Spartacus, Gin, and Tonic

Took a break from the "madness" today, meaning no mailings. Well, barely did any writing on my other "mad" projects either (got caught up in work-type-work). However, the main reason for the lack of post office flurrying was my lack of vehicle today (the beagles needed a teeth cleaning...very pearly-white right now). I've got five new orders and they'll be going out manana.

Mmm...today was hell. It's almost enough to make one want to stage a slave revolt at the office. I'm sure some of you working stiffs out there can relate (probably not Raggi, though...he's living the dream).

Thinking about the historical Spartacus as a model for gladiator type action on the B/X playing field makes me even MORE sure (I guess I'm up to 110%) that I don't want to separate Fighters into additional, crowd-pleasing classes (didn't the Big S lead a few thousand troops around the mountains of southern Italia?). I think simple arena rules, probably based on standard Reaction rolls (and thus subject to Charisma modifiers) is the usual system du jour to use.

On the other hand, I don't want to go TOO over-the-top with arena rules...after all, I'm not writing a Circus Maximus game based on B/X. What I AM doing, is knocking off a certain campaign setting published by a certain game company that tends to stink up the joint (in my not so humble opinion). That's right, you heard me...a CAMPAIGN SETTING.

Why a campaign setting, you ask? And well you should. I could give you the long answer (or just post a .pdf of the introduction, already written, which explains my exact feelings on the subject)...or I could just say: because.

Because I can. And frankly, because I think I can do it smaller, and cheaper, and better (if perhaps not glossier).

But we'll see. Right now, the main thing I'm worried about is the "smaller" part. I'm certain I can boil everything down to 64 pages...but I'm shooting for 32-40. It'll be meaty and probably short on illustrations (by the way, I love-Love-LOVE my artists from the B/X Companion, but at this point I don't feel I can exploit them more than I already have. Someone ought to get paid, and that means less art over-all I'm afraid)...but I want to show what can be done. And I mean "done nice and tidy."

[like my G&T here...*clink*]

By the by...if you think I'm talking about a retro-clone of a certain 2nd edition game world, you definitely ARE mistaken. Reading Mr. Maliszewski's recent musings on "game world bloat" really touched a chord in my heart, and anything I make is going to be as short and sweet...and functional...as possible.

Which is going to mean sharpening up my editing skills...and definitely leaving some stuff on the floor.

All right...my drink is finished and it's time to walk the beagles. From what I hear, they had a helluva' day, too. Later, gators!

: )

No Gladiators

So right now, two of the books I’m working on were to feature gladiators in some shape or capacity. At least that was my original intention…I am now nearly 99% sure there will be no gladiators in either one.

I’ve written before about my mixed feelings on gladiators. On the one hand I love ‘em, and I have no idea why…maybe for the same reason I dig the NFL. Quite possibly I was some sort of ancient Roman fan in a past life…perhaps a bookie of some sort. Who knows…I seriously doubt I was a gladiator or I’d probably have very different feelings (and nightmares!) about the “sport.”

ANYway, in working up a gladiator class for B/X, I’m inclined to look at a variety of sources, including BECMI’s Thyatis campaign book, Bard Games’ The Compleat Adventurer, 2nd Edition’s Dark Sun campaign setting…hell, even the gladiator prestige class from the 3rd edition splat books. After reviewing everything, as well as a little thoughtful consideration (if not careful deliberation), I come to the conclusion that the gladiator as class doesn’t need to happen.

In B/X, a gladiator is a fighter. Period.

Strangely enough, in the end it comes down to a matter of game balance. Now personally I’ve never given much of a rip about game balance, at least not as a hard science (c.f. the last 2 editions of D&D). But as an idea…well…

The B/X fighter fights. He/She uses all weapons, wears all armor, rolls D8s for hit points, and advances in attack and save progression every 3 levels. They can build a fortress at any time, but any followers/hirelings/retainers need to be found and hired. There are no “gimmes.”

So then what’s a gladiator going to be?

Well, gladiators have used all types of weapons and armor. Hit dice should probably be D8. I can’t see their attack progressions as higher or lower than a standard fighter. And even slave gladiators may one day free themselves and buy a castle (as with the fighter, no “gimmes” seem appropriate). So what sets gladiators apart?

Um...special abilities?

So glads can fight with two weapons, or exotic weapons, or have Greco-Roman wrestling skills, or receive bonuses to AC when wearing certain armor pieces, or receive some bonuses to certain maneuvers or something?

Um…that just ends up being a “Fighter Plus.”

If that’s what a gladiator would be (a fighter plus bonuses) why would anyone play a fighter? Are the gladiators limited in level? Human classes aren’t normally limited in B/X. Do they have a penalty to XP? I can’t believe it would be very much…dwarves are only 10% more for a host of abilities, languages, and save bonuses. And elves are double, but cast spells as a magic-user of the equivalent level.

In the end, I just can’t justify making gladiators anything “special,” even though it might be fun to come up with various “level titles.” Gladiators are fighters…just like boxers are. Just like fencers were as recently as the 20th century (and, yes, professional fencers referred to themselves as “fighters” just like prize-fighters…check out the autobiographies of Aldo Nadi).

Much as I like the idea of a gladiator class, I’m afraid I’ll be leaving it on the cutting room floor of my B/X workshop. Damn it, B/X! Why do you have to be so un-forgivingly perfect in your system symmetry?!

; )

Fire Up the Hookah

I quit smoking close to ten years ago. Cold turkey. Zip, nada, nothing.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say I quit smoking January 1st 1998, but then started again around the time I met my wife (who was a smoker). Then, when she was ready to kick the habit (close to ten years ago), I had no problem going back to my life as a non-smoker. After all, I'd already decided I preferred to live and breath (nominally) clean air rather than cigarette smoke.

And while I don't have "cravings" for cigarettes, it wouldn't be accurate to say I don't sometimes miss it. I always loved smoking. I haven't had much of a sense of smell since age 12 or so (don't ask) so that part never bothered me. In fact, if the damn things didn't completely F you up and kill you, I might still be smoking today. The one thing that made me want to become a non-smoker again was just that...I wanted to live, and wanted to live to a ripe old age. Smoking was not in the game plan for that kind of goal.

But they DO kill you, and so I have cut them out of my life (and good thing, too, now that their prices are soaring). I don't put anything into my lungs anymore if I can help it; but sometimes I wish I did, so that I could have the chance to fire up a hookah at smoke some Turkish tobacco.

No, I am not talking about bongs or even water pipes, I mean real honest-to-goodness hookahs. Seattle has a fair number of hookah bars in town, where one can rent and smoke and commune with others in a real Old School Arabic fashion. Even though smoking indoors has been banned in Washington State for several years, hookah establishments can get away with this by being "private clubs" (membership is cheap) after a certain hour of the day. Some are simply gyro shops for lunch and hookah clubs at night. Plus, who doesn't enjoy coffee in which you can stand up your spoon?

However, the hookah scene didn't really get going till after I gave up the habit (or rather, replaced it with the breathing habit), so I never got to sample this particular branch of Seattle night life. Which is kind of a shame...since a hookah would seem to go quite well with my recent acquisitions from Gary's Games in Greenwood:

- The Complete Psionics Handbook (2nd Edition)

- The Dark Sun boxed set (2nd edition AD&D)

Now, I'm sure many of you are thinking, JB must be smoking something to blow his hard earned dough on 2nd edition junk which he hates-hates-hates. But as I said, I don't smoke anything anymore...and no I haven't been drinking either.

What I have been doing is fighting a "summer cold" the last two-three days...and most of the time it's felt like I've been losing the fight. My head is stuffed to the gills, I haven't been thinking clearly, I haven't been sleeping well...hell, I've even voyaged into the land of feverish dreams once or twice (probably not helped by a recent viewing of Inception at the theater).

And when everything starts to lose cohesion, or become surreal, and when I'm bored and frustrated and want to lash out like a half-giant gladiator (sorry, I don't like being sick very much) my half-baked brain tends to come up with half-baked schemes. Like writing a 64 page setting book for B/X play, modeled on a certain sorcery ravaged setting. Including weird-ass psionics and strange dweomers of the kind only Vance (or a guy hopped-up on sudafed) could ever imagine.

See, I've mentioned before that Dark Sun has always held a strange and terrible fascination for me. First off, you're reading the writings of a dude who loves psionics and gladiators (which right there might be a warning you should STOP reading). Second off, I don't find the setting terribly original, as my old AD&D group did something similar years before TSR ever published Dark Sun.

At least, according to wikipedia, Dark Sun was first published in 1991. Well in 1988 my long-running game group had decided to scrap our existing campaign and start anew from scratch, in a world ravaged and left barren by ancient sorcery, a post-apocalyptic fantasy world modeled much on the imagery of the ancient Roman Empire (especially the gladiatorial games), where strength of arms was as important as the powers of the mind. Oh, yeah...and half-ogres were used as a standard race.

Well, unfortunately this was our last campaign together as a group, and we only ran one or two sessions before a falling out that sent us all on our separate ways. Which was unfortunate for a variety of reasons (we had all been quite close friends), but had the additional loss of never seeing where our cool campaign setting would take us. And I always thought it had a ton of potential (and no, it wasn't my brain-child anyway...I was just a player, not a DM).

Of course, now I don't even play AD&D, let alone 2nd edition AD&D, so it would be quite a challenge to see how hard it would be create a similar setting using the B/X rules. Personally, I don't think it's nearly as ambitious as the other couple things I've been considering with my fuzzy brain: B/X De-Constructed and a little space opera RPG that finally has a name and is NOTHING like B/X nor Star Wars (still 64 pages, though).

We'll see which of these ideas (if any) bear fruit. Right now, it's nap time.

Blood on the Sand

"Joey...do you like movies about gladiators?"

- Captain Oveur, Airplane!

I have to say that I am a huge fan of "Sword and Sandal," flicks...always have been.  And it's not just 'cause I think the Russel Crowe movie is great (though I did cheer when it won the Oscar for Best Picture), or 'cause Eric Bana is so righteous as Hector in Troy (booo! he should have gutted Brad Pitt!).  No, I've been watching blood on the sand films for a looooong time.

Even before I started playing D&D, I can recall watching some sort of gladiator movies on the TV.  Every Sunday (before and/or after going to Church), I'd flip through the (four or five) channels on my TV to find something with dudes dressed like Greeks or Romans or Israelites...I seem to recall watching Hercules and Samson movies, biblical stories being interchangeable with Greco-Roman myth.  In retrospect, these movies were probably filmed in Italy, dubbed in English, and featuring some Italian bodybuilder, a la Lou Ferrigno (just kidding...Lou was born in Brooklyn, folks...but someone like him).

And it's not just "gladiator" movies specifically. From the Sinbad movies to the Greek mythology to the 1001 Arabian Nights tales to the Arabian Knights cartoon...if it involves curvy swords, dry climates, turbans, flying carpets, and ivoried elephants then its MY type of fantasy.  From the Mediterranean to the Aegean Sea to the Middle East...I guess I prefer warm weather for my adventuring climate.

It may come as some surprise that I have never owned, borrowed, or read the Dark Sun campaign rules, nor any of it's supplementary material.  There are several reasons for this, not the least of which I wasn't play D&D (any version) in 1991 when the game was released. Another reason is that the setting of Athas and its history was eerily similar to the last D&D campaign in which I played prior to AD&D2...circa 1987 or so. 'Course we used half-ogres instead o half-giants.

Fact o the matter is, though, that while swords and sandals may play (as a D&D campaign), gladiatorial combat does not...at least, not very effectively.  D&D combat is simply too abstract to represent the give-and-take, the ebbing of the crowd, and the spirit needed to triumph in man-to-man combat.  Hey, I've tried it before (Thyatis, anyone?)...it's simply a no-go.  It's a real case of system DOES matter.  Of course, it's pretty hard to model the gladiator mood effectively in game play...I've purchased, downloaded, and attempted design of several gladiator-themed games, none with any satisfying results.

Thing is, there has to come a time when you step OUT of the arena...personal, individual glory only matters so much within a limited context.  If you're not out exploring the world (or a dungeon) or righting wrongs and saving folks...or conquering and carving out a kingdom...personal prowess in the ring is a shallow thing indeed.

But still, it calls to folks...and I think, in its way, D&D (especially the Old School variety) represents something of the gladiator in our game play.  Characters are still competing, still facing death, and still seeking the adulation of the crowd (in this case, the oo's and ahh's of fellow players, including the DM). The arena exists, in the form of the shared imaginary environment.  Survival and earning glory do not always go hand-in-hand, sometimes the choice comes down to one or the other.  But there is some drama in that, if you make room for it.

More on this later.