Into The Borderlands

Digging through old podcasts, blog posts, and reviews is (for me) a bit like prospecting for precious metals: most of what I find is frustrating (either empty or excruciating tantalization), but on some rare occasions I strike a vein of especially pure gold.

As I type, I'm looking at two products, recently purchased. Both came from "prospecting;" both deal with similar themes, both were "recommended," both were of interest to me. Only one, however, is true gold. The products are Mike's World: The Forsaken Wilderness Beyond and Renegade Crowns: Adventures Among the Border Princes.

I'll spare my readers the suspense: Renegade Crowns is the golden goose.

Mike's World is a cool product/project...an expansion and development of the Borderlands' wilderness from B2: The Keep on the Borderlands. You can read good (positive) reviews of it here and here. It does have some interesting ideas in it, but even so I find it...um...boring? Yeah, kind of boring. 

And the scale is far too small. The area that its 14 maps cover amount to about 100 square miles (11.35 by 8.85). A single adult, male grizzly needs a home range of 200 to 500 square miles...and this thing is stuffed full of dragons and monsters and humanoid tribes and whatnot? And you can walk from the Keep to the farthest reach of the wilderness in half a day? No, sorry...doesn't compute for me.

[just as a comparison of scale, the distance from Richland, WA to Kennewick, WA is 11.2 miles by means of the Riverfront Trail, a distance which can be easily hiked in three and a half hours. Imagine that trail supporting a tribes of kobolds, troglodytes, gnomes, half a dozen displacer beasts, a pair of land-bound green dragons, and a couple storm giants with their score of pet giant crabs. Even in a world where weirdness can be explained as "magic," things still need to eat]

But Mike's World is cheap and its readily available. Renegade Crowns is not. Written for 2nd Edition Warhammer Fantasy in 2006, it's been out-of-print for a while, and print copies on-line are selling for more than $150+ (I saw one copy priced at $405). I was fortunate enough to stumble across a shrinkwrapped copy in my local game shop for $70 last week...the day after hearing about the thing on an old Wandering DMs video. I had them hold it behind the counter for me a couple days before pulling the trigger, and I've spent the last week reading it. It doesn't disappoint.

[Renegade Crowns IS available in PDF form from DriveThru for $15, but I prefer hard copy for reading and reference. The thing also has tiny, eye-straining type, which I can't imagine is especially easy on the oculars when backlit. Maybe I'm wrong]

Now: a few words about Warhammer, before I begin my gushing.

Very Nice

I've owned Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay since it was still published by Games Workshop. I have never "upgraded" to the later editions (Hogshead was originally the same anyway). I find it an enjoyable, entertaining, and inspiring read...I've run a scenario or two (I own the first three tomes of The Enemy Within), but I've never really cared to do a full-blown WFRP campaign. Its combo of grim darkness and humor isn't really the style of game I run (which, surprise-surprise, is more "heroic" and "all-too-serious"). I favor bold adventuring with the possibility of gold and glory, not grim skulking and squalor-survival. 

Also, while I really like many of the system mechanics one finds in WFRP (different schools of magic! critical hit tables! a neat skill system!) the systems in D&D just work better for me. Or for my style of play. Or for the style in which I run my games. Something...I don't know. 

[yes, I've seen Chris Hogan's Small But Vicious Dog. I love it; it's wonderful. But I want PCs to have more potential in my games than what they have in SBVD. D&D is already plenty deadly...let them have the possibility of rising above their God-given station in life!]

The main thing, though, that prevents me from running WFRP is its setting. The Old World...decidedly pseudo-European modeled over maps of Middle Earth...is too densely populated for my campaigns. It's Europe of the Hundred Years' War (plus orcs and chaos mutants) whereas I prefer a wilderness that is far more wilderness. Where PCs are worried about encountering bullywugs and lizard men at river crossings, not money-grubbing ferrymen and toll bridges. I don't want a 15th century version of Tolkien.

Of course, that's a fairly superficial view of the Warhammer's setting (in my defense, having a bunch of adventures and scenarios set in the heart of the Empire doesn't help). If you dig beyond Bretonnia and Kislev and the Reik you'll find it does have its wilderness full of adventure and monsters. Enter the Border Princes.

From WFRP (p. 271):

Unlike the Empire, Bretonnia, or even the Wasteland, the area known as the Border Princes does not form a nation or state, but is rather a loose confederacy of various petty Princedoms. Most Old Worlders think of and refer to the Border Princes in much the same way as they would the Badlands - an amorphous and largely lawless area, cut off from civilization by the Black-Vaults-Apuccini mountain chain. The fight that certain eastern Princes are waging against the Goblin hordes who pour across the Blood River and out from Mad Dog Pass goes virtually unnoticed. 

The Border Princes region covers roughly 750 miles by 300 miles (at its widest point). That's damn near twice as big as my campaign map (a slightly enlarged Washington State)...in other words, nearly an ideal setting size for a campaign. Full of petty kingdoms, small settlements, ancient ruins, and hostile monsters it is an area ripe for adventure. The various "princes" are generally adventurers and bandit chiefs...outlaws, exiles, and opportunists...and their reigns are (usually) short-lived. PCs will find ample opportunity to carve out their own niche realms in such a place...provided they can survive the monsters, politics, and strife. It is the Borderlands...a real "Borderlands" of a kind that might easily find B2's Keep. 

Renegade Crowns is a true tool kit for creating a setting. It offers no maps, no NPCs, no monster lairs. Instead, it offers you a step-by-step process for generating all of these things, including population centers, relationships, and histories. It is extremely well-done and (perhaps because it was written for 2nd edition WFRP) treats its subject rather seriously with a minimal amount of snark. Despite being written for Warhammer, it is easily adaptable to D&D because most of it is "system agnostic." It is just about perfect for creating a Borderlands wilderness from scratch and it can help fill in the blank details of an existing wilderness map as well.

The book can be divided into two sections. The first part is the six-step system for creating your particular section of the region. Using random tables (coupled with common sense) you generate the landscape/geography, the various ruins, the princes of that particular region, the princes relationships with each other, the settlements in the area (including their resources), and the monsters/threats that exist. With nice details and ideas, its elegant system of tables fits into 64 pages(!) followed by a detailed example of generating such a region from the ground up using its system.

While some may scoff at the idea of a randomly generated campaign setting, I find the system as laid out to be eminently sensible. The systematic approach helps organize your world building, and nothing prevents you from stepping in and superseding the roll of the dice with your own ideas...to the contrary, the instructions tell you to do just that. But the book provides you with a systemic approach and appropriate steps with plenty of good ideas. It's the most refreshing resource I've ever seen in this regard.

The second section of the book deals with actually running a campaign in the Border Princes territory, paying specific example to ways and means by which PCs may become princes themselves and what particular problems (internal and external) they'll face if and when running their own principality. This part does not possess various random tables but, rather, scenario ideas, along with the steps and events that have to occur for one to seize (and retain) power. 

Again, it is refreshing stuff: here is a version of the famous D&D "end game" scenario that has players being awarded a barony upon reaching 9th level with some off-the-cuff text about "clearing a wilderness hex." Just what type of wilderness do you intend to "clear?" A swamp? A barren desert? The good land for settlement is almost certainly claimed already...if not by some warlord, then by a semi-organized group of individuals uninterested in being "ruled." Are you going to "clear" them off the land, too? Not exactly an inviting kingdom you're setting up for potential settlers that way!

Raids (from neighbors and monsters), diplomacy, open warfare, and resource development is all discussed in the book, as well as an easy system mechanic for generating "trouble" via adventures. It's provides a simple foundation to build upon (for folks who'd like a bit more complexity), but it's definitely more advanced play than what one usually finds in a fantasy RPG supplement. Extremely thought-provoking, if not outright useful, I'd call it.

The sample Border Princes region given in the book covers an area 132 miles by 100 miles...about the same amount of area as the region the PCs in my campaign are currently exploring (from Banks Lake, i.e. Xak Tsaroth, in the northeast down to Yakima in the southwest). Working with the "real world" as I am, I already have a map sketching out much of the geography (as well as the major settlements)...but that doesn't mean Renegade Crowns is useless to me. Quite the opposite: I can use it to generate areas of control and rulers of these various "city-states" (Wenatchee, Ellensburg, Moses Lake), their relationships to each other, and the available resources and features that make them places of interest to adventurers. My world has an "empire," too (the Red Empire, about 80-100 miles east of the PCs' current location) and the wild west of this region east of the Cascades certainly counts as "Borderlands" in my world. Knowing where the mutant hordes winter and what ancient ruins exist for delving (as well as some of the local "fantasy" history) is incredibly useful stuff. Renegade Crowns makes a nice little content/idea generator in this regard.

Anyway...in case anyone was wondering the reason for my lack of blogging this week, I've been rather engrossed with my new toy. Cheers, folks!

; )

RPGaDAY 2017 #5

From the #RPGaDAY2017 challenge (info here):

[as I'm starting this thing a little late, I shall be doubling up on my daily posts until I catch up. Early posts will be post-dated to the date they were originally supposed to appear]

Which RPG cover best captures the spirit of the game?

The "spirit of the game?"

Huh.

There are a lot, A LOT, of great covers out there. Game publishers often go "all out" for their cover art. A cover artist is often one of a game's biggest expenses. It's the thing that needs to attract the customer, first and foremost, and hopefully it communicates something about what the game is about to the uninitiated.

Hopefully. Not all publishers do this. Some err on the side of "just get the spectacular cover" and throw a blurb on the back that explains the game's concept. In my opinion, that's a wasted opportunity.

Nope. Not this one!

Even worse (in my opinion), some games offer what I consider a "bait-n-switch," presenting something on the cover of a game that makes you think you've got an idea about the concept, when you really don't. The main example that comes to mind is the old Deadlands from Pinnacle Games (back in their pre-Savage Worlds days). I loved the covers for Deadlands RPG. For many of its supplements, too. But the cover of the main book? The undead gunslinger, all badass and menacing. Somehow, I got the impression that here was a game in which you got to play such grim reapers of destruction. "Spaghetti Westerns with meat," and all that.

Of course, you don't. It's possible you might come back from the dead, but more often than not even that would make you some sort of demon-ridden, GM character. *sigh* So much for communication. Like the cover of the 2nd edition Gamma World...no one is blasting each other with hi-tech energy weapons (at least not to begin with), certainly not to start.

But this question isn't about communicating concept...it's about "capturing the spirit" of the game. The 1st edition Players Handbook for AD&D did a good bit of this, though, my games more often resembled the 1E Dungeon Masters Guide (no party ever got a respite to carefully police bodies, study maps, and gather loot...what are you thinking?). Plus, I don't want to count AD&D (for this question) as there's no single cover/book for the game...

After much inner debate, considering the many, many games I've owned and played over the years, I'm going to have to give the nod to the first edition of Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play. Not only does it do a fantastic job of communicating EXACTLY what this game is about (a D&D-esque romp with English punk hair), it's cover quite effectively covers the spirit of the game. This is a game about gritty and grim characters having dirty, bloody adventures. This isn't about heroic posing as players face-off against some dragon (sorry Erol/Tom). No one "poses" in WFRPG. They're too busy spilling icky green blood all over their boots with a double-bitted axe, while the dude who rolled up the rat catcher laggers far behind the party (you have to see the back cover to get that). They're in immediate, mortal danger of being felled by a bunch of loathsome humanoids in some dank and dirty hole. THAT is WFRPG. It plays pretty much exactly like it looks. Except with more PCs dying.
; )

"We got spirit, yes we do!"

Re-Tooling Combat (for FUN!)

Another "thought exercise;" AKA Putting Off The Taxes.

Part of the problem with addressing a single element of RPG combat (like the form and function of armor mechanics) is that you're messing with a complex system that's elements have been designed to work in tandem. At best, it's a "patch" that (often) causes other problems to raise their head, not the least of which might be an impact on that all important playability (making a system clunkier in play, reducing the overall "fun level"). At worse, a change in a single element might cause the whole system to fall apart, and/or wreck playability to a point where it's more fun to not play (or play something different).

"Ooo, how melodramatic, JB." Look, folks...I'm not saying you can't tinker. But I'd guess there are other folks out there (like myself) who have tried other RPGs and simply found they disliked their mechanics for one reason or another, and have set aside a system completely because of it. In fact, I know there are, judging by the blog posts I've read around the internet of people adapting specific game settings to their own favorite system rather than use the system intended by a game's designer. Sometimes a "patch" just doesn't work...and people have different preferences when it comes to the games they play. It happens.

ANYway...when it comes to a complex game system (like combat), tinkering with important elements of said system simply to match your "world view" can have problematic consequences. To really make your system work, sometimes you've got to go for a complete rebuild...if only to ensure that all the different interconnected elements are working together.

FOR EXAMPLE: say you're using the standard D&D combat chassis. You roll a D20 and compare the result to your probability of hitting based on two parts: your character's class/level, and the defender's "armor class." Simple enough, right? But if you restructure "armor" to act as a form of damage reduction (as many game systems do), then what are you rolling against? A reduced "AC" based solely on dexterity and/or magical bonuses? As the alternate rules in Dawn of the Emperors points out, this will result in "a lot more hitting" with less damage being inflicted (at least against armored types). Perhaps this will appeal to some folks ("hey, I whiff less often!"), but it feels like it would simply draw out a fairly simple (often uninteresting) combat system.

There are other alternatives: Saga Star Wars bases a target's AC (I think it might be called "defensive class") on the defender's level of experience (higher level characters are harder to hit), and something like that might be adapted. Games where combat rolls are unopposed skill checks (like Chaosium's base system) only tracks the attacker's proficiency ("If I roll under 75% I hit, and then your armor reduces damage!"), but doesn't account for the defensive ability of the opponent except as an additional system (parry skill, dodge skill) made to resist. Palladium kind of splits the difference: melee rolls use a D20 and any roll over 5 "hits" (yay!), but then needs to exceed a defender's defensive roll (parry/dodge) IF the defender chooses to do so, and THEN perhaps another roll to reduce damage (roll with blow), before finding out how armor reduces damage (which is dependent on the initial roll and the armor's Armor Rating and Structural Damage Capacity).

Palladium system's are over on the extreme side of granularity in combat (though I'd argue against them modeling any type of "reality") but they're certainly not the MOST granular. That distinction belongs to The Riddle of Steel, whose system I won't bother to detail here, as it's system mastery requirements are a bit outside the pay range of myself and most of the dudes I play with.

Instead, let's just stick with D&D for the moment. What's nice about D&D (for me) is it's ABSTRACT nature. In a ten second round, my mind's eye imagines two combatants attacking back and forth and the success of their attacks can all be boiled down to a couple D20 rolls. Still, though, there are aspects that bug me: should a 1st level cleric really have the same chance to damage a 3rd level fighter, given that they're both wearing plate-&-mail and they're weapons do D6 damage? Should a wizard really be wicked in a knife fight? I had the chance to watch a midnight showing of The Revenant last Friday (need to write about THAT), and the whole climactic battle I'm thinking, who the hell thought it was a good idea to make the dagger the go-to weapon of a spindly academic?

SO (just to keep going with the thought exercise), if we take armor out of the equation, and we decide we want to leave combat abstract (unlike the multiple maneuver monstrosity of TROS), how can we determine if a character's attack is successful? Well, just looking at man-to-man...er, human-to-human combat for the moment, let's consider perhaps the concept that (given both individuals are aware of each other and fight-worthy) the chance of inflicting mortal injury comes down to your own combat ability in relation to your opponent. In other words, if you're a better fighter than your opponent, you'll have an easier time, and if not, you'll have a harder time.

Sound good? Well, I'm going with it anyway. Exactly what determines "combat ability" is pretty easy with respect to humans: training and experience (i.e. class and level) with fitness/athleticism (ability bonuses) playing some part, too...perhaps as a bonus or penalty. It would be a ridiculous exercise in "clunk" for me to do up tables cross-referencing every level of every class against every other level of every class, so what I need is some sort of short-hand for cross-referencing. For example, what level of experience would a cleric need to be to have the same combat ability as a 4th level fighter? 7th? 9th? In B/X a cleric of levels 5-8 have the same attack abilities of a fighter of levels 4-6, and while I may not agree with the scale of B/X, I do agree that when determining combat proficiency, there should be tiers of ability, with each tier containing a range of levels. It's not just as simple as "gain a level, earn a +1 base attack bonus."

[of course, that's my own bias when it comes to modeling. For me, there just shouldn't be much difference between a 4th level fighter and a 6th level fighter when it comes to attack ability...we tend to learn in stages and have sudden "leaps" of realization. In my experience fencing, I can easily take apart someone who has little or no experience, but would be hard-pressed against people of equal experience unless I had some advantage in athleticism (not bloody likely). Meanwhile, I might score a few touches against an opponent with a couple more years of experience, but would be hard pressed to win...and against my old instructor (only a few years older than myself) I probably wouldn't score even a point. And he wasn't even in the same league as individuals who pursue the sport on a national or international level...]

So, strike bands (as in bandwidth)...that's what I'm calling my "tiers of combat ability." Consider a range of about five bands (labeled A-E), with A being your average "normal, non-combatant trying to fight" and E being reserved for truly legendary fighters (and non-fighters being limited to D as their maximum ability). Strike bands would be cross referenced to find the target number needed for an attack to succeed, with two opponents of equal ability having a 50% of succeeding on an attack and success being adjusted upwards (and downwards) from that baseline.

It's not really a new concept...very similar to Warhammer (the war-game's) comparison of WS versus WS in melee combat to determine the number needed on a D6 (WS stands for "weapon skill" and represents hand-to-hand ability). My initial thought would be to have the percentages scale like: 95% (the maximum...for an attacker with 3+ strike bands more than the opponent), then 85%, 75%, 50% (even ability), 25%, 15%, 5% (the minimum...against a defender with 3+ strike ranks more than the attacker).

[there is a degree of diminishing returns. I would fare no better against an Olympic-level fencer than I would against my instructor (at least, back when we were both in our primes)...but I'd fare no worse, either. I mean, how do you do worse than "losing quickly and embarrassingly?"]

The neat thing about the strike band idea is that it's fairly easy to slide them up or down to account for  specific circumstances. A fighter using a shield increases her strike band by one when defending (for example). A magic weapon increases a strike band by one (when attacking). Characters using missile weapons would simply use strike band A, and then range would be considered for defense (with A, B, and C corresponding to short, medium, and long). Specialist marksmen could increase their missile strike band to B. Cover could increase range by one step (to a maximum of D).

Monsters would be assigned strike bands based on their size, speed, and general ferocity. I can see something like:

A: used for creatures who are small (kobolds) or slow (skeletons and zombies)
B: used for man-killers (orcs, tigers, etc.)
C: used for exceptionally large monsters (ogres, trolls, etc.)
D: used for incredibly fast, strong critters (dragons, bloodthirsters, tyrannosaurus rex, etc.)

You could even combine it with 5E's advantage/disadvantage mechanic. A (slow) giant might use strike band D with disadvantage, while super heroic types (vampires, wraiths) might use strike band C with advantage. Ability bonuses (for strength and dexterity) would still add to the D20 roll (yes, I'd change those percentages into D20 target numbers) rather than shifting strike bands.

Anyway...that's just one idea. I'm sure there are others. Now, I really need to get back to my taxes.

+1 Strike Band (offense AND defense)
when attacking unmounted opponents

Armor Thoughts

The following is a bit of a thought exercise.

There are lots of different ways to handle personal (body) armor in an RPG. Most folks probably already get that, but...well, it feels like a necessary disclaimer before I start. D&D's "armor class" concept is a popular one (at least judging by the number of system knock-offs that continue to use it), despite certain problematic aspects of the mechanic.

Conceptually, personal armor is supposed to prevent personal injury. The usual way this gets modeled in a fantasy game includes one (or some combination) of the following mechanics:

1. Reducing the chance that an opponent can inflict injury at all.
2. Reducing the actual injury inflicted by an opponent's successful attack.
3. Providing additional "health levels" (whatever form that takes) to the person wearing it.
4. Providing a "saving throw" against damage to the person wearing it.

Additional considerations include how the use of a shield or personal agility/prowess might factor into armor, the deterioration of armor from wear-n-tear, specific hit locations versus general defense, and the usefulness of armor in preventing non-combat type injuries (like falling off a cliff, or protecting its wearer from traps and hazards).

[I may be forgetting something...it's 2:30am my time...but that's about all the iterations I can think of at the moment]

All armor systems "work" (i.e. they are functional game mechanics), but folks have different preferences when it comes to picking a specific system. System preference is based (or, IMO, should be based) on a combination of two things: personal perception of armor (perhaps changing with regard to genre), and playability (how easily it works as a game mechanic).

D&D's system (a "Type 1" mechanic) has a long history of eliciting gripes and complaints from people who have a different perception of armor and how armor should function/model. However, D&D's system is eminently playable...from a mechanic standpoint, it is incredibly simple to use in play, incredibly easy to grasp (even for new players), and incredibly quick to resolve. Its playability...and familiarity...are what has led to its staying power and proliferation across other fantasy RPGs.

Heck, its playability is probably what led to it supplanting the Chainmail combat system as the default combat system for D&D; the "D20-versus-AC" system was an alternate combat system in the pages of Men & Magic, remember? But Chainmail's personal combat system was an add-on to a mass combat war game...an afterthought for occasional "small battles and castle sieges" (when, I presume, you would have narrow battlements ramparts to defend).

But let's, for a moment, consider another fantasy RPG with war-game roots that does armor in a different flavor: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Where "dungeon crawl" =
"pub crawl" + weapons

While WFRP contains elements of Dungeons & Dragons, I think it's pretty clear it's descended from different roots than Chainmail/D&D. Sure it has elves and dwarves and halflings and orcs...these are things taken from Tolkien (the same place D&D gets them). But nearly all of its systems come from (or have their genesis in) the Warhammer Battle war game, just as D&D takes its cues from Chainmail (including magic, saves, attacks, monsters, etc.). Combat in WFB is D6 based and WFRP is D% + D6 based (if I'm remembering correctly). However, it has quite a few steps compared to the standard attack mechanic of D&D. Whereas D&D does an attack roll + damage roll (if successful), sometimes followed by a saving throw (for certain special attacks), Warhammer goes:

• Roll to attack
• (if successful) Roll to wound (Strength versus Toughness)
• (if successful) Defender rolls to save (using armor)

And there are sometimes additional effects that need to be determined; in some editions, a failed save requires a random number of wounds (damage) to be rolled, depending on the strength of the weapon. While it seems like a lot of steps, in practice it's fairly quick and easy because of the limited range of probabilities and the ease of rolling multiple D6s and removing "dead" models. Playability, again, makes it a popular system for wargaming. The translation to RPG is a bit more clunky in execution, but because combat tends to be over quickly (with a high degree of lethality), it's fairly forgivable.

The "armor as saving throw" is the part that I find most interesting, as well as its translation to the RPG. In WFB the armor save is (was? I haven't kept up on recent editions):

• 6 for light armor
• 5-6 for heavy armor
• +1 if using a shield
• +1 if unit is mounted

That means a guy using plate and shield has a 50% chance to resist (D6 roll of 4+) any wound that would otherwise by inflicted on the character...unless struck by a weapon that ignores or penalizes the armor save (some magical or especially strong attacks).

WFRP does not have an armor save; instead armor worn reduces damage inflicted to the tune of 1 point for light armor and 2 points for heavy armor. It seems like a strange choice (to interpret the save in this way) until you consider that damage in WFRP is on a 1D6 scale...which is to say that, like OD&D (or Holmes or default B/X), all weapons in WFRP do 1D6 points of damage towards a target's wound total (hit points). If you subtract 1 point from the D6 roll (as with light armor) that means you have a 1 in 6 chance of taking no damage; if you subtract 2 points, that chance of "no damage" goes up to 2 in 6...both of which matches the save percentages of light and heavy armor.

'Course it also has the benefit of reducing damage from the blows that do land which, coupled with the multiple wounds PCs carry in WFRP, gives characters a chance to show-off some of that "heroic sticking power," even if its not as much as your typical D&D character (characters in WFRP have nowhere near as many hit points as even a mid-level PC from D&D).

Had some neat ideas.

D&D has, on occasion, provided similar alternate armor rules where armor reduced damage sustained rather than chance to hit (see the BECMI Gazetteer Dawn of the Emperors: Thyatis and Alphatia, for one example. I believe I've also seen something in a past Dragon magazine). But doing this...removing the "armor" part from "armor class"...really requires a re-tooling of the whole combat system from the ground-up. And THAT is something I haven't seen for D&D.

WFRP, like other systems that use armor as "damage reduction," has a straight skill roll based on a person's combat ability...you see similar systems like Chaosium's BRP (Stormbringer, ElfQuest, and Pendragon as three variant examples). But those systems also get caught up in granularity...the one attack equals one swing thing (followed by a defensive dodge or parry...and possibly a riposte). While that way lies madness (I'm not interested in that type of granular scale for D&D) the point is somewhat moot, as D&D does not measure combat ability as a skill in the same way as, say fire-building or rope-tying or whatever. Not even in later editions.

Do I have a problem with the D&D combat system, with the way armor is handled? I'm not sure I do. I do like the idea of making armor a bit more important, as the ability to wear heavy armor is one of the fighter's main advantages in early editions of the game. And there are problematic aspects of the AC-system (which I've written about before). Still...this is just "thinking out loud" at this point. I'm certainly not interested in sacrificing playability, just to skew a system to match my own perception of how armor should function.

The Lost And The Damned

A strange thing about having children...to make family life work (at least in a sane and effective fashion), you really appear to need one more parent than the number of children you possess. Just for the "rotational value" of "getting stuff done," I mean. As I've said before, my hat goes off to any single parents out there...how you cope is quite beyond me. But giving attention to two kids AND getting housework done and whatnot is just tough...and neither my wife nor I are going into work at the moment! Since the mother-in-law left the building, small snatches of free time have been divided between catching up on sleep and doing those chores that absolutely need doing; it IS possible, of course, just not (as I said) particularly efficient/effective, and certainly not easy.

But whatever: that's just me giving a lame excuse for not blogging more. Sure I could have written something a couple mornings ago when D and his mama were sleeping and I was in charge of the slumbering baby, but I chose to watch the Norwegian-fake-documentary "Troll Hunter" instead. See, it's really all about priorities.

Priorities, yeah. Last week, I spent most of the week doing wedding stuff for my buddy, Steve-O (congrats Steve!) as I was acting as both his Best Man and his Confirmation sponsor (he's "all in" on the Catholic church these days). It got me out of the house five out of seven days, but I'm not sure the free booze at the reception was really enough to compensate for the energy expended [well, maybe]. Next week, the family will be concentrating on getting our return trip to Paraguay organized (buying all that shit you can't get in South America and packing it), and no compensatory hootch on the horizon...well, not the free kind, anyway.

[*sigh*]

Despite the lack of time for writing and the closing of my local game shop (denying me easy access to gaming product), I have managed to score a book I've been wanting in the collection for over a decade: Games Workshop's old (out-of-print) Realm of Chaos: The Lost And The Damned.

$200? Better than selling one's soul!

Well "score" probably isn't the right term...I bit the bullet and found a guy selling a copy on Amazon for close to $200 and sent him the money before I had the chance to second-guess my action. But these days my patience for delaying gratification is just razor-thin...like I said, I've been looking for a copy in used bookstores for more than a decade, and have been kicking myself for not buying it for fifteen years.

[why didn't I buy it back in 1990 when there were stacks and stacks of it at the local game shop? Because I'd already missed the boat on getting Volume 1 of the the two volume series and figured Volume 2 by itself would be a waste of money. However, a few years later I was able to get not one but two good, used copies of Volume 1 (Slaves to Darkness) and have never again seen The Lost and The Damned available for purchase]

The copy was near mint condition and I'm quite satisfied with the purchase, as it packs all the info/content I was hoping for and more. At the same time, I find myself disappointed with the book: The Lost And The Damned introduces the whole concept of the WH40K Emperor being some sort of All-Wise benevolent Messiah and the primarchs as genetically engineered "superheroes" specially-crafted to fight the evil of the Warp. I hate this storyline, and (previously) had always thought this radical departure from the Rogue Trader setting had taken place in the 2nd Edition of the game. After all, Slaves to Darkness first introduces us to the Horus Heresy when the Warmaster is nothing more (nor less) than the Emperor's greatest soldier-general...not some vat-grown Superman used to spawn a bunch of mutated freakazoid space marines. Sorry...outside of the superhero genre, I've always preferred my protagonists to be human, even though they may be the toughest of the tough and the bravest of the brave.

[I mean, why would you need bionics if you can just give them extra organs/glands and incredible regenerative power? I, of course, prefer bionic replacement of lost human bits]

But that complaint will probably only make sense to long-time 40K fluff-readers like myself. The book is still quite enjoyable and despite my reservations back in 2009 my first, near obsessive thought is to do a conversion of the Realm of Chaos books...or of their basic themes anyway...as a B/X supplement. Yes, yes, I'm still in the middle of doing several other projects, but this one really calls to me (*ahem*).

On the other hand, if you don't want to wait to add the antagonists of Chaos to your B/X or LL or other old school D&D game, might I strongly recommend a great compilation-conversion by Steven Cook (the Prismatic DM) posted to his Borderlands blog. You can get his Fortnight of Chaos Hordes PDF here. It's pretty good. My own project has a slightly different focus and will be a bit more B/X-specific (and a bit more "serial numbers filed off").

: )

B/X Troll Slayer

From Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (Games Workshop, 1986):

The Dwarven Troll Slayer is an illustration of the personal psychology that dooms many young dwarves to short and violent lives. Young dwarves who have been disgraced, crossed in love or otherwise humiliated will abandon conventional Dwarven society and go to seek death, hunting down the most ferocious of beasts. Most of them die fairly quickly, but those who few who survive become members of the strange cult of Troll Slayers. Troll Slayers exist only to die, and by doing so redeem whatever disgrace they suffered in the past (and into which it is neither polite nor wise to enquire). They seek death by deliberately seeking uneven battles - going alone into Goblin strongholds is one example. Trolls are considered the ideal opponents, because the Dwarf's death is almost a certainty. Troll Slayers can be recognized easily by their hair, which is spiked and dyed orange, and by the many tattoos which cover their bodies. They also favor exotic jewelry, such as earrings and nose plugs. They spend a great deal of their time boasting of their exploits and showing off their many scars, and often indulge in bouts of overeating, fasting, and excessive consumption of stimulants.

[JB's note: I have edited the spelling in the passage. Elsewhere, it notes the "spiky hair" is achieved through the use of animal fat]


TROLL SLAYER

The dwarf troll slayer is an individual living the life of a self-imposed outcast from dwarven society, seeking only death in glorious battle as an atonement for some humiliation, misdeed, disgrace, or secret shame. Until such time as they meet their end, the troll slayer lives a life of excess and bloody hand-to-hand combat.

The prime requisite of a troll slayer is Strength, and they receive the usual adjustment to earned experience points based on their Strength score. A character must have a minimum Constitution of 9 to be a troll slayer.

RESTRICTIONS: Troll slayers use ten-sided dice (D10) to determine their hit points. They never wear any form of armor and do not use shields. A troll slayer is restricted to melee weapons; he refuses to use missile fire in mortal combat (though he may engage in tests of throwing skill for recreational purposes). The troll slayer uses the same attack and saving throw matrix as a dwarf, and may use any magic item a dwarf may use. A troll slayer may never voluntarily leave combat once engaged.

SPECIAL ABILITIES: Troll slayers have the same infravision and additional languages of a dwarf, though they are not known for much talking or negotiating with enemies. A troll slayer is a fierce hand-to-hand combatant and add +1 to attack rolls in melee and never lose initiative for using a two-handed weapon. Troll slayers are exceptionally tough, and may subtract one point per die of damage from any successful attack against them (this may reduce an attack to 0 damage!). For example, a troll slayer hit by a swordsman subtracts 1 point of damage; one hit by a 6-dice fireball subtracts 6. If the (optional) individual initiative rules are used, troll slayers receive an additional +1 bonus for their furious attacks.

Troll slayers use the same experience point progression table as dwarves and may reach a maximum of 12th level in experience; however, they receive a bonus of +4 hit points per level for each level beyond 9th level (rather than the normal +3). Troll slayers spurn any level titles; "outcast" or "troll slayer" are good enough for what they are.

Troll slayers never establish dominions or build strongholds; they seek death and will wander until they find it.

[***EDIT:Added the individual initiative bonus under Special Abilities...forgot to do that earlier***]

U is for Urban Decay

[over the course of the month of April, I shall be posting a topic for each letter of the alphabet, sequentially, for every day of the week except Sunday. Our topic this month? Things necessary to take your D&D campaign from “eh, fantasy” to “kick ass.” And who doesn’t want that?]

U is for Urban Decay, something found at the stinking and depraved centers of "civilization" within the fantasy world.

I suppose there are some campaign settings where some or all of the towns were as idyllic as the village of Threshold in the Mentzer Expert set. Especially for players that started with the 1983 BECMI sets (and learned that D&D was about being “heroes”) the smurf-like, fairy tale village is probably par for the course. Protecting these idyllic settings will not only allow you to preserve that peaceful, small town life, but give you XP (and a reason to kill orcs) to boot. Think of yourselves as hobbits defending the Shire.

That’s not the urban setting I’m used to in Dungeons & Dragons.

I’ve always taken my cue from the DMG, specifically the Ride of Emrikol the Chaotic. Twisted, cobblestone streets, taverns where people are all too quick to grab their swords, and bodies burning in the street. Basically something like the Wild West spliced with pre-Renaissance Europe. Filth and corruption and squalor.

That’s what civilization is like in MY campaign settings.

It’s one of the reasons I so enjoyed the Warhammer Fantasy setting…when I picked up my copy of WFRP in the early 90s, it was like returning to my D&D roots. Not the shininess of Mystarra and 2nd edition, but the stinking mess of 1st edition with back-alley assassins and wandering harlots. Hey, my cues were taken from Robert Aspirin’s Thieves World anthologies…not to mention Gygax’s own Gord the Rogue tales. For me, Sanctuary was Greyhawk with warmer weather.

And really why wouldn’t civilization be down and dirty and rotten and awful? I mean, how easy could life be that the best and the brightest would risk life and limb down some ancient ruin looking for treasure instead of doing something productive with their lives. Really! Greed is one thing, but in D&D real treasure is NOT easy to come by.

Ask my players.

No, your character may have been born to a high social status but that doesn’t mean your life isn’t sordid and small in the steaming stink of things. Ruling over a pig sty, how could you NOT turn towards an opportunity…ANY opportunity…to build your own story book Camelot some day.

If only you can pull enough gold out of the tomb.

Back in my day, going to town was an adventure in and of itself, rarely as easy as provisioning up and finding an inn in which to rest and heal. No, town was where you went to get into trouble. To get mugged, or rolled, or pick up some disease that would make you appreciate the party cleric all the more. If you were smart, you might stop by the local (pagan) temple and use some of that wealth to sacrifice a bull to Ares (or whomever your blood god of choice was). Then, if you had money left, you might head down to the docks to try to build your petty cash into something more, trying your hand at dice or cards in the local gambling house.

After which you could blow any winnings on archaic drugs, booze, and the aforementioned wandering whores.

Back then, thief skills were the prized “extras” any PC wanted to have. Thieves, thief-acrobats, assassins, thief-multi-classes (usually magic-user or illusionist), 1st edition bards, dual-class characters with a couple levels of thief…usually all the players were making sure they had some backstabbing and concealment ability for use in town. “It takes a thief to know one” and “no honor among thieves” were phrases that got passed around quite a bit…plus being able to “climb walls” sure helped getting into and out of buildings through ways other than the front door.

Urban adventures. Urban decadence. I don’t remember anyone ever making a big haul of loot in any particular urban setting. Oh, there was a raid on the assassin’s guild of Willip, but that was payback and personal, even if there was some treasure that came out of it.

No, I think our urban adventures were mainly just due to PCs being tired of sleeping in the woods.

As a DM, urban adventures were always desirable…nothing says player killer like high level (human) NPCs and one usually runs out of good reasons to have human opponents in weird or fantastic “dungeon” settings. If you WANT to pit characters against tough adventurer-types, the concrete jungle is the place to encounter them. In all their splendor.

In all their decay.

One should be wary of any walled sprawl that greets visitors with a few heads on spikes. It was not a “gentle” age, this mythology that has helped inspire so many ugly-faced fantasy films of the “B” variety.

Personally, I love it…but I understand that’s a subjective personal preference. I don’t think I’d let my children hang out in that particular campaign setting, but I wouldn't want my game to be any other way.
: )

“Chaos and Evil are his Liquor and Smokes…”

Whether you call him the Death Dealer, Warduke, or Thargrim the Dark Lord (that’s Dungeon Quest, folks), the Chaotic Warrior is as recognizable a staple of fantasy games and literature as pointy-ears on elves and dour expressions on dwarves.

Got badass armor? Check.
Got big ass weapon? Check.
Got glowing red eyes? Check.

The strong, silent type with a mysterious origin, their biggest flaw is their complete lack of a sense of humor. Sure they may be diabolically good-looking under that full helm (for all we know), but how’s the hair? No idea. The chaos warrior doesn’t get a whole lot of dates (does the term “foetid breath” mean anything to you?). Let’s call it 0 Charisma.

Which is fine, really, since they tend to work alone. They may inspire fear, but not much loyalty. Kind of a “Darth Vader” syndrome (ol’ DV fits our Chaos Warrior check boxes, too). In the Realms of Chaos, only the strongest survive (not that The Strong’s life expectancy is very high), and the weak follow the stronger out of worshipful awe and mortal fear. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, you know?

Deep in the Borderlands, the Prismatic DM has been adapting the old WFRP minions of Chaos to S&W. I love this. I think WFRP stuff translates great into OD&D, probably because they are both so close to their wargaming roots. Unfortunately, I don’t think Warhammer’s Chaos translates as good to B/X.

Granted, this is just my opinion, and I’m not saying I’m incapable of coming up with B/X stats for Chaos Champions and Spawn. I’m just not sure the B/X game does justice to the Chaos Warrior. Let me try to explain.

In OD&D/S&W play, gaming is…well, “cheaper” is what I want to say but what I mean is “looser” and “more abstract.” This is a game where a 10HD Balrog is extremely badass, even with a simple attack and a little added flame damage. In the S&W game, you can make a simple, abstract Chaos Warrior (again, check out the Borderlands) and still strike fear in PCs and conjure an air of eldritch expectation at the gaming table.

AD&D/Osric/HackMaster is the way to go if you want to adapt the Realms of Chaos (Slaves to Darkness/Lost and the Damned) wholesale into your game. The specificity of the mutations, Chaotic magic items, the motivations of the Chaos powers…hell, the whole Chaos flow chart for PCs who want to “play on the Dark Side.” All of this is fertile soil to be tilled in an AD&D game. It fits with AD&D’s random tables and arcane rule systems.

B/X (and LL and BECMI) is somewhere between these two. It’s simple enough to play that it’s practically a board game…but in my opinion, it doesn’t leave room for these murkier aspects of game play. One really has to start nailing down what it means to be “Chaotic” in a world where the Realms of Chaos are encroaching. Is every Chaotic fighter a “Chaos Warrior?” Are Chaos Warriors the same as human fighters? Do they need their own Race-Class? Do they need a separate one for each power (since some minions have access to spells and some don’t)? What about demi-humans…can they fall to Chaos?

Making a Chaos Warrior into a 2HD monster is treating them like gnolls or hobgoblins…and B/X already has gnolls and hobgoblins! What’s going to distinguish a Chaos Warrior in B/X from an orc wearing heavy armor and carrying a two-handed sword? Not much…glowing red eyes, I guess.

No, unlike AD&D and OD&D, B/X is not made for wholesale rule additions (in my opinion). It’s made for slight “variation to taste,” but it’s designed to be whole and encompassing. Characters all have maximum levels and maximum capabilities. Classes can be re-defined/distinguished (fighters as Norsemen or Horsemen, elves as Hearty Wizards, whatever) but not completely re-tooled.

And BECMI is even worse…with a Chaotic “Avenger” class, what does THAT mean for a Warrior of Chaos. Again, alignments…and what they mean…need to be completely re-worked in one wants a WFRP-like Chaos to make sense.

Which is too bad, in my opinion, as I really like the WFRP setting. OD&D expects players and DMs to add to the rules (it provides a skeleton only) and AD&D has room for many supplements and campaign worlds (as it has already proven with Greyhawk, Krynn, Faerun, etc.). B/X really is a “basic” game, much as I hate to admit it. Players who enjoy it want to be able to pick up a module of the “B” or “X” series and be able to run it quickly with no fuss, no muss. New monsters or magic items are easy enough to add…but wholesale rules on mutations? New classes and rules on mixing classes? Re-defining basic premises of play? Nah…that doesn’t fly.

I won’t add Chaos Warriors as piss-ant (or puissant) monster encounters, nor as optional player classes. I didn’t like how BECMI did that with Monks and Headsmen…I thought the Headsman particularly was a disservice to both the Assassin and to the spirit of B/X…and this would be worse. WFRP’s Realms of Chaos has such a rich tradition that I certainly wouldn’t want to “dumb it down” to Basic play. And B/X is such a sweet little game that I prefer to make my game world fit, rather than add pages of house rules to enable a particular game setting. As I said, too bad.

But I guess I should feel encouraged that I have good reason to break out the OD&D books! Because I LOVES me my glowing-eyed warriors of Chaos.

From Gil-Galad to Leafy Tights

I am very enamored with the concept of the “elf lord,” these days, though I admit that I was none too keen on elves back in the hay-day of my D&D play. Very few of my fellow players ever used an elf as a regular character (well…until the UA and the Drow, but that’s another post, folks).

Although the earliest character sheet I can find (in my 3rd or 4th grade hand writing) is for a 1st level elf called Silver Fox, I and my players all developed deep aversions to elven characters based, I believe, on the following:

- Lack of power
- Lack of elvish “role-models”

The first is pretty easy to explain. Starting with B/X, the rate of advancement for an elf character is extremely slow; the elf requires (on average) twice as much XP as any other character to go up in level. Certainly elves are versatile with their weapons and wizardry, but you’re still limited to a single action per round (i.e. cast a spell or swing a sword)…if you’re half the level of your companions, then you have half the hit points, and thus half the staying power.

Furthermore, elf characters in B/X have their levels capped at 10. In AD&D there is some variation to the levels, but compared to humans with unlimited advancement, the elf is a poor choice for the long-term campaign (well, unless you want to play an elvish thief…but who wants that? See “role-models” below). It just makes gamist sense to play a human character.

Look at the World of Warcraft…the closest thing most people are playing to a “long term RPG campaign” these days. If elves could only reach levels 5/11 in fighter-magic-user, even multi-classed, how many players would be choosing elves over humans? Very, very few. It is this type of gamist sensibility that informed our early D&D campaigns.

Regarding “role-models;” well, there just weren’t that many elven heroes to model our characters after. For one thing, none of us had read Tolkien in those days (or much of it…the Two Towers is so slooooow, to a kid). The elves of Dragon Lance were fairly mundane and petty (hey, just like humans! Except with level caps, so they suck!). What else is there? Faeries and leprechauns of English folklore?

Well, now that I’m older…and a bit wiser, perhaps…my sensibilities have changed. For one thing, I’ve read more. I’ve read the entire LotR, the Silmarillion, and the Children of Hurin. I‘ve read Elizabeth Boyer’s fantastic The Wizard and the Warlord, providing great insight into the ljosalfar and dokkalfar, the Sandanavian elves Tolkien borrows for his books. I’ve read up on Norse mythology. And, of course, I’ve seen Peter Jackson’s movies…if the opening scene of armored elves battling orcs doesn’t give you a bit of respect for the elder, I don’t know what will.

I’ll admit the ability to create elven fighters in the vein of Gil-Galad or Glorfindel…or even half-elf heroes like Elrond…was one of the initially very cool things that drew me to D20 and back into D&D role-playing. However, having divorced myself from THAT game, and going back to my Old Scool roots, I find myself strangely disappointed.

I find very few illustrations of elves in my B/X rules…nothing that really jazzes me up. And BECMI is worse what with the pictures of elves in leaf-patterned jump suits. Ugh! It’s like TSR was purposefully trying to push me away from elves. Hell, look at the Gazeteers: the de Belcadiz of Glantri are the worst stereotypes of Spanish (NOT elfish) nobility, and Alfheim…well when it features obvious pastiches of Wendy Pini’s Cutter, Leetah, and Skywise I have to chuck the whole thing.

AD&D (and HackMaster) is too complex for my interests now, and OD&D is too…um…basic. What to do, what to do. It’s quite frustrating; despite my posted “variable damage” posts, I am not much for wholesale house-ruling, figuring game designers know a fair bit about their trade. And yet, I don’t want to design my own “fantasy game” that basically knocks off D&D.

There’s no plan for a follow-up “elf” post at this time. I’m open to suggestions of how to create a real “Elf Lord” in a B/X (or Labyrinth Lord) setting. Maybe cutting the XP to advance in half, forcing a choice between fighting and magic, and extending the level cap to 12 or 14?

Or I suppose I could move over to WFRP where elves kick ass over humans.