It's been a while now...

Picture unrelated to text, purely to grab your attention

A number of things have been running through my mind lately about D&D, well really RPGs in general and D&D, my favorite RPG, in particular. D&D is the 600 pound gorilla of the RPG world, and some of it's modern controversies occasionally cross my field of view. Racism has been a big one lately, between the “Orcs are inherently evil, and therefore a racist stand in for non-whites” and the “Oriental Adventures is racist and should be taken down from Drivethru”.

I think both of these arguments are wrong, but I can understand why they were made, and I also understand that my feelings on this should not be the focus here, when people say that something is bothering them, we should listen, and try to help where we can. I think WotC made a good call putting a disclaimer on the old TSR stuff, not so much with the wording as with the intent behind it, even if it was maybe just to cover their own behinds while continuing to sell “offensive” materials.

I am the Admin for the AD&D Oriental Adventures group on Facebook. I created the group years ago when I saw there wasn't a group for OA fans already. I have never really had to actively moderate this group until the past couple of weeks. I had to add rules to the group, to keep things civil, and I have still had to delete a couple of dozen posts recently. It's frustrating for me, and I am sure for the people that have had their posts deleted for violating rules. I get it, you are upset that there has been a call to remove OA from distribution. I don't think OA is racist myself, and it was pretty enlightened as a treatment for east Asian themed AD&D when it was written. The name was a bit tone deaf in 1985, but not especially so (no real defense for the 3e version having the same name in 2001). 

Having watched over 10 hours of the “Asians Read Oriental Adventures” videos, I found them frustrating, as they didn't seem to understand AD&D, and complained pretty ceaselessly about how AD&D wasn't the kind of story game they liked, and assumed that some AD&D rules were simply racist ways to play Asians in D&D. They also took serious issue with the fact the OA is a mash up of all east Asian cultures, which I found annoying, as it is exactly the same thing AD&D does with European cultures (along with elements from the rest of the world, but especially western Asia and north Africa), while they also complained that it was too Japan oriented. The Japan-centric focus of OA makes sense for the time it was produced as we had recently gotten the extremely popular Shogun novel and miniseries, the Karate Kid, and the ninja craze was in it's bloom.

Were there racist things in OA? Yes. Certainly there were. The implication that east Asians all have Ki powers, making them all more mystically attuned is certainly pretty racist, for example. Ki powers are also a pretty important part of a lot of the media we were getting from Asia at the time though, so it might have been odd to leave them out. In any case, I think Oriental Adventures was a product of it's time, and that at that time it was an American made love letter to the Asian fantasy were were getting from Asia. OA also stoked my love for Asian culture. I have studied a lot of Asian history and OA was probably at least partially responsible for that.

Now, on inherently Evil species, and Alignment in general. D&D has always had this Alignment based cosmology, and I think it's important here to note that it is literally a declaration of what team you are supporting in a cosmic struggle. In my opinion that's the more important part than the code of behavior that your Alignment dictates. I think that adding the Good/Evil axis to Alignment may have broken it a bit, mainly because Lawful was generally considered to be the “Good guys” and Chaotic was already seen as Evil; creating a Lawful that was Evil, or a Chaotic that was Good messed with the dynamic. 

Now all Orcs being inherently evil smacks of biological essentialism, and that's the sort of thing that justifies things like colonization, slavery, or eugenics; all of which are bad (and I really wish I still lived in a world where I didn't need to state that). I get where these people are coming from when they say it's racist to have all Orcs be Evil. I also have seen Tolkien's statement about Orcs being like ugly Mongols, and he really is the father of that species in modern fantasy. The issue I have with this is that I never saw them that way. At worst I saw them as a generic savage “other”, my earliest DM used Orcs basically as Viking analogues raiding and plundering against our civilization, so I really have always cast them in the light of an implacable barbarian foe, the tribes of Germans that brought down Rome, or the Huns, or the Vikings, or the Mongols, or at least a caricature of those peoples. They were savages from elsewhere, seeking to destroy civilization and plunder it's wealth, usually thoughtlessly destructive, almost a force of nature. Looking at this I can see how it could be seen as racist, but most of the named savages are white folks. 

Now we need to factor in one more thing though, the Gods are real, and there really is a grand cosmic struggle between Good and Evil (or Law and Chaos if you prefer). In my Garnia campaign this is a constant, real factor, although the struggle is referred to as one between Light and Darkness, which, apparently, has it's own racist connotations when Light equals Good and Darkness Evil. Anyway, Orcs, in standard D&D cosmology, are created beings, the minions of Gruumsh, of course they are inherently Evil followers of an Evil god. The same is true in Lord of the Rings, they are essentially slaves of Sauron, as I recall they were originally Elves that were corrupted. In my campaign Orcs are created beings used as shock troops by the real forces of Evil for use in their interplanar war. There's a lot of backstory there, but Orcs are a newer species in my game and haven't explored their full potential. 

But, Humans are inherently Neutral. They have free will to choose which side to support, but most of them will happily enjoy the benefits of civilization without ever committing to it via a Lawful Alignment, both in my world, and in OD&D. Cosmologically speaking, Humans are free agents, their Gods come in all Alignments, and they have many, many gods, some petty, some mighty. There's a bit more to it, the plane that my campaign world is on is a good aligned one, albeit only in a minor way, so it slightly shifts the Humans to favor Good Alignments more than usual, but the choice is still there.

Also, there are examples of creatures breaking free of their pre-ordained Alignments. Dark Elves are an example of this (at least it's my campaign's explanation for Evil Elves), but I also have a single culture of Goblins that have broken free of their Evil Alignment, although they are not generally speaking Good Aligned, and some choose Evil, they broke free and got a choice.

And I assume that the stated Alignment for any given species is the general Alignment for them, not the only Alignment found there. Maybe 1% or fewer members of the species shake the stated Alignment, but it could happen. I assume that's what's going on when players choose a non-species standard Alignment for their characters. Dwarves are Lawful Good, per the book, but most PC Dwarves vary from that, in my experience. Elves, on the other hand, are Chaotic Good in AD&D, and you see that pretty regularly, occasionally dropping to Chaotic Neutral for the Edgy ones, or Neutral Good for the nicer ones. D&D literature already gave us Drizzt, decades ago.

I guess what I am saying is that a certain degree of bio-essentialism seems to make sense in a fantasy world, where there are real forces of Good and Evil out there creating sentient beings to do their bidding, and if all Orcs aren't inherently evil, where do we stop on the Evil food chain? There are a lot of Evil monsters out there. Ogres? Giants? Dragons? Outer planar creatures like Demons? How about the sentient and free-willed Undead, like Vampires or Liches? 

Now, having said this, I heard about, but have not seen or read, a 5th edition D&D supplement that separates culture from ancestry (species). I don't hate this idea, although it does lean hard into some new ideas that are popular in RPGs, namely what I call the “no humans” trend, where it seems like every player wants their character to be somehow absolutely unique. I am guessing this comes from story games, and I was a little surprised when I watched the Asians Represent videos how strongly they seemed to feel that the DM should not be able to dictate anything to the players about what type of characters they might play. As a DM I found the concept intriguing, but also annoying enough that I would have smote them for their attitude if they'd brought it to me like that.

Anyway, I am guessing ancestry (species, race) is the genetic component of your character, and culture is how you were raised. In my campaign world I have Dwarves called “Broken Dwarves” because they no longer live within their culture, they live amongst the Humans that have come to dominate the world they live in, and have relatively little tying them to their ancestral ways. Where there are communities of Broken Dwarves they tend to dominate certain trades, based on their ancestral ties to those trades, but then again they might just become sailors too.

Now that I think about it, most of the PC races available in the 1st edition AD&D PH tend to live in Human communities in my world, which isn't to say they all do. There is still an extant Dwarven kingdom (really a bunch of smaller sub-kingdoms tied together by a shared past, but with large swathes of lost territory between them). There are entirely Halfling villages, although mainly under the protection of the nearby local Human communities. Elf PCs mainly come from a background in Human communities, their empire having long ago fallen, although some “wild” Elves exist in wilderness areas beyond Human reach.

Now all of these being different species, I am not sure how the cultural part works, but the genetic part seems pretty straightforward, Dwarves are heartier, so they get the +1 to CON. Elves are quicker than Humans, so a +1 to DEX, etc. Humans are the base line, so no +/- anywhere, my guess is the -1 to CHA for Dwarves is based on their comparison to Humans, but it seems like a CHA bonus or penalty maybe should have been a cultural thing, which implies then that either Dwarves are genetically predisposed towards gruffness, or maybe that penalty should go elsewhere. Half-Orcs even more so.

Speaking of Half-Orcs, they are somewhat problematic. Orcs being inherently Evil, and apparently super fertile, they clearly go around raping everything they can, which would imply a lot about the setting of D&D that I'd really rather not have to deal with. I like to keep the level of my D&D games roughly PG-13, although pretty much every D&D game would get a R for violence. I am not squeamish, but the rape backstory of the entire Half-Orc species is pretty bad, and kind of racist. I wasn't really comfortable with that once I gave it due consideration, and it was particularly awkward when I played with my wife and kids. I included them when I created this campaign setting back in the day, because they were in the PH as a PC race, but I would give them a pass these days. 

I might consider them as a separate type of Human in a species plus culture context, essentially as Humans raised in Orc culture. I did that in another campaign with Half-Elves, I made them Elf-Karls, who were Humans raised by Elves in my Ostschild setting a couple years back. They weren't playable then though, but it makes for an interesting take on Half-Orcs, and it removes the rape background, as well as, quite likely, the racist connotations of miscegenation. Problem solved? Maybe. Maybe I'll revisit the idea of Elf-Karls for Garnia too, so it removes the “Star Trek” issue of every species being able to interbreed with every other species. 

Maybe not though. I had previously explained the genetic compatibility to the species being related, Elves essentially being an uplifted variant of human, infused by the forces of light into a new species, nigh immortal, with a greater natural affinity to both nature and magic; Orcs, on the other hand, deliberately created from humans infused with wild boar via magic (Pig-faced Orcs in my world). The benefit of Half-Orcs was that they could act as 5th columnists in Human society. The ability to interbreed with Elves just a random accident of being related. Elves and Orcs not being able to interbreed being a function of the opposite natures of their creation.

If we're pulling apart culture and species though, I think we should also consider social class. Cultural values are important and all, but I think a lot more of what makes you comes from the social class you are born into. Even today in the USA the zip code you grew up in is a better indicator of how well you are likely to do in life than any other single factor. A rural peasant's background is going to give you an entirely different outlook on life, and a different skill set, than someone born to the nobility, or even a tradesman's child.

5th Edition D&D- My Condensed Review

OK, I've had some time to look at WotC's latest iteration of D&D now, and I have to say that my reaction is mixed. Not just on the aesthetics either.

The Player's Handbook- I think I have made my opinion on the art in the Player's Handbook pretty clear, not a fan. However, the rest of the book, and I am willing to let the art slide if I like the content, still left me with an over all negative opinion. I mean, I realize this is the Player's Handbook, but 170 pages on character generation? Really? OK, that covers advancement too, but in the 1st edition AD&D Players Handbook it's a mere 38 pages, which is far in excess of B/X's 14 pages in the Basic book. I found myself skimming in a lot of places and had to force myself to slow down, go back and reread sections. That was tedious. Sure, I could just pick a "standard" Dwarven Fighter instead of reading through all the class/race choices (which would save me roughly 110 pages of reading), but then there's a bunch of fiddly stuff (that I will likely forget about as a player, not to mention trying to remember all of it as a DM) before I even get to buying my starting equipment. Now, my caveat here is that I have not played yet, so maybe it will all go easier than I think. My personal bias is also irked by the fact that the tallest Humans are now only 6'4", according to the random table. I am 6'6" and I am not the tallest Human I have ever met. Overall grade D.

The Monster Manual- Not a huge fan of the art there either, but it is an improvement over the Player's Handbook. There is a design aesthetic at work here that seems too homogeneously stylized, but this isn't really new to this edition; just, disappointingly, continued. The stat blocks, ranging from roughly 1/4 to 1/2 page are too much, in my opinion. B/X D&D gave us about 6 monsters to the page, here we might get 2. It's pretty hard to screw up a Monster Manual too bad though, so overall grade C.

The Dungeon Master's Guide- Probably the saving grace of the core books of this edition, the art still didn't appeal to me, but damn, it's a meaty tome. Chock full of real advice that is practically system neutral, I'd have to say it's the best effort on a DMG since 1st edition AD&D- and I loved that one. The overall greatness is diminished by a couple of the things that I find to be anathema to DMing- Tailoring your encounters to your party, and it's ugly cousin; tailoring treasure yields to the party. They are small parts of the book, but they remind me too much of 3e and the reason I quit D&D. They mar an otherwise awesome book, but they are core to the build of the system, as they were in 3e (and, presumably, 4e). Anyway, it's a pretty darned solid book for any GM, but it's weak art and a few later editionisms that were kept drag it's grade down, a solid B.

Other random thoughts-
Backgrounds: I actually thought I would like them, I like the concept, but they left me cold when I read through them. Power Level: Easily as amped up as 3e.

Races: Their proliferation irritates me, but at least it's the DM's explicit say as to whether or not any given race is allowed.

Art: yep, I know, I keep harping on the art. I think they would have done better with LESS art direction. Give an artist a general description of what you are looking for, and let them do it, maybe you take it maybe you don't, but I think that this edition could really have benefited from having different art styles represented. I think too that this edition has taken itself too seriously and has produced a lot of self conscious mediocre art as a result. My wife is an artist, so I have grown, over the years, to appreciate how much of an impact the art has on the product. Early editions mixed it up
with a bunch of different artists, with wildly different styles and levels of talent. Sutherland, Roslof, Dee, Willingham, Otus, Darlene and Trampier (just off the top of my head, and I apologize to the artists I missed and their fans) put their stamp on Gary and Dave's game. Just looking at the illustrations in the Holmes Basic, B/X and AD&D books made me begin to imagine, and still does today. This edition just doesn't. I think it was the love for the game, and the use of their own imaginations that made the early D&D artists so good, they pored their souls into the work. Art is subjective, but I think that these-

are more evocative than this-

So I guess that gives 5th edition D&D a solid C average. My opinion of it may change with play, and again with DMing.

I recently moved

I recently moved and had 4 days without any internet, it gave me a bit of time to read through some OSR stuff and the 5e DMG. I will most likely be blogging about all of them soon, the list of coming reviews is -

Swords & Wizardry White Box Rules
Swords & Wizardry Complete
Delving Deeper Reference Rules Compendium
"Realms of Crawling Chaos"
"Red Tide", "An Echo, Resounding" and "Scarlet Heroes" (lumped together because they all cover the same campaign setting)
"AX1 - D30 DM Companion" and "AX2 - D30 Sandbox Companion" (same author, similar subject matter)
"The Dungeon Alphabet" (expanded 3rd printing)
"Malevolent and Benign"
5th edition D&D "Player's Handbook", "Monster Manual" and "Dungeon Master's Guide" (complete system)
"VA1 - Valley of the Five Fires"

and last, but not least, "The Basic Fantasy Field Guide of Creatures Malevolent and Benign"

 I thought I should show everyone my new S&W campaign at Obsidian Portal too.

5e edition D&D: My first impressions

Old School DM                                                          New D&D

I finally got around to opening up my Player's Handbook today and started reading. I had been putting that off for I don't even know what reason, but I figured I'd better familiarize myself with the new rules, as I am kicking off a new D&D campaign (probably) this coming Saturday. I decided to let my players vote on a rules set to use out of every RPG I own and 5e D&D seems to be a front-runner, it seems that some of them want to try something new (my inner grognard protests).

So, my initial impressions-

The art: I can't say I am a big fan, but I am only about 50 pages into the book, so that's one caveat. The art seems dark and somewhat uninspired. Technically the art is only mildly proficient, with many anatomy errors throughout. The subjects of the art range from mildly homely to butt-ugly, with only a few standouts that could be referred to as average looking. There is a distinct tone to the art that speaks to me as having a lack of inspiration among the artists, as though they were art directed to near death. I say all of this knowing that some of my favorite D&D art is somewhat amateurish at best, but in first edition AD&D and it's contemporaries (B/X, BECMI) the art was, at least, inspired; it was D&D fan art, and that made it subjectively good, despite it's technical imperfections. I know that art is subjective, so your mileage may vary. Zak S. was a contributor so why couldn't they have used him for some of the art?

The rules: I went through every phase of the public play-test, so I had an inkling of what to expect. I am not going to say I like everything about them, so far, but at least where changes were made they were either building upon the legacy of previous editions, or they were pretty well thought out. That said, I had an initially good impression of 3e, and I ended up hating it because it was a pain to DM and a playground for rules-lawyers. I have said before on this blog, probably more than once, that I don't like any rules set that takes away the power (and creative spontaneity) of the game master. I am a little gun-shy as a result of 3e, and that's probably why I have had this book for months and not cracked it open before now. All of that being said, I am willing to give it a shot, it still (despite the funky looking Gnomes, Dragonborn and Tieflings) feels like D&D. I just hope it retains the agency of the DM.

Funky looking

Ugly

 

Too dark in the book.

 

See, I didn't even notice the Dwarf until I saw the lighter version

Poor anatomy, at best average looking people, dark and not inspiring.

Oops...

So I was just checking my email and I saw the date, I am 20 days into my new contest and I don't have a single entry. I think to myself "I haven't posted on my blog since I announced the contest, maybe it's lack of visibility?"; then I look at my blog post announcing the contest and I see that I didn't tell anyone where to send their entries. I will rectify that now, send them here. I sincerely hope that this was the issue, and not just me being lazy about getting back to regular blogging.

I have been doing a lot of reading lately, I bought the new D&D- even though I said I wouldn't. Everyone blogging about it had such nice things to say. I haven't tried playing it yet though, so I am going to hold off on reviewing it until I have test driven it, so to speak.

I also have been prepping a pretty cool Carcosa campaign, it involves the Soviets using Tesla technology and Nazi occult secrets and their own ESP experiments. I set the whole thing in 1980, so it's kind of got a Twilight 2000/Carcosa crossover feel to it. KGB, Cosmonauts, Spetsnaz and Scientists on a wacky trans-planar adventure.

Now, enjoy this creepy banshee I found on the internet as inspiration for the adventures you all want to write!

What I have been doing lately...

Since last year, I've picked up a ton of OSR stuff in print- ranging from Expeditious Retreat Press' "Malevolent and Benign" to Lamentations of the Flame Princess' "Player Core Book: Rules and Magic", I also bought a whole lot of miniatures, mostly WWII and Ancient Romans and Gauls/Britons, for use with my B/X WWII game (still in early development) and 43 AD respectively. I also did something I expressly stated I wouldn't do, I bought the new Players Handbook (and the starter set, but even at 1/2 price I think it was a waste of money).  Oh, and I completed my 3rd edition Legend of the Five Rings RPG collection, and started on the 4th edition with the core rulebook.

Now, the new D&D surprised me, after Gen Con everyone was all raving about it, so curiosity got the better of me and I order it on Amazon, I haven't had a chance to look at really yet, because my lovely wife Mona has been reading through it.  Oh, and I also bought a ton of Pendragon stuff, from 1st edition through 5.1, I kind of felt like I had to when I found "The Great Pendragon Campaign" for a mere $60.00US in a game store in Germany, 1st (only?) printing, mint condition. I actually want to run some Pendragon now, but I haven't figured out how to go about it. I am considering PBEM because my gaming group has grown up and gone to college and moved out of the house. I only have my youngest, Ember, left here now and she'll be gone in a couple of years.

I suppose I should have seen it coming, this isn't the first time I've lost pretty much my whole gaming group because they grew up and moved away. The last time it was my brother Jon's friends, he's nine and a half years younger than me, so I was in my mid-to-late twenties when I ran AD&D (2nd edition, they were oddly reticent to play 1st edition) for those lads. Eventually I switched to 3rd edition, but they were mostly gone by then. I ran Hackmaster (4th edition)  for a while after I gave up on D&D, really it's the first retroclone though, right? Anyway, my oldest two children have moved on, although John is forced out of the dorm for holidays and between semesters, so I see him then. Ashli calls a couple of times a week usually.

 In theory I am still working on a super-hero genre RPG based on Joshua Guess' book Next (and it's impending sequels), but I haven't really been doing much of anything but playing "Civilization 5", "Mount and Blade" and the "Panzer General" clone "Panzer Corps", and by playing Civ5, I really mean working on a mod. "Mount and Blade" is great, because it's a sandbox RPG, but I became mightily peeved with it on Sunday when my saved game corrupted, why didn't I think to do alternating save slots? I tried starting over, but that kind of blows. I am accustomed now to being the most powerful lord in my Kingdom, who single-handedly  brought the other four Kingdoms (OK, one is a Khanate) of Calradia to their knees, commanding armies of 4-500 elite troops. I was an axe-wielding god of death, now bandits can beat my ass and take me prisoner.

"Panzer Corps" continues to please though, it has all of the good turn based strategy of "Panzer General"- even the maps look the same and the controls are identical, but the scenarios in the Grand Campaign are different enough from PG to be fresh and challenging.

Anyway, it's late here and I am rambling, so I'll just mention that I also got a couple of different flavors of "Swords and Wizardry" and bought everything available for the "Basic Fantasy" RPG. I am going to sign off for tonight and I'll try to start posting more again. Before I was blogging about gaming almost every day, but when you take year off the habit gets broken, now I have to reinstate it.

D&D Next Playtest

I know I am a little behind the curve on this one, it's been a busy time for me. My dad has been in the hospital, I had a friend break her leg and she hasn't got anyone else to take her to her appointments, Ashli has had her appointments and even Ember had a dentist appointment stuck in there since I got the playtest packet. I had skimmed the first few pages before and wasn't really happy with what I saw.

Last night I finally got around to reading the entire "How to Play" and "DM Guidelines", as well as all the characters. Having read through most of the packet, I am now much more ambivalent about the entire project. I guess I am going to have to actually play the damned thing to get a feel for it before making a final decision, but my gut tells me that there are some things I am going to like and some things I am going to hate, and a couple of things I am just going to wonder what on earth they were thinking when they came up with that idea?

I suspect those are the 4th editionisms that people in the OSR blogosphere have mentioned, but 4th edition is a real blind spot for me, I took one skim through the 1st Player's Handbook (I have heard they have more than one) and said "Nope, this isn't for me". I had already abandoned WotC D&D with 3rd edition, first for Hackmaster, then I just went back to 1st edition AD&D, but 4th edition was a disappointment for me nonetheless because of the pre-release hype, and at least one playtester's report I read that said he was selling all his 3rd edition D&D stuff while it was still worth something, because 4th edition was JUST THAT AWESOME!

D&D Next, and I hope they change the title, doesn't seem to suck so hard as 4th edition did, and it was nice of them to put the "modular" old school section on the character sheet. They could still FUBAR this edition by adding in all the stupid races from 4th edition when all is said and done, to please their current customer base. I won't be pleased to see Dragonborn as a player race, not in a core book anyway, or any of the other odd races they added just so they could be different from every previous edition of D&D.

As I predicted, Race as Class is dead as a doornail, so we're getting a B/X meets AD&D 2nd edition vibe with a bunch of 3rd edition mechanics and terminology thrown in for good measure. So I guess what I'd like to see are four core classes, Cleric, Fighter, Thief, and Wizard (I know we're not going to go back to Magic-User), and four core races Human, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling (despite my personal dislike for Halflings, they are traditional for the game). Demi-Human level limits are probably gone the way of the Dodo too, so too I imagine are Class restrictions based on Race, so I imagine they'll end up with the 3rd edition style "Preferred Class" or whatever it was called.

I don't have a problem with the game evolving over time, it's evolving it into a tactical miniatures game, that, as DM, I am expected to lose every week that I really have a problem with. I also have a problem with having an actual rule for every possible situation, it steals from the power of the DM and just empowers rules lawyers. So far this seems like a step in the right direction (except for neutering the Cleric). The next time I actually get to game, I guess we'll see.

A Few Random Thoughts on a Thursday Afternoon

First- it's been too hot here to spend too much time in front of my computer blogging, one of the AC units is installed now, so it shouldn't be too bad for a little while longer, then we'll install the smaller, helper AC unit, but I imagine I'll still keep my computer in suspend mode for most of the day every day until the cool season approaches again. Partly out of energy consciousness, I like to be as green as possible and I hate paying too much to National Grid every month.

Second- I looked through the pictures of the stuff I have bought on Ebay recently, and if you just judged what I was planning for a game on that alone, I think you'd have to assume I was planning to set a Star Wars campaign up where all the PCs were stranded on a feudal Japanese type planet. Theoretically it could work, they both use the D20 system, and I have always mentioned whenever I picked up a WEG D6 module or supplement that it was for conversion to the WotC D20 Star Wars system. Nearly every purchase I have made, especially recently, for Legend of the Five Rings RPG has been for the dual statted 2nd edition/D20 Oriental Adventures edition. I think it could work.

Third- I grounded my son John from his 4th edition D&D game, indefinitely. I have several reasons for this, and both he and I and his mom know they are all good, valid reasons; but he's pretty pissed off about it anyway. His DM is a teacher and rescheduled the games for a school night too because he likes to go camping on the weekends, what was he thinking? He could have at least waited until school was out for the summer before making the change to Wednesday nights. To make up for it I offered to DM a game for him and his buddies on Friday nights, but he wasn't interested.

Fourth- Do you all think that Monte Cook left the D&D Next project because they wouldn't just let him do a rewrite/upgrade of 3.x D&D? That thought has been rattling around in my brain since he abruptly left the project. I haven't been keeping up with all the D&D Next stuff going on, although I have the playtest packet I haven't gotten around to more than skimming the first few pages of the "How to Play" booklet and I looked at the Cleric of Moradin character sheet

I got this in the mail today too.

Ironically, I think John would love playing a Ninja, but lately it's been difficult to get him to even play a game here at the house. He claims to hate the fact that his mom is always the de facto party leader and he never gets to show any initiative; sadly, usually when he attempts to "show initiative", what he's really doing is showboating and trying to play the game by himself. One example: the entire party had been captured by pirates, we used team work to get him out of the pit we were stuck in. Rather than lower a rope, so the rest of us could escape the pit while the pirates were distracted (torturing one of our party members), he decided to explore the entire pirate camp and then come back for us, and then without any weapons or anything useful; he had just scouted the area.

D&D Next, Dawn Patrol, and other things

First I'll write about the trials and tribulations I went through getting the D&D Next playtest packet, they emailed me on the 24th, I didn't get it until late on the 27th. Somewhere along the way my repeated attempts to retrieve the packet got my WotC account canceled and I had to set up a new one, I got to use the same email address, but had to change my screen name. No biggie, I don't hang out there anyway.

Saturday I went and played Dawn Patrol with Darryl Sr. and Darryl Jr., I had neither John nor Dalton with me, I fear they may not be interested enough in WW I aerial combat, or that their introduction to the game has turned them off to it. I guess we'll see next weekend. The game itself was short, two turns long.

Set Up: We rolled 2d4 to advance the calender to February 17, 1917, and I rolled the weather conditions while Darryl Jr. rolled up the mission and starting altitude for our flights. For the record- there was a negligible breeze from the south west, and one thick cloud bank running from 6,600'-7,100'. Both flights actually rolled starting altitudes higher than their ceilings, so we just started them at their ceilings. We were 99 squares inside French held territory, and the front was 108 squares wide. The French mission was a Fighter patrol, the German mission was photo-recon.

Darryl Sr. and I had drawn allied counters from the hat, and both ended up flying French Spad VIIs, he was flight leader with his Lieutenant Gilles Chenault and I was his wingman with my less experienced Serbian pilot (who had barely made it home last time) Sous-Lieutenant Vaclev Petrovic, flying our squadron's brand new replacement Spad VII, since it had only been a week since I returned my last Spad badly damaged.

Darryl Jr. had his pair of Vizefeldwebels Hans Grüber and Dirk Schmidt flying a pair of Roland CII's (AKA "The Whale") at 16,500' and realizing that he had: A- Two enemy fighters at 18,000' headed straight for them.

Turn 1: Unfortunately for the French, the Germans won the initiative roll and we were forced to go first. Lt. Chenault dropped to 16,500' and so did I, only facing towards him so the enemy would have to face fire from one of us if they chose to engage rather than dive towards their mission objective. Both German aircraft dove to 16,400' and lined up on Lt. Chenault's aircraft; from their slightly underneath position both the pilots and the observers guns, they all fired long bursts and they all hit, scoring a total of 9 hits on Lt. Chenault's Spad, spread out pretty evenly across his wings and tail. I fired an interrupted burst at the nearest plane, as it turns out it was Grüber's; but my gun jammed and I only got one hit to his tail.

This was the end of turn one, Darryl Jr. stated that he figured there was no way he could complete his mission if he had to dive to below 6,600' with two Spads chasing him, so chose instead to try and make a kill or drive us off, play a little reckless since he didn't think he had a shot at winning the scenario otherwise, and, metagaming a bit, both of these pilots had zero missions/zero kills so it was no great loss to him if they went down trying to be ballsy.

Turn 2: Grüber is forced to go first and dives to 15,000'. I go second and dive to 14,950' to get below Grüber's observer's gun, I miscount the squares and end up underneath Grüber rather than behind him in tailing position, I also fail to clear my gun jam. Schmidt goes next and over dives into tailing position behind me. Lt. Chenault also over dives and fails the roll to break-up (15%, he rolled an 01; yes, we heretics use percentile dice when playing Dawn Patrol instead of the d6% charts). Schmidt, having dropped into the perfect firing position for a shot at me with both pilot's and observer's guns, naturally takes the shots, hitting with both. My plane takes 6 hits, 4 to the Left Wing. My flight leader down, and outnumbered two to one in a fairly damaged aircraft, I decide discretion is the better part of valor today and disengage.

Post Game: We just assumed that the Germans dove below the cloud cover and compled their mission. Lt. Chenault miraculously survived his 14,900' crash landing, the plane was destroyed and he was wounded, but he'll be available for duty again on March 2nd 1917. Either Grüber or Schmidt is going to get credit for the kill, we already determined which one it was, but I forgot and it's not written on the mission logs I brought home with me so I could give a more accurate blow by blow report, and Darryl Jr. didn't give me his pilot roster either. I have everyone else's, so I can be the "official" experience point tracker. I also get to come up with names for all of the, until now, nameless, faceless, rank-less and experience-less Observers. Observers are people too, they can get better at their jobs.

Since we still had a whole bunch of time left over after our two turn Dawn Patrol game, I suggested that we play some classic MB Axis & Allies, because we used to love that game, and we were masters of it, and that's not an idle boast; at Gen Con in 1990 Darryl (Jr) and I, playing the Axis as a team beat the Allies on the second turn of the game. Now, we always play with one house rule and one recommended rule. Our house rule is that in a three player game the Axis is played by one player, not split up. The recommended rule is that Russia doesn't attack on the first turn, which is pretty standard. So one player plays Germany and Japan, one plays the US and USSR, and one plays Britain.

We each have our specialties, I am best with the Axis and worst with Britain. Darryl Sr is best with US/USSR and worst with the Axis. Darryl Jr. is best with Britain and probably equally bad with either of the other powers, which is still pretty good. We drew control counters from my hat and I got the Axis, Darryl Sr. got the US/USSR and Darryl Jr. got Britain, but he hates playing Britain because of the great length between turns, so his dad traded with him when he complained about how it always seems to be the same game we play.

This game did not go well for me, Russia had an unusually aggressive build of tanks and infantry on their first turn, the tanks were built in Russia, the infantry in Karelia, all but one of the infantry in Caucasus was moved to Karelia, all the infantry and the fighter from Russia were moved to Karelia and then they moved their transport to the British sea zone, to join the British fleet there, and their submarine to the eastern Canada sea zone to join the British transport there. Out in the Soviet east they shuffled all of their troops into the Yakut S.S.R., with the exception of the tank, which was moved to Novosibirsk and one lonely infantry left in the Soviet Far East.

My first turn German build is pretty standardized by now, I build a fighter and four tanks. From Italy I sent the battleship to clear the sea zone above Egypt and the transport with two infantry. My corps of troops already in Africa, I sent the one infantry that couldn't reach the fighting down int French West Africa, blitzed my tank through French Equatorial Africa into Anglo-Egypt Sudan and waited for the sea battle to see whether or not there'd be any more troops coming in; there would be but it cost me my battleship, the start of my bad luck on this turn. I fought the battle in Egypt and took higher than normal casualties too, all three infantry dead. I had sent two fighters after the British battleship at Gibraltar, I sank it, but lost a fighter doing it, about what is usual. I sent the German sub over to sink the American transport and lost that fight, which is pretty unusual, but happens. I sent the bomber from Germany over to sink the British transport (and it's Soviet submarine buddy), my bomber hit and they took the British transport as a casualty and retreated the Soviet submarine down to join the American transport. I sent my Baltic submarine and the three remaining fighters from the Luftwaffe to attack the combined British/Soviet fleet in the sea zone surrounding Britain, they were actually quite successful and I only lost the submarine, the British lost a battleship and a transport, plus the Soviet transport. I sent one tank from the Ukraine into the Caucasus and killed the infantry there, but the lucky bastard took my panzer out too.

But this was all just the precursor to my massed attack on Karelia, the tanks from everywhere except Western Europe could make it there, and the infantry from everywhere but Germany, I used the transport in the Baltic to take the two infantry from Western Europe and amphibiously invade Karelia too via the Baltic. That may be another house rule, we rule that only units that have been involved in an amphibious invasion cannot retreat, so of course they get to be the first casualties generally speaking. Anyway, the first turn of combat went OK, I hit slightly less than the odds said I should and the Russians hit me right about on the odds, so sticking around for a second round of combat was the obvious choice, the odds were still in my favor. Then lady luck deserted me, bad, and she left me for Darryl's Russians. I don't recall how horrible it was exactly, but I am not sure I had any infantry left at all when I retreated to the Ukraine, I am pretty sure I may have taken tank losses.

So I non-combat moved my infantry from Germany to Eastern Europe, and my tanks from Western Europe to Eastern Europe, landed my surviving fighters in Eastern Europe and my bomber in Germany; built my new tanks in Germany and my new fighter in Italy.

Then Britain went, they abandoned India to drive the German forces from Africa, they had no trouble taking out my tank in Egypt. They used their two fighters from Britain to sink my transport in the Baltic, of course I missed them on my counter-attack; then they landed them in Karelia to protect the Russians from another onslaught by my depleted forces. Then they built an industrial complex in South Africa and I forget what else.

My first turn build for the Japanese is pretty standard now too, an industrial complex and a transport. The complex is so I can start building some stuff on the continent and the transport is just to upgrade my shipping capacity. Being so obliged by the British departure, I felt compelled as the Japanese to simply walk in and take India, this was the high point of Japan's turn, and possibly their biggest mistake. I sent the tank from Japan on the transport with the battleship to attack Soviet Far East, the battleship bombardment failed, do they ever work? Then the tank missed and was killed by the infantry counter-attack, a sad and pathetic end to that amphibious invasion. I used the submarine, some fighters and the bomber from Japan to attack the American fleet at Hawaii and destroyed them with just the loss of the submarine. That was the end of my attacks.

I non-combat moved my other battleship and aircraft carrier to Hawaii. I also moved troops and fighters to Manchuria, to counter the Soviet threat, and then placed my industrial complex there and my transport in the Japan sea zone.

The US wasted no time, they sent their transport across the Atlantic and took Algeria, with a single infantry no less. They also attacked both French Indo-China Burma and Kwangtung, since I'd left them empty. Then they started building a Pacific fleet off the Western USA, presumably to challenge Japan's dominance of the Pacific, but I was willing to cede the Pacific to take Asia from the Americans, Russians and British.

Now, I have always said, one of the things that sadly can't be fixed, but really does suck about this game is that the Allies get to go twice in a row, and now it was Russia's turn to attack. I remember pretty clearly what happened in Europe, because it affected the rest of the game, Asia not so well. In Europe the Red Army replete with tanks and infantry smashed their way into the Ukraine, and it was a crushing defeat for the Wehrmacht. They may have launched an unsuccessful attack on Japanese positions in Manchuria this turn as well, trying to take out the industrial complex before it could start production on this turn. The loss to the Germans was huge though, that was every remaining tank they had started the game with, except for the one from Western Europe. After taking the Ukraine, he non-combat moved the anti-aircraft gun from Karelia to there, and the one from Russia to Karelia. He also non-combat moves his submarine through the Panama canal.

Germany's turn and the war wasn't going as planned. I built eleven infantry. I used my Mediterranean transport to pick up a single tank and land it in Caucasus via the Black Sea, the rest of my forces launched an attack into the Ukraine, the odds were in my favor and it would destroy a bunch of Soviet tanks, but I had six aircraft going into the battle and he had an anti-aircraft gun. The odds said he would take out one, I thought at worst two, but no, he shot down three. The odds no longer favored my victory, but I was stuck for one round of, what turned out to be, a very punishing combat. I retreated to Eastern Europe, much the worse for wear and built my eleven infantry in Germany. You all can see where this is going right?

Britain goes, they take French Equatorial Africa from Germany, and sink my transport in the Black Sea, I believe they then landed in Egypt where they built another industrial complex and a pair of tanks for the complex in South Africa. All things considered, they're actually moving rather slow and methodical.

Japan actually had a pretty good turn, I built a pair of tanks for Manchuria, and I forget what else. I landed infantry in Soviet Far East, successfully, launched an amphibious invasion into French Indo-China Burma, successfully and launched an attack against China from Manchuria, unsuccessfully, but not disastrously. I non-combat move some more infantry from the islands with my transports to the Asian mainland.

The US continues it's Pacific naval build up, but, in a surprise move, also builds an industrial complex in Sinkiang, his sole combat move is to invade Western Europe with that Cheeky infantry from Algeria, it's an unopposed D-Day landing, it's not that I didn't see that it could happen, it's just that the Russians were the bigger threat. To be fair, if they'd noticed, the British could have done the same thing to Italy on their turn, but they were focused on Asia and Africa. All remaining American troops in Asia are pulling back to defend Sinkiang, this includes, I believe, fighters that had been spending time in Karelia.

Russia gets to go, they build a bunch of stuff, probably tanks and infantry, the Soviet juggernaut is just unstoppable in Europe at this point, they smash their way into Eastern Europe even more easily than they did the Ukraine, they also send a minimal force, one infantry and one fighter I believe, to take out the lone German tank in Caucasus before he has a chance to have any behind the lines fun. Surviving Soviet troops from the east make their way to Sinkiang to bolster the defenses of the American industrial complex, the Soviet fighters no longer needed in Karelia, also join them. The Soviet submarine non-combat moves up to join the American fleet off the Coast of Western USA.

Germany Builds ten infantry. Six infantry are sent to attack the American infantry in Western Europe, they win losing two of their number. I non-combat move the remaining five infantry to Italy so it will have some defense against either the British or the Soviets. I place my ten new infantry in Germany. Surprisingly, Germany still makes, I think, 27 IPCs this turn.

Britain goes and finally takes Libya, they build some tanks and a transport. They are going slow, I think the old man is tired and he is missing a lot of easy things. He's 70 years old now and I think maybe we should cut him some slack, the counter argument to this though is two fold, first, he didn't cut either Darryl or I any slack when we were 12 and just learning to game and second, keeping the mind active is shown in studies to prevent Alzheimer's and other degenerative mental conditions. So maybe the fact that we haven't been keeping him competitive for the last decade or so has made his gaming skills rusty, maybe he is a little slower to think his moves through, he's the man that turned me into the wargamer I am today. I owe him. Anyway, he sends a bunch of fighters to Sinkiang too, it's going to be a tough nut to crack.

Japan goes and has a great turn, they take every objective they set out for, which, in my opinion, only puts them about two full turns behind schedule. the two tanks from the Manchurian factory blitz through Yakut S.S.R., splitting up to take Evenki Nat'l Okrug and Novosibirsk; infantry and fighters attack China and win. I strategic bomb the US for free! At some point I had consolidated my fleet around Japan, so it wasn't within striking range of the US fleet with their submarines. I build three tanks for my Manchurian industrial complex and I forget what else.

USA goes, I don't recall what they did, honestly, it was short and probably just built stuff in Sinkiang for our big showdown.

Russia goes they attack the two tanks bordering Russia with one infantry and one fighter in one spot and one tank and one fighter in the other, they win both battles and take back their territories, but the real deal is the invasion of Germany, Germany's luck holding about how it had been versus the Soviets all game, they didn't even inflict serious casualties on the invading force. Germany fell, I handed the Russians my IPCs, which I think is a broken rule, but that's neither here nor there; then I considered my options for about ten seconds and conceded the game.

So, Saturday handed me two losses in one day. Sunday was Lance's birthday, and I have to say, I get the impression he isn't happy or fitting in with my D&D group. Since he's been back to work he hasn't made it to a single game. Audra is his girlfriend, so I am pretty sure she is only coming to spend more time with him and check out his interests. Lee Ann just got a new job in the ER and is working 12 hour shifts, and doesn't always get Sundays off. John enjoys playing 4th edition with his buddies more than any edition here at home with his family, he particularly hates that his mom is the de facto party leader. Ember only ever wants to play if Lee Ann is going to be here to play too. Mona is usually always up for a game, but gets sick of having to herd the cats that make up most of the rest of the party. Ashli wants to play, but her medication makes concentration difficult and she often has to leave the table for naps. Dalton is pretty much always up for a game, but I have to pick him up, and if every other player is no-showing on me, sometimes I don't feel like it.

I guess I am in desperate need of a group of players that want to play some old school D&D B/X or 1st edition AD&D with B/X leanings in the central NY area. Oswego county would be best if I have to travel, gas prices being what they are. Weekends are best for me, but I am flexible and we don't really have to play at my house, in fact my house isn't really the best place to play, we just make due.

Every single game I have had scheduled since the end of March has been canceled for one reason or another, it's almost June. This is driving me crazy. I have two different campaign projects I am running/playtesting new stuff for, cancellations kill campaigns.

Anyway, I hope Lance had a good birthday and everyone had a good Memorial Day. I haven't had time to read through the playtest packet for D&D Next yet, I hope you all enjoyed my lengthy game play reports and here's some Ebay pics of stuff I got in the mail recently.   

I already had the Rokugan book, but not the other two. The price was good though so, I figure I'll just pass along the Rokugan book to someone else.

I didn't really think about it, but did they really need a specific "Way of the" book for Daimyo? I mean, it's not like they're a dime a dozen.

I also find it interesting that the highest and the lowest were bundled together, Thieves and Daimyo. What point was the seller subconsciously making?

Bonus Post- B/X Alignment Musings

I know I have been rushing trying to get all Norse stuff in during April here for the A-Z Posting Blitz, but I have been thinking about Alignment in B/X D&D since I rolled up all those pregens for my new Norse campaign and wanted to get some of those thoughts out before I forgot about them. I know that OD&D had the Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic Axis, and so does B/X, but I never really gave it much thought because I started playing D&D with Holmes Basic which had a proto-AD&D Alignment axis, and I never saw or heard about the older, original three alignment axis until much later, so when I saw the B/X version of Alignment I assumed it was dumbed down from Holmes or AD&D for the younger audience it was aimed at and never really gave it much more thought.

Now it occurs to me that I was just wrong. I was wrong first because I was misinformed, original D&D used the same Alignment system as B/X, which was later adopted by BECMI and Cyclopedia D&D. Secondly, I was wrong because I think the Alignment system in D&D, as opposed to AD&D, is not a simplified system at all, it just doesn't encompass all of the moral choices that a Character can make in a game, rather it is about where their ultimate loyalties lie. AD&D muddied the waters there, it was AD&D that made Alignment not so much a statement of allegiance, but a moral code. In OD&D, B/X, BECMI & Cyclopedia D&D, Law represents a commitment to civilization, Chaos to those forces that oppose it. To be fair, they don't do the best job of explaining this clearly.

I am not sure how I feel about this to be honest. I have lived most of my life with the nine-fold Alignment system. I have defended it, often, against it's various detractors. I have found it to be a useful role-playing tool for helping to get players to consistently play their Characters with the same moral and ethical standards from game to game, and I think we all know players that need the help out there. Mostly, I think in AD&D Alignment terms most of the time. So this conclusion that Law and Chaos aren't really moral/ethical/behavioral outlooks on life, but rather an allegiance to the concept of being pro or anti civilization, while groundbreaking for me, leaves me at another one of those places where I have to wonder whether AD&D was a good idea or not, and I grew up with AD&D, it's like asking me if I love my mother or America.

I consider almost every day switching from B/X to AD&D. AD&D is like home to me, I know it like the back of my hand. B/X is the experiment for me, so I can get some experience playing the "other" D&D game that was out back then. I have to say that there is a whole lot of stuff I like in B/X D&D, stuff I remember using back in the day in AD&D that I probably took from the Expert book and other stuff like the way that all the spells are better, Morale is easier to use, and probably a dozen other things; but I keep defaulting back to AD&D at weird times too, like when I rolled D6s for all the Thief's Hit Points or the way I keep thinking of all the ACs as starting at 10.

All that said, the more that I think about it, the more I realize the way I have always played AD&D was closer in spirit to OD&D or B/X, probably because I started with Holmes; but I whittled away the rules from AD&D that I didn't like or didn't understand. I won't go through the usual litany of AD&D rules that get listed as superfluous, everyone knows them by now, and each one of them has their supporters and detractors; I support some myself and dislike others.

It does make me think though, that the D&D Next team should maybe be looking at Labyrinth Lord as a model for the 5th edition of D&D. Labyrinth Lord already has "modules" for what you want to add to your game, from "Original Edition Characters" to the "Advanced Edition Companion" you cover the D&D games from the time period of 1974-1985. If they added an "AEC II" that covered all the crazy late first edition AD&D stuff and an "Oriental AEC", we'd be covered up to the advent of 2nd edition. Some sort of "2nd edition companion" would get us through the 1990s, although I know most OSR types hate post Gygax era TSR D&D, it would at least give us completeness and show the robustness of the system.

Mike Mearls Hates D&D

I have been reading the column he is writing, and some of the commentary it is generating in the OSR blogosphere, I have even commented a little bit about some of it myself. I suspect it isn't just Mr. Mearls, but also the rest of the design team behind 5th Edition D&D, or D&D Next, as they think the cool kids are calling it. I reached this inescapable conclusion when I went back and examined the evidence- Mr. Mearls is playing B/X D&D, ostensibly to establish a baseline, but really because it is the best selling D&D ever, so marketing has got to be involved here. Anyway, he keeps wanting to tweak the system. I guess that's cool, we all use house rules, right? But he wants to test the system to destruction and rebuild it (again) anew, and that's not cool, that's what people who hate D&D want to do. I know, I have played D&D with people that HATE D&D a whole bunch of times over the course of my decades of gaming.

I have seen it coming from both sides too, D&D is too abstract and needs to be made more "realistic", with hit locations, a variety of skills, and what-not. D&D is too rules bound, it needs to be more like, name your favorite rules-lite system, this is usually leveled at AD&D when you add in all the extra books or 2nd edition once the splatbook frenzy started or 3e almost from the get go. I have seen the madness of rules breakers that try and smash the system so they can make a better system and it isn't pretty; but at least they were all honest about the fact that they hated D&D. Mike Mearls claims to love D&D. I can't see any evidence that he ever loved any pre-WotC version of D&D, he is apparently only playing it in protest trying to figure out what it's ancient arcane mystique was that held so many of us enthralled for so long.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the 1981 Moldvay/Cook B/X edition of D&D doesn't have room for improvement, in thirty-one years the state of the art has moved forward a bit and we can too. AD&D, both 1st and 2nd editions had some good stuff, yes, even in the splatbooks. 3e made some good design decisions too, along with a few that I would have liked to have seen be optional, and a bunch of stuff I thought was bad. I am almost completely unfamiliar with 4th edition D&D, so I have to refrain from comment, either positive or negative, except to say that I am sure that something good must be hidden inside.

Now, I was against what Mike wanted to do to with Save or Die effects, but I assumed it was a sop to the people that were raised on the somewhat more sissified style of 3rd and 4th edition D&D gaming where every character created is a special snowflake and it would just break you player's heart to see him or her die, especially in an unheroic manner; and it might just break your precious story train off the rails if one of the all important PCs died at the wrong time. Different style of gaming, vastly more time invested in character creation, sure, I get it, all the PCs are tanks and I am an old man saying "Back in my day...."; but back in my day we did have good stories for our characters, they just developed over time. We also had a real sense of accomplishment when we leveled up, because it didn't happen every time we played, and there was a real chance that some of our PCs weren't making it back every single time we went adventuring*.

But I digress, this week Mike moved on to fixing problems that don't even exist in B/X D&D, namely the Turn Undead ability of the Cleric. I can not even fathom what his problem with this ability is, except the whole lack of defined parameters for how long various undead remain turned and how far they have to run. Honestly EGG already answered most of the questions he has in in 1st edition AD&D, and a few others too. Anything else he wants to do I guess can be a simple house rule, it doesn't have to be made "official" D&D Next/5th edition; if you want free willed bad-ass Undead to just hover around menacingly once they've been turned like Vampires in a Hammer horror film, I am cool with that, really, but that's your game, and maybe mine, it doesn't need to be everyone's. He wants to plant all of this stuff in a stat block for each Undead monster, I feel this would unnecessarily clutter the game with stat blocks, so I'd rather prefer to leave it on the simple Turn Undead chart as a footnote, like on the 1st edition AD&D DM's Screen. He claims he doesn't want the Turn Undead ability to be an "I win" button for Clerics or a Fireball tuned specifically to the undead**, because B/X Clerics are too tough? Turn Undead is the only thing they have going for them at first level. They don't get a Spell, they have a D6 for Hit Points and are limited to weapons that do 1d6 Damage, they might have a good AC if they rolled good starting money.

Of course I don't really buy into the idea that he is all that invested in trying out B/X at all given that he is talking about Turn Undead being done using a Charisma Check with a DC and the area of effect being a 30' cone, that all smacks of 3e to me and that's the D&D I divorced. My guess is that if Mike Mearls or Monte Cook or anyone else on the 5th Edition Design Team wants to know what old school D&D was and is like, they should quit DMing and start playing some D&D using these old rules, with an old school DM. There are still some around. They might just find out that they like the game and that returning it to it's roots with some of the thirty-one years of game design innovation is cool, but I am still not cool with the market department deciding things like how often characters should level.



*It's worth mentioning here, as was recently pointed out at Tenkar's Tavern, D&D was originally published as a wargame. You sometimes get attached to certain units in wargames, particularly if they have a campaign play option, but it's kind of silly to mourn the loss of the Grossdeutschland division counter for too long. Yes, I picked that one on purpose because my wife mocks me for mourning it's loss during a drive on Moscow. They had performed so well, they were my lucky unit.

**Of course then he goes a little farther off the reservation when he starts talking about Evil Clerics and them just gaining abilities from other planar creatures, so I guess Carcosa has left it's mark on Mike Mearls. I can't decide if the addition of crazy new abilities to track is worth the bonus points for pissing off the religious right and maybe putting D&D's name back on the radar, so kudos to Mr. Mearls on the addition of Evil PCs and them getting extra special bonus abilities right out of the gate. I didn't see anything special for Good Clerics mentioned, even though an equal and opposite type of ritual ability gain should be possible through contracts with higher planar beings and divine rituals.

Moldvay Basic Observations Part 3-

Sorry I missed a couple of days, I had some real life get in the way of blogging, not all bad, some gaming was involved. I figure I should probably provide a link back to parts one and two in case you missed them before.

Now, we only really got through the first 18 pages of the book in the last two parts of my Moldvay Basic Observations, but I am confident that we can make it through the rest of the book here in part three because, despite the fact that we still have another 46 pages to go, there really aren't all that many more observations, and most of them are from the next few pages.

Part 4: The Adventure starts on page 19, and is a bunch of useful information for the beginning player and the beginning DM. I was both amused and impressed by the first paragraph, it has the heading beginning the adventure and essentially states that once the players have rolled up their characters and bought their equipment, the DM will tell them what the Adventure is going to be, where they are headed, what they're after, who is with them and what they know about the place. I found this amusing because I have had players over the last three decades that were such a pain in the ass that I wondered why they showed up at the table. I'd drop adventure hooks, usually some sort of hire, and they'd be all "Nope, I'd rather not take your excellent commission to go clear out the Dungeon of Doom, I'd rather sit at the inn doing nothing for the next six hours"; here they pretty much tell you that kind of nonsense doesn't fly.

Next it moves on to optimal party size and composition, pretty standard stuff for old school; it tells you that you should probably have 6-8 characters in the party, that's what pretty much every module said on the cover back in the day; and that you should have a mix of character classes, all the human classes should be represented and, if possible, get some Demi-Humans in the party too for their special skills. The most noteworthy thing here is that it suggests that some players, at the DMs discretion, might be allowed to play multiple characters. I am pretty sure that this was, if not outright forbidden, at least heavily frowned upon in AD&D. It also point's out here that if you don't have enough players you can fill in the ranks with retainers, but I'll get back to them in a bit.

Next we move on to organizing a party; setting your marching order is mentioned first and it mentions having several different marching orders for various tactical situations, which is something I always thought that me and my nerdy friends came up with on our own, but here it is in black and white. Then comes the Caller. Is this where the Caller comes from? I just looked through Holmes and didn't see any reference to a Caller, but I may have missed it, and in AD&D's PH it says that party's should have a leader who will "call" to the DM the party's actions. I never played in a D&D group with a formal Caller and damned few with formal Leaders, although informal leaders often existed. This is the first place I question whether or not people actually played this game with the rules as written.

After the Caller, there is a section on the importance of mapping and how one player should be designated the Mapper, this is a D&D job that I used to see a lot more in the old days than I do now. I can't decide if it's just because every DM on earth got sick and tired of having to describe the room over and over again, or draw sections of map for the "Mapper" to copy or if it was just because D&D moved away from dungeon based adventuring over the last three decades, either way, mapping is practically a lost art and it is frustratingly difficult to reinvent. I do like the way it says here that you maps aren't going to be exactly perfect and not to worry too much about making a perfect, detailed map though.

Next it brings up a controversial subject, use of miniature figures. They are clearly optional, but can enhance play. However, many of us OSR types, no matter how much we loved our old lead miniatures back in the 1980s are still a little gun shy about being slaves to the battle grid. Me, I can go either way, I hated being a slave to the battle grid and it did take me forever to wean my kids off of using miniatures even when we were playing 1st edition AD&D. I haven't used them yet with Moldvay Basic, but I may. I used miniatures pretty much the whole time I played D&D from Holmes through 3e, I only wanted to quit after 3e and now that I have had a break I am OK with them again. The only thing that bugs me is when 3e-isms crop up in an old school game when we're using miniatures, I know it's because we're using miniatures; someone will say something like "Shouldn't I get an attack of opportunity here?" and make me want to smack them.

The last things on the page are Time & Movement, there's not much of note there, except the note at the end that you need a 10 minute break every hour or you'll start getting fatigued and suffer a -1 to hit penalty until you do rest. I don't ever recall seeing that rule anywhere else. The only other fatigue rules I remember seeing in a version of D&D were in Hackmaster 4th edition.

Flipping the page brings us to encumbrance, which fills the entire page and is an optional rule. Sadly encumbrance gives us one of the worst and most enduring game-isms of D&D, the idea that all coins regardless of metal or purity weigh the same, and that the weight of a coin is 1/10 of a pound. Here in Moldvay Basic the basic unit of weight has gone from the Gold Piece (gp) to the more generic Coin (cn). I never really understood why we couldn't just measure weight in pounds, or ounces if necessary, but there you have it. I hear Lamentations of the Flame Princess has a better encumbrance system, and I did buy it in December during their PDF sale, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet; if it is vastly better I will most likely adopt it for my B/X game.

Page B21 starts us off with Light, points out that most dungeons are dark and tells us how long torches last and how long a flask of oil will last in a lantern, reminds us that you need to pay attention to who is carrying the light sources because you can't fight with a sword & shield if you are the one holding the torch and then talks about how Infravision works. Now, when 3e hit the market and we lost Infravision in favor of Low-Light Vision and Dark Vision, I hated that as much as the next grognard; but over time I have come to actually prefer them to Infravision and I'll tell you why- there is always some jerk trying to screw with Infravision, either a player who has seen the movie predator or a DM that realizes that undead are the same ambient temperature as the air surrounding them. Giving a scientific explanation for how the eyesight of fantasy races work is stupid, plus have you ever looked through an infrared camera? Seeing everything like Geordi LaForge or the Predator isn't really all that helpful, plus why does it only work for X number of feet? An Elf or Dwarf's ordinary eyesight will allow them to see pretty much to the horizon, but their Infravision only works for 60'? Sixty feet of visibility is pretty crappy, especially if you can only see stuff that gives off heat. Realistically, deep enough underground the stone and the air are going to be about the same temperature, so the subterranean dwelling Dwarf is still screwed without a light source; he'll be blind, bumping into cavern walls*.

Next we move on to Doors, which has three sections Normal Doors, Secret Doors and Listening at Doors. Normal doors are pretty interesting in Moldvay Basic, because they kind of have some weird mojo going for them. First, they are usually closed, that's cool, I usually leave my doors closed too; but additionally they are often either stuck or locked. Stuck doors any character can take a shot at, but higher strength characters are better at unsticking them, this is where the "Kick in the Door" meme in D&D comes from. Locked doors have to be picked open by a Thief, and the text here kind of implies that if your party Thief fails here, you are just screwed; which makes sense from the description of the Thief and his lock picking ability, but not from the point of view of a dungeoneering party that probably has at least one axe with them. The other odd, semi-magical qualities of dungeon doors are that they automatically swing shut after you open them unless you specifically jam them open and that they will automatically open for monsters unless you spike them shut; and these are the "Normal" doors.

Secret doors have fewer rules regarding them, but there is the interesting clarification that a Character only gets one chance to find a secret door. I remember playing AD&D and having the party know there must be a secret door in an area and just keep searching forever until they found it, that was annoying. Listening at doors gets a mention at the end of the doors section, I am amused by that because that's another one of those semi-lost dungeoneering skills, like mapping. When I DMed last weekend the party remembered to check for traps about 70% of the time, but only listened at one door. This section also has a rules clarification that a character may only listen once at any given door, and that the undead do not make noise.

The bulk of this page though is taken up by rules regarding Retainers, which brings me to a mini-rant- What is the deal with the inconsistent terminology between editions of D&D for the hired help. That's just confusing, why does every damned edition need to change the name? Here Retainers are, mostly**, what you would call Henchmen in AD&D, in 3e they'd be called Cohorts. Why on earth couldn't they pick a term and stick with it? That said, they are a little more interesting to hire on than they are in other editions, they have their own reaction table, which I assume the PC's Charisma modifier applies to, although it doesn't expressly say so. I also find it interesting that they have to check morale after every adventure to see if they will stick with you. Charisma would not be a dump stat in this version of D&D even if the rules supported stat rearrangement.

Skipping way head to combat, did anyone use the rules as written? The DM rolls all the damage dice? Why? Just because only one set of dice shipped with the boxed set? I like the morale rules, they are simple and easy to use, every monster has a morale value. Would I have preferred it to be on a D20 instead of 2d6? Yes, but Moldvay has a lot of 2d6 tables, so I am getting used to it. AD&D didn't get a decent monster morale system until 2nd edition.

Moving on to the monsters in general, there is more variety in low level monsters than in previous editions of D&D or than in AD&D, even some more mid-level ones than I would have expected; and many that weren't in any previously published D&D. The AD&D Monster Manual was only published four years earlier, so I would not have expected too much deviation from it's list, but there is. All of the standard humanoids are there, as are all the minor undead and a bunch of other "standard" D&D monsters, like Stirges, Rust Monsters and Ochre Jellies. Dragons are here too, surprisingly, since the book only covers levels 1-3. There are a bunch of new monsters and monster variants though that I never saw really until I read through this book, different types of Giant Lizard, Snakes, Giant Spiders and the Thoul to name a few.

What else did I skip over before?

Paralysis can be cured with a Cure Light Wounds spell? Does that happen in AD&D? I never heard of it if it does. Here it gets mentioned in the spell description and in the description of pretty much everything that causes paralysis.

The Monster Reaction Table, not every encounter needs to be a combat encounter and another reason why Charisma wouldn't be a dump stat even if the game rules allowed for it. Sometimes a monster might help you out.

Individual Initiative is an optional rule. I can't decide whether or not to use it, because my current group is less wargamer heavy, and therefore less rules crunchy and combat oriented than most previous D&D groups that I have played with, so I think that it might just be too much of a stress builder on combat and make combats more chaotic and lengthy, but on the other hand I think it really helps open up the combat options for high Dexterity characters like Thieves to be able to maneuver into position for Back Stabs, which is never actually called back-stabbing here, but instead "striking unnoticed from behind", or just getting to go first in combat.

Experience points, you get WAY more of them for treasure than for killing monsters, that kind of sets the tone for what's important here, now doesn't it? I actually noticed this when I was figuring experience points for the game I ran last Sunday, gold piece value is king when it comes to XP, killing not so much, magic not at all. AD&D was kind of like this, except that you got the XP for magic and monsters were worth a little more, Goblins in B/X D&D are worth 5XP each in AD&D they are going to be worth an average of 13XP.

Overall thoughts- There is still a great deal of customizability to Moldvay Basic, like there was in OD&D. The number of rules that are presented as optional is reminiscent of 2nd edition AD&D and the rumors of 5th edition D&D's multi-edition compatibility; for example- if you use none of the optional rules presented in Moldvay you have a game that is more similar to OD&D, if you use them all, it becomes much more distinctly it's own version. As an introduction to D&D, and RPGs in general, I think it does a much better job than Holmes basic did, and I mean no disrespect to Holmes Basic, it had a different design agenda; I am told Mentzer Basic did a better job still, but I haven't seen it to say for myself. What I can say is that all of the rules you need to play D&D are in this book, it's only flaw, and this is by design, is that it tops out at 3rd level and then you have to buy the Expert boxed set to go to level 14; which is past "name" level, the theoretical end game stage of D&D, so you really never needed the Companion boxed set, that never got published, that promised levels 15-36.

Now, I suppose I'll have to do some posts on my observations about the Expert side of the B/X equation too, but at least this will be more mixed with review, I had that set back in the day and I used stuff out of it pretty liberally with my Holmes Basic set and my AD&D until everything was taken over by AD&D eventually. I'll need to finish reading it




* unless the assumption is made that Infravision is very, very good and he can see the heat from his body and breath emanating around him and it outlines the walls and stuff, but then you still have the problem of jerks trying to blind Infravision scientifically because they can.

**They might be a 0-level torchbearer, that dude would be called a hireling in AD&D which has entire classes of standard and expert Hirelings. I looked ahead in the Expert book and some of the Hirelings in there are overlapped with the Hireling types in the AD&D DMG, but it didn't include any of the standard 0-level porters and torchbearers that AD&D parties have available to them.

OK, these EBay items arrived today.






Everyone in the OSR raves about this old Judges Guild stuff, I never had any, so when I saw I could snag some cheap I grabbed these.



I know I swore off buying Star Wars stuff, but it was a bargain and I was bidding on a bunch of other stuff from the same seller, I figured if I caught this at the minimum bid and got the combined shipping with any of the other stuff it's be like getting a free item almost. This was the only item I won though, but I got it for the minimum bid.