The Busiest Time Of The Year

"Oof magoof," as my man, Chris Crawford would say. It's nuts around here.

This will be a short one: I've got my "nephew" Spencer coming over this afternoon, which means (in addition to having the house cleaned and straightened), I've got to do a little D&D prep work. Pulled out my ancient copy of C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamaochan yesterday, and printed up the pre-gens. For an adventure I bought new in the early 80s (and saw considerable use), the module's held up remarkably well. 30 years of being stacked in a cupboard tucked in a closet (away from natural light), I suppose. Not that I am TRYING to preserve these things like National Treasures...my wife doesn't like me leaving my toys scattered all over the place.

One of the pre-gens got lost years ago, however...had to buy a PDF on DTRPG to have the full roster. Just looking over the thing now (something I haven't done in 20+ years, probably) it seems a little long for tournament play...55 encounter areas in two hours?...but then, the adventure is designed such that players are NOT supposed to screw around, and there are hefty (scoring) penalties for groups that deviate or wander off the preferred track. That being said, it is rather UNlike the tourney section of Dwellers of the Forbidden City, in that there are plenty of ways to get distracted. Eh, we'll see how it goes. Philipp ran this at Cauldron 2025 in a four hour time slot, which seems a LOT more doable (maybe), but I'm probably not going to have more than two hours tonight. Kids like to eat dinner and do homework, after all.

And SPEAKING of the "OSR Euro Con," Cauldron 2026 opened for registration at 9am PST last Saturday...and filled up in roughly 22 minutes. I had all-but-forgotten about it (I've been pretty swamped lately, as said), but I happened to be up (as usual, drinking coffee while the rest of the fam slept in), and was able to grab a roster spot when I saw the note on the Cauldron discord. Not that I had decided to go back to Germany in '26...in fact, I was about 90% sure I was NOT going to be attending. 

However: after mentioning it to my family Saturday evening (after a loooong day of basketball, soccer, volleyball, and Christmas shopping)...I found them all enthused about the prospect, none more so than my wife! Like myself, she's a big fan of Germany, and while she has ZERO interest in gaming, she loves the idea of getting back to Europe and tooling around with Sofia while Diego and I are off at the Con.

Yes, I've got my son signed up, too. 

The whole thing seems, objectively, like madness...just the cost of plane tickets alone! But...hell. It's only money which (IIRC) you still can't take with you. Spending a few shekels for a four day AD&D tournament in Deutschland with my boy? Isn't that one of those experiences/fond memory things parents are always trying to create? 

Hopefully, the memories won't be of his father slurring his way through a game after too many shots of palinka. 

Anyhoo, talked to D about it and he is "cautiously" enthused, once I assured him he does not HAVE to game, but can mingle and observe and such. He doesn't plan on running anything himself, and he thinks he'd only be comfortable playing if he did it alongside me (as a fellow player) or if I was the Dungeon Master. I assured him that this could be arranged. 

I'm going to guess he'll warm up once he's there. My kids, for whatever reason, are like this. Yesterday, my daughter had an audition for Blanchet High School's production of The Music Man (they need a handful of smaller kids for the show) and her nervous "yeah" had turned into second-guessing and outright "I don't want to go to this thing" right up until the day before. After spending the two hours doing the singing, dancing, and side-reading she told me the experience was so awesome she wanted "to do it again!"  Diego was like that when I took him to his volleyball try-outs...I almost literally had to force him out of the car to go to the thing (that he had asked to sign up for). Once he got on the court, however...different story.

[chalk it up to parenting: my wife and I aren't hugely demonstrative of "bold" action in the world. We prefer to stay home, snug and comfy with our kids. But that's because we already did most of our "bold" and "daring" stuff in the decades BEFORE we had kids. A double-edged sword, that]

So, yeah...I've gone from 90% not likely to go to 90% that I'll be on-board an IcelandAir with my whole family come next October. Jeez, what a world....

Tomorrow afternoon, I'll be heading to Los Angeles with Diego for a 4-day volleyball tournament. We get home Sunday night and then leave the following Saturday evening (after Sofia's guitar recital) for Mexico. My shopping is done, but the wrapping and the packing and planning and...

[*deep breath*]

It's busy. The book is coming along. I hope to work on that in between matches at the tourney. I'm thinking of junking the first couple chapters and starting from scratch...I'm not sure about the original approach I was taking. I'll let you know once I've made some real progress.

That's all the gaming-related news (I won't bore you with the other hassles in my life). Later, gators!

; )

Something Dragon-y

AKA Why let the rules bother us?

Don't believe I've shared this pic on Ye Old Blog yet:

So that, my friends, is a culmination of both my obsession with DragonLance, and my completist collection habits: the fourteen original TSR-published adventure modules, DL1 through DL14. DL11: Dragons of Glory is, unfortunately, missing the counters...but since I've never owned, read, or played the BattleSystem rules, that's not much skin off my nose.

Why O Why would I put out the money for such a spread? Nostalgia? Some unfulfilled desire from my childhood of wanting to own and/or run DragonLance? Morbid curiosity? My natural hoarding instinct?

Nah. I actually wanted the maps (most of these have good maps and not-too-terrible ideas for dungeons), and..(yes, this part is insane)...and some Quixotic notion that I might rehabilitate the series for my own, and others, enjoyment. 

[yeah, I admit that bit IS crazy]

But MORE than either of those things, I wanted to see how this...the first, really large scale themed D&D campaign...was designed. What went into the series? How was it written to take characters from relatively low level (all apologies to the OSE crowd, but 4th - 6th is LOW level for AD&D), to a respectably HIGH level (10th-14th for the final module of the series).

I haven't finished reading them all, nor am I reading them in chronological order. The majority of the modules are new to me (though I've owned DL1 for a while, and the first four in a later compilation book) and, for the most part, I've been reading them in order of what interests me: DL6 (blood and snow), DL10 (freaky dream-stuff), DL14 (showdown with Tiamat!), and DL13 (do the PCs fight Bahamut, er, Paladine?). The original concept for DragonLance was an attempt to write a series of modules, each of which would feature ONE of the 12 dragons (metallic and chromatic) in the original Monster Manual. That there are 14 modules in the series does not mean the designers over-stepped; DL5 is a setting book (providing info on the campaign world of DragonLance) and DL11 is a boardgame/wargame with its own rules used to simulate the Dragon War (I think...haven't actually gotten around to perusing that one yet, but it seems to be a different animal from BattleSystem). 

SO...setting aside those "supplemental" entries into the DL saga, we have the following adventures:

DL1: Dragons of Despair (for PCs levels 4th-6th)

DL2: Dragons of Flame (5th-7th)

DL3: Dragons of Hope (6th-8th)

DL4: Dragons of Desolation (6th-8th)

DL6: Dragons of Ice (6th-9th)

DL7: Dragons of Light (7th-9th)

DL8: Dragons of War (8th-10th)

DL9: Dragons of Deceit (8th-10th)

DL10: Dragons of Dreams (8th-10th)

DL12: Dragons of Faith (9th-10th)

DL13: Dragons of Truth (10th-13th)

DL14: Dragons of Triumph (10th-14th)

Of course, even though they're written for a particular level range, none of the adventures appear to provide enough experience points to advance the characters at the rates listed. Not that THAT matters: each module opens with a strong suggestion that the adventure be played with the pregenerated PCs provided. And those simply seem to advance "as needed," perhaps in order to fulfill the needs of "the epic story" that is DragonLance.

Rules don't really seem to be the Hickmans' strong suit...as I pointed out in prior reviews of Ravenloft, it's fairly clear that their knowledge of the actual game for which they're writing (i.e. 1st edition AD&D) has a lot of holes in it. You find it in the DL modules as well: demihumans exceeding racial limits (Tanis, Flint), characters in classes they don't qualify for (Riverwind), dual-class characters that don't qualify as such (Tika), advancement that just seems waaaay off (Caramon advances to 12th level fighter by the end of the series...1,000,001 x.p. needed...while his magic-user brother only achieves level 11...350,000-750,000 x.p....and trails 2-3 levels behind him for most of the series. What?).

But, whatever. The series has worse malfeasances...plenty of them, from "obscure death" rules, to inconsistent economies, to lack of value (in g.p. or x.p.) of new magic items, to forcing players to recite bad poetry.  *sigh*  Just...a lot of stuff that's not "good D&D."

[the capper, of course, is that the characters do NOT fight Tiamat...er, Takhisis...in the final adventure. Instead, in a nod to the success of Ravenloft, they make you pick from a random of selection of six possible ways of achieving victory, four of which involve an NPC doing the actual work of "defeating" the Dark Queen, and none of which involve facing her directly. What a gyp]

Even so, the IDEA of DragonLance is pretty "epic." Dragon-riding warlords leading armies of humanoids in a world-conquering jihad, spurred on by their theocrat-emperor...and all the vanilla fantasy goody-goodies forced to grow a pair or end up enslaved in an iron mine somewhere. All it needs is some human sacrifice stuff to be a bit more sword & sorcery...it's really not that far off (although I kind of hate draconians. 

[also...why does Takhisis reside in the Abyss? She's still Lawful Evil (as are the dragon army officers)...what's the matter with keeping her on her rightful plane in Hell? My theory that the Hickmans never bothered to learn more than OD&D (and still use a Law vs. Chaos alignment axis) remains viable]

The rather interesting thing to do here...and, I think, the proper tactic to take...is to work BACKWARDS through these adventures in formulating the basis for a campaign. I've never written "detective fiction," but my understanding is that one must first conceive of the crime (the murder, the killer, the motives, etc.) and THEN obfuscate it such that the protagonist must follow the clues needed to unravel the thing. In this case, I must conceive of the whole Dragon War: how the armies gather, how they invade, how the nations of the world fall (and when they fall)...all BEFORE setting the PCs loose in some town or other. "Steel pieces" and "kender" are, of course, right out the window (for reasons I've written about extensively in past posts...here, for example). 

[I *do* kind of like the idea of "false clerics," however]

Working backwards, using DL14 and its source material (as well as DL11's "mini-wargame") I can set up the entirety of the setting, throw down all the various "dungeons" (from the published modules) and construct my own timeline of war events, that will be going on in the background while the PCs adventure and investigate. This is something I first had a mind to do a couple years back, but was stymied by my lack of the source material...said source material now having been acquired, I could set things in motion if I really wanted.

The PROBLEM is...I really kind of love my current campaign world. And I'm not sure I want to blow it up with cataclysmic events (no pun intended). And I don't think it would just "work" to throw the DL scenario on top of the existing polities...my Red Empire is no "knights of Solamnia," and would probably rough up any dragon highlords that sought to overthrow the emperor. 

Mm...

I could put my own game on hold for a bit, and just run Krynn. That's not a terrible idea, though there's a lot about the world I dislike (friendly minotaurs, walrus men, tinker gnomes, etc.). No, Krynn kind of sucks. Plus, I don't particularly like the lay of its land(mass).

Mmm...

Okay, it's late and I need to sleep (a reason, perhaps, for some of the grouchiness on display). I'll post this in the morning. Later, gators!

; )

Fantasy Economics (p.1)

Let's get right to it:

36. Tharkadan Treasure Vault

Having detected the secret door, locating the concealed latch is a simple matter. It releases with a soft click, and a section of the stone wall swings silently inward. The room beyond is fairly large, and nearly filled with yellow, brick-like objects that glitter through a layer of dust.

Stacked 25 high, 25,000 gold ingots line the walls around the room. Each contains the equivalent of 1,000 gp of the metal. Gold was valued highly by the dwarves of Pax Tharkas in the Age of Dreams, but it is of little use to the current adventurers.

[from DL2: Dragons of Flame by Douglas Niles]

25,000 gold ingots, each containing 1,000 gold pieces worth of gold. A total value of 25 million gold pieces, and absolutely worthless (by DL campaign rules) in the Seeker Lands.

NOT, however, in the case of lands conquered by the dragon armies. From Appendix I ("Rates of Exchange") in DL1: Dragons of Despair:

In the lands conquered by the Dragonlords, no coinage is used; the gpw [gold piece weight] of the metal is used for exchanges. Steel is the basic metal, but gold does have some value...  

1 gpw of steel equals 10 gp. 

[emphasis added]

So...25 million gold coins are worth 2.5 million steel pieces (and thus 2.5 million experience points) in the lands occupied by the dragon highlords. Places like, for example, Tarsis on the southern continent (encountered in DL5 I believe)...or even Haven and Solace after the events of DL2.

Of course, that's not how the hoard in the secret treasure vault is supposed to be handled. Presumably, the players are supposed to discover a pile of gold bars, stand in awe and wistful sadness for a few moments, and then leave to get on with the "glorious adventure story," rescuing an elven princess from durance vile.

Such trash.

In my estimation, elven princesses are much more conducive to rescue by wealthy, well-dressed heroes who can afford a bevy of servants to wait on her every need and provide fine meals prepared by expensive chefs. You know...the kind of hero that lives in a palace? Does the princess really want to be returned to her soon-to-be-ashes forest home, just to become a hunted refugee with the rest of her people?

[yes, yes, I've read DragonLance...I realize Laurana is made of sterner stuff than that, going on to be the Golden General and all. I'm just saying: this is what the adventure is telling you to do. The novels are a different deal]

Anyway, since my campaign world is a bit more...mm..."pragmatic," these gold bars mean a bit more to me. Time to do some math.

How much does a "gold ingot" weigh? Well, it doesn't say, so one might simplistically figure that having "1,000 gp of [gold]" means it weighs 100 pounds, since in AD&D 10 "coins" of weight is the equivalent of 1 pound. 

However, while I know gold is heavy and all, 100# gold bricks do seem rather excessive. Per Ye Old Internets, a standard gold bar (as used by central banks and traded by bullion dealers) contains 400 troy ounces of gold. A "troy ounce" is a bit heavier than a standard ounce, there being only 14.58 to the imperial pound. Thus, a standard gold bar weighs about 27.5 pounds...heavy, but each freed slave from Pax Tharkas could probably shlep one or two on their way out the door to freedom. 

"But wait...if the bar only weighs 27.5 pounds, than how can each have a value of 1,000 gold pieces?" Simple enough: because a gold "piece" (aka "coin") need not be composed of 0.1# of pure metal. Let me give a few examples:

• The gold sovereign (worth 1 British Pound) has 7.32 grams of fine gold...less than one-quarter of a troy ounce. A standard gold brick thus has enough gold to make almost 1,700 gold sovereigns.
• The Spanish gold doubloon ("double shield", worth 4 Spanish dollars or 32 reales at the time) contained .218 troy ounces (about 6.8g) of fine gold. One gold brick could thus make more than 1,800 such coins.
• The American gold eagle (largest size) has 31.1g of pure gold...1 troy ounce. Only 400 such coins could be minted from a standard bar, although the half ounce size could (obviously) increase that number to 800 coins; that's pretty close to 1,000, no?

"But, JB! We are talking about D&D here! The rules are explicit that 10 gold coins weigh one pound! Clearly one gold coin (value: 1 g.p.) must weigh 1/10th of a pound (1.46 troy ounces) with a pretty close amount of fine gold being the base of its substance. These bars MUST weigh 100# each."

Okay, first off let's all remember that the AD&D encumbrance system is an abstract game system, measuring not only weight but bulk. Why does a folded robe have an encumbrance value of 50 while a worn robe has a value of 25? Did the thing lose 2.5# of lint when you shook it out from being at the bottom of your armoire? No.

Presumably, this is why a long sword...a weapon whose average weight is 2.5 to 4 pounds...is given an encumbrance value of 60 to 100 (the latter being the given value of a bastard sword which - surprise! - is usually just another name for a long sword). This doesn't mean the weapon weighs 2.5 times the weight of a real world equivalent, but the thing has bulk...and a cumbersome scabbard sloshing around as well!

This same abstraction can apply to the gold coins in one's treasure vault. Coins may be in lined boxes, neatly tied bags, sturdy wooden coffers...whatever!...and take organization and attention in one's backpack to make sure they're not getting loose and lost in various nooks and crannies. 1,000 g.p. may require 1000 coins of encumbrance...the equivalent of 100# of weight...but the actual weight of such a sum might be considerably less. 

SO...let's just call these ingots standard, shall we? 400 troy ounces a piece, which (by the way) we can then use to work out the math of just how much gold is in the Krynn-ish gold piece...about 12.4g of fine gold...making the DL gold piece about twice the size of a doubloon, giving you something like 36 coins to the (actual) pound.

Good to know. Now back to that vault: 25,000 ingots is a LOT of gold. At 27.5 pounds per, that works out to 687,500 pounds of gold...nearly 312 metric tons. 

Now here's something you might not know...there are a lot of gold mines in Washington State. A lot. Per U.S. Geological surveys, there's about 519 metric tons of gold in the Evergreen state. That's quite a bit...and many of those mines are in Kittitas County, which happens to be the location for the ancient ruined elven fortress that is Pax Tharkas. 

Thing is...many of them aren't. Not 60%. That 519 figure is for the entire state...and Washington has an area of 71,300 square miles. Kittitas is only 2,333 square miles in area...barely more than 3%.  Now, as said, Kittitas has quite a bit of gold...historically, there are records of nearly 50,000 ounces being pulled out of the Swauk district alone. 

50,000 ounces would make 125 gold bars.

So, methinks that this veritable Fort Knox fantasy vault is probably a wee tad bit overstocked, especially for my campaign world. Probably by a factor of 2,000. Especially considering it's only really guarded by a single wraith, a giant slug, and a few dozen zombies. Sheesh.

Of course, we don't know how long the gold mines at and around Pax Tharkas were in operation. My Pax Tharkas is a ruined, elven fortress (elves are still an "elder race" in my world, having a cultural history stretching back 10,000 years despite only human length lifespans). The ancient Egyptians are thought to have mined 6.7 million ounces (just shy of 209 metric tons) of gold from the Eastern Desert over their many-century history, with 120 ancient mining sites known. Although the desert dwarfs Washington State with its 86 thousand square mile expanse, Kittitas County still has more than double that number of mining sites.

[that's not to say they're on the same scale, or have the same ratio of gold to ore, or same quality of deposit or...well, you get the point]

Unfortunately, I could not find a county-by-county breakdown of mining information to find the proportion of gold that might be natural to the area...the closest I could get was this map showing density of placer mines in the state. Using the average numbers for yellow (30) and blue (5.5) squares, I can see that there's some 440 mines in the whole of the state...and 136.5 of them right in the region where I wanted to place Pax Tharkas (in the mountains just north of Lake Cle Elum). Proportioned out based on averages, I might thus say that the area could account for 161 metric tons of the Washington's 519 Mg gold total, which would amount to nearly 12,910 ingots worth of gold...which assumes every scrap of gold in the region had been dug up, smelted down into bars, and then stored in the dusty vaults beneath the crumbling fortress. Not likely.

How about 2%? That would be 258 bars. Still an incredible amount of wealth...more than seven thousand pounds (3.5 tons) of pure gold, a quarter million gold piece value to the adventurers that find it. Of course, getting out more than a handful of bars will necessitate doing away with the stronghold's patriarch and his pet dragon(s). And there's always the possibility some ancient curse has been laid on the gold by long-dead sorcerer elves...

Now, I'm sure there are Dungeon Masters reading this who quail at the thought of releasing so much wealth into their fantasy economy in one shot. Why? What's 258,000 g.p. split six or seven ways? 40K apiece? That spends pretty fast, assuming you're in a city large enough to exchange gold bars for cash. My world has three such major cities (pop. 15K+): Seattle (natch), Spokane (seat of the Red Empire), and Tacoma. The smallest (the city-state of Tacoma) has a population of 18,000 and a median per capita income of 1,447 g.p. annually. Median income is not, of course, the same as average income...but regardless an extra 14 g.p. per person added to the economy doesn't suddenly drive up the stock price of normal goods and services. It's not even a month's income!

[for the sake of the curious: I've got Seattle's population pencilled in at 24,000 at the moment, and Spokane at 21,000. Annual median per capita income for these rival city-states is 1,955 g.p. and 1,246 g.p. respectively]

All right, that's enough fantasy economics for now. Later, gators!

Easing In

One of the real downsides of taking any extended break from blogging...or perhaps writing in general...is the tendency to lose your train of thought. 

I had a busy weekend (no need to talk about it...the rest of my week and the coming weekend is going to be even busier. Not talking about that either). Looking back through my recent archive posts, I found some good stuff, good threads I was on, good discussions (in the comments) being had. I suppose not everyone was buying what I was selling last September / early October, but re-reading it I think I was communicating my thoughts pretty effectively. Same with the stuff at the beginning of 2022 (January and February) before my voluntary hiatus.

But blogging (and writing) is a muscle, and being away from the keyboard has led to some atrophy. Probably doesn't help that I haven't had much sleep the last couple days (going to rectify that tonight!). So, rather then get back into my discussions of "world building" or "fundamental D&D" (subjects to which I plan on returning), I think I'm going to need to start a little slow...and ramp up.

Friday's post on "Change" was a bit of table setting. I'm an AD&D guy right now. I know, I know...cue the usual complaints about labeling, edition wars, etc. But it matters, folks. When a guy spends more than a decade writing a couple thousand essays about B/X for a blog called "B/X Blackrazor," it's not just because he's writing for just ANY kind of D&D...it's a pretty specific ruleset. And, while much of what I've written can be applied to other forms of D&D, that really wasn't my intent. My intent was to pump up B/X, and I think I did a pretty decent job of it.

NOW...well, now I'm doing something different. 

Now, my attention...my focus...is going to be squarely on the Advanced game. So much so that I may need to do a little re-branding 'round these parts.

*ahem*

ANYway. "Easing back." I don't want to jump right back into the big Big Picture stuff just yet. Need to polish the chops a bit. So I'm going to write up some of the AD&D stuff I've been thinking about / working on the last couple months (while I was off-line). At the moment, I'm considering how best to start though...are readers interested in specific classes? Spells? AD&D combat stuff? The trials and tribulations of running 1st level characters? Or just a bunch of stuff that AD&D does right from the get go? Regarding the latter, there's quite a bit...might need to break the subject up into a couple posts.

In case it's unclear, I'm open to suggestions/requests. I don't have any recent stories from my own campaign to tell, because everyone is dead at the moment (again) and things aren't settled enough at home to fire up a new batch of would-be adventurers. Though I'm really, really considering a re-skinned version of DL2 as an introductory adventure (yes, for first level characters. See GusL's thoughts on the module for some cursory ideas). That should be fun...especially the treasure room full of gold bullion in the catacombs below Pax Tharkas (an interesting logistical puzzle there!).

All right...my schedule and tired eyes are both conspiring against me at the moment. More later.

Play-Testing The Insanity

So...we finally, FINALLY had a chance to restart the AD&D campaign Monday night.

Sad to admit, but it's been close to six months...just insane the amount of time that's slid by since our last delve. Oh, we've played Dungeons & Dragons since then...I've run games for my kids and their friends (Blizzard Pass as a one-off just a couple weeks back); AD&D even. But we needed to get back to actual play in our (my) game world, not just development.

When last we'd left off, the team had used a staff of summoning to conjure a pack of shriekers, whose shrill screaming upon finding themselves in the afternoon sun managed to drive away the lizard folk they'd been fighting. They then continued their scouring of ancient paths, looking for the sunken city hidden somewhere in the swamp. 

And they found it...or at least the remains of the last surface plaza, complete with a single standing building, a temple of ancient design, its dome cracked from long centuries of neglect, it's massive doors scratched and scarred and bereft of the gold leaf that once covered their frames. 

Enter the temple they did, and choosing NOT to despoil the statue of the goddess they found therein (though tempted by the rod of blue crystal held tightly in its hands) they found a long stairway descending down-down-down into the bowels of the earth. Down to the temple crypts, where they hoped (and expected) to find some sort of treasure, ripe for the plucking. 

Father Barod ("Beanpole") led the way with his hooded lantern. 

Here's the "box text" from DL1 for the Hall of Ancestors:

Dim light shines up through the floor. A vast hall stretches to the east. The ceiling, heavily reinforced, stands solidly above, but below, the floor has fallen away in several places. Hot mists, carrying the odor of decay, rise through the holes in the floor.

Beanpole, the party's 3rd level cleric decided to go check out the gaping hole that cut across the floor of the chamber. 'I'm going to go peek over the edge and see what's down there.' Will Big Jim (the trusted retainer they've had since Bendan Fazier) go with you? 'Yeah, he's staying by my side.'

I did a double-take as I looked at my notes for the chamber:

• There is a 65% chance that any weight greater than 50# within 5’ of a hole will cause the floor beneath it to collapse. The fall to the cavern floor below is 700'.

What? I checked the original text in DL1. Here's what it says:

Any dwarf can tell that the floor is unsafe. The holes open to a 700' drop straight into the lower ruins of the city. Anyone who weighs more than 500 gpw [gold piece weight] and comes within 5' of a hole's edge runs a 65% chance that the floor below him will collapse.

Even if a hero makes it to the edge of a hole, all he sees is a foul mist gathered below.

That's all the text says. And for the most part, my restocking/rewriting of DL1 was focused far more on monster and treasure selection than on environmental hazards. Strange, perhaps that such a deadly trap isn't better telegraphed...especially for a DragonLance adventure (where the "heroes" are expected to succeed). But then it IS telegraphed because "any dwarf can tell that the floor is unsafe" and anyone playing DL1 should have Flint Fireforge (4th level dwarf fighter) as a prominent member of the party. Unfortunately, there are no dwarves in my players' party.

This is a good example of why play-testing is so important. Looking at the encounter area on paper, it doesn't seem terrible (probably one of the reasons I didn't bother adjusting it). Standard chance of springing a trap in OD&D or B/X is 2-in-6 (33% chance)...with something as "obvious" as this hazard, is a double chance (4-in-6, 66%) so unfair? Especially considering that a cautious party might use a 10' pole to probe the floor, or rope up together, or use the lightest party member for exploration?

But even so, some sort of Get Out of Jail Free card could be provided besides "have a dwarf in the party." I wrote before about including "Flinty" as a findable NPC in the adventure, and he IS there, albeit in the lower cavern levels. A better idea might be to have the dwarf stashed in the swamp outside the temple. This gives the PCs a potential benny for taking the non-psychotic approach to dealing with NPCs (find a helpful set of eyes for subterranean hazards); players eager to deal out death to everything on two-legs will thus be justly penalized for their lack of imagination.

Ah, well. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

Beanpole weighs scarcely more than 50# soaking wet, but he is dressed in plate and carries 20ish pounds or so of extra gear. I informed the player that the floor creaked mightily as he stretched out his lantern over the edge of the hole and asked him to roll the percentile dice; unfortunately, he rolled a 34. The floor collapsed with a groan taking the cleric with it.

I rolled for Big Jim...though, topping 300# of gear and muscle, this probably should have been automatic. As the Fates were obviously on the same wavelength as myself, the dice came up low and Jim followed his employer into the drop.

The nice thing about having Google at your fingertips: you can quickly find out how long it actually takes to fall 700'. 6.59 seconds it turns out, equivalent to a bit more than one segment. Diego scanned through his spell list for something that might save him...unfortunately, nothing. We did allow him the opportunity to pray for divine intervention on the way down (see page 112 of the DMG), but the gods were apparently satisfied at the doom he'd chosen for himself. 

Sonia, my daughter's character, was quick with a spell of her own; she sent a message to her brother: "you're going to die." Diego was not amused, but Sofia laughed mightily.  Until they discovered that all the torches, oil, etc. had been carried by Beanpole and Big Jim and now the party was left in the subterranean hall without a light source. 

*sigh* Hindsight. 

ANYway...I'll skip the rest of the evening's escapades except to say that no one else died and they DID escape the temple crypt and have now discovered a new PC (Frederick, a gnomish illusionist/thief) that was skulking in the swamp, hiding from lizard men and otyughs. It feels good to get back to playing D&D, and I am immensely hopeful we'll get to play more in the next couple/few days. I'm not sure the players want to continue exploring the Sunken City (their resources are quickly dwindling and they've yet to find anything resembling treasure...well, except for that blue crystal staff embedded in the statue of the goddess). If they don't decide to continue, they will have to deal with matter of 3,000 gold owed to Duke Van-Uz (the Duke could employ two 5th level assassins for 900 g.p. and would still be less out of pocket than the 1,500 he originally gave to bankroll the party). But they might be better served finding a smaller dungeon, closer to civilization. And I'm currently working on a ratty little thing that might do the trick.

; )

However, that'll (probably) have to wait till after Thanksgiving. Lots to do the next couple days.

More later. Hope everyone has a happy holiday! Best wishes to you all!

Dragons of Insanity

This morning, I spent far too much time catching up on the news and all the crazy and hate going on. This took more time than I care to spend, because I have to hit multiple sources (and perspectives) to find some sort of non-sensationalized version of reality. It's all so...exhausting. 

So let's not talk about any of that.

The last few days, I've been "figuring out" what I want to do with my home Dungeons & Dragons game...the only game I'm currently playing at the moment (and the only one I plan on playing any time in the near future). Here's what I've come up with:

• First off: I'm NOT killing my campaign world. Not yet, and not in any foreseeable way in the future. I've been using Washington State as my "world map," and it still has everything I need: mountain ranges, coastline, forests, deserts, etc. The state's not big enough (in my opinion) for a D&D campaign, but I'm going to increase the scale two or three fold, and that should be enough. We'll see...I can always "go bigger" (i.e. stretch the scale larger).
• Second off: I've figured out how to incorporate the various inspirations for my campaign (and my favorite "D&Disms") into the world, and it goes back to interdimensionality (briefly mentioned towards the end of this post). See my original idea was for the campaign to be post-apocalyptic in nature, as a PA setting takes care of so many issues (like 'why are their dungeons and ruins all about?' and 'where did all this loose treasure come from?'). It does not, however, account for the sheer abundance and variety of hostility in such a world: humans, being fairly resilient, are going to be able to rebuild much of their original might long before "the monsters take over." And I don't want that; I don't want (human) population density anywhere near a the scale of...well, any time in recorded history. And yet, how to account for D&Dish technology and anachronisms without population density? Answer: transplanted human cultures. These people are "earth folks" (or something similar) somehow brought to this strange mirror world, this Red Earth, three or four generations back. They've been around long enough to establish a solid foothold and adapt to their environment (if "killing hostiles with sword-and-axe" can be considered adaptation), but they haven't quite taken over...yet. Ancient ruins, ripe for exploration, are from fallen nonhuman types (or earlier instances of interdimensional human colonization). Magic is a science developed either pre- or post-arrival, but its origins aren't known at this point...and, frankly, don't matter all that much.
• AD&D will continue to be the "basic" system for the game, albeit with some mods. But no one cares about those, right? Probably not. Maybe another post.
• Finally, because of the setting, various old adventure modules can work as static sites or events. Is there an Underdark? Sure. Active volcanoes for places like A3 (Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords) and S2 (White Plume Mountain)? Of course...it's the Pac Northwest! Swamps and jungles? Absolutely...all of northern Oregon (the south border or the map) is Amazon-style rainforest in my world, plenty ripe for Forbidden Cities and Lizard King Tombs...just as most of British Columbia is going to be snow and ice, and a good haven for giants of various stripes.

And so it is that the home game will continue, pretty much the same as it was...but with new inspiration breathing life into the thing. I feel...content.

Now...regarding the title of this post: once again returning to Dragonlance territory (cue collective groans), I think that some of the DL problems I've written about in the past disappear if you take the adventures out of the "Krynn" setting as written and throw them into something like what I'm putting together here. For example: Newly arrived humans might NOT have a link to the (spell-granting) "gods/powers" of this new world. Newly arrived humans might indeed value steel over gold (up until they're able to get their own mines up and running). Newly arrived humans may consider dragons to be "fairy tales" right up until they fly in and wreck the joint.

The idea that's currently poking at my brain is similar to my original "reclamation project" (remember that?), but on a much smaller scale...in fact, it would incorporate ONLY the first four adventure modules of the series (DL1 through DL4), leaving even the "lore" of DL 5 off the table. The wilderness maps would be adapted to my fantasy Washington map, and restricting the scope/scale would allow me to place the whole of the thing in central/eastern Washington (no need for Tarsis/Icewall or Solmania, Ergoth, etc.). You've got whatever passes for Solace down to Thorbardin and the Plains of Dust....probably just flip the whole map 90 degrees...and then pick your most likely origin point of a conquering Dragon Army. Probably the Idaho Deathlands (as they're called in my world). Easy-shmeasy.

Of course, I wouldn't be running the thing as a four-part adventure/story arc/railroad. The four modules will (for my purposes) simply be the scope of a single adventure scenario in its entirety. We've got A) a bunch of places (tree town, elf town, dwarf fortress, etc.), B) a timetable of events (culled from the first couple modules), C) logistics/tactics of the Bad Army (culled from the last couple modules), D) a number of adventure sites (floating citadels, demolished wizard fortress, ruined swamp city, etc.), and E) already named and numbered NPCs requiring a minimal amount of extra polish. 

Bow down.

Hell, perhaps I'll ignore the entirety of the "4th Dragon War" background and simply play it out as "Verminaard's Grab At Conquest." I mean: evil high priest, right? The NPC is already an 8th level "patriarch;" just make Pax Tharkas his stronghold, populate it with the usual fanatically loyal minions and henchmen (see PHB p. 20 and DMG p. 16), and then add delusions of grandeur (er..."conquest in the name of [deity]"). With an adult red dragon henchman (Ember acts too immature to really consider him "very old"), the dude has a good shot at carving out a little empire for himself and his followers.

To me, that all sounds, well, refreshing. How many adventures have we seen over the years that had evil-aligned cultists, sitting in their temple/lair, minding their own business, etc. just waiting for PC adventurers to show up and murder/loot them? More than a few, right? I mean, even my recently acquired The Red Prophet Rises has its cultists not doing much of anything besides self-bloodletting and a little demonic conjuration...what's the big deal? Indifferent PCs can simply move on, and the cult will (more-or-less) resolve itself with extreme prejudice. The part about the village raids and slave-taking all occurred prior to the PCs involvement...it's just background chatter.

And that's what's fun about Dragonlance...rather than passive observers, the player characters get swept up in the war. It's not just their (fictional) hometown and (NPC) families that are getting wrecked...and for whom a real life player may have little empathy. The PCs themselves are threatened with death and/or enslavement by an invading army. That's neat! And it motivates them to do stuff like find demihuman allies or lost magical gear that might help them against a force that's overwhelming.

Dig it.

Anyway, that's the most recent stuff going on with my homebrew stuff. If I do decide to go down that road, I'll probably post some notes here. Later, folks!

: )

Reclamation Project

Despite my recent posts on running campaigns, I have to say I'm not in a position at the moment to actually start up a campaign. Not really. And that's okay! Because: A) I now have some NEW ideas about how to run/manage a campaign (based on my recent reflections) that give me a hopeful "pathway" to what I'm looking for, and B) My "position" (with regard to running a campaign) may well be turning around in the near future; there's a light at the end of that particular tunnel.

However: not now and not yet.

In the meantime, I've got a new idea buzzing around in this bonnet of mine and given how (in the past) those have morphed into some of my best ideas (maybe...it feels like that's the case, though I haven't been keeping count) I've decided to bat it around a bit and see what comes of it. Though I know it's going to bore and/or irritate the hell out of some of my readers.

Dragonlance. That's what I'm talking about.

First, the preamble: my actual knowledge of Dragonlance only goes so deep. Here's the summary of it: I read the first two trilogies (when they were first published). My friend owned a handful of the old TSR adventure modules, but we never ran any of them. I read one or two of the later short story anthologies, maybe played an "Endless Quest" book or two based in the DL setting, and have (in recent years) read/skimmed many of the old 1st edition modules. Anything else Dragonlance related (later books/stories, SAGA edition DL, conversions and setting books for 3E - 5E etc.) makes no nevermind to me; I have ZERO interest in ANY of it.

And the reason I have ZERO interest in it is this: it's all a goddamn cash grab. The first six novels aren't great; they have a certain nostalgic value to me that I'd compare to what my 30-some year old readers have in their relationship with Harry Potter (I've read the Potter books and find them to be...mostly...trash; however, they weren't published till I was an adult and kids who grew up with them will always have a special place in their hearts for Rowling's series). But once the War of the Lance was over (i.e. gods returned to Krynn, balance restored) and the "matter of Raistlin" settled, the story for me was over. I did not need to know anything about the children (or children's children) of the original protagonists or any of that...that's the same kind of BS that leads to a continuing Star Wars saga that must always feature Skywalker-Solo-Palpatine relatives. 

[and I'm not just talking about Episodes VII - IX. I'm talking about the entire "Expanded Universe" of books and novels and comics and whatnot...the merchandising machine that is the Star Wars franchise]

I'm not terribly interested in IP franchises. Some are more interesting than others, sure. But mostly I find them as callously and/or ill-thought out ways to fleece fans out of money. And while I may sound cynical with my derogatory tone and terms, I'm just trying to acknowledge the facts of the world: that's how this stuff works these days. 

• Someone creates something that is a labor of love. 
• It achieves an enormous popularity. 
• Creators make some money. 
• Corporation buys creation for exorbitant sum. 
• Corporation milks creation in order to profit from investment. 

That's fine and dandy (I mean, it's the model we're stuck with) but that doesn't mean I'm required to "buy in" and read up on the "Chaos Wars" or the further adventures of Kronin Thistleknot or whatever. And since I'm not required, I'm choosing to opt out.

*AHEM* Preamble out of the way. So why am I looking at Dragonlance again? Welp, I was checking up on some of my old fave podcasts and saw the Boiz from Alabamia (ggnore) are still at it, and most recently have been running through DL1: Dragons of Despair. This being one of the DL modules I actually own (and being from a formative stage of D&D's evolution) I was more than a little excited to give it a listen and see how THEY handled it...especially given their penchant for "rage-quitting" every time they attempt to run a typical WotC "adventure arc" (DL being the original railroad campaign). Figured I'd check it out.

And how'd it turn out? Meh, mostly. The ggnore guys are highly amusing/entertaining, but the adventure itself was pretty mediocre. And mostly that's because the adventure itself is pretty mediocre (or worse)...though I will be the first to admit that 5th edition (which the kids use to run the game) bug the shit out of me, and is a constant source of annoyance. But I'm aware that's my hangup...and even I liked 5E it wouldn't change my opinion of the module as a module.

But if anything (this is the ridiculous part), listening to the failure or a "straight take" on Dragonlance As Written (DAW) fires me up to rehabilitate the damn thing. As I said: ridiculous. But I keep thinking about (and re-reading) GusL's old posts on the subject...and I keep thinking DL isn't that bad. Actually, it's better than "not bad:" it's downright intriguing, if one is willing to divorce it from the overall narrative structure, and from the adventure modules' attempts to execute that narrative structure within an illusionary "D&D campaign."

Post-apocalyptic fantasy world is great, in other words! For one thing (and I admit this is completely selfish of me), one can totally explain the fantasy world landscape to be "screwed up" with regard to things like geography and population centers being outside of realistic paradigms. Why is this ruined seaport town in a desert? Because of the Cataclysm! Why is this empire broken up over multiple islands? Because of the Cataclysm! It all made sense before the world was hit by a divine meteor strike...duh!

SO...here's what I'm thinking: I'm going to take a couple "exploratory steps" which (at the moment...very late at night over here) will look something like this:

Step 1: Dispense with the sundry. Boil the setting history down into a couple paragraphs. Most everything "historical" about Krynn (its basic timeline) will be myths, legends, and half-truths at best. It's a post Cataclysm world and no one really knows why there are dwarves and gnomes (for example) or why the gods abandoned the world...and it doesn't really matter. Survival does.

Step 2: REALLY dispense with the sundry. There are no "Heroes of the Lance" (Raistlin, Tanis, all those folks)...at least not as "player characters." Major NPCs (especially antagonists and allies) will be retained, though with more realistic bios and motivations...no mustache-twirling villains! Fortunately, most of the characters ARE pretty good (if one uses the later novels as a guide)...they just need a little polishing. NPCs that become "heroes" in the books (and PCs in the modules: Laurana, Gilthanas, Gunther, etc.) will probably skip the development arcs of the Hickman/Weiss novels. But no great plot-armored "heroes with destinies;" they're all dead in ditches somewhere (yes, even Riverwind and Gold Moon...Jesus, the whole "barbarian plainsman" thing really needs a re-skin!).

Step 3: Correct one or two missteps. I've written before about my issues with the gold and religion "tweaks" in the DL campaign setting. These will need to be rethought and corrected. I like the idea of spell-less clerics (or, rather, the idea of spell-casting clerics as "expandable content" to the setting), but it needs a little reworking as presented. No, Elistan does not simply show up as a 7th level "true cleric." Un-uh. And basic issues of economy and fungible types of exchange will be better worked out when I work through the post-apocalyptic world and the population centers that exist. I haven't decided on kender, yet...or even draconians. I mean, are they (draconians) really necessary? A whole 'nother topic.

Step 4: Overhaul a module or two. Not nearly as gruesome a task as it sounds; mainly consists of editing out the bulk of the useless (flavor text, railroad arcs, pre-gen PCs, and moralistic motivations) and see what's left...I'm guessing it will look something like a handful of maps, some NPC placements (lairs, villages, and whatnot), and some kind of timeline with regard to movements and logistics of the Dragon Army. Ideally, I'd like to strip down the 12 modules that made up the original saga (DL1-4, 6-10, and 12-14) to get a general outline of the coordination of the "Krynn Conquest" and use that as the basis of play. 

The more I think about it, the more I want to do it. But man o man, it is LATE and I really need to get some sleep...there's been a lot less than normal this week, if you can imagine. Maybe I'm just a bit loopy.

; )

Let the Madness Commence

While I have no doubt there are some who just love to hear all about my personal stresses, I will forbear regaling you with tales of woe, save that I have been up since 5am in order to babysit a friend of my child (who lacked daycare this morning) and have only just now got my children down to sleep (it's a bit after 11:30pm). True, I did get a 90 minute siesta in around 3pm, but I've otherwise been "on the clock" the entire day...a day that started with something slightly less than a tremendous hangover (trivia night with the family at the local pub last night and I had one-too-many IPAs).

Even so, I still managed to finish the entire text of the new book, including the table of contents. Yes, I still have the headers to do (always a pain in the ass for these game books), and it has no illustrations (save for a few placeholders), but it's complete and done and I dig it. It's a nice bit of campaign setting for B/X, the first I'll actually be publishing, though I've got work on maybe four or six in Ye Old Hard Drive. I'll write more about the thing in the (hopefully) near future, but as of this evening I'm filled with at least a small sense of satisfaction.

Also a slight sense of trepidation. I've more-or-less decided to take a stab at doing my own illustrating for this thing though, frankly, the idea is pretty batshit insane. Still, I'll try doing a couple sketches and see how they turn out (need to set up the scanner my wife brought back from Paraguay in December)...if it's too shitty I'll start soliciting from artists I've got on my contact list. I toyed with the idea of some kind of "black album," but illustrating is a nice challenge. Besides my children like to color too, and it is summer vacation...had them both painting Blood Bowl miniatures last week (yes, the five year old as well); maybe I'll put them to work.

Or maybe not. I do have some money left in the kitty after all...enough for a small art budget anyway. We'll see, we'll see...this type of thing requires a very specific type of artwork and (if it's coming from professionals), I'm going to want to be a little choosey.

But first things first: got to finish those damn headers. And I've got to get up early tomorrow to get the car to the shop by 9am (we've got a road trip to Montana next week). And I've got to get some type of sleep, even a few hours. Man, I am beat.

Till later.

The Tao of Trade

Pictured here is an image capture from my phone...sorry, I'm not a great photographer. The dogs are my "running beagles," not quite as spry as they were ten years ago (but then, neither am I). The colorful hex map on my coffee table is the pull-out map from my copy of GAZ1 The Grand Duchy of Karameikos, purchased some 30 odd years ago, and the subject of my A-Z blog posts in the month of April.

The scale of the map is 8 miles to the hex. The Grand Duchy isn't all that big: I estimate the dimensions of its land mass to be roughly equal to Washington State, which itself is only slightly larger than Uruguay, the second smallest country by area in South America.

[note to future self: if using South America as a campaign setting, probably going to want to use a larger scale than 8 miles to the hex; how about 48 just for sanity's sake??]

And that's the reason I'm looking at the map: it's small. And I'm working on trying to learn the basics of Alexis Smolensk's trade system.

Alexis is a mad genius; most folks looking at his stuff will come to the conclusion that there's no need to go into the depths of world modeling (i.e. "modeling game rules based on real world subjects") that he does. And...to a degree...those folks are right. You can play D&D for years...nay, decades!...without ever worrying about the price of grain, or whether or not it's the rainy season, or how good your camp cook happens to be. I know it's possible to play without that level of detail, because I've done it myself. And just because you play a simpler game doesn't make it a "bad" game...heck, I wouldn't even call it a worse game. It's just...simpler.

And I'm looking to play something a bit more advanced.

So a coherent economy, not even a "real economy" (as Alexis will tell you, he doesn't really model "reality," he's just trying for consistency, and only so long as it improves his game), seems like a good way to start deepening and enriching my campaign...just as picking some real world geography and history as a setting can also create depth and richness. But, of course, I can't just implement something that I don't understand...that would indeed be batshit crazy. So I need to practice with something small.

And Karameikos is pretty darn small.

The nice thing about GAZ1 (What?! Actual praise for the GAZ?!) is that it does a good job documenting the demographics of its territory. It doesn't matter to me if it's based on realistic figures or not...you could always go back and justify weird population spikes and decreases based on plagues, monsters, refugees, or the presence of "magical healing waters" or whatever. What matters for my purpose is that the information has already been written down for me (thank you Aaron Allston!) and it's not a huge chunk of info.

There's only 13 detailed communities in the Grand Duchy, ranging in size from 650 to 500,000 (each community has its population given). Yes, there are also the scattered Callarii elves...about 7,500 in communities of 100-200, but I figure they'll have a single "market place" somewhere in their forest north of Specularum. Thus a total of 14 markets.

The Vyalia elves, keeping their distance from the other communities of Karameikos, won't count for purposes of "trade," and thus it doesn't matter that I have no population figures for them. Perhaps they live some sort of weird communist lifestyle, or perhaps they exist solely on what they can raid and pillage...it won't really matter unless the PCs somehow end up in their woods and want to buy shit from them.

Likewise the estimated 6,000 people scattered in random communities of 2 to 200 don't matter much; if they want to trade, they'll probably be going to the nearest market so, you know, ignore them.

[hmmmm...actually, just noticed that Rifllian IS the "trading town" for the Callarii, so there's no need to add an extra market. Well, that just made my job easier...]

It is unfortunate that the GAZ is a little light on information about what is produced and traded in each community...I mean, there is information there, it's just sparse and I'll have to fill in a lot of the blanks myself. And that's fine; as I said, it'll still serve my purpose. I'm sure the authors weren't intending for a person to try to create a living economy out of the information when they were writing it; I'd guess they simply wanted a more detailed setting in order to make for a deeper game experience. And if I can get a handle on this trade thing it will definitely do that (though perhaps not in THIS particular fantasy setting).

Anyway, that's what I'm working on at the moment. I am going to assume that I probably will end up "dumbing down" Alexis's original system; I sincerely doubt I'll end up with 1500+ references (probably more like a couple dozen). But I'm very interested to see if I can get it to work even a little bit...I can't see the exercise being anything but helpful for when I start building my own campaign setting.
: )

RPG 201

Looking over Ye Old Blog, I see that I've written more than 30 posts that mention or are directly related to the work of Alexis Smolensk. That's more than two-and-a-half times as many posts as I have for DragonLance (which probably says something about my priorities and interests). Welp, here's another one.

Today is December 23rd and I'm writing from Orizaba, Veracruz (that's in Mexico, folks); local time is 10am (at the moment) and I got up around 8:30am (after partying till 1am or so). My last post was written on the 20th. I started traveling on the 21st (left the house at 6:30am), landed in Mexico City around 8pm, spent the night in a hotel, then took a four-hour bus ride to Orizaba on the 22nd. Seen a lot of old friends and family, done a lot of eating, drinking, and merriment, spent a lot of time dozing (when possible) on planes and buses, when I wasn't entertaining my two small children or trying to wrangle giant bags filled with gifts through various security lines.

In the free waking moments I've had, I've been devouring Alexis's RPG 201 course material.

I think it was back in November, that I first checked out a couple of his classes (the 15th class, and his mid-term exam)...probably when I had some spare time over the Thanksgiving holiday. I was interested and wanted to go back and catch up on my Alexis reading but...well, life, you know? Then, probably around the time I was shutting down my laptop to pack it for the trip, I chanced to read his most recent Lab class...and then went and read his other two lab classes...and then decided I needed to go back to the beginning. Which is what I've done.

Wow.

Alexis started this series of posts back in August, and has so far put together 20 classes and three labs, as well as several (what I'd call) "side-bar" posts providing additional explanation, reasoning, and methodology. Reading it really does feel like taking a course in the psychology of role-playing game operation...though, I might have called it "205" (as I wrote in 2014, I consider the first parts of his book How to Run as the 201 course material). Regardless, it's fantastic...and a very, very good read.

I strongly recommend folks check it out, and consider their own gaming/DMing experiences in light of the material. I don't think it's a stretch to say Alexis is doing some of the most important academic work on role-playing games on the internet (some might argue he's the ONLY person doing real academic work on RPGs). Folks should not be put off by the intellectual nature of the subject matter; it's both accessible (with a little patience), and pertinent to any tabletop role-playing (not just D&D, and certainly not just "ancient edition" D&D).

My understanding of my own game mastering has increased in leaps and bounds since I started reading this series...and I'm only caught up through November (I'm debating doing the mid-term essays...even though I missed the due date...as I think they're still a great mental exercise). I have a strong feeling that I'll be returning to this "coursework" in the future to help cement certain concepts and ideas; hopefully, Alexis will compile the classes into a single text book after he's finished the series, as I'd love to have it available as a reference. Hell, I'll volunteer to edit the damn thing!

Anyway, my boy's up now (and breakfast is nearly ready), so I've got to go. Don't know how much posting I'll get done here in Mexico, but there's plenty to read over at The Tao of D&D. You should really check it out.

Feliz Navidad!

Paying Dues - Magic-Users

[continued from here]

Monday, I decided it was time to teach my son how to play D&D. I offered him a choice between Holmes Basic and B/X and he decided on Ye Olde Moldvay. Here is a picture of his character sheet:

The writing is mine, other than the name (yes, he decided to name the character after himself). The picture is his (in case folks are wondering, he has a small pet monkey perched on his shoulder...a request from my son, that I allowed him to purchase for 10 gold pieces). All equipment (including a normal dagger...the silver one was "too expensive") is written on the back.

The choice of magic-user was based on his ability scores (3D6, rolled in order), intelligence being his best stat. His choice of spell (magic missile) was based on my brief description of the magic system and each available 1st level spell. This was to be B/X strictly "by the book;" with the only exception being that I allowed him maximum hit points at level one. I opened my book to The Haunted Keep scenario in the book, explained the background and started the game with Diego the Mage (and Meme the Monkey) outside the door to the east tower, where the goblins' tracks had led.

"I blast the door with my magic missile."

I explained (again) that his spell could only be used once per day, and that was really intended for combat. I also explained to him that the tower was fairly dilapidated and the wooden door was rotten and hanging by one rusty hinge...easily opened without the aid of magic. Would he prefer to save his spell? Yes, of course.

He entered the tower and avoided the pit trap (thanks to his 10' pole). After exploring the pit with his rope, he proceeded through the interior door, finding himself in a hallway with doors to both the left and right.

"I blast the right-hand door with my magic missile."

I should point out that my son only just turned five (last month). His relationship with doors are not the same as an adult, nor even an older child. There are many doors he's not allowed to pass through without permission. Doors that are stuck or locked can easily confound him (especially if the key hole is higher than he can reach unaided, as with our exterior door). And, of course, he has no preconceived notions of how the D&D game is "supposed" to be played...I'm trying to NOT instill any of my "gaming sensibilities" into him, wanting him to formulate his own ideas, come to his own conclusions. In the past, I've taken this tactic with "newbie" role-players and found the results surprisingly excellent.

However, here I was running up against the confounding limitation imposed by the D&D system...that ridiculous model that requires characters to "pay their dues," playing multiple sessions of ineffectuality (is that a word?) before becoming even mildly proficient.

Mmm...let me back up a moment. It's not really the model that's "ridiculous." A fantasy character beginning her adventuring career can be expected to be a bit wet behind the ears, and should also be expected (with time and experience) to become more proficient and effective. To me, that's what the whole level thing models...1st level characters are new to the career while a 9th ("name") level adventurer should be pretty darn proficient...near the top of her game, really. At least, that's kind of the implication of making a "name" for oneself, no?

[of course, I realize that's not actually the case. Character hit dice peak at level 9 and most "endgame" options are opened for B/X characters at this level. However, magic-users don't gain their full abilities (spell-wise or endgame) till 11th level, fighters gain even greater attack abilities at levels 10 and 13, while thieve abilities don't start hitting the 90s till levels 11 and 12. In the end, the only thing reaching "name" level actually ensures is the end of new level titles for your character]

But a 1st level magic-user shouldn't even be let out of the tower. Compare such an entity to, say, the children in those Harry Potter novels (and please allow me to say for the record that I dislike a LOT about J.K. Rowling's wizarding world, both as a setting, as a magic cosmology, and even as children's literature. Sorry, J.K.). Look at the newbie wizard, Skeeve, from Robert Aspirin's humorous Myth books. While clearly "apprentice level" youngsters, their abilities utterly dwarf that of a beginning magic-user in B/X...or most Old School editions of D&D.

More powerful than your seer.

This is not a new bitch for Yours Truly, by the way. This post is a pretty good example of my standard gripes. But while I've come to accept (or, rather, re-accept) "Vancian" magic (in light of its injection of a distinct play style...not to mention ease of implementation), I quite simply hate the way it scales. One more time: it's too weak at the low levels; too much at the high levels.

Yes, too much. 30-40 spells...hell, 20 spells...is simply too many for a single session of game play, in my opinion. Consider a typical session: you can expect perhaps 4 to 7 encounters in an evening of B/X play; my sessions average about six, probably four of which have some sort of combat component or potential (interactions with "monsters," in other words). Should magic-users be able to cast a spell every round? Or should there be some threat of "running low," prompting them to husband their resources? To me, 10-12 spells in a game session feels about optimal (2 or 3 per encounter, with another 2 to 3 used outside of combat), with something like 15-18 spells being the maximum (for the highest level characters) for a single game session...though even that feels pretty darn high to me.

Note, I'm talking about the number of spells being cast, not necessarily the number of spells known. I think it would be fair (and sticking with the strategist play style paradigm) to allow a magic-user to actually know more spells than they can cast (that's an AD&D concept, by the way, not B/X). On the low end (for the newbie adventurers), I'd think four or five spells cast would be about right, maybe as low as three for a truly deficient wizard. The problem is, how can you scale that over X number of levels?

Doesn't that dude with the pointy hat look capable of more than one spell?

[in writing this, I am reminded of the Dungeon! board game. In the 1975 edition, wizards received 7 spells to start (each spell being represented by a card that was discarded when cast), but could opt for an additional +D6 spells by choosing to forgo the use of magic swords during the game]

Because THIS is the main "carrot" for the magic-user. M-U players are not expecting to gain much in the realm of combat ability (HPs/attack bonus), but they are expecting to become more proficient in their craft. More spells known, more spells cast, and more powerful spells. Certainly, these things are best linked to level (the more proficient the adventurer, the more powerful the magic)...I'm just not sure they need to be linked in the specific fashion they are.

This is about to go off the B/X grid. Ah, well...just call it a 'thought exercise.'

I suppose the easiest thing thing would be to link spell-casting to hit points. Spells would be given a power rank (say, from 1 to 3) and each spell cast would drain a number of hit points from the caster. I did something similar to this in Cry Dark Future in order to model Shadowrun's "mana burn" system, and it worked pretty good...but then even a 1st level spell-caster in CDF/SR can fall back on an automatic weapon when they're running low on spell juice.

[I say this would be "the easiest thing," though one could certainly fall back on the CHAINMAIL system...as I did in Five Ancient Kingdoms...of requiring a dice roll to effectively cast a spell, with higher level characters having a better chance of casting spells...in effect, making the magic system more-or-less the same as combat. But here I'm trying to preserve the asymmetry of the class and magic system, even if I'm otherwise changing it]

*ahem* The note here is that unlike a traditional "spell point" system (Palladium, as an example) you're only tracking a single resource: your character's health. Plus it measures the effects of pain and suffering as a distraction without the need for "concentration" checks and such. Also, it models that hoary staple of fantasy literature where the mage sells her life to get off "one final spell." I dig all that.

So then, what effect would leveling up have on your character's magical might? Other than increasing your hit points, of course. Well, you'd need gain additional spell knowledge (more arrows for your quiver)...perhaps one or two spells per level...and might increase the power rank of spells that could be learned. With such a system, I'd probably try something like:

1 point spells at 1st level
2 point spells available at 4th level
3 point spells available at 7th level

With 1 pointers being the equivalent of 1st and 2nd level spells, 2 pointers being the equivalent of 3rd and 4th level, and 3 pointers being 5th and 6th level spells.

Alternatively, you could keep the standard rate of spell level gained (2nd level spells at 3rd, 3rd level spells at 5th, 4th level spells at 7th level, etc.)...but I'm not sure that's really necessary. After all, B/X fighters don't learn more weapon and armor types as they level up, and thieves are likewise stuck with the same skills at 1st level as 10th (yes, they get the ability to read languages and magic..but magic-users gain the ability to enchant items and brew potions; it's a wash). Allow each character to start with a number of spells determined by their intelligence...say six for average INT and add the standard B/X modifier of plus/minus one to three.

That gives a range of three to nine to begin and, on second thought, I'd probably limit the number of spells gained to one per level. However, magic-users could attempt to "master" any spell scrolls found (adding the spells to their repertoire) or spend hard earned treasure on additional spell research to increase their knowledge. That's a win-win in my book: players have a good reason to spend gold and it gives me an alternative use for spell scrolls (since they won't function the same under this system as they do in the Vancian universe).

I do want magic-users to pay some dues, after all...I just don't think their dues need to be as high as they are in the default B/X system.

[as always, feedback and disagreement is welcome]

Quantity versus Quality

[warning: probable "nerd rage" on the horizon]

Well, it would appear my self-imposed hiatus is winding down, as things have gotten more organized around this neck o the woods. We'll see...I'm not promising to come back in "full force" but I've definitely started poking my nose back into the blog-o-sphere. And I've got one hell of a shnoz.

This post was originally going to be called "Monsters, Monsters Everywhere" but I've already got a blog post by that title (waaaaaay back a few years ago) and I try not to duplicate; however, for folks who were hoping for an NFL/Blood Bowl entry...no, this one's going to be about D&D.

Back in 1981 or '82 when I started playing D&D, my introduction to the game...my first rule set...was the Basic book edited by Tom Moldvay. Much of my love and appreciation for this particular game has been documented on this blog, but allow me a quick summary: the book gave me everything I needed to play D&D, and in doing so it changed my life. I can say this honestly with the hindsight of 30+ years to look back on.

I'm not going to pretend I follow what WotC does with the D&D brand all that closely. I don't. I'm just not interested in most of their revenue streams and I don't read or frequent their forums. I have a curiosity about 5th Edition, both as a person familiar with the play of most editions of D&D and as an active game designer interested in other folks' work. And it's because of this curiosity/interest that I've bothered to download and read the (free) PDFs of WotC's D&D Basic Rules. I grew up playing something called "Basic" D&D, and I still find it an elegant piece of craftsmanship. I'm interested in seeing how WotC handles the same task given to Moldvay and Holmes and Mentzer...namely, making a simplified game that "was designed to be easily read and used by individuals who have never before played a role playing game."

[that's from the Foreword of Moldvay's Basic book]

My first impression of the new Basic rules was not a good one. As an obvious work-in-progress, an incomplete game, I wondered at why WotC would even bother to release such a thing. As I wrote at the time:

"There's no information on running the game, no information on creating adventures, no information on running NPCs ("monsters"), no information on treasure, and (perhaps most basic of all) no information on how XP is earned/awarded. In other words, no information on what the objective of the characters are, or what they're supposed to do."

There are other things that were left out of the 110 page (now 115 page) rule book that Mike Mearls said was "the equivalent of the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia," like how a DM was supposed to award inspiration (a new mechanic that I have not seen in prior editions)...but then the new rules were only in their "version 0.1" (now "0.2") stage and a little digging in past press releases found that the rules needed for adventure creation, running the game, etc. would all be released in time.

Welp, last night I stayed up to read the new, 61 page document that is the "Dungeon Master's Basic Rules Version 0.1." Most of it (59 pages) is content. It is divided into the following four sections:

Monsters (51 pages)
Non-Player Characters (3 pages)
Building Combat Encounters (3 pages)
Magic Items (2 pages)

The Non-Player Character title is a little misleading: there's no information on creating or using NPCs, simply additional stat blocks (with light description) the equivalent of the monster entries. In other words, it's three pages of additional "monsters" that can be used to further describe (or add abilities to) humanoid NPCs encountered.

The last two sections each have highlighted sidebars noting they are Works in Progress! and that additional material will be released as the new DMG gets written. Which is probably a good thing because some folks might be prone to panic (or scoffing) when they see the hot mess that is Building Combat Encounters (not, um, "designing adventures" or something) or the small handful of items (18 total) that comprise the Magic Items section. No, there are no randomized tables in the latter section.

You know, it's fascinating: Moldvay gave us 50+ magic items in 4 pages (including the random tables). Is it possible (I'm not being sarcastic or rhetorical here) that the new "Basic" is over-thinking itself?

ANYWAY...monsters. That's the bulk of the new Basic "DM's Guide." Stat blocks for monsters and information on how they fight and information on how to set-up combat encounters because, you know, while Mearls talks about three broad categories of activity (exploration, social interaction, and combat...see page 5 of the Basic Rules), really people only give a shit about fighting.

*ahem*

Back in March of last year, I wrote a piece on cosmology (and paying attention to it in design) that no one seemed to give a rat's ass about, probably because it was attached to a series exploring clerics and their inclusion in fantasy adventure games and "been there done that." But I was writing about more than just clerics...I was talking about putting a little forethought into the whole creation process, especially with regard to monsters. But yeah...murderhobo doesn't care.

For me, I put a lot of thought into what "monsters" I include in the (B/X-style) games I design. Mine is not a "kitchen sink" approach...I make lists, I consider what fits and what doesn't and then I write it up. It's one of the tougher parts of the game creation process...I have more than one work-in-progress currently on-hold due to the "NPC" section. And it's not like I write paragraphs and paragraphs of text for each entry! The entries for monsters in my B/X Companion are positively "wordy" compared to the entries in Five Ancient Kingdoms. For comparison purposes:

B/X Companion: 16 pages, 67 entries (roughly 4/page)
Five Ancient Kingdoms: 17 pages, 86 entries (but on half-sized pages!)

The new Basic has a total of 159 entries in 51 pages (or 169 in 54 pages if you count the NPC section...which I do). Regardless of the number per page (WotC can make their books as big as they want...this is their precursor to a new Monster Manual, after all!)...regardless of the amount of space they take up, 169 entries is a LOT of monsters. More than both my published works combined (and for the record, there's only nine or so shared entries between the two, so the total count is still over 140 in 20-30 pages). Maybe you're licking your chops at the prospect of all the combat encounters you can build with such quantity...but maybe we should look at what that quantity consists of?

Mearls and Jeremy Crawford (who are listed as the "lead designers"), have statted out each individual monster as its own entry, regardless of similarity to monsters of its own ilk. For example, in my B/X Companion, I count Animals of Legend as one entry, even though it lists four different creature profiles (and gives notes for creating others). I count Ruinous Powers as one entry even though there are five unique creatures. My entry for Giant includes both Half-Giants and Mutant Giants, but I count it as one entry.

It's a space saving device to group monsters together...something I learned from Moldvay's Basic book (see Cat, Great for panthers, mountain lions, lions, tigers, and smilodons; see Bear for black, grizzly, polar, and cave). I use the same tact in 5AK (Vermin, Giant all fall under one category regardless of bat, rat, whatever. Same with giant insects, donkey/mules, etc.)...I don't need or want to "pad" my word count...I'm trying to cut down on the pages I'm sending to the printer to reduce my costs and that of the consumer.

Mearls and Crawford don't seem to buy this idea. We have separate entries for brown bear, black bear, and polar bear. There are separate entries for draft horse, riding horse, and warhorse. There are separate entries for fire elemental, earth elemental, air elemental, and water elemental. And the thing is organized in strict, alphabetical order so it's not like the horses or elementals are even grouped together (air elemental with the "A" monsters, water elementals with the "W" monsters). You want to find the stats for an adult red dragon? It's not under "D" (for dragon) or even "R" (for red) but under "A" (for adult). Looking for a "Frog, Giant" to put in your swampy temple? You'll be searching in the "G" section of the document under "Giant Frog," right between "Giant Fire Beetle" and "Giant Goat."

Giant Goat?

Yes, a classic monster...surely you've encountered many in your D&D games over the years. In 5E, it's worth 100 XP and has a "Sure-Footed" feat that gives it advantage on STR and DEX saving throws that would knock it prone. It has a Challenge Rating of 1/2, you will have to include 3 to 6 when building an encounter for your party of 1st level adventurers. But if you're worried that a small herd of giant goats with their damage range of 5-11 will be too tough, you can always use non-giant goats.

WTF?

Yes, the goat...it's a medium beast, unaligned and it's CHA is only 5, but with that STR of 12 it has +3 to its Ram attack roll (only 2-5 damage). And that's a LOT more than the damage done by a normal frog.

Frog?

Yes...a tiny beast, the frog only has a STR of 1 (WIS of 8 however!). It has 1-3 hit points and the following special abilities:

Amphibious: the frog can breathe air and water.
Standing Leap: the frog's jump is up to 10 feet and its high jump is up to 5 feet, with or without a running start.

The description states:

"A frog has no effective attacks. It feeds on small insects and typically dwells near water, in trees, or underground."

Wow...thanks for that! Now I know how to use that frog entry when building my combat encounters.

These are worth 10 XP a pop! Eat all three for 30!

There's a lot of bullshit filler like this in the book. Some of the entries you might find less than useful for  Building Combat Encounters include the Badger, Bat, Cat, Crab (blue shell, I think), Deer, Elk (really? do we really need a separate entry between deer and elk? Where's the reindeer and the moose?), Hyena, Jackal, Lizard, Mule, Owl, Pony, Rat, Raven, Spider (not giant spider...just a spider), Vulture, Weasel. You might get more mileage out of the giant versions.

Oh, here's a good one: the Awakened Shrub. It's a small plant, animated by magic. With its 3D6 hit points, it's a lot tougher than it's friend, the evil Twig Blight, which looks like a dead shrub but has 2-5 hit points and is (for some reason) of a higher challenge rating than the Awakened Shrub (25 XP instead of 10 XP).

There's a lot of weirdness with the stat blocks. Since when does a Medusa have 17 hit dice? Same Challenge Rating as a Mammoth (6), though the latter, huge beast, has only 11 hit dice (the medusa is a medium monstrosity). I mean, not that it matters terribly...I'm just curious.

Okay, this is getting long and I'm already late to pick up my boy. Maybe I'll write more later. Maybe.