Not So Dreamy

Mmmm...let's see. Where to start? Where to start...?

So, for last year's Cauldron, my inspiration for the Blackrazor Tournament Cup adventure came mainly from the old TSR module DL6: Dragons of Ice (you can read all about it in this post from last year). The reasons were many, but mostly I found the substantive bits of DL6...the encounter numbers and constituent parts...to be perfectly sound, even if they were (IMO) rather blandly executed. Consequently, it seemed an ideal time to repurpose yet another one of the Dragonlance adventures that I'd picked up in a huge stack, way back in 2023. 

And the result had been so great (from my perspective) that I thought I'd mine the same vein again for 2026's Cauldron. 

DL10: Dragons of Dreams is one of the more infamous adventure modules from the DL line. It is terrible as written...nigh unplayable. Or, rather, it is playable but it would be such a headache to run in a practical, efficient manner that most DMs would probably throw up their hands halfway through the thing. Here's a fairly accurate review of the module...the first sentence pretty much sums it up.

Great, evocative artwork

And yet, the premise of DL10 isn't bad at all...it works especially well in my home campaign where I've made a "war with Tiamat" an ongoing part of the setting. The Dragonlance Silvanesti are pretty obviously stand-ins for AD&D's "grey elves" (themselves akin to Tolkien's Noldor...maybe), but for me they work better as wood elves which puts them in the Colville National Forest of (north) Eastern Washington, an area that (later in the war) is continuously beset and harrassed by the Green Wing of Tiamat's army, operating out of occupied Coeur d'Alene in northern Idaho. The wood elves of that realm (more similar to Tolkien's Mirkwood elves in my setting than the Melnibonean stand-ins that are my high elves on the Olympic Peninsula) have largely left because of the war, becoming refugees, driven from one town to the next in the (human) Red Empire of eastern Washington. If your PC is an elven thief or fighter in my campaign, chances are you are a wood elf (the assassins, magic-users, and multi-class MUs are mainly high elf adventurers from west of the Cascades).

[here's an overview of my campaign world's elves...solely for the interested]

ANYway...DL10's premise is pretty good: the elven king has sent away his people as he tried to use a dragon orb (one of three such artifacts in the Dragonlance universe) in a bid to stave off the dragon army and instead gets ensorcelled by the thing. The PCs get Shanghaied (is that still an acceptable term to use?) by the king's only daughter to help free her father; meanwhile, the whole realm has gone all twisted and weird as it has been molded by the enchanted nightmare of the king. Players have to fight their way through a illusions and their own psychomachia just so that they can face a green dragon in the king's throne room at the end. That's the BASIC outline/gist of the adventure...I challenge ANY DM to run DL10 as written using the standard AD&D rules. Seriously, gauntlet thrown. You want to prank someone hard? Get them a copy of DL10 off of DriveThruRPG and ask them to read it for you.

As I discussed earlier, I spent months considering how I could make a proper "dreamscape" adventure for Cauldron using the premise of DL10. I came up with the title ("Nightmare Realm of Death") waaaay back in March or April (I started my early documents for the thing on April 2nd). But it wasn't till June or July that I made any headway on the thing. For TOURNAMENT purposes, there were several considerations I was working with:

• It needed to be runnable in four hour time slot.
• It needed some solid "victory" conditions with granular variation between TOTAL SUCCESS and ABJECT FAILURE (TPK usually).
• Scoring should be OBJECTIVE and (mainly) TREASURE BASED
• It couldn't be so convoluted and subjective in ruling that different DMs couldn't all run it in (more or less) the same fashion.

The elements I wanted to KEEP from the original module included:

• The level range of the module (8th-10th).
• The king, the "orb," and the green dragon.
• The princess/adventurer (who would be a playable PC as in the DL10 module).
• An overland journey through a nightmare realm where reality wasn't what it seemed.
• A castle destination at the end.

While the pre-gens are all based on the actual Dragonlance PCs included in DL10 (why not? They're written for the proper level of the module), I wanted none of their past history BS being dragged into dream scenarios...that kind of thing is fine in a book or novel, but it doesn't (usually) resonate with players at a gaming table. Besides, the tournament measures skill as an adventurer (knowledge of systems, risk-reward, cooperation) not the level of melodramatic feeling one can bring to a "role-played" performance. No, sir. This is AD&D we're playing.

In the end, I punted on the whole dream bit. Instead, I took creatures one might expect to encounter in an elven wood (treants, bears, etc.) and made them evil and mentally unbalanced. Polluted lakes could have shambling mounds. River crossings would have trolls. That kind of thing. Had to throw in some level-draining critters (wraiths disguised as illusionary elves...pretty sure those are in the original module, too) in order for the cleric to feel they've earned their salt in addition to healing. Plus, since this is my campaign setting's version of "Mirkwood," giant spiders were a must. 

The road to the palace would be fairly linear, with distractions along the way...some of which could be rewarding, most of which would be time-wasters. Certain choices would increase the amount of "game time" being spent, which could have repercussions (certain encounters being more dangerous in the dark), but this was a minor consideration. Game time is elastic...real time (the four hour time limit) is the true enemy to success, and the more players chose to dither or plan or explore side paths, the less time they would have to fulfill their ultimate objective: freeing the wood elf king from the spell he was under. 

I don't have "dragon orbs" in my campaign, but I have the standard artifacts of the DMG, and for me the Orb of the Elder Wyrm was a perfect fit: it explained the presence of Cabos Saabz (my version of Cyan Bloodbane) and how the thing had trapped the mind of the king (the Orb has a particularly high INT and EGO scores). What's more, as a reward it's a nice chunk of change (70K) easily traded to the Red Emperor for the ongoing conflict with Tiamat. I decided that there would be several possible "victory results:"

#1 the party defeats the dragon, but lose both the princess and the king in the process. 

#2 the party defeats the dragon, but loses the princess (the king remains alive).

#3 the party defeats the dragon, but loses the king (the princess remains alive).

#4 the party defeats the dragon, save the king, AND maintain the life of the princess.

All four victory results would allow the players to acquire varying amounts of treasure. In the case of #1, the party would be left to try to find Cabos's hoard on their own (not very hard) but would be left without a means of transporting it. With #2, the PCs' employer (the princess) would not be around to provide transportation of the treasure, but the king could at least point them to the hoard. In the case of #3, the princess would honor her contract, giving the PCs all of the hoard (and arranging transportation of it); her own share of the treasure would, of course, also count towards the score. And in the case of #4, the party would receive the hoard AND would be given access to the elves' "secret treasure vault," only accessible (and known) by the grateful king.

I further stipulated (having some experience with goody-goody, hero-type players) that if the party decided to altruistically give back some of their hard-won treasure to rebuild the elven kingdom, that the king might be impressed enough to arrange a marriage between his daughter and one of the adventurers. This would result in a slight hit to the treasure total, but all other treasure recovered would count for DOUBLE the score. However, accomplishing this would require a positive (76+) reaction roll (modified by the CHA of the PC). This was a SECRET victory objective, unknown to the players.

Achieving all four victory conditions (let alone the SECRET victory condition) would require the players to keep the elf princess alive...not terribly easy given that she only had 31 hit points and was likely to get blasted by the dragon. However, the pre-gens DID have an "ace in the hole" that could, in theory, keep the elf alive...the thief PC possessed a luck blade with two (2) wishes. 

However, I'm mean so I didn't note that the luck blade had wishes...only that it had "two charges."

[players are welcome to ask me what the powers/abilities of their magical equipment does...and I'll tell them...but this takes precious time from their four hour game limit. Still, it's a good idea: Sabine, playing the magic-user in my session, recorded all the abilities of her 14 charge staff of power to start the game, and was able to make good use of the item]

The wishes could, of course, be used to shortcut or survive other travails in the adventure...this is to be expected. I gave some guidelines to the DMs of how to use the wishes (guidelines that not all of them followed...*AHEM*)...but as with many things related to differing DMing "styles," such is ALSO to be expected.

In play-testing the adventure with my home group, the players decided (right after getting mashed half-to-death by insane treants in the first encounter): "F this noise, we're going to wish ourselves into the elves' secret treasure vault." Not even knowing there WAS a "secret treasure vault." The treasure vault is, however, all but impossible to open without the king so they were effectively trapped (albeit with one more wish to their names). Still, my players never got so far as looking for an exit...after looting the hell out of the place, they said "Hey, aren't we supposed to rescue that king guy?" and wished themselves into the elf king's presence. 

At which point, hilarity ensued.

For my tournament session at Cauldron, my players were largely unaware of the wishes...the thief player did not (apparently) know what a luck blade was, nor did he ask about it, nor did he communicate to the other players the fact that he possessed it. Again, this kind of situation is totally reasonable to expect...the tournament measures players' skill...not just how well they know the rules ('what's a luck blade?') but how well they play the game. Do they look at their character sheet? Do they communicate with their companions? Do they ask for help when they are ignorant and in need of advice? And, then, how EXPEDIENT they are in accomplishing these things?

The time limit is there for a Very Real Reason. Not just because Cauldron is broken up into four hour time slots (which, I imagine, is what the convention organizers would say), but because it measures how we use our time. We are busy individuals, with all sorts of distractions and priorities vying for our attention. When we sit down to play a game like D&D, we are measuring out the minutes of our life...minutes we will never get back. Do we throw them away? Or do we use them wisely? Yes, you can go over every step of a plan a half-dozen times...eating away your time on the clock...in order to perfectly succeed (always assuming the dice rolls cooperate...). But will you accomplish as much as keeping things short and sweet and letting bold action rule your decision making process? This is a balancing act players must master, just as much as the vaunted "risk-reward" axis of game play.

The time limit, along with the treasure score, measures just how much game action you're getting out of your game play. Or, to put it another way: are you making it worth your while to play the game the way you're playing it?

In my Cauldron session, the party was proceeding in a brisk, but semi-cautious fashion when they came to the first combat encounter: four insane/enraged treants. Treants...even 8 HD ones like these...are no joke. Because of the terrain, the encounter distance is short, even if the treants don't achieve surprise...you're basically wading into melee against (the equivalent of) four hill giants with AC 0 and double attacks. That's a bone-crunching mess, depending on what formation the PCs are walking in. After sustaining a massive pummeling and expending a lot of healing, my group wanted to rest and regain their spells...something that (under the scenario conditions) they could not do in the evilly enchanted forest. They instead decided to retreat from the forest, out beyond the Pend Oreille river, in order to camp and rest in relative peace. 

[I will note that not EVERYONE in the party wanted to do this; Prince pushed for 'following the treants backtrail' into the woods, hoping to discover their lair. This would have been especially amusing as the scenario explicitly notes: "If the party decides to travel off the road for some reason, they will be attacked by 1d20 such treants every hour." Oh, how I would have cackled!]

SO...basically they wanted to do a "hard reset" of the adventure. Which wasn't explicitly disallowed, but wasn't something I'd really considered a possibility when designing the thing.  I allowed them to follow their plan of making camp, and rolled a random (night) encounter on the temperate wilderness table of the DMG. A "1" came up on the D12, and wouldn't you know it, but 10 OGRES happened upon them. So much for a good night's sleep!

At this point, I made the decision to ignore the random encounter, and just let them have their rest. They were already wasting time on the clock, and the adventure was explicit about where and when to roll for random encounters (this being a tournament scenario, such things are set only in certain places, and for specific reasons). Why water down the experience they had signed up to have by beating them to a pulp, spoiling their party's rest, and possibly TPKing them at encounter minus one?

I am nothing if not generous.

Back into the fray they went, Prince still talking about following the treants backtrail (he was playing a ranger, after all), but he was outvoted. Another side trail led to a long abandoned elven shrine where they could potentially score some loot from the offering bowls. They sent the thief in alone to scout the place. He was promptly surprised by five huge spiders dropping from the ceiling of the shrine. Uh-oh. Thief down.

The party fired a ton of missile fire (and magic missiles) into the open shrine and then demonstrated their ample AD&D knowledge by using slow poison and neutralize poison to save the beleaguered thief. Good enough. They took the handful of coins, chose NOT to defile the shrine by prying the emerald eyes out of the statue, and found an old dirt path leading through the woods. They decided to take this, thereby skipping three more encounter areas and saving valuable time on the clock.

[by this point, Ken was pushing the group pretty sternly to press forward...he did a good job keeping the players on track and moving when they might have otherwise dithered and screwed around. This is good stuff: even though adventuring parties are an "egalitarian" group of equals, it is HELPFUL to have a take-charge voice in the group to organize and focus the group. Of course, the downside is such a voice can lead an entire group into serious trouble (choose your leaders wisely!), but usually it's better to have SOMEone step up than have NO ONE. Such has been my experience and it was certainly the case in this session]

As the mountain path led down to the southern, swampy part of the lake turned bog, the party encountered a pair of shambling mounds, wisely decided against using lightning on the things, and managed to battle them to the death, even after multiple PCs had become entangled in their depths. Onward they pressed, up the mountainous river road towards their final destination. 

Three mutated, starving brown bears were the next thing encountered on the road, only one of which was real (the other two illusionary). In hindsight, there probably should have been more illusions in the adventure to add to the "dream" quality of the thing...but the players never figured out an earlier wall of fire was an illusion, and they avoided several illusionary encounters by taking their backwoods path. I don't know...I guess my version of DL10 suffered somewhat in execution, too. They killed two of the "bears" and charmed the third which (by random roll) turned out to be the only non-illusionary one. They gave it food and sent it off into the woods before proceeding on. 

The elf king's fort is 100% based on Tolkien's Mirkwood elves, including a large gate in the side of a mountain, an underground river, wine cellars, etc. No big deal...just pointing out what a hack adventure designer I am. The gate, an enormous carved thing of massive cedar logs that seemed to writhe and move, was actually two illusionary mimics that, if engaged with for any length of time, would ensure that the dragon was awake and well-prepared (spell-wise) for the PCs depending on just how long they futzed with the things. The party went to go "check the doors for traps" (which would have been disastrous for them) but Sabine stopped them and simply knocked the doors open, thereby allowing the party the possibility of surprising the dragon in its den. This, in addition to her liberal use of her staff's paralyzation ray and other timely spell-casting, was what made me give her the nod as "MVP" for the session.

The dragon was not surprised (that I recall), nor (unfortunately for the party) was it sleeping. In my home game it had been sleeping (40% chance, rolled in front of the players)...which enabled the thief to move silently up to it and backstab the thing. Whereupon it woke up and killed half the party (including the elven princess) before being taken down. No such luck for my Cauldron players, but at least it wasn't invisible, shielded, and setting giant globes of darkness around the hall.

The party wisely split wide to prevent its breath weapon from decimating them, and charged it from multiple angles, the more fragile members of the group hanging back and weaving spells. It was at this point the other party members noticed the thief had a luck blade ("You have wish spells?! Use them!"). The thief immediately wished the dragon was dead and promptly disappeared. 

[see PHB p.94 for an explanation]

The princess (a fighter/magic-user) cast haste on the entire party which, amusingly, could have ended multiple lives as it required each PC to make a system shock roll versus aging...but luck was on their side and everyone survived. The dragon was taken down without a single life lost, and the person who grabbed the orb away from the king (Ken? I think so) had a high enough personality score that the PC was able to control it. Total victory won!

Schibbi (playing the princess) asked if the thief reappeared. Why, yes, he did!

SO...a big fat score was had by the party. Then Schibbi actually asked if his character could marry one of the other party members thus getting some sort of dowery (and extra loot score!) from the elf king. I couldn't believe someone was trying to backchannel my own secret victory condition! I decided that even suggesting such a thing was worth a shot and getting the "doubled score" (although I would subtract the portion from the party's loot as a 'wedding gift'). 

However, first the would-be spouse had to impress the father of the bride. "Which character are you going to marry?" Well, the half-elf seemed obvious...plus he had a solid charisma score with a +15% reaction bonus. Dice rolled...abject failure (perhaps the king objected to his profession as an assassin?). I gave the players one more chance to impress...either the human fighter or the human cleric (both had excellent CHA scores), but I can't remember who they went with. Didn't matter. Another % roll in the teens and the King was having none of it. 

BUT...plenty of loot and a fine score for the party, putting them firmly in 4th place with a score of 462,001. If they had succeeded in the marriage proposal, they would have ended up in 2nd place with nearly 742K (the winners of the tournament DID succeed at the marriage proposition...the only group that did...and finished with a final tally of nearly 785K...just 2,328 points shy of the maximum possible score). A very fine run, in my opinion.

Prince gave the session only a *** (out of *****) rating on his blog, which seems about par for the course (he gave me the same score last year). I'm okay with that. This was a difficult adventure to write...not in terms of monsters and treasure and maps, but in terms of tone and theme. I wanted the thing to have a "slow burn" quality to it...a gradual feeling of "ramping up" (helped by a gradual "whittling down" of resources), leading to a nice little climax with a type of dragon I don't often use (not that I "often" use dragons, but green ain't my favorite of the five colors).

The thing was effective enough, but the illusion bits didn't really "bite" the way I wanted, and the thing felt...almost...a tad "soft." A dragon goes down QUICK when piled on by eight adventurers. And no dragon should feel like an easy out. But it's hard to measure how many player deaths a group can sustain and still have an adequate chance of success. 4-5 PCs against a beholder turned into a TPK when playtesting Horn of the Eye...but that was a party who'd lost their wizard. These types of things are difficult to account for, as you never know how the dice will fall.

However, I do know this: when I am a DM, I play intelligent adversaries in ruthless fashion. If the adventurers had happened upon an awake, prepared dragon, their lives would have been much more in jeopardy...much, much more. HIgh level spell-casters (especially with minions), spell-casting dragons, powerful demons and undead...these things can be absolutely punishing to ill-prepared, tentative, and/or indecisive players, especially those unable to cooperate with each other or think up quick plans on the fly. My HOPE is that these tournament modules test that mettle in the players. AND (of course) I hope they have a good time in the process.

A couple more words:

I am already considering what I want to do for next year's Blackrazor Cup...I actually have quite a few ideas jotted down. Calithena (aka Ignatius Umlaut aka "Sean"), the illustrious producer of Fight On! magazine has graciously offered to collaborate on the adventure; I'm going to touch base with him in a couple weeks. However, I've already decided that the next adventure will be a return to the site-based (i.e. "dungeon") style of the first two BRC adventures, and that it will have a slightly different method of scoring, which will require individual players to "step up" and take a bit out of the hands of DMs. The current working title is Into Light And Darkness (although I also liked the ring of Dead Elf Station). This one will take place in that vicious green inferno known as Oregon. 

Just so you know.

The other thing I wanted to say is that I know several people would like copies of these tournament adventures and I AM in the process of publishing them; I hope to have at least one or two available at DriveThruRPG by the end of the year. As they become available, I will post a notice about it here on Ye Old Blog...I know that there are folks who are anxious to run these at their home tables, and that makes me very happy.

All right, that's enough. Happy trails everyone!

Cauldron Day 3: Battle Fatigue

Serious gaming can take a toll on you, depending on how intense it is. Running the same scenario more than once, or a single long scenario (say six hours instead of three) isn’t the same as running multiple scenarios in which you, as the DM, have to reset, reorient, and refocus to a new premise, a new situation, and new player characters. Doing it over and over again, over multiple days, can be grueling. Usually, at the end of a three-day Cauldron, I’m checking into a hotel and sleeping for 20 hours before boarding a plane back to Seattle. The jet lag, the short turnaround, and the copious amounts of alcohol probably don’t help much.

This year, though, Day 3 wasn’t bringing breakfast, a last session, and a welcome respite. No. I had a whole ‘nother 24 hours of gaming. Got up, showered, dressed, and off to breakfast before my first morning session. Stretching exercises and deep breathing was having less impact and a diminishing rate of return.

Saturday Block I: Horn of the Eye

When I was a kid…and I mean, waaaay back, before I played AD&D proper…I wrote an adventure I called “Labyrinth of the Beholder.” It was a typical, kid-type adventure: a big mess of a maze, with plenty of funhouse monsters sitting in rooms ready to get killed and looted. At the center of the adventure, waiting like Theseus’s minotaur, was a beholder…taken from my first Monster Manual, despite the fact that we were still playing B/X and had yet to realize AD&D was a different thing (we thought “Expert D&D” and “Advanced D&D” were the same, you see?). It was one of the highlight adventures of my early DMing career, meaning it gave both me and my players some memorable stories. As a teenager, I’d tried to recreate it like a 'real AD&D adventure module,' but while I drew the map (I still have the map, actually), my endurance with writing modules was pretty thin in those days. I found a page (along with the map) that had three encounter write-ups (by hand, in pencil)…all pretty terrible. That’s as far as I got.

This year, I decided I’d recreate the thing…as a location in my campaign world. Kind of a Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth if Iggwilv was still kicking around the Prime Plane…and if she were a beholder, getting regular tribute from the locals. Set in the Seven Devils mountain range of (western) Idaho, I wrote it up and playtested the thing back in April with my kids right before Spencer left for his chef job in Japan. It was a great success and, while it ended in a TPK, it actually felt a little soft to me…a full party of eight players, avoiding bone-head mistakes (like purposefully antagonizing a pyrohydra) would probably succeed where my own group had failed miserably.

Or so I thought.

This one’s your typical, “iconic” (sterotyped) subterranean cavern complex, with lava lakes and fungi forests (is there a bottomless pit? I might have left that trope out, but it would definitely fit). Flinds (from the Fiend Folio) are the main minion of the beholder (who has a name, but I’m not going to look it up right now since I’m not wearing my reading glasses as I type this anyway)..he also has a fire giant lieutenant, there are a couple trap rooms, various other minions of a lawful evil bent. There’s a grell in one part which I found to be fairly useless in play-testing…I left it in anyway because, you know, grell.

The party was well-organized and advanced cautiously after descending a couple hundred feet in a lift of brass and iron. Past the stone causeway (wide enough to drive a wagon) over a lake of magma. Surprised the first guard post, murdered the hell out of everybody, then sent the thief ahead into (what turned out to be) the den of a pyrohydra. Uh-oh.

Full retreat not fast enough, party dropped a portcullis on the thing and then butchered it, but the thief player needed a new character (duh). More caution, then started wandering the wing populated by the flind minions. Three more fights and a lot of dead flinds later, they picked up a nice treasure chest and a couple magic items including a ring of fire resistance…handy in a land of lava pools. Good play from the party included ample and strategic use of a scarab on enraging enemies.

Good mapping (yes, Charlotte, the mapping was good) allowed the players to find their way back to the hydra den where they stashed the chest before proceeding back into uncharted territory. Avoided the wing with the fire giant, fortuitously skirted another flind guard post (thus avoiding an alarm) before finding themselves at yet another cavern filled with lava, this one with tall stones of basalt allowing for crossing…in single-file only. Sent the new thief (I think) forward only to have his way barred by four salamanders rising from the lava…no attacks, just questioning, but he didn’t speak salamander and he decided to back off, unmolested. Fighter/magic-user put on the ring of fire resistance and used comprehend languages to converse and understand their speech (even though he couldn’t speak it). Figured out they were asking what tribute the party was bringing to their lord and master and that they’d better have something good or they wouldn’t be allowed to continue.

Magic-user, meanwhile, was turning invisible in order to scout ahead. F/MU came back, gave the MU his ring who then dashed across the columns, unbeknownst to the salamanders (I should note…and I explained this to the players…that hanging out on the path where the temperature of the lava is around 1200 degrees centigrade causes the equivalent of a heat metal spell if you dilly-dally more than one round inside the cavern). Magic-user found a trap down a side passage beyond the cavern…a deadfall that crushed the hell out of him…but he managed to stagger back to his companions for some much needed healing

A bunch of confusion at this point, with a lot of players voting to do different things. The halfling decided to use his oil of etherealness for more hardcore scouting. Fighter/magic-user wanted to fly to the other side of the cavern (over the salamanders heads), while half the party was considering making a sprint to the other side and/or fighting the creatures. The invisible magic-user took the scarab of enraging enemies that they had used to wipe out the larger flind mobs and moved out into the middle of the path, figuring he would use cone of cold (while still invisible) if the scarab didn’t do its job. He had to go to the middle of the path because of the range of the magic item (4")...about halfway out.

[the use of the scarab was not an attack that would end invisibility]

The scarab only worked on one salamander who was promptly dispatched by its comrades. Declaring actions, the cleric decided it was now time to make a mad dash to the other side, while the magic-user declared he was casting cone of cold. The cleric ran into the invisible magic-user (overbearing attacks) and knocked the wizard into the lava while knocking himself down; he was then grabbed by a salamander tail and constricted. The fighter and ranger next raced out to help (in single file), only to be subsequently grabbed as well. Having no resistance to heat, after two rounds of constriction the heated metal of their helmets caused both warriors to succumb to unconsciousness, while the cleric simply died.

The F/MU next cast charm monster on the lead salamander, which was then attacked by its comrades while the dwarf, having already imbibed a potion of speed, shuttled unconscious companions back to the safety of the cavern entrance. The lead salamander slew a companion before being slain himself, and the party was able to polish off the last one with (I believe) the dwarf...the latter having removed his helmet. Unfortunately, he still sustained severe, disabling burns to his body for the rounds of melee he spent in combat with the thing.

In the meantime, the halfling finally went ethereal (the oil not taking effect till three rounds after application), and decided to scout ahead while the party waited for their companions to recover from their heat-induced comas. I tracked the duration of the potion and he spent so long wandering the caverns on the other side that his etherealness eventually wore off…just as he managed to stumble his way into the beholder’s presence. Somehow, with a quick wit and a “00” reaction roll, the halfling was able to convince the beholder that he was an envoy of the dragon queen sent to broker an alliance based on tribute, slaves, and monument erected to the beholder’s greatness. This was deemed sufficient by the Eye Tyrant and the character was allowed to leave, taking the beholder's message of acceptance back to Tiamat. “Don’t get eaten by the [black] pudding on your way out!” it called after him.

He found his way back, explained what happened to the party, and they all decided to get the hell out of Dodge, retrieving their small chest of treasure on the way. A very nice run, in my opinion.

[EDIT: Lutz, aka Der Oger, was my nod for Most Valuable Player]

Saturday Block II: Jewel of Demogorgon

Time for a little more "personal history:" as a child, before I’d ever held or seen a D&D book of any kind, we used to “play D&D” at recess, pretending to be “fighters,” “assassins,” and “magic-users”, arguing over who got to wield “Blackrazor,” and fighting “Demogorgon.” Once I discovered that this D&D game was an honest-to-goodness, real thing...and after I had my own copy of Basic D&D and the Monster Manual and knew what an adventure module was (thanks B2!), I asked my friends (the ones who had first hipped me to this D&D concept) if they knew of any adventure that contained the Prince of Demons. They said, yeah, there was one called something like “Revenge of Demogorgon.” I spent many years looking for this module before deciding it probably didn’t really exist.

For Cauldron, I wanted to run a high-level adventure, and decided that I would craft my own version of this fable…something I probably should have done years before. However, for the life of me I couldn’t come up with any legitimate reason why Demogorgon would want “revenge” on a group of snot-nosed adventurers so, instead, I penned what amounts to a high level "heist" scenario.

As with Sky Fortress, this adventure was only finished in the last few days before I left for Cauldron; it was never play-tested. When I first decided to do it, I had expected it to be the capstone piece for my seven-adventure mini-campaign. I’d also planned on running it in the Saturday Night block where there is no four-hour time limit. Now, however, I had it slated for the afternoon session with the idea that, if it proved to be too long, I could continue to run it after dinner in the Night block…a two-parter, in other words.

First thing’s first: as I sat down at my table after lunch, I was surprised by a player (Theo) passing through asking if I was going to join their game since no one had signed up for my session. What?! This was exceptionally odd, as (to this point) all my tables had been full. What the heck had happened?

I went down to check the sign-up sheet and it was nowhere to be found. Thought that was pretty odd…until a helpful person informed me that session sheets with no takers were simply removed out of the assumption the DM would withdraw their offering.

[later, I had at least one or two people tell me they would have LIKED to play in my game but they felt it was “too high level” and they did not have enough experience playing to feel comfortable. 12th is too high? Sheesh!]

In the end I did have a few players…five or six…who took pity on my empty table and allowed me to run Jewel. I thought the adventure played pretty well, but it was very difficult for the number of players we had…the Abyss is no joke, even for characters in the 12th-14th level range. That being said, it WAS quite long, especially as the premise was tricky to explain, and we had to do some re-calculations of armor class and whatnot due to magic items being less functional on the outer planes. Still: we made it roughly halfway through the adventure, even with a pair of novice players in the group, and when I offered to run it after dinner, they all agreed to come back (except for Ghoul, who was running his own adventure in the Saturday Night block). 

So…I guess not everyone was tired of dying in my games?

Puts hair on your chest.

Final feast/dinner and the annual auction followed, and this was a great time, as always, with much generosity of spirit (and currency) all around. Bidding was fierce, as was the drinking, and my favorite local spirit (a bottle of Rainier Mountain Fresh Gin) was popular enough that I only consumed a third of it myself, the rest being passed around in exchange for palinka, hazelnut liqueur, wine…you know, the usual. I didn’t get any of Estelle’s chartreuse unfortunately (especially disappointing as she ended up at my gaming table afterwards!) but perhaps next year. On to the Night Block!

Saturday Block III: Jewel of Demogorgon (cont.)

I actually ended up with six players at the table after I’d had five (-ish?) at the previous session…just not as many DMs were running games that night (only seven in fact, although one was Bruno’s 23-player OD&D extravaganza) and players were looking for empty seats. I did my big table last year, but I find it tough to run AD&D with the same amount of proficiency and attention I like when there are more than eight participants. Hell, seven is about the perfect amount, but eight gives you extra bodies to slay…you lose one or two PCs from a 6-7 party and the game can quickly go all “death spiral” on you. In my experience.

But, hey, I’m being coy, and I know it. I don’t really want to say anything about my Demogorgon adventure because I actually REALLY like it…and the thing needs some fine-tuning. Despite the map fitting on a single page (unlike most of my dungeons this year), it’s pretty beefy, pretty elaborate. No, the Prince of Demons does not actually make an appearance (unless the players do something very, very wrong) but I really like how I decided to handle the Abyss, and this particular layer. Also, the scenario itself...breaking into a Demon Prince’s stronghold while he’s away, hoping to loot his “Hoard of Spite” without getting caught...is a good one. Spoiler Alert: the players did not find the Hoard (although they got all the way to Demo's audience chamber: a heroic feat in and of itself) but, even if they had, I don’t know if the juice would have been worth the squeeze. As I said, the adventure needs fine-tuning. It was a really ambitious design and I needed more time with it than what I actually took.

Saturday night, I called the game at what I thought was a pretty decent stopping point, but there hadn’t been enough treasure (by my standards) up till that point (I’ll work on it). Plus, let’s be honest: I was pretty hammered by the time we were finishing up, and it had to be after 3am (or 4). I packed my bags, found Prince and Soren embroiled in their usual, last night political discussion, and got into it with them, continuing well into the wee hours of the morning in our usual, jovial fashion. 

And I mean…wow. For once I saw the backside of Prince staggering away (he’s usually the last man standing at these events). But then I looked at my watch and saw the local time was 5:40am, I realized I might have made a BAD mistake. I headed off to bed, in as straight a line as I could walk. 

Not very straight.

[Jewel of Demogorgon may well may make another appearance at a future Cauldron; if it does, it will be in an updated and upgraded format]

[oh, and one last MVP nod...Walid, sometimes called "the Cruel," was my nomination for this round, with his good use of a robe of scintillating colors helping the party immensely]

Game Day

Nope. Not football. Futbol.

The school soccer season kicks off today...this will be my 4th season coaching my daughter's team, my tenth year coaching my kids, and my second-to-last year (probably) coaching youth soccer. As usual, I'm all keyed up, the adrenaline starting to pump as soon as I hade even a modicum of wakefulness at 6:30am (the wife holding a rather loud conversation in her sleep)...despite being up past midnight working on the game plan.

This season got off to a rough start, it's still a little rough, but I've done my best to iron things out. It hasn't been particularly easy.

Started a few weeks ago when I discovered that my team had been put in the 8th grade division this year (our team of 21 kids are 7th graders). I thought this was just a simple mistake, easily corrected. Nope. Turns out the school only had five 8th grade girls registered for soccer and so, rather than find them homes with other schools (the usual practice), or figure out what happened to all the players who they played with last year (another option), the Athletic Director decided to combine our grades and make us play up a year....basically selling our season. Without any communication or prior discussion with me (the coach) or anyone else on the team.

[at this age, an extra year of size, strength, speed, experience, and training makes a BIG difference in soccer]

I won't bother detailing all the rigamarole that ensued. Suffice is to say, a little legwork on my part turned up another 4-5 kids that had been left off the roster (mostly 8th graders) and we ended up NOT being able to get our old division back nor even split our (now monstrously-sized team) into two. At least the league gave us a dispensation that allows us to remain "playoff eligible" despite exceeding the player limits for normal roster construction (we had 31 players till a couple dropped out).

I'm just required to document all their minutes played to ensure equitable playtime. Reports due before 8am, Monday morning after every game.  (*sigh*)

Then there's my assistant coach. Well, one of them. Diego's also assisting and he, of course, is a great boon. But we've got a dad volunteer who...let's just say his coaching style is different from mine. And tends to center on his daughter a bit. And tends to make her a bit insufferable and insubordinate. It's rubbing Diego the wrong way...but that's how a lot of parent-coaches are (I've explained to him). The whole reason I ended up with the gig four years ago was because half the girls were going to quit playing (including my daughter) because of a similar coach. 

Anyway, I'm coach now (the Big Cheese), and I pride myself in my retention rate. That's part of why our enrollment's gone up every year (we only had 18 last season)...kids keep coming back to play.

In considering it, I'm not sure if my Dungeon Mastering has informed my coaching, or if my coaching has informed my Dungeon Mastering over the years. I have a remarkably similar approach to both, so there's probably some correlation between the two. But I wasn't DMing for kids (as an adult) 9 or 10 years ago...really that's only been about seven years. And when I was DMing 15 years ago, I had no idea I'd ever be coaching kids sports in any way, shape, or form.

Maybe it's just my nature to be a compassionate hard-ass?

Because that's pretty much my style. There's not a lot of goofing at practices. It's drills. It's me critiquing what they do wrong (and praising what they do right). It's me barking at them a lot. It's me taking the time to explain our strategy and tactics and WHY we are doing things in a particular way. 

Because they're smart kids. They get it...if you explain it. For the most part. But even the ones who can't grasp the overall picture can understand their ROLE in that picture, if you spare a couple minutes and give them some attention. I say I'm compassionate...and I am...but perhaps it's more about patience? 

Eh. Maybe not (see the bit about barking at them on the field).

Well, whatever it is. They seem to be having fun...well, what passes for MY version of "fun." There's a new kid (new for me...she's an 8th grader) who has an "ankle issue" and has a hard time doing laps or running sprints (she's overweight and slow, even without the ankles) and whose mom told me is "not very competitive" and just wants to be here with her BFF (who is also "not very competitive"). And, yet, she takes a bus across town to get to practice and she DOES run the laps and DOES run the sprints, and darned if she hasn't shown some tenacity in tackling and winning balls in our scrimmages, even against the faster "club" players on our team. It's just about not ignoring the kid...I treat her the same as the others: encouraging her when she does good, critiquing her (telling her to "hustle up," mostly) when she needs critique, and letting her know she's a contributor, just like everyone else. Not just turning a blind eye and focusing on the "good players." I coach up ALL the kids. 

Anyway, the club players aren't always available anyway (because a lot of families prioritize their expensive soccer clubs over their school teams when there's a schedule conflict), so it's just plain survival to get the best out of every player who shows up. 

I'm a competitive guy. I like soccer; I want to play more soccer. And that means, once again, shooting to reach the playoffs, so that we get extra games. Knock on wood, but I've never missed getting to the playoffs with any team I've coached...I'm 5-for-5.

This season, though, is going to be a bitch. Or...just maybe...it will be our greatest triumph?

Hahaha...no it's far more likely to be the former. But damn it, we're going to pull together, and we're going to suffer together, and we're going to have a damn good time suffering together! Just like a party of D&D adventurers getting their asses handed to them in some dungeon where they're in over their skis. 

Yeah, there's a lot of "bleed through" with my hobbies.

Our first game (today) is against a school that is, traditionally, the Big Bad Bully of the league...they won't be Tomb of Horrors tough, more like Steading of the Hill Giants tough. We'll see how well I can DM us through this mess. We're down six of our best (club) players for the first half, and we'll only be getting two back in the second (and losing another). Imagine if an adventuring party had to play the game without their best magic-user and one cleric down...and then you got the cleric back (with half her spells and hit points depleted) midway through the adventure only to see your other cleric disintegrated. Yeah, like that.

*sigh*

I'm silly; I know. The goal here is to have healthy, happy, active kids running around in the fresh air, getting their heart rates up, and not getting injured. Just like [my] goal with D&D is getting kids away from their screens for a few hours and getting them to use their imaginations and reasoning skills and (safely) getting their heart rates up. Oh yeah...and helping them learn cooperation and teambuilding and sportsmanship, yadda-yadda-yadda...in both activities.

Mm. Yeah. Just keep the vision.

All right, that's enough for this morning...a bit of insight into where my head's at. Yeah, the rest of the world's in flames at the moment, I'm well aware, but right now my attention is a little more local, focusing on the things I can control, the 30ish kids I can impact. Hopefully in a positive fashion. 

Have a good weekend, folks. Peace!

Back Into The Woods

I'm starting this Saturday morning; we'll see how long it takes to write.

Currently in Vancouver, Washington for yet another youth soccer tournament. The boy and I had things going on yesterday (including coaching middle school girls) so we hopped the Amtrak last night to meet the wife and daughter down here. It was a late night (though I do love a train ride); everyone but me is still sleeping. Both kids are "guest playing" this weekend.

With regard to the Heroes Unlimited game I was writing about previously, the madness has passed. Well, mostly. I am still doing world building: working out hero demographics, using HU rules to build/model classic (NPC) comic characters, researching storylines from the 70s and 80s (and...rarely...later) for ideas on how various concepts and plots can interact with each other. Yesterday was looking at the history of Alpha Flight (and Omega Flight and Gamma Flight and Weapon X) and its ties to Roxxon Oil and how that was linked to Iron Man, for example. But this is all fodder for the mind factory, grease for the gears. Inspiration, not canon, which is welcome for the "lonely fun" that is world building.

Sadly most of the storylines post-1992 or so are pretty much crap. I shake my head and realize I got out of the comic books at the right time.

Still (and as I already wrote), that all's been back-burnered for the nonce (oo...reminds me I had a dream last night where I was interviewing for a sales job and part of it hinged on my ability to cook; interesting!). Instead, I am buckling down on my Cauldron preparations, and that includes designing and running adventures.

Last weekend I was up on Orcas Island with friends, and I had the chance to play-test the tournament adventure that will be this year's Blackrazor Cup extravaganza. Players included three boys and two girls aged 15, 15, 12, 12, and 7. Yes. I ran AD&D for a seven year old last weekend. His first time. As one might expect, he had a great time and the next day wanted to know when I was going to run "Part 2" and could he play, too. I had to explain that there's no "part 2," just a string of neverending adventures and OF COURSE he can join us the next time we play, if he's available and it's okay with his parents.

AD&D, amIrite?

I'd love to give everyone a blow-by-blow, but I can't until after the con because [SPOILERS]. However, I will say the group found a way to shortcut a ton of the content and instead got to both the grand payout (difficult putting THAT cart in front of the horse) before reaching the ultimate objective, and fighting a total of only two battles. Which ended up being fine because...with only five of eight PCs...that first battle was a bit of a slog. Two-fifths of the party were slain in brutal fashion by the end, but they walked away with a big pile of treasure even so...I haven't had the chance to tally the take, but I will (the boys especially were interested in their tournament score...the girls less so as they'd been reduced to steaming remains), and the score will be posted alongside all the other people who participate...at Cauldron. Just so they can know how they did.

So, yeah. AD&D mode. School is starting up this week (Diego Monday; Sofia on Wednesday). Cross country and school soccer starting in earnest this week (I'm coaching again...and it's already off to a train wreck of a start *sigh*). And I've got about five weeks to get physically and mentally ready for Cauldron. Two more adventures to pen (Diego told me "you're cooked") but I think with the kids back in class I'll have some time. And I'm excited at the prospect.

I don't know what it is about the Dragonlance saga that keeps calling me...not the books, but the whole concept of the thing. I don't believe that I'm trying to "rehabilitate" it (certainly not consciously) but I keep dragging out these old modules and using them as jumping off points for working scenarios and situations into my home campaign (yes: more world building). It's just so damn easy...then again, maybe it's just that the fantasy wilderness of D&D worlds lends itself to the real world 'layout' of my Pac Northwest campaign. For sure, if I wanted to do 'the Forgotten Realms' (I don't), I could place "Neverwinter" in Vancouver, Washington (the very town I'm writing this) while having Mount St. Helen's stand-in for Mount Hotenow (Mount "Hot Now?"). Yeah the Pacific coastline is a little farther west than the Sword Coast, but you can always have some cataclysm or other slide the coastline underwater. Global warming, anyone?

I digress. 

[and why not? it's now Sunday evening that I'm continuing this post]

I digress...there is a rich tapestry of ideas in the Dragonlance saga, desperately needing an editor who's also (sorry to say) something of a subject matter expert in advanced D&D theory-hammering. Which is just about the silliest thing to be a subject matter expert in...but we all have our foibles and weirdness. DL is DUMB, but it is totally USEFUL. I realize I am dripping with snobbish condescension when I make this analogy, but it's been a looooong last two days (a long last two months), and I'll make it anyway: reading Dragonlance modules (I have a few) is like listening to the wildest ideas of my younger, "more creative" child, and realizing I can add a dash of Old Man canny and repurpose it into something wondrous and (for the players) "magical." It has nothing to do with story of the thing; the Hickman's "story" is as tired and trope-y as any fantasy fiction. It has to do with the situations and scenarios and ideas being presented...stuff that can be used by a DM to give the PLAYERS an opportunity to tell their own story. Which is what D&D...real D&D (in my opinion) is all about.

Just like that seven year old regaling his parents with his adventures. 

Not his character's adventures, mind you. HIS adventures. "I did this, Mom!" He survived. He triumphed. He struck the final death blow against the 'Big Bad.' It's no different from my own children's introduction to the game. Well, except he hasn't had a character die yet. Next session maybe.

; )

ANYway. I'm meandering. I'll leave it there for now, but...I'm back in the saddle. 

Beyond The Supernatural

More personal history:

I wrote in my last post that while Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the first Palladium game I purchased, I wasn't really introduced to Palladium as a system until high school when a trio of friends (Ben, Mike, and Michael) showed me how such disparate games as TMNT, Heroes Unlimited, Robotech, and Ninjas & Superspies all worked together off the same universal engine. And, unlike the blandness of GURPS, these were games that lit up all my bells and whistles as far as getting an adolescent's creative juices flowing.

However, I ALMOST got into Palladium before high school through a different friend: Scott.

I believe Scott still lives in Seattle; we were 'friends' on Facebook (an app I almost never use) but he recently deactivated his account (as people tend to do). We were on-again/off-again best friends through elementary school (eight years), but went our separate ways in high school, reconnecting a bit during college, and passing into the realm of casual acquaintance / old (nostalgia) friend after that. The last time I actually sat down with him was before my kids were born; we had a coffee and forgave old grievances and talked about his mom who was dying of cancer at the time. It was a good chat...but I haven't seen him since.

ANYway. I've talked about Scott before, mostly in relation to my old (original) AD&D gaming group. But Scott, like myself, was interested in games outside of D&D. He introduced me to BattleTech (and CityTech and AeroTech and MechWarrior) and we played many battles around his dining room table. He was the first one of us to pick up Advanced Marvel Superheroes and was my GM for that, before those duties migrated to myself. He purchased GURPS (which we never used) and Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader (which we WANTED to play, but couldn't, lacking miniatures and not really grokking war games). And, Shadowrun, of course, which was a bit over our heads at age 12 (but which I would play quite a bit in later years).

But one of the last games he picked up, right before the end of middle school...and I can still remember how excited he was by it...was Beyond the Supernatural. And he was excited by it...so much that this was the one game of his that he didn't let me borrow (back in those days we were always swapping our game books with each other so that we could read them and learn the rules). Looking back, I'm not sure if this is because he wanted to keep the 'secrets' of the game to himself (considering that he would be the GM for the game), or because there was just SO MUCH to read and dive into...first edition BTS is over 250 pages long (a lot bigger than 1E Shadowrun, for example) and is chock full of all the lore and high concept stuff that would become a hallmark of trad RPGs of the '90s. Maybe he just never finished reading the thing before we graduated 8th grade and transitioned to high school.

It was many years later...probably college...that I would come across the game in a shop and, flipping through it, realized that it was a Palladium system and thus compatible with Rifts and all the rest. Astounding. As an old hand at Rifts (by that time) it was fascinating to see where all the PPE and ley-line mumbo-jumbo first appeared. 

Of course, by the time I was in university, Palladium was pretty much dead to me (except for the collecting of their always inspirational world books). I had tried running the game multiple times and it always collapsed under the weight of its own clunk. I had resigned myself to the fact that there were far better systems out there (at that time, I was all about White Wolf, and I could run their "Storyteller" system blindfolded). In fact, I had some college buddies who invited me to play in a one-off Rifts game with them (I wouldn't even have to run the thing)...I wasn't interested.

But their interest in Rifts was unusual at that time. Most of us were playing some sort of White Wolf game in the early 90s. Or some version of BRP. I was running Stormbringer every now and again, and there was an on-going Call of Cthulhu game in the dorms that I never got into...despite my love of Lovecraft and that whole "eldritch horror" genre that his work spawned/inspired. I own CoC (and the GUMSHOE game Trail of Cthulhu), but playing a game where you're powerless in the face of existential horror just never felt fun in the same way reading creepy stories did.

Which maybe why BTS still appeals to me...despite the turn-off of Palladium's system.

I mean: just look at that cover. This is EXACTLY what I want out of a "horror" game. A bunch of dudes in jumpsuits (obviously non-military) firing off automatic weapons while getting chewed up by some Monstrosity-That-Should-Not-Be while trying desperately to locate an exorcism spell in an ancient grimoire (do you read Sumerian?). I mean, THAT's the kind of "modern adventure RPG" I can get behind. No matter how much dumb-dumb might be in it, there's an energy there that's missing from the more staid and polished efforts on the market. Apologies to Unknown Armies, Chill, Delta Green, Esoterrorists, etc. but BTS got it pretty much right the first time.

Yeah, sure. It's my opinion. Others may beg to differ.

Just reading BTS takes me straight back to 1987. Man, I wasn't reading Shanarra books back then (not that I ever have); hell, I didn't even read The Lord of the Rings till the 1990s. No, I was reading books by Steven King, Peter Straub, Clive Barker. Mostly King, though...everything I could get my hands on. You can see a LOT of King-type tracings in BTS; ideas cribbed from The Dead Zone, Firestarter, and IT. Of course, you can also see a lot of the shlock horror that we were watching back in those days, too...things like Hellraiser and Phantasm and Poltergeist.

Beyond the Supernatural is a game that asks, 'What if Ghostbusters wasn't a comedy? And what if it was  written and directed by John Carpenter?'  

That doesn't sound pretty rad to you? It does to me.

And, yet, I confess it is a game for a different time. And I don't just mean "because it has an old-school'ish, clunky system." For someone of a particular age/generation (i.e me and the friends of my youth...who do you think got me into all that horror nonsense, back in the day?), it has tropes and ideas that we are intimately familiar with, lacking only some sort "dream fighting" psychic ability a la Dreamscape, Elm Street, or Masterton's Night Warriors series.

[come to think of it, I could use a little more Cronenberg/Scanners-style head exploding psychic powers, too...but that's just me]

The really nice thing about BTS is that it's self-contained: it is a complete game in and of itself. Or, at least, it was. There is (of course) a 2nd edition of Beyond the Supernatural that cuts out all the magic stuff (!!) and significantly reduces the bestiary...these things were going to be covered in two "later supplements." Which has never happened. 2E BTS was published in 2005, twenty-one years ago. Not sure we'll EVER see these books...at least not in Siembieda's lifetime.

Which is fine. My advice (as usual) is: stick with the first edition. Especially as it's still available for purchase as a PDF (in print some places as well). I'd say more on the subject but it would probably amount to flogging a dead horse...plus I'm digressing. 

As I was starting to say, Beyond the Supernatural is a game for people of a certain age and generation: people who remember what life before smart phones and the internet was like. Yeah, my kids love Stranger Things, too, but that series is just a period piece for them...like watching Downton Abbey. If I tried running a game for them set in 1987 (the year BTS was originally published), they'd have tremendous blindspots in the subject matter...not just with regard to history, but with regard to tropes and genre conventions.

You know how little kids know these days even about such 'old hat' monsters as vampires and werewolves? Seriously...they have no idea.  

Whatevs. I'm sure people are wondering why the heck I'm even talking about Beyond the Supernatural right now...other than it is another Palladium game that I've said I might find useful for the Heroes Unlimited campaign I'm developing. Well, that's just it: I DO think it would a useful piece to my campaign "puzzle" and, while Palladium takes a fairly secular view of supernatural evil (I'd guess Satan would simply be another "alien intelligence" on Rifts Earth...get the railgun!), unlike Mr. Siembieda, I AM a fan of "magic" in my comic book properties. Yes, aliens and galactic adventuring is fun (and I'm still reading the Galaxy Guide...we'll get to that), but I was a big fan of Doctor Strange, too. Hell, I like mixing both scifi AND mysticism...always dug that Syzygy Darklock guy from the Dreadstar comics.

Probably because he was a cyborg.

; )

Making Choices

First, a bit of personal history. 

My introduction to Palladium RPGs came care or Erick Wujcik's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness, circa 1985 or '86. As with most of my RPG purchases in the '80s, this was something I picked up at The Book Exchange (used book store) in Missoula, Montana while visiting family for the Thanksgiving holiday...something we did every year. I'd already been introduced to the TMNT comics by a friend (an acquaintance from Boy Scouts) and this was back in the days before they'd become a punchline/media franchise. 

*sigh* The good old days...

Anyway, my brother and I made some characters and ran some fights over the holiday, but that was about it. TMNT went on the shelf when we got home, my gaming group still firmly in the TSR universe of AD&D and Marvel Superheroes.

Flash forward to '88/'89. I am a freshman at Seattle Prep high school with nary a friend to my name. My gaming group had broken up over the summer, and my prospects for gaming are lukewarm at best...I can run games for my younger brother and his middle school buddies (which I do a little of) or I can "solo game" (which is not to my taste). Instead, I go about the painful business of putting myself out there and trying to create a new social circle as your standard self-conscious, self-doubting adolescent while simultaneously being overwhelmed by the sheer size and scope of high school. However, I am fortunate to be placed in homeroom class that features "the smart kids" (since we all tested into the higher math) and here I meet some kids who play RPGs...specifically, Michael, Ben, and Mike. 

These three have been best friends for years (Ben and Mike are twin brothers), and they are into all sorts of nerd stuff, especially comic books and Robotech. In fact, if memory serves, they were playing the Robotech RPG (or discussing it) which led me to ask them what game they were talking about, as my knowledge of "anime" ended with the Star Blazers serial I had watched (on occasion) as a kid of 7 or 8. The trio introduced me to the show (loaning me videos to watch) and the RPG, another Palladium jam; however, I never had a chance to play with them as they were just running a short campaign. 

These guys were very much Siembieda super-fans...at least when it came to game design. Of course they knew (and had played) AD&D, but Palladium was their system of choice, and being comic book junkies, Heroes Unlimited was their main drug of choice. And not just HU; they were using TMNT, Ninjas & Superspies, and Transdimensional TMNT (and, perhaps, After the Bomb) all to fuel their campaign. Reading through their books introduced me to the Palladium 'universal' system, which I found remarkably interesting and exciting, in a way that GURPS (which a buddy owned in middle school) never had. I started to realize that games like TMNT and Beyond the Supernatural (which had been demo'd for me a couple years earlier) were all related...and compatible!...with this comic-driven super-system.

One of these days, I'll write a  more in-depth "profile" post on these guys; suffice is to say, they gave me a "gamer lifeline" at a time when I very much needed it, and while I didn't get the opportunity to play with them as much as I'd have liked, it was enough to keep me sane, and I'll always be grateful and appreciative of them. Even as we've gone our separate ways in life, I have fond memories of those guys.

ANYway. When it comes to HU, they played Heroes Unlimited Revised, which was really the second edition of the game...pretty confusing because there's an even larger, later version of the game called Revised Second Edition (or just 2E); I think many folks just like to ignore the first edition was even a game...and it's not that easy to come by, as I've discussed before.

But have it I do...as well as a copy of Revised (my first introduction to the game) as well as Second Edition, a real monstrosity of a book that incorporates a lot of extra material that makes the system even more "universal" -- i.e. compatible with Palladium's flagship game, Rifts. All three versions of HU are different enough to refer to them as different systems, although the casual observer might disagree. Of course, the casual observer probably considers OD&D, AD&D, and AD&D 2E to be (largely) the same system, and I'd smack them about the head & shoulders with my books for claiming such.

Let's go ahead and distinguish the three (because, inevitably, someone will ask me to do so in the comments); I will talk only about the rules, not the layout, inclusion/exclusion of adventures, comprehensibility, etc. (if that kind of thing interests you, the later books are worse than the earlier books):

1st edition Heroes Unlimited: characters with superpowers get ONE power; only nine power categories (no magic); skill selection is much more granular and education based; no class-specific abilities -- physical training, hardware, and special training characters are simply skill based; ranged combat is more "realistic"/fiddly; includes rules for occupations/jobs, law enforcement (all later removed).

Revised Heroes Unlimited: adds magic category to make ten power types; addition of class specific features; hardware adds weapons expert and option for multiple specialties; special training divided into five specific/distinct categories; super powers divided into "minor" and "major" and characters may possess multiple powers; mutant animal rules (in abbreviated form) added from TMNT; robot and vehicle combat rules added (cribbed from Robotech); modern/ranged combat system updated; skill system "streamlined" into packages, cutting some skills and adding others; more "stuff" in sections for characters with budgets (bionics, robotics, hardware); adds "Crazy Hero" option and includes a bunch of stuff for making insane characters; experiments add "super soldier" option.

Second Edition Heroes Unlimited: a LOT of "Rift-isms" and "power creep." Physical strength is divided into several distinct categories (normal, extraordinary, superhuman/robot, supernatural). Combat gets an overhaul thanks to Rifts: knockdowns, sprays/straffing, inability to dodge lasers, death blow no longer kills (but can be done at will and takes two actions), more vehicle stuff, etc.; aliens updated with tables from Aliens Unlimited; bionics updated with 'borg conversion rules (Rifts); hardware adds "analytical genius" for people who want to play Tony Stark/Iron Man; magic system changed wholesale to Rifts/BTS PPE system including levels of spells, etc.; physical training divided into two distinct, superhuman twink options; psionics updated to Rifts version so that you can play your cyber-knight character in HU; special training characters beefed up, including an ancient master who now has supernatural strength(!); substantial increases in budgets for characters that use them; includes the mega-hero option allowing the creation of Justice League (or Thor/Hulk) level characters.

While 2E does not substantially increase the number of super-powers available, it should be noted that the "Powers Unlimited" trilogy was written for 2E and contains a large number of new powers (some of them quite good/needed) as well as TEN additional power categories (classes), some of which are specific to the "mega-hero" level of character.

Mm.

It's funny. Those high school buddies that introduced me to Heroes Unlimited never liked the idea of Rifts (unlike ME, who loved it immediately). Well, maybe Michael, a little. But never Ben...and he was always the Palladium game master/guru of the group.

And yet, Ben probably would have LOVED 2E Heroes, had he seen it (so far as I'm aware, he stopped gaming long before it was published). Ben was the real comic book guy; all those cats could draw, but Ben was the only one who went and and became a professional artist. He used to decry how the powers in Revised weren't powerful enough to emulate the characters in Marvel...he even went so far as to develop his own "third tier" of super-powers above "Minor" and "Major" in order to model the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, etc. Ben would have appreciated a mega-hero option.

Me? Well, I appreciate that Siembieda is a business man and he has customers AND fans that he wants/need to please. I"m not going to bitch too much about decisions he makes in the name of keeping his small press company alive. His sustained success over the decades is evidence enough that he's sharper than most of the folks in this industry. That being said....

I've spent a lot of time over the last few days reading and rereading these books. I'm not terribly interested in running a "Franken-brew" system...I simply want ONE book that I can hold up as the "game bible" for my refereeing. Let me focus on building and running the campaign, not cobbling and tinkering with mechanics. 

For my purposes, that means I have to come down to making a choice...and, surprisingly, the choice I"ve decided on is Revised Heroes Unlimited. I say "surprisingly" because going into this project, I assumed I was going to end up going with the original, cut-down version of the system or else the whole hog 2E with all its bells and whistles.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the market (as they say)...I realized that I really didn't need ANY of the new stuff in 2E. Rifts is Rifts, and I don't plan on mixing my post-apocalyptic weirdness in my 70s/80s style comic-world. I certainly don't need the power creep (necessary from a Palladium POV if you want to 'port HU characters into Rifts Earth). Meanwhile, the original version of the game...didn't have enough. I like a lot of what's there, but I need MORE...a more robust amount of content, if I'm going to create a sustainable cmpaign world.

Sound familiar? The original HU is very much like OD&D (except better organized and illustrated); it's not enough on its own, it has holes, it lacks "oomph" in places. It's a first pass...a first try. The Revised version? That's like AD&D. More tested, more solid, incorporating ideas that occurred after the initial offering. 2E HU, on the other hand, is like incorporating the Unearthed Arcana and subsequent books (here: add NWPs and weapons specialization!). No thank you.

So, there you have it...I can put 2E Heroes Unlimited back on the shelf for now, right next to all the Rifts books that I'm not using. Heroes Unlimited Revised will be my ruleset; it is, for the most part, "the Good Parts Version" that will meet my needs. As for the other Palladium books in my collection, several of them are candidates for (eventual) inclusion in my campaign setting:

My Coffee Table At The Moment

Aliens Unlimited Revised: published in 1994, this expands the alien power category, generally in good ways, and helps make the type more distinct from the other, while not succumbing to all the new Rift-isms of the 2E HU rulebook (yes, AUR "includes Rifts conversion notes," but this consists of two paragraphs saying treat all the SDC as MDC. Thanks, Tips).

Beyond The Supernatural: if you're going to add magic, hokum, and goofy woo-woo hoodoo to your game, this is the book to have. I might even replace the "mystic study" subcategory of the magic power type with the Arcanist OCC from BTS (yes, yes, including PPE and all that). Really depends on how "mystical" my campaign ends up becoming. I mean, Dr. Strange was a Defender for a while, wasn't he? First edition BTS only (mainly because my 2E copy is digital and I prefer actual books at the table).

Heroes Unlimited  G.M.'s Guide (2nd Edition): most of what's here is non-useful. The job/salaries, geo-political hot spots, and random crime tables are all stuff that were in the original HU and left out later, and I'm not sure how much I need the random thug/villain tables. I dislike all the "power slam" combat maneuvers, and the extra spells and psychic powers seem fairly extraneous. Eh. Probably a skip unless I get desperate for an adventure (there are several scenarios included, some of which are fairly rough/challenging).

Ninjas & Superspies: Ah, one of my son's favorite RPG books. Personally, I kind of hate it, having some familiarity with real world martial arts, including Aikido, Tae Kwon Do, Hwa Rang Do, and Wing Chun. It adds a LOT of extra fiddly to it, and I dislike turning the physical training character into a martial artist...this archetype was (for me) always best represented by the Megalith character from Continuity Comics. Of course, the nerfing of the ancient master is even more annoying (wtf? he only gets 10th level ninjitsu? That's just six attacks!). As you can see, N&S has actual conversion notes for how to use the game with HU, not only allowing PCs to pick up martial arts (at the costs of big bunches of skills), but allowing N&S OCCs to stand in for specific power categories, including hardware and secret operative. Eh, this one is mostly a pass for me unless someone REALLY wants to play a non-ancient martial artist...and I'm okay with that. Shang-Chi is pretty cool, as is (of course) Iron Fist (though I put the latter more in the "ancient master" category).

Powers Unlimited: There are some good powers here, including battle rage, hardened skin, heavyweight, gateways, and regenerate ultima (I'm also a fan of mega-wings and super consumption, but I'm cheesy like that). This is a good one for creating the occasional NPC character (especially villains) with powers the PCs haven't encountered. I'm okay with that...don't really want to adopt it wholesale.

Powers Unlimited 2: Mm. One of MY favorite books in the franchise...I picked this bad boy up some time around 2009 or so? The delightful thing about this one is NOT the new powers (there are only four, and none worth mentioning), but the new power TYPES (HU's version of 'character classes') that are O So Stellar. I mean, you've got your empowered character (everything from Daredevil to Captain Marvel), your gestalt (Firestar to Swamp Thing), super soldiers (duh), the natural genius (for super-villains like Lex Luthor or Baron Zemo), invention (Ant-Man to Falcon), and...everyone's favorite...the immortal character (from godlings to undead). That is a huge extension of variety for the game, and most of these fill niches that needed to be filled.  I really dig the "minor hero" option, too, as it can easily be used for small-fry supers OR some hero's wunderkind sidekick. Batman's still a bit of a tough character to model in HU, but at least you've got the Boy Wonder potential.

[haha! That reminds back in my early days of making characters for HU, I had a dynamic duo called Dark Knight and Red Boy. I should probably try to rebuilding them, just to see remind myself how frustrating the system can be.  Or how amusing...]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness: The book that started it all. I have the first printing of the game, and Wujcik does a masterful job with it; of course, the Eastman/Laird artwork doesn't hurt, and the whole thing is about as elegant and self-contained as any Palladium game gets. Has several nice adventure scenarios as well. The anthropomorphic animal thing doesn't appeal to me the same as it did when I was a kid (how could you not want to play a porcupine?), but I'd be willing to use it for anyone interested in playing a mutant animal, expanding on the abbreviated rules found in HU. Just who that interested person might be, I couldn't say...while a human-sized animal that can walk and talk is pretty amazing, it doesn't really classify as "super-powered" in the standard sense. Still...Rocket Raccoon? Really easy build using Bio-E.

Aaaand...that's about it. Recon (and Advanced Recon) use different systems, and Robotech just isn't right for the kind of game I'm envisioning. No giant mecha, thank you (I pivoted, remember?). I DID just receive my copy of the Aliens Unlimited "Galaxy Guide" in the mail today (purchased because I though it might be useful for intergalactic adventures in spaaaaace...a solid cornerstone of most comic book franchises), but I haven't yet had the chance to read it...I'll be doing that this evening and see if it actually fits. The "2nd ed." tag on the front doesn't give me too much confidence, but I never planned on using Palladium's own in-house creations (planets and species and timelines and such); I just wanted FTL spaceship rules. Here's hoping. 

All right, all right...that's enough for now. Later, people!

Learning To DM

Sometimes I forget...or (perhaps more truthfully) fail to even consider...that I've been doing this DMing thing for a long time. A long, long ass time.

Some people say I'm a "good" DM. I am decidedly uncomfortable with this praise. But I AM competent. I can run a solid game of AD&D with very few "flubs" or mistakes. Certainly nothing that can't be easily and quickly corrected in play...which makes for a fairly smooth game. Which allows players to be fully engaged in play. 

Usually. Generally. I don't always poll my players or ask for feedback...maybe they just keep their complaints to themselves; after all, there are worse DMs than me out there.

And maybe that's it. I'm fine being "adequate." Being adequate is hard enough. I don't need to be anything more than that. 

And all my "holding forth" and advice giving I do on this blog and elsewhere? All of that is just me trying to instill adequacy in others. I don't want people to be "good DMs." I just don't want them to be "bad DMs." I want them to be competent. 

Competence can take a long time to achieve.

I talk a lot about how I was not mentored or taught D&D...I learned it from a book. And when it came to learning how to run AD&D I likewise learned it from the (AD&D) books, not from an adult, older sibling, teacher, cousin or anything like that. I read the books. I found where AD&D differed from B/X (the system I initially learned on), and then I discarded and/or replaced the old B/X systems with the AD&D mechanics. I was 11 at the time and in the 5th grade. Mrs. Martinson's class, St. Luke elementary.

But by age 11, when I (and thus "we," my circle of friends who were my first group of players) decided to go "full Advanced," I was already a Dungeon Master. Had been a Dungeon Master for at least a couple years.

Doesn't mean I was a "good" one...nor even "adequate."

It wasn't enough to just read the books and make characters and run fights and hand out treasure and draw labyrinthine maps. It wasn't enough, even, to practice managing complex group social dynamics with my peers, developing patterns and strategies for organizing a table and keeping people focused. I certainly wasn't thinking in those terms back in those years. Heck, I couldn't even arrange my own outings and "play dates" (my friends and I all lived too far from each other for just bicycling to each others' houses). When we did manage to get together to play, I had to be ON IT...because you never knew when would be the next time we could all get together again.

But learning to be "on it?" That took a while. A good long while. I got my B/X boxes sometime around the age of 8 or 9. I was not even able to run a B/X game with anything approaching competence (or confidence, for that matter) until age 10...certainly over a year. 

That's right: it took me well over a year just to learn to run B/X. Even with modules like The Keep on the Borderlands and Isle of Dread providing additional information.

I often write as if learning to run D&D is as simple as "just read the book, stupid." That's not really the case, especially if you have NO reference point. Granted...I was a wee young lad at the time, and I'd imagine an adult with enough education could probably learn how to run the game from the B/X books alone. But AD&D? That's not as easy. Certainly not as easy as "just read the PHB and DMG."

Again, I was BLESSED by having already mastered the B/X books by the time I started AD&D. After that, it was a matter of filling in the differences. Okay, combat is more complex with these extra considerations. Okay, spells are more complex with their material components and casting times. Okay, monsters have a couple more bells and whistles, alignment comes in additional flavors, we have this whole new system of PSIONICS to learn. Okay. Okay. Okay.

It took TIME to integrate all these rules into our game. Because, in our youth, we were interested in getting the game RIGHT. My friends and I had been raised to play by the rules when you played a game. No one had ever told us, "just make shit up." And we approached AD&D the same way: we didn't just cut stuff or edit what we didn’t like...instead we studied it, corrected our mistakes, and worked hard to play the game better. 

Fortunately, AD&D is not rocket science, and even 12 year olds can figure it out.

But it took us time. It took us EFFORT. It did not happen over night or after one read through of the books. If the stuff I've written implied that it was just a 'walk in the park' to roll out an AD&D campaign, I apologize. Mea culpa. 

NOW...now, forty years later, I can run AD&D with very little effort. I have my house rules that I use, but I don't have to. I could make clerics memorize their spells at the beginning of the day. I could make everyone choose an alignment. I've run the game strictly By The Book in the past, and it's no problem falling back into that. In point of fact, it's pretty darn easy. Hell, I could easily incorporate all the stupidness found in the Unearthed Arcana (we used that from 1985-1990) with Drow cavaliers and Upper Lower Class barbarians and comeliness and hierophants, etc. Not A Problem.

Heck, if I dredged my memory a bit, I might even be able to remember how to use the non-weapon proficiencies found in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. Man...what a waste THAT book was!

But the LEARNING to use and run the game with all that stuff came with time. These days, I’m more mature and sophisticated and (Lord knows!) patient as a DM, but for the most part I run the game exactly the same as I did when I was 15. I would say I was definitely “adequate” by 15…but that means it took (roughly) THREE to FOUR years to achieve competency in AD&D. And even then there was a LOT that I didn’t understand…things I really didn’t start comprehending till the last ten years or so.

I just knew how to run the game. Worrying about nuance and “game theory” is the purview of old geezers.

SO...about five years of training to become an AD&D Dungeon Master. Which, actually, is the typical length of time for most tradesmen to go from "apprentice" to "journeyman." Three to five years. That sounds about right. Probably not 8,000 hours...maybe 2,000 hours? Hours spent reading, writing, studying, and running games (the actual running being the smallest portion compared to the preparation). Hard to come to an exact figure...I never really kept track of all the hours I spent on D&D over the years.

Regardless...it's a long ass time.

For the most part, you can open the box of your average board game and figure out how to play it in an afternoon. But Dungeons & Dragons...especially Advanced Dungeons & Dragons...is not your "average board game."

I apologize if I've misled people into thinking otherwise.