Samurai, Shugenja & Sohei

I have been working on a total rebuild of AD&D's Oriental Adventures book for a while now, just to fix the parts I thought were broken. I play-tested the rebuilt classes for the first time with my regular group recently.

First, a little background: my goal was to make the game more compatible with “classic” 1^st edition AD&D, and that as I played it back in the day and still play it; which is to say with a lot more OD&D via Holmes Basic and a healthy dose of Moldvay/Cook B/X. I have also spent the better part of a decade tracking down other Asian inspired RPGs and reading through them to see what the best bits were, mining for inspiration you might say. The best were Bushido, Sengoku and Legend of the Five Rings (which already has a D&D conversion, albeit 3e). Clearly then, my OA project (which I should give at least a working title) is mostly inspired by Japan; I have, in fact, removed non-Japanese elements from the game where I found them.

Second, some of the character class design concepts were still in fluctuation in my head right up until the players started rolling up ability scores. I knew I wanted the characters in my OA game to be able to fit into anybody's standard AD&D game and NOT be over-powered compared to their occidental cousins. Ki powers are gone from every class. I also ditched all non-weapon proficiencies; my thinking on that was that any character should pretty much know how to do the stuff that makes sense for his Character Class, Birth Rank and background, failing that a player should be able to come up with a plausible reason why their character might know how to do something with the DM using his judgment as to what constitutes plausible.

On to the Character Classes-

What's gone? The Barbarian, the Wu Jen, the Yakuza and the Ninja. The Barbarian didn't make the cut based on me deciding that I was homogenizing the rules set to Japanese. The Wu Jen mostly got the axe for the same reason, he's just a funky Magic-User named in Chinese. The elemental aspects of Asian magic were rudimentary at best. The Yakuza was just a guild Thief with some annoying and usually hard to play special abilities, they make good NPCs, lousy PCs; I replaced them with the Thief from AD&D. Thieves are universal, they don't all need to be gangster thugs in a feudal Japanese fantasy setting. I'll probably change the name if I ever learn the Japanese word for “Thief”. The Ninja I replaced with my Shinobi, which, now that I have a copy of the AD&D 2^nd edition Complete Ninja Handbook is close enough to their Ninja that I want to go back in time and sue TSR.

The Bushi is pretty much a straight port over of the Fighter, I may change this up some for flavor, but no one wanted to play a straight Bushi, so it didn't come up.

The Samurai are about the power level of an AD&D Paladin, only less holy (which is to say not really at all holy) and more combat oriented. Maybe a Ranger? I made them super melee fighters by giving them the 3e feat “Cleave” as a class ability, it seemed pretty Samurai like. They also get to specialize with weapons, yes, I kept weapon specialization from OA/UA. Although now it occurs to me that I may have to create a separate Samurai Archer type class because this class is so melee oriented. Anyway, requires a STR 9 WIS 14 and one other special I'll mention later.

Kensei means “Sword-Saint” or “Sword Master”, so I am tempted to make them solely a sword based class, but discussions with my gaming buddies tell me that it probably would be even less popular a choice for players if I did. I changed their ridiculous XP advancement back down to something reasonable and toned down their powers. A lot of the class abilities require that the player role-play, or at least announce they are practicing whenever possible. While I encourage role-playing, I can't see the stiff penalties for failing to practice, using a magic weapon or using a weapon other than your chosen weapon for instance; they're already the only Fighter Sub-Class that can NOT wear armor. Nobody chose to play a Kensei though, so I guess it's still in flux until someone does. I guess an Archer Kensei would make up for the Samurai's melee focus though. Still not happy about the no armor thing, but I am listing to several arguments for and against, so I am open minded on this point.

Shugenja, this is a big one. I never really liked the Wu Jen or the original Shukenja so I basically started back-porting the 3e OA Shugenja to 1^st edition AD&D, essentially making a Cleric/Wizard mix for the game. I realize this is something of a cop-out, but creating something that's pretty much what I want anyway, when it's already been done by somebody else and it works (theoretically) seems like a waste of my time. No one wanted to play one though, so it's unfinished.

Sohei got a major rework from me. I bring them more in line with OD&D or B/X Clerics only without weapon restrictions and give them the d8 Hit Die. So, pretty much an AD&D Cleric with no spell at first level and all weapons available. Waiting until 5^th level for spells was BS.

The Monk also saw major reworking. I looked at various edition's versions of the Monk Class and mostly mixed and matched what powers/level I liked while dropping the over-all power level, but increasing lower level survivability. They get d8 Hit Dice and fight as Clerics and can use their Monk special attacks with martial arts weapons. No one wanted to play a Monk though, so it hasn't been tested.

Originally OA had one extra Ability Score- Comeliness, which I hated and ignored. Hidden within the game is another one though. One that I brought out and replaced the loser stat Comeliness with- Birth Rank. I changed it from a roll after you pick your Character Class, with Class based modifiers to a straight 3d6 roll. Now it's a prerequisite for becoming a Samurai (13+) and, when combined with Ancestry and Birth Right rolls can seriously affect your starting money. It will not affect any OA characters leaving their “home” setting, but it strongly affects reaction rolls. I actually don't see why this couldn't be ported over into any OSR game setting, I mean in non-AD&D you roll 3d6 for starting gold, that's pretty much the same thing- a 13+ would indicate your character was a member of the warrior aristocracy (or merchant elite) an 18 would indicate noble birth.

In the end my players chose to be a pair of Samurai, a Thief and a Sohei. I retained the Ancestry, and Family rolls from the original OA book, because they weren't broken (mostly, what is will be fixed soon) and used them to tie the player's characters together much tighter than any standard AD&D party would have been. Because of my liberal AD&D policy of rolling 4d6 arrange as you like, and the fact that the players are all veterans of at least one OA campaign, they all chose to put a decent stat score into Birth Rank, which meant I could make them all really interconnected like the aristocracy of a small province really would be. They are all related to at least one other character by either blood or marriage and one is the Daimyo's sister-in-law. OA, the only flavor of D&D where you might start off married with children.

New Years resolution- Finish this beast of a project.

Happy New Year everyone!

Contest Update

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but I am going to add Roman Numeral dice to the top three winners. What gamer doesn't love dice? I also have a play report I am behind on, I DMed a party through a Roman themed adventure where all of the characters were members of the Praetorian Guard, but a secret elite unit that hunted supernatural threats to the empire. For fun I set it during the last year of the reign of Caligula. One of the players dubbed the game setting "Ancient Roman Ghost Busters", I can live with that, although I had both Cthulu Invictus and The Walking Dead in mind when I wrote the first adventure.

Anyway, happy holidays to all of you, whatever holidays you celebrate or just a day off from work, if that's your thing. My Saturnalia/Yule/Christmas has been exceptional this year- here are a sampling of the kick-ass miniatures and the game to go with them that I have gotten so far-

I have to say, I was skeptical of hard plastic miniatures, but Warlord has won me over and the rulebook is a work of art.

 

 The Fanatics groups are both metal miniature sets, and Warlord's metals have always been high quality. I look forward to a marathon painting session over the Christmas break session with the kids and my wife.

New Contest Sponsor

Paul Elliot of Zozer Games has kindly offered to sponsor the contest, since the top prizes are copies of his game and, as a bonus he's going to throw in a pdf copy of the Warband supplement to 43 AD to the 1st place winner. 43 AD was nominated for best roleplaying game of 2012 at this year's UK Games Expo.

So, now I am scurrying to find some more prizes with a Roman theme to go with this, but, thus far, the contest prizes are-

1st place pdfs of 43 AD and Warband, an 8"x10" canvas print and a custom character portrait.
2nd and 3rd are the pdf of 43 AD and the custom character portrait.

I'll work on differentiating 2nd and 3rd places a bit, I still have some sponsorship irons in the fire and I'd like to see how they pan out before I commit anything from my collection to the prize haul.

EDIT- just to be helpful Richard LeBlanc of the Save Vs Dragon blog and New Big Dragon Games has already posted something to help inspire everyone for the contest here.

Roman Adventure Contest- Prize Update

A quick update for the contest.

My lovely wife Mona has graciously offered to provide commissioned character portraits for 1st-3rd place winners. Many of you are already familiar with her work, as it has been featured on my blog before and on a couple of other OSR blogs. There is also a link to her Deviantart gallery to the left. So get out there and get busy writing, for the Senate and People of Rome!

Io Saturnalia!

As I celebrate my return to regular blogging, the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia and my recent election as Plebeian Tribune in Nova Roma, I also am here to announce a new themed contest. You can probably guess the theme this time around is “The Might and Glory of Rome”. Rome offers us so much to build off of from their religion and their history for an adventure contest- Legions, Gladiators, Senatorial intrigue, Conquest, Civil Wars and interaction with other ancient cultures. Not to mention distinctive periods within Roman history, me, I am a late republic/early empire kind of a guy, but a lot of people are really into Rome at her height under her best emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius.

So, I am not placing too many rules on this contest as far as content length, we've run into issues with that before; what I am looking for is a Roman themed adventure. It can be in One-Page-Dungeon format or it can be a short adventure or a giant hex-crawl; it's up to you, what you want to submit as an entry, each entry will be judged on it's own merit by my veteran panel of judges. Multiple entries are permitted, but remember- you may end up competing against yourself for the top spot! The adventure can take place in a purely historical Roman setting, or it can be a Roman themed fantasy world or something in between, like a Roman empire with magic where the Satyrs and Nymphs are real. Submitting an adventure, unless you specifically state otherwise upon submitting said adventure, is granting permission for me to publish the adventures to the web for free. All adventures should use OSR standard rule types- Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, D&D or AD&D- you know, the one's that are essentially compatible and interchangeable; plus they're the games I play and it's my contest, so I make the rules.

Oh, and just to help everyone out, inspiration-wise and what-not, a few days ago this was posted at the Land of Nod; and he thought it was a useless blog post.

Prizes, thus far, are-

-for each entry one spiffy refrigerator magnet from the Great Khan's blog, probably with a highly decorated envelope, courtesy of my lovely wife Mona.

-1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place will each receive a pdf copy of 43 AD, the game that I helped edit and playtest.

-1^st place will receive an 8”x10” canvas print from easycanvasprints.com

As always I am looking to find more sponsors for the contest, and I'll try and renegotiate my sponsorship deal with Mick Leach from Eastern Front Studios; they just had a successful Kickstarter program for some Gladiator Dwarf miniatures that was partially the inspiration for this contest.

All entries should be emailed to me at williamjdowie AT gmail DOT com and should be received before midnight on the ides of January this contest is officially opened as of NOW.

A Slight Break in my OSR Blogging Hiatus

To bring you this dice related announcement-

I spotted these bad boys on Amazon and impulse ordered them, so I thought I'd share. They are slightly larger than standard D6s and I like that. My only real regrets are that I only thought to get two and I didn't shop around; they might have been cheaper on EBay.

They make Roman Numeral D10s and D12s too, so I may grab some of them. I may have a Roman themed D&D game coming up soon and I am all about the props and setting. I usually even theme the food to the setting.

Mongol Month Draws to a Close

It's a little sad that this month didn't produce a better contest than it did. I was really trying to use it to springboard back into writing and really caring about gaming after my sister died. I spent most of the month though either sick or just depressed still and didn't really promote the whole Mongol thing or my contest particularly. As I write this I am 5 ½ hours from the submissions deadline and I have one short adventure here. I am afraid that I am going to have to call the contest off for lack of participation and interest and I am going to take a hiatus from blogging until I get my self more straight.

To be honest, the holiday season is probably going to be rough for me, so I don't imagine I'll be posting much in December. I have a plan for January though, so I hope that taking December (mostly) off will recharge me and give me the break I need to get my self together.

In the meantime, I still have like 50 of those refrigerator magnets; so anyone who wants one should just send me a SASE to-

William J. Dowie

32 Risley Drive

Mexico, NY 13114

If you already requested one and didn't get it, it's because Mona has been swamped, so this is just easier. Sorry, they probably will lack the art.

I'll be lurking around and reading OSR blogs in the interim, I just don't really have anything to say right now.

Fight ON!

Thanksgiving Update from the Great Khan

Mongol Month hasn't been a great success for me largely due to the fact that I have been sick for most of it. Cold, followed by the flu, it's been a miserable couple of weeks; once again, I blame my kids for bringing these sicknesses home from school :) Still, I had hoped to be more inspiring for my contest over the course of the month and I have dropped the ball. I haven't even done much gaming-wise except play some Civilization 4 and design a medieval town in the Sims 2 for a D&D campaign; complete with NPCs that have interactive relationships, I don't know why I never thought of this as a tool before.

I have been reading blogs and trying to keep up with the OSR, D&D Next and general gaming news, but I just haven't been compelled to do any commenting on anything until today. Today I figured, since I have the time and I am feeling better and it's been over a week since I posted anything to my blog, I thought I'd mention a couple of things.

First- I got my free miniature from The Assault Group for “Liking” their Facebook page. I really thought it wasn't coming, that I had missed a deadline on that or gotten lost in the shuffle or something because it had been so long since I had “liked” their page for their free mini promotion; as it turns out they mailed it in September. I am guessing customs held things up. Anyway, serendipitously, it's a Mongol General miniature and he's pretty cool. 28Mm scale and way more detailed than I am accustomed to seeing in a miniature from a wargaming manufacturer. Definitely RPG standards of quality there. Maybe I just don't buy enough 28mm wargaming minis.

Second- I just found out that there is an Up Front Kickstarter running. Up Front Was Avalon Hill's Squad Leader card game. I loved that game and I am going into that Kickstarter hard. I have the original version and all of it's expansions and I have been waiting for someone to bring it back into print and expand it some more. My original has been played hard and is starting to get a bit ratty and buying just a replacement set without expansions is generally more expensive than going all in ($125.00) on the Kickstarter. If you like Squad Leader, WW II games or fast paced card games I recommend this one.

Anyway, if you are in the US and you are celebrating Thanksgiving- Happy Thanksgiving!

Community World Building- Name That Khanate!

In addition to seeking the help of an experienced cartographer to help me make a good looking map of my new “Yassa: Legacy of the Khans” campaign world, I also have been stumbling a bit on names for the lesser Khanates. See, in our world Khanates, or Hordes, are named after the ethnic make-up of the people in them, like the Kipchak Horde*, or a color/metal like the Golden or White Hordes, or they are named after the founding leader, like the Chagatai Khanate, or just the geographical place where they are, like the Crimean Khanate. Now I have done this all, but I have also been trying to give them some more flavor, some descriptor that evokes something when you hear the name. Frankly, the well is running dry.

So I decided to run another contest- here on my blog: Name a Khanate (or Horde), I'll put up a poll and the top entries will be put into my new campaign world and you'll receive a credit, my thanks, and if you send me your mailing address, a cool refrigerator magnet! The envelope it arrives in will probably be decorated by my lovely wife Mona too! Send me your prospective Khanate or horde name at williamjdowie AT gmail DOT com sometime before the 27^th of November and we'll run the poll from then until the 1^st of December, finishing both of my Mongol themed contests at once. Four days of voting should be enough, right? I picked the 27^th because it's my anniversary.

Now, while this is a fantasy world, it is more Swords & Sorcery style, there are no “common” monsters, no tribes of humanoids roaming around. The commonest “monster” is man. Think “Conan the Barbarian”, but in a world where the Mongols stomped every other kingdom into the dust. Now it's a couple of centuries after they peaked, and they've broken into a bunch of squabbling sub-empires and the ethnic groups that they conquered are re-asserting themselves in an attempt to overthrow their steppe descended overlords.

Essentially this world's Genghis Khan is a mixture of our Genghis Khan and Conan the Barbarian. He has Genghis Khan's background and ambition and Conan's absolute bad-assery. Think of him like a Frazetta Mongol leading a horde to conquer the world, kind of like this guy-

Anyway, I'll repeat my request for artists again, since I got no response last time. I always bury the lead on these things, ARTISTS AND CARTOGRAPHERS NEEDED, contact me if you are interested in helping out with this world design project. I am married to an artist, I appreciate the effort it takes and that you don't want to work for free. That said, this is not a commercial product, but a gift to the community. I can give credit and I'll be happy to send a refrigerator magnet to anyone who helps on the project at all, but as much as I'd like to, I can't afford to budget for artists on a project that's going to be free. I just wanted to get that out there so there wouldn't be any misunderstandings or anything. More art is better, more artists is better too. I'd like to put this together with a cool piece of cover art, some interior illustration and nice maps.

*Yes, I am aware that the Kipchak Horde is an alternate name of the Golden Horde.

Mongol Adventure Contest and Friday Night Update

I was sick with a cold for most of this week and didn't blog at all. I also put aside my world building project in favor of playing some Civilization 4 and reading to recharge my batteries some. I am largely better now and will be DMing one of the entries in the Mongol Adventure Contest for my home group tomorrow. The contest is going OK, but I'd be happier with some more entries. I hope you all are still working on yours because I am still working on more prizes.

Post Number 450

And there's not much gaming, miniature or even Mongol related to report. My youngest daughter Ember's birthday is this weekend and I have a houseful of teenage girls to deal with as a result. I offered to DM a game special for them, but they didn't take me up on the offer. There was some talk about maybe painting some miniatures today or tomorrow, I guess we'll see. I canceled my regular game this weekend for this weekend long "Em-stravaganza" and now I kind of feel like the odd man out in my own house. My wife fits in with them OK, so do Ashli and John. I don't really relate to teenaged girls though, apparently.

So I am spending my weekend trying to figure out why Darryl's computer won't power up. All of the components work, except with his new motherboard. I've done about everything I possibly can to figure this one out, and I am about to say it must be the motherboard, but the same thing is happening with his other system too. All of those components work, new motherboard, won't power up. I feel like it is staggeringly unlikely that both of his new motherboards are DOA, they are from different manufacturers, picked for different systems with different needs. I think it is more likely that there is something I am missing, despite having done this numerous times before and having followed all of the directions, then looked up numerous diagnostic approaches. Although when I put it out there like that it seems like I am kind of reaching for a reason why I am doing something wrong just because I am not a computer repair professional.

Lastly, if anyone reading this has any cartographic skills or is an artist and wants to help out with my "Yassa: Legacy of the Khans" project, email me at williamjdowie AT gmail DOT com I'd really appreciate the help and my regular cartographer is swamped and I'd like to give my wife a break from doing all of the art.

World Building, D&D and Me

I guess this is really what my last post was all about. So, rather than reply to all the comments on that post I decided to write this post.

What got me thinking about the whole thing was the fact that I am knee deep in a new world building project right now; my working title is "Yassa- Legacy of the Khans". It's more or less based on the idea that, in a world much like our own, there arose a Genghis Khan type figure that united his people and that he and his descendants conquered the entire known world in their 13th century. The campaign is set in the dawn of their 15th century as the empire has fragmented into rival khanates and their subject peoples are starting to rebel and reassert themselves. Many of the local Khans have "gone native" and adopted the culture and religions of their subjects, causing tensions, and outright wars, between the various parts of the once unified empire. I am not as far along on this project as I'd like to be at this point, but these things happen; it's a pretty ambitious project.

I also am reminded of the various other world building projects I have done.

I had a Greco-Roman themed world where all of the Dwarves were male, born to Human families and considered to be the sons of the God Vulcan. There were no other Demi-Human races. All of the Humans and Dwarves were native to a single large island archipelago and they had just developed the maritime technology to begin their age of exploration. The rest of the world was populated by bestial Humanoids that were the descendants of mankind that had been cursed by the gods for lapsing into Evil ways, Pig-Faced Orcs, Dog-Faced Kobolds, Jackal-Headed Gnolls, etc.

This one lasted one session, and I didn't even get to DM it. Darryl and I were co-DMing this as a project, he DMed the first session. Everyone had a good time. A person who showed up late and didn't play spent 4 hours explaining why this setting was lame and "regular" D&D would be better, but if he had to play here, he'd be OK with playing a Half-Ogre.

One semester of college I developed an Anglo-Saxon themed world where humanity clung to a fringe of coastline west of a huge forest, beyond which was a vast steppe land dominated by a Sauron type dark lord and his Humanoid minions. The Elves, the only Demi-Human race that had appeared in the campaign before the end, had fled across the western sea and only a small band returned on a quest for a magic sword buried in a mound.

Mona and I played this one as a solo campaign for most of the semester and petered out around finals. I resurrected the setting a couple of years later for a larger group, but it didn't last more than a few sessions. Nobody was really thrilled with having Anglo-Saxon names, they wanted a more "regular" D&D game.

Then there is the grand-daddy of all of my world building projects: Garnia. 30+ years in the making, it's finally getting a serious reworking for eventual public consumption. That's 30+ years of notes and revisions and retcons and stuff that's only stuck in my head. I have a whole other blog devoted to it. Garnia is (mostly, at it's core) a Celtic world where Gauls and Britons were literally brought to a different world via magical means. Once they got there, they conquered an Elven empire and then had to take over their mantle of defending pretty much everything from the marauding armies of Humanoids. They aren't the only ones that made the trip, and other creatures made the trip from other worlds too. Garnia is the closest to a "standard" D&D world as I have ever created, which makes sense, I started it when I was a kid and wanted to include all the stuff from my brand new AD&D Monster Manual.

Garnia has actually absorbed two other entire world building projects that were based on a similar theme, one with Romans and one with Vikings. I just placed them on different, far away, parts of the world.

Garnia has been my default campaign world for over 30 years, some campaigns have flourished there, some have died after one session; it's tough to say why. I've run every edition of D&D, except 4th, and Hackmaster there, plus a Homebrew system and we're working on another homebrew system now. Hell, I've even run GURPS there. Once.

I guess the world building is important to me because it lets me understand more fully how the NPCs are going to react to any given situation. A cultural/political/religious/whatever context is important to me as a DM for figuring out the motives and justifications for actions that these NPCs or Monsters are going to use. I guess that's worth more to me to get into character than it is for the minor difficulties of players having trouble pronouncing exotic names or being expected to read a couple of emails or a cultural background sheet before we start.

The comments on my last post were largely supportive of my deep world building for every campaign I run, except for one that said I was trying to tell my story instead of letting the players tell theirs. I guess that might be true to a certain extent, D&D is interactive group story telling to each other, but the DM is responsible for the setting, the plot and all of the non-main characters. You can't really play the game without the DM's input, because there would be no story to tell.

Just out of curiosity, which of these worlds sounds the most compelling to you from the brief synopsis?

When You're Not On The Same Page...

What are you supposed to do when you are not on the same page as your players, metaphorically speaking? As a DM I run into this issue more often than I would like, partly because of my gamer ADD and partly because my players have a set of expectations when they come to the table to play D&D. Sometimes it's a stylistic difference, and part (or most) of the group is on board with the way things are going, like the more socially oriented games I have been playing with my overwhelmingly female group, where the guys playing are outnumbered 2:1 or more usually; sometimes it's more about the game I want to run, like the number of times I have tried to run a game that was more grounded in actual medieval (or ancient or Norse, whatever) myth and reality and had it not quite go as well as I'd hoped because the players really just wanted to "Play some 'regular' D&D".

This can be a problem for me, personally, because it leads to frustration and burnout on my part, as DM. I start to think the players aren't having a good time and that makes me not have a good time, which then turns the whole thing into a self fulfilling prophecy. I am also a little annoyed by the whole "Regular D&D" thing, it as though, just because I try and put a little verisimilitude into my home-brewed campaign worlds and avoid the cookie-cutter sameness of the published "Standard" D&D worlds, from Greyhawk and The Known World (Mystara) to the Forgotten Realms, the primary campaign areas in those worlds are like a renaissance festival with a large fantastic component; it's like they took the entirety of Western Europe from the Fall of Rome through the Age of Exploration (minus the guns) and threw them in a blender and then added Orcs.

Now, before the fans of those settings jump on me, I have loved each of them; and once you get off the beaten path, they start following the same patterns of verisimilitude that I do by stealing real Earth cultures and their mythologies and making them work in their fantasy settings. I loved Kara-Tur but it may as well have been a map of Asia with Japan on it twice. The Grand Duchy of Karameikos was just a Byzantine Greek take over of Slavic territory, for the most part.

I digress though, and maybe ramble a bit, my question here is why do I spend so many hours building a realistic campaign setting, a world with a lot of internal consistency, when all of my players would be happy with just playing in Greyhawk or Mystara, and some would seem to prefer it? Now, some of them are setting junkies, some of them loved Rokugan for instance, but some would be happier if there was just a town that appeared outside the dungeon when they needed a place to spend their gold. The greater campaign world means little to nothing to some of my players and I have a hard time understanding that. Town doesn't need a name, or more than a handful of token, nameless NPCs; it's a place where they are (relatively) safe to rest up and refurbish between adventuring expeditions and I think there's a problem with that. Is it my problem though?

Am I expecting too much out of my players when I present them with an entire world based on an extrapolation of what Gaulish and British society would have been like if it had flourished for another couple of centuries, rather than being wiped out by the Roman empire and driven to the "Celtic Fringe"? Or is it too exotic to have a setting based on Arthurian Myth and other medieval legends, complete with all of the Christian trappings? How about the Norse pseudo-historical setting I have running right now, where they have already run into creatures out of Norse myth? I have one player that wasn't interested in that one, so he sat it out. 9th century Scandinavia was too far outside the realm of what he wanted for "regular" D&D. Which is kind of funny now, because, despite it's historical start, the party of Vikings is now trapped in an ancient Dwarven mega-dungeon complex on a mysterious moving island in the north Atlantic.

Do I like to use fantasy analogues of real world cultures, sure. The past is a great story. Adding in the myths of the people that you are putting in your world to make them more fantastically real only makes sense if you are playing a fantasy role-playing game, I do it all the time. TSR did it all the time too, with greater and lesser effectiveness. Authors do it too, Harry Turtledove used Romans traveling to "Videssos", which was just a Constantinople stand in with magic. Turtledove got his start as a medievalist specializing in Byzantium, information I got because he was my college advisor's brother's college room-mate, it came up one day when she saw me reading one of his novels. Anyway, if stealing cultures from Earth's history is OK for the professionals at TSR and famous authors like Harry Turtledove, why shouldn't I do it too?

Or is there something about D&D that needs to be generic, western European fantasy based to make it appealing to people? Oriental Adventures wasn't super popular, it has always been kind of a niche D&D fandom. I assume that Al Qadim and Maztica and other exotic, non-European based settings are too. The ancient world doesn't seem to fare too well either, I've run games more than once in settings based on Rome and rarely had them last for more than a couple of sessions.

People just seem to lose interest in the exotic. One shots are fine, campaigns are not; is this everyone's experience?

New Contest Sponsor

Just in- Mick Leach from Easternfront Studios (Makers of fine Metal and Resin miniatures) has just agreed to sponsor the November Mongol Module Contest with prizes for first, second and third place.

The "Odin" from their "Myths of Legend" line.

Some Mongol Inspiration

Since I spent today in other pursuits, working on projects and reading through "Delving Deeper", I thought I'd share some inspirational and evocative art for those of you who might be working on an adventure for my contest. All of these were done by an artist from Mongolia who goes by the handle Daldbaatar on Deviantart. According to his profile he is currently an art student in Tokyo.

Enjoy.