I like to keep this handy [click, click] for close encounters (March Madness Day 26)

26 What RPG based on an IP did you enjoy most? Give details.

Hmm, probably d20 Conan or d6 Star Wars. Assuming we're talking about RPGs based on IP BEFORE they were RPGs. Marvel Supers is fun, too. I guess if I had to pick, it would be the Conan game, but it's also pretty much D&D with no magic, and this is the Non-D&D blog challenge, so...

What RPG based on an IP have I never played but would like to try? That's a better question for me.

For a few years, I got the “Mail Order Hobby Shop”, TSR's mail order catalog (at least I assume it came from TSR's brick-and-mortar storefront, since it was from Lake Geneva and D&D and other TSR games were heavily featured). My brother and I would go through it, Killing Machine and my cousin Ben as well, from time to time, and we'd make wish-lists that for the most part never got fulfilled.

Listed in there was an Aliens RPG, based of course on the movie. Space marines versus xenomorphs sounded to us like a great way to spend some RPG time. Since we never had the actual licensed game, we made due with Star Frontiers. Our intrepid space explorers had several instances where we met up with a company of colonial marines (with the same names as the movie characters, even if they'd died the time before...which, just like in the movie, they usually did – although usually not in the same manner as they died in the movie) and trounce a nest of Giger xenomorphs.

Later, in my d20 days with the Ebisu group, as I mentioned, I used Michael Tresca's free PDF resources for Aliens, Predator and Terminator along with d20 Modern and Future to run an Aliens/Predator game. I've mentioned that before.

Despite all that, I'm still curious if the original licensed Aliens RPG was any good. Some day, maybe I'll get my hands on a copy, either digitally or in print, and find out.

Gekokujo Heartbreak (March Madness Day 7)

7 What fantasy RPG other than D&D have you enjoyed most? Why?

It's not old school, and it's arguably still D&D, but I found the Mongoose d20 Conan game to be pretty awesome.

How is it different from D&D? Well, for one thing, there are a dozen or so classes, but only one can use magic. The magic system is fairly different from D&D, and no one tried it out when we played it with my old Ebisu gaming group. Dave C. had planned to run a game for our Busan gaming group a few years back, and Josh was thinking of the Scholar class, but we never got that game off the ground.

So we have a version of 3E D&D (a game designed around the “magic item Christmas tree” approach to gaming) without a lot of magic. Yet it worked.

The game captured the feel of the Hyborean Age from the original stories, as well as comic books and movie adaptations. It was heavy on combat (at least as we played it), with most classes being variations on Fighter types, and it was both high-powered yet challenging.

One of these days, I'll try some other non-D&D fantasy games, but for the most part, yeah, I've played D&D when I want to scratch my fantasy adventure itch.

Disney, hmm?

Just cogitating on some things in the news besides Obama's victory (qualified yea!) [That's about as political as I'm gonna get here, don't worry.]

Disney bought up Marvel a while back, but pretty much have left Marvel to do their own thing. 

Disney repurchased Pixar, but pretty much leave them to do their own thing.

Disney has just purchased ILM, including Star Wars.  After thinking about this, I say good!  At worst, anything they turn out won't be any worse than something Lucas might have done were he inclined to do so.  And thinking about the general quality of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (first and fourth were good, middle two were decent enough) and the John Carter movie (movie was fine, Disney just stuffed it up on marketing and accounting), they'll likely do a good job with any future Star Wars movies.

And getting things away from the Skywalker story would be a good thing, IMO.  We don't need movies about Leia and Han's kids or old Jedi Master Luke, there are novels that already cover those if you care to read them.  Give us some awesome new stories in awesome new parts of the Star Wars Galaxy, please!

Arnold Schwarzenegger is returning as Conan!  King Conan of Aquilonia!  Awesome!  Looking forward to this, even if they don't use one of Howard's original tales (although the Scarlet Citadel or Hour of the Dragon would both make good movies, IMO).  I'm cool with letting original Conan be Original Conan, the comics Conan and the movie Conan being alternate universe things, like how the comic book, old Fox cartoon, and movie X-Men are similar but not the same.

And now Disney is thinking of picking up Hasbro, and WotC.  Well, at least I guess we know who will be making any future Star Wars CCGs and RPGs if this goes through.  Again, if Disney takes a fairly lax hand with WotC the way they have with Marvel and Pixar, this could be good.  If the Mouse House tries to micromanage the gaming business, well, at least we've got the OSR.

Plus, a Bargle movie, or something in the Star Frontiers or Gamma World universes would be cool.  You know Disney will be in charge of future D&D movies, maybe we'll get one that doesn't suck!

Beast of the Week: Yothga

Taking more inspiration from REH, here's one of the denizens of Tsotha-lanti's dungeons below the Scarlet Citadel, the Yothga.

Yothga
Armor Class: 8 (12)
Hit Dice: 3*
Move: nil
Attacks: 2 vines
Damage: 1d6 + special
No. Appearing: 1d4 (2d4)
Save As: Fighter 3
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: nil
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 50

Yothgas are large, intelligent vines with narrow, pointed leaves and unnatural red flowers.  They are said to come from Hell, the Dimension of Nightmares, or the cursed planet Yag.  None know for certain.  A Yothga is immobile, but can lash out with its vines up to 30' away.  Those hit by the vines must Save vs. Spells or suffer the effects of a feeblemind spell (Int becomes 3) until released from the plant's grasp.  Spellcasters ensnared by a yothga lose their spellcasting ability for 1d6+6 Turns after being released, as the plant feeds on mental energy.  If destroyed but not uprooted, the Yothga can regrow in 1d4 weeks.  Rumors warn that uprooting one is dangerous, though, as the roots go down to Hell, and strange things may be pulled up with a yothga's roots.

The Scarlet Citadel

Been a while since I read it now (still taking a little break from the Howard, reading Lovecraft on my commute, so I don't get too far ahead in my reading compared to my posting about the Conan stories), so last night I paged through the story again just as a refresher.

The Scarlet Citadel is the second story Howard wrote to feature King Conan, but it shares quite a few features of the other adventurer Conan stories Howard had been writing after The Phoenix on the Sword.  The story begins with Conan the sole survivor on his side of a massive battle (again).  This time, the kings of Ophir and Koth, working under the direction of the wizard Tsotha-lanti, have lured Conan and his Poitanian cavalry into a trap.  Rather than have archers or hordes of spearmen kill Conan, Tsotha-lanti personally comes up and uses his "magic" (a poisoned ring in this case) to paralyze Conan, and take him prisoner. 

Conan of course refuses the ridiculous offer the kings make him to give up his throne, so he's tossed in the dungeons under Tsotha-lanti's fortress.  He escapes, wanders the labyrinthine passages until he meets a rival wizard, Pelias, and then with the help of Pelias' magic, returns to Aquilonia to battle it out with the usurping nobleman in league with the two kings.

It's a pretty good story.  Not top tier Conan, but still really good.  It's also dripping with D&Disms.  Tsotha-lanti seems to be the sort of wizard who has some actual arcane power, but really just uses science when he can (Clarke's Law and all that) since it's easier.  Still, the poison ring trick seems like a Hold Person spell in action (or maybe Hold Monster, since Conan is Name Level).  The dungeons under the eponymous Scarlet Citadel appear to be a fairly standard megadungeon full of monsters and oddities, built by ancient pre-human civilizations and discovered by Tsotha-lanti and used for his own purposes. 

I can easily imagine Dave Arneson and his buddies, playing out some Hyborian wargames using Chainmail, and someone suggesting, "Wouldn't it be cool if we played out Conan's escape from the Scarlet Citadel with the Man-to-Man rules?"  Pure speculation on my part, of course, but it was likely stories like this one that helped inspire the jump from wargames to role playing games.

The Tower of the Elephant

Finally getting back to my literary tour of the Hyborian Age with one of the better Conan tales.  It is a good blend of both Howard's own personal theme of decadent civilization vs. natural or pure barbarism with Lovecraft's themes of cosmic horror man was not meant to know.

The Tower of the Elephant takes place in Conan's young thieving days.  He's in Zamora - the city is not explicitly named as Shadizar, but if I remember correctly, Shadizar is also said to have a Maul district where the thieves congregate, so it may be Shadizar the Wicked...or not. 

Conan being Conan, he decides to embark on the theft no other thief is willing to dare, the theft of the Heart of the Elephant, locked away in the tower of Yara the Wizard (if you've seen the original Conan movie, they borrowed some of the story elements for Thulsa Doom's Tower).  The tower is guarded by two walls, one patrolled by men, the other guarded by who knows what?  Conan meets another thief, Taurus, one of the most experienced thieves in the city, and they team up to try to beat the odds and steal the gem.

They face various challenges very much like a dungeon crawl adventure.  And if anyone ever complains about save or die or XP for gold, have them read this story (well, and the Lankhmar books for the XP for gold bit).

In the end, Conan discovers why the tower is named The Tower of the Elephant (he's never seen an elephant at this point in his career), gets a crash course in the planet's pre-history, and with an unlikely ally manages to come out ahead in his adventure.  Like I said above, I think this is one of the better Conan stories.  It's not so much the quality of the writing or pacing or characterization in the story (other Conan tales do each of those better).  I think it's just the atmosphere that Howard's prose evokes.  It's the right balance of gritty violence, derring-do, and weird horror that perfectly evokes the Hyborian Age for me.

The God in the Bowl

Getting behind in my Conan story reviews.  Sorry about that, folks.  I'm still reading, just haven't had much time to sit down, consider the stories, and write.  At this pace, I'm gonna have to re-read them again before writing.  Or just post a bit more often.  We'll see which happens.

Anyway, on with the review.  The God in the Bowl is the third Conan story that Howard wrote, and like The Frost Giant's Daughter, it didn't sell.  We have another young Conan story here, with him a thief in Nemedia.  The entire story takes place within a rich merchant's store-house, and is a murder mystery story with a supernatural element, rather than an action story.  Until the end, Conan is less the main character than just a participant in the action, being accused of murdering the merchant and questioned by Demetrio the Inquisitor and his police backup.

The story really puts Howard's theme of corrupt civilization vs. noble barbarism in focus.  Demetrio (who is really the main character until the last couple pages) is a decent enough fellow, but the rest of the police, especially the leader, are simply brutish thugs who abuse and terrorize the citizens.  The young, effeminate noble that hired Conan to break into the store house is pretty much Conan's exact opposite, being a weak, deceptive and soulless bastard.  Minor spoiler if you haven't read the story (but probably not unexpected), Conan decapitates him.

The real murderer is of course the supernatural element, and Conan in the end is the only one who faces it.  The "bowl" in the title is a large sealed urn from a Stygian tomb, and the contents of the "bowl" leave even Conan awash with horror.

Overall its a pretty good story.  It's well done, but it might have been the wrong sort of story for the weird fiction magazines Howard was trying to publish his work in.  The hero is sidelined for most of the story, there are no women (in distress or otherwise), and the one fight scene is cut short by the second murder caused by the mysterious creature.  This is all just speculation on my part, of course.

I'll likely be using "The God in the Bowl" in a future Beast of the Week post.

The Frost Giant's Daughter

The second tale of Conan Howard penned, the first "original" actually as The Phoenix on the Sword started out as a Kull tale and was reworked, is The Frost Giant's Daughter.  Ironically, this tale didn't sell, so a few years later Howard renamed the character Amra (an alias of Conan) and had it published in a fan magazine.

The story is that of a very young Conan.  It doesn't say how old he is, but I'm guessing he's still a teen, maybe 15 or 16 in the story.  He's battling with a group of Aesir against the Vanir, north of the Cimmerian border.  The story starts with him the last survivor of an ambush, against the last survivor of the ambushers.  Of course Conan wins, and as he sinks into the snow in exhaustion, a nearly naked and extremely beautiful woman appears before him.

She taunts the barbarian, and his lust awakes him and gives him the vigor he needs to chase her across the arctic barrens.  It's a variation on the Atalanta myth, and I can see a few possible reasons why Howard wasn't able to sell the story.

First of all, Conan is basically a slave to his raging hormones.  It could be argued that Atali, the Frost Giant's Daughter has enchanted him, but it seems from Howard's prose that it's more that Conan wants to bang her, and he's stubbornly pursuing her of his own accord for that purpose.  Of course, Atali wants Conan to follow her into a trap of her own, and when Conan quite handily vanquishes her two frost giant brothers with about three or four sword strokes (try doing that in D&D!), and begins catching up to her, she panics and uses supernatural means to escape the lustful "hero."  Conan is presented as just another horny teenage boy, really, although one who's already larger, stronger, and more skilled with a sword than most other men.  It's not the most flattering picture of the hero.

Secondly, the overt sexual nature of the story fits in with a lot of rape myths, but may have been too strong for the publishers of Howard's day.  The Pulps had plenty of sexualized stories, but this one may have been too blatant.

Still, on the positive side it does tell of an interesting supernatural event from Conan's youth, one that helps shape his personality later in life.  Viewed in the context of the collection, it's a worthwhile story.  On its own, it's a bit weak.  There could be a really powerful psychological tale of a femme fatale who tempts the wrong man, who happens to then obsessively pursue her with the intent of rape.  Howard, however, wasn't really that sort of writer, so instead we get a sort of interesting event from Conan's life, but not a really riveting one.

Beast of the Week: Stygian Baboon

Blogger seems to be really buggy lately.  Probably because I'm still holding out and using the old interface until they force me to only use their terrible new one.  But let's try getting this post up, shall we?

This week's Beast is of course inspired by the creature summoned from the Outer Dark by Thoth-Amon to wreck the plans of the Conspirators in The Phoenix on the Sword.

Stygian Baboon*
AC: 6 (14)
HD: 4*
Move: 120 (40)
Attacks: 2 talons
Damage: 1d8/1d8
No. Appearing: 1-4 (1-10)
Save As: F4
Morale: 10
Treasure Type: nil
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 125

Stygian baboons are disgusting ape-like creatures summoned to the Material Plane by dark magics.  While generally simian in appearance, they are large, ranging from 7 to 10' tall, and have twisted brutish faces, with a malign intelligence in their human-like eyes.  They attack by grabbing and rending opponents with their powerful arms.  They are only harmed by spells or magical weapons.

The Phoenix on the Sword

I started re-reading my R.E. Howard Conan collection last Sunday.  Why?  Why not!  It's good stuff.

Anyway, it's gotten me thinking about some stuff for the old blog (see my previous post - or rather don't waste your time, it's just me venting on a bad day).  This is the first, some thoughts about the first story, "The Phoenix on the Sword."

The basic plot is that four conspirators are trying to kill King Conan because they can usurp the throne Conan himself usurped.  But there are two things they don't expect.  First is the awesome barbarian prowess of Conan (of course), and second is a betrayal by a slave owned by one of the conspirators.  There's of course a supernatural element, and being the first story Howard wrote about Conan it provides a good basic introduction to the Hyborian Age without being too heavy on the exposition.

The story is well paced, with the conspirators and their slave being introduced in media res, and Conan getting a bit of dedicated character building in the second "chapter."  After that, the plot moves quickly, and the betrayal by the slave being the instrumental event that shapes the story.

This actually is not surprising, since the basic plot was originally written as a Kull of Atlantis story, "By This Axe I Rule."  Howard had written the story already, let it sit, then when the character of Conan came to him, it was rewritten to star his new character.  I've got the 2003 Del Rey collection, The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, and the appendices and introduction make it clear that there were several drafts of the revised Conan version, as well.  I'll have to get my Kull collection to see if it makes any comment about how many drafts the original went through.  Needless to say, Howard put a lot of work into this story, and it shows.

It's definitely a good way to introduce one of the most famous characters in fantasy fiction.  The next two stories aren't so well done, but I'll save them for another post.

The City and the Sandbox

My buddy Dave just put up a post on his blog about a Conan game he ran when he was in grad school.  It was using the Mongoose d20 Conan game, but he's got some good pointers on things he did for that campaign that would be good advice for anyone running a city-based campaign, or any sandbox game where the DM wants to get a noir feel to the game.

It's a good read, and he's got some good advice.

Inspiration on my DVD Shelf

Having recently posted an alternate 'Appendix N' based on one of the shelves on my book case, here's another based on some of the DVDs on another shelf of the next bookcase over.

Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)
Kagemusha (Kurosawa, 1980)
Musa (Korean period action movie, 2001)
Sakuya (Japanese manga-based live action fantasy, 2000)
Hero (Jet Li, 2002)
Red Shadow (Japanese ninja live action, 2001)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)
Enter the Dragon (Bruce Lee, 1973)
Owl's Castle (Japanese ninja live action, 1999)
Vagabond Trilogy (Toshiro Mifune as Miyamoto Musashi, 1951, 1955, 1956)
Azumi (Japanese manga-based live action, 2003)
The Seven Swords (Chinese wuxia, 2005)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (pirate fantasy, 2003)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (pirate fantasy, 2006)
Willow (George Lucas, 1988)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Errol Flynn, 1938)
Arabian Nights (Hall/Sabu, 1942)
Red Sonja (Nielsen/Schwarzenegger, 1985)
Conan the Barbarian (Schwarzenegger, 1982)
Conan the Destroyer (Schwarzenegger, 1984)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Disney, 2005)
The Princess Bride (Reiner, 1987)
Dragonslayer (MacNichol, 1981)
Legend (Cruise/Curry, 1985)
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (Hall, 1944)
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (Harryhausen, 1958)
Samson and Delilah (DeMille, 1949)
The Vikings (Douglas/Curtis, 1958)
Excalibur (Boorman, 1981)
The Scorpion King (The Rock, 2002)
Brahm Stoker's Dracula (Oldman, 1992)
Dracula (Lugosi, 1931)
Van Helsing (Jackman, 2004)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Cleese/Idle/Jones/Chapman/Gilliam/Palin, 1975)
Ben Hur (1925)
The Wizard of Oz (Garland, 1939)
The Three Musketeers (Kelly, 1948)

Not all of them are good movies, but they've likely all got at least a little something that could inspire adventures (or at least interesting encounters or NPCs) in a game.

[By the way, I have the Lord of the Rings movies on DVD, and the TV mini-series Shogun as well, but being boxed sets, they're on another shelf.]

A thought experiment

Regarding some of my recent posts and ability scores, here's an idea.

Let's take some fictional characters and assign their Strength scores by the Classic D&D scale.

Score 3 Mod -3
Score 4-5 Mod -2
Score 6-8 Mod -1
Score 9-12 Mod 0
Score 13-15 Mod +1
Score 16-17 Mod +2
Score 18 Mod +3

OK, so Hercules is an 18 on this scale. Stephen Hawking is a 3. 10 is your average Joe Schmoe. There are your goal posts.

Where would you put:
Conan (have to start with him)
Fafhrd
Aragorn
Elric (when not charged up on souls thanks to Stormbringer)
Lancelot
Bilbo Baggins
Sindbad the Sailor
Kikuchiyo (that would be Mifune in 7 Samurai)
Odysseus
Abraham Van Helsing (NOT the cheesy movie with Hugh Jackman)

Curious to see how everyone rates them.

Tarrantino, Brooks, Gilliam

A few years back, when I was in Japan, I was part of the Ebisu Gaming Club. Founding member, in fact. It wasn't as pretentious as it sounds, actually. I came into contact first with "GMSteve" and then "Angryman" on the WotC message boards. They both lived in Tokyo and wanted to game, I was close enough, as was my friend Gene. So the 4 of us would get together once a month on Sundays for 7-8 hour game sessions, mostly of RPGs (and primarily d20 games, as we were into them at the time) but board games or other things too. A few other people would join on occasion, and Gene finally moved back to Canada and a fellow named Tim took his place.

We went through lots of short RPG campaigns. We'd start off with a bang, then fizzle out shortly. d20 Conan ended on the 3rd session when Pete (Angryman) got drunk on mead while DMing and suddenly poison-weaponed Picts were swarming everywhere and TPK. Our Eberron campaign died after one too many too-tough encounters nearly wiped the party of characters we were heavily invested in and didn't want to lose. My d20 Future Aliens/Predator game was meant to be short, and we actually completed it and then moved on to other things. We tried out a "narrative" game Steve was working on, in several incarnations, but it never seemed to go right.

By the end, just before Steve found out he'd have to move back to the States for his company, he was heavily into the Forge's creations but also jonesing to get back to some BX D&D--which finally broke me of the d20 craze and made me realize that BECM was what I really wanted to play.

Anyway, we often discussed just why we had so much fun but couldn't keep at one game/campaign/system long enough to really get into it. One day, Steve offered the following assessment:

Steve's gaming style was Quentin Tarrantino. He liked it cool, edgy, and violent.

Pete's gaming style was Terry Gilliam. He liked it weird and funky.

My gaming style was Mel Brooks. I liked it odd but humorous.

Yes, my Aliens/Predator game was filled with some of the most tense moments in our gaming, but also with the most silly and gut-busting funny ones, too.

I think I've lost that Brooks charm lately. I think I need a bit more "Stupid" in my "Retro."

So anyone else out there got a style similar to a movie director?

Setbacks

Well, Josh ended up having an argument with Dave about how Dave was planning to run Conan, and Dave basically said he didn't want Josh to play in his game. Josh can be difficult, often on purpose, but he did say he would bow out if the rest of us wanted to play.

Well, when Alex had blown up at Josh because of the way the 3E game was going, I drew my line in the sand. Any more of these personality clashes messing up the game and I was out.

So I'm out. My wife is happy that I'll be around every Saturday evening, instead of gaming ever other. And that's worth it for me. I'd rather have her happy than have her unhappy about me attending some games that I'm not happy playing in. And we've still got the week day board game nights.

On the plus side, after a night playing Twilight Imperium, I mentioned that I might bring Star Frontiers to the board game night sometime instead of Classic D&D. Got a positive response from Josh and Alex, and Pat seems to just go with the flow. So now I've got to go through all those old adventures from when I was a kid and see which ones I think I'd like to run the guys, and maybe the Korean ladies, through.

Good thing about Star Frontiers--it really works well as a short, episodic game. Yeah, you can do long campaigns as well, but back in the day we saved that mostly for D&D, while SF was more of a grab back of different types of play--usually inspired by whatever SF/war/Western/action movie we'd just seen, or video game we'd just played.

The Saturday Games

Well, it seems like all of people's differences and dislikes have been smoothed over (for now at least), and we're going to give Mongoose's d20 version of Conan a run.

I've played it before back when I was in Japan, and found it to be pretty fun. Low magic, high octane combat, and a pretty good feel for the way things work in REH's stories.

Hope it works out!