Embracing Chaotic Evil

The thing I really like about games like B/X or DCC is that you have the freedom to play any character class you WANT to play, regardless of the random dice rolls for abilities. And yes, this is a plus because I REALLY LIKE random dice rolls for ability scores:

A) It speeds character creation
B) It models the inherent “randomness” of genetic selection
C) It prevents min-maxing munchkinism

Now sure, with both B/X and DCC there are some limitations with regard to demihuman characters; B/X requires (fairly easy) minimum ability scores and DCC requires the proper 0-level background career. But as far as the main human classes go, it is wide open: you can play a human fighter with a Strength of 7 or wizard with an Intelligence of 4 and it ain’t a problem. In other fantasy games with random chargen, this isn’t the case, either because of explicit rule (AD&D chargen) or emphasis on ability scores (D20 and later). For both B/X and DCC, a character’s CLASS and LEVEL are the most important factors with regard to in-game character effectiveness.

So, yeah…I like it, and not just because I’m a dude who values his own independence and personal freedom of choice. I especially enjoy it because of what that freedom reveals about the players at the table.

After all, if you have the freedom to choose any character class, aren’t you going to take the one that sings for you?

Maybe not…perhaps you’re still going to take a cleric simply because you rolled a high Wisdom score. This in and of itself may reveal something about a player (either he’s a “gamer” concerned mainly with maximizing his traits, or perhaps he lacks a certain amount of imagination).

For me, it allows me to indulge my own primal fantasies of traipsing around a fantasy countryside, acting especially loud and obnoxious, and hitting things with an axe whenever I have the opportunity. My current DCC character has a Strength of 10 and an Agility of 8 (out of a 3-18 range)…the guy does NOT have the archetypal stats one would expect to find in, say, a D&D barbarian (of any edition). And yet, my character insists on walking point, kicking in doors, and getting “stuck in” at every opportunity. The “warrior” class abilities of DCC insure an ample chance for surviving this style of play (initiative bonus, attack/damage bonus, “mighty deeds” ability, etc.) and if I wasn’t so enamored with the battle axe, I could optimize my character even more with a long sword and shield.

But sword-and-board doesn’t suit my personality.

I also seem to have gravitated towards a “chaotic evil” style of play in this game. I’m not sure why, exactly…unless it has something to do with the “reward system” of the game (haha…that’s an in-joke…wait till you see my next post). Certainly, when I’ve played other games…like Spirit of the Century or Risus, just to name a couple recent ones…I haven’t played all “gung-ho,” nor been so quick to dive into the local slave trade.

Something about DCC seems to bring out my inner demonic self.

I suppose it’s really just a bit of pro-active role-playing…the game doesn’t offer anything in the way of real, in-game objectives (what? Yeah, you heard me) and consequently, one only gets out of it as much as one puts in. My over-the-top actions are a defense against waiting around, stagnant, for the next opportunity to “roll the dice.” And the whole campaign setting seems pretty dark and twisted to me…starting up a charity organization for the local widows and orphans just doesn’t seem to be the right course of action in this particular game world.

Anyway, I’ll post more about my “wallowing in decadence" in the future (perhaps); right now, I need to watch my boy. After that, I intend to vent a complaint or two regarding my recent role-playing experiences, and that I'm afraid will require a separate post entirely.

Back in Sea-Town...

...but nothing worth posting as of yet. Had a very relaxing/refreshing weekend, but appear to have strained my back at the airport hauling more luggage than usual (the real price of traveling with an infant). Will hopefully slip back into my normal routine in a day or so.
: )

So I'm Heading Out to the Highway...

...actually, the skyway, as I shall be boarding a plane from SeaTac Friday evening. The fam is making our annual pilgrimage to Montana for the Labor Day holiday, and as we're not sure the baby will survive the 9 hour drive (or that we will survive the drive with the baby!) we've decided to fly. Which means a couple things:

A) I will either be getting a lot of reading done or (hopefully) a lot of writing done. No road trip means, I have a chance to unwind while someone else does the driving...er, flying.

B) I will be out of internet contact for a looooong while: they don't have free wifi at SeaTac and it's pretty tough to find it in the middle of The Big MT ("the big empty"). Don't expect much in the way of blog posts or email checking. Grandma lives in a cabin on Flathead Lake and she's never even learned how to turn her computer on (she has one, off in the corner, with a dust cover and about five years of dust last I saw it). Hey, I'm just glad she has electricity for powering the laptop.

I'm blowing off the Mox this Thursday (boo! hiss!), to do some packing and errands and such so you won't see anymore DCC breakdowns either...unless I get around to penning this piece on the magic system as observed. Hmmm...

All right I've got to go. Talk to y'all in a bit.

; )

I should really be...

...either writing or sleeping. Instead I'm futzing around with GM Merit Badges.

You know, I was a Boy Scout back in the day (still know a marching song or two) and I had the damnedest time earning merit badges. Everything else I could do but those stupid badges...ugh!

I've always been a slacker, I guess.

The Secret of the Keep on the Borderlands

For those who missed it, James Raggi is a genius.

In his latest greatest post over at LotFP, Raggi does a brief analysis of the old TSR adventure module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, including what he feels it does right and what it does NOT. His post includes a comparison between the treasure found in the Caves of Chaos (the local dungeon) and the treasure found in the Keep, with a startling realization: the Keep yields the bigger payday (in terms of magic items and outright treasure) than the Caves…by a wide mile.

Which reminded ME of something I realized years ago (or at least sniffed around) but subsequently forgot in my 20+ year hiatus from Dungeons & Dragons:

The Keep IS the target objective of the adventure.

That is to say, pillaging the keep should be the main goal of any adventuring party.

This becomes immediately apparent with a little scrutiny for any player that grew up pre-Mentzer, pre-2nd edition. After all, the Moldvay generation wasn’t taught PCs were supposed to be “heroic adventurers.” Instead, we were told that you should cannibalize your dead party member’s pack for treasure, and the only reason to take the “high road” is to keep on the good side of the party’s Lawful cleric. To folks like me, “rogue” isn’t a class…it’s the Tao of Adventuring.

Let’s talk about it.

Exhibit A: The title of the module.

Early TSR adventure modules don’t beat around the bush: the title inevitable tells you the TARGET OBJECTIVE of the adventure. The Tomb of Horrors. The Lost Shrine of Tamoachan. White Plume Mountain. The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. Aerie of the Slave Lords. If a PLACE is named in the module title, that place is the site the PCs are expected to explore, invade, and loot.

B2’s title is NOT “The Caves of Chaos.” It is THE KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS. Obviously, the Keep IS the target.

This explains the detailed key of the Keep, front and center to the module. The main “dungeon” is the Keep, a well-detailed, site-based adventure. Everything else is an afterthought. What’s the next section to the module after the Keep?

Adventure Outside the Keep

Indeed. Once you’re finished looting the Keep, then you can participate in other adventures outside. But the implication is one must first have an adventure or two within the Keep.

Exhibit B: The Key to the Keep

Every single man-at-arms and soldier is detailed in the Keep. Each tower, its contingent of men, info on their shifts, info on their supplies and armaments, is detailed…information that can only be useful in the case of an invasion. And yet no part of the module involves any incursion from the Caves, or the outlying monster communities (the lizard folk keep to their swamps and the bandits rob folks traveling the road). In fact, the implication is that while the Chaotic temple at the Caves has an interest in keeping tabs on the Keep, the humanoid tribes are too disorganized to launch an actual assault on the Keep.

This latter has been my primary motivation for adventuring parties I’ve run through B2: the threat that the humanoids might unite, and the need to exterminate them while they are still divided. Reasonable enough…but if that’s what the module is about, then why do we need to know how many soldiers staff the south tower and the number of crossbow bolts they carry?

Why indeed.

Why bother to describe the treasure in each location…the bank, the trader, the private apartments, the castellan’s fortress. Sure, one might want to know the magic items possessed by the Keep’s denizens in case a party needs a “reward” of some sort…by what the need to detail the coinage and treasure? Unless it is designed to be stolen. And if an NPC were to steal a jeweled set of writing implements (or whatever) why would the actual gp value of such an item be important to know?

It only becomes important for PCs who want to steal it and pawn it.

The Keep IS the objective.

Exhibit C: The Detailed Personalities of the Keep

While one can play D&D in the simple fashion of “kick in door, fight monster, steal treasure” (i.e. the dumb-dumb way), as an RPG the game shines when it highlights the features of an RPG: creative problem solving, negotiation and social interaction, outside-the-box thinking for overcoming challenges. The D&D game comes alive when players are forced to think as if they were present in their characters’ shoes.

The Keep offers far more opportunities for these “shiny moments” than the Caves of Chaos do.

The Caves, for the most part, are simple monster dens. The Keep has hooks and colorful personalities…from the easily seduced gate guard to the unscrupulous trader to the rivalry between the Keep’s curate and the visiting itinerant priest to the officers of the watch regularly found boozing it up in the tavern (implication: drunks).

The political implications of the Inner Bailey (invitation only) is especially interesting: in all the years I’ve run B2, no party has ever visited the inner bailey or the castellan’s fortress. Not only is it the seat of power for the dungeon/Keep, it is the lair of the baddest monster in the module (the castellan!) and the main treasure hole.

When you consider the Keep as a dungeon, the outer bailey is “Level 1” and the inner bailey is “Level 2.” And with that perspective, the Caves of Chaos (and the other minor adventures outside the Keep) become a means to an end…they are the “key” to gaining entry to the Inner Bailey. Only those who can “prove themselves” can get in to the IB (without mounting a suicidal frontal assault), and doing the Caves’ “sidequest” is the ticket to getting a spy or scout into the castellan’s sanctuary.

But you’ve got to take advantage of the opportunity. You’ve got to think outside-the-box. You have to approach the adventure as “GIVEN that the Keep is the objective, what’s the best way to crack this nut?”

Exhibit D: Floor Plans of the Keep

At the end of the module, the reader is instructed to draw up floor plans for individual buildings of the Keep. Not the dungeon…the Keep! Examples are given of the inn and maybe one other building (I don’t have my module in front of me at the moment).

Why would one need to draw floor plans of Keep structure? Because Gygax is trying to teach 10 year olds how to be decorators/designers/architects?

OR is it because it might be tactically useful to know the lay-out of the battleground when you’re fighting man-at-arms house to house?

I think the latter.

Now in all seriousness, it’s quite possible Gygax did NOT write B2 with the conscious idea that players should choose to assault the Keep. But even if it wasn’t conscious, he provided all the tools and information one needs to do so. Perhaps he felt that such should be an option (after all, the choices in an RPG are only limited by one’s imagination) but decided that stating so implicitly would be “sending the wrong message” (i.e. that over-throwing the one bastion of civilization in the area would be both good and desirable).

In fact, there ARE some inherent dangers in sacking the Keep, and not just dying at the end of a pole-arm. If the Keep SHOULD fall, there is a strong suggestion that it will open the way for humanoids to invade the civilized lands. Treasure taken from the Keep will still need to be pawned/changed somewhere (the nearby monsters aren’t likely to pay for it), which means finding a suitable fence, possibly requiring a dangerous over-land journey burdened by the loot of the Keep.

Of course, such a journey might be made easier if the PCs can wipe out the bandits prior to sacking the Keep (perhaps as part of a bid for that inner bailey invitation?)…or if the PCs co-opt and join the bandits for mutual profit (in the sacking of the Keep).

Oh, I dig it. So many more possibilities when you stop looking at the Keep on the Borderlands as a “home base” and start seeing it for what it REALLY is: a fat prize ready to be plucked by a band of ambitious cut-throat adventurers.

You know, a sleep spell knocks out a lot of men-at-arms.
; )

At least now I know...

...how to pronounce Raggi's name. Previously, I figured it sounded like Scooby-Doo's way of saying "Shaggy."

Just finished listening to the Save or Die podcast interview with LotFP's founder, and my first impression is "he doesn't sound so tough...I could probably take him a fair fight." Obviously, though, I would have to contend with all the weird sorcery he has at his beck-and-call.

; )

In all seriousness, the interview offers some fairly interesting insights into JER's origins, motivations and raison d'etre for doing that thing he does, including his reasons (business and otherwise) for doing his own version of the Adult Fantasy Role-Playing Game. I'd already heard or known a lot of what he talks about just from reading his blog the last couple years, so most of it wasn't too surprising...Raggi in person is not saying anything different from Raggi the writer, though perhaps in more polite tones.

I had NOT realized he was introduced to the game through Mentzer's red box Basic...is this the (conscious or not) inspiration for his Lamentation RPG's particular format? Possibly.

Anyway, I know a lot of folks find podcast's like this to be boring. For those who don't, SoD's latest ain't too bad.

: )

Old School? Really?

Another good time at the Mox last night. It’s always a good night when you don’t get fragged by your fellow player characters (well, truth be told, it’s often a pretty good night when you ARE fragged by your fellows…so long as you get in on some of the fragging yourself!).

However, good time or not, I am starting to get disenchanted with DCC.

I think Luke (our game master) is doing a good job of moderating/ref’ing the game, but it’s just not wowing me as a game. And I can point to a couple reasons why (gripes I don’t think I’ve aired till now):

1. Too many random tables.

Not only does the sheer bulk of tables cut down on the search & handling time of the game (i.e. it makes game play slower), it feels so, well, random at times. Now understand there are benefits to random tables, and I can think of several good reasons for a designer to include them:

• It prevents “boring” same-old-same-old game play by changing up the possible result of any given action.
• It provides the impartiality of a random roll, as opposed to leaving the craziness of low rolls or “fumbles” up to GM fiat (the latter of which might lead to hurt feelings).
• It provides real surprises (both good and bad).
• It showcases the designers’ creativity.

But it’s still too much random for my taste. Everything in moderation, right?

There are very few random tables I use in my own games. Um…like none really (really? Yeah, I guess not). Even the placement of treasure and monsters is done “by hand;” I suppose I do use tables for wandering monsters on occasion (it’s rare that I use wandering monsters at all, actually), but that’s about it. My random dice rolls are left for the frenzy of combat, the resolution of negotiation, and the riskiness of saving throws.

Everything else is pretty un-random in my games.

Sure, character generation has its random elements, and I’ve made my own random tables to aid in quick-building characters (random hats and peer associations for example). However, character creation is (generally speaking) PRE-play activity; once we call Game On, there won’t be a random roll until we need to check surprise.

With DCC, you roll randomly every time you cast a spell, or fumble, or crit, or invoke a clerical ability. Hell, we had to roll randomly for how well we CAROUSED last night…apparently, some of the characters party better than others.

Even if it wasn’t distracting looking up tables in the rules, I think “random” still gets tired pretty quickly.

2. Too much fiddly.

At what point does a game go from being Old School with D20 sensibilities to simply “D20 Light?” Is DCC supposed to be Old School just because it has some random tables and dwarf is a class instead of a race?

Maybe it’s supposed to be Old School because it has the terms “Dungeon Crawl” and “Classic” in the title?

I don’t know, man. But here’s what the blurb at Goodman Games says:

"Blah-blah-blah…your character is a treasure hunting rogue, etc...THEN:

Return to the glory days of fantasy with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Adventure as 1974 intended you to, with modern rules grounded in the origins of sword & sorcery. Fast play, cryptic secrets, and a mysterious past await you: turn the page…"

Okay, let’s take that 2nd paragraph apart a piece at a time.

“Return to the glory days of fantasy…”

Not sure which glory days Goodman is referencing, but I note that it says glory days of fantasy, not glory days of fantasy role-playing. That’s a fairly important difference.

“Adventure as 1974 intended you to…”

Again, what does this mean? When I first glossed over it in my reading I thought, “oh, it’s some kind of return to OD&D, right?” But maybe what they are really referring to is fantasy in the year 1974 and not fantasy role-playing.

Why? Because I can’t for the life of me how they figure OD&D intended people to adventure like THIS.

I’ve been rereading my Little Brown Books a bit lately…they’re a solid reference for anyone designing fantasy heartbreaker…and they look a LOT different from DCC. They are incredibly abstract, often incomplete, certainly open-ended. If they “intend” anything, it would seem they intend people to design and adventure in their own fantasy world with little to guide them but the roughest of rule outlines.

DCC is full of specific fiddly bits as well as specific systems for doing things…even if those systems are nothing more than “roll on this random table.” I mean, wow, it took a long ass time for the guy next to me to write up his 1st level elf (even with me helping) just because there are so many BITS. Action dice, attack dice, crit range, crit table, crit dice, initiative modifier, ability modifiers, saving throws, luck modifiers, luck type, luck dice, spells known, spells manifestation, mercurial magic, blah, blah, blah.

In 1974 you would have rolled six ability scores, picked a class, rolled gold and chose equipment, and then given your dude a name and alignment. I don’t think anyone could claim the game designers in 1974 intended the chargen (or game play) to be this specific.

“…with modern rules grounded in the origins of sword & sorcery.”

I think THIS may be the key part of the blurb. Modern rules (read “D20” or post-WotC certainly) coupled with the dark, weird, pulpy fantasy of the original literature: Smith, Leiber, Howard, Lovecraft. The choice of literary background/flavor is great and very different from the usual heroic inspirations: Dragonlance, Eberon, Forgotten Realms, whatever. And maybe it is this inspirational source material that requires the extensive use of randomness (in order to mimic the psychedelic craziness of old school S&S).

Then again, didn’t Raggi manage a “weird” version of D&D while still using a true Old School chassis for his game?

“Fast play, cryptic secrets, and a mysterious past await you…”

I really, really don’t know what this is supposed to mean. I mean, is it totally disingenuous or what? Play is fastER than D20, capable of handling 7-8 players without slowing to a glacial pace. But I certainly wouldn’t call it “fast.” We spent a long hour (plus) on our single combat encounter last night, and the battle included both area effect spells and truly weak-sauce opponents (scrap-metal automatons).

“Cryptic secrets?” The only real secret is how XP is supposed to be doled out…well, that and what the actual page count for spells will be in the final version (the Beta uses a single page for each spell…it spends 33 pages and only covers 1st level spells. Could the full book have 150+ pages for 5 levels of spells?!).

“Mysterious past?” My character last week was a pig herder. Any mystery was added by Yours Truly. This week’s character was a former indentured servant-turned-warrior. I suppose it’s mysterious how he became skilled with all weapons just a couple days after being barely proficient with a cudgel.

“Turn the page…”

I assume this means the reader is supposed to close the chapter on other games (like Pathfinder and 4th Edition D&D) and start a new one with DCC? Personally, I don’t mind the pretention and DCC isn’t terrible…especially when compared to the fiddlyness of PF and 4E.

But, man, after three weeks of play-testing, I am pretty sure DCC won’t be replacing B/X for me. It feels like it wants to be fun in a beer & pretzels kind of way, but just like HackMaster it’s a little too mentally intensive to allow that kind of play. Even cutting down the number of characters-to-players (none of us brought more than one this week), even having a couple-three weeks of practice with the rules (four weeks for some players), even with each of us having our own copy of the Beta rules right at hand (many having it on their eBooks)…even with ALL that AND a GM who was completely sober, even then…

*sigh*

I guess I just have mixed feelings. We (*I*) did have a lot of fun, BUT a lot of that was the company and the chemistry and, let’s face it, the constant flow of the liquid libation. And when you’re having fun, you can have a lot of patience for the failings of a game.

Until you run out of patience, I guess.