What is "Old School"? Who cares?

Have you ever sat around reading some people's ideas of what "old school" is and wondered what the hell they were talking about?

Sometimes, after reading descriptions of what it means to be "old school," I think my relationship to the "old school" is completely coincidental. I came in as 1983 was dying fast, so maybe this is true.

For example, I hate to house-rule. I still do it, because no game is perfect, but I use BFRPG as my game of choice because it is as perfect as any I've seen, with few holes, and I don't have to mess with it much. Many of the "changes" I make are actually suggested in the back of the book. I still think that OD&D, AD&D, B/X, BECMI, RC, OSRIC, BFRPG, LL, S&W, S&W WB, OAOASAYCTO (Or Any Other Alphabet Soup Acronym You Can Think Of) are the same damn game, and I can't help but be perplexed at people who act like there's a sharp distinction between D&D and AD&D, like there's a line that can't be crossed or some essence will be lost. It's all the same shit, with different flavored peanuts here and there. But some people are adamant that this is "old school," that isn't, and that's just total new school thinking, even if it came out in 197whatever.

And I hate being told that "old school" = "houseruling." There's a reason that I really don't like making rules decisions (as opposed to setting decisions - I love those, it's my setting!) is because I'm supposed to be the impartial referee! I'm not a storyteller or player enabler. I am supposed to be impartial, right? It's difficult to do that if the rules themselves don't say much, and it's unfair to the players if there isn't a common baseline that we all agree to work from. "Referee" or "Dungeon Master" or "Game Master" shouldn't equal "dick," it doesn't equal "god," and the best defense against that is the "rule of law," if you will... the damn game rules. That's also why I make my rolls out in the open. As far as I'm concerned, the rules we agree on when play begins are THE LAW, more than anyone at the table. My judgement for situations not covered by the rules shouldn't be based on "making shit up," it should be based on reasonable extrapolation of the rules already present. This allows players to also offer their input, which is always a good thing. "Hmmm, that's not covered here, but I think this rule is analogous. What do you think?" Of course, as referee, I have the final say... but it's just being a dick to insist on having the first, last, and every say on rulings. If you insist that everything is malleable, I don't understand the point of playing any particular game anyway. So in order to do my job, I need rules that will work and support me without needing to mess with them.

There is also a weird tendency to think of "old school" as "nonsensical." Arduin, Encounter Critical (yeah, I know...), balrogs as player characters mentioned in OD&D... while I think these point out the possibilities inherent in "old school" philosophy, I think they have also created a mindset of "everything goes," and that's just crap when it comes to the individual game table. The abundance of random tables in "old school" products seems to support this "anything can happen" attitude, even if the tables themselves have logical entries. On one hand, randomness supports the idea that the referee is impartial.

If a referee decides his campaign is going to be based on the Roman Empire with appropriate equipment and nothing outside of it, that's not a restriction, it's simply having a focus... but the important thing is that's a decision made at a table. This focus allows "old school" play to happen. You want imaginative, non-rules based, yet non-farcical solutions to challenges? Present a coherent setting that allows the players to think of the world as a place and not just a convenient backdrop for the action to happen, and you get that. I know this is pure preference on my own part, but... "You are there, now act like it!" works better when there can be taken seriously. All that wacky stuff is one step away from killer bunnies and knights who demand shrubberies before passage will be granted.

Traditional D&D combat is an abstraction. A roll to hit is not a swing of the sword, and taking damage doesn't mean you're physically injured. This is why "called shots" and "combat maneuvers" are pretty silly under such a system, and why I think the feats and tactical combat focus of later editions completely miss the point. The entire "I roll... hit... I roll... miss," isn't so exciting by itself, but since combat is A- Not the point of the game, and B- Highly abstracted, I don't think it's a problem. Traditional D&D's combat goes by quickly. I often don't bother with turning these rolls into description - I'm not interested in the process of combat, I'm interested in its results. And creative maneuvers given by players in combat... well, if it changes the dynamics of a situation ("We three pull the giant rug out from under the orcs!") then it can mean something. "I jump from the table and come crashing down on my foe!" is just the kind of action we should assume is happening in the abstracted combat procedures anyway - no bonus.

And this abstraction is also why "save or die" effects make sense. Maybe the damage that fighter is doing to you isn't physical... maybe it's just your luck running out as you continually dodge his blade. But that giant spider either injected its venom into you, or it didn't. The saving throw isn't resisting an effect, it's avoiding it. If the giant spider hit you, and you make your save, then the "hit" wasn't physical after all. Unless you're a dwarf or something with a save bonus against poison.

Yeah, it hurts to think about it a bit, but that's what happens when you think of an abstract system in concrete terms.

This abstraction is also why D&D's armor class system makes sense as damage avoidance rather than soaking up damage. A "hit" doesn't even necessarily mean "a hit" in real-life terms, so it would make absolutely no sense for armor to subtract from damage done.

This is actually where AD&D falls down hard compared to other versions of D&D. It increases the length of the abstracted combat round to one minute, so you'd think things would be quite abstract indeed. But then you also have weapon vs AC type tables, weapon speed, weapon length, segmented initiative making precise casting times rather important... it seems confused in its intentions.

Here's an example between "new" and "old" "school:" This and this are no different in intent: Provide level-appropriate rewards. The critical difference is in how they are presented. The older supplement is treated as a completely ignorable guideline, the newer rules are treated as THE WAY THINGS ARE and codifies a universal setting for the game. If a referee looked at the old thing and decided, "That doesn't fit my campaign at all," then his game will look different and the rules will still support it fully. If the referee looks at the new thing and decides, "No way!" then there are consequences that need to be dealt with up and down the system. (That the older supplement's treasure is dependent on its guardian and/or location, and not who finds it also helps... I'm breaking The LotFP Promise all over the place, aren't I?) And that's the reason I can't deal with the latter editions of D&D, even independent of whether they should be called "D&D" or not. I mean, you would think that by my "rules" rant above that I would love me some 3.x, but it de-abstracts combat, and it codifies way, way too much about more than just the rules... it codifies the world it inhabits as well. And that's my job to do.

Classifications of RPGs shouldn't be divided between ages or schools. It's ridiculous when people try to throw "all that Forge crap" into one category, and it's ridiculous when people try to say "old school" like it's some sort of badge of honor all by itself to be old, and perhaps a bit underdeveloped. They should be divided between "good" and "bad," and a good place to decide the location of that dividing line is this: Does this game/supplement/whatever act as a springboard for creativity and is it readily customizable and intended to be extensively expanded upon, as written, and placed in your game, or is it designed to replace your personal creativity with something from the factory and act as a time saver for referees on-the-go?

Good Job, Guys.

My friend decided to play some D&D for the first time. He credits this very blog for becoming motivated to do so. "Seriously, though, all this rpg reading kinda makes me want to play D&D!"

Before:

"I had to explain to my wife that I was going to New Jersey on Monday to play Dungeons & Dragons. She looked at me like I said I had made an appointment with a male prostitute. At first blush she clearly thought it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever said. "But... you've never done this before!"

The discussion was very odd and funny. I guess the issue was that with all the many things I do which occupy my time (and against which she sort of competes), it seemed bizarre to her that I would up and add a new time-sucking activity to my schedule. It turned into a fairly long conversation about why, exactly, I even wanted to play D&D, particularly right now. And in a lot of ways, I clarified the decision for myself."

Today:

"So... that sucked. First off, only two other people showed up, from an original commitment of 10! We played in a conference room at one guy's office. He said he normally DMs, but he wanted to play at this session, so the other guy DMed. No one in our group of three had ever met another. They were both friendly fellows, and generous enough to see me through my first session, but the session itself was pretty lame. The framework they used for this "adventure" was beyond fucking lame. Maybe it would have passed muster for a 12 year old, but these are men in their late 30s (at least)! I understand that a one-off adventure is not going to come with the narrative depth of a yearslong campaign, but I was nevertheless hoping for more than "magical doors that lead to awesome!"

Basically, there's a town (about which nothing is ever known - town exists for hiring henchmen and resting, apparently.) And near this town is some kind of magical keep with mystical portals. Step through a portal and you're... somewhere else. Primed for adventure, no doubt! There is no accounting for time, for travel, etc. From town to the keep: an instant! From the portal-world back to town: almost as fast! And about the keep, nothing is said, either. Are there more magic portals than just the one? Who knows, and who cares. And what brought together my dwarven fighter and, um, some cleric? "A dwarf and a cleric walk into a keep and..." I had rather hoped for mystery of another sort.

Anyway, passing through the portal (the experience of which is also left undescribed), we end up in some scrubby, low forest. A castle is visible in the distance. How far? Well, who the fuck knows - time and distance are immaterial, apparently. There are well worn, grassy paths, but the forest itself is just too dense to move through. Convenient! My first adventure, and already I am learning the true meaning of "railroading."

So yeah, we walk down the path and encounter giant bunnies. I kid you not. He actually called them bunnies, too. These things the size of massive dogs. They're grazing, possibly on giant carrots (okay, I made that part up.) So, I throw a rock at them, to see if they'll run off. I was thinking that perhaps the secret to the rabbits' giantism would be more interesting than a fight-to-the-death. But, the DM assumes I'm hurling the rock as a missile, and a lucky 20 on the die condemns a poor (giant) bunny to a quick and painless death. I was trying to be "lawful," but what the hell! Of course, the bunnies turn out to be bloodthirsty and hissing, in addition to giant, and before you know it, a battle ensues. Our henchman dies. We kill the bunnies. I suggested skinning the bunnies or something, but I don't think anyone had anything in mind beyond killing them.

Moving on, we encounter goblins cooking lunch: presumably, giant bunny stew. I'm coming to understand that the DM expects us to fight whatever stupid fucking monsters he puts on the path. I'm trying to, you know, actually role-play, but no one seemed interested in that. Maybe they were trying to keep things simple for me, but I got the feeling that this was par for the course. So it became, more or less, a board game. We were to walk around on this map (which the DM sketched out as we moved - there was no mapkeeping by the players), find goblins, fight same. Get to castle, try to sneak in, fight more goblins.

Then, we all died. The session was scheduled to go on until 10:00. It was a bit after 8:30 at this time. Fortunately, I didn't have to be the guy to say, "This seems like a good time to call it a night." I could have rolled up another character and killed more goblins, and that wouldn't have been without it's small pleasures, I suppose, but I was feeling rather disappointed in the experience.

Most annoyingly, I don't think the DM had a great command of the rules (never mind his complete lack of awareness to time and whatnot. Or the effect it would have on a dwarf to be carrying the body of his unconscious henchman back to town). He could ably run the combat, but all the other mechanics of the universe were left to founder. And honestly, it's the "everything else" that I was most interested in! I can kill goblins on the computer, after all. Plus, I think he fudged some rolls and calls in our favor, I guess to prevent us from dying or whatever. I wanted the brutal reality, but I got "easy mode." All rolls, no imagination.

At one point, bearing the body of a dead henchmen (we went through 3 of them, I think) we saw, in the distance (although those distances tended to always be about 100 yards) giant horses. Thinking I'd not like to fight giant horses, considering the difficulty of giant bunnies, I suggested we wait and see if they go away. "You wait a little while and the horses wander off." How long? Who knows! How did we avoid detection? Who cares!

OD&D is brutal. You'd think, using that system, you would adapt to LESS combat, because each fucking fight is so likely to end in death! But no, it's like the notion of sneaking around goblins had never occurred to these guys! When I did finally manage to work some sneaking into the action, I repeated failed DEX check after DEX check, but still very little trouble befell us until we more or less marched straight into the castle.

Man, it was dumb. The whole thing, dumb. I admit, I like rolling the dice in combat, but what we played, I guess, was Chainmail, minus the miniatures and any semblance of rules for movement. There was no roleplaying whatsoever. My lawful dwarf fighter could have been an evil elvish fighter. Didn't fucking matter.

When one of our henchmen "died" along with the other player, and I could only carry one back to town, these guys looked at me like I was crazy for suggesting we go back to haul the unconscious henchman to town, or even to check if he was still alive. Even I had given up on accounting for time (as if I could run back to town with a cleric on my back, drop him off, hire another henchman, run back to the magic keep and through the magic door, run back down the well-trod grassy paths through the impenetrable forest, and rescue a bleeding henchman whom I had left in the bushes just across the moat from Goblin Castle.) I am not wrong to think that this was an example of very lame D&D, right? I mean, shit, they never even asked me THE NAME OF MY CHARACTER!

So yeah, in short, considering this was an hour and twenty minute drive for me, it will take more than another session of Magic Portal Keep to get me back to that table."

Role-Playing Games and Heavy Metal

Hmmm.

There's some talk about this going around lately, and it's interesting how closely people associate the two.

I personally find the relationship entirely coincidental, and also find it maddening that when talking about heavy metal, a lot of role-players (and I'm talking the traditional crew that I'd be more associated with) have heavy metal knowledge that's functionally equivalent to someone in role-playing that's only ever played 3.x or 4e and has never even read through the rules of older editions.

LotFP was about heavy metal before I thought to enter the RPG writing arena. We do (well, did, things are going kind of... slow there) long-form essays concerning the nature of heavy metal. If you're interested in the form, you need to see some things.

There was my Scum essay, released in 2005 (you might be most interested in the section on lyrics, which talks about fantasy and D&D. Forgive me grouping Tolkien as "sword and sorcery," as spending time on that sort of literary taxonomy was besides the point of the article at hand). That attracted the attention of the academic Mr. Burns, who penned two longform essays (with his research sources noted!) of his own in 2006: Impure Metal: How Underground Heavy Metal Became Mainstream Heavy Music, and False Metal: The Financial and Farcical Return of Heavy Metal. Hits to those pages and pdf downloads of the essays number in the tens of thousands.

(We had some fun... after Impure Metal, Decibel mag took to taking shots at him and LotFP for being "too tr00," and so Burns took them apart, piece by well-researched piece in False Metal. They stopped talking about us after that.)

Tell me there are no similarities between that and the current theorizing happening concerning the nature of "old school" versus "new school" RPGs. I dare you.

This might also explain why I'm such an angry and bitter old fuck. Everything I enjoy started as a grassroots movement that accidentally became successful, and has since been co-opted by businessmen who bury the traditions that built their cash cows in order to sell to whatever the latest trend is in their industry.

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.

LotFP: Corrupting Innocent Girls Since 2008

A couple months back, I was hanging out with Aino (Creature Generator artist and cover model, age 18 and three months when she did the cover and started on the art) when her mother called from back home. Apparently she'd wandered into Aino's room and saw a couple copies of the Creature Generator lying around... and wanted an explanation.

Currently I'm working with Laura (new Insect Shrine artist, turned 18 this past Friday, after starting the piece of work in question) in getting the goblin kitchen illustration just right. Her mother came in and saw what she was working on... and this was the message I got while on messenger with her yesterday: "Oh god. My mother just came to my room and looked at my drawing... My mom said this is absolute sick piece of shit^^ this is too brutal for her^^"

I'm pleased about this. I'm a longtime metalhead/horror movie freak, and I can only assume what might be gross or disgusting to a normal person, because I'm immune to it. And for me, it is imperative that this goblin kitchen (and later, the torture chamber) be as explicit as possible... because goblins are too-often thought of as some toothless generic low-level fantasy menace, and they need to be seen as a true menace and deadly enemy of mankind. When it comes to establishing why the goblins should be taken seriously and evoke a true reaction from the players, I don't think it'll be sufficient to tell you... I want to show you.

Today, I was concerned that the art might mysteriously disappear. I've been assured: "I've hidden them in a secret location, heh^^" So they'll be safe until they're finished and then scanned.

The Random Esoteric Creature Generator for Classic Fantasy Role-Playing Games and Their Modern Simulacra

Looks like I jumped the gun as far as making it unavailable. It's available again directly from me, a kick-ass, uncensored, personally signed, shipped-the-next day creature generator. After I really do have to withdraw it for sale because of the retail version coming out under another publisher, maybe this will be a collector's item like those damn Daystar West publications since it only has a print run of 200. But probably not. Buy it because it's useful!

Sample creatures created using this generator are found here. Design notes and discussion of the artwork here and here.

It's only 4,50€ (or about $7, give or take, according to today's exchange rates - Paypal will automatically do the conversion for you), including the print version, a pdf version emailed to you when I get your order (as long as you specify which email address to send it to!), with no extra mailing or shipping charge.

It's been reviewed by Grognardia and there's a review on RPG.net, and one of the people who bought it told me it was "probably the best value for the money I've gotten in a gaming product for quite some time."


Buy it here.

Stupid Question II

On Saturday, I asked this:

Why are the works that purport to be "publishing enablers" all written, laid out, and presented as if they were games in and of themselves?

If the idea is to present a game, fair enough. If the idea is to allow third party products of a specific flavor, shouldn't they be made up of lists and "how-to" guides?

When asked, I had a hard time explaining exactly what I meant.

And now the GSL for the new Wizards of the Coast Fantasy Game has been released. And that SRD, that's what I meant. If someone puts one of those together, in that format (using the OGL of course, and not this back-door kill-the-competition GSL) for traditional gaming instead of writing a whole game, I think we'd be in happyland.

Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill

It's going to be that kind of adventure.

Illustration by Laura Kristiina Jalo. Eight more to come. Although I'd better stop being so excited about them and posting them immediately or else there won't be any surprises when people get the actual thing. A note about the artwork: She's working from written descriptions taken directly from the text. There are no lame "Jim sketches" to work from this time. The exact text I gave her that she used to produce this picture:

The PCs will first come into this room exactly four days after the pegasus gives birth. The room is mostly bare, with a cage with great iron bars taking up the majority of the space. In the straw-lined cage is the pegasus’ vacated body (wings entirely stripped of feathers) against the back wall, five small flying dire wolves alternatively tearing at a piece of meat and flying about the 20’ tall room. The door of the cage is chained and locked shut. Human and goblin bones line the cage and bloodstains are everywhere. When the PCs enter the room, the wolves will begin howling, which is cause for a wandering monsters check, and the witch doctor and his guard will arrive in 1d6+4 rounds if they have not already been dealt with.

There are also some fun things to come. Some instructions I'd given to her: "The goblin kitchen and torture chamber are the ones I'm most concerned about, as far as the right atmosphere. This will sound weird to say... but the stuff I'm writing is for a game that's been out of print for 20 years... so most of the people that end up buying it are going to be fairly old... and I want them to feel queasy and sick looking at this."

It was my original goal with Insect Shrine to make the best damn adventure people had yet seen from the new wave of simulacrum products coming out and to make everyone else seem lazy... in 2006. So I guess I've failed on the laziness score.

But writing progresses again now that I've got a collaborator working on the visuals, and I can tell you... my goal isn't really to make the best damn adventure that people have yet seen from the new wave of simulacrum products. No no no. After all this shit, all the trouble, and all the stupidity I went through in life between the time I announced it and now, I fully intend for Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill to stand with the classics.

This adventure is full of death, despair, violence, cruelty, corruption, grief, a dark oppressive atmosphere, weird science, a blasphemous religion for a mad god, an impossible challenge, no-win situations, gallows humor (yeah, "I don't want to go on the cart!" is funny... unless you're the one saying it) and maybe, just maybe, the chance for wealth, power, and/or glory. Get rich or die trying. Death before dishonor. Everything that critics of role-playing accused it of being and everything its practitioners knew it really was.

I will succeed wildly or I will fail miserably. All or nothing. Going for broke.

Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill. Coming whenever it's done... because I'll probably get all excited about the Stone Hold Asylum adventure when Aino starts turning in that stuff. :p

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...

Insect Shrine Rises!

Ms. Jalo has already turned in her first piece... sort of. This shot was taken with her digital camera... she's drawing on A3-sized paper, so we're going to have to hunt down a proper scanner for the ten (or more?) pieces she's doing.

Plus Ms. Davidsson had finished three pieces before she went AWOL some time back (I bet she'll answer when I publish and it's time to pay her. :P):




Oh yeah, I guess I should also show the cover art, by Dan Berger: