New Horizons

I am without a doubt undergoing a sea change in my gaming preferences. I’ve lost all enthusiasm for level-based fantasy games in the last few months and I now realize that I’ve hit my saturation point. This doesn’t mean I’m done with them for good, but it will be some time before I’m running D&D in any of its myriad forms again. Playing the game is fine; running it is another story.

This also doesn’t mean that I’m finished with writing for them either. In fact, I just finished up my work for another level-based fantasy game and have another contribution in that vein on my schedule. However, when it comes to my personal life, it’s time to change things up.

The downside of this realization is that Stonehell is effectively in stasis for the foreseeable future. I hate to do it, but my lack of interest in writing dungeon adventures is blatantly obvious when I look over what I’ve written so far. I have high expectations for the sequel and I’m not meeting them. I’ll come back and write the second book once I can get excited about the dungeon again. My apologies to those of you who’ve been looking forward to the sequel, but I’m not going to take the sleazy route of writing a piece of shit and asking you for your money for it.

“OK, Mike, if that’s how you feel, what’s next?” I’m glad you ask.

Unless something gets changed (which is entirely possible), the next issue of Fight On! will feature the first of a series of articles I’ve written aimed at “modern” horror and fantasy. I use quotation marks because the default period is the 1920s (all the better to fit classic Call of Cthulhu) rather than the 21^st century. I’m extremely proud of this series, more proud of it than anything I’ve done for my own enjoyment in some time. The article features a map (a glimpse of which is below)done by cartographer Ravi Shankar who I met over at the Cartographer’s Guild. Ravi does some excellent work and I encourage you to check out his portfolio—especially if you’re looking for a good cartographer.

The series details a quaint little portion of upstate New York located in the Hudson Valley region. In real life, the Hudson Valley has a great deal of folklore attached to it. One finds stories of everything from headless horsemen to Bigfoot to UFOs. After I’m done with it, there will be even more weird goings-on reported. The purpose of the series is to present a sandbox setting in which referees can place their own historical horror games. Tired of Arkham? Come visit Wildwyck County. If I do my job correctly though, the place can be used for more than just Call of Cthulhu. It’d make an excellent Colonial Gothic campaign if you roll the clock back or a World of Darkness setting if you advance the timeline ahead. One could even remove all the serial numbers and turn it into a fantasy-based campaign using Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Realms of Crawling Chaos.

The series has personal connections for me, which is one of the reasons it has me so excited. Wildwyck County is based on real life portions of New York State where I had many happy experiences. The chance to return to that place (even in a fictionalized and highly spookified form) is a great pleasure. In fact, it’s even inspired me to return there in real life for a few days to engage in some R&R&R (rest and relaxation and research). I plan on taking some photos to use in future articles to support the artwork I’ve already contributed (chosen, but not created by me, thankfully) for the initial article. 

Connected to the ‘Wyck (as the locals call their home)are the eternal autumnal lands of the October Country. I’ve been rambling about and designing for the October Country for over two years now on the blog Secret Antiquities and it represents my second big project. I’ve got enough material to begin playtesting the setting and I hope to assemble the finished material into a book once I’ve worked the kinks out. If I had to pick a work that I’d consider my magnum opus, the October Country would be it. I call it my Rosetta Stone setting because any story I want to tell—fantasy, horror, intrigue, pulp, or weirdness—can find a home in the October Country. It’s a personal place, but one I hope has enough common touchstones to be universal.

I’m not sure how I’ll handle that setting in the future. I’d like to see it in print, but I’m not certain I want to go down the road of self-publishing again. I’ve gotten lazy and like it when all I have to do is string the words together and let somebody else worry about the art, the editing, the layout, etc. Unfortunately, I’m hesitant to relinquish ownership of the material, so self-publishing may be the only course. But that’s all carts far, far in front of horses for now.

This brings me to my last concern: the future of this blog. My original plan was to keep it up until I released the Stonehell sequel and then quietly retire it. Now, with the sequel on hold for the foreseeable future, I’m at a loss at what to do. I have no interest in writing more about fantasy games like D&D here for now, but this blog draws a lot of traffic and has a robust following. Do I mothball the blog until I come back around to level-based fantasy games again or do I repurpose it to reflect my new interests? And if I do that, what happens to Secret Antiquities? Frankly, I don’t know.

That’s my future, folks. One which may or may not be of interest to you, but I thought you deserved a heads up as to where I’m headed. Things have been very, very quiet here as of late and this is the reason why. I hope this glimpse at where I’m going and my future plans sparks some interest and you hang around here or follow me where I’m going, but I understand if you’re more comfortable remaining where I’ve been. It’s all good either way.

Question Authority—Especially if that Authority is Me

I’ve noticed something about my own players and several others that I’ve shared a table with over the last two years, a phenomenon that I’ve not been able to deduce the whys and wherefores of. It might be a strictly local trend, one that doesn’t occur elsewhere, but it could also be indicative of the way the game has changed after the release of the 3rd edition. Maybe you’ve seen this happen too.

My players don’t ask a lot of questions in-game. This is completely alien to me because that’s all I ever do when I’m playing. Maybe it’s because I’m a referee or a designer or simply because I play these games to temporarily lose myself in the fantasy we create and becoming invested in the shared world makes it easier to do so. Most of my players, however, and others that I’ve gamed with are seemingly content to lay back and assume a completely submissive role in the play experience. Unfortunately, this can be fatal to their characters.

Here’s a recent example: I was running a quick filler game using the material I created for my Out of the Box campaign. It got off to a good start with the players going to the tavern and one making an inquiry about any recent goings on in the area. The barkeep revealed that some settlers had been attacked on the road recently, and had been kidnapped by forces unknown. I was happy. The guys were interacting with the campaign world at large, which was a big step forward for some of them. But then old habits kicked in.

They learned that the local temple couldn’t provide any healing potions, but heard a rumor that a witch in the woods might be able to. Rather than ask any more questions, they figured they’d just stumble around in the woods for a while and run into her. Things got worse after they decided to leave the safety of the keep and go dungeon-crawling. There were three options on a map that a local had, all of which were merely names on a paper. The party picked one at random and headed for it, not even pausing to see if anyone knew anything about the site they had chosen. As it turned out, the dungeon they picked was scaled for 3rd level characters and the expedition resulted in a massacre.

The same tendency occurs during the actual adventure. In my Stonehell game, the PCs occasionally encountered phenomenon or items that they didn’t recognize. Occasionally a player might ask something like, “Does my magic-user know anything about this?” or “As a dwarf do I recognize that?” When I answer “No,” they seem to take that as “No and you never will.” The thought of seeking out an NPC expert doesn’t even occur to them.

Compare this to my approach in the Labyrinth Lord game I’m participating it. We were running through the Village of Hommlet and the party, after learning of the Moathouse, decided to head out there and loot it. Immediately. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I cried. “Let’s see if we can’t learn a thing or two before we go out there.” My magic-user asked around town and learned of the backstory behind the Battle of the Moathouse and talked to a few soldiers who had been there that day. In doing so, he got a rough sketch of the exterior and learned that there was a single known dungeon level underneath the fort. He also got Rufus to kick in some troops and offer up a bounty for exploring the place. Sometimes knowing these little facts and whether you’re bound to run into goblins instead of orcs can save lives, especially fragile, 1st level lives.

After a bad run in with the frogs, my magic-user consulted with the local druid, thinking that if anyone could offer some advice about giant frogs, he’d be the guy. This lead to us getting a magic orb that created a cloud of monstrous flies and helped draw off some of the big batrachians in our path.

Maybe I’m just an exemplary player or perhaps reading all those “advice to the players” articles in Dragon back in the day stuck in my brain. Whatever the case, I’m just not seeing this trend in the gamers I’ve been playing with and I’m wondering why. Is it merely because they are “poor” players or is this symptomatic of a larger cause? Have video games that feed the players tidbits of information at predetermined points made gamers more passive? Did including a “Gather Information” skill make players think that the only way to get important information was to make a skill check and when that skill is missing from their plate of options they believe that information is unavailable? Am I a sucky referee who runs a game that provides no impetus for the players to peer beyond the surface? I really don’t know.

This had been on my mind a lot lately, mostly because I’m re-examining what types of games I enjoy running and because of some changes in my regular group. I look at Jeff Rient’s Twenty Questions and part of me wonders if it’s even worth answering them if nobody’s going to make those inquiries in the first place. This also explains my request that folks interested in play testing not “lay back and think of England” but get excited and get involved. A great deal of my lack of enthusiasm for continuing to run Labyrinth Lord comes from this absence of investment in the shared world we’re supposed to be creating around the table.

I’m not trying to be harsh or rude to my players, but it’s something that I have noticed in the year and a half we’ve been together. Not from all of them, but enough that it affects me and my own interest in running a game. And with my plan to introduce a new setting/game that I consider to be my most personal and immersive campaign ever, these concerns make me think that this is not the right time or group to do so.

Am I alone in noticing this trend in gamers, especially younger ones? Is this a singular phenomenon or has this affected your own games as well? I’d really like to diagnose this affliction and see what might be done to address it.

Bad Ass Erol Otus Elf

I've been on an elven kick as of late for reasons I'll not yet reveal, but the result is that I'm looking at a lot of roleplaying supplemental material covering our pointy-eared counterparts. When it comes to roleplaying material for elves, Roger E. Moore's articles on the demihumans in D&D certainly stands out. There's a reason that the deities he created in those articles still linger on in the game to this day.

It has been awhile since I read his "The Elven Point of View." I haven't looked at it since my return to old school gaming and thought I should reacquaint myself with its contents. I fired up my Dragon Magazine Archive and found it with a quick search. And there, right smack in the center of the article's first page was this

I certainly did not remember this depiction of an elf, but it is truly a bad ass one. This ain't Orlando Bloom chewing fletchings off an arrow. This is an elf that's going to wreck your day with either his twisty staff of flying lanterns, his eldritch eye magic, or his long sword of Dead Kennedys.

Sometimes all you need is an alternate take on a stereotype to change your entire world view. From now on, all my elves have this guy as a relative.

I Beg to Differ

I wanted to point this out because I’ve been seeing it a few places online now and it just needles me. Maybe you’ve see it too.

I’m referring to the ads for Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale, a new title for the Xbox. I’m not one for console gaming, but it’s not that there’s a D&D video game which irks me. It’s the fact that they use this quote as part of the advertising campaign:

That’s pretty much the most asinine statement I’ve heard in recent weeks. OK, I’ve vented; back to lighting candles and not cursing the darkness. Sorry about that.

School’s Out Week: 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons

We’re a day late and a dollar short on this post. Please excuse us; it’s been that sort of week.

I can think of no better way to close out the School’s Out Week than by turning our attentions towards what many consider the poster boy for “what went wrong”: 4th Edition D&D. I’ve had time to weigh the pros and cons of the latest incarnation of the venerable roleplaying title due to my recent (and highly unforeseen) involvement with the title.

A few weeks ago, one of my Labyrinth Lord players announced that he’d be orchestrating the D&D Encounters program at our FLGS and he kindly invited me to attend. He was well aware of the fact that I’m firmly in the school of “less is more” and that 4E is really not my “go to” edition for D&D (he said, understating the subject), but left the offer open. When the next Wednesday rolled around, I stopped by to make sure he had enough players to go through with the matter. Having experienced what it takes to get a group of gamers going, I wanted him to succeed and if that meant having to sit in so he’d have enough guys to run, I was willing to do so. And that’s exactly what happened due to some miscommunication with the store about scheduled start times and dates. Thus, Mike took up the role of Brandis the human paladin and set forth to defeat the darkness (literally).

My previous experience with 4th edition was the singular playtest my group ran of D&D Gamma World some months ago. This time, I’d be on the other side of the DM’s screen. Out of respect, I kept my mouth shut and my mind open and did my best to treat it as a roleplaying game and not a miniatures battle game. The results were mixed.

First off, let me say I’m not here today to tear down 4E. I realize that I have no axe to grind anymore, if ever, with WotC. I’ve developed a lot of sympathy for the guys down in the design trenches and have the sneaking suspicion that they’re not really happy with the direction things have taken and would much rather be paid to take the game in another direction. Since a steady RPG design gig is a rare bird, I don’t blame them and might do the same thing in their position.

Also, any criticism that follows is not directed to Dave, who has taken up the challenge of running the Encounters sessions (which is a really bad choice for a name because it sounds too much like the swingers’ group that meets weekly at the A-Frame). He’s running the program they sent him and is inhibited by the material. I also respect anyone who is out there running a game rather than sitting at home bitching about the fact they’re not.

After sitting through two Encounters sessions, I’m ready to speak openly about my experience with 4E. It isn’t much different from the impression I got when running D&D Gamma World and is one I’ve seen repeated in several places. Ultimately, when the books are put away and the chip bowl has been emptied, 4th Edition D&D is a decent skirmish miniatures game. When paired with the weekly, two-hour long Encounters program, it becomes even more engaging. The players have a set goal and know that they’ll be headed home once it’s finished, not unlike putting aside two hours to watch a movie. I can honestly say that I’ve enjoyed the past two weeks.

The Encounters program is obviously geared toward a specific type of gamer, one with limited time and perhaps lacking the means or social skills to cultivate a group on their own. Each session starts with a little light roleplaying that is essentially a guise to determine what this week’s goal is. Are we to defend the orphanage? Kill the bandit chief? Maybe pursue the sinister gnome who ran down the alley into the obvious ambush? Once that’s out of the way, the tactical map is put down, the counters are placed, and the dice start rolling. When the last body hits the ground, you pack up and head on home.

This isn’t a bad way to approach 4E and it is much more enjoyable to me than I suspect participating in an ongoing 4E campaign would be. There is no investment needed other than a small block of time each week. My character is pre-generated and all his powers are neatly written on the back of the laminated character card, so I don’t have to drop a dime on confusing rulebooks (which one is official this week?) or power cards (I’m not spending another $10 because I want to play a warlock this time). I sit down, chuck some dice, and go home. Of course, the downfall to this is that I’m not invested in my character any more than I’d be with my race car piece in a game of Monopoly. This takes me to my real difficulty with 4E.

I cannot lose myself in the game the way I can with older editions. This is not the fault of the DM or the adventure, but the rules themselves. The rules in 4E, especially their dependency on creating unambiguous rulings, never disappear into the background for me. I can occasionally erect a thin veneer of roleplaying, but this comes crumbling down the first time I’ve got to start counting adjacent adversaries to see how big of a bonus I get to attack. The most recent WTF moment that threw me completely out of the moment came when I suggested that, rather than expend some out our limited healing surges to recoup after a fight, we return to the chapel we had just come from and ask the priests there if they could drop some of their heavenly mojo on us. That was when I was told that magical healing in 4E is tied to your character’s healing surges and even potions deduct from them. Huh?

For me, 4E simply misses the boat when it comes divorcing oneself from reality and reveling in the shared delusion of roleplaying. I’ve always been a fan of “fluff” over “crunch,” so 4E is like eating a cotton candy cone filled with nails, screws, and broken glass for me; just when I’m trying to enjoy the sweetness, I bite into something that ruins the experience. But also like cotton candy, it’s best when sampled infrequently and in small portions.

School’s Out Week: Dungeon Crawl Classics

I’m going to start off S.O.W. by talking about Goodman Games’ upcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. That’s a bit of cheat because, while DCC is based on the d20 mechanic, its design DNA falls much closer to that of “old school” games than it does to later versions of D&D. Nevertheless, the elements of 3.5 are obvious to all with even the slightest familiarity with them.

In the interest of complete disclosure, I obviously have some connection with Goodman Games through the Dungeon Alphabet and I maintain a good relationship with Joseph Goodman. And while I’ve not been asked to sign any NDAs, I’ll avoid getting into specifics regarding the DCC system as I’m not sure what Joseph wants revealed at this stage and the rules continue to be improved and modified while playtesting continues. I’ve been involved with the later stages of DCC’s development in a tertiary fashion, helping to playtest the system and contributing suggestions as to how to improve it.

Let's get down to it in plain terms: I predict that DCC is going to turn heads when it becomes available for open playtesting and after being commercially released. You heard it here first. Joseph and Harley Stroh had a luxury in developing DCC that Gygax and Arneson did not have: a preexisting rules base to work with. “Big deal,” you might say. “So did Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams.” The difference here is that Cook, Tweet, and Williams were looking to redesign D&D. Goodman and Stroh aren’t.

DCC’s strongest selling point for old school gamers is that Joseph and Harley went to the same source material that inspired Gygax and Arneson and sought ways to use the existing game system to recreate the feel, look, and expectations of the classic pulp sword & sorcery tales. Everything from cover design to the way magic works in DCC draws from those stories—and it does so very, very successfully. This is not “You’re Conan and I’m Gandalf. We team up to fight Dracula.”[1] This is “You’re Kane and I’m the Gray Mouser. We team up to storm the Tower of the Elephant, steal the jewels of the Overlord of Lankhmar, fight the priests of Cthulhu, and engage in pacts with the Lords of Chaos to do so.”

Now this is great for us old-timers, but what about those players that came along in the post 2nd edition epoch? How are they going to react? I won’t lie: There is going to be some acclimation required. The lack of skills and feats in DCC and the lower abilities scores on average means that you can’t grab a Pathfinder adventure and expect to run it "as is" with DCC. But the good news is that those players who are used to the “kewl powerz” bells and whistles from later editions aren’t going to be disappointed. They’ll still be able to play a mighty warrior capable of doing outlandish actions in battle. Players with a penchant for wizards and clerics are undoubtedly going to go ape over a magic system that allows spellcasters to employ magic more often and with more spectacular effects than even 4th edition provides for. DCC just may very well hit the elusive sweet spot the appeals to both old and new gamers alike. That’s no bullshit, people.

Are there tradeoffs to this melding of styles, preferences, and expectations? Of course there are. As Rob Conley mentioned in the comments of a recent Grognardia post regarding DCC, spellcasting is table-intensive, which might not be to everyone’s liking, but neither is it insurmountable. There are also various charts to add color to battles and help adjudicate some of the crazier events that occur in combat. These are again subject to game master preference, but if the final layout of the book is well done, accessibility and placement should help speed their implementation. And no matter what, there are going to be those who bitch about having to buy special dice just to play.

Like any roleplaying game, Dungeon Crawl Classics’ success at the gaming table is going to rely on the referee running it and the players participating in it. The rules place a lot of emphasis on becoming familiar with the "old ways" and the inspirational sources that birthed the game. Hopefully this will encourage players and judges to either dust off their copies of the pulp classics or to pick them up and read them for the first time. Even if they don’t, Goodman Games is currently working on several adventure scenarios (two of which will be available in the Free RPG Day release) that almost literally drip with pulpy goodness. The ones that I’ve had the pleasure of playtesting with my group featured supernaturally mutated beast-men, hideous subterranean gods, cursed tombs, chaotic towers, lumbering brass constructs, treacherous double-dealings, and sorcerers bound by infernal pacts with the hoary hosts of Chaos. And that, my friends, is heady stuff when using rules especially designed to foster that kind of atmosphere and gaming mindset. Even if you have no interest in any fantasy roleplaying game published after 1981 or so, I suspect that you'll find things to lift from DCC for your own games. It's just that good.

Come for the Rant, Stay for the Chart

Run, do not walk, to JOESKY's latest post. After a pretty lousy day, it was just what I needed to restore my faith in humanity.

P.S. to my players: I will be using that chart in future sessions. You've been warned.

The Acererak Caper

Once upon a time, I caught some forgotten comedian’s bit about men and heist films. His contention was that, deep down inside, men want to participate in a heist. There is some primal, masculine allure to the idea of hanging upside-down in an air vent, spraying aerosol to detect invisible trip beams while another guy sits in a van three blocks away screaming “They changed the code!” into his headset mike. The challenge of defeating the undefeatable and walking away with a fortune is tempting no matter how law-abiding one is in everyday life, which is why the heist remains a popular crime genre in both fiction and film.

As I was out walking yesterday, The Tomb of Horrors burbled up to the surface of my thoughts for some reason. As my readers undoubtedly know, that module is largely considered to be the most challenging dungeon ever written. In fact, the Tomb of Horrors is so notorious that I’ve had younger gamers, ones who’ve never even seen the module in the figurative flesh, tell me with complete and utter sincerity that it is unbeatable and that everyone who enters the Tomb dies. They don’t believe me when I tell them otherwise.

Personally, I’m of the school of thought that there are no truly unbeatable dungeons or deathtraps—provided one has a fair referee and enough time and money to spend. I maintain that the Tomb can be navigated with greatly reduced risk if a) the referee is neutral, and b) you’re willing to take a financial and magical loss on the venture. Again, when I mention this, these younger gamers assume I’m talking about buying every last sheep in town and driving them ahead of the party to serve as mine detectors when they explore the tomb. Not so, my friends.

The key to defeating the tomb is patience, money, and research, not livestock. One of the great things about the Tomb is that, when inserted into a campaign setting rather than used as a one-shot, there is no time limit present when confronting the lich’s crypt. This gives the smart and cautious player all the time in the world to plan his foray before he gets within sight of that skull motif hill.

In a world where sages can be paid vast sums to dedicate all their time to researching the past and unearth forgotten scraps of information, why not do so? When priests quite literally have access to the knowledge of the gods, who wouldn’t consult them to inquire what lays beyond the entrance to the Tomb? Genius mages can cast spells that access other planes of existence or delve into legend to retrieve scraps of knowledge, so it would be foolish to not hire their services. And in a milieu where magic items exist that can detect traps, contain spells of augury or divination, see through illusions, detect poison, magic, and evil, reveal secret passages, and otherwise access the unknown and unseen, why wouldn’t you take as long as was necessary to buy, beg, borrow, and steal those items to take with you?

It then occurred to me that all this prep work was the fantasy equivalent to putting a crew together in a heist film. Why not make the entire campaign one big heist job with the Tomb of Horrors as the once-in-a-lifetime score?

The set-up would be simple enough. First, figure out what treasure makes the players drool and stash it in the Tomb. Staff of the Magi? It’s in there. Hammer of Thunderbolts? Acererak stole it. A diamond the size of a baby’s head? The lich has six of them.

Then start the players off at first level and let them know exactly what’s in the Tomb. Give them a scrap of information to get them started and then let them figure out how to get it. They’ve got 10-14 levels to plan their heist.

The result would be a sandbox-style campaign with a definite end game. The players would have to determine what information, equipment, magic items, favors, assistants, etc. they would need to breach the tomb and then figure out how to get access to that material. This would lead them to tracking down the possible resting places of a gem of true seeing or a wand of secret door and trap location. They might have to do a few favors for the Great Oracle in order to gain her favor so she will contact the gods to see within the tomb. A council of mages might need pacification before they’d agree to use their crystal balls and legend lore spells to peer beyond the veil. And, of course, the Thieves Guild is going to want in on a heist like this…

To make it true to the heist genre, you could even start the campaign with a single PC and have him decide who to recruit. As he puts his list of needed accomplices together, the other players come in as possible candidates, leaving it up to the first PC and his player to best determine how to go about recruiting them to participate in the caper. Now would also be the time to slip in a mole or secret rival too.

Like any sandbox, this would require a lot of prep work for the referee, but with a predetermined campaign goal to consider, he could concentrate his efforts on people, places, and things related to the ultimate heist. No need to design a ten-level megadungeon, just lots of little dungeons that hold secrets and heist-related magical items, for example. You could even use James Raggi’s The Grinding Gear as a low-level dry run to give the PCs an idea of what sort of challenges lie ahead.

One thing that would be required of the referee is complete 100% fairness. The Tomb’s a tough nut, and with it as the focus of the campaign, he might even want to make it 25%-50% more deadly ahead of time. Although, once that’s done, he can’t toughen it up again later on down the line if the PCs become better prepared than anticipated. If the players are smart and take steps to learn and overcome the Tomb’s dangers, they should be rewarded for doing so and not have to face a Tomb “adjusted for their challenge level.” On the other hand, if they fail to make the correct preparations, there’s nothing wrong with the campaign ending with the death of everyone.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think I have the concept for the next Labyrinth Lord campaign I run.

I am a Meta-Gaming Referee

When WotC announced that they’re introducing the new Fortune Card marketing gimmick, some folks took it to be the final nail in the coffin of a game they once loved. Others saw it as the long-delayed inevitable step and wondered why it took this long to happen. I read about it on the blogs, shrugged my shoulders and went back to what I was working one.

I did this for two reasons. The first is because, other than the re-issue of Gamma World, nothing WotC does anymore affects my game playing or purchasing habits. As such, I’m no longer involved in any customer-publisher relationship with them, and outside of making the older editions available in PDF format again, I’ve no opinion on what Hasbro and the Wizards do with their products, money, and time. I do wish they displayed greater employer loyalty to their designers though.

The second reason was that I beat them to the punch by almost a year.

I’ve made note that I will sometimes award players with a certificate of commendation for reaching certain milestones or displaying exceptional growth in play. What I didn’t mention is that these award letters are accompanied by a chit or card good for use in game. All of these cards affect the mechanics of the game in some manner and they do so in a meta-gaming manner. It is the player who steps in the apply these award cards, much like using a “Get Out of Jail Free” card to avoid an unfortunate dice roll in Monopoly.

I make no apologies for this behavior. I find them enjoyable and the players love having this additional resource at their disposal when things start going incredibly wrong for them. Such an obvious “gamist” element might not meet with everyone’s approval, but if you are the kind of referee who likes giving the players another factor to consider when deciding their actions, you can download a PDF copy of the chits I use in my Labyrinth Lord campaign here.

Ka-Ching!

As a rule, I do not fall into the category of a Monty Haul-type referee. I can be downright stingy, in fact. My players can attest that they’ve gone into Stonehell and come back out with the pocket change that a pair of sentries had on them. Sometimes they’re even operating at a loss when they go delving.

Not today though. At our first session since the holiday break, the party found two of the largest treasure hordes on the second level of the dungeon. The amount of money and experience they hauled out was damn near obscene. Because of this, they actually ran into the rule that stipulates a PC can never advance more than a single level as a result of an adventure—something which has occurred only one or two times in my games in the three decades I’ve been playing.

Watching them deal with the logistical problem of getting the sheer amount of coinage they stumbled onto back to the surface was extremely entertaining. Rations went flying, coils of rope were discarded, torches jettisoned, and all that dungeon trash that adventurers tend to accumulate (“I take the orcs’ longswords! We can sell them back in town.”) got dumped without ceremony. When all was said and done, only two of the six PCs had a weapon in hand—the rest had their mitts filled with sacks.

They crawled back to the surface at the breakneck speed of 30’ a turn, were almost robbed by a gang of bugbears, dodged kobold javelins, crossed the Pit of Great Annoyance on a rickety ladder, and faced a mass of seven zombies that stood between them and the stairs to the surface, but they made it out alive and filthy rich. Of course, the next time they might not be so lucky, but this uncertainty is one of the more enjoyable factors about the old style of gaming. There are few attempts to balance risk or reward in the early editions, so any trip could end in a windfall or a wipeout. It is that uncertainty that makes me come back for more, both as a player and a referee. I wonder why anyone would want it otherwise, but it takes all types I suppose.

After all the PC deaths that have occurred and the near poverty the adventurers endured since the campaign began, it’s great to see them have a big win. The power level of the campaign is slowly growing, which not only adds to the survivability of the PCs, but also gives me greater leeway with what I can introduce into the campaign—and I have some interesting plans…

All in all, today was a good day for gaming and it was precisely what I needed to get me to refocus after the three weeks off. I’m looking forward to next week’s session. I see an overland journey on the horizon, something we haven’t done since the original campaign world. The sandbox is waiting for the PCs…and some hexes are hungry.

Welcome to My World

Since I’ve taken a good look around me and realized that I have a literal box of books that I’ve purchased in 2010 and have yet to crack open, I’ve decided to catch up on my reading. Some of that reading includes the more recent issues of Fight On!, since I got sidetracked somewhere around issue #6 and haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy that publication as of late. However, rather than dive right back in, I started with #1 again and I am slowly working my way forward.

While the premier issue still holds up and contains more than a few nuggets worth mining, what really caught my eye this time around was the editorial written by good old Ignatius Ümlaut, publisher and editor of the fanzine. Entitled “In the Time of the Broken Kingdom,” it is, amongst other things, a love letter to the open game of yore, the sort of campaign where anyone at anytime could stop by, pull out a character from their overstuffed briefcase, and spend a few hours as a guest in an ongoing campaign world.

That is a rare thing these days. As a whole, the hobby has become a place where, to quote the editorial, “we often content ourselves with smaller communities: our own group’s game world, the fandom of worlds like Tekumel, Glorantha, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Arduin, the Forgotten Realms, the World of Darkness, and so on, communities devoted to the particular ruleset we like best, even communities of game designers.”

The way we play these games has changed since they first blossomed out of the organized chaos of the sand tables of the Mid-West. If I may be so vainglorious as to quote myself from the intro to The Dungeon Alphabet, the hobby, like the dungeon, “is no longer the unexplored country it was in its youth. And, like any unexplored land, it has lost its wildness and unpredictability with the arrival of more and more people and the laws and rules that a population brings with them.” Things have been “mapped and codified, rendered predictable with familiarity. It is no longer the Wild West or the lawless high seas.”

It is almost difficult to imagine, as the clock slowly winds down on 2010, that the campaign world was often a much more fluid place, one where people came and went depending on the whims of their schedules and travel times. The gamer of today might be hard pressed to imagine this scenario described in an article from a 1980 issue of New World entitled “It’s Only A Game…Or Is It?”, by Moira Johnston and quoted in the Fight On! editorial:

The liberal immigration policies of [Deanna Sue] White’s D&D-based ‘open universe’ allows characters to visit from other worlds and universes, making Mistigar an intergalactic entrepot. “Whenever I’m in L.A., I call to see if Deanna’s having a run,” says Clint Bigglestone, Bay Area fan and producer of the FRP convention, DunDraCon. His characters adventure through Mistigar, returning to the Bay Area with wounds and stories that spread Mistigar’s network of contact…The FRP network has become so sophisticated that it is now possible for jealous, upstart worlds from all over the country to attack Mistigar. Two attempts to subvert her world have already been thwarted, one by Bigglestone, whose characters discovered, while campaigning through Dave Hargrave’s world near San Francisco, that evil members of Hargrave’s Black Lotus Society planned to attack Mistigar. Loyal to White, Bigglestone’s characters attacked and killed the plotters.

As the date of the article suggests, the situation described above was not an uncommon one even as the hobby entered the boom years of the early 1980s. I remember playing in several campaigns in junior high which featured characters hoping from one world to another in the school cafeteria depending on whose turn it was to referee, bringing their grudges and artifacts of unbelievable power with them for the journey. This style of play was to fall out of fashion as the years progressed and campaign worlds became more insular in nature. Ironically, the open campaign went into decline as the commercial campaign setting began to ascend, a product that, on paper, would seem to make the open campaign more accessible to gamers around the world.

This editorial got me thinking about the way things once were and what they are no longer. There have been and continue to be attempts at “organized play,” moderated events that do what White and others did without the benefit of an overseeing committee or communication methods more advanced than the mailed letter, mimeographed fanzine, or telephone call. Outside of a brief membership in the RPGA back in the late 1980s, I haven’t been exposed to these efforts and I can’t claim to know if they do an adequate job of recreating or maintaining this level of campaign openness. But what I can do is undertake efforts to make my own campaign world more accessible to visitors.

I’m not proposing some OSR-wide organized play: that way leads to madness. Instead, I’ll be taking steps to make my own personal campaign setting, the Kinan-M’Nath or “the Uncertain Lands” that forms the basis of my Labyrinth Lord game, a place where people can occasionally come, experience Stonehell Dungeon first-hand, gain some treasure, and depart with “wounds and stories”…and maybe a bit of loot.

I’ve been thinking about this since I reread the FO! piece and it seems to be a logical step for my own campaign. When I was younger, I always envisioned that I would someday have a massive campaign world of my own, one detailed down to the smallest little square foot. As I grow older though, I see the sense in quality over quantity and it’s becoming quite clear that any and all of my future campaigns will be set in the same small(ish) region that I’m currently playing in. Since the Kinan-M’Nath is based on both an original play map (Outdoor Survival) and original rules (D&D via Moldvay via Proctor), why not go whole hog and assume the original play style as well? I would much rather have more visitors to a well-detailed region than a vast world that rarely gets visited by tourists.

The fact that Stonehell Dungeon has become a popular visiting place for adventurers also makes an open campaign style of play sensible. With a pre-existing axis mundi to rest cross-campaign travel on, it’s a small matter of extending the idea of many Stonehells scattered across the multiverse and allowing travel between worlds (although I claim rightful possession of the Ur-Stonehell!).

Lastly, I run my campaign in a public setting, one where anyone can walk in and see the campaign unfold. And although I may not live in a transportation hub, I am located a short train ride from the most magical city on Earth. One never knows who might be in the area and looking for a game to play during their visit.

Like any nation, my campaign world will have some laws regarding visitation and immigration, and I’ll get to those in posts next week. In the meantime, let it be known that the borders between worlds have grown a little thinner in the Kinan-M’Nath. Should you ever find yourself headed to the New York area, be sure to pack a character sheet or two. I might need help defeating the Black Lotus Society.

D&D Gamma World: The Final Analysis

After Sunday’s Watchfires & Thrones game, a few of the guys hung around to give D&D Gamma World a test drive. After character creation was completed, we only had time to run through one of the eight encounters in the introductory scenario. This final analysis of the latest version of Gamma World is based on that single play session, so take that as you may. But first: an anecdote.

Back in college, some friends and I would take the occasional trip to the Poughkeepsie Galleria mall to visit whichever big toy store was located there. We’d peruse the discount board games’ bin and come home with a cheap game, usually one with a sci-fi or fantasy vibe, to play on those nights when” beer & pretzels” fun was desired. One of the titles we brought home was Dragonstrike.

Some of my readers might recall that game as one of TSR’s many attempts to introduce people to the concept of roleplaying games and thus increase their potential customer base. It’s mostly memorable for the 30-minute introductory video that featured cutting edge CGI and green screen footage. Well, cutting edge for 1993 anyway. The game used an extremely simplified version of the basic D&D rules and included plastic miniature pieces to be moved around one of the two double-sided playing boards. The game came with several prewritten scenarios that required one player to become the “Dragon Master” and run the other players through them. If you’ve ever played HeroQuest, you’ve got the idea of what Dragonstrike was.

Since all of us in that group of friends had at least some roleplaying experience, we bought Dragonstrike with the intention of mocking it fiercely and approached the game as if we had never seen an RPG before. After watching the instructional video (and opening a few beers), we set up the game as instructed, even quoting a few of the choice lines from the video, and sat down to play. And even though we intended to be purely ironical in our playing of the game, we discovered it was a lot of fun.

Dragonstrike wasn’t a roleplaying game, mind you, but it did help scratch that RPG itch without the need to setup a campaign, build a dungeon, and generate characters. We even managed to get a little roleplaying in, but that was more a result of who was playing rather than what we were playing. In time, we came up with a few house rules that allowed the playing pieces to advance in power and retain items from previous scenarios. In the end, we played the hell out of Dragonstrike for a few weeks before moving on to other things. I still have the game in storage somewhere and wouldn’t be adverse to using it as an introduction to roleplaying (although I’d more likely just start with the actual beast).

Looking back on our experience with Dragonstrike, several things become clear. Was it a roleplaying game? No, but some of the mechanics were the same. Would I ever try and use the game to run an ongoing campaign? Not on your life. I suppose I could, but I’d have to make a slew of house rules that went beyond the intent of the game because it simply isn’t designed for that purpose. Was it fun? Oh most certainly, although we didn’t expect it to be when we first sat down to play. As the most keen-witted of you has undoubtedly guessed by now, the reason I mention this anecdote is because, for me, D&D Gamma World was the same experience as Dragonstrike—which might have been exactly what WotC was intending.

Although I went into D&D Gamma World as open-minded as possible, I nevertheless expected to be disappointed if not outright angry with the game. Gamma World was the second RPG I ever owned and is a dearly loved favorite. After what I construed as them pissing in my favorite fantasy swimming hole, I expected WotC to do the same with Gamma World. But an unexpected mixture of elements would prove me wrong and I’m not adverse to admitting when I’ve made a mistake.

As I read the rulebook to D&D Gamma World, I found the game growing on me a little. This was largely due to the previously mentioned old school sensibilities that this version has: the random character generation, the lethality, and the gonzo “anything’s possible” default setting did a lot to soften me up. The 4th edition rules engine, however, did its best to erode this burgeoning good will towards the game and it wasn’t until I stopped looking at D&D Gamma World as a RPG but as a board game with RPG elements that I stopped worrying and started loving the bomb again. Because, as far as I’m concerned, that is what D&D Gamma World is.

The whole “4th edition is nothing but a skirmish miniatures game” has been argued back and forth in many places and mediums, and after finally being exposed to it in detail, I’m apt to agree. Yet you have to admit that by the modern definition of a roleplaying game, neither D&D or D&D Gamma World can be accused of false advertising. RPGs, thanks to computer gaming, are games where a player creates an avatar that he maneuvers through an imaginary world in order to complete quests, collecting treasure and items, and advance in power. WotC’s “pen-and-paper” (and increasingly “and-computer”) versions meet this definition on all counts. So we can indeed consider it a roleplaying game even if most of my readers wouldn’t call it that. Having that mindset in place allowed me to look past my initial distaste for the 4th edition engine and evaluate the game as to whether it accomplished what it set out to do—and I think it does.

I speculate that WotC is trying to grow its customer base in two ways: 1) by attracting lapsed gamers back into the fold (the D&D Starter Set and Essentials line seems geared specifically towards that end), and 2) produce products that appeal to casual gamers, the kind who might be interested in playing short sessions that were heavy on immediate fun with minimal investment of time and energy. D&D Gamma World and the D&D Encounters program appear to be targeting those types of players. You can show up at your local game store with character in hand, play for an hour or three, get some loot and go home. If you want, you can come back next week and do it again.

D&D Gamma World is clearly intended to be played this way, and since it is successful in this endeavor, I can’t fault it for it. The rules all but ensure that the emphasis of the game is on the encounter happening right now and not the long-term. Despite brief attempts to reassure the player and game master that it’s important to think about the character’s personality and to build adventures that include lots of skill checks, role-playing, and problem solving, it’s obvious that these are tertiary concerns at best. Why worry about such ephemeral matters when there are mutants to burn with your laser beam eyes?!

Despite being intended for that style of play, it is not impossible to use the game in a more traditional manner. Unfortunately, it was my impression that to do so would require the judicious use of house rules. From the comments left on my previous posts and on other venues, I see that some people are already planning on implementing wide-reaching changes in the way that mutations, tech, and other aspects of the game are handled. This leads me to conclude that I’m not alone in this impression. But again, one can’t blame the game because this was not what it was designed for.

The game successfully serves as an introduction to 4th edition game mechanics, one that’s both brief and clear. Having never played 4th edition before, after reading the rulebook I was able to run Sunday’s session in a confident manner. I did have to have two of my more experienced 4th edition players clarify a rule or two, but these clarifications matched what I expected the rules’ intentions to be. If need be, I could sit down and play in a 4th edition game without concern…and that’s something that I never expected I’d be able to say. I even made my own house rule for 4th edition, which confirms my suspicion that I just can’t leave well enough alone when it comes to rules.

The result of all this is that I did indeed have a good time playing D&D Gamma World. That enjoyment was the same kind I experienced with Dragonstrike. It was an entertaining, low-investment of time and energy way to scratch the post-apocalyptic roleplaying itch. Would I play it again? Yes, I would, but again with the goal of having a good time without the need to look beyond the fight of the moment. Would I use it to run a campaign? No, not at all. The need to house rule, the overlong combats, and the built-in reliance on additional material for expansion makes it unsuitable for my needs.

In the end, D&D Gamma World is a complete success for what it intends to do. Whether its intentions and your own are compatible will ultimately determine what your own impression of the game is.

That’s it for the D&D Gamma World here at the SoTPR. We will soon be returning you to your regular blog programming. But first, a few last minute bullet points that came up during the game session on Sunday:

* WotC made a huge mistake when designing the Alpha Mutation and Omega Tech cards: they have the same backing, making it impossible to tell at a glance which pile is which. It’s also very easy for one type of card to get mixed in with the others. A seemingly minor quibble, but this was an issue at least twice during the hour-long session of play.

* Lest anyone think I’m fully in the 4th edition camp now, to paraphrase Spider Robinson, “If you can’t have fun with D&D Gamma World, it’s your own damn fault.” The entertainment value of Sunday’s game came just as much from the PCs as it did the rules as written. If the idea of a giant mutated saguaro cactus in a cowboy outfit, a mutant Joan Crawford, a swarm of flaming kittens, and a giant gravity controller swinging a dead midget on a chain as a weapon doesn’t make you grin, I can’t help you.

* Although the mechanics of 4th edition lays out everything you need to know in order to run an encounter, they also don’t lend themselves to making “legal” encounters of your own without the more detailed rulebooks. I tried to reverse engineer some of the mutants in D&D Gamma World to find out why the stats were what they were without success. I suspect things are much clearer in the D&D rule hardbacks.

* Speaking of mechanics, my players were able to confirm that the rules are a bit lighter than normal and some changes have been made to the core rules. The one that caused the biggest reaction was that second-wind now recovers half your total hit points and costs a minor action to perform.

* Although I don’t think it’s on the agenda, I wouldn’t mind seeing a line of pre-painted plastic miniatures for D&D Gamma World. Having a low cost and ready-to-use selection of 28mm minis would be a boon both to my own planned Gamma World campaign and for gonzo referees looking to add weird new critters to their D&D or retroclone campaigns.

* In retrospect, I think I’m growing more tolerant of other editions of my favorite games. I’ve found my preferred versions and am happily playing them with likeminded people. As such, I’m more willing to try new things because I know that, should I not find them to my liking, they’re not the (literally) only game in town.

Initial Reading of D&D Gamma World Part II

I’ve had the time to finish the D&D Gamma World rulebook and give the included cards a once-over now, so here are the final bullets points about the boxed set that I think traditional gamers would want to know. As the second half of the book is devoted to only three chapters, this entry will be shorter than yesterday’s.

Much of the information contained in these chapters involves 4th edition game mechanics and I don’t have the experience to go into particulars about such things. You’ve undoubtedly either read more on that subject or experienced it first hand—whatever I would add to the discussion would be well-trod ground. I do need to clarify a statement I made yesterday, however. I mentioned that it is my belief that the rules included in D&D Gamma World are a “lite” version. Some folks may have misconstrued that this meant it was a pared down version that would be simpler to run. It’s not. All the mechanics and condition modifiers you expect from 4th edition (move action, slide, push, encounter power, burst, blast, prone, bloodied, melee 1, etc.) are there. If you’re looking for a streamlined set of rules similar to older versions of D&D, you’ll be disappointed. My suspicion that they are a “lite” version was based on the fact that at least one movement condition (charging) is mentioned twice in the rules but no definition of what it means in game terms is provided, something I assume was left out as they were trimming the 4E rules down enough to fit on 13 pages of single column text. With that clarified, let’s move on to the rest of the rulebook’s contents.

* A chapter intended for the Game Master covers the basics of running and creating adventures. A few locations are presented (no more than a few sentences for each); rules about terrain and hazards encountered in Gamma Terra are provided; the concept of experience point budgets for use in creating encounters is explained; conditions such as Blinded, Slowed, Restrained, Stunned, etc. are described; and some general but brief advice to the GM is touched upon. Most of this is probably familiar ground if you’ve read or played 4th edition D&D.

* One chapter is dedicated to monsters, providing instructions on how to read their stats and use them in encounters. The abridged monster catalogue which follows features some of the classic Gamma World mutants in 4th edition format. Most monsters, as is typical in 4th edition, have two variants of different toughness for use against the PCs. The conversions of these monsters to 4th edition is more in spirit than actuality, but this is likely due to the difficulty in making straight adaptations of some of their powers to 4th edition mechanics. The hoop’s ability to turn metal into rubber is a notable case of this: its transmutation power now prevents the target from making a weapon attack until it makes a saving throw. Failed saving throws have a change of destroying Omega tech.

* For the record, the following mutants appear in the rulebook: Arn, Android, Blight, Badder, Blaash, Blood Bird, Dabber, Fen, Gren, Hoop, Horl Choo, Kai Lin, Menarl, Obb, Orlen, Parn, Porker^, Robot (Guardbot)^, Robot, Eradicator MK 3^, Sep, Serf, Sleeth, Soul Besh, Terl, and Yexil. ^ denotes a new monster. I suspect that the two expansion sets will include more classic mutants updated to 4th edition.

* The book concludes with an introductory adventure for five 1st level characters. Entitled “Steading of the Iron King,” the adventure takes the party to a badder fortress to find out why robots are emerging from it and blowing up just outside of town on a regular basis. The adventure features 8 encounters, all of which are combat encounters that take place at one of the locations provided on the two double-sided battle mats provided with the game.

* The Alpha Mutation and Omega Tech cards contain a mix of classic powers or items and new creations. Most but not all are combat-related. Each contains all the information needed to adjudicate the power or item in play, as well as serving as an indicator as to whether or not you’ve used that card (a la M:tG, cards to “tapped” or turned sideways upon use). It is effectively a part of your character sheet.

* In the comments to yesterday’s post, it was asked whether or not the cards could be replaced by a random table. The answer is yes, but it would be too much work with minimal pay-off. Making that change would mean that you would have to consult a master reference sheet (which you would have to make yourself, as all the mutations’/items’ powers are listed solely on the cards themselves and not in the rulebook) and copy the information down onto your character sheet. But if you’re playing by the rules as written, this information would be constantly changing, meaning you’d be doing a lot of erasing. The game is designed to utilize the card system and encourage deck building by the players and game master. The option is given that, instead of each player having his or her own deck, everyone draws from the game master’s deck. This is why I stated that a creative, home-brewing game master could get along fine without ever buying more cards: a stack of index cards, a pen, and some good ideas would save him money and consistently surprise the players.

That concludes my impressions of D&D Gamma World based entirely upon the read-through alone. I’ve already developed an overall opinion of the game but I’ll wait until I play a bit before putting it down in writing. I will state that I was more impressed with the game itself than I expected I’d be and that there are several neat ideas here. I’m a sucker for unusual or innovative game features and their presence here softened my attitude towards this edition of Gamma World. Look for a final round up in the weeks to come depending on when my home group gets a chance to take this out for a post-apocalyptic romp.

Initial Reading of D&D Gamma World Part I

As I stated yesterday, I’m not going to do an official review of the new Gamma World until I’ve had a chance to put the rubber to the road and see how she handles under actual play conditions. What follows are bullet points of the game that I expect the grognard coalition would like to know, regardless of whether or not we’re planning on picking this up for ourselves. I’ve reached the middle of the 160 pp. rule book and have not yet opened the cards and other peripherals. The following is based on the first half of the rules.

* The official name of the game according to the rules is D&D Gamma World.

* Gamma Terra is not the result of a nuclear holocaust, which will no doubt enrage some people. Instead, it is the result of Swiss scientists mucking about at the Large Hadron Collider. Something when wrong and hundreds of possible realities coalesced into a single one—Gamma Terra. Because of this, the game master had carte blanche to throw anything he or she wants into the campaign, no questions asked. The players could be exploring a radioactive desert one week, fighting off dinosaur Nazis the next, and finish things up by pillaging the pyramid of Pharaoh Abraham Lincoln IV.

* The rules engine is 4th edition D&D, which is no surprise. I can’t be sure as this is my first real experience with it, but I suspect it might be a “lite” version of those rules. It could be that I simply remember the unwieldy mess 3.5 was and that has colored my impressions.

* Character generation is completely random. The character creation section features the following quote: “Now that you have your ideal character fixed firmly in your mind, pick up some dice and start rolling to see what sort of bizarre freak you’re ACTUALLY going to play. Sorry, that’s life in Gamma World.”

* Life is hard and then you WILL die. Players are warned that their characters are likely to perish in Gamma Terra and the best way to deal with that is to “raise a glass of Mountain Dew in his or her memory, and then get to work rolling up your next character.”

* There are no classes. At character generation, you roll d20 twice to determine your origin. This leaves you with two templates that you need to reconcile. You might start as a Radioactive Felinoid or an Android Empath. To the game’s credit, it expects you to come up with an explanation justifying some of the really outré combinations. Some suggestions are given, but ultimately it’s left in your hands to figure things out. Template names are more indicative of the powers they possess rather than accurate descriptions of the origin. For example, if your origins were Hawkoid (flight-based powers) and Rat Swarm (swarm-based powers), you could decide that your character is a sentient flock of seagulls or a hyper-intelligent colony of bats. Your Android Yeti could just a well be a cybernetic Bigfoot (all the better to fight Steve Austin) as it could a gorilla with a space helmet. I recommend that WotC hire Jeff Rients to immediately write a supplement that lists every possible rationalization for all the off-the-wall combinations available at character creation.

* Abilities are the standard six and every character begins with (usually) one ability of 18 and another at 16, based upon their origins. The rest of your abilities are determined by rolling 3d6 in order. I’ll repeat that so you know it’s not a typo: 3d6 in order.

* There are ten skills in the game, each covering a broad area such as Science or Mechanics. Every character can attempt any skill, but starts with a +4 bonus to three of them (again, usually).

* Weapons and armor are abstract. You might start the game with Light Armor and a Heavy Two-Handed Melee weapon. Again, it’s left up to you to decide if that means you’re wearing a Kevlar-lined duster or a chainmail shirt made out of pop tops tabs. Your weapon could be a parking meter, a claymore, or a sledgehammer: it doesn’t matter. The mechanics remain the same.

* Starting gear is determined randomly. There is no buying equipment. You start with 1d4+1 things and a basic clothing/equipment package.

* Everyone has mutations, but, unlike previous editions of Gamma World, these mutations are constantly changing. This is where the customizable card element comes in. At the start of every game, you draw a number of mutations based on your level from either your own or the game master’s deck. At the end of an encounter (and sometimes during), you discard that mutation and draw another. You have that power available until after the next encounter. Characters can try to supercharge their mutations by making a die roll and, depending on your origins, you may get a bonus to that roll. The rational for this constant change is that your character isn’t mutated per se, but is really drawing upon alternate realities in which you naturally possessed these ability. This manifestation is a temporary one. Since you can customize your own card deck, you can stack it with mutations that you want to have (within limits) but you can’t control when you have access to them with any certainty. I suspect that this element of the game is going to be the most loathed by traditional roleplaying gamers.

* Like mutations, each character has an artifact deck (called Omega Tech). When you character searches a room or gains a reward, the game master informs you to pull a card from your Omega deck and your character finds the item depicted on the drawn card. When you use this item, there is a chance that it breaks, runs out of power, etc. in which case you discard the card. Some cards can be salvaged, becoming permanent inventory items, but these usually work at reduced efficiency.

* It took me exactly 20 minutes to create a character, and this was because I was unfamiliar with 4th edition mechanics and the index of the rulebook is a poor one. After a few attempts, I could see character generation being a 10-15 minute process. At the end of the character creation process, I had a character with a STR of 6, a CON of 8, a DEX of 11, an INT of 20, a WIS of 10, and a CHA of 5. Being both Telekinetic and an Engineered Human, I decided that, with scores like those, he was Mini-Hitler: a “Boys from Brazil”-type experiment that went horribly askew. This 3’ tall, wizened refugee from the ODESSA Project dreams of finding technology and power so that someday people will take him seriously.

* The game is self-contained. With everything needed to play except for dice, and advancement rules up to Level 10, you could theoretically run a campaign for years using nothing more than the initial purchase. WotC is going to market the hell out of the expansions and the booster card packs but they aren’t actually needed—especially if you’re the creative, home-brewing type.

* The art design leaves something to be desired. The rule book looks like someone melted a roll of Lifesavers candies between the pages.

That’s it for first impressions presented in as neutral a manner as I could.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that D&D Gamma World, as ill-named is it is, actually has a lot of old school sensibilities to it and, while it’s not going to bring peace to the D&D edition arguments, it may serve as a barometer of sorts. Someone who was reared on 3.5 and 4th edition, but yet embraces the random character generation and lethality of Gamma World might get a better idea of what it is we like about our older versions of these games. At the same time, we grognards need to give Richard Baker and Bruce R. Cordell some respect for being aware of the roots of both the hobby and Gamma World and incorporating them into this new version. Perhaps there’s some common ground out there after all.

It’s still too early to form a definite opinion on the game, but I suspect that the 4th edition rules engine and the customizable card element is going to be the deal-breaker for most old gamers. If you’ve tried 4th edition and didn’t find it to your liking, D&D Gamma World isn’t going to change your opinion. If you hate game elements that jar you out of immersion, are too “board gamey,” or despise M:tG with a vengeance, the Alpha Mutation and Omega Tech decks will send you screaming for the radioactive hills.

As for myself, so far D&D Gamma World has made me rethink, but not necessarily revise, my stance and I look forward to reading more and seeing how it all comes together in play. I’ll have more on that in the days to come.

The Latest Gamma Go-Around

If you’ve been reading this blog over the past few weeks, you undoubtedly know that I a) intend to run a Gamma World campaign next year once my current Labyrinth Lord game needs some rest, and b) own every edition of Gamma World ever produced. And, as of today, I mean EVERY version. I picked up the latest attempt to bring post-apocalyptic mayhem to the gaming mainstream, which is a struggle for reasons I fail to understand.

This marks the first time that I’ve added any of my filthy lucre to WotC’s coffers since they decided to pull the older edition PDFs from the commercial market. I hemmed and hawed about whether or not to make the exception for this version of Gamma World, but ultimately came to the conclusion that they’d get my money for this sooner or later. I didn’t drop a single dollar on 4E D&D, so this will also serve as my first “in my hand” exposure to the 4th edition rules, which Gamma World utilizes in some manner. I couldn’t tell you how true they are to their fantasy sister for obvious reasons.

I’m going to try and be open-minded about this version of GW. I’ll admit that I might not be successful, but I’m going to try. I’m also not going to review it based on how it reads. If and when I do talk about this version of Gamma World (I’m not even sure what to call it. Some have called it 4th edition Gamma World or D&D Gamma World, but neither quite work for me. I’ll just stick with New Gamma World for now.), it will only be after I’ve had a chance to play it. I think that’s only fair. Maybe I can convince some of the Labyrinth Lord guys to stay late one Sunday and give it a shot.

I will address one thing because it seems to be the direction WotC’s packaging is headed since the D&D Starter Set came out: There is a heck of a lot more box than stuff here, and dice aren’t amongst that stuff. Here’s what you’re getting:




I understand there will be two Gamma World Expansions released (Famine at Far-Go and The Legion of Gold) and this packaging choice might be meant to accommodate that material. However, if you’re expecting a Fantasy Flight Games-level of stuff inside that boxed set (which really does look like it’s a board game box), you’ll be disappointed. That’s all I’m saying for now.

A Classically Good Game

Today’s session of Watchfires & Thrones saw three of the characters deciding to foray into Stonehell to earn cash and experience while everyone else trained for next level. What was intended to be a simple sweep of the gatehouse turned into them getting dragged into the middle of the great Orc-Goblin War of Stonehell Dungeon.

The three 1st level characters (a fighter, magic-user, and fighter/cleric) led an attack into the orc lair, urging their war band of seven goblins (including their newfound friend “Schnot” from the gatehouse) and a mangy wolf against the orcs’ superior numbers. The result was fourteen dead orcs, six dead goblins (including their newfound friend “Schnot” from the gatehouse), one dead wolf, and one PC reduced to zero hit points. The orcs won the battle, resulting in the two mobile characters dragging their unconscious friend towards the exit of the dungeon. When one last wandering monster turned up SOMETHING coming their way, the PCs dodged into a side room where they are currently praying that whoever’s coming down the hall passes them by.

We’ll pick up with them next week to see if they escape the dungeon and meet up with the returning players’ alternate characters, or if they too will be rolling up new characters to play. Their reward for the brashness: 100+ silver pieces and slightly more than 500 experience points each. Two of them made second level due to their brashness—provided they make it out alive.

This was one of those classic sessions where I had no idea what to expect going into it and I was just as surprised and entertained as players while we watched the day’s events unfold before us. And it all hinged on a single reaction roll and the fact that the dice determined that one of the goblins spoke Hobgoblin, allowing the PCs and monsters to communicate. This session was one the best we’ve had so far. It had humor, suspense, PC-NPC interaction, funny voices, a big fight, and not a single railroad track in sight.

I love it when the dice know what they’re doing.

An Illustrated Example of the "Make It Your Own" Philosophy of the OSR

I found this in an old, old issue of White Dwarf and it sums up for me what the "Make It Your Own" attitude of the Old School Renaissance is all about. Pictured below are two mind flayers, but they don't look a single thing like the mind flayers that we've all come to know.


The OSR: where having a squid-headed mind flayer running about plagiarizing the cover of Eldritch Wizardry is expected, not frowned upon.

One of My Favorites

I spent the weekend getting over a cold rather than writing. Nevertheless, I wanted to leave you with something to ponder this fine Monday morning. The title of another blogger's post this week reminded me of my most favorite of the many editorials Roger E. Moore wrote during his tenue as the editor of Dragon magazine. I've reproduced it below and, if you look at it carefully, you can see it's a pretty good account of the way this game of our was played once upon a time.

Legend (Editorial by Roger E. Moore, Dragon #144)

The mountain pass was called the Demon Tongue, which implied there might be a demon and treasure there, so the party headed for it right away. The characters were hungry for combat and cash – lots of each. I was the DM. We were gaming on the pool table in the medical company rec room in West Germany, a decade ago last fall.

Not many of the details of that adventure are left with me now, but I remember what happened when the adventurers got to the Demon Tongue. The paladin was the point man, mounted up and armored like a tank (he had volunteered for, no, demanded the position). Some distance behind, the wizard was checking the landscape with his amulet of ESP, hunting for enemy thoughts. Everyone else was gathered near the wizard, weapons ready. They were on a narrow road in the pass itself, with a slope up to the left and a sheer drop to the right, when the wizard got a reading.

I rolled the dice and checked the books. The party had found the demon, but the amulet of ESP had malfunctioned. I scribbled a note and passed it to the wizard’s player. He read it and gave me an incredulous look.

“Hey, guys,” said the wizard, reigning in his horse. “That demon is here, but that demon is the Demogorgon. We are doomed.”

Everyone stared at the wizard’s player, then at me. Everyone had read the Monster Manual. The entire party came to a halt. Then the characters began to guide their horses back the way they had come, looking around with nervous grins.

All but the paladin, that is. He stopped where he was, stood up in his stirrups, raised his sword, and shouted, “COME OUT AND FIGHT, YOU MISERABLE @#$ + §&%*!!!” at the top of his lungs. Seconds later, a giant ball of darkness appeared on the road ahead.

Before anyone could react, one of the characters was telekinesized off his horse and hurled into the canyon beside the road. He took 20 dice of damage and became a memory. Every one of his companions bolted – except for the paladin, who roared, “SHOW YOURSELF, DEMON!!!” (The rest of the players screamed that they were riding away all the harder.)

The darkness fell away and there was the demon, not Demogorgon but it hardly mattered as it was one of those brutal 11-HD Type IVs. It grinned through its boar’s tusks and traced a symbol of fear in the air as the paladin spurred his horse and charged the monster. The paladin made his saving throw and cut through the demon with his sword – easy enough to do as the demon was a projected image. The demon just laughed.

Enraged, the paladin began cursing the demon in language that most of us assumed paladins would scarcely admit to knowing, much less using, but the most telling insult was “coward.” I figured that any demon worth his evilness would take offense at being called a coward by a mere mortal, so the projected image vanished – and the real demon appeared on the road, roaring out its own challenge. It began tracing another symbol in the air as the paladin charged again.

The paladin made his saving throw and struck at the demon – and his sword bounced off the demon’s hide, as the sword wasn’t powerful enough to affect the monster. The paladin’s player realized his character had only one weapon left that might do the trick. Wheeling his horse around and coming back for another charge, the paladin drew his dagger +2, then leaped off his horse and tackled the demon.

Had this been any other player, I would have pointed out the usual problems involved in leaping off a charging horse in plate mail to tackle a 10’-tall demon with a dagger, but the paladin’s player had that look on his face that said he was really into it. He wanted that demon badly. He got it. Screaming and roaring, the paladin and the demon tore into each other, dagger against claws and teeth. The paladin slammed home every attack, but so did the demon. Worse yet, the demon began to levitate itself and the paladin over the road. Dice rolled, blood flew, hit points plummeted, and the other players began shouting, “Get ‘im! Get that thing!”

The demon died at an altitude of about 100’. Its levitation spell shut off. The paladin, still attacking, clung to the demon’s body all the way down. When the rest of the party finally mustered the courage to ride back, they found the paladin – in the single digits of hit points, but alive.

“Got ‘im,” said the paladin, brushing himself off.

A legend came to life that evening, though we had not meant to create one. We had courage, heroism, danger, and excitement, all there in the rec room of an Army barracks far from home. Ten years later, the thrill and the glory of that paladin’s triumph still live with me. It doesn’t matter that the paladin wasn’t even my character.

I like a lot of things about roleplaying games – the friends, the laughter, the bad puns, the munchies –but creating a legend is the best part of all. It sure beats playing bridge.

Save vs. Conga

What follows is one of my odder ideas and may not be suitable for those who take their dungeons too seriously.

The Devious "Save vs. Conga" Trap

The Set-up: The party chances upon a pair of double doors that lead to a 20’ wide, T-shaped corridor. The branch before them extends 40’ past the double doors before branching left and right and continuing out of sight. The only decoration present in this otherwise plain hallway is terrazzo floor. The party enters the hallway at the end marked "A" on the map above.

The Trap: Once one or more PCs venture out of the shaded area on the map, everyone in this corridor must save vs. spells or succumb to the Conga Curse. Those cursed are compelled to form a conga line and dance down the corridor. The PC farthest into the corridor who succumbs to the curse forms the head of the line with the other adventurers falling in behind him. It is this PC that will chart the course the conga line takes.

Unless restrained or otherwise incapacitated by unaffected party members (dispel magic and remove curse will both break this compulsion), the conga line proceeds down the corridor at half the normal movement rate of the line’s slowest member. The referee should sketch out the corridor and allow the conga line’s leader to indicate what path the line travels. This decision is the line leader’s; the rest of the line must follow the chosen path without question. The line must move forward and cannot double back, reverse or otherwise deviate from making forward progress. The dancers are free to travel from side-to-side and can move diagonally down the hallway as well.

Once the conga line’s path is determined, the referee consults the map above to determine if the dancers blunder into any of the myriad traps that line the corridor. If they do, the normal chance to trigger traps is applied and those doing so suffer the effects indicated below:

Dart Trap –Struck by a fusillade of 1d6 darts for 1d4 points of damage each. A successful save vs. wands reduces the number of darts striking the victim by half, rounded down.

Fire Trap – A blast of fire inflicts 3d6 points of damage to the victim (save vs. breath attacks for half damage).

Gas Trap – Save vs. poison or suffer 2d8 points of damage. Although the area of the gas’s effect is 15’ square, the victim must pass over the trap’s actual trigger to activate it. Note that this trap will likely effect everyone in the conga line.

Lightning Trap – A bolt of lightning strikes the victim for 3d6 points of damage (save vs. spells for half damage).

Spear Trap – Save vs. wands or struck by 1d4 spears for 1d6 points of damage each.

The referee is encouraged to see if a trap activates as each dancer passes through its square and then inflict damage upon affected individuals before rolling to see if the next dancer triggers the trap. This builds tension as the dancers at the back of the line watch helplessly as others conga through the trap, knowing they themselves must pass through it.

Once the dancers reach either set of doors at the end of the corridor, the conga compulsion ends and they may move normally. Once they leave this corridor, however, the curse is reset. Adventurers passing this way again will need to make a saving throw after entering the corridor or fall under the curse’s sway yet again.

The Payoff: If the adventurers survive the conga curse and reach one of the corridor’s far doors, they are free to explore this strange hallway free of the compulsion to dance. In a secret compartment beneath the floor (marked "B" on the map above) is a cache of treasure. This hidden compartment is locked, but does not bear a trap other than the corridor it lies in. The cache consists of 19,000 gp worth of assorted coins and jewelry.

Roll To Hit the Dead Horse

This is the only time I will ever address the second-most popular dead horse to flog in gaming: Ascending vs. Descending Armor Class. It must be summer, because that topic has come around again.

It is my heartfelt belief that one person- and one person only- need concern themselves with armor class – the referee. Every player knows after their first five minutes of gaming that rolling high is a good thing, and that the higher they roll, the better chance they have of ultimately making the monster fall down dead. The referee will tell them if they rolled high enough on a case-by-case basis.

The referee should use whatever method works for them, whether it be Ascending, Descending, Letters, Astrological Symbols, kanji, ex-girlfriends’ phone numbers, etc. as long as they can give the result of an attack immediately after the die is rolled. No method is intrinsically superior to another so long as this sole stipulation is adhered to.

To quote Mr. Dave Arneson: "Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!"