Plus some Hellhounds of unknown manufacture, they appear to be 25mm scale but are but made of plastic.
And a copy of Bruce Galloway's Fantasy Wargaming, also from Ebay.
Mongol Home
Thursday, March 17, 2011
And in today's mail...
....4 old school minis of indeterminate manufacture from 2 different sellers on Ebay
Happy Saint Patrick's Day!
I have always been a fan of St. Paddy's day since I was a kid, it's one of the few holidays that my parents celebrate for no apparent reason. They don't drink at all. We're not Irish, in fact my mom's family is almost exclusively French, while my dad's is a mixture of Scottish and English with a single Dutch great-great grandfather on his mother's side. We're not Catholic, although both of their families were up until a generation ago. As near as I can figure they celebrate St. Paddy's day solely for the purpose of eating a boiled dinner of corned beef and cabbage and I am OK with that.
When I was a younger man I used to celebrate this day with gusto and much drinking, as is the fashion hereabouts. On St. Patrick's day of 1996 I started drinking early and downed 100 pints of Guinness over the course of the day. I was in college then at SUNY Oswego, which is a pretty hard partying school.
That's me on the right, pre-gaming with my buddies Tim C. (left) and Keith G. (middle) on that record shattering day, the picture was taken by Tim's wife Tracy. The car is my old Impala, how I miss having roomy cars with 8 cylinder engines. Really, what are the odds I'd have a picture from that day though, eh? I always thought this picture made us look like small, medium and large, but that's not really fair to Tim who is like 5'10" tall.
Honestly I am not even a fan of St. Patrick, I stand pretty much on the side of the druids and old Celtic gods in that argument.
Here in Oswego county St. Paddy's day is a pretty big deal. I saw a map a while back that shows ethnicity by county across the US and we're one of relatively few mostly Irish counties in the US, so maybe that's it. I know I'll probably have a pint of Guinness or two today and a corned beef and cabbage dinner, but I won't be going out like I used to; age and responsibility have ended all that for me.
Anyway, if your going drinking today, do so responsibly and use a designated driver.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Re-imagining monsters and Dwarves re-imagined as a bonus
For my Garnia campaign world there was some serious re-imagining of all of the races PC and monster for their origins anyway. Mechanically nothing really changed, since I designed it to be, at first at least, a pretty much "standard" AD&D fantasy world. In Garnia the only sentient race that is native to the world are the elves. Every other race was either brought to the world by the elves through their gate magic technology, years ahead of Stargate I might add; or they were brought in by the forces of evil in an invasion scheme. Now that I think about it that is pretty much what was going on in Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits.
Hmmm...
Anyway, most of the monster races were engineered by the forces of Evil, usually by whatever demon lord is their master. Yeenoghu for the Gnolls for instance or Lolth for the Drow*. The Goblinoid races were a result of Evil tinkering with a species of humanoids on an evil plane. The Orcs were bred on an evil plane and transplanted late into the setting. The Trolls actually were the shock troops that destroyed the Dwarven home civilization on a neighboring good plane, ergo all Dwarves are refugee descendents, and the Trolls followed them to Garnia before the Elves sealed the gates. This period is known as the Troll war and Dwarven exile in Garnian pre-history.
Only Humans have the capacity to choose alignment in Garnia. Humans come from earth which is on a Neutral plane. They were brought to the Elf home plane by the forces of Evil who were using them as a wild card in their war against the Elves. This turned out to be a mixed blessing (curse?) because Humans destroyed Elven civilization, but then largely chose Good** and took up the fight against Evil where the Elves left off.
So, other than there being magic genetic manipulation to create some of the evil species of humanoids, my primary campaign world of Garnia is largely absent any real remaking or re-imagining of classic D&D creatures. Having said that, I had a Roman empire themed world where the only PC races were Human and Dwarf. We only played there once and I didn't DM. Darryl C. and I had created it together while we were brainstorming some D&D stuff because we wanted to start a new campaign. Darryl wanted to run the initial game because he had an idea for an adventure taking place in a pyramid tomb (that didn't involve mummies). The game went well and my character was, uncharacteristically for me, a Cleric named Gaius Flavius Maximus priest of Neptune. This was the first time I played D&D with Mona, who would eventually become my wife, having only met her once before. The game was pretty good. Unfortunately Jamie W. showed up and managed to quench my enthusiasm for the campaign before I even got my chance to DM an adventure there.
Anyway, the point was that the Dwarves had an unusual racial background in that they were all male, born to human families only in a mountainous region of the game world. They had a natural affinity for metal working and were thought to be the sons of Vulcan. They could become priests of Vulcan only and when they did military service they were organized into their own units. They were all Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral. Usually their mothers died in child birth. There may have been some other quirky, interesting things about them, but I don't recall anything else off the top of my head.
*The Drow are actually a special case because they are a fallen Good race. My cosmology has very definite Good vs Evil element and Evil races are beyond redemption, they have no choice about being Evil, it is inherent. Rarely, an inherently Good race can be corrupted, the Drow are the premier example.
**This may be a result of an inherently neutral species living on a Good plane, the emanations of Good may cause a disproportionate number of Humans to lean in the direction of Good. In real terms it is because as a DM I prefer to run more heroic campaigns and limit the alignments of characters to Good or Neutral; as Evil aligned characters seem to largely be used by immature players that just want to disrupt the game with intra-party conflict, or worse act out rather disgusting fantasies.
Hmmm...
Anyway, most of the monster races were engineered by the forces of Evil, usually by whatever demon lord is their master. Yeenoghu for the Gnolls for instance or Lolth for the Drow*. The Goblinoid races were a result of Evil tinkering with a species of humanoids on an evil plane. The Orcs were bred on an evil plane and transplanted late into the setting. The Trolls actually were the shock troops that destroyed the Dwarven home civilization on a neighboring good plane, ergo all Dwarves are refugee descendents, and the Trolls followed them to Garnia before the Elves sealed the gates. This period is known as the Troll war and Dwarven exile in Garnian pre-history.
Only Humans have the capacity to choose alignment in Garnia. Humans come from earth which is on a Neutral plane. They were brought to the Elf home plane by the forces of Evil who were using them as a wild card in their war against the Elves. This turned out to be a mixed blessing (curse?) because Humans destroyed Elven civilization, but then largely chose Good** and took up the fight against Evil where the Elves left off.
So, other than there being magic genetic manipulation to create some of the evil species of humanoids, my primary campaign world of Garnia is largely absent any real remaking or re-imagining of classic D&D creatures. Having said that, I had a Roman empire themed world where the only PC races were Human and Dwarf. We only played there once and I didn't DM. Darryl C. and I had created it together while we were brainstorming some D&D stuff because we wanted to start a new campaign. Darryl wanted to run the initial game because he had an idea for an adventure taking place in a pyramid tomb (that didn't involve mummies). The game went well and my character was, uncharacteristically for me, a Cleric named Gaius Flavius Maximus priest of Neptune. This was the first time I played D&D with Mona, who would eventually become my wife, having only met her once before. The game was pretty good. Unfortunately Jamie W. showed up and managed to quench my enthusiasm for the campaign before I even got my chance to DM an adventure there.
Anyway, the point was that the Dwarves had an unusual racial background in that they were all male, born to human families only in a mountainous region of the game world. They had a natural affinity for metal working and were thought to be the sons of Vulcan. They could become priests of Vulcan only and when they did military service they were organized into their own units. They were all Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral. Usually their mothers died in child birth. There may have been some other quirky, interesting things about them, but I don't recall anything else off the top of my head.
*The Drow are actually a special case because they are a fallen Good race. My cosmology has very definite Good vs Evil element and Evil races are beyond redemption, they have no choice about being Evil, it is inherent. Rarely, an inherently Good race can be corrupted, the Drow are the premier example.
**This may be a result of an inherently neutral species living on a Good plane, the emanations of Good may cause a disproportionate number of Humans to lean in the direction of Good. In real terms it is because as a DM I prefer to run more heroic campaigns and limit the alignments of characters to Good or Neutral; as Evil aligned characters seem to largely be used by immature players that just want to disrupt the game with intra-party conflict, or worse act out rather disgusting fantasies.
World Hopping
Back when I was young and started playing D&D it was not uncommon to bring your own D&D character to somebody's campaign. I took my character Lodor from campaign to campaign and it mostly worked out OK. He was my go-to character for traveling D&D starting when I was in 7th grade. I used him in my school's D&D club games, a home game, and a couple of other DM's games at school before he died in Tim McD's game and was subsequently revived in Darryl C's campaign. Most DMs back then, it seems, were OK with you bringing in a character from elsewhere. Most of the time they would just look over your character sheet and say OK. Sometimes they would put some conditions on your entry, usually just taking away some of your magic items if you seemed over-powered for their world.
Sometimes this led to problems. I related the sad tale of Lodor versus the DM's favorite NPC before. Not only was there a conflict between Lodor and Andemon, but Lodor really didn't fit in Tim's campaign world.
Oddly enough, Tim was DMing for the other worst case I can think of too. Tim was getting ready to leave for the army and wanted on last, great D&D game. He worked on the adventure for over a month and put together a pretty awesome adventure. It had a pretty standard "retrieve the lost relic" plot hook, but he came up with some cool and unique bit to go with it. The adventure had a cool sea travel portion, for which Tim had drawn deck plans on a one inch grid. There was an ancient red dragon. There was a pretty bad-ass NPC betrayal that caught us all by surprise. I was running my long-time character from Tim's campaign, Mandark the Wild; an 8th level Fighter. Scott W. brought his Halfling Thief character, Thorik, from my campaign; I believe he was also 8th level. Lance W. ran an Assassin he brought over from a campaign he played with Paul F. and Paul F. brought in his long time Halfling Thief, whose name I still don't recall. My dad played, in a rare appearance, his 7th level Cleric Kras.
The problem came from Darryl C. and his dad big Darryl bringing in their characters from their home campaign. Big Darryl brought his Fighter Royce Cea-Thor who was 6th or 7th level. Little Darryl brought his Fighter Borg's henchman Elisha, who was maybe an 8th or 9th level Magic-User, because he saw we were pretty good for Fighters and Thieves. Their home game saw significantly more magic treasure than any of the games the rest of us came from. Tim noted this and made some pretty drastic cuts to their items list. They actually negotiated over this for a while holding up the start of the game. They had pages of items. Tim should have cut their items worse than he did.
When the game got underway they managed to make pretty short work of the first few encounters, partly because Tim was unaccustomed to DMing with a Magic-User in the party, but mostly because they had a bunch of magic items still. They were used to burning through a lot of one use and charged items in their home game and were still a little resentful about having their stock cut so harshly. Tim was obviously starting to get annoyed at the power level of the two Darryl's characters. He started ramping up the encounters some to make them more challenging and that led to the rest of us getting spanked pretty hard. Still the game was a blast and we were mostly having a good time, although Royce lost an eye at one point while we were trying to figure out how a magic map gem worked.
Enter problem number two- Lance brought the Assassin, posing as a Thief, in specifically to take out Royce. He claimed that it was more or less an assassination on spec. See, I had had a character that Royce had cut the hand off of recently. He did it to rid me of a cursed sword, but the character was pretty much ruined. Lance had played a different character in that game and didn't much like the way Big Darryl took over the party and decided that Royce had to go. It kind of became a multi-planar grudge match. I wasn't completely innocent because when Lance and I talked I was still pretty pissed about my character's early retirement due to disability.
End game- We had a pretty bad fight against a Naga. We found the missing artifact. I set off a trap, hurting myself and the rest of the guys in the room with me. Then the NPC betrayed us, nailed us with a pretty high level fireball, then teleported to escape. This was bad enough. Sadly, this is when Lance decided to make his move. He figured Royce was low on hit points, maybe single digits. He took his shot and missed. Royce counter attacked and killed him. Then, a very pissed off Big Darryl had to be talked down from killing all of our characters. He accused us of inviting him and his son to the game just to kill their characters. This was maybe the last time any of us did any cross campaign traveling. The people from my two different friend groups never played together again, with a few exceptions, and most of those not terribly successful. I never really understood why I couldn't quite mix my friends together and have us all be friends.
In retrospect that fiasco was caused by the radically different play styles between the groups and it is a testament to Tim's skill as a DM that despite everything interpersonally that happened between the players and the characters that everyone who played remembers that adventure fondly. I feel that it is also noteworthy that this took place in the summer of 1985. I am not really sure why, I just have a feeling that there was a sea-change in D&D and how it was played that year, an age came to an end. After that, pretty much every DM I knew, myself included, insisted on players making new characters for their campaign worlds. One shots got pregens.
Why did we stop having world hopping open table games?
Sometimes this led to problems. I related the sad tale of Lodor versus the DM's favorite NPC before. Not only was there a conflict between Lodor and Andemon, but Lodor really didn't fit in Tim's campaign world.
Oddly enough, Tim was DMing for the other worst case I can think of too. Tim was getting ready to leave for the army and wanted on last, great D&D game. He worked on the adventure for over a month and put together a pretty awesome adventure. It had a pretty standard "retrieve the lost relic" plot hook, but he came up with some cool and unique bit to go with it. The adventure had a cool sea travel portion, for which Tim had drawn deck plans on a one inch grid. There was an ancient red dragon. There was a pretty bad-ass NPC betrayal that caught us all by surprise. I was running my long-time character from Tim's campaign, Mandark the Wild; an 8th level Fighter. Scott W. brought his Halfling Thief character, Thorik, from my campaign; I believe he was also 8th level. Lance W. ran an Assassin he brought over from a campaign he played with Paul F. and Paul F. brought in his long time Halfling Thief, whose name I still don't recall. My dad played, in a rare appearance, his 7th level Cleric Kras.
The problem came from Darryl C. and his dad big Darryl bringing in their characters from their home campaign. Big Darryl brought his Fighter Royce Cea-Thor who was 6th or 7th level. Little Darryl brought his Fighter Borg's henchman Elisha, who was maybe an 8th or 9th level Magic-User, because he saw we were pretty good for Fighters and Thieves. Their home game saw significantly more magic treasure than any of the games the rest of us came from. Tim noted this and made some pretty drastic cuts to their items list. They actually negotiated over this for a while holding up the start of the game. They had pages of items. Tim should have cut their items worse than he did.
When the game got underway they managed to make pretty short work of the first few encounters, partly because Tim was unaccustomed to DMing with a Magic-User in the party, but mostly because they had a bunch of magic items still. They were used to burning through a lot of one use and charged items in their home game and were still a little resentful about having their stock cut so harshly. Tim was obviously starting to get annoyed at the power level of the two Darryl's characters. He started ramping up the encounters some to make them more challenging and that led to the rest of us getting spanked pretty hard. Still the game was a blast and we were mostly having a good time, although Royce lost an eye at one point while we were trying to figure out how a magic map gem worked.
Enter problem number two- Lance brought the Assassin, posing as a Thief, in specifically to take out Royce. He claimed that it was more or less an assassination on spec. See, I had had a character that Royce had cut the hand off of recently. He did it to rid me of a cursed sword, but the character was pretty much ruined. Lance had played a different character in that game and didn't much like the way Big Darryl took over the party and decided that Royce had to go. It kind of became a multi-planar grudge match. I wasn't completely innocent because when Lance and I talked I was still pretty pissed about my character's early retirement due to disability.
End game- We had a pretty bad fight against a Naga. We found the missing artifact. I set off a trap, hurting myself and the rest of the guys in the room with me. Then the NPC betrayed us, nailed us with a pretty high level fireball, then teleported to escape. This was bad enough. Sadly, this is when Lance decided to make his move. He figured Royce was low on hit points, maybe single digits. He took his shot and missed. Royce counter attacked and killed him. Then, a very pissed off Big Darryl had to be talked down from killing all of our characters. He accused us of inviting him and his son to the game just to kill their characters. This was maybe the last time any of us did any cross campaign traveling. The people from my two different friend groups never played together again, with a few exceptions, and most of those not terribly successful. I never really understood why I couldn't quite mix my friends together and have us all be friends.
In retrospect that fiasco was caused by the radically different play styles between the groups and it is a testament to Tim's skill as a DM that despite everything interpersonally that happened between the players and the characters that everyone who played remembers that adventure fondly. I feel that it is also noteworthy that this took place in the summer of 1985. I am not really sure why, I just have a feeling that there was a sea-change in D&D and how it was played that year, an age came to an end. After that, pretty much every DM I knew, myself included, insisted on players making new characters for their campaign worlds. One shots got pregens.
Why did we stop having world hopping open table games?
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Disaster in Japan and a bit more
Al Jazeera is reporting that the Japanese are facing their worst disaster since world war two. The devastating earthquake is reported to be the 5th worst ever recorded. The ensuing tsunami was actually worse for the Japanese because they have, as nearly as possible, earthquake proofed their nation. Then the nuclear plant disaster caused by the earthquake/tsunami combo attack may well prove to be the worst nuclear disaster in history. The Japanese government is actually requesting foreign aid.
Many other blogs have announced various ways to help out with the relief effort for Japan. I will include this one link for Ronin. While it is not a really old school game, it is designed using an out of print version of WotC D&D as it's engine. If you are not interested in role-playing a Tokugawa era samurai I guess you could just donate to the International Red Cross.
Paling quite considerably in importance by comparison, I changed my profile picture to one of the Mongol looking dude from the cover of the Glantri gazetteer. I felt it was more in keeping with my online persona as the Great Khan Jagatai than my pre-wedding picture was.
Many other blogs have announced various ways to help out with the relief effort for Japan. I will include this one link for Ronin. While it is not a really old school game, it is designed using an out of print version of WotC D&D as it's engine. If you are not interested in role-playing a Tokugawa era samurai I guess you could just donate to the International Red Cross.
Paling quite considerably in importance by comparison, I changed my profile picture to one of the Mongol looking dude from the cover of the Glantri gazetteer. I felt it was more in keeping with my online persona as the Great Khan Jagatai than my pre-wedding picture was.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Hot Elven Chicks and More!
I have to say I amused at the reaction that putting in hot elf chicks as an advertising the OSR idea brought forth from the OSR blogging community. I was going to have a really cool funny hot elf chick post but pretty much everyone beat me to the punch as I took most of this week off due to a scratched cornea blurring my vision. So here is a hot elf chick:
And here is a link to a blog that has already done the job of finding and linking all the best information about the OSR.
I apologize to those of you lured here hoping to find some awesome elf porn. I do hope you will check out the OSR stuff. Given my campaign proclivities a hot samurai chick was more likely, so here:
Think of it as a bonus.
Now on to the OSR content. My newest gamer ADD related campaign idea is to do zero prep work and just make an entire world randomly using the 1st edition DMG, including the dungeons. I figure it would kind of make a game like the old computer games I used to play when I had a chance. I was kind of inspired by the Welsh Piper's post here.
I have also been considering a campaign for my old Steppe Warrior friends that is actually set in the Steppe. I am short of good ideas for that though. What do you do for an adventure in a place with very few ruins or even permanent settlements? I think raiding the encampments of other tribes would get a little old after a while, as would raiding caravans or the settlements of neighboring settled peoples. Additionally, all of that raiding would seem to indicate that the prevailing alignments would be evil oriented and I have never liked the idea of D&D as a method of acting out evil impulses or exploring the dark side of the human psyche; I like heroic games.
The next thing I wanted to vent on was inspired by this post from gnome stew. I actually have a long history of gaming with people I wouldn't count as friends and, in my opinion, it only can work out when you have a new group forming. Then friendships form naturally or they don't. I have tried gaming with people that I knew and wasn't friends with and there is an artificial friendship that comes from gaming together, but in reality it usually, in my experience, just brings out how much you dislike the other person. I mean there is a reason they aren't your friends right? Maybe they have annoying personal habits or whatever.
Over the years I have gamed with a bunch of people that I have given the benefit of doubt for way too long just because they played D&D and there were damned few of us in the area at the time. They ranged from a guy with personal hygiene issues and a distinctly unpleasant attitude towards rules lawyering to the point of cheating who we tolerated because he always brought a ton of snacks and always had the newest books and supplements (2nd edition era), to a guy who was just kind of a dick but we played at his house who later became the groups DM, to an anti-social racist with a crass sense of humor that I just happened to have lived near most of my life and grew up with, to a punk kid thief that constantly cheated on his die rolls who we figured would be OK if we kept an eye on him.
I would not play again with any of these people if you paid me to. Life is too short to waste your time around jerks and I would rather not game than play with them. Unfortunately this leads to the unsatisfactory situation of not gaming, particularly if you live in a fairly rural area like I do, if you want to avoid the "problem" gamers in your area. I tried the conventional means of recruiting new players, putting up flyers at gamer friendly places and internet searches for local gamers, but I found that just lures the people you are trying to escape, since they are usually looking for a new game. I met a couple of gamers in college, but they didn't stick, probably because college populations are transient by nature.
I found a couple of different solutions to the problem and while they may not work for everyone, they worked for me. First, I married a gamer girl and raised gamer kids. I recognize that this is a long term project though, so for most people I would actually recommend my other solution:
Join the SCA. I have met more gamers through the SCA than any other place in my life. Now, it is a medieval history organization, but there are a lot of D&D players there. And other RPGs. And Wargamers. And sci-fi and fantasy fans. Since I first joined the SCA I have gamed with more SCAdians than non-SCAdians and I have never lacked for anyone to game with.
Additionally, depending on what aspects of the SCA might appeal to you, it can be good exercise, which many of us gamers could really use; or you might actually learn something about the general time period in which most of our fantasy RPGs (kind of) take place. I like the fighting, but even if that doesn't appeal to you there are myriad other aspects to the SCA. For instance nearly every SCA event has a feast, so you can try some medieval food. The SCA is also social, which can be helpful to some of us; you can make new friends, even if they aren't gamers, or even a future spouse. I didn't meet my wife there, but I know a lot of couples that did meet in the SCA; it kind of screens out people that don't share a certain level of common interest I guess.
Enough of the SCA recruiting message, you'll either be interested or you won't. I just mention it because, although everyone in the SCA has at least heard of gaming, many gamers have never heard of the SCA.
Anyway, I know Gnome Stew wasn't telling us to game with jerks, I just needed to get the message out there that you don't have to game with jerks. There are other options.
I also had a bit of a rant building about how the advent of MMORPGs like WoW or it's ancestor Everquest kind of ruined D&D, but it's probably been done better in the past and I am not feeling it right now.
And here is a link to a blog that has already done the job of finding and linking all the best information about the OSR.
I apologize to those of you lured here hoping to find some awesome elf porn. I do hope you will check out the OSR stuff. Given my campaign proclivities a hot samurai chick was more likely, so here:
Think of it as a bonus.
Now on to the OSR content. My newest gamer ADD related campaign idea is to do zero prep work and just make an entire world randomly using the 1st edition DMG, including the dungeons. I figure it would kind of make a game like the old computer games I used to play when I had a chance. I was kind of inspired by the Welsh Piper's post here.
I have also been considering a campaign for my old Steppe Warrior friends that is actually set in the Steppe. I am short of good ideas for that though. What do you do for an adventure in a place with very few ruins or even permanent settlements? I think raiding the encampments of other tribes would get a little old after a while, as would raiding caravans or the settlements of neighboring settled peoples. Additionally, all of that raiding would seem to indicate that the prevailing alignments would be evil oriented and I have never liked the idea of D&D as a method of acting out evil impulses or exploring the dark side of the human psyche; I like heroic games.
The next thing I wanted to vent on was inspired by this post from gnome stew. I actually have a long history of gaming with people I wouldn't count as friends and, in my opinion, it only can work out when you have a new group forming. Then friendships form naturally or they don't. I have tried gaming with people that I knew and wasn't friends with and there is an artificial friendship that comes from gaming together, but in reality it usually, in my experience, just brings out how much you dislike the other person. I mean there is a reason they aren't your friends right? Maybe they have annoying personal habits or whatever.
Over the years I have gamed with a bunch of people that I have given the benefit of doubt for way too long just because they played D&D and there were damned few of us in the area at the time. They ranged from a guy with personal hygiene issues and a distinctly unpleasant attitude towards rules lawyering to the point of cheating who we tolerated because he always brought a ton of snacks and always had the newest books and supplements (2nd edition era), to a guy who was just kind of a dick but we played at his house who later became the groups DM, to an anti-social racist with a crass sense of humor that I just happened to have lived near most of my life and grew up with, to a punk kid thief that constantly cheated on his die rolls who we figured would be OK if we kept an eye on him.
I would not play again with any of these people if you paid me to. Life is too short to waste your time around jerks and I would rather not game than play with them. Unfortunately this leads to the unsatisfactory situation of not gaming, particularly if you live in a fairly rural area like I do, if you want to avoid the "problem" gamers in your area. I tried the conventional means of recruiting new players, putting up flyers at gamer friendly places and internet searches for local gamers, but I found that just lures the people you are trying to escape, since they are usually looking for a new game. I met a couple of gamers in college, but they didn't stick, probably because college populations are transient by nature.
I found a couple of different solutions to the problem and while they may not work for everyone, they worked for me. First, I married a gamer girl and raised gamer kids. I recognize that this is a long term project though, so for most people I would actually recommend my other solution:
Join the SCA. I have met more gamers through the SCA than any other place in my life. Now, it is a medieval history organization, but there are a lot of D&D players there. And other RPGs. And Wargamers. And sci-fi and fantasy fans. Since I first joined the SCA I have gamed with more SCAdians than non-SCAdians and I have never lacked for anyone to game with.
Additionally, depending on what aspects of the SCA might appeal to you, it can be good exercise, which many of us gamers could really use; or you might actually learn something about the general time period in which most of our fantasy RPGs (kind of) take place. I like the fighting, but even if that doesn't appeal to you there are myriad other aspects to the SCA. For instance nearly every SCA event has a feast, so you can try some medieval food. The SCA is also social, which can be helpful to some of us; you can make new friends, even if they aren't gamers, or even a future spouse. I didn't meet my wife there, but I know a lot of couples that did meet in the SCA; it kind of screens out people that don't share a certain level of common interest I guess.
Enough of the SCA recruiting message, you'll either be interested or you won't. I just mention it because, although everyone in the SCA has at least heard of gaming, many gamers have never heard of the SCA.
Anyway, I know Gnome Stew wasn't telling us to game with jerks, I just needed to get the message out there that you don't have to game with jerks. There are other options.
I also had a bit of a rant building about how the advent of MMORPGs like WoW or it's ancestor Everquest kind of ruined D&D, but it's probably been done better in the past and I am not feeling it right now.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Interesting to me...
I find it interesting that, despite having no interruptions today and nothing else to do, I still have had a hard time sitting down and typing out today's thoughts. I have been musing on the whole "We explore dungeons not characters" thing for a while now, mulling it over along with a couple of related topics; namely player character social class/background and character generation. I tie all of these together because it reflects the depth we give our characters at start. I have also been thinking about the whole "Commercialization of the OSR" and "OSR is dead" stuff, but not as much. Additionally, I have had a few further thoughts on D&D campaign ideas and the "default" D&D setting. My thoughts are a bit scattered today as I keep bouncing around from topic to topic like I am trying to work on a unified OSR theory, which I am not, but I finally convinced myself to sit down and start typing so maybe that'll help crystallize what I am thinking into something useful.
To start with the "Dungeons not characters" thing, I guess I should first confess that I have fallen in line with pretty much every major trend in gaming since I started. Randomness and simplicity were the order of the day in the beginning and I was all about it. The first thing I ever DMed was B2 Keep on the Borderlands. I DMed it for my dad and a party of NPCs I created to accompany him. His character was a Halfling fighter named Mee the magnificent (who eventually had a son named Mee II). We didn't care that the caves were a few hundred yards from the keep and just off the road*. It also never occurred to any party I have ever sent through that module that perhaps they should tell the authorities at the keep, who have an ARMY at their disposal, where the hidden enemy fortress known as the Caves of Chaos were. Maybe they just wanted all the riches and glory for themselves.
Eventually, as DMs, we were told we needed to make our worlds (and adventures) more believable, more realistic. I was reading this stuff in the Dragon pretty early on in my gaming experience and it sunk in hard. That is what really killed the megadungeon for me. I wound up with lots of small ruins scattered across my campaign world's landscape. Eventually, the "Underdark" concept arrived and I started throwing in vast subterranean adventure areas again, but they were never the same as the old megadungeon.
I don't think the style of play had changed drastically over the years until after 2nd edition hit the streets. My style of DMing did pretty drastically change after 2nd edition arrived as a result of my one and only pilgrimage to Mecca (Gen Con '90). I played in the AD&D Open and the charity events there that year and it completely changed the style of my DMing for years afterwords. I know everyone hates the 2nd edition style of railroad module, and I do too. The abuses of module design, particularly by the end of the 2nd edition era, were substantial and irredeemable. That said, the "encounter flow chart" plus keyed locations style of play catapulted me from "He runs a pretty good game" to "He is an AWESOME DM!" status locally, so I may be a little biased towards having a little railroad-eyness in my games when I have a plan. When I don't have a plan, which is about 99% of the time, I still roll some dice and fly by the seat of my pants; but I have written some pretty damned good adventures that used the encounter flow chart style.
I think it's a matter of contingency planning that makes most people hate the "railroad". A well written "railroad" adventure CAN go off the rails with a decent DM that can wing it. I think the 2nd edition modules that everyone hates so much were just written so that a crappy DM could still get you to the end of the story and the story was like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book with only two possible endings. Success- Most of the time, whether you did it by yourself or needed Elminster/Drizzt/Raistlin/Bigby to save you OR Failure- Where regardless of how much heavy artillery the DM had to throw in to help you and whatever number of shock troops came to the party's rescue they still managed to screw it up bad enough that no rock star NPC could pull their fat out of the fryer.
I also fell in with other schools of game mastering thought, either through actual play or through reading about them or talking with people who had played. I got "in media res" from West End's D6 Star Wars. I got "Story Telling" from White Wolf's Vampire the Masquerade**. I got practically religious encounter balancing mechanics from D&D 3e***.
Now, how does all of this related to the dungeons not characters question? I guess it's that at each point along the way we have been told to invest more into our starting characters, to give ourselves more role playing potential right out of the gate. When I started playing D&D you rolled 3d6 in order and played what you got, with few exceptions. You picked a class and a name then bought some equipment off a pretty short list of stuff. Maybe you had a character concept, but probably not. You weren't real attached to your character at this point and would not start developing any real attachment until you had played him a few times. Even then it would be more like the attachment you had for the 82nd airborne counter in your D-Day board game after they took out the 2nd SS panzer counter against all odds**** than it was like it is today.
By the time of late AD&D 1st edition things had started to change. Unearthed Arcana had social class and family tables and Oriental Adventures had them on steroids. Now you were much more fully invested into your character than previously. Your randomly determined background turned into a character history in your head, sometimes even on paper. At some point in here it became suggested that we give players extra rewards for fleshing out their starting characters, either as extra starting money or an experience point boost or even a starting magic item. By the time we were playing 2nd edition around here it had become so standard that Lance was mocking the process, it seemed like everyone was an aspiring actor and needed character motivations for every action they made. Simply adventuring for riches and glory had fallen by the wayside as everyone (except Lance) had angst filled reasons for needing to become an adventurer. I blame the influence of White Wolf pretty much completely for that.
Now, I think the whole character background thing is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does take us away from our roots where we use the player character as a "piece" in the game. At the very least it makes any PC a very important piece in the game. The background, whether it's completely randomized or wholly from the mind of the player, gives us a much bigger investment in whether or not our character survives the adventure. Our character took a lot longer to create once we added in a whole back story. Equipment lists also got longer here, so they even take longer to equip. Much, much longer.
This leads us to a desire to change character generation too. Now nobody wants to play a fighter with a 6 CON, so we invent a new method of rolling our characters to avoid just such a possibility. My standard was to roll 4d6 keeping the best 3, 7 times keeping the best 6*****, arranged as desired. So now you came to the table with a character in mind, you didn't just make due with the random guy you rolled. Sure it was still random, and it made AD&D stat-worthy characters most times, but I often hear people talking over what role they will take on in the party before anyone touches the dice. Mona will be the Cleric, Ash will be the Thief, Lee will be the Fighter, etc. Rarely does anyone play a different type of character based on their stats. Now they might if they want to experiment some. Point buy systems only make this phenomenon stronger.
So now you have lovingly crafted a character and most likely given him some kind of background even if it's not required by the game system. You have spent some time making sure he fits the needs of the party and you have equipped him along with the rest of the party to avoid redundancies. You have probably spent at least an hour on this guy and you have breathed life into him via his personal history. You are invested in whether or not he survives, and the longer he survives the more invested you are. Now you are at a point where you'll get pissed if the DM kills your character, let alone the whole party******.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think there is anything wrong with investing in your character, to a point. The problem comes from not investing in more randomly created, old school style characters; and in changing your character creation rules so that you can come to the table with a concept and see it made completely as you envisioned. I figure that if you came to the table with a Conan style fighter in mind and you rolled a 5 for your Strength score you need to figure out how to roll with that, it is not up to the DM and not up to the game system. Maybe you play as a Thief that is a Conan wannabe, or maybe you just put that character concept back on the shelf for next time, eh? What's wrong with coming to the table with a blank slate and creating a character when you get there?
Now, on to the commercialization of the OSR and whether or not it is dead, as they are related to each other. I think the rumors of it's demise may be a bit premature. For profit goods produced by the OSR can't help but be a good thing I suppose. If they are good, they will sell. If not, then they won't. I don't see why anyone is annoyed about people profiting from their hobby. Gary Gygax profited from his. The production values of some of the OSR stuff are quite good, or so I hear. I haven't bought much from the OSR, just Ruins and Ronin. I keep meaning to buy some other things too, but money is tight here and I have a wife, 3 kids, 2 dogs and 3 cats to feed first. All told, I don't understand what the problem is, despite having read numerous blog posts about it, because it's not like fanzines and free stuff killed D&D the first time around; if the for profit producers of old school stuff screw it up we'll just start another OSR in the future.
Lastly, I have been ruminating on the "default" setting for D&D. The default is a multi-racial setting in an apparently post-apocalyptic world. This kind of makes me wonder why we haven't been playing Gamma World for all these years instead of D&D. Tolkien gave us the concept of our standard good guy races and bad guy races, D&D ran with that. We aren't playing in a heroic age type setting, if I had to place a historical analogue to the default D&D setting I would say that it is like early medieval Europe. A mighty civilization has fallen and we come from petty kingdoms seeking to rebuild it's glory while at the same time looting it's ruins. In some ways their technology was much more advanced (or their magic in a fantasy world), in some ways ours is; particularly with regard to weapons.
My campaign ideas, generally, are based on exploring historical cultures and settings; sometimes I throw in a neighboring culture that didn't really live next to them. Usually I add a liberal dose of fantasy elements, more or less, depending on where I want to go with it. Sometimes that'll be the full on AD&D special with all the races and all the magic, that's where I went with my Garnia setting where several tribes of iron age Celts migrated to a pretty standard fantasy world. Sometimes it'll just be adding a bit of fantasy to the real world's history like I did with my Viking campaign where I added just the fantastic elements that the Vikings themselves believed in. Sometimes I just pick a culture I like and draw them a new map to be on. Sometimes I take a bunch of these different elements and mix and match. I have found though that most players don't have much interest in actually playing in non-standard fantasy worlds; so, sadly, the closer you cleave to their expectations of what D&D "should" be the more likely the successful run of your new campaign.
Oddly, I don't think this is true of published settings. Dragonlance did fine with it's changes and that only seemed to encourage TSR to come up with even more non-standard settings like Spelljammer and Planescape. They pillaged history for the various Forgotten Realms setting additions from Al-Qadim to Maztica. Some of these were fairly well done and rather successful, some not so much. Even post TSR D&D has had some success with non-standard settings it would seem, Eberron springs to mind although I am not particularly familiar with it other than it's use of arcane machines that cropped up in some of the boxes of WotC miniatures I bought.
Some of the coolest D&D settings I have ever seen sprang forth from my wife Mona's mind. I mention this because she had a pretty cool pirates-in-the-age-of-sail-meets-D&D-fantasy-world where there was a city called Ampersand (which makes me kind of smile every time I read that people want to call our game Ampersand) and because she doesn't really DM much, like twice since I have known her is all. Her stuff is always uniquely outside the standard D&D box and I have always loved the idea of playing in her worlds. I just find it to be too bad that the expectations of certain players for a certain flavor of D&D have discouraged her from DMing more. Shooting down my Zulus-invade-China-with-unicorn-riding-laser-sword-armed-elves setting is no big deal to me, I have run more D&D games than pretty much anyone else I have ever met and I have had a thousand campaign ideas that I never got around to trying. It's criminal to shoot down something as cool and unique as hers though.
That's all for now.
*Depending on which scale you believe, I believe in using the map of the caves scale, but the overland map lists the distance in hundred yard increments; it matches the caves map scale if you alter it to 100'/square rather than 100 yards/square.
**Which I never played, but knew several people that had played and kept begging me to run for them, only years after the WW craze did I actually take the plunge and play a WW game, Mage: the Ascension, it was fun but nothing I'd really want to do all the time and that GM never really wanted to run it again anyway since he was more of a Werewolf: the Apocalypse fan.
***I know 3e was not the first place that encounter balancing was mentioned, every version of D&D dating back to the original explores the concept at least a little, notably in the random encounter tables for dungeons, but 3e really made a science of it and preached balance as a virtue. I have since backed off of this in a big way because, hey, sometimes an encounter should be too tough for the party to handle.
****Wargamers know what I am talking about, the irrational feeling of affection for a cardboard counter after it has been lucky for you is real. My wife still mocks me for the sadness I felt when I lost my Grossdeutschland unit when playing Panzer General back in like 1995. I foolishly named my units when they achieved 5 stars of experience so I could more easily tell them apart and remember their individual battle records.
*****8 times if Comeliness was used in the game, only really an issue with Oriental Adventures here, we never really adopted Comeliness as a stat in our "regular" D&D games even after it was introduced.
******Which just goes to show how cool my players are, they spent the entire month of December with weekly TPKs after making complex Oriental Adventures characters every week. Sure, they eventually revolted at the idea of taking hours of character creation every week, but they just wanted to play standard occidental AD&D instead rather than quit playing in my games all together.
To start with the "Dungeons not characters" thing, I guess I should first confess that I have fallen in line with pretty much every major trend in gaming since I started. Randomness and simplicity were the order of the day in the beginning and I was all about it. The first thing I ever DMed was B2 Keep on the Borderlands. I DMed it for my dad and a party of NPCs I created to accompany him. His character was a Halfling fighter named Mee the magnificent (who eventually had a son named Mee II). We didn't care that the caves were a few hundred yards from the keep and just off the road*. It also never occurred to any party I have ever sent through that module that perhaps they should tell the authorities at the keep, who have an ARMY at their disposal, where the hidden enemy fortress known as the Caves of Chaos were. Maybe they just wanted all the riches and glory for themselves.
Eventually, as DMs, we were told we needed to make our worlds (and adventures) more believable, more realistic. I was reading this stuff in the Dragon pretty early on in my gaming experience and it sunk in hard. That is what really killed the megadungeon for me. I wound up with lots of small ruins scattered across my campaign world's landscape. Eventually, the "Underdark" concept arrived and I started throwing in vast subterranean adventure areas again, but they were never the same as the old megadungeon.
I don't think the style of play had changed drastically over the years until after 2nd edition hit the streets. My style of DMing did pretty drastically change after 2nd edition arrived as a result of my one and only pilgrimage to Mecca (Gen Con '90). I played in the AD&D Open and the charity events there that year and it completely changed the style of my DMing for years afterwords. I know everyone hates the 2nd edition style of railroad module, and I do too. The abuses of module design, particularly by the end of the 2nd edition era, were substantial and irredeemable. That said, the "encounter flow chart" plus keyed locations style of play catapulted me from "He runs a pretty good game" to "He is an AWESOME DM!" status locally, so I may be a little biased towards having a little railroad-eyness in my games when I have a plan. When I don't have a plan, which is about 99% of the time, I still roll some dice and fly by the seat of my pants; but I have written some pretty damned good adventures that used the encounter flow chart style.
I think it's a matter of contingency planning that makes most people hate the "railroad". A well written "railroad" adventure CAN go off the rails with a decent DM that can wing it. I think the 2nd edition modules that everyone hates so much were just written so that a crappy DM could still get you to the end of the story and the story was like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book with only two possible endings. Success- Most of the time, whether you did it by yourself or needed Elminster/Drizzt/Raistlin/Bigby to save you OR Failure- Where regardless of how much heavy artillery the DM had to throw in to help you and whatever number of shock troops came to the party's rescue they still managed to screw it up bad enough that no rock star NPC could pull their fat out of the fryer.
I also fell in with other schools of game mastering thought, either through actual play or through reading about them or talking with people who had played. I got "in media res" from West End's D6 Star Wars. I got "Story Telling" from White Wolf's Vampire the Masquerade**. I got practically religious encounter balancing mechanics from D&D 3e***.
Now, how does all of this related to the dungeons not characters question? I guess it's that at each point along the way we have been told to invest more into our starting characters, to give ourselves more role playing potential right out of the gate. When I started playing D&D you rolled 3d6 in order and played what you got, with few exceptions. You picked a class and a name then bought some equipment off a pretty short list of stuff. Maybe you had a character concept, but probably not. You weren't real attached to your character at this point and would not start developing any real attachment until you had played him a few times. Even then it would be more like the attachment you had for the 82nd airborne counter in your D-Day board game after they took out the 2nd SS panzer counter against all odds**** than it was like it is today.
By the time of late AD&D 1st edition things had started to change. Unearthed Arcana had social class and family tables and Oriental Adventures had them on steroids. Now you were much more fully invested into your character than previously. Your randomly determined background turned into a character history in your head, sometimes even on paper. At some point in here it became suggested that we give players extra rewards for fleshing out their starting characters, either as extra starting money or an experience point boost or even a starting magic item. By the time we were playing 2nd edition around here it had become so standard that Lance was mocking the process, it seemed like everyone was an aspiring actor and needed character motivations for every action they made. Simply adventuring for riches and glory had fallen by the wayside as everyone (except Lance) had angst filled reasons for needing to become an adventurer. I blame the influence of White Wolf pretty much completely for that.
Now, I think the whole character background thing is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does take us away from our roots where we use the player character as a "piece" in the game. At the very least it makes any PC a very important piece in the game. The background, whether it's completely randomized or wholly from the mind of the player, gives us a much bigger investment in whether or not our character survives the adventure. Our character took a lot longer to create once we added in a whole back story. Equipment lists also got longer here, so they even take longer to equip. Much, much longer.
This leads us to a desire to change character generation too. Now nobody wants to play a fighter with a 6 CON, so we invent a new method of rolling our characters to avoid just such a possibility. My standard was to roll 4d6 keeping the best 3, 7 times keeping the best 6*****, arranged as desired. So now you came to the table with a character in mind, you didn't just make due with the random guy you rolled. Sure it was still random, and it made AD&D stat-worthy characters most times, but I often hear people talking over what role they will take on in the party before anyone touches the dice. Mona will be the Cleric, Ash will be the Thief, Lee will be the Fighter, etc. Rarely does anyone play a different type of character based on their stats. Now they might if they want to experiment some. Point buy systems only make this phenomenon stronger.
So now you have lovingly crafted a character and most likely given him some kind of background even if it's not required by the game system. You have spent some time making sure he fits the needs of the party and you have equipped him along with the rest of the party to avoid redundancies. You have probably spent at least an hour on this guy and you have breathed life into him via his personal history. You are invested in whether or not he survives, and the longer he survives the more invested you are. Now you are at a point where you'll get pissed if the DM kills your character, let alone the whole party******.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think there is anything wrong with investing in your character, to a point. The problem comes from not investing in more randomly created, old school style characters; and in changing your character creation rules so that you can come to the table with a concept and see it made completely as you envisioned. I figure that if you came to the table with a Conan style fighter in mind and you rolled a 5 for your Strength score you need to figure out how to roll with that, it is not up to the DM and not up to the game system. Maybe you play as a Thief that is a Conan wannabe, or maybe you just put that character concept back on the shelf for next time, eh? What's wrong with coming to the table with a blank slate and creating a character when you get there?
Now, on to the commercialization of the OSR and whether or not it is dead, as they are related to each other. I think the rumors of it's demise may be a bit premature. For profit goods produced by the OSR can't help but be a good thing I suppose. If they are good, they will sell. If not, then they won't. I don't see why anyone is annoyed about people profiting from their hobby. Gary Gygax profited from his. The production values of some of the OSR stuff are quite good, or so I hear. I haven't bought much from the OSR, just Ruins and Ronin. I keep meaning to buy some other things too, but money is tight here and I have a wife, 3 kids, 2 dogs and 3 cats to feed first. All told, I don't understand what the problem is, despite having read numerous blog posts about it, because it's not like fanzines and free stuff killed D&D the first time around; if the for profit producers of old school stuff screw it up we'll just start another OSR in the future.
Lastly, I have been ruminating on the "default" setting for D&D. The default is a multi-racial setting in an apparently post-apocalyptic world. This kind of makes me wonder why we haven't been playing Gamma World for all these years instead of D&D. Tolkien gave us the concept of our standard good guy races and bad guy races, D&D ran with that. We aren't playing in a heroic age type setting, if I had to place a historical analogue to the default D&D setting I would say that it is like early medieval Europe. A mighty civilization has fallen and we come from petty kingdoms seeking to rebuild it's glory while at the same time looting it's ruins. In some ways their technology was much more advanced (or their magic in a fantasy world), in some ways ours is; particularly with regard to weapons.
My campaign ideas, generally, are based on exploring historical cultures and settings; sometimes I throw in a neighboring culture that didn't really live next to them. Usually I add a liberal dose of fantasy elements, more or less, depending on where I want to go with it. Sometimes that'll be the full on AD&D special with all the races and all the magic, that's where I went with my Garnia setting where several tribes of iron age Celts migrated to a pretty standard fantasy world. Sometimes it'll just be adding a bit of fantasy to the real world's history like I did with my Viking campaign where I added just the fantastic elements that the Vikings themselves believed in. Sometimes I just pick a culture I like and draw them a new map to be on. Sometimes I take a bunch of these different elements and mix and match. I have found though that most players don't have much interest in actually playing in non-standard fantasy worlds; so, sadly, the closer you cleave to their expectations of what D&D "should" be the more likely the successful run of your new campaign.
Oddly, I don't think this is true of published settings. Dragonlance did fine with it's changes and that only seemed to encourage TSR to come up with even more non-standard settings like Spelljammer and Planescape. They pillaged history for the various Forgotten Realms setting additions from Al-Qadim to Maztica. Some of these were fairly well done and rather successful, some not so much. Even post TSR D&D has had some success with non-standard settings it would seem, Eberron springs to mind although I am not particularly familiar with it other than it's use of arcane machines that cropped up in some of the boxes of WotC miniatures I bought.
Some of the coolest D&D settings I have ever seen sprang forth from my wife Mona's mind. I mention this because she had a pretty cool pirates-in-the-age-of-sail-meets-D&D-fantasy-world where there was a city called Ampersand (which makes me kind of smile every time I read that people want to call our game Ampersand) and because she doesn't really DM much, like twice since I have known her is all. Her stuff is always uniquely outside the standard D&D box and I have always loved the idea of playing in her worlds. I just find it to be too bad that the expectations of certain players for a certain flavor of D&D have discouraged her from DMing more. Shooting down my Zulus-invade-China-with-unicorn-riding-laser-sword-armed-elves setting is no big deal to me, I have run more D&D games than pretty much anyone else I have ever met and I have had a thousand campaign ideas that I never got around to trying. It's criminal to shoot down something as cool and unique as hers though.
That's all for now.
*Depending on which scale you believe, I believe in using the map of the caves scale, but the overland map lists the distance in hundred yard increments; it matches the caves map scale if you alter it to 100'/square rather than 100 yards/square.
**Which I never played, but knew several people that had played and kept begging me to run for them, only years after the WW craze did I actually take the plunge and play a WW game, Mage: the Ascension, it was fun but nothing I'd really want to do all the time and that GM never really wanted to run it again anyway since he was more of a Werewolf: the Apocalypse fan.
***I know 3e was not the first place that encounter balancing was mentioned, every version of D&D dating back to the original explores the concept at least a little, notably in the random encounter tables for dungeons, but 3e really made a science of it and preached balance as a virtue. I have since backed off of this in a big way because, hey, sometimes an encounter should be too tough for the party to handle.
****Wargamers know what I am talking about, the irrational feeling of affection for a cardboard counter after it has been lucky for you is real. My wife still mocks me for the sadness I felt when I lost my Grossdeutschland unit when playing Panzer General back in like 1995. I foolishly named my units when they achieved 5 stars of experience so I could more easily tell them apart and remember their individual battle records.
*****8 times if Comeliness was used in the game, only really an issue with Oriental Adventures here, we never really adopted Comeliness as a stat in our "regular" D&D games even after it was introduced.
******Which just goes to show how cool my players are, they spent the entire month of December with weekly TPKs after making complex Oriental Adventures characters every week. Sure, they eventually revolted at the idea of taking hours of character creation every week, but they just wanted to play standard occidental AD&D instead rather than quit playing in my games all together.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
A Few Things
I have been meaning to write something but I have a few competing ideas for posts vying for attention, so none of them have gotten the attention they deserve, but I want to get the ideas out there anyway.
Firstly, I have recently been talking to Lance W. about D&D and it has clarified a few thoughts on old school D&D for me. I don't see Lance that often, we don't live real near each other and haven't gamed together in some years. We kind of drifted apart after I finished playing 3e. He doesn't really know anything about this whole OSR thing, doesn't blog or read blogs; he only just made a Facebook account because his daughter wanted him to.
Honestly, if his daughter and my daughter hadn't become friends I might not be talking with him at all these days. He still keeps in contact with some D&D players I have deliberately removed from my life and I really don't want to associate with them again. I am kind of worried that re-associating with Lance will drag them back in his wake and Lance himself can be a "problem child" as a gamer. He often does not play well with others and does not appreciate styles of play other than his own (and is often quite vocal about it).
However, Lance is one of my oldest gaming buddies. He was a major part of nearly every gaming group I have been in since I started gaming. He created the second Dempster group on his own. For years he was one of my closest friends, we have drifted apart over the years but we still have decades of shared experiences.
Enough background on Lance, the reason he got me thinking was because when I was chatting with him he and I started talking about D&D, which is nearly inevitable for us, and I was a little shocked when he did not explicitly reject 3rd edition. He was unaware of 4th edition in it's entirety, but he was fond of 3rd edition and that actually shocked me. Lance, as I believe I have mentioned before, was one of the first people I ever met that had rejected current edition D&D for earlier editions and he did it in the 2nd edition days, jumping back from 2nd edition to B/X (and ultimately to Cyclopedia, which was contemporary to 2nd edition, but much more rules-light than late 2nd edition). He said that he thought that with 3e they were attempting to return D&D to an earlier style of play. While I reject that argument I can almost see where he gets it, particularly if you are going from late 2nd edition to core 3e.
For my part, I explained how I thought that the degree of character customization in 3e was, while fun to play, not really in the spirit of earlier editions and as a DM I found it to be a giant pain in the ass. I also did not like the fact that from 3e onward miniatures become a necessity rather than an option and that it turned D&D from a role playing game into a tactical combat game. None of my favorite D&D memories come from playing 3e, maybe I was just jaded as a role playing gamer by then, but I don't think so because I have some really good memories of D&D from playing HackMaster and earlier editions of D&D after the 3e era. Maybe this is because some of the people I played 3e with were jerks, but I can't even believe that because I had a really good time playing 3e with other groups, just not in groups with Lance. 3e was a triumph for the rules lawyers, a defeat for the DM and creativity.
As a DM I always felt straight-jacketed by the 3e rules and their exactness about everything. I was also continuously irritated at the extra workload placed on the DM. My most successful times DMing 3e were when I DMed for people that didn't know the rules backwards and forwards and really didn't care to learn the minutia of 3e rules. If you throw one rules maven* into the mix though, the entire campaign goes south, fast.
Next topic, Dungeons and Dragon as a name for the game I play, and presumably you too since you are reading this blog. I will continue to keep calling it D&D whether I am playing it out of my old blue basic book or my 1st edition AD&D books or the 2nd edition ones or even, god forbid, my 3e books. Or if I pick up OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord or Swords and Wizardry, it's all D&D to me. I understand the need of the retro-clones to distance themselves name-wise form D&D for legal purposes and I understand the desire of some people in the OSR movement to not want to be associated with later editions of the game that have removed themselves from the roots of D&D, it just seems to me that it's kind of pointless to try and rename the game I have been playing for over 30 years. I always called AD&D D&D, despite the array of differences. So did all my gaming buddies. We only specified Basic or Advanced when we were talking about the specifics. Plus it's not like they can come and take my old books away just because I didn't "upgrade" to the newest edition and they still say (Advanced) Dungeons and Dragons on the cover.
Last topic, and I understand this is dangerous territory for a gaming blog, but I feel quite strongly about this, I think it is important that I mention the Republican party's war on the American worker. I come from a family of Democrats. Since the old days, before the Democratic party got smeared with the "pansy" liberal label, back when Democrats were the bad-asses that fought for working men and the middle class and defeated the Nazis after providing Americans with the new deal, old school Democrats, they were my family. My grandfather lied about his age so he could serve during world war 2, he was too old to enlist at 36 when the war started. My father served, volunteering at 18 years old, during the Vietnam era; so the anti-American brush doesn't work here. We Democrats are as patriotic as anyone other Americans, don't be fooled by the rhetoric.
My family is also union. My grandfather and my father were both Longshoremen. Unions and the American labor movement created the middle class in America. They also created the weekend and time off for holidays. They created OSHA and safe working environments. Child labor laws. The union busting measures that the Republicans have introduced in a number of state legislatures shouldn't surprise anyone, their party has been trying to return the US to a pre-depression era environment for decades. Deregulation began in earnest during the Reagan administration, as did union busting. Republicans are all about unrestrained capitalism, sadly, between union busting and corporate and financial deregulation, they are going to reduce the average American to the status of serf. We need to stand up for the rights of Americans now, before it's too late.
I understand the frustration felt by people towards those that have the "good" union jobs, it's jealousy towards those that have "lucked" into a better position than they have, a position that includes a modicum of job security and a benefit package that was essentially standard 40 years ago, but is unheard of today. The problem here isn't that some people have better jobs than others, it's that the corporate leaders chose to eliminate those jobs for the majority of Americans, closing union plants and opening them elsewhere, often overseas where there is an abundance of cheap labor and few labor laws or safety regulations.
The protests in Wisconsin have the spotlight right now, but there are similar protests in other states and there are attacks on workers pretty much all around the country. Teachers are the targets in a lot of these states. I think it's an odd twist that for decades we have been told that teachers are underpaid, and that our country's educational system is suffering because all the best people are abandoning teaching for better paying jobs in the private sector; but now we are told that they are overpaid and that they are bleeding us dry through their greed.
I am always amazed when I meet lower income or even middle class Republicans. To me this is like a black man supporting the KKK. I think it's obvious that the Republican party will always pursue the interests of corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the working classes. I wish that fiscal conservatives and Christians would realize that they are being used for their votes.
*Enthusiast, Nazi and lawyer were all competing options for the term I wanted to use here, but I am trying to be less inflammatory about a game system that I simply don't care for.
Firstly, I have recently been talking to Lance W. about D&D and it has clarified a few thoughts on old school D&D for me. I don't see Lance that often, we don't live real near each other and haven't gamed together in some years. We kind of drifted apart after I finished playing 3e. He doesn't really know anything about this whole OSR thing, doesn't blog or read blogs; he only just made a Facebook account because his daughter wanted him to.
Honestly, if his daughter and my daughter hadn't become friends I might not be talking with him at all these days. He still keeps in contact with some D&D players I have deliberately removed from my life and I really don't want to associate with them again. I am kind of worried that re-associating with Lance will drag them back in his wake and Lance himself can be a "problem child" as a gamer. He often does not play well with others and does not appreciate styles of play other than his own (and is often quite vocal about it).
However, Lance is one of my oldest gaming buddies. He was a major part of nearly every gaming group I have been in since I started gaming. He created the second Dempster group on his own. For years he was one of my closest friends, we have drifted apart over the years but we still have decades of shared experiences.
Enough background on Lance, the reason he got me thinking was because when I was chatting with him he and I started talking about D&D, which is nearly inevitable for us, and I was a little shocked when he did not explicitly reject 3rd edition. He was unaware of 4th edition in it's entirety, but he was fond of 3rd edition and that actually shocked me. Lance, as I believe I have mentioned before, was one of the first people I ever met that had rejected current edition D&D for earlier editions and he did it in the 2nd edition days, jumping back from 2nd edition to B/X (and ultimately to Cyclopedia, which was contemporary to 2nd edition, but much more rules-light than late 2nd edition). He said that he thought that with 3e they were attempting to return D&D to an earlier style of play. While I reject that argument I can almost see where he gets it, particularly if you are going from late 2nd edition to core 3e.
For my part, I explained how I thought that the degree of character customization in 3e was, while fun to play, not really in the spirit of earlier editions and as a DM I found it to be a giant pain in the ass. I also did not like the fact that from 3e onward miniatures become a necessity rather than an option and that it turned D&D from a role playing game into a tactical combat game. None of my favorite D&D memories come from playing 3e, maybe I was just jaded as a role playing gamer by then, but I don't think so because I have some really good memories of D&D from playing HackMaster and earlier editions of D&D after the 3e era. Maybe this is because some of the people I played 3e with were jerks, but I can't even believe that because I had a really good time playing 3e with other groups, just not in groups with Lance. 3e was a triumph for the rules lawyers, a defeat for the DM and creativity.
As a DM I always felt straight-jacketed by the 3e rules and their exactness about everything. I was also continuously irritated at the extra workload placed on the DM. My most successful times DMing 3e were when I DMed for people that didn't know the rules backwards and forwards and really didn't care to learn the minutia of 3e rules. If you throw one rules maven* into the mix though, the entire campaign goes south, fast.
Next topic, Dungeons and Dragon as a name for the game I play, and presumably you too since you are reading this blog. I will continue to keep calling it D&D whether I am playing it out of my old blue basic book or my 1st edition AD&D books or the 2nd edition ones or even, god forbid, my 3e books. Or if I pick up OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord or Swords and Wizardry, it's all D&D to me. I understand the need of the retro-clones to distance themselves name-wise form D&D for legal purposes and I understand the desire of some people in the OSR movement to not want to be associated with later editions of the game that have removed themselves from the roots of D&D, it just seems to me that it's kind of pointless to try and rename the game I have been playing for over 30 years. I always called AD&D D&D, despite the array of differences. So did all my gaming buddies. We only specified Basic or Advanced when we were talking about the specifics. Plus it's not like they can come and take my old books away just because I didn't "upgrade" to the newest edition and they still say (Advanced) Dungeons and Dragons on the cover.
Last topic, and I understand this is dangerous territory for a gaming blog, but I feel quite strongly about this, I think it is important that I mention the Republican party's war on the American worker. I come from a family of Democrats. Since the old days, before the Democratic party got smeared with the "pansy" liberal label, back when Democrats were the bad-asses that fought for working men and the middle class and defeated the Nazis after providing Americans with the new deal, old school Democrats, they were my family. My grandfather lied about his age so he could serve during world war 2, he was too old to enlist at 36 when the war started. My father served, volunteering at 18 years old, during the Vietnam era; so the anti-American brush doesn't work here. We Democrats are as patriotic as anyone other Americans, don't be fooled by the rhetoric.
My family is also union. My grandfather and my father were both Longshoremen. Unions and the American labor movement created the middle class in America. They also created the weekend and time off for holidays. They created OSHA and safe working environments. Child labor laws. The union busting measures that the Republicans have introduced in a number of state legislatures shouldn't surprise anyone, their party has been trying to return the US to a pre-depression era environment for decades. Deregulation began in earnest during the Reagan administration, as did union busting. Republicans are all about unrestrained capitalism, sadly, between union busting and corporate and financial deregulation, they are going to reduce the average American to the status of serf. We need to stand up for the rights of Americans now, before it's too late.
I understand the frustration felt by people towards those that have the "good" union jobs, it's jealousy towards those that have "lucked" into a better position than they have, a position that includes a modicum of job security and a benefit package that was essentially standard 40 years ago, but is unheard of today. The problem here isn't that some people have better jobs than others, it's that the corporate leaders chose to eliminate those jobs for the majority of Americans, closing union plants and opening them elsewhere, often overseas where there is an abundance of cheap labor and few labor laws or safety regulations.
The protests in Wisconsin have the spotlight right now, but there are similar protests in other states and there are attacks on workers pretty much all around the country. Teachers are the targets in a lot of these states. I think it's an odd twist that for decades we have been told that teachers are underpaid, and that our country's educational system is suffering because all the best people are abandoning teaching for better paying jobs in the private sector; but now we are told that they are overpaid and that they are bleeding us dry through their greed.
I am always amazed when I meet lower income or even middle class Republicans. To me this is like a black man supporting the KKK. I think it's obvious that the Republican party will always pursue the interests of corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the working classes. I wish that fiscal conservatives and Christians would realize that they are being used for their votes.
*Enthusiast, Nazi and lawyer were all competing options for the term I wanted to use here, but I am trying to be less inflammatory about a game system that I simply don't care for.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
A Win!
My younger brother Jon called me today. He said that he read my blog, my wife had posted a link on Facebook after I won the coveted Newbie Blogger Award; and that he was inspired by what he had read and wants to set aside a weekend sometime to just game. I consider this a win because Jon has not gamed in a really long time, like since he was a teenager. He is in his 30's now.
D&D was never really his game, although he did play it from time to time. He was more into miniature skirmishes really. We talked about Midway hobbies, he thought they were still open and had just moved and he remembered buying his entire collection of 1/72 scale soldiers there. Everything from WW2 to Vietnam to modern era (at the time, one of his modern era sets was Warsaw Pact troops). He started getting them just to use as army men when he was still really too young to understand wargaming. As he got older I designed rules sets that were age appropriate for him, increasing in complexity and realism as he mastered them. I remember days of playing toy soldiers with him in my parent's basement on the 4'x8' HO scale train layout that had passed in turn from my dad, to me, to him.
My dad is a big model railroad guy. Roughly 2/3 of my parent's basement is now assimilated into his HO scale layout, when I was still living at home it was between 1/3 and 1/2 of the basement. My dad tried so hard to get us boys interested in his hobby and we tried to enjoy it, but to no avail. For my part, I was too much into gaming and not enough into the rail transport industry. On the plus side, it always meant that there were plenty of hobby materials that could cross over. For a while I was into HO scale WW2 minis for instance and, while I wasn't foolish enough to try to take over his layout for a game, there were always plenty of props and scenery; and his collection of paints and modeling tools was pretty nice to have around too.
John also specifically mentioned Talisman, which was nice. I recently found Talisman in a tote with a bunch of other games (including Dawn Patrol, which was keeping as a surprise because I wanted to write a longer post about but haven't gotten around to yet) and I was going to teach my kids how to play. I inventoried the parts and a few things are missing, but nothing important and I found a pdf file online so I can print out the missing components if need be.
I would have expected Twilight 2000 to get mentioned, since that was the RPG he played the most with us. I remember one time being in hand-to-hand combat with like 4 or 5 Spetsnaz guys and he threw a grenade into the middle of us. Miraculously I survived and all of the Spetsnaz guys were killed (or incapacitated, which amounts to the same thing); that's one of my favorite RPG moments, not just one of my favorite Twilight 2000 moments.
He was kind of nostalgic about seeing pictures of all the games because he hasn't seen most of that stuff since he was a kid, but it was omnipresent when he was younger. Eventually, we did as all us country boys do when we have been talking and reminiscing, we started telling fight stories. Now just for him, I will add some more images of stuff we used to play.
D&D was never really his game, although he did play it from time to time. He was more into miniature skirmishes really. We talked about Midway hobbies, he thought they were still open and had just moved and he remembered buying his entire collection of 1/72 scale soldiers there. Everything from WW2 to Vietnam to modern era (at the time, one of his modern era sets was Warsaw Pact troops). He started getting them just to use as army men when he was still really too young to understand wargaming. As he got older I designed rules sets that were age appropriate for him, increasing in complexity and realism as he mastered them. I remember days of playing toy soldiers with him in my parent's basement on the 4'x8' HO scale train layout that had passed in turn from my dad, to me, to him.
My dad is a big model railroad guy. Roughly 2/3 of my parent's basement is now assimilated into his HO scale layout, when I was still living at home it was between 1/3 and 1/2 of the basement. My dad tried so hard to get us boys interested in his hobby and we tried to enjoy it, but to no avail. For my part, I was too much into gaming and not enough into the rail transport industry. On the plus side, it always meant that there were plenty of hobby materials that could cross over. For a while I was into HO scale WW2 minis for instance and, while I wasn't foolish enough to try to take over his layout for a game, there were always plenty of props and scenery; and his collection of paints and modeling tools was pretty nice to have around too.
John also specifically mentioned Talisman, which was nice. I recently found Talisman in a tote with a bunch of other games (including Dawn Patrol, which was keeping as a surprise because I wanted to write a longer post about but haven't gotten around to yet) and I was going to teach my kids how to play. I inventoried the parts and a few things are missing, but nothing important and I found a pdf file online so I can print out the missing components if need be.
I would have expected Twilight 2000 to get mentioned, since that was the RPG he played the most with us. I remember one time being in hand-to-hand combat with like 4 or 5 Spetsnaz guys and he threw a grenade into the middle of us. Miraculously I survived and all of the Spetsnaz guys were killed (or incapacitated, which amounts to the same thing); that's one of my favorite RPG moments, not just one of my favorite Twilight 2000 moments.
He was kind of nostalgic about seeing pictures of all the games because he hasn't seen most of that stuff since he was a kid, but it was omnipresent when he was younger. Eventually, we did as all us country boys do when we have been talking and reminiscing, we started telling fight stories. Now just for him, I will add some more images of stuff we used to play.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Level Up!
Helluva day here. I got the kick-ass Newbie Blogger Award. Then I found out I was born in the year of the Froghemoth. Now I realize I have leveled again. 22 followers makes me a level 4 blogger with the cool level title of Commentator!
Newbie Blogger Award
Thank you, I am honored to receive this award and on Oscar night no less.
When I saw that I got the award I was briefly stunned. I had no idea that I would ever be in the running, no idea that I could be in the running since my blog is actually over a year old.
After the initial stunned reaction wore off, I wandered out to tell my wife and kids with a huge smile on my face. My wife, Mona, was quite pleased with me and told me that she always thought I'd be good at this. My daughter Ashli told me to keep up the good work. Then I wandered back into the dad cave and proudly set the badge on my blog page.
Then I became slightly terrified. I was pretty surprised when I saw that I had a couple of people besides Mona and Ashli following my blog, and I became determined to put up regular, quality blog posts. Now I have been recognized by the OSR blogging community for my efforts and that, quite frankly, is slightly terrifying. Because I don't want to be like the guy that wins the Grammy for best new artist, now I have to really buckle down and produce some quality stuff. The real problem here is that I am not really a crunchy rules guy, but more of a philosophy and opinion guy.
When I started the blog, a little over a year ago, it was mostly to record my D&D campaign I was running at the time. I also had a few thing I wanted to get down on paper and to reminisce a bit about the old days of gaming. I never thought that anyone would be interested in reading what I had to say. I am not now, nor have I ever been an industry insider or even a friend of one. I am not a professional writer. I am just a guy that likes to game and has for quite some time.
When I saw that I got the award I was briefly stunned. I had no idea that I would ever be in the running, no idea that I could be in the running since my blog is actually over a year old.
After the initial stunned reaction wore off, I wandered out to tell my wife and kids with a huge smile on my face. My wife, Mona, was quite pleased with me and told me that she always thought I'd be good at this. My daughter Ashli told me to keep up the good work. Then I wandered back into the dad cave and proudly set the badge on my blog page.
Then I became slightly terrified. I was pretty surprised when I saw that I had a couple of people besides Mona and Ashli following my blog, and I became determined to put up regular, quality blog posts. Now I have been recognized by the OSR blogging community for my efforts and that, quite frankly, is slightly terrifying. Because I don't want to be like the guy that wins the Grammy for best new artist, now I have to really buckle down and produce some quality stuff. The real problem here is that I am not really a crunchy rules guy, but more of a philosophy and opinion guy.
When I started the blog, a little over a year ago, it was mostly to record my D&D campaign I was running at the time. I also had a few thing I wanted to get down on paper and to reminisce a bit about the old days of gaming. I never thought that anyone would be interested in reading what I had to say. I am not now, nor have I ever been an industry insider or even a friend of one. I am not a professional writer. I am just a guy that likes to game and has for quite some time.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Campaign ideas I have had
I think that most players start a new RPG using the default setting for the game while they learn the rules and such. I expect that they usually move on after that initial period and create their own setting, unless the system is too tied to the setting to easily separate them. I also expect that most of the time the new setting is pretty similar to the default setting, since that's the model they're building from. I know this has been my experience with RPGs. When I first started playing D&D I had the adventure in the back of the Holmes basic book and B2 to work with and it never occurred to me that I would need more world until I bought the D&D Expert set and got X1.
The Expert set and X1 opened up an entire world to me. I had never considered creating an entire game world to play in at that point and the bulk of my gaming, either as a DM or a player, had been pretty much of the "and after several days (or weeks or months) of traveling you see the dungeon entrance before you" variety. I remember the pain of groping my way towards running non-dungeon based adventures or even having them searching for locations, it was brutal, it did not come easily or natural to me. Oddly enough, now most all of my home-brewed adventures are overland types or seaborne.
When I started making my own Garnia campaign world, I consciously and unconsciously aped both the Known World from the Expert set and Greyhawk, which I had recently read and considered to be the standard by which all D&D campaign worlds should be judged. Since I started creating Garnia I have only occasionally DMed outside of my baby. The exceptions to Garnia, however, are what I wanted to talk about now.
The biggest exceptions, of course, have been using published worlds. I have run brief campaigns in both the Known World, which I refuse to call Mystara, and in the World of Greyhawk. When I started running Oriental Adventures I used the default Kara-Tur setting, and I usually revisited it when I ran later OA games. Aside from that I have run games set on earth in various historical eras, mostly in and around Europe. I have created two different Roman themed fantasy worlds, one of which was retconned in to Garnia eventually as another continent. I created a Japanese themed fantasy world that also got retconned into Garnia as an island chain off of the coast, slightly off map. I created a Norse themed world that I also added to Garnia, off map. Discounting the cultural flavor of each of those and, of course, Celtic themed Garnia; all of them are essentially the same multiracial fantasy that has been D&D standard since day one.
I have created exactly two decently non-standard D&D worlds. One was uniquely Anglo-Saxon in theme and kept pretty close to the source. I ran that for a few sessions, one on one, with my wife Mona back when we first moved in together. As the campaign wore on, I started using more standard D&D-isms and ultimately decided to prematurely end the campaign before I ruined it with a lack of preparation. I was in college at the time and that was my Anglo-Saxon semester. I had a bunch of classes that covered early medieval England, from literature to history to art. I created and ran the entire thing pretty much on the fly, I was just so steeped in the period and the people it was easy. I don't think I could ever do it again. I tried rebooting the setting for a group a few years later and it was less successful and devolved pretty rapidly into standard D&D with Anglo-Saxon names.
The other campaign setting was based on Jacobite era Scotland. There was a fermentation of ideas I got from the movie "Rob Roy" and the novel "Caledon of the Mists", I thought I could bring it together using my considerable knowledge of the period and Scottish history. I was wrong, I jumped in too quickly. My gaming crew and I had just watched "Rob Roy" on DVD, and I said I could DM a game in a fantasy-historical setting. They made characters and we started. I quickly realized I had no real adventures for them, but they seemed content to roam around the countryside and be all rebellious and such. When the game ended that night everyone was enthused about it, but we never played there again. Mea culpa.
Strangely, that not-Scotland of the early 18th century still appeals to me. While I have been sitting here for the last few weeks with my games called on account of snow, which in Mexico NY means A LOT of snow, I have been all gamer ADD about my D&D campaign. I hate to end a campaign, but these thoughts enter my head and I want to play there. I have been giving serious thought to revisiting this Scottish Gaelic Jacobite rebellion influenced setting.
This is partly due to the fact that I have been thinking more and more about a humans only world, like most of the stuff from Appendix N. Conan the barbarian never had elves and dwarves in his party. A human only game world, right out of the gate, makes any encounter with non-humans special and kind of creepy. Kind of Lovecraftian. I kind of want that.
For a more "standard" medieval D&D world I have been thinking of an entirely new setting I am calling "In the Ruins of the Shattered Empire". I see it as kind of like this- Imagine a world where the Mongol empire conquered all of Europe, resistance was stiff, so they stomped it flat; then the Great Khan died and numerous claimants fought a century or so of brutal civil wars which pretty much destroyed everything their empire had going for it. Add magic. You are there.
I am still working on it, and I have a few other bits I am considering, but the humans only thing is definitely a go.
The Expert set and X1 opened up an entire world to me. I had never considered creating an entire game world to play in at that point and the bulk of my gaming, either as a DM or a player, had been pretty much of the "and after several days (or weeks or months) of traveling you see the dungeon entrance before you" variety. I remember the pain of groping my way towards running non-dungeon based adventures or even having them searching for locations, it was brutal, it did not come easily or natural to me. Oddly enough, now most all of my home-brewed adventures are overland types or seaborne.
When I started making my own Garnia campaign world, I consciously and unconsciously aped both the Known World from the Expert set and Greyhawk, which I had recently read and considered to be the standard by which all D&D campaign worlds should be judged. Since I started creating Garnia I have only occasionally DMed outside of my baby. The exceptions to Garnia, however, are what I wanted to talk about now.
The biggest exceptions, of course, have been using published worlds. I have run brief campaigns in both the Known World, which I refuse to call Mystara, and in the World of Greyhawk. When I started running Oriental Adventures I used the default Kara-Tur setting, and I usually revisited it when I ran later OA games. Aside from that I have run games set on earth in various historical eras, mostly in and around Europe. I have created two different Roman themed fantasy worlds, one of which was retconned in to Garnia eventually as another continent. I created a Japanese themed fantasy world that also got retconned into Garnia as an island chain off of the coast, slightly off map. I created a Norse themed world that I also added to Garnia, off map. Discounting the cultural flavor of each of those and, of course, Celtic themed Garnia; all of them are essentially the same multiracial fantasy that has been D&D standard since day one.
I have created exactly two decently non-standard D&D worlds. One was uniquely Anglo-Saxon in theme and kept pretty close to the source. I ran that for a few sessions, one on one, with my wife Mona back when we first moved in together. As the campaign wore on, I started using more standard D&D-isms and ultimately decided to prematurely end the campaign before I ruined it with a lack of preparation. I was in college at the time and that was my Anglo-Saxon semester. I had a bunch of classes that covered early medieval England, from literature to history to art. I created and ran the entire thing pretty much on the fly, I was just so steeped in the period and the people it was easy. I don't think I could ever do it again. I tried rebooting the setting for a group a few years later and it was less successful and devolved pretty rapidly into standard D&D with Anglo-Saxon names.
The other campaign setting was based on Jacobite era Scotland. There was a fermentation of ideas I got from the movie "Rob Roy" and the novel "Caledon of the Mists", I thought I could bring it together using my considerable knowledge of the period and Scottish history. I was wrong, I jumped in too quickly. My gaming crew and I had just watched "Rob Roy" on DVD, and I said I could DM a game in a fantasy-historical setting. They made characters and we started. I quickly realized I had no real adventures for them, but they seemed content to roam around the countryside and be all rebellious and such. When the game ended that night everyone was enthused about it, but we never played there again. Mea culpa.
Strangely, that not-Scotland of the early 18th century still appeals to me. While I have been sitting here for the last few weeks with my games called on account of snow, which in Mexico NY means A LOT of snow, I have been all gamer ADD about my D&D campaign. I hate to end a campaign, but these thoughts enter my head and I want to play there. I have been giving serious thought to revisiting this Scottish Gaelic Jacobite rebellion influenced setting.
This is partly due to the fact that I have been thinking more and more about a humans only world, like most of the stuff from Appendix N. Conan the barbarian never had elves and dwarves in his party. A human only game world, right out of the gate, makes any encounter with non-humans special and kind of creepy. Kind of Lovecraftian. I kind of want that.
For a more "standard" medieval D&D world I have been thinking of an entirely new setting I am calling "In the Ruins of the Shattered Empire". I see it as kind of like this- Imagine a world where the Mongol empire conquered all of Europe, resistance was stiff, so they stomped it flat; then the Great Khan died and numerous claimants fought a century or so of brutal civil wars which pretty much destroyed everything their empire had going for it. Add magic. You are there.
I am still working on it, and I have a few other bits I am considering, but the humans only thing is definitely a go.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Charisma and Renaming D&D Stats
Charisma and Renaming D&D Stats
I seem to remember at one point some OSR blogs were doing an exercise in renaming D&D's stats. I did not participate then, but I have long been a fan of trying to do so. What the stat is named causes a certain perception of how that stat works, what it is in it's essence. Each D&D stat has certain preconceived notions about it that are not necessarily accurate to how the stat works. I got to thinking about this again because of today's Bat in the Attic post, which I have not yet read, but the title got me to thinking. Charisma is one of the most problematic stats. It is the only social stat and the only one that I can't think of a different name for that still doesn't change the perception of how it works. It's mechanical effect in game, pretty much regardless of edition, is easily ignored. It has such an under used mechanical effect that most people just roleplay through that part*.
Charisma is the universal dump stat. I am pretty sure that if the rules didn't say you needed at least a 17 charisma to be a Paladin that it would be their dump stat too. What does charisma do for you? Charisma gives you your maximum number of henchman. How often is that maximum a problem? I have never seen a PC run out of henchman slots. Charisma affects the loyalty of henchmen and hirelings, but how often does that come in to play? Reaction modifiers? When was the last time your adventurers decided to negotiate in the dungeon? I wish it would happen more often, but the "see strangers, kill strangers" meme** runs strong in D&D. 3e at least added the tie in to turning undead, which changed it's dump stat status for Clerics.
In short, charisma can't be faked. It's not the only stat that that problem, all the mental stats do. However, given the effects of the other two (Intelligence and Wisdom), they can be easily renamed so you don't have to. Intelligence could be renamed "Magic" or "Magical Aptitude" and no one would be able to complain that their 18 intelligence Magic-User should have been able to figure out the clues, and no one would have to try to "dumb" their character down***. A simple name change keeps the mechanical aspects of the stat, but changes the perception. Wisdom could be renamed "Piety" or "Willpower", both of those names contain part of the mechanical aspect of the stat. If you rename wisdom to either of them, then you wouldn't have people begging for a "do-over****" because of whatever impulsive or foolish thing they just did based on their high wisdom score. It removes much of the personality modifying nature of the stat, which role players should like because then they can play their character how they want rather than being restricted by the stat. In my experience wisdom is often used as a secondary dump stat.
So, if I were to rename the standard D&D stats, maybe for a retro-clone, I'd go with:
Strength would stay the same.
Intelligence would become Magical Aptitude. I try to stick with one word, but if I just name it magic it changes the perception of what it is to something I don't want. I want the player to see that they have an aptitude for magic, not an innate magical power.
Wisdom would become Piety. I am not 100% satisfied with that, because it still has a role-playing aspect to it, but I can't think of a better name for a "God-Power Channeling Aptitude" stat.
Dexterity would become Agility. This is another one I am not fully behind, but dexterity as a name for the stat doesn't really encompass all of the mechanical aspects of the stat either and agility comes closer in my opinion.
Constitution would become Endurance. Not because constitution is such a bad word for what the sat is, but because when most people hear the word constitution they think of the document or maybe the ship. General vigorousness of health isn't the first thing to spring to mind unless you are already a D&D player.
Lastly,
Charisma would become Influence. My wife Mona came up with that, in her capacity of living thesaurus, when I walked into the living room and started talking about this whole renaming stats exercise. I like to use my wife and kids as a sounding board for my RPG ideas. Anyway, influence pretty accurately covers the entire extent of what the stat is and what it does mechanically, plus it has a more neutral sounding perception. That is to say Charisma implies a magnetic personality, the word itself implies a high stat; influence is neutrally perceived. A high influence score shows that you can easily influence people where the opposite is true of a low score. Unfortunately it still has a role-playing negatable affect. Mechanically it is unchanged. How it is used (or ignored) in play is unchanged. The perception of the stat is changed though, clarified somewhat.
*The caveat here is that people will use a high charisma score as a reason why they should be able to get their own way in social situations, whether it's "Lay down your arms and the king will grant pardons to all" or "I seduce the princess"; high charisma isn't really a charm person effect. Also note that no one ever wants to suffer the consequences of low charisma by having a reasonable request denied or argument lost just because they lack the charisma to convince people to listen.
**This applies mainly in uncivilized areas like wilderness and dungeon environments. When back in town adventurers are generally on their best behavior, with some exceptions for carousing.
***Or worse, not dumb their character down. The 5 intelligence Fighter should not be the guy solving all the riddles and figuring out the mystery. Much like charisma, intelligence is tough to roleplay and people want the bonus for a high intelligence score, but not the penalties associated with a low one.
****Again, no one ever wants to be penalized for a bad wisdom score by making their character do unwise or foolhardy actions, but they expect a high wisdom to act as a safety net against ill advised player decisions.
I seem to remember at one point some OSR blogs were doing an exercise in renaming D&D's stats. I did not participate then, but I have long been a fan of trying to do so. What the stat is named causes a certain perception of how that stat works, what it is in it's essence. Each D&D stat has certain preconceived notions about it that are not necessarily accurate to how the stat works. I got to thinking about this again because of today's Bat in the Attic post, which I have not yet read, but the title got me to thinking. Charisma is one of the most problematic stats. It is the only social stat and the only one that I can't think of a different name for that still doesn't change the perception of how it works. It's mechanical effect in game, pretty much regardless of edition, is easily ignored. It has such an under used mechanical effect that most people just roleplay through that part*.
Charisma is the universal dump stat. I am pretty sure that if the rules didn't say you needed at least a 17 charisma to be a Paladin that it would be their dump stat too. What does charisma do for you? Charisma gives you your maximum number of henchman. How often is that maximum a problem? I have never seen a PC run out of henchman slots. Charisma affects the loyalty of henchmen and hirelings, but how often does that come in to play? Reaction modifiers? When was the last time your adventurers decided to negotiate in the dungeon? I wish it would happen more often, but the "see strangers, kill strangers" meme** runs strong in D&D. 3e at least added the tie in to turning undead, which changed it's dump stat status for Clerics.
In short, charisma can't be faked. It's not the only stat that that problem, all the mental stats do. However, given the effects of the other two (Intelligence and Wisdom), they can be easily renamed so you don't have to. Intelligence could be renamed "Magic" or "Magical Aptitude" and no one would be able to complain that their 18 intelligence Magic-User should have been able to figure out the clues, and no one would have to try to "dumb" their character down***. A simple name change keeps the mechanical aspects of the stat, but changes the perception. Wisdom could be renamed "Piety" or "Willpower", both of those names contain part of the mechanical aspect of the stat. If you rename wisdom to either of them, then you wouldn't have people begging for a "do-over****" because of whatever impulsive or foolish thing they just did based on their high wisdom score. It removes much of the personality modifying nature of the stat, which role players should like because then they can play their character how they want rather than being restricted by the stat. In my experience wisdom is often used as a secondary dump stat.
So, if I were to rename the standard D&D stats, maybe for a retro-clone, I'd go with:
Strength would stay the same.
Intelligence would become Magical Aptitude. I try to stick with one word, but if I just name it magic it changes the perception of what it is to something I don't want. I want the player to see that they have an aptitude for magic, not an innate magical power.
Wisdom would become Piety. I am not 100% satisfied with that, because it still has a role-playing aspect to it, but I can't think of a better name for a "God-Power Channeling Aptitude" stat.
Dexterity would become Agility. This is another one I am not fully behind, but dexterity as a name for the stat doesn't really encompass all of the mechanical aspects of the stat either and agility comes closer in my opinion.
Constitution would become Endurance. Not because constitution is such a bad word for what the sat is, but because when most people hear the word constitution they think of the document or maybe the ship. General vigorousness of health isn't the first thing to spring to mind unless you are already a D&D player.
Lastly,
Charisma would become Influence. My wife Mona came up with that, in her capacity of living thesaurus, when I walked into the living room and started talking about this whole renaming stats exercise. I like to use my wife and kids as a sounding board for my RPG ideas. Anyway, influence pretty accurately covers the entire extent of what the stat is and what it does mechanically, plus it has a more neutral sounding perception. That is to say Charisma implies a magnetic personality, the word itself implies a high stat; influence is neutrally perceived. A high influence score shows that you can easily influence people where the opposite is true of a low score. Unfortunately it still has a role-playing negatable affect. Mechanically it is unchanged. How it is used (or ignored) in play is unchanged. The perception of the stat is changed though, clarified somewhat.
*The caveat here is that people will use a high charisma score as a reason why they should be able to get their own way in social situations, whether it's "Lay down your arms and the king will grant pardons to all" or "I seduce the princess"; high charisma isn't really a charm person effect. Also note that no one ever wants to suffer the consequences of low charisma by having a reasonable request denied or argument lost just because they lack the charisma to convince people to listen.
**This applies mainly in uncivilized areas like wilderness and dungeon environments. When back in town adventurers are generally on their best behavior, with some exceptions for carousing.
***Or worse, not dumb their character down. The 5 intelligence Fighter should not be the guy solving all the riddles and figuring out the mystery. Much like charisma, intelligence is tough to roleplay and people want the bonus for a high intelligence score, but not the penalties associated with a low one.
****Again, no one ever wants to be penalized for a bad wisdom score by making their character do unwise or foolhardy actions, but they expect a high wisdom to act as a safety net against ill advised player decisions.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Some images of the found trove
Of all the found items I always find it amusing to look at the cover of the Great Khan Game; it has the AD&D 2nd edition logo as well as the Forgotten Realms logo despite having nothing to do with either.
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