Inside Baseball

My blog has slowed down a lot lately. So, I notice, has Oddysey's. I think it's for the same reason.

We're engaged in a one-on-one game which has recently undergone a few momentous transformations. These flowed naturally from the course of events and decisions that the PC made. And therein lies the difficulty.

We've fired off nearly daily emails to each other over these issues, not because the campaign is falling apart but because it is thriving. Oddysey and her character are delving deeper into the world, ferreting out details and such that I'd only vaguely outlined in my own head. Now those details are becoming integral parts of the game, strategies are being built around them, and decisions are being made that have serious social consequences.

So why aren't we writing about that? Because, quite simply, the amount of background material you'd need to make sense of what's happening is huge. This is not unusual in my campaigns. I drop a few seeds of such things, present my players with difficult challenges, and they usually rise to the occasion by taking such things and crafting clever ways to overcome those challenges. So far, so good, but these sorts of things build on each other over time. The variations in gift-giving customs between the elves of Ashwood and Malfanwys become a vital element of an adventure, but that doesn't make any sense to an outsider until they understand that elves even have gift-giving customs, and then you have to explain what gift-giving means to elves, and eventually, it's turtles all the way down.

We've been writing up some very neat stuff (and you should bug Oddysey about her brief discussion of how dwarves use jewelry to express social and marital status), but it's both taken up a lot of writing time and not produced much that is suitable for general consumption. I'm going to be combing through some of this older stuff to find gems that I think y'all would enjoy, but don't be surprised if blogging is light for another week or so.

Image credits: Sister72 and WordRidden.

More Digital Ink on Where the Kids Are

Randall Bills over at Catalyst Game Labs has quite a bit to say on this subject:

I believe the most significant hurdle (a hurdle that’s always been the bane of our industry, simply more so now) is market penetration. With kids not driven out of their houses to get their geek on and discover gaming by accident along the way, getting them to find our games is all the more difficult.

Yet it’s important to recognize that the market still exists. It allows us to see that instead of giving up on RPGs, we need to think outside the box for how to deliver RPGs to a hard-to-find market. Instead of bemoaning the lost days of yore, we can step up to the challenge and declare emphatically that RPGs still rock, are cool and can find a great audience, including the next generation.

As I've mentioned before, I think MMOs and console gaming are a distraction. The real threat is freeform online play based on beloved IPs like Harry Potter and X-Men and Middle Earth.

That said, the fix remains the same, as Mr. Bills points out. People are not going to show up until they're invited.

And we need to start extending that invitation. ICv2 Insider’s Guide reports that the second quarter of 2009 saw improvement in nearly every segment of the hobby games industry except:

The roleplaying game category remains deeply troubled, with most brands down, and the gap between Dungeons and Dragons and the rest growing.

UPDATE: James Edward Raggi IV riffs on this topic as it applies to the Old School Renaissance.

Gods as Monsters

There's a neat article from a few weeks back about polytheism posted at “The Tao of D&D”. It's a bit long, but a lot interesting, so worth your time.

One of the philosophies espoused in the article is that the gods should be great and powerful beings who "can smash a PC, or kingdom like a bug", far beyond the “glorified monsters” they appear as in Deities & Demigods. So where did Messrs. Ward and Kuntz come up with the idea of the gods as creatures who should have stats and could be defeated in combat?

Probably from the myths themselves.

These myths are hardly consistent when it comes to the powers of the gods. Isis could flood the Nile with a single teardrop, but had to spend time disguised as a common, mortal nursemaid in order to rescue the body of the murdered Osiris. Yep, murdered, as in slain, as in reduced to 0 hit points (or -11, depending on your house rules). Osiris was lucky; he got resurrected. Poor Baldur wasn't so fortunate and ended up staying dead.

And Baldur was hardly unique among the gods and their brethren. Zeus slew his father and imprisoned the other titans. Tiamat was dismembered after her husband was killed (arguably in self-defense) by their children. Heck, the entire Norse pantheon was doomed to die in battle against monsters and frost giants.

Dying and torment were not unknown to the gods. Nor were they omniscient. Odin lost an eye and hung for three days from Yggdrasil, the World Ash, to earn the right to drink from the Pool of Wisdom and learn the making of runes. Thor was fooled by illusions. Ares was driven, screaming in pain and horror, from the plain before Troy by Diomedes.

Having said all that, I think most folks will get more mileage from the system outlined in “The Tao of D&D” because it tends to agree with people's default assumptions. We tend to think of gods as mystical forces rather than flesh-and-blood creatures, and we assume the relationships our characters will have with the gods will be distant, obscure, and personal, rather than matters of civic duty, akin to jury duty and paying taxes. If you're going to do something other than that with your deities, you should probably make them central to the campaign and its themes, as was done in the Dragonlance campaign.

Art Credits: Frederick Arthur Bridgman, Bertel Thorvaldsen.

It's All About the Benjamins

There's more info now about what Messrs. Mentzer, Ward, Kask, and now Clark are up to. There's a lot here to like, not the least of which that they are talking about it on Dragonsfoot. The range of games they're talking about is promising, though the fact that Swords & Wizardry isn't listed seems odd.

I love the fact that these guys are jumping in like they are, and that they are treating it as a serious business. As I've mentioned before, there are real benefits to treating this sort of thing as a profit-making venture.

That said, they sure want a lot of cash up front. And that, honestly, is the most fascinating thing about it. Can they raise that kind of scratch? If anybody can, it's them. And if they can, it'll mean there are some real legs to this OSR thing. That'll be very, very interesting to watch.

Trollsmyth the Mastermind

Jeff's Gameblog has pointed me to BrainHex. It's about computer games, but it's still intriguing.

Your BrainHex Class is Mastermind.

Your BrainHex Sub-Class is Mastermind-Socialiser.

You like solving puzzles and devising strategies as well as hanging around with people you trust and helping people.

Each BrainHex Class also has an Exception, which describes what you dislike about playing games. Your Exceptions are:

» No Punishment: You dislike struggling to overcome seemingly impossible challenges, and repeating the same task over and over again.
» No Commitment: You dislike being asked to complete everything, preferring to pick and choose which tasks you will attempt, or simply messing around with a game.

Learn more about your classes and exceptions at BrainHex.com.

Your scores for each of the classes in this test were as follows:

Mastermind: 17
Socialiser: 16
Seeker: 15
Survivor: 10
Daredevil: 6
Conqueror: 0
Achiever: -2

And if we check out what a Mastermind is, we find:

“I know what to do.”


You like solving puzzles and devising strategies.

Your behaviour is focussed around making the most efficient decisions.

Your major brain region is the orbito-frontal cortex, an area just behind and above the eyes involved in making decisions, and the nucleus accumbens (or “pleasure centre”) which is closely linked to it.

Your chemical messenger is dopamine, which is chemically similar to cocaine, and is involved in habit formation.

If you were an animal, it would be an octopus.

I am the octopus! Koo-koo-kachoo! But at least I don't hate people. ;p

Not Quite Dead Yet

But since we're talking about Sinister Adventures, it may, in fact, be undead. They'll be posting submission guidelines in the near future as well.

Things look good for our end of the RPG woods, with Sinister Adventures getting back on its feet, Mr. Raggi churning out new stuff, and whispers of a new venture by Tim Kask, Jim Ward, and Frank Mentzer.

Gettin' High in the Lands of Doom & Teaparties

”Hey... Black lotus. Stygian, the best!”

“This better not be haga.”

“I would sell haga to a slayer such as you?”

I'm actually not aware of much drug use in Howard's stories about Conan, but it's all over the place in the works of Clark Ashton Smith and Michael Moorcock.

On high tables about the walls of the alchemy, there were jars, flasks, and vials containing subtle drugs and powerful elements, some of which were drawn from the more arcanic kingdoms of nature. Disregarding the moon-powder, the coals of starfire, the jellies made from the brains of gorgons, the ichor of salamanders, the dust of lethal fungi, the marrow of sphinxes, and other equally quaint and pernicious matters, the magician soon found the essences that he required. It was the work of an instant to pour them into the seething cauldron; and having done this, he awaited with composure the return of the reptiles. - “The Flower-women” by Clark Ashton Smith

In the realms of fantasy, it is an easy thing to come up with all manner of wild and fanciful inebriants and hallucinogens. The real world has more than its fair share as well. What follows is a short list of those most common in the lands of my Doom & Teaparties campaigns.

Chocolate is typically drunk as a thick, foamy liquid (it's foamed up by pouring rapidly from one container to another) and is considered a mild aphrodisiac.  Fermented and roasted beans are also ground into a powder which is used to spike other drugs, or sprinkled over or in food.

Cannabis along with hashish and sinsemilla are also fairly common. Usually it's burned in a pot that those wishing to indulge gather around so they can enjoy the fumes. It is smoked individually by some, but most consider it a more social drug. It's also baked into some sweetbreads pastries.

Coca leaves (not to be confused with cocoa leaves) are often given to slaves engaged in manual labor in the lands of the lizardfolk. The lizardfolk and their slaves claim that chewing the leaves boosts the slaves' energy and strength. The gods point out that the lizardfolk themselves use the leaf only rarely themselves, and claim that prolonged use makes humans docile and tame. The gods consider the cultivation and sale of coca leaves to be a crime, though rumors maintain that extracts from the leaf and root are part of the process the Shkeenites use to tame newly acquired slaves. The lizardfolk use similar extracts as part of an aphrodisiac they feed to their slaves when attempting to breed them.

Licorice is often consumed by just chewing the root to freshen the breath. The syrup from boiled roots is used to help break up coughs and cure mouth sores and fevers. However, the temples of the gods frequently serve the syrup mixed with food and sauces to their novices as a treat, because it is known to suppress the sex drive and other “antisocial” behaviors.

Large quantities of powdered nutmeg are combined with chocolate and other herbs into a potent potion brewed by lizardfolk witches to induce prophetic visions, though it's typically administered to criminals before execution or sacrifice. The effects are thought to be especially unpleasant, and such a victim can rave and babble for an entire day. Such visions are nearly always doom-laden, but the mystics and rulers of the empire take such predictions seriously.

The gods use nutmeg in the incense used during ceremonies in their temples, but the amounts are too low to produce any noticeable hallucinogenic effect. It is believed, however, to ward against airborne diseases, so the incense is often used in and around hospitals.

Anthoneiri or “dreamblossoms” is a flower from a clinging vine that grows best in Fairey. The long, leaf-shaped petals are a milky white near the center of the flower, blushing to pink and then a brilliant crimson at the outer edge and pointed tip. The stamens and pistil of the blossoms can be used to create a potion that induces a wild, sometimes violent, bestial state in the drinker, and is used by some shock troops to work themselves up into a fury before battle. The scent of the dreamblossoms is a potent aphrodisiac, and prolonged or saturating exposure can induce a temporary state of extreme satyriasis/nymphomania that, if sated, will result in a very deep, restful sleep with especially bizarre and vivid dreams. Hierodules of Tiamat are known to use this effect to attempt to contact Tiamat in her prison.

Moonglories are a small, shrub-like plant whose silvery blossoms open under the light of the silver moon. Chewing the root is a common cure for male impotence. Eating the blossoms raw is known to cause mental instability, but when properly prepared it is a potent anesthetic. A more concentrated form is sometimes combined with sinsemilla to produce a powerful hypnotic drug that can be used to make a person highly suggestible or alter their memories. It is believed to be another tool in the pharmacological arsenal of the Shkeenites.

Lotus plants come in a number of colors, each with its own potent powers. Chewing the petals of the white lotus before bed results in restful sleep full of pleasant dreams, and is thought to be a ward against the nocturnal predations of night hags and nightmares. It is often administered to mothers going through difficult pregnancies, as it's also thought to settle the tummy and curb the effects of morning sickness as well as gentle the emotions.

Purple lotus is noted for its prophetic powers. Alchemists and soothsayers use a potent mix of dried blossoms, sinsemilla, and moonglory blossoms to get hazy glimpses of the future. Chewing the petal gives a mild euphoric effect and stains the tongue a dark purple color. Some use it to enhance the effects of other drugs or alcohol. In many human cultures, maidens will chew a fresh purple and white petal before bed on nights of the full moon in hopes of having a prophetic dream in which they will get a glimpse of the face of their future husband. Purple lotus are often grown outside the temples of Hasrit, and some coming to watch the whirling dance ceremonies of the priestesses will take a petal or two to chew, though the priestesses warn that they will not be responsible for the results of such practice.

The petals of the red lotus are thought to release the emotions, to bring secret thoughts from the depths of the soul, and unleash inspiration. It is thought to be especially potent when smoked with cannabis under a full silver moon. When the petal is chewed, it does strengthen the emotions and makes the chewer more susceptible to mood swings. When dried and smoked mixed with cannabis, those mood swings can be extreme. It is grown in the temples of Uban to be used to help unlock the inspiration of the priests who are thwarted by a particularly difficult or thorny problem, but always under the supervision of other priests, since it nearly always results in the user curled up in the corner, babbling and weeping in stark terror at horrors only the smoker can see.

The petals are sometimes ground into a paste, combined with aphrodisiacs, and turned into a lip paint. This lip paint is thought to slowly excite not only the wearer, but anyone kissed, and is sometimes used by those hoping to seduce an otherwise disinterested or hesitant lover.

The most precious and potent lotus is the black. Black lotus petals are dried and smoked to produce a deep feeling of contentment, invulnerability, and, eventually, powerfully erotic dreams. (Unscrupulous alchemists will often cut dried black lotus petals with common cannabis that's been dried and dyed a dark color.) The root can be chewed to improve the endurance and strength, but also results in a dulling of the wits, and prolonged use can reduce a person to a drooling imbecile, as well as permanently stain the lips and teeth an ugly purplish black color.

It's sorcerers who prize the plant above all others. The pistil is the primary ingredient in a potion that, when properly prepared and drunk, creates a dream-like state in which the wizard's vision can pierce the veil between worlds, see into other dimensions, and, according to some, even see the very stuff of magic floating in the air like streaming ribbons or floating soap bubbles. Its use can improve the magical abilities of sorcerers, but most will only indulge when it is most necessary. Rumors of the dangers include madness, possession by beings from higher planes, and actually being physically kidnapped into such bizarre dimensions.

In certain communities, bees are cultivated near fields of the various lotus plants, and the pollen of the lotus blossoms is turned into honey. This lotus honey tends to be very sweet, slightly more viscus than common, and impart strange visions or variations on the more typical effects of using the flowers to those who eat it.

Just in case it wasn't clear, I certainly don't recommend actually trying any of this stuff in real life. Chocolate will make you fat, nutmeg will make you vomit if you get enough in you to produce hallucinations, and I suspect chewing on lotus petals isn't that good for you, either. As for the imaginary stuff, well, if you find a vine of dreamblossoms, please tell me where. ;)

UPDATE: Gavin's got the goods on a few psycho-active substances of a more crunch-affecting variety over in "The City of Iron."

Photo Credits: 00dann, davitydave, matze_ott, and NZ Alex.

Oh My Freakin'...

Ok, yeah, most of you have probably seen this already, but wow, is that an awesome trailer.

Music for Doom & Teaparties

The subject of music that makes folks think of our Doom & Teaparties campaign came up recently. I'd actually started to put together something I play in the background when I'm working on the Doom & Teaparties game. In part, it's a bit of what I think music in the campaign may sound like, and in part it's just music that inspires me to think about the campaign.

Most of these pieces don't have words in English because I sometimes find it hard to write if I'm being distracted by English lyrics. Yulunga is a nice, atmospheric piece that fits many aspects of the campaign; it gets me out of medieval northern Europe, and fits well whether we're talking about the city of Pitsh or the palaces of the efreet in the City of Petal. Tikal pumps things up a bit, and brings in a touch of South America, which works because I'm pulling a lot from the Maya, Aztec, Olmec, and Inca for this campaign, especially for the Wednesday group.

Alan Stivell is one of my favorite makers of celtic music. Frankly, if I'd been able to find it, I'd have used his wonderfully atmospheric "Ys" instead of this piece, but it works for me to bring that touch of celtic to the Fey.

The next three build up the sense of menace and mystery. There are others I'd like to add, like bits from the Myst, Gladiator, and latest King Kong soundtracks, but I can't find those in Playlist's system. I may just end up throwing that together onto a CD of my own.

Art by Winslow Homer.

The Natural Mutations of a Campaign

I've got two Moldvay/Cook/Labyrinth Lord games running right now. In one, the group has just returned from a dungeon, sold their loot, and is considering what challenge to tackle next. Nothing unusual there.

In the other, in spite of being in an efreet city on the Plane of Fire, the last game was largely taken up by the blossoming romance of the single PC and an NPC. Some clues were gathered, some mysteries were solved (which, of course, led directly into new mysteries needing to be explored), but mostly it was conversation about the difficulties inherent in a relationship between a dwarf who'd been transformed into a nixie and a human cleric. I don't think we rolled a single die the entire game.

Are we still playing D&D? Yep. The nixie could give her beau the ability to breath underwater, the cleric prayed for his spells in the morning, and their efreeti host had 10 hit dice and the ability to create illusions at will. I'd be shocked if nobody else ran games like this. In fact, I know other people do. It might not be typical, but it does happen.

And this is the way it's supposed to work. The point is for your group to take the game and make it their own. Do you want to destroy the great artifact of evil and return the rightful king to his throne? D&D can do that. Do the PCs rarely leave the city-state and instead strive to make their guild of Blades and Shadows the masters of every criminal enterprise within its borders? D&D can do that, too. Maybe the PCs are all students in an ancient and storied thaumaturgical university, or mamluks of the cabal of brain-eating tentacle-monsters who rule the world.

This is why the modules of original D&D were so bare in terms of setting and story. They were built to be dropped into any of these campaigns. Sure, the assumption was that you'd have to march a few days through the wilderness to reach the The Slave Pits of the Undercity, but they could just as easily be placed in the sewers of your campaign's largest metropolis. You were supposed to take what TSR and others had made and make it your own. The modules of those days way back when were not so much games or stories, but miniature sandboxes. Some might not fit as well in your campaign as others (funhouse dungeons, for instance, are a poor fit for my campaigns), but the bulk of the translation work was up to the DM and players.

This is why I tend to be pretty vague when writing about RPGs and campaign construction. What's perfect for my game might not have any place in yours. I tend to run relationship-centric campaigns, were groups A and B team up to combat the forces of the loose and fractious alliance of C, D, and E. Other campaigns are focused on a particular location (Ptolus or the megadungeon campaign). Some are like action movies, with the barest plot stringing together action scenes like beads on a cord, or grand strategic visions where logistics and planning take center stage. The important thing, of course, is finding what works for your group and what doesn't. Learning what you don't like can be as important as figuring out what works.

Image credits: John William Godward and Paul-Marie Lenoir.

The Sartorial Variations of Pitsh

Fasion in Pitsh is based largely on human fashion of course. The major contributors are the cultures on the northern shores of the Turquoise Sea. These lands are not quite as tropical as the southern coasts of the Sea, but it is comparable.

The largest ports are part of the Lizardfolk Empire, and so most humans from those places were slaves or free menial laborers. The typical garment in these lands is a loincloth, usually a strip of linen about six feet long and three to five inches wide that's wrapped around the waist and loins so that the tail ends dangle down in front. This is a fairly unisex garment, and women might wrap another, similar cloth around their breasts in various ways, though such covering is not required and many go without. This is the daily garment of most of the farmers and woodsmen who live just outside the walls of the city.

There's also a slightly fancier version, which is some sort of chain or rope around the waist from which hang a pair of cloths of various lengths and widths, one in front and one in back. Because of the near-constant breezes off the sea, the hems of these cloths might be weighted with decorative stones or small copper pendents. This sort of thing is fashionable among the slaves of the more well-to-do, and the serving slaves of higher-end establishments, like the Pelican's Perch, wear such garments, the panels edged in decorative embroidery. Free people might wear such garments as well, especially in the height of summer, though they often add an open jacket of gauzy linen or net.

The further north you go, the more likely you are to encounter the all-purpose and flexible tunic. Hem and sleeve-lengths vary depending on culture, though almost everyone goes with light linen cloth when they reach Pitsh. Generally speaking, while sleeve lengths vary depending on individual taste, the lower the hem, the more well-to-do the wearer is. The longest, however, is usually ankle-length, which keeps the garment out of the frequently muddy streets of the city. In all cases, the garment is always cut loose and boxy, and is sometimes worn without a belt by both sexes. After the loincloth, variations on tunics are the most common clothing seen in Pitsh, and most of the sailors wear a short-hemmed, sleeveless tunic.

The northwestern shores of the Turquoise Sea are settled by free humans who generally have no allegiance to either gods or empire. The fashion there is kilts held up by a leather or metal belt for both sexes, and the females generally wear halter tops or a bandeau while the men often go bare-chested or with an open jacket or square-cut vest. To the eastern edges of the Turquoise sea the fashion is more towards sarongs, kaftans, and layers of loose, light robes.

Many people go barefoot, which just makes sense in the frequently muddy streets of Pitsh. However, sandals are very popular as well, and come in various styles. Most are made of leather, though you do see some hemp and cord styles. Some mercenaries and adventuring sorts prefer buskins. Very few wear full boots, especially through the hot, wet summer, since closed shoes and boots tend to promote all sorts of unpleasant foot-rot.

Jewelry is very popular, especially among those who have lately come from the Lizardfolk Empire. Most men and women have their ears pierced. Bangles, bracelets and bracers are common additions to even the poorest persons attire, made from leather or various metals. Anklets are very common among women and those who don't walk outside often will wear toe rings. Armbands are popular among both men and women. The men from the more western lands will wear torcs, but necklaces of various fashions are typically worn only by women. Rings are very popular as a sign of status among those who don't work primarily with their hands.

Headbands are popular for both men and women, and tend to be woven bands of patterned linen or leather. Male and female versions might have metal or jewels of some sort set into the band, and female versions might have the stones or coins dangling from the band over their brows.

Cosmetics are rarely worn, except for special occasions. Women typically paint their lips and khol the flesh between their brows and their eyelashes, as well as use rouge on their cheeks and darken their lashes. Men will darken their lashes and sometimes paint their lips, but even that's fairly rare. Both sexes pluck and shape their brows.

Hair tends to be long for both sexes. Men often gather their hair into a single clip or bind it into a ponytail. Women more frequently pile their hair atop their heads, using pins and combs to hold it in place.

Most children go naked until they are six or seven years old. Then they usually wear a loincloth or similar garment until twelve or thirteen, at which point they'll typically adopt their parents' styles. However, as children of different cultures marry and intermingle, there has begun to be a blurring of the cultural lines, and people have begun to mix and match the styles that appeal to them.

Fates Worse Than Death

Via Twitter: My DM, @trollsmyth, regularly demonstrates the principle that the only DMs who kill PCs are the ones who can't think of anything more evil.

There's been discussion in the past using monsters that are nastier than the levels of the PCs would indicate is “fair.” Yes, this sort of challenge really pushes your players to be creative and flexible. It doesn't, however, always go well for the PCs.

Last night, it was a water naga from the 1e Monster Manual. The AC of 5 is hardly anything to get excited about, and the 8 HD is nasty, but a large enough group can use the power of iteration to really pound such a creature into submission. No, what's really nasty about the naga is her ability to cast magic-user spells: “4—1st, 2—2nd, 2—3rd”.

The party decided to hole up inside the dungeon. They thought they were in a safer part and posted guards. (This is not as foolish a decision as it might appear on the face of it. Camping outside the dungeon could potentially have resulted in being ambushed by something far worse than the naga.) The naga, having discovered where they were and knowing they were after the treasure she was guarding, cast invisibility on herself in an attempt to sneak up on them. It was only partially successful; one of the guards overheard her slithering up and woke some of the others. Not that it mattered too much. When the naga was close enough, she dropped her invisibility and launched a nasty alpha strike. The sleep spell took down all but one character, and that was a cleric who didn't last very long after that.

While I'm certainly not suggesting that PCs should never die, too frequent death removes the sting as much as any invulnerability; when death merely means a quick, fifteen minutes rolling up a new character and dropping them into the dungeon to get back into the game, what, then, really is the sting of death? The loss of stats, and maybe some equipment? When players expect to lose a character, they avoid investing anything emotionally. Then they truly do care more about the magic sword or ring than they do about the person wielding it, because the magical trinkets are the only things that truly last. (And while that can actually make for a very interesting theme to an Old School game, it's not the sort of thing we're aiming for in the current games I'm running.)

However, if you're up to playing a bit by the seat of your pants, and have a nice, open, sandboxy-type campaign, player defeat just means a bit shifting of the gears. In our case, the naga now had a nearly intact adventuring party at her disposal. By keeping a few of the NPC hirelings as hostages (and being prepared to indulge in the liberal use of the charm person spell), the naga was able to convince the group to perform a “small service” for her. It's a tangent, a side-quest that might grow into something greater.

What will the future hold? Will the heroes grudgingly accept the naga as an ally to their cause? Or will she become a hated foe, a nemesis to be hated and hunted a few more levels down the road? I don't know, which is part of what makes this sort of thing as much (if not more) fun for me than for my players.

Is Old School the New Cool?

Mr. Lizard is a very clever guy. He recently started a thread at RPG.net which accused the OSR of indulging in historical revisionism when it comes to how D&D was played way back when. He used terms sure to get the blood pumping (“rose-colored-backward-facing glasses”). He discussed the way people did play the game back then (in his experience) with how people talk about and play the game today.

But that was all just bloody chum in the water, an attempt to get a feeding frenzy stirred up. The point of his article, the true thesis, can be found in the final paragraph:

To me, old school is not about freedom or lack of rules, but attitude. To me, the ultimate old-school is the Arduin Trilogy, just pure ideas pouring one after another so fast you can't even stop to evaluate them. I like to consider my work "old school" in that sense, I like variety and options and things which are hinted or implied but rarely explicitly said, things which inspire the DM to create on his own.

See what he did there? Of course you do. It's the same thing that Monte Cook did when talking about his Dungeon-a-Day project, the same thing we saw a bit of in the build-up to the launch of 4e. I think we saw a bit of it in the latest issue of Kobold Quarterly. Everybody seems to want a bit of the Old School magic.

Why? Is the OSR really that popular? Damned if I know. I doubt anyone has any real solid numbers. What can't be denied is the creative power that the OSR has focused and unleashed. Knockspell and Fight On! have gone from blabberings on chat boards to multi-issue magazines with impressive art and page counts in the three-digit range. I would have given a pinky for either magazine back in the day, and I'd hold up Knockspell against any other professional publication out there right now in terms of layout, editing, art, and writing. And now there's talk about a sci-fi mag too.

On top of that, we've got creative output coming out all over the place. Mr. Maliszewski has commented that he can't keep up with it all. Mr. Raggi's officially gone pro, and is churning out that doesn't look like anything the industry has ever seen before. Chgowiz has produced a quick-play packet, complete with adventure, for Swords & Wizardry. We're up to our eyeballs with bloggers publishing houserules, adventures, character classes, spells, monsters, treasure, on a daily basis. I can't keep up with it all; I know I'm missing cool stuff every day, and don't have the time to hit every blog on my blogroll every day anymore, and I have a growing list of blogs I really need to add to it.

The OSR might not be the most lucrative sector of RPGs right now. It might not be the most recognized. But it certainly seems to be the most exciting right now. It's no longer a question of whether or not anybody plays these old games. Now we're wondering if we're spread too thin, if projects like Fight On! are stealing the thunder from other projects, or whether or not we really need to reference the OGL.

In short, the OSR has arrived. It is, we are, now all players in the industry. Future products will take us into account, at the very least, in their marketing if not in the actual content. Now is not the time to let up or slow down. Now is the time to strike fast and hard and continuously, and leave our mark on the industry for the sake of the games we love so much.

Photo credits: egarc2 and Matti Mattila.

Charmed, I'm Sure

Charm is a fun but dangerous spell to use. I know a lot of folks who just avoid it because it can create drama around the table, and there are some groups I won't use it with except in very limited, contained circumstances. But if you can get around the silliness, man, is it a game-changer.

If you're playing a “classic” version of D&D, the rules for the spell probably contain a line along the lines of “[a]ny commands given will usually be obeyed, except that orders against its nature (alignment and habits) may be resisted.” That's a direct quote from the Moldvay Basic book, with emphasis added by me. This, ladies and gents, is how we differentiated between two fighters way back when. Whether you played your warrior as a paragon of virtue, who upheld a code of honor while defending the defenseless, or as an amoral brigand who'd gut his own granny for a shaved copper, it made a difference in the game. Commanding the honorable knight to stab his friends in the back is likely to force another saving throw, and won't be obeyed, where the greedy mercenary will do it without hesitation. Both situations can create all sorts of fun around the table, but of a very different sort.

There are some folks who just can't enjoy this sort of thing. Either they can't separate player from character (and, honestly, in this case, it might be best if you just ask them to leave the game, as they will be a constant source of friction), or they're too uptight about issues of control. I used to be one of these people, and learning to relax and roll with it was hard, but I think I got better. Any time you “de-protagonize” or remove more than the usual amount of choice from the PCs, you're treading on thin ice. You need to be cautious with this sort of thing. If the players trust you, and enjoy your game, most will be willing to roll with this sort of thing and that allows you to really push some in-character buttons.

You've all seen the episode in your favorite serial-esque TV show where the characters are pushed out of their comfort zones and forced to behave out of character by some external force. On “Chuck” it's truth serum, and on Star Trek, it's flying too close to an unstable star that makes everyone on the ship behave like they're drunk. This is where the charm spell really shines. Maybe it allows a character to indulge in a part of their personality they've been denying or suppressing. Maybe it's the push to take them through a mental block, a choice they've been avoiding, or a truth they've been denying.

As a player, charm and other mental/emotional manipulations are your chance to go Dark Phoenix/Dark Willow on the game. Yeah, sure, maybe Mister Goody-Two-Shoes can use his moral fortitude to resist the charm. But maybe he chooses not to. Or maybe, when you scratch the surface, that air of reserve and restraint is the armour that keeps the beast within contained. Maybe its his turn to keep the treasure for himself, or to spend it carousing and having fun. Maybe its his turn to torture and murder the bad guys, to look the other way when expedience wins over virtue, or to kick Christian in his cojones, throw Roxane over his shoulder, and ride off to some romantic hide-away with her.

What about after? Certainly, there are the consequences for things done, for confidences broken and expectations confounded. But what about the character? Maybe the satyr taught her that self denial isn't all it's cracked up to be. Maybe spending some time on the dark side has only renewed his fervor for justice and honor. Maybe a bit of time under a charm is exactly what you need to renew your interest in your character, or to justify within the game changes you've been itching to make for a while now.

UPDATE: More cool ideas and comments spawned by the charm spell from the Lost Papers of Tsojcanth:

Charming an NPC allows PCs to peek “behind the scenes” and learn tidbits about your setting without going out of character. This is a meta-tool that can be used either to showoff your effort, highlight or foreshadow something important that you want to make sure players notice (possibly because they didn’t get it the fist time around) or to provide closure for some events players have been puzzling about.

Be sure to read the whole thing.
(Updated 3/25/10)

Image credits: John William Waterhouse and Clodion.

The Deadliest Arrow in Our Quiver

Chris at "Vaults of Nagoh" makes the case for Carcosa.

Playing with Culture: Noble Titles Among the Efreet

One of the things I love about DMing and world building is inventing and playing with cultures. The races of D&D each offer opportunities to play amateur para-anthropologist, creating imaginary ceremonies and customs to dazzle and intrigue my players. I like to take something about the races, combine it with something from the real world, and twist. That's why my gnolls tend to be matriarchal. How do you say thank you to myconids for vital information and 'shroomy snacks? How about defecating in their garden?

In my other game, efreet may turn out to be major players. (The players from my college game are probably snickering already.) It's fairly traditional to pepper the efreet with lots of Arabian trappings. In the recent Paizo adventure, “The Impossible Eye
,” the palace of an efreeti pasha comes complete with a mosque, including prayer rugs, shelves for footwear, minbar (no, this kind, not this kind), and minaret where “the imam of the palace would in times past recite the adhan to call the citizens to salah (prayer).”

I can certainly understand the impulse, since if you're going to have an adventure with genies and the like, people just naturally assume you're going to be including that Arabian Nights feel. Myself, if I wanted to give the efreet the trappings of a real-world religion, I'd probably have chosen Zoroastrianism.

As it is, in my Doom and Tea Parties campaign, the efreet revere the Eldest, and pretty much leave it at that. They are, mostly, pirates and reavers whose plundering ways have earned them the ancient enmity of the djinn, and the mistrust of nearly all the other genie races. They are also rather vain, and nearly all efreet consider themselves part of a natural nobility. That being the case, matters of title and station will be rather important to them, even if their social rankings can change suddenly and chaotically. But what titles to use?

Here, I'm going to use the traditional titles. The old 1e MM says this about the efreet: “A powerful Sultan rules the Efreet. He is served by many different sorts of nobles and officials (pashas, deys, amirs, valis, and maliks).”

There's a good start. The hierarchy of Middle Eastern titles listed in the 1e DMG is a bit of a mess, so I decided to do a bit of research to get things a bit closer to right. Not having mountains of time to work on this, I settled for using Wikipedia.

According to Wikipedia, “sultan” is Arabic, which works, and refers generally to a rule who claims absolute political authority over an area without claiming to rule the entire caliphate, but who generally doesn't have any temporal authority over them.

Pasha is from “bashaw” (which I could not use in a game without my players snickering) and is apparently an Ottoman title. The Ottomans also used the title sultan, though, so mixing them is ok. Apparently, the use of horsehair tails or peacock tails were used to designate just which level of pasha you were, from one to three. (Only the sultan was allowed to use four.) There are no horses in this campaign, and I'd prefer to reserve peacock imagery for the shaitan of Earth, so instead I'm going to use blue flames instead. The blue should stand out brightly against the black, gold/brass, and red that I see dominating the efreet palette.

Things get a bit odd when we get to dey, however:

Dey (Arabic: داي, from Turkish Dayı [1][2]) was the title given to the rulers of the Regency of Algiers (Algeria) and Tunis (Tunisia) under the Ottoman Empire from 1671 onwards. Twenty-nine deys held office from the establishment of the deylicate in Algeria until the French conquest in 1830.
The dey was chosen by local civilian, military, and religious leaders to govern for life and ruled with a high degree of autonomy from the Ottoman sultan. The main sources of his revenues were taxes on the agricultural population, religious tributes, and protection payments rendered by Corsairs, regarded as pirates who preyed on Mediterranean shipping.
The dey was assisted in governing by a divan (ديوان) made up of the Chiefs of the Army and Navy, the Director of Shipping, the Treasurer-General and the Collector of Tributes.

Obviously, my efreet don't rule Algiers or Tunis. But there's at least one city-state of some importance other than Brass. This is called Petal, a city-state famed for its Babylonian-style hanging gardens, where the bounty of the Plane of Water is harnessed to feed an agricultural and herbal industry famed throughout the Elemental Planes. Are there other such cities? I haven't dreamed any up yet, but it certainly stands to reason that there might be.

So our deys will be the rulers of such cities. While they owe fealty to the Sultan in Brass, they typically rule their realms with little oversight from that distant potentate.

Emir gives me some problems. It's typically used as a generic “leader” title, but more often means “prince” and ruler of a principality. My efreet don't really have principalities, but pretty much city-states and small holdings and citadels, scattered across fire. Emir may get the boot.

Wikipedia does give me “kaymakam,” which means a person who speaks or rules in the place of the sultan. I'm thinking that might make a good name for a conquering leader who claims new territory. Not sure there are any kaymakam at present, but something to keep in mind.

When I ask about “vali” Wikipedia turns me to “wali,” which means “trusted one” and “should not be confused with the word Wāli (Arabic: والي) which is an administrative title that was used in the Muslim Caliphate”.

Well, maybe I shouldn't, but I kinda like confusing them. Words shifting meaning and merging with other, similar words is something that happens in language. So I'm making a wali a pasha who has been entrusted with an especially important duty. Most of the major city-states will have a Wali of the Wall, who is in charge of maintaining both the architectural integrity of the city's wall as well as its military preparedness. They'd also be tasked with manning fortresses that protect important planar gateways.

Malik is another word for “king” according to Wikipedia. While the idea of a bunch of efreet giving themselves mostly meaningless and aggrandizing titles is amusing, it makes things a bit more chaotic than I think I want for them. Malik gets the boot!

However, if I'm going to use deys I need to have beys. Beys were more local leaders, clan heads, and chieftains. I'm going to make it a title also claimed by raider and pirate captains. A raider or priate with other ships or warbands under his command would be a “bey of beys”.

And then there's the old standby, effendi. It's sorta like “sir” or “master” and works well as a title all efreet would expect to be used at the very least when addressing them.

Unfortunately, these are all masculine terms, and I might want female deys and certainly effendi. I've seen “sultana” used as the feminine of sultan before. I suppose I could slap an “a” at the end of all but pasha, and declare that one to be unisex. Anyone who knows more about such things have any advice?

Image credits: Hans Makart, and Jean-Léon Gérôme

Neo-classical = Fast and Loose

There's a lot of neat stuff popping up on the 'net these days. Among the neatest is Clash Bowley's new blog, “I Fly by Night”. Just yesterday, he posted a great article entitled Abstract Tactics. It's a great article explaining how tactics do have a place in games with abstract combat that don't use miniatures and battle maps. This is not something new to the older editions of D&D, a game with an extremely abstract combat system. I think it was Old Geezer who pointed out that such tactics usually netted you a +2 on your “to hit” rolls. I typically run it so that a minor edge in position (being higher than your foe) or the like nets you a +2 bonus, but a serious advantage, like attacking an unaware target can ramp it up to +4.

Speaking of old guys, from Chgowiz we have this bit of wisdom:

The freedom I have with the sandbox is also an exercise in "What If" for me. I've got a running series of events that progess as time goes on. The players make choices that might involve them, or they may ignore those things, but if an army is going to invade, then it'll invade unless the players choose to get involved. The nice thing is that they don't have to - this is their game. I'm going to react accordingly.

This does force me to be more reactive in some of the outcomes. That's both a curse and a blessing. I have to run by the seat of my pants, within a broad set of objectives. If the players had ignored the goblin's request, then I would have had to come up, in game, to what would happen. It's nice, though, because I don't have to plot out and railroad outcomes far in advance - I can allow the world to evolve and react accordingly to the scope of events that the players involve themselves in. In this case, I had no idea how things would go, but I knew my NPCs and I knew the setup.

In both cases, we see “rulings, not rules” in action. The neo-classical GM, attempting to meld a living campaign with the sandbox principles that allow players nearly unlimited choice, simply can't have everything planned out in advance, whether its the events of a battle or ebb and flow of a campaign-spanning story arc. Playing fast, loose, and flexible is the rule of the day.

Luckily, this gets easier as you go along. The simplicity of most old-school rules systems make it very easy to give players one-time bonuses for good ideas, and invite the players to interact with their environment, whether at the physical or political level, without fear that they have the wrong feats or skills. It does require a certain amount of courage on everyone's part. The players have to trust the GM to be fair, but also understand that “fair” cuts both ways, be willing to live with the consequences when things don't roll their way. The GM has to be willing to get it wrong sometimes, and be brave enough to admit that and fix it when it happens. It requires that everybody be open and honest about their desires for the game and what is required for their idea of fun.

The results, however, are a game in which the boundaries are broad, but a core of solid predictability holds it all together. It gives what I consider to be the optimal combination of rigid framework and playful flexibility.

Photo credits: charliejb and wili_hybrid.

A Fistful of Links

First, some music to get you in the mood:



And now, the links:

Erin Palette rakes it in with both hands thanks to her plutomancer prestige class for the Pathfinder RPG.

Oddysey gets out of jail without the usual dynamite and shoot-out.

The RPG Pundit actually says something nice about somebody.

Last time it was Elvis vs. Yog-Sothoth. Next time, it's your PCs vs. the shogoth, Moldvay/Cook/Labyrinth Lord style.

Harry Knowles talks about a Solomon Kane flick.

Review of Kobold Quarterly #10

I was lucky enough to receive a review, PDF copy of Kobold Quarterly #10 recently. When the opportunity presented itself, I jumped at the chance. I've been very curious about the magazine since it launched. It's received great reviews, even being called the rightful heir to Dragon magazine. Part of my curiosity, though, comes from the fact that Wolfgang Baur is the "Kobold in Chief." Mr. Baur gave me my first official rejection letters when I first started working on getting published professionally. They were very nice, personalized rejection letters, which made it clear that yes, he'd read it, and thought it was pretty good, but my stuff needed some work. And he was right. Since then, I've kinda kept half-an-eye on what he's been up to. His patronage-run Open Design project is fascinating from an industry viewpoint and has apparently turned out some neat product as well.

But both the Open Design and Kobold Quarterly are primarily focused on 3.x and 4e gaming. So while I'm interested, I've been more focused on Knockspell, Fight On!, Green Devil Face, and the like. Having read Kobold Quarterly #10, however, I'm tempted to make it part of my regular reading.

The cover looks like Dragon from '90s. It's got that glossy, "high quality," you-are-there look that reminds me of Parkinson, Elmore, and their ilk. The artist is Malcolm McClinton. I've only a passing knowledge of his work, but I like what I've seen. Unfortunately, like Dragon in the '90s, Kobold Quarterly clutters the cover with blurbs about what you'll find inside. While I'm sure it increases the number of people who pick up the magazine, and Mr. McClinton clearly made allowances for this sort of blurbage, it still makes me want to take a ball-peen hammer to someone's kneecaps. ;p

Inside, you'll find a veritable who's-who of D&D, stretching back into the '70s. We've got articles from Ed Greenwood, Monte Cook, John Wick, and Mr. Baur, and an interview with Jeff Grubb. While the crunch is heavily focused on 3.x and 4e, there seems to have been some attempt made to reach out to the Old School community. Most of the articles are idea, rather than crunch, heavy, and Ed Greenwood's article on a dwarven goddess has stuff that's easily transferred to any fantasy game. Monte Cook launches from the controversy over his use of the term "old school" when discussing his Dungeon-a-Day project to expound on just what the Old School movement is about. It's a surprisingly clear-eyed article which gets to the bedrock of what Mr. Cook sees as two separate themes which make up the Old School Renaissance. It's also another nudge towards me realizing that, while I love the OSR and working with the folks who are making it happen, my heart truly lies in the sort of gaming Mr. Maliszewski terms "Silver Age."

To continue the old school themes is an ecology of the hill giant. There's also an article on the halberd, for those of you who were infected with Mr. Gygax's polearm fetish. ;)

The big draw this issue, however, is probably the teaser material from Paizo's upcoming Pathfinder RPG. We get a quick overview from Jason Bulmahn of Paizo, which includes discussion of the open playtest process they went through and a sneak-peek at the shadowdancer prestige class. There's also some very interesting stuff on their Proteans.

Overall, there's a strong emphasis on cross-ruleset appeal. They've apparently started adding 4e material and beefed up the page count of the magazine so the 3.x fans don't feel cheated. A lot of what's in the magazine is also just cool ideas, with a few mechanics tacked onto it. Michael Kortes' article on feats and flaws available to characters who have been brought back from the dead is just asking for the Jeff Reints treatment of being turned into a random table, in spite of it clearly being written with 3.x in mind.

Overall, I had fun with this magazine, but not the sort of fun I had with Dragon. Part of that has to do with the goals of the magazines. When I started reading Dragon Magazine, with #74 in '83, it was the voice and town square of the hobby. In the days before the internet, we feuded and shared and bonded over the pages of that magazine. There were others out there, but Dragon was the biggie, and it carried ads and articles for all sorts of RPGs, boardgames, genre literature, and the like. From those days, Dragon always had an air of seriousness about it, a certain gravitas necessary to maintain its position as the voice of a hobby that sometimes found itself under fire. This only became more so after the infamous "Angry Mother Syndrome" editorial by James Ward and the magazine later becoming a house organ for WotC.

Kobold Quarterly, by contrast, has no such responsibilities or pretensions. It is, first and foremost, a magazine about entertainment, and it seeks to entertain. Mr. Greenwood's article about the dwarven goddess Ninkash is a subtle paean to the social benefits of alcohol. Mr. Baur's article is entitled "Elven Lust and the Green Gods". Things don't quite delve into the sort of juvenile, titter-inducing nonsense mainstream comics wallow in these days; this is no T&A magazine. But, like Paizo, the Kobold Quarterly folks seem quite happy to poke at the envelope of what is considered "acceptable" material for RPGs. The magazine is also laced with a certain playfulness that only showed up sparingly in the pages of Dragon. That sense of daring and fun appeals to me. Even if I don't get a subscription, Kobold Quarterly is now on my radar, and I'll be sure to at least thumb through the next issue to see what Mr. Baur has assembled to tempt me with.

Industry! HUAH! *thump-thump* What is it Good For?

Skirting along the edges of the recent convesation about the state of the RPG industry is the obvious question: so what? What difference does it make, at the gaming table, where the rubber meets the road, whether or not there even is an industry?

Trust me, if it vanished tomorrow you'd miss it. Here's a list of five things the industry does for all of us:

Gives Us Some of Our Best Thinkers: The Jameses Raggi and Maliszewski are both member of the industry, professional writers with a number of books to their tally. I don't agree with everything the man says, but Ryan Dancey has had a profound impact on the hobby. And, of course, we had Gygax, Arneson, and Hargrave whose thoughts and theories still inspire our gaming. We all need to earn money to put food on the table and keep the lights on. The professionals have more time to spend thinking about games, playing with the bits and pieces, and really plumbing the depths of the hobby.

Spurs Innovation: Yeah, ok, so maybe that's not always a great thing, but the fans tend to be the conservatives in any group. They want what they love, and they rarely see a need to change things. Professionals need to always be expanding or shifting their audience, and so are always looking for new and neat ways to add to the experience. I'm not a huge fan of 4e, but their attempt to find a new way to think about things like hit points has intrigued me, and was part of the inspiration for how the Table of Death and Dismemberment works. The industry gave us Amber Diceless Roleplaying, the World of Darkness storyteller games, the genre fruitsalad that is Shadowrun, the cereberal plunge into the abyss that is Call of Cthulhu, and the claustraphobic madness of The Shab-al-Hiri Roach.

Draws the Attention of Outsiders: If it wasn't for the industry, nobody would have noticed when Gygax and Arneson had died. The fact that, for many people, roleplaying games are summed up by D&D speaks volumes for the industry's position as the face of the hobby. That face may be more mask than reality, but that doesn't change the fact.

Creates Fun Toys for Us to Play With: Most of us don't have the skills or time to make the bizarre dice, cool minis, bits of terrain, coffeetable books, posters, novels, and yes, computer games that we all enjoy as parts of or adjuncts to our hobby. We get art from the likes of Otis and Parkinson and Elmore and Reynolds and di Terlizzi and Widermann. They give us web pages and discussion forums like RPG.net. Most importantly for some, they give us things to argue about between gaming sessions.

Gives Us a Shared Common Experience and Vocabulary: Beyond hit points and armour class, we have universal mechanics, NPCs, skills-based vs. class based, stats vs. attributes vs. flags, adventure paths vs. sandboxes, The Tomb of Horrors, Car Wars, Gen Con, Men in Black, Knights of the Dinner Table, and Nodwick. The industry defines the baselines and borders we all use to communicate to one another, and the shorthand that is part of our community. They make it possible for us to speak about the sorts of games we prefer with strangers, and the shorthand of "I prefer the 2nd edition of that game" speaks volumes for us.

Photo credits: poolie, Pockafwye, and Benimoto.