increased my appreciation of English and math, and I excelled in those classes. Trying to be more "authentic" within the game led to my love of reading history books, for fun, outside of any classroom or academic reasons. The game showed me that mainstream society could be completely full of shit and that authority figures were never to be blindly trusted, because as a child I was able to see through the Satanic Panic as a complete farce. As it turns out, not only did the police, teachers, "journalists," clergy, and the "good kids" not know anything about D&D (while claiming they knew all about it and how dangerous it was)... but as I learned later they didn't know very much about Satanism, either.
The game is how many people, in the thousands, formerly in the millions, spend time with like-minded people exercising their minds in a social situation for the pure joy of it.
No. It's not just a game. And if that's all you think it is, you really have forfeited the right to be taken seriously on any matters concerning this hobby.
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