Open Friday: Batteries Not Included

When I was younger, I used a lot of pre-packaged adventure modules with the RPGs I played with my friends. One of the things I appreciated about them is that, if they introduced a new monster or magic item or whatever, they included the game stats for it at the back of the product. Come to think of it, that was generally how new "stuff" got introduced into RPGs. There were exceptions, of course. For example, Gary Gygax's module, The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, uses a lot of monsters from the Fiend Folio, so, if you want to play that module to its fullest, you need a copy of the FF. Likewise, Isle of the Ape uses spells and magic items from Unearthed Arcana and more or less expects that the referee owns and is using that book in his campaign if he wishes to run the module.

How do you feel about this? At what point is it too onerous to expect that a referee owns a particular supplementary work? Should adventure modules include everything not included in the main rulebook for the benefit of those who don't own anything else or is it reasonable to assume that most players own the latest releases?

Open Friday: Ability Score Modifiers

One of the bigger discontinuities between LBB-only OD&D and post-Greyhawk OD&D is the way ability scores are handled. In the former, the prime requisites -- Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom -- provide an experience point bonus and only to the class with which they're associated. Meanwhile, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma all provide some mechanical benefit that applies to every character, regardless of class. Consequently, there's neither a mechanical advantage nor disadvantage for, say, a fighter to have a low Intelligence or a high Wisdom.

Supplement I changes this dynamic by providing modifiers for Strength and Intelligence (but not Wisdom, curiously), so as to make high scores in them more valuable for fighting men and magic-users respectively. In addition, the introduction of the thief, whose prime requisite is Dexterity, also had the unintended side effect of making most thieves very good at the use of missile weapons.

When I began my Dwimmermount campaign, I wanted to go for as "pure" an OD&D experience as possible, so we initially used only the rules in the LBBs. That rather quickly changed, because, like variable weapon damage, a wider range of ability score modifiers is one of those aspects of later editions of Dungeons & Dragons that everyone expects to be there. So, we used Supplement I in a quasi-AD&D fashion (e.g. granting to hit and damage bonuses for high Strength to all characters, not just fighting men).

Lately, I've been pondering the idea of two sets of ability score modifiers. One set that's for all classes and one set that's only for members of a certain class. What if, say, bonuses to hit with melee weapons was available to characters of any class with a high enough Strength score, but bonus to damage was only available to fighters? There's precedent for this even in OD&D, where high or low Intelligence has consequences for a magic-user above and beyond an XP modifier but for no other class. My intention here is to restore a little of the unique association a prime requisite has to its class while at the same time providing benefits and drawbacks to all classes for their ability scores.

This is definitely a great deviation from LBB-only OD&D, but I'm OK with that. After years of experimenting, I find I'm happiest playing D&D 0.75 and this is in that vein, I think. But I'm curious to hear what others think about this, at least in the abstract. If people want, I can make another post later where I lay out the full extent of what I'm imagining and we can talk more specifically about that.

Open Friday: Dungeon Entry "Stat Block"

In the comments to last week's Open Friday post about setting detail, the idea was floated of a "stat block" for dungeon entries, which would include lines for doors, lighting, smells, and hazards -- something like this perhaps:

Door: Heavy wood with metal reinforcements, pulls outward, locked.
Lighting: Dark.
Smells: A faint musty odor.

I find the idea intriguing, though I do worry that such a format could easily lead to bloated room descriptions that provide so much information that it's hard to prepare and, worse yet, hard to improvise from.

So, for today's question: what do you think of the idea of dungeon entry stat blocks? Would they be useful to you and, if so, what sort of details would you like to see it include? If you don't like the idea of them, why not?

Open Friday: Level of Setting Detail

The first published setting for Dungeons & Dragons I remember seeing was probably The World of Greyhawk, which was long my model of the "perfect" level of detail in a published campaign setting. Its entries are short -- a paragraph or two at most -- and provide just enough information to inspire the referee while not leaving him without a net, so to speak. In recent years, I started to become a lot more enamored of the terseness of Judges Guild's Wilderlands setting material, but, on reflection, I realized that something a wee bit closer to The World of Greyhawk might have greater utility. That's why I'm very fond of the format Rob Conley adopted in Blackmarsh last year, which seems to offer a happy medium between the two approaches.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about (taken from the gazetteer of the area around Dwimmermount):

2806 Elphame

Population: Unknown; Alignment: Neutral; Ruler: Linwa Nirmalan, Elf 8, N; Resource: Market

Elphame is the elven “capital” in the north, a secluded, fortified settlement closed to most outsiders. Its precise population is unknown, owing to the secretive nature of the elves, but is reputed to be in the hundreds.

2911 Gloris

Population: 300 Men; Alignment: Lawful; Ruler: Mayor Gillet Hodemer, 0-Level, L; Resource: Farm

Gloris is a small community whose inhabitants make their living by farming and trading with the friendly goblins of the nearby Makrono Marsh (see above).

3413 Ghaz Droonan

Built into the side of a mountain, the mighty dwarf hold of Ghaz Droonan stood for centuries as an example of the great works of the sturdy Children of the Earth. All that changed when a plague of unknown origins swept through its halls and exterminated its population. The source of the plague has never been determined and a foul miasma lingers still, discouraging any dwarf from ever returning.

3627 The Outyard

The Outyard is an immense subterranean complex hewn out of the Thunderhome Mountains (see above) and populated by giants. In Thulian times, the giants were kept at bay, but, in recent decades, they have become more active, raiding the settlements of Men and dwarves.

4004 Castle Greenholt

Population: 200 Men; Alignment: Neutral; Ruler: Nycaize Ouyquant, MU 7, N

Caste Greenholt is home to a powerful magician who has set himself up as protector of the Greenholt Forest (see above). Some believe this is because the forest hides a secret of the Great Ancients, while others believe he entered into a pact with the elves of Elphame (2806). Whatever the truth, the magician and his men do their best to prevent anyone from entering the forest without his permission.

4221 The City Out of Time

Whether this city even exists is open to debate among scholars. Legends claim that, on certain nights -- naturally there is debate as to which ones -- an ancient city filled with treasure appears for a short time before disappearing again. Legends also claim the city has magical guardians that slay any who attempt to make off with its treasure.

So what do you think? Is this too little detail? Too much? Just right? If these don't hit your personal sweet spot, what does? And how would you change these entries to make them more in line with your own philosophy of setting detail?

Open Friday: Awesome Homebrews

One of the best things about the old school renaissance is its diversity: there are a huge number of folks out there doing all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff in their home campaigns. Precisely because there are so many, it's pretty much impossible to keep track of them all. That's why I'm making it a point today to direct your attention to a handful of people who've done awesome work in either presenting material from their homebrew setting or rules hacks they've made (or both). That they have all taken their games in such different direction is, to me, a feature rather than a bug (to borrow an overused phrase).

A lot of this stuff isn't what I would do, but, then, that's the point. Gaming awesomeness comes in a variety of forms and I want to highlight a few terrific examples of it. In the comments below, feel free to include links to examples of what you think are great presentations of homebrew setting information and/or houserules.

In Places Deep: Evan Elkins uses his blog to present not one but three different campaign settings -- Cuccagna ("The Tempest as written by Jack Vance"), The Dark Country (a Hammer Horror-inspired setting and home to Nightwick Abbey, "the Amityville Horror of megadungeons"), and Uz (a science fantasy in Earth's far future)

Legacy of the Bieth: Humza Kazmi has come up with a setting that combines a vaguely Abbasid/Almoravid era North Africa with the feel of a spaghetti western. If that's not one of the more awesome campaign pitches I've ever heard, I don't know what is.

Mutants and Magic: Paul Schaefer's Gamma Red Death World is set on Earth in the late 19th century after an alien invasion. This is a fairly new setting, so it's still being detailed, but I really like what I've seen so far.

People them with Monsters: Jeremy Deram presents Outland, which he describes as a "semi-gonzo kitchen sink setting." Outland was originally a D&D setting but has since migrated over to Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. You can see Jeremy's house rules on the site, as well as his excellent DCC RPG resources.

Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque: Jack Shear's The World Between Setting is a Gothic fantasy that borrows from literature, folklore, fantasy, and horror. It's one of my favorite homebrew settings these days and strikes me as what Ravenloft could have/should have been.

The Wisdom Frog Croaks: Reynaldo Madrinan presents his Barovania setting, which, as you might guess from its name, is Ravenloft crossed with Japanese video games. It's not quite my cup of tea, but there's no denying that it's quite imaginative. Plus, I suspect my 12 year-old daughter would love it.

Untimately: Brendan S presents his Pahvelorn setting, as well as heaps of amazing OD&D rules variants and extremely useful resources, such as OD&D equipment post from this past summer.

Wampus Country: Describing Erik Jensen's Wampus Country setting is difficult, but if you were to think "D&D crossed with Oregon Trail," with lots of fairy tale stuff thrown in, you wouldn't be too far off.

I have lots more links like these to share and I will in future posts, but, as I said above, I'd like you to do the same in the comments below. Share links to the awesome old school homebrew settings and rules you've encountered on the web!

Open Friday: Homages

On one of the levels of Dwimmermount, there's the following:

44. Blue RoomDevoid of almost any contents, this room is completely tiled -- walls, floor, and ceiling -- in dark blue. In one corner can be found a small scarab-shaped brooch. The brooch is non-magical but does have some strange, curving symbols written on it that utterly elude even spells like read languages to decipher. The brooch might fetch 100 gp to a dedicated collector of the arcane.

I wrote that as a small and (I hope) unobtrusive homage, one of several scattered throughout the dungeon to people and games I like and admire. This practice is a long pedigree, with many old school products doing similar things.

So today's Open Friday question is a little more open-ended than usual: Do you like such homages in your gaming materials? If not, why not? Do you use them yourself in things you're writing or running? What are some examples of which you're particularly proud?

Open Friday: White Whales

I mentioned the other day that, for a long time, GDW's Azhanti High Lightning was a product of which I could never managed to obtain a copy. I'm curious to know if anyone else has a similarly elusive "white whale" gaming product that they've hunted for and never managed to acquire. If so, share it in the comments below.

Open Friday: "Niche" Games

Last night I had the chance to play my first session of Dungeon Crawl Classics (I'll talk about it at greater length tomorrow) and I had a blast. As I said then, DCC RPG is a game that really won me over, despite my initial skepticism, because it was clearly not written to be a mass market crowd pleaser. That is, it's not a "generic" fantasy game, but instead comes with all sorts of mechanical, esthetic, and gaming cultural (e.g. the coolness of Zocchi dice) assumptions that not every gamer is going to share -- and indeed many will actively dislike.

Despite, I think DCC RPG is a great game. Indeed, I think much of its greatness comes from the very fact that it was designed with a niche audience in mind rather than a broad one. So, my question for today is this: what is your favorite "niche RPG?" By this, I mean a game designed for a small, specific audience that understands and appreciates its quirkiness in a way that a mass audience never could.

Open Friday: Real, Fun Quotes

I wanted something fun for today's Open Friday question, so here it is: what's the most amusing in character quote you can remember from a game session? To make it a little more challenging, let me stipulate that I'm looking for quotes that can be enjoyed without any context. So, all I want is a quote without any setup or explanation.

For example, here's one I'll never forget:

"Chim-pan-zees wan-na be free!"

Open Friday: "Outdated" Science Fiction

Does the fact that a science fiction book, movie, or game produced in the past uses science that's been superseded affect your enjoyment of it? I know when I was a teenager, I went through a phase where I started to reject a lot of older SF because I considered it "outdated." That's why, for example, I largely abandoned Traveller for a time in favor of the newfangled Traveller: 2300 -- it was more "up to date." Nowadays, I revel in older conceptions of science fiction and often find them much more enjoyable than whatever's trendy these days. And, in my darker moments, I look forward to the day, several decades hence, when everyone looks back at all the transhumanist sci-fi of the early 21st century and deems it just as ludicrous as Barsoom or space pirates with slide rules.

Open Friday: Old School Revival

Leaving aside questions of money and copyrights, what old school -- by which I mean "pre-1985" -- roleplaying game would you most like to see revived for the 21st century and why? Feel free to provide additional details about what you might change in the game (if anything) to update or otherwise alter it to make it more accessible to contemporary gamers.

Open Friday: Four Years

Today marks the fourth anniversary of my starting this blog -- and what a four years it's been! Back in March 2008, there were only two retro-clones, OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord, and there wasn't the plethora of new published adventures or supplements for old school gaming that we have today. For that matter, there weren't that many blogs and forums dedicated to the Old Ways either, if you can believe it. Neither were there any, let alone multiple, conventions where the vast majority of the attendees would be playing RPGs published three decades ago. In those days, "old school" wasn't the Next Big Thing that it seems to have become, with even Wizards of the Coast, whose D&D IV wasn't yet released when I started this blog, openly embracing it as it prepares to produce the latest edition of the Original Fantasy Roleplaying Game. All in all, it's been a fun and successful four years for our little corner of the hobby.

So, for today, feel free to use the comments to post your memories and thoughts about the last four years as it pertains to old school gaming. I'm especially curious to hear from people who were involved in preserving and promoting the Old Ways prior to 2008 and if they ever imagined that their preferred style of RPG would even experience a revival, let alone a renaissance.

Open Friday: Revisiting Dungeon Locales

One of the lessons I learned early on in creating Dwimmermount was that most levels, if not every level, ought to have some locale or feature that encourages return visits to that level. So, there's the "Cleric Tree," a weird tree-like plant that bears fruit that act as potions of healing and the Moon Pool, whose waters have various potentially beneficial effects. These locales and many others scattered throughout the dungeon encourage repeat visits and provide the referee with the chance to restock rooms with monsters and treasure. They are, in my opinion, a vital part of keeping a dungeon "fresh" and making it feel "alive."

For today's Open Friday question, I'd like to ask people to share some of the locales in their dungeons that players return to again and again, even as they explore deeper into them.

Open Friday: Oddities

In general, I'm not someone who craves absolute consistency in my game rules. In fact, I rather like it when there are rules that either defy expectations or don't make much immediate sense. A good example of this is the cleric's acquisition of spells in OD&D. According to the LBBs (as well as Swords & Wizardry, ACKS, and Labyrinth Lord Original Edition Characters), clerics don't get any spells at first level at all, but, at sixth level acquires both third and fourth-level spells for the first time. This is a quirky little rule that AD&D (and its successors) abandoned when it smoothed out some of the game's rough edges, but I've come to like it a great deal.

So, today's question is this: what odd little rules in your favorite RPG have you come to love and embrace wholeheartedly?

Open Friday: Highly Anticipated But Delayed Gaming Products

Owing to some technical issues, it looks like the Dwimmermount Kickstarter won't go live today, though you can view the preview of its page here, if you'd like to see it, including a piece Jeff Dee did for the book's back cover (the front cover, by Mark Allen, is almost finished as well). Rather than vent my frustration at this unexpected turn of events, I thought I'd turn it into an occasion for an Open Friday post.

So, here's my question: what are the gaming products you most wanted to see released over the years but were delayed again and again -- perhaps even to the point of never coming out? For me, I think the big ones are Gary's Castle Greyhawk and City of Greyhawk products, about which I've talked before. What are yours?

Open Friday: 'Zines

One of the many, many positive results of the old school renaissance over the last few years has been the rediscovery -- and re-invigoration -- of old forms, whether those forms be megadungeons, hexcrawls, or pulp fantasy in general. Another form I've noticed undergoing a revival is the fanzine, with Christian's Loviatar being the best example. By the time I got into the hobby in late 1979, 'zines were hardly dead, but they weren't something that the younger generation of kids like me really got into. It wasn't until the late '80s that I ever read or subscribed to a gaming fanzine and the ones I did were all dedicated to Traveller (which was my obsession between 1987 and 1992, during which I largely abandoned D&D).

I really loved those Traveller 'zines, which I still have to this day. They weren't "professional," either in content or presentation, but they were filled with enthusiasm and imagination and they encouraged me to pick up a pen and start writing my own stuff. Some might argue that blogs are the new 'zines and there's some truth to that assertion. On the other hand, 'zines just feel different to me in some indescribable way, though perhaps Christian said it best when he wrote:

While blogs are a wonderful tool for connecting with people who share similar interests, there's an anonymity to the process. It's easy to insult someone from the safety of an avatar with a codename. It's harder to actually sit down, write a letter and drop your anger in the mailbox. Zines are a much more personal and direct way to communicate. You might read and forget a blog post. You're more likely to save a favorite zine for years.

I think he's absolutely right here, which is why I'm glad that he's keeping the 'zine alive and well in 2012 (and I understand Tim is thinking of trying his hand at the form, too -- good show!).

So, for today's Open Friday, feel free to share your thoughts about and experiences with gaming fanzines. I'm curious to hear how many of you have ever read, subscribed to, or written them.

Open Friday: Inspiring Illustrations

I woke up this morning and was ecstatic to discover an email from Jeff Dee that included the preliminary sketches for a couple of illustrations he's doing for the upcoming Dwimmermount book. I'll probably share those later, but what immediately struck me upon seeing them was how beautifully he'd captured scenes I'd described in actual play, such as the ascent up the stairs of the Path of Mavors to the first level of the dungeon or the fight with the eldritch bones in the Red Chapel. As a writer, it's really gratifying to see one's words given another form.

This in turn got me to thinking about illustrations from published adventures that I found particularly inspiring. The Erol Otus piece on the back of The Keep on the Borderlands has always been a favorite of mine, as has Jim Roslof's fight with the kuo-toa from the combined edition of Descent into the Depths of the Earth. I could cite lots more, but those two have always stuck with me, in large part because they expressed two equally important parts of D&D play: the grand beginning and the nitty gritty of combat against a dangerous foe.

So, for today's Open Friday question, I'd like to ask you: what are the illustrations in published adventures that most fire your imagination?

Open Friday: Who Are These Guys?

I'm going to be lazy and self-indulgent with today's Open Friday post (how is that different than usual, you may ask?). You see, just before the release of Thousand Suns in late December, I received proof copies of both the softcover and hardcover versions of the game. These proofs showed me that I needed to make a few small tweaks to the game before it was released for sale. I still have the proofs, sitting on my desk, and I was wondering aloud what I should do with them. My wife suggested that I give them away as prizes in a contest and so I shall.

Below you will find two images. They were both drawn by the always-awesome Mike Vilardi, with whom I've wanted to do a project for, literally, more than a decade. He did a number of pieces in the Thousand Suns rulebook and he's currently working on some pieces for upcoming supplements. One of the things he recently did was a series of sketches for pregenerated characters in an adventure for the game. I haven't yet gotten round to generating the characters, so that's when I had an idea: what if I present a couple of these sketches and ask readers to come up with descriptions of them, the two I like the best getting one of my proof copies of the game?

So, take a look at images below. Choose one (or both) and write up a brief description of the character: his or her name, occupation, personality, and background. Put your description in the comments. Don't worry about game mechanics or anything like that. I'll produce those after I've found two descriptions that I like. Remember that Thousand Suns is a science fiction RPG inspired by the imperial SF of the '50s, '60s, and '70s (and their contemporary descendants). It's neither hard sci-fi nor cartoonish space opera. Think Anderson, Chandler, and Piper, among others. You can make as many entries as you wish, but no single person will be able to win more than once.

I'll make my decision between now and February 16 based on originality, concision, and how closely the entries evoke the literary inspirations of the game. One winner will receive the hardcover and the other will receive the softcover, which being which determined by a 1D12 roll. Likewise, I'll credit the creator of the description in the upcoming adventure and send along a copy of it when it's released (probably during the summer). If anyone has any specific questions, put them in the comments, just like the descriptions. Please don't email them directly to me. I already have a backlog of emails I need to answer as it is.

Without further ado, here are the two images:

©2012 Mike Vilardi

©2012 Mike Vilardi

Open Friday: Other Reprints

Last Friday, I posted a poll about how likely buyers of WotC's upcoming AD&D reprints were to use them to play an AD&D adventure or campaign. Of the nearly 800 respondents, about one-quarter said they planned to do so while another quarter hoped to do so. That's fairly impressive if you ask me and makes me think that, while the numbers are unlikely to be vast, there is a market for reprints of TSR era gaming materials.

So, for today's Open Friday question, I'm doing another poll. This one is about what other types of TSR era material you'd like to see Wizards of the Coast reprint, in the unlikely event that they choose to do so. This poll allows for multiple answers, so feel free to choose as many options as suit you. Likewise, feel free to use the comments below to elaborate on your choices.

Open Friday: AD&D Reprints

The recent announcement that Wizards of the Coast would be reprinting the original three Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks this April caused quite a stir in the old school community, with lots of us who hadn't bought a WotC product in years expressing great interest in picking these up. With that in mind, I thought I'd do a little poll this week for those of you who intend to purchase copies of the reprints. So, if you're not going to buy copies, this poll isn't for you.

Here's the question: Do you intend to run an AD&D campaign and/or adventure once you've acquired your copies of the reprints? Feel free to elaborate on your response in the comments below, especially if your answer is "I'd like to, but ..."