Covenant Items from Midnight for BRP

I've started to play a basic BRP based fantasy game at home, and the first adventure we did was a small crypt crawl. Naturally they found a magic sword.

Before you start to groan, let me tell you the kids have already started to ask for dragons and maybe a demon or two. They want fantasy to feel fantastic.

So, what can you as a GM do with the proverbial magic sword to keep it fresh and interesting? Well, I remembered the Midnight campaign setting for D&D 3rd ed. It might be a little to grim for children, but there was a few rules ideas in there I could steal. I'm thinking of Covenant Items.

Covenant Items are magic items that "grow" with the wielder. It's a neat solution to the question of what to do with the simple +1 sword when you find a +2 one.

Since we play in the Kingdoms of Kalamar, this sword is blessed by Brovandol, of the Knight of the Gods, and thus its powers are themed to that.

• +5/+10   -  Lvl 1 - Countermagic
• +10/+20 -  Lvl 1 - Sharpen
• +15/+30 -  Lvl 2 - Protection
• +20/+40 -  Lvl 2 - Countermagic
• +25/+50 -  Lvl 2 - Sharpen
• +30/+60 -  Lvl 3 - Protection
• +35/+70 -  Lvl 3 - Countermagic
• +40/+80 -  Lvl 3 - Sharpen

The idea is to have the weapon develop with the character, so the first column is how many skills points have been put into the weapon. The first value is for those who like me uses a d6 for skill advancement, and the second if you use a d10 (like modern CoC does).

Just as a random fact the levels happens to match with the different levels of the Halls of the Valiant, as the church of the Knight is knows as.

The powers are names of Magic spells from the Big Yellow Tome edition of BRP, and roughly correlate to familiar RQ spells like Bladesharp, Shield and Spell Resistance.

Now I have adventure hooks and a money sink ready for the character to develop those powers!

Old D&D editions and clones - Ambition & Avarice

I remember when I first heard of Castles & Crusades, and how the creators talked about how it fused the best of older editions with new. I was never that convinced by C&C, but if any game has managed to fuse the best of old and new, that game is Ambition & Avarice.

The first thing I noticed when I opened this game is how good it looks. The layout it clean and readable and the illustrations opening each chapter is adorable. I mean, the illustration to Introduction is of a ruined structure, the proverbial hole in the ground you go to have adventures. It's where everything start, and the focus of it all, which is what the text say when it lays down the design goals. Everything in this game feels well thought out.

It's fun to see new classes, and new races. Some of them are what you would normally call evil or barbaric, and I like how this game never labels them as evil or NPC only.

Some innovations feels very good, like the saves as inherent to the race, while the classes is more about what you're trained to do. Having some things each class is good at, some things they can identify and some kind of companions are strokes of genius! This makes the class cover so much more, be flexible and the companions makes the game tie the murder hobos to the world. Very good new design, in a very old and traditional way. I also like the way the system of Dungeon Rolls gives you that kind of light weight "skill system" that LotfP has. Since there are lots of class based abilities and the races have lot of different qualities it feels like there so many interesting ways to make your character special, while it's still very easy to generate one and the archetypes you in a class based system are still present. It doesn't get much better than that. The author, Greg Christopher, even manages to sell me on a save system that aligns more with the traditional ones than my preferred 3rd ed. style saves.

What are my reactions to this game then? I guess you have noted that already. This is a game that is a joy to read, and thus it makes you want to play it. There are interesting innovations while keeping a lot of the stuff that is familiar. This is a honed game, and finely cut gem that has taken lots of stuff and really focused on player driven play, within the boundaries of old school gaming, but with lots of possibilities to play just the character you want.

There are a few things that really makes me want to run this game. One of them is the lack of a list of standard magic items. One of the things that so often make the fantastic mundane is the thoughtless reuse of the pieces of wonder Gary and Rob invented for the Greyhawk campaign. In this game both monsters and magic is allowed to be unique and fantastic again.

If more games were as well written as this one, we'd all be better off.

Magic Items in a new light - the Investment ritual of Dragonquest

I have been charmed by all those who fondly talk about SPI's fantasy RPG, and with that glimmer in the eye mention it as the best game they've ever played. So far I have not yet played the game myself, but true to the odd kind of madness that sometimes descend upon me, I have bought not only one, but four copies of the rules! Now I'm reading them again, and began to think on how it differs from D&D.

Probably everyone have heard about delves into the hole in the ground, from whence they brave adventurers then emerge carrying a +1 sword. It's so much part of the tropes of the fantasy rpg these days. As I was sitting with The Haunted Halls of the Eveningstar, thinking about how to run a game in that setting with the Dragonquest rules, I came upon the iconic +1 sword. Now, how would that be modelled in DQ?

Well, I quickly found a spell for enchanting weapons, and it increased the chance to hit, and the damage. Basic and standard stuff. What made me think was the fact that this was a one use spell, and like it always is, the sword in the module was a permanent item.

I dived into the rulebook, and found the Investment ritual. With this you can "invest" a spell into an item so anyone can use it at a later date. Sounds great, right? Now, this is not a permanent item. No, it has a limited amount of charges, and let me tell you, it's not 50 like it is in 3rd ed. D&D! No, the rank the enchanter has gained in the spell is the limiting factor. After looking at some NPCs, and generating some characters of my own I feel fairly confident to say that an item with anything near 50 charges will be so rare as to be almost unique.

So, are there no permanent magic items in this game? Well, in a supplement that was written, but never published called Arcane Wisdom (which can be found by searching around a bit), they included the rules for a permanent investment. I just skimmed it to see if it did what I though it did, and did not check for how expensive it would be to learn. Probably quite. Just the fact that the ritual to create permanent items is not in the core rules felt significant.

Now, some of you might claim that even in, say, AD&D, it was no mean feat to permanently enchant an item. True, but you have noticed that there a dozens of them listed in the DMG, right? They are there, and everyone expect them to be around for the taking.

Now, imagine a D&D game where almost none of the magic items are permanent, and those with a limited amount of charges are likelier to hold 5 charges than 50. You will get a pretty different game!

Just imagine, and maybe try it out. It will be fun to try to run this game one day.

Looking for inspirations? Look no further

This morning I read the post about the Banner of the Seas on the Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets blog. I just needed to share my enthusiasm.

That blog is so full with wonderful inventions and funny glimpses into the world of adventure where the items, gods and monsters of the blog live and appear. If you read no other blog than that, you will have fodder for games from now until the end of time. Damn is it good, or what? Thanks for sharing!

Reading T&T 7.5 - Monsters & Magic Book

Today I was thinking of doing a walk through of some of the magic spells, and talk about what they can be used for, how they are cool and how some of them seem to be quite wonky. But, since that is a very complex subject that I just haven't been able to wrap my mind around I have decided to focus on the Monsters & Magic Book included in the 7.0 and 7.5 boxed sets.

The first thing you notice is that the basic rules for calculating MR and adds are repeated. Then we have what I consider to be one of the best additions to the T&T systems since 1979, the Special Damage system. While I have sometimes groaned about how FDP seem to have tossed the game out in the marketplace without editing it at all, and thus felt a bit of dislike for how they have handled the T&T property, I will say this is just pure genius. Ken St Andre posted in the comments earlier in this series of posts and told me that concept was their idea. FDP redeemed a lot of editorial sloppiness by that inclusion! It's excellent. Let me expand upon it a bit.

The basic way monsters are statted is with a single stat, MR. From that you can calculate all the stats needed for combat. If you have seen the stat block for a D&D3 monster, "Goblin, MR20" as the "stat block" is very liberating! But the news with Special attacks is using Spite (sixes rolled to attack) as a trigger for a Special Attack. "Goblin, MR20, 2/Vicious Bite 2d6" is now goblins who will bite their opponent for 2 dice of damage for every two sixes rolled! Not only that, but Special Attacks ignore armour just like Spite does. I had totally forgotten that until I re-read that section today. Ouch. There's even a short section with suggestions for different types of Special Attacks and other Special Abilities. It gives the classic MR based monster a little bit more spice. Very groovy.

Next comes a section that feels seriously out of place. There are rules for balancing encounters, and that talks about a 4 person party, and then there's a section referring to the "Revised T&T rules presented in the Special Anniversary Edtion set" which talks about a standard 4 person party. Which is it? That SAE set mentioned is the 7.0 box, and the Revised T&T rules from that one are not included in the 7.5, which makes it feel odd to have that even mentioned. FDP have inserted a "[released in 2005]" disclaimer in that paragraph so I can't understand why they just didn't remove it. Those Revised T&T rules are better treated with nothing but silence. I have never heard of anyone liking or using them.

We get 24 monsters described in the next section. Illustrated and statted. They are mostly legendary and mythological creatures like the manticore and harpy. They work and I have used them to good effect. Interestingly, what dungeon level they usually inhabit is also mentioned.

The last section of the booklet contains what meagre rules T&T have about magic items. It's made clear that items are for sale, and there are a niche in the Trollworld economy for magic items. Personally I find that having shops where you can buy magic items to make those a bit less fantastic. I have used them in my games, though.

Foci, potions, weapons, jewelry and Other Items are described, with cost and how they might look like. I am notoriously bad at analyzing the economical effects of rules like this. But, there's one potion that makes even me raise an eyebrow.

A healing potion heals 1 CON and costs 400 gp. If you now take a look at your rulebook at p.44 you will find "First-aid kit (5 uses)" and "Second-aid kit (5 uses; cures 5 hits per)". The latter cost 99.9 gp and the former 10 gp. From those prices you would guess (since there are no rules about it) that the First-aid kit heals less than 5 CON. 99.9 gp on the other hand will cure 5 CON five times. That's 19.98 gp per dose and thus 4 gp per CON. Suddenly that Potion which costs 400 gp sounds quite expensive. Actually it seems totally broken.

The other place where the economy of magic items seem odd is the general rules for items, bespelled, enchanted and magical. The odd thing here is that if you want to make an enchanted sword, are the "cost of the spell" mentioned including the Dura-Spell Battery which I assume is powering the item? It seems like these rules were written without full knowledge of that spell. I did ask Ken about who made what, and he said "It seems to me that most of the stuff about magic in the extra booklet was my work", which makes you wonder about that Dura-Spell omission. Frankly it feels like it wasn't tried out, really. Since there were no rules like that in 5th ed, and I feel kind of bad about shopping for magic items anyway I guess I'd prefer just to make it all up. Then it would help to have a longer list of examples to compare to if you're as uninterested in spending time inventing a full economic system as I am.

The only other thing I want to remark upon is the wish that this kind of material would be included in the rulebook. Either that or expand it and incorporate a few of the other booklets in the 7.5 box.

I will try to spend some time with the spell list and post on that last section of the rules. But, since I know my limits, I have invited a guest blogger! It will be great fun to see what we will get to read.

Where are my magic items!?

I read Chapter VI of DragonQuest yesterday. This chapter start Book Two, and is called Magic. The way magic works is interesting. There are Talents, general knowledge spells, general knowledge rituals and then there are special spells and rituals. Just like in T&T everyone knows the general knowledge spells. It sure makes it possible to have options even as a starting character. I like that.

But, having read about all the schools of magic, or colleges as they are called, I was kind of surprised not to find any magic items! Looking around I realized there are none to be found. DragonQuest is a bit oddly organized sometimes, but having read it all I know I haven't missed it. So, there is no shopping list of magic items.

Whatever I felt about DragonQuest before, I surely didn't become less fond of it because of this lack. Frankly, I find the way magic items have become commodity is one of the ways the fantastic have been leeched out of some fantasy games. D&D 4th ed soured on me partly because of that. When everyone can look at that list and see all the details and effects nailed down, where are there space left for wonder and mystery?

So, it might mean you have to work a bit more, but DragonQuest have become one of the fantasy rpgs I feel "did it right". I've often heard that claimed, and even though I doubt this is what they meant, I now join the chorus. Since it's out of print, you'll have to buy Tunnels & Trolls instead. :)

Another blogger post about wondrous magic

Since I wrote my post on the missing wonder of magic, we have had another post on the subject of making it weirder. Go check it out, over at Troll and Flame!

Magic items as mystery and wonder

Today I read something which got the gears turning, over at Inkwell Ideas. For some reason magic potions seem to be a constant source of wonder and mystery in magic, which sadly are missing way to often. Magic items have, at least in D&D, become something more mundane than wondrous. Sometimes the potions start bubbling and boiling, and some fun stuff pour over the rim.

In my old D&D3 campaign I decided to try to make magic items something more than just "another cloak of invisibility" which everyone who ever cracked open a D&D books knows about. My players had to use Detect Magic, Identify and do some experimenting. Guess what happened when I found tables of potion mishaps and odd effects in some gaming magazines? Chaos ensued. I loved it.

Over at the Inkwell, my idea have gotten some sturdier legs. Sadly I never managed to keep track of which potion it was that was green and sparkling, and which was clear and tasted of raspberries. Personally I think it's a marvellous idea not to tell the players what they got, and instead say how it looks, smells and taste.

Long time readers of my blog know that I have bemoaned the fact before that magic items have become less magic than they should. When the first supplement to D&D was published that suddenly became a shopping list, instead of a source of inspiration for new creations. I really resent that. I realized when I started my campaign that since everyone who have played the game for any time at all knows all there is to know about the iconic items, and the only way to make it interesting was to refuse to say what they had found. As always there's a balance between making it hard for the players and making the game fun and run smooth. My biggest disappointment was when they found a staff, radiating powerful magic, but of a slightly twisted and chaotic kind. Naturally they never dared to use that wand, and I never had any use for the d% chart I had with cool random magic effects. I almost feel like sulking, just writing about it.

The major complaint I had from my players in my 3rd ed D&D campaign was that the Identify spell took way to long to cast. In T&T the spell to have, The Omnipotent Eye (have you seen that name somewhere around?), is quicker and easier to cast. Still, even if it's cheap and easy it's a decision if you want to spend the slot/spell points. I like that. It don't have to be expensive, but it should not be free to know all about something like magic. That surely is the way to make it loose any touch of mystery.

Anyone who still haven't figured out that I like to add drawbacks to magic items as well? As an analogy I decided to think about magic like an electromagnetic field. It radiates, and have particles doing the interacting with the rest of the world. Thinking like that and radiation damage is the next logical step. You find a powerful item? Cool! Carry it a while and the longer you do, the more weird shit happens to you. That's magic to me!

Some thoughts about how to organise rpg rules

I was just reading the Swords & Wizardry forums and found a thread about how neat it is to be able to take the .doc format file of White Box edition and edit it to the rule hack you want. The reason it is so handy, according to one poster, is that you can make a booklet with just the rules for the players. Even though it's not always explicitly said, that do imply that there are rules just meant for the game master.

When I was younger, and was first introduced to this wonderful hobby of ours, everyone read all the rules. One boxed set with one or two booklets was the norm. But, in contrast with, say, D&D it wasn't clearly labelled for the Player and for the GM. I haven't asked anybody else about it, but I think most people did like we did, and bought the box if you played the game. That usually meant that in each group you had maybe half as many copies of the rules as there were players. It also meant that almost everyone had read everything in there, including the rules for casting and learning spells, the chance to catch gangrene or what modifier you'd get for trying to use your Listen skill in thick fog. I never saw a problem with that.

When I first actually opened a rule book for D&D, it was the 2nd ed era. Not only were there two books, they also had the weirdest layout with the same section in the two books saying slightly different and (in theory) complementary things. I was thoroughly confused. For some reason there were things which you got the impression you should hide from the players! With my background that seemed preposterous. What was there to hide?!

Now today I realized that this way of splitting up information have shaped me more than I've imagined. The idea of having a standard list of magic items which sooner or later everyone knew about, or a list of standard monsters, is just an alien concept where I'm coming from. Now, many years later I have kind of adapted and know that the way things are, can be different in different places. But, to put this in perspective I think a game were everyone knows how to play the game, but where magic and monsters are all unique creations by your GM/DM is really a more interesting way to play the game. The mystery and wonder of fantasy sure is easier to maintain that way, and for those interesting in the history of the hobby it is the way to experience how it was when Ken and the Phoenix circle, Dave and the Twin Cities players, and Gary with his Lake Geneva group played. Nothing was yet codified, and every piece of magic was new, and wonderful. Imagine that.