tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73846962950289169372024-03-17T19:59:59.183-07:00Back in the LabyrinthAn Old-School Game Blog - Now with 90% more Cephalopod!Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.comBlogger284125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-51220303385857071582023-09-01T14:11:00.000-07:002023-09-01T14:11:52.198-07:00Back to Neverwhere<p> I was delighted to come home from vacation the other day to find an Amazon delivery waiting for me. I'd pre-ordered <i>Den Volume I: Neverwhere</i> months ago and then forgot all about it until it showed up on my doorstep.</p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHucLBk5Z_KsuVcprnfiMhqt-nnUavmns1lLD9m4eeNahhuKCqbQPfRPdNReCeYq-HXo5tM0Z094OTCXwxUbJcsg7f7GX775XUoTEZLigqg9lGi9siMmUDwYlbhu3MlRkoI0yc5o4ZqywOGRugGx8xYtp6VzPL63yjsLudH-1ChRxGXW9n6dZjp3xKe696/s408/3010741.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="300" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHucLBk5Z_KsuVcprnfiMhqt-nnUavmns1lLD9m4eeNahhuKCqbQPfRPdNReCeYq-HXo5tM0Z094OTCXwxUbJcsg7f7GX775XUoTEZLigqg9lGi9siMmUDwYlbhu3MlRkoI0yc5o4ZqywOGRugGx8xYtp6VzPL63yjsLudH-1ChRxGXW9n6dZjp3xKe696/w294-h400/3010741.jpg" width="294" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>This beautiful hardcover published by Darkhorse Comics, and released just this week reprints Richard Corben's classic Neverwhere story that was adapted as a chapter of the 1981 animated film, <i>Heavy Metal</i>, and will be followed in December 2023 by <i>Den Volume II: Muvovum</i> (which I've also pre-ordered and will be an eagerly anticipated early Christmas present that I won't forget about this time).</p><p>For the few who are unfamiliar with Corben's sword & planet hero, Den, the story begins with a scrawny, bookish young man from Kansas named David Ellis Norman who builds a circuit board from a schematic left to him by his missing uncle, Dan. When activated, the devices opens a portal that transports David through time and space to another world: Neverwhere. Initially unaware of who he is or what has happened, David is aware only that the letters D E N somehow pertain to his identity, and henceforth goes by this new name. During his exploration of this new world, Den quickly runs afoul of the Red Queen who is in the process of performing human sacrifices to summon a Lovecraftian monstrosity that she believes she can control to serve her own ambition. Den is able to save one of the victims from the sacrificial pool and escape with her on a giant bat.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiGHEfQLPdIBXatGxdM78EpItNmRrQdL7goiSGwtxBU8lk_gDDYeUq4Zn2A03QKmefLspwO0_j91QX_OnAtBsgI1rr1kzlF3-OSTbeT-oJ4rEazoUWcoN0Vj8p9mJRNEMeOFqWvbh98OB0Ko_UwHnXZ7LTl1EC21hz6GIOvg2PMrYoIlm_DznsIv-ZciCE/s573/Den002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiGHEfQLPdIBXatGxdM78EpItNmRrQdL7goiSGwtxBU8lk_gDDYeUq4Zn2A03QKmefLspwO0_j91QX_OnAtBsgI1rr1kzlF3-OSTbeT-oJ4rEazoUWcoN0Vj8p9mJRNEMeOFqWvbh98OB0Ko_UwHnXZ7LTl1EC21hz6GIOvg2PMrYoIlm_DznsIv-ZciCE/s16000/Den002.jpg" /></a></div><br /> The woman, Katherine Wells, was plucked from 1892 London and transported to Neverwhere by the sorceries of the Red Queen, and like David, was weak and sickly on Earth, but here she is voluptuous and filled with vitality, which she promptly demonstrates by making love to Den to thank him for rescuing her.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhNlC7pQMA54t005YYUqtnaghYo2owHQR9d_xwwkw9ZeWZG8bY_Nse7r6zAIImRK7VkI6XI6kUozzHqliEBflw3mvPK5f2GCkTacSn9gtXiHgQhPqOS74BuXoirGhjAlrbAyjk8-1xEXdOW_b3YmjBTTBF4sA1AhO_ierXVKy0QHrcQzNXrv-hSq8Q_z44/s554/Den003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="554" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhNlC7pQMA54t005YYUqtnaghYo2owHQR9d_xwwkw9ZeWZG8bY_Nse7r6zAIImRK7VkI6XI6kUozzHqliEBflw3mvPK5f2GCkTacSn9gtXiHgQhPqOS74BuXoirGhjAlrbAyjk8-1xEXdOW_b3YmjBTTBF4sA1AhO_ierXVKy0QHrcQzNXrv-hSq8Q_z44/s320/Den003.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>Alas, their newfound love is abruptly interrupted as they are set upon by enemies, and Kath is abducted by insect warriors.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibGebBv1s0NeUjs960op9NSCd_W02n2yd1Fme0s_Or6yQfXXlv3w98NT_ZKDMYYxLERFbf9Hc90_5FJt6VyYvnyfVPkPrSytveU3vlg-8Yil9vrJ18ydQNz8Aj2euewNeq5pACkMoC_KEheIsFWHM2yFH-u9gdtBvt-hpmm8F1cFgQiv7LY9Jzil7olzzu/s1081/Den001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="559" data-original-width="1081" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibGebBv1s0NeUjs960op9NSCd_W02n2yd1Fme0s_Or6yQfXXlv3w98NT_ZKDMYYxLERFbf9Hc90_5FJt6VyYvnyfVPkPrSytveU3vlg-8Yil9vrJ18ydQNz8Aj2euewNeq5pACkMoC_KEheIsFWHM2yFH-u9gdtBvt-hpmm8F1cFgQiv7LY9Jzil7olzzu/w400-h206/Den001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>During the course of his attempt to rescue his beloved, Den becomes embroiled in the sordid affairs of Neverwhere, and the various factions all seeking to control a powerful demonic staff called the Locnar, which Den is coerced to steal from the Red Queen for her rival, Ard, who has taken Kath captive. Den, along with Ard's ally, Kang, travel to the Red Queen's palace, and there split up to better there chances of securing the Locnar. Den is quickly captured and becomes the Red Queen's boy toy until she discovers that Kang got away with the Locnar while she was satisfying her lust with Den, who is left holding the bag, and must face the wrath of a woman scorned.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipdq4CeEoBX6MaABG3aAhZGHZU_H7My9K-jFQacetAdbkj954-vIIsa3_7Hl0keOI-zhwAsbfR_ZfewJ1MR6M51ep9QMJU0-va0_6LUkASI2ilPjkPSnwfsnjPNiqRfBc85cJBUUD3VutAzCaRr04Bq3rCkaYFuv7Sd7FWrbeW94rEYC1GMIIBGHi7teP5/s540/Den005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="538" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipdq4CeEoBX6MaABG3aAhZGHZU_H7My9K-jFQacetAdbkj954-vIIsa3_7Hl0keOI-zhwAsbfR_ZfewJ1MR6M51ep9QMJU0-va0_6LUkASI2ilPjkPSnwfsnjPNiqRfBc85cJBUUD3VutAzCaRr04Bq3rCkaYFuv7Sd7FWrbeW94rEYC1GMIIBGHi7teP5/s320/Den005.jpg" width="319" /></a></div><br /><p>It turns out that Kang's wife and son are held captive by Ard, and after turning the Locnar over to him learns the price of trusting him.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVBgbkChGfFE-JTcwQtdJ_bn_iK6Ye2BGpnj3bz4JolHVEwTyZhxzp-8kyd1vTVWucG4oVUSMTXd0dACfxpnmrH9twwWw6xr2X4-dsL0K--VxhkEY6l1OF99TU3yQBW-uuoQdumVhEKW_n6H2mFUTqbLTeUXf1nnMZfEuEO9HCuKHw7URuSxf7t31AxD5h/s1071/Den004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="863" data-original-width="1071" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVBgbkChGfFE-JTcwQtdJ_bn_iK6Ye2BGpnj3bz4JolHVEwTyZhxzp-8kyd1vTVWucG4oVUSMTXd0dACfxpnmrH9twwWw6xr2X4-dsL0K--VxhkEY6l1OF99TU3yQBW-uuoQdumVhEKW_n6H2mFUTqbLTeUXf1nnMZfEuEO9HCuKHw7URuSxf7t31AxD5h/w400-h323/Den004.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>This edition is the best Neverwhere collection that has been published to date, and all pages have been rescanned and colour corrected, so that they look better now than ever before. The artwork is lush and vibrant, printed on high-quality gloss paper, and solidly bound in hard cover. This is quite simply a book that is not to be passed up by any fan of Richard Corben or of Heavy Metal, and is worth every penny of the $45.99 CAD (34.99 USD) cover price.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-20486512483041703502023-08-03T09:38:00.000-07:002023-08-03T09:38:40.729-07:00Design Notes: Races<p> <span style="font-family: times;">The default assumption in <b>Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old</b> is that there are no non-human player character races. This isn't stated anywhere in the rules, there simply aren't any other playable races included in the game. This is a broad departure from the vast majority of all fantasy role playing games in which non-human races are ubiquitous, and it deserves some explanation, which due to considerations of space and lay-out I was not able to indulge in the rule book.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Firstly, the standard fantasy rpg races: elves, dwarves, and halflings, are unquestionably derived from Tolkien, and aren't thematically appropriate in a pulp sword & sorcery game that is inspired primarily by the works of Howard, Smith, and Lovecraft. Another reason, besides theme, is that non-human races are grossly over-powered in most games. Gary Gygax recognized that D&D was an anthropocentric game, and that non-human races had the potential to undermine this precept. He took great pains to curb the impact of other races and balanced their many advantages by limiting their ability to progress in the game compared to human characters. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Unfortunately these sensible precautions have been completely abandoned in newer editions of the game, resulting in a proliferation of over-powered races that now dominate the campaign ecosystem. I'm currently a player in a Pathfinder campaign, of which I have formed many strong opinions that will be the subject of a future post, but in this campaign, I play the sole human character. The remainder of the players all have opted for one of the many non-human races that proliferate the game, and confer such great advantages that human is not a viable option for the min-maxers who seem to enjoy Pathfinder.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">The predominance of non-human characters is not just an artefact of modern games. Until recently I have been running a Tunnels & Trolls campaign in which not one of player characters is human; all of the characters are elves and dwarves because these characters offer such huge advantages in T&T. But T&T is a game of unabashed excess, and despite my distaste for non-human characters I decided to embrace the game for what it is. Now I'm in an awkward position, because I want to continue using the campaign world, which has developed over the course of this T&T campaign to run <b>Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old</b>. I truly love the Free City of Avarice, and continent in which it exists, and it will do very nicely for the continent of Mu in the antediluvian Earth of <b>DD & CO</b>. The problem is that elves, dwarves, and halflings are now established denizens of this setting. Fortunately I have never referred to 'elves' in T&T as elves, and have described them as the dying embers of a once-mighty empire, similar in many respects to Melniboneans of Moorcock's Elric novels. This fits very nicely with the antediluvian earth motif, and they can represent the last scions of ancient Atlantis or Acheron. Halflings do have some precedent both in history and in the literary inspirations upon which <b>DD & CO</b> is based. Historically, a species of hobbit-like stature, <i>Homo floriensis,</i> did once exist, and in game they could be synonymous with the Tcho-Tchos of the Cthulhu mythos. Dwarves can simply be a population of short, stout people. However I choose to interpret these peoples, they will be treated as species or subspecies closely related to human, and as such will be identical to humans with respect to game mechanics.</span></p><p>And this is how I recommend anyone employs non-human player characters in a <b>Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old </b>campaign. Other races should be mechanically indistinguishable from humans; players should choose such characters simply because they enjoy the role-playing aspects of these races, not because they confer obvious advantages. So feel free to make up any zany player character races that you like for your campaign, but I strongly advise against creating any special rules for them. They should be included for campaign flavour, and nothing else.</p>Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-43614687867136802722023-07-31T11:00:00.000-07:002023-07-31T11:00:18.682-07:00Design Notes: Character ClassesOne of the biggest departures that <b>Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old</b> makes from the standard OSR rule set, is how I've chosen to handle character classes. Like the original D&D rules, <b>DD & CO</b> has just three broad architypes: Warrior, Sorcerer, and Thief. While the original game used Fighter, Magic User, and Cleric, I've opted not to include the cleric class, because it is strictly an artefact of D&D that has no precedent in the sword & sorcery genre upon which my game is based.<div><br /></div><div>I know that the thief class continues to be controversial within the OSR community. The critics argue that the thief shouldn't be a class because <i>anyone</i> can steal, and having a character class dedicated to this profession neuters the ability of other classes to steal. I've always found this argument unconvincing because, by the same rationale, any character can fight so why have a warrior or fighter class devoted to combat? Obviously, having a warrior class doesn't mean that other characters can't fight, it just means that warriors are better at it than everyone else, and it's a good choice of class for players who like to engage in a lot of combat. Likewise, the inclusion of a thief class doesn't limit other classes from stealing, thief class characters just do it better than everyone else.</div><div><br /></div><div>These broad archetypes, Warrior, Sorcerer, and Thief function exactly as they would in any other OSR game: each class gains new hit dice each level, and its THAC0 improves at its level increases. Where <b>DD & CO</b> characters differ from other OSR games is that the player has the ability to customize their character with the application of character templates.</div><div><br /></div><div>Templates can be applied to any of the three archetypes to create a new character type with additional customized abilities. A number of sample templates are described in the rules: Assassin, Barbarian, Bard, Monk, Priest, Ranger, Witch Hunter, etc. Each template includes a number of skills and abilities which are added to the abilities of the base archetype, and become class abilities for that character. The template has an experience modifier based on the number and potency of the skills and abilities, and this modifier is applied to the experience of the base class to determine how many experience points the character will require to level up going forward. A template can be applied at any time during the character's career, not just during character creation. Let's say a 3rd level warrior falls into the company of the legendary Wardens of the Northern Marches, and wishes to join their ranks and add a ranger template to his character. He gains the skills and abilities granted by that template, which have an experience modifier of +200 XP. Normally a 3rd level warrior would require 8,000 XP to gain 4th level (the class needs 2,000 XP to go from 1st to 2nd level, and that amount doubles with each level thereafter). The +200 XP is added to the base experience amount of 2,000, so the character will now need 8,800 to gain 4th level.</div><div><br /></div><div>Furthermore, templates are not usually restricted to a particular base archetype, so a Warrior, Sorcerer, or Thief could take the same template, although the abilities might vary to better suit the base class. Take the Bard template for example. A warrior character might become a battle skald, uttering war cries and chants to boost morale in battle. A thief taking the bard template might be a typical roguish minstrel, whereas a sorcerer could become a spell-singer of Celtic tradition. In each case the template may need to be modified slightly to suit the desires of the player.</div><div><br /></div><div>So templates exist as an open-ended system for the player to collaborate with the game master to create any type of character they might wish to play. There is no need to be restricted to the sample templates described in the rules. Guidelines are given for how to apply XP modifiers to skills and abilities, which makes creating custom templates easy. Game masters can use this system to create templates specifically for their campaign world.</div>Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-45351688440046069792023-07-24T13:20:00.000-07:002023-07-24T13:20:36.748-07:00Design Notes: Attributes<p> I want to spend some time discussing the design choices I made for <b>Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old</b>, which owing to considerations of space, I wasn't able to do in the actual rule book.</p><p>The first way in which I've diverged from the standard OSR-style game mechanic is with the attributes, which in <b>DD & CO </b>are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Knowledge, Acuity, and Charisma. I've discarded Intelligence and Wisdom in favour of Knowledge and Acuity, and I'd like to explain why I decided to do so.</p><p>I've been involved in this hobby for fourty-three years now, and I've played a lot of different games. Nearly all of them use Intelligence, or something like it, as an attribute. Because of its ubiquity I never questioned its use, but at the same time I never really felt comfortable with it, and while designing <b>DD & CO</b> I finally took the time to evaluate the attributes and how I feel about them.</p><p>First and foremost, attributes are what define a character: who they are, how they act, and how a player will role-play them. Every character attribute must contribute to our understanding of the character, and its personality, or it becomes useless. It is here that Intelligence fails the test as a useful attribute.</p><p>Firstly, what is Intelligence? What does it mean to be intelligent? There are different types of intelligence. Here's the Wikipedia entry defining <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_intelligence" target="_blank">human intelligence</a>, but this covers a lot of different facets, and I, like most people, rate highly in some respects, but poorly in others. If I was creating myself as a player character how would I rate my Intelligence? I honestly don't know. This ambiguity makes Intelligence fairly worthless as a personality trait for a character.</p><p>Secondly, how does one go about role-playing Intelligence? How does an average player, like myself go about playing a character with a genius level Intelligence score? You are limited as a player to your own mental capabilities. I guess you can do it if you use Intelligence solely to make dice roll checks, which, I admit, is the way that most modern role-playing games handle attribute scores, but this isn't role-playing. Even harder is for a smart player to play a character with a low Intelligence score. The whole point of old-school role-playing games is to challenge the players, and if you tell a player that their character couldn't have come up with the clever idea that the player just proposed, because the character is too stupid to have though of it, then you're defeating the entire purpose of the game, as well as creating a frustrating experience for the player.</p><p>Wisdom isn't much better. It is also an ambiguous trait that I recall debating often with friends back in high school during our frequent discussions of how to get a handle on D&D. The best way I've ever seen Intelligence and Wisdom differentiated is the statement that someone may be intelligent enough to know that smoking will kill them, but lack the wisdom to quit. But, again, this isn't very useful, and I have never once in over four decades of playing seen Wisdom actually come into play in a game except as a Prime Requisite for certain classes. It serves no purpose in role playing a character, so it's out too.</p><p>In <b>Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old</b> I have replaced Intelligence and Wisdom with Knowledge and Acuity. Knowledge is fairly straightforward: it is a measure of a character's education, and their ability to memorize and retain facts. I use this as the Prime Requisite of the Sorcerer class and also to determine how much lore a character might know, and how much information to give them.</p><p>Acuity is the keenness of a character's senses and quickness of thought. A character with high Acuity experiences very little delay between thought and action, and would receive a bonus to Initiative and Surprise checks. This means that a character with very high Acuity is rarely or never surprised, and is the character who should be making the group initiative rolls, using his quick thinking to shout out orders to the rest of the party. This corresponds quite nicely with personality types, as one of the traits of extroverts is assertiveness and quick thinking, and such characters are excellent candidates as group leaders in crisis situations. Introverts, on the other hand tend to react slowly to changing situations, but are capable of intense and prolonged concentration, and deep thinking.</p><p>Personally, I'm an introvert, and I would judge myself to have a high Knowledge score, but a low Acuity score, as I'm prone to daydreaming, so my awareness of my surroundings is not as high as it could be, and I lack the ability to make decisions quickly. I'm the sort of person who needs to analyze all the facts before reaching a decision, and I tend to spend a lot of time researching even relatively simple online purchases, for example. Just last week I bought a tree pruner, but before I did I read multiple reviews of each model, and carefully compared all the product information before reaching my decision. My extroverted sister, on the other hand, would simply have bought the first one that caught her eye, then moved on to other things.</p><p>So in game terms a high Acuity character will make an excellent team leader and combat commander, whereas you'd probably rather have the slow-thinking high Knowledge character actually planning the expeditions. Knowledge and Acuity give us a much better handle on how to play our characters, and what their personalities might be like.</p><p>As far as Intelligence goes, I consider it far better to assume that a character is exactly as smart as the person playing it, which in the end makes for a much more satisfying role-playing experience.</p>Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-85607722518895449292023-07-21T09:55:00.003-07:002023-07-24T12:07:46.109-07:00Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuw7oVbBH1sCiFqiLW-M0Sj8piBrbBL-lphyXW3UVhhRvl6kKJlOgpGqoCO5yZZh0mOqzqGOrrYC2T--JmWr9RDr3TMwYA5q_F_NzSdybxZCwdlvnKBc56ZQX-hr91upeawQGujKLiFG3Pp98kl2_DHjlC4aAUhQMHkLa9iZHOYC59nXl6t-ien-O70APJ/s1300/DDCO%20Cover%20thumbnail.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="867" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuw7oVbBH1sCiFqiLW-M0Sj8piBrbBL-lphyXW3UVhhRvl6kKJlOgpGqoCO5yZZh0mOqzqGOrrYC2T--JmWr9RDr3TMwYA5q_F_NzSdybxZCwdlvnKBc56ZQX-hr91upeawQGujKLiFG3Pp98kl2_DHjlC4aAUhQMHkLa9iZHOYC59nXl6t-ien-O70APJ/s320/DDCO%20Cover%20thumbnail.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Way back in 2010 I began working on a set of house-rules for my Swords & Wizardry whitebox campaign, and over the years they evolved, slowly metamorphosing from a set of house-rules into a unique game. The final product, Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old, is now finally finished and is now available as a pay-what-you-want PDF on DriveThru RPG.</p><p>My goal with this game was to create a pulp sword & sorcery rpg, that represented the tropes of the genre while remaining faithful to the spirit of old-school games. This product description sums it up:</p><p align="LEFT" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i>Dive into
fantasy role-playing 1970's style! <span style="font-family: Immortal;">Dungeons
Deep & Caverns Old </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">is
a pulp sword & sorcery role-playing game in the old school
tradition with simple, elegant rules that fade into the background
and let you focus on what's really important: exploring ancient
dungeons, recovering fantastic treasures, then squandering it all in
a night of ribald revelry. Break out the miniatures and the Crown
Royal dice bags, crank up the Led Zeppelin, and get ready for a night
of adventure torn from the pages of Weird Tales, with characters
bursting from a Frank Frazetta painting.</span></i></p><p>This project has been a labour of love that has taken many years. It was quite a time-consuming undertaking to do all the writing and artwork myself, and the project went on hiatus during the years I was dealing with cancer, which sapped my enthusiasm. Also, when I first started this project, as far as I am aware, there were no other OSR games devoted specifically to pulp sword & sorcery, but since that time several have been published, so I wasn't sure that it was worthwhile to carry on, and the hiatus nearly became permanent. Last year, however, I became determined to finish the game I always wanted to play, and think in the end Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old offers a unique take on sword & sorcery role playing, and I'm very proud of the result.</p><p>If you're interested, you can check the game out for free by following this link: <b><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/445983/Dungeons-Deep--Caverns-Old?manufacturers_id=4317" target="_blank">Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old</a></b>, or by clicking the banner on the sidebar, which will take you to my publisher account at DriveThru RPG. I also have a character record PDF available, and in a day or so I'll be adding quick reference sheets, in which all the important tables are compiled. You can print these out and store them in a binder for easy reference, or insert them into any 8.5 x 11" universal game master screen.</p><p>The game has only been live on DriveThru for a couple of days, so I was very surprised to find that a review has already been posted to YouTube. Check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC0XSp-4e74" target="_blank">this great review</a> by RPG Freebies, which neatly summarizes the game.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pC0XSp-4e74" width="320" youtube-src-id="pC0XSp-4e74"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-1716316309511106682022-01-20T13:19:00.000-08:002022-01-20T13:19:40.313-08:00Session Five: The Dungeon of Xenopus<p> Feted as heroes by the townsfolk for having put an end to the menace of the draugr, Hafrgim Bloodslakir, who had for generations haunted the Barrow Hills north of town, the adventurers enjoyed a night of revelry. Kragar the rogue was able to leverage his celebrity status to successfully seduce the mayor's daughter, Elise, after having suffered a critical fail on his attempt after first arriving in town. Sometimes persistence pays off.</p><p>Flushed with success from their previous caper, the crew turned their eyes toward the intriguing tower ruins north of the old graveyard west of town. Chatting up patrons at the Dragonfire Inn, they heard a number of often conflicting rumours regarding the tower ruins, but were able to determine that fifty years ago the wizard Xenopus disappeared and has not been heard from since, and that soon after his disappearance twisted, misshapen silhouettes could be seen capering on the tower's parapet, highlighted by an eerie green glow emanating from within. They heard, also of the reclusive Whateley clan who dwell across the bay and shun the company of the townsfolk, and whose patriarch, old Algernon Whateley, was none other than Xenopus's apprentice. A trip out to the Whateley homestead proved fruitless, as Algernon's daughter, Lavinia, set her sons, Yog, and Soth to drive off the interlopers, pitchforks in hand. Giving up on interrogating the Whateleys, the adventurers decided to just dive into the tower ruins and see what's what. </p><p>The dungeon is, of course, the iconic <i>Tower of Zenopus</i> sample dungeon featured in the Holmes Basic D&D set. This is probably the best sample dungeon ever created, as there is a great deal of story potential and threads that can be fleshed out for further use, and which suited my existing campaign perfectly.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhplFGJdQrUJE6UR8FFh_lc5NnE-pAqm0u0zDTwBdlYP-xXfDuBWP0EvjDoZgZuBR9e9tXxDSboTUceuhhymUZ93hn23NeO3u2LDL67jNneC99GVg-H7-QwesHLvmVy--85S35U4wk-qNJP5sq4c79RaPvWDXnDD_56XE98tA6Y_CzcHvGWmwS2JLkstg=s3264" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2540" data-original-width="3264" height="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhplFGJdQrUJE6UR8FFh_lc5NnE-pAqm0u0zDTwBdlYP-xXfDuBWP0EvjDoZgZuBR9e9tXxDSboTUceuhhymUZ93hn23NeO3u2LDL67jNneC99GVg-H7-QwesHLvmVy--85S35U4wk-qNJP5sq4c79RaPvWDXnDD_56XE98tA6Y_CzcHvGWmwS2JLkstg=w640-h498" width="640" /></a></div><p>Over the course of exploring the dungeon beneath the ruins the pcs came upon a smuggler looking for his two missing mates, and learned that his crew is using the dungeon to stash smuggled goods for overland transport to Avarice. They also encountered old man Whateley, himself, who has, with the assistance of goblin minions has taken over the dungeon and remaining effects of his old master to bolster his arcane power. Whateley is an irascible sort who takes poorly to intrusion upon his domain, and had just finished creating statues of the two missing smugglers by way of a <i>Medusa</i> spell. Leaving his goblin servants to deal with this new band of intruders, Whateley fled to his laboratory on the level below where he prepared a special welcome for anyone who followed.</p><p>After quickly dispatching the goblins, the pcs did, indeed pursue Whateley to his lair only to find him surrounded by the glowing nimbus of a protective spell, and a number of cages full of cockatiels. These birds, which he dubbed Molotov Cockatiels were creatures of his own making, and he opened their cages, then detonated a thunder clap to panic them. They flew madly about the the laboratory, burning the adventures while Whately remained safe behind his <i>Protective Pentagram</i>. Hrothgar unwisely swung his axe at one of the birds, easily killing it, but its destruction caused it to explode causing even more damage to everyone around it. Realizing that killing these birds could trigger a cascade of explosions that would kill them all, the wizard, Fenix grabbed book of arcane lore off a nearby table and threatened to let the birds burn it. Enraged that someone would dare to touch his things, Whateley charged out of his pentagram, swinging his black iron staff. This proved the end of him as Hrothgar buried his axe in Whateley's spine, killing him.</p><p>Thus ended the session with Whateley dead, and Fenix in possession of the old man's demon-bound <i>staff deluxe</i>, which he fears is more magic item than he can handle. It also ended with all the characters getting enough XP to gain 2nd level.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-38137620170494392052022-01-17T07:27:00.003-08:002022-01-17T07:27:54.841-08:00Monster Monday: Molotov Cockatiels<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh4EnFiijEhMDawYC6FR9b63AS-PF5O-eEEgouAwttCm9zEXeGlzVtOIfA5dY8UuazZk5Ylm17FvUHMn6L0vt-r4z6S8FN1ve418U3F1x7hEqn2FsdW7bZDS0pW16Px8YJUg81VX8djt7HNMQv0TUBD-yGQA5qyE0tyf91_UiGyyVliz4oJM-_-eWNXnA=s2056" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2056" data-original-width="1355" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh4EnFiijEhMDawYC6FR9b63AS-PF5O-eEEgouAwttCm9zEXeGlzVtOIfA5dY8UuazZk5Ylm17FvUHMn6L0vt-r4z6S8FN1ve418U3F1x7hEqn2FsdW7bZDS0pW16Px8YJUg81VX8djt7HNMQv0TUBD-yGQA5qyE0tyf91_UiGyyVliz4oJM-_-eWNXnA=w264-h400" width="264" /></a></div><br /><p> The product of experimentation by the mad mage, Xenopus, Molotov cockatiels smolder with intense heat, dealing 1 point of magical fire damage to anyone they touch, and setting fire to flammable objects. While not aggressive, Molotov cockatiels are easily startled by loud noises and will fly into a panic, running into things in their attempt to flee. This makes flocks of them dangerous, even more so if one is killed, because when they die the explode, dealing 2d6 points of magical fire damage in a five foot radius, which can set off a chain reaction of explosions if other cockatiels are nearby.</p><p>Tunnels & Trolls stats: Typical MR of 5</p><p>OSR stats: 1 HD (4 hp), AC 9, Move 15" flying</p><p><br /></p>Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-87336203449754763072022-01-09T09:33:00.000-08:002022-01-09T09:33:00.273-08:00Sessions Three and Four: The Barrow Crypt of Hafgrim Bloodslakir<p> We managed to squeeze in two game sessions during the holidays, during which the characters arrived in the town of Vermisport, two days west of Avarice, after winning a map of the tomb of the notorious Urgoth warlord, Hafgrim Bloodslakir. As the players were keen to avoid the wrath of the cultists of Atlach-Nacha in Avarice, an extended vacation seemed in order.</p><p>While in Vermisport, the party established themselves at the Dragonfire Inn, owned by the dwarven innkeeper, Drungard Aleson, who is inordinately fond of his own brew, Dragonfire Ale ("burns going down, burns coming out") and never passes up an opportunity to drink with his guests - whether they invite him or not. Of the party, only the doughty dwarf, Hrothgar the Red, was brave enough to quaff Dragonfire Ale with their host; the others stuck to gentler libations.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDJa6G_jgaWzUSMDhVgAMGWOQUqcrKpZjyWzHWfmaZa6HuQb5xgGk5O7uj8fD22Z8cMMs8hMOpCkrJJYPV231IZbg7onxqp47ocrTMqYcPXXqBMbqzlYB8g23g7EQ3-xAOR_bbn_i3DlrdsHVsiYqUtbeT4OsMguTXiYPR5PwLNtI2dPgYMWTscyxa8A=s3203" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2428" data-original-width="3203" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDJa6G_jgaWzUSMDhVgAMGWOQUqcrKpZjyWzHWfmaZa6HuQb5xgGk5O7uj8fD22Z8cMMs8hMOpCkrJJYPV231IZbg7onxqp47ocrTMqYcPXXqBMbqzlYB8g23g7EQ3-xAOR_bbn_i3DlrdsHVsiYqUtbeT4OsMguTXiYPR5PwLNtI2dPgYMWTscyxa8A=w640-h486" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>In preparation of exploring the Barrow Hills north of town, the party stocked up on supplies at the local outfitter: Madam Marigold's Muffins & Sundries (free muffin with every purchase!). Marigold, a matronly hobb, expressed an interest in purchasing any artifacts or curios recovered from the barrows, and also offered to sell the party a map of the tomb of Hafgrim Bloodslakir - an exact duplicate of the map Kragar the rogue had won back in Avarice. Rather than a rare, one-of-a-kind treasure, the map was a scheme concocted by the Vermisport JCs to promote adventure tourism in the economically depressed town. The mayor and local shop owners felt that a steady stream of adventurers spending their loot in town was a business opportunity too good to pass up, and if one of them happened to put down the wight that had been haunting the Barrow Hills for years, all the better!</p><p>After hiking into the hills, and exploring a few of the lesser barrows, the party finally came upon the one they sought: the crypt of Hafrim Bloodslakir. At the first intersection after entering the barrow, they found another party of adventurers buried beneath the rubble of a pitfall trap. As these adventurers were all dead there was only one thing to do: go through their pockets and look for loose change. In addition to loose change, one of the corpses also had one of the copies of the barrow map. Thus forewarned that the crypt contained deadly traps, the party became even more paranoid than usual, afraid to put a foot down lest they trigger some unpleasant surprise.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0C3lcsnGxlsRUPYEW2QykdzOZ1AHkPTj9fSwNui8TPs9PLAHFx2W9I_ho3dJ3enCkNaR-Urag-UbSfTd84rQ3ZhxI8nT8pSGM4veqcwe4lmrIRsGq0COeiIy7BuPC8V9cXs_iYsVd3Dboz2xY6KSqcleA51waY737cxsHxFGQy3xZMA2gdFwcp8Gdfw=s2278" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2278" data-original-width="2257" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0C3lcsnGxlsRUPYEW2QykdzOZ1AHkPTj9fSwNui8TPs9PLAHFx2W9I_ho3dJ3enCkNaR-Urag-UbSfTd84rQ3ZhxI8nT8pSGM4veqcwe4lmrIRsGq0COeiIy7BuPC8V9cXs_iYsVd3Dboz2xY6KSqcleA51waY737cxsHxFGQy3xZMA2gdFwcp8Gdfw=w634-h640" width="634" /></a></div><br /><p>After thoroughly exploring and looting the crypt, the players confronted the final room in the northeast corner of the map, which they correctly believed to be the resting place of the wight. They ignored the four alcoves on the north an south walls of the antechamber, and went straight to the room farthest east where the wight awaited them. This was a wise choice, for had they opened any of the alcove doors all four would have swung open, dropping a portcullis at the entrance of the chamber, and releasing the zombies within, so they would have those to contend with as well as the wight. As it was Bloodslakir, by himself proved to be a challenge, though he was eventually defeated without serious harm to the party. Bloodslakir's treasure, a chest full of rubies was protected by a poison needle trap, which Kragar was clever enough to discover without being stuck by it and killed.</p><p>Their mission accomplished, the party returned to Vermisport to celebrate and lay plans to explore the ruins of the abandoned wizard's tower north of the old graveyard.</p><p><br /></p>Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-4159936628855807332022-01-03T14:41:00.000-08:002022-01-03T14:41:40.697-08:00Monster Monday: Boozehounds<p> I introduced boozehounds to my game a couple of sessions back, and the players got a kick out of them. They suit the whimsical nature of Tunnels & Trolls, and the notion that players should at least be chuckling as their beloved characters are torn apart.</p><p><br /></p><p>Boozehounds have an insatiable lust for alcohol. They can smell it at great distances and will track it relentlessly once they've gotten a whiff. A typical boozehound has a monster rating of 30, but for each round that they spend drinking booze, their MR increases by 10, to a maximum of twice their starting MR. For old-school D&D style games, they have a typical hit dice of 2-3, and a 1d6 bite, but their HD increases by 1 each round they spend drinking, to a maximum of twice their starting HD.</p><p><br /></p><p>The drunker they get, the nastier they become, so it's best not to let them get a snoot full!</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7jd6KSlzDMV-xYyRfYBXZIU8Bo0X1-dk5bVcE5uujjDgu0aelqeZFTj1uvTKR7LHYlq1OhCXhRXIML95CMOaWqOGB4r8CTCPmb-Esx-HBM0u6ErnR6ESJVbIRrVKegHv3wph1-DGZYmLWjwRDCxtH8fnQgCdTdr3LYF6dvGfY33BE3PhyGmIAZtRMDg=s1879" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1504" data-original-width="1879" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7jd6KSlzDMV-xYyRfYBXZIU8Bo0X1-dk5bVcE5uujjDgu0aelqeZFTj1uvTKR7LHYlq1OhCXhRXIML95CMOaWqOGB4r8CTCPmb-Esx-HBM0u6ErnR6ESJVbIRrVKegHv3wph1-DGZYmLWjwRDCxtH8fnQgCdTdr3LYF6dvGfY33BE3PhyGmIAZtRMDg=w400-h320" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-21668658832364520872021-11-23T09:27:00.000-08:002021-11-23T09:27:28.487-08:00Session Two: Redjack's Roadhouse<p> The characters began this session the following day, nursing their hangovers at The Slippery Vixen while discussing whether to follow up on the treasure map that Kragar had won at the gaming table the night before. They had just settled on an expedition to the Barrow Hills after suitable preparations had been made, when one of the tavern regulars announced that the body of Abdul Farouk (the fence to whom Kragar had sold the group's stolen gems the night before) had just been finished out of the nearby canal, showing signs of torture. With this fresh intelligence, the characters decided that planning for expeditions was over-rated and that an immediate departure was just the thing.</p><p>They departed within the hour, catching a boat to Ferryton, on the mainland, where they booked passage with a supply carriage to Vermisport the following morning. They spent a nervous night at the Ferryton Inn, with Kragar perched on the inn's roof all night keeping watch for spider cultists. The night was uneventful, and they departed as planned shortly after dawn.</p><p>They arrived that night at Redjack's Roadhouse, the halfway house between Avarice and Vermisport on the Old Coast Road.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTIYYkLRjy20w6iVjD8V85QFc7feOZmYKvm_9JTH-fqZRgvETujuvaKm_-8yQz28BE6_Cca3DLOoMhA2x5BofxzKQX7PeL5JZoMMTB57gpabvl-yrEeghnuvwIMPsGIwQG9rYj0IJzMazt/s2048/Avarice+to+Vermisport001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1664" data-original-width="2048" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTIYYkLRjy20w6iVjD8V85QFc7feOZmYKvm_9JTH-fqZRgvETujuvaKm_-8yQz28BE6_Cca3DLOoMhA2x5BofxzKQX7PeL5JZoMMTB57gpabvl-yrEeghnuvwIMPsGIwQG9rYj0IJzMazt/w640-h520/Avarice+to+Vermisport001.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>While socializing over supper and drinks, the players met Balzac Brightson, a mercenary, whom they hired to accompany them on their expedition in exchange for a 10% cut of the treasure. At this point the session was cut short due to a player with food poisoning who could no longer continue. With luck in the upcoming session the players will make it to Vermisport and commence their exploration of the tomb of Halfgrim Bloodslakir.</p>Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-61891970624800332222021-11-16T11:58:00.000-08:002021-11-16T11:58:17.634-08:00Game On!<p> My long spell of gaming drought has ended, and I've finally launched my new Tunnels & Trolls campaign that I've been planning for ages, but haven't been able to get off the ground until now. It's been a pretty stressful year for me; back in the fall of 2020 I found out that my prostate cancer had become aggressive and I needed surgery as soon as possible. Unfortunately the pandemic had other plans, and cancer surgeries were cancelled as nurses were reassigned to Covid wards. I waited for nearly a year, stressed out and wondering if the cancer was spreading and becoming inoperable. I finally got my surgery at the end of August, and just in the nick of time: the cancer had spread to nearby lymph nodes (which were removed for good measure), and was impinging on my bladder wall. This latter will still need monitoring, but for the moment I appear to be cancer free. Just as I recovered from that surgery I was back in the hospital a few weeks ago for emergency gall bladder surgery. Now I'm on the mend from that, and barring any more organs that need removing, my health care woes are behind me, and I can finally look to the future.</p><p>And thus it was that I finally was able to return to the virtual game table last week to kick off a new sword & sorcery campaign! I'm using my favourite 5th edition (1979) rules, with some elaborations from the Deluxe edition (2015). The game is set on Ken St. Andre's Trollworld, but on a continent of my own design, Pentamer, the starfish continent, located on the far side of the world:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgWi3y3icpYpIZY3iPvfEYN6LtM6u0Hgt-jekbd-HCgJSIfGHBgXJq9jJ0o4FXxdsb1Al6usxvidajdnE8Y7_2DIHby66ahzHBP8cUy0Rtu3Fw9_zduIOjU6hVhLzOAl5vCNBaPih3kdO3/s2048/Pentamer003+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1772" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgWi3y3icpYpIZY3iPvfEYN6LtM6u0Hgt-jekbd-HCgJSIfGHBgXJq9jJ0o4FXxdsb1Al6usxvidajdnE8Y7_2DIHby66ahzHBP8cUy0Rtu3Fw9_zduIOjU6hVhLzOAl5vCNBaPih3kdO3/w554-h640/Pentamer003+copy.jpg" width="554" /></a></div><br /><p>The campaign is set in the city state of Avarice, on the south coast. There is as yet very little detail on the map of the continent. I'll be filling in details as needed, and as the players explore their world.</p><p>The first session began with the PCs, Hrothgar, a dwarven warrior; Kragar, a vartae rogue, and Fenix, a vartae wizard carousing at their favourite tavern, The Slippery Vixen in the Flotsam district of Avarice. Rumour going around the tavern was that the temple of the spider god had a brand new idol of Atlach-Nacha sculpted with huge rubies for eyes. Our intrepid ne'er-do-wells decided that those rubies would be much better off in their hands than in those of a bunch of spider cultists, and so without further planning set off for the temple district to liberate them.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__QPhOcYh5OZH2YpdVCvhXWLMgLlCLNKRVt9Ugfh-V06URmwt-qXJNm0MY2lblKRel8evrlLA51g6IN809bsSZsvyqg9lVW6DygxyC07QNBOR2bXSaf-v6V-22oorTPxZWI3zNBkxn21l/s2048/Avarice002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1641" data-original-width="2048" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__QPhOcYh5OZH2YpdVCvhXWLMgLlCLNKRVt9Ugfh-V06URmwt-qXJNm0MY2lblKRel8evrlLA51g6IN809bsSZsvyqg9lVW6DygxyC07QNBOR2bXSaf-v6V-22oorTPxZWI3zNBkxn21l/w640-h512/Avarice002.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>The caper initially went off without a hitch; temple guard patrols were quickly dispatched and the gems were pried out of their sockets. Then the characters decided to explore the temple and see if there was anything else worth stealing, and walked into the quarters of half a dozen temple initiates. Hrothgar was confident that he could tank the damage from a handful of dagger-wielding fanatics, but then an acolyte from the adjoining room cast <i>Oh Go Away</i> on him, and Hrothgar fled the battle, leaving the rogue and wizard feeling very much like Julius Caesar on the senate floor. Fenix was able to kill the acolyte with a timely casting of <i>Take That, You Fiend</i>, but then the mob fell upon them, daggers plunging, and Kragar, and Fenix soon passed out from blood lost. When Hrothgar was finally able to master his fear, he returned to the battle to stand alone against the mob. He eventually cut them down but was, himself, very low on Con at that point. He was able to stabilize his comrades and they decided to quit the temple while they were still alive. Fenix cast a <i>Lock Tight</i> spell on the temple doors after they exited, to delay any pursuit, and then made their way home, rubies in hand.</p><p>Kragar took the gems to Abdul Farouk, a reliable fence, who took them off his hands for 800 gp, much of which the characters blew on a well-deserved carouse at The Slippery Vixen. At the gaming tables, Kragar won a treasure map detailing the tomb of Halfgrim Bloodslakir, located in the Barrow Hills, just north of the town of Vermisport, two days west of Avarice along the Old Coast Road, and plans for the next money-making venture were laid...</p>Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-64625212038064275482019-08-30T09:03:00.000-07:002019-08-30T09:03:08.813-07:00Whence the Labyrinth?Dungeons are probably the most common adventure locale in role playing games; they were the cornerstone of every adventure in the early days, and remain popular today. Sprawling expansive underground complexes filled with terrifying monsters and fabulous treasures exert a powerful draw upon our imaginations, and a call to adventure that is impossible to ignore. Dungeons often serve not just as the locale for an adventure, but for the entire campaign, with huge mega-dungeon complexes taking novice characters to the giddy heights of power, as they delve ever further into its depths.<br />
<br />
But where do these ubiquitous underground complexes come from? This is a question that has plagued many of us, I'm sure. I recall debating this topic <i>ad nauseam</i> with my friends back in high school, railing against the absurdity that such huge underground complexes could reasonably exist, and straining to provide credible rationale for them. Indeed, this need for rationalization has caused many gamers to eschew dungeons altogether.<br />
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Another school of thought is that dungeons represent the mythic underworld, which requires no rationale, and follows its own rules and logic. This very old-school view hearkens back to the earliest days of the hobby. This mindset is explained in a thorough essay by Jason Cone in <a href="http://save.vs.totalpartykill.ca/grab-bag/philotomy/">Philotomy's Musings</a>, and is summed up nicely in this post by DM David: <a href="https://dmdavid.com/tag/the-dungeon-comes-alive-in-the-mythic-underworld/">The Dungeon Comes Alive in the Mythic Underworld</a>. The beauty of dungeons as mythic underworld is that it does away with any need to rationalize them: they just are.<br />
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I really like the notion of the Mythic Underworld, but I'm the kind of guy who prefers a naturalistic explanation for things; not out of a pedantic need to rationalize everything, but because doing so adds to the constructed history and culture of my game world, and it helps to fuel my imagination and come up with exciting adventure ideas. It's easy to come up with a logical explanation for a single dungeon, but how do you account for the large numbers of such complexes that dot the landscape and support the cottage industry of adventuring parties upon which most fantasy roleplaying games are predicated?<br />
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One answer lies in early twentieth century history, because it turns out that mega-dungeon complexes are real and not as laborious or time-consuming to construct as my teenage self used to believe. Ever since the hundredth anniversary of the armistice last year, I've been reading about the history of the 1st World War, focusing most of my reading on the western front with its trenches extending from the North Sea to the Swiss border. Pierre Berton, in his book, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/13110/vimy-by-pierre-berton/9780385658423">Vimy</a> describes in great detail, the underground network that housed hundreds of thousands of soldiers, including a map illustrating passage ways connecting officer's quarters, kitchens, sleeping quarters that looks exactly like every dungeon map I've ever seen.<br />
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The bedrock throughout much of France is composed of chalk, and the trenches, dugouts, and holding areas incorporate huge natural karst caverns into their labyrinthine networks, which extended tens of meters below ground. Because the bedrock is so soft it was easy to dig the tunnel networks, and sappers dug mines and listening posts into no-man's land using nothing more than vinegar and bayonets. Many of the caverns housed 500 men or more apiece, and Berton claimed that it was possible to walk 10 km from the Canadian trenches at Vimy to the Spanish trenches at Arras without ever seeing the light of day. These complexes were, in effect, vast underground cities, and the Canadian complex at Vimy housed a population greater than any city in Canada at that time, barring Toronto, Montreal, and Winnipeg. These tunnel networks were so vast that soldiers often got lost in them, so that specialist guides were designated to escort units to where they needed to go. So by any account the underground complexes supporting the trenches of the western front are bigger by far than any fantasy mega-dungeon I've ever seen.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBp1f5B57eEsAfM-dbpjVzwEzjMQuPnNEBQqQohSPwLBpBJvvV5FAAtUcZrGxsVDLfjwtCCT6GvnwsZxboVmDIYme0fwq76qyOAg9jV58VZnpHhrQgr50NPRCFcB9XD2rTIMtnCOiv1wqu/s1600/entrance_to_a_german_officers_dugout-741x561.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="741" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBp1f5B57eEsAfM-dbpjVzwEzjMQuPnNEBQqQohSPwLBpBJvvV5FAAtUcZrGxsVDLfjwtCCT6GvnwsZxboVmDIYme0fwq76qyOAg9jV58VZnpHhrQgr50NPRCFcB9XD2rTIMtnCOiv1wqu/s640/entrance_to_a_german_officers_dugout-741x561.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance to a German dugout (creepy clown with free balloons not included)</td></tr>
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So how do I incorporate the dungeon complexes of the 1st World War into a fantasy setting? Trench warfare was a response to the devastating might of modern artillery and the advent of the machine gun, which made the infantry lines and cavalry charges of the 19th century obsolete - a fact that escaped many old generals in the early days of the war.<br />
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In a fantasy milieu artillery is called wizards, at least in campaigns where wizards are common enough to be included in the ranks of the army. TFT is just such a game; wizards are so commonplace that seven of the sixteen listed wizarding occupations on the jobs table are with army or mercenary units, so clearly battles on Cidri are waged with wizards on both sides of the conflict, a situation similar to that depicted in Steven Erikson's fantasy series, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malazan_Book_of_the_Fallen">Malazan Book of the Fallen</a> (probably not coincidental, as the series was based on the author's GURPS campaign). Parallel evolution suggests that since mages of Cidri are analogous to artillery on the western front of Europe, similar defensive networks would be built to protect soldiers from near certain death on the open ground.<br />
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This inspires lots of cool ideas for a campaign set in the aftermath of a great war. Perhaps an invading empire laid siege to fortresses along the borderlands of its neighbors as it slowly advanced. One by one keeps and castles fell to the besieging army that entrenched itself around the defenders, sappers extending tunnels to breach the defenses, defenders digging counter mines. The aftermath of each siege leaves behind a dungeon complex radiating from the hub of a ruined castle upon a field littered with the dead and saturated with magic. What treasures and artifacts lay forgotten in the ruins? How many thousands of dead men lie where they fell in the killing ground? What manner of vermin have grown large gorging themselves on rotting corpses, and warped by magic? Imagine the number of such dungeons that would lie in the wake of such a war. Perhaps a necromancer has laid claim to one such castle drawn by the huge number of corpses upon which to practice his art. Such places also make excellent refuges for bandits, orcs, goblins and other unsavory creatures that come to inhabit the ruins.<br />
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I also like the idea of injecting a bit of the 'mythic underworld' into this setting. Might not such sites of mass killing and magical maelstrom leave an indelible imprint, perhaps tainting the land with the touch of Chaos? The dead might rise of their own accord, animated by pockets of magic that linger and drift like clouds of chaos through the area, and the dungeons themselves might become semi sentient, like haunted houses, hungry to claim more souls upon which to glut themselves.<br />
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So this naturalistic rationale has given me lots of ideas for adventures, as well as provided an historical backbone upon which to build the campaign. A land littered with dungeons - artifacts of the last great war. They present a persistent threat to the surrounding countryside, as well as a source of riches that reward those brave enough to dare explore them. This is why I like to have a logical explanation for dungeons in my game - such rationales help me to build an internally consistent world, and fuel my imagination. To quote Ray Bradbury on story ideas: "I'll never starve here."<br />
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<br />Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-7684989306372241842019-07-19T10:42:00.000-07:002019-07-19T12:27:15.672-07:00Constructing a World: speculations on the nature of CidriI've been giving a lot of thought lately to the nature of TFT's default game world, Cidri. For those unfamiliar with TFT, Cidri is a huge artificial world constructed by an enigmatic people called the Mnoren, and populated with creatures from various worlds and dimensions. The details of Cidri are deliberately vague; it is meant to be a shared game world at least thousands of Earths in size. Big enough for every game master to locate his or her home-brewed setting there without overlapping or contradicting the settings of other game masters. It's a world big enough to contain everyone's various campaigns.<br />
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Cidri is a pretty cool idea. It's a non-setting setting; a place so lacking in details that nearly anyone's game can take place there. And as far as shared worlds go it appeals to me more than others because I'm the kind of guy who likes to design his own worlds. I've never much cared for playing in other people's sandboxes, be they published game settings such as Greyhawk, or The Forgotten Realms, or fantasy locales from literature, such as Middle Earth, or Westeros. What I love most about being a game master is creating my own settings, and it's really attractive to be able to do that while still having my campaign set on the same world as everyone else's.<br />
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So what would Cidri actually look like as an artificially constructed world that is at least thousands of times bigger than Earth, if not more? This is an important consideration, because the nature of the world will determine it's what the world is like, the length of its days and years, the environment - everything. It's easy to imagine Cidri as just a really, really big planet. But is it? Is that even practical?<br />
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Consider the mass and amount of material required to build a solid sphere the size of Cidri. Jupiter, the largest planet in our system, is 1,300 times larger than Earth and has a mass of 1.898 x 10^27 kg. That's a lot of mass, but Jupiter is a jovian planet and is composed mostly of gas and liquid. Cidri is a terrestrial planet composed of siliciclastics and metal, so it will be much heavier. If Jupiter were terrestrial its mass would be about 1,300 hundred times that of Earth, so about 7.763 x 10^27 kg. And since Cidri is said to be <i>thousands</i> of times larger than Earth, it's probably even bigger than Jupiter. Say at least twice as large, and maybe even larger.<br />
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That much material would strain the resources of even the fantastically advanced Mnoren architects, and it isn't really necessary or economical for Cidri to be a solid sphere.<br />
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A more practical structure for an artificial world would be a Dyson strip, such as Larry Niven described in his 1970 science fiction classic, <i>Ringworld</i>. It is based on a Dyson sphere, which was a thought experiment proposed by physicist, Freeman Dyson; a sphere built around the sun to capture 100% of its energy. Dyson never intended his sphere to be a habitable structure, but the idea of it being so is compelling. Niven made his fictional world a ring because the angular momentum of a sphere's rotation would generate gravity only around the equator, so there's no point in building anything wider than a narrow strip, if people are to inhabit the inner surface.<br />
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Let's imagine a Dyson strip with a radius of 1 astronomical unit (the distance from the Earth to the Sun), and a width of 1 million km. A ring this size would have a surface area of 9.4 x 10^14 square kilometers. Earth's surface area is 510 million square kilometers, so our Dyson strip has a surface area that is 1.84 million times greater than Earth's. If we build 500 km high walls around the perimeter of the ring, they will contain the world's atmosphere thanks to the gravity generated by the ring's rotation. If a second ring of linked strips were built with a faster period of rotation we would have hours of light and darkness to simulate day and night.<br />
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What's that you say? A world with only 1.84 million times more surface area than Earth simply isn't big enough for your needs? Very well, let's consider a full-blown Dyson sphere.<br />
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A sphere around the sun with the same 1 AU radius would have a surface area of 2.81 x 10^17 square kilometers (550 million times more surface area than Earth). In this case though, we'd need some sort of artificial gravity generator since any gravity resulting from the rotation of the sphere would pool at the equator. Also there would be no simple way to create day/night cycles as we can with a ring, so it would perpetually be high noon on this world, and there would be no way to tell time or to navigate.<br />
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But what if the inner surface of a Dyson sphere still isn't big enough? What if you want the world to be <i>really</i> roomy. How about we build the sphere around one of the stars in a binary system and construct gravity generators in the middle of the crust so that gravity is exerted on both the inner and out surfaces of the sphere? Now we have a world very similar to Pellucidar of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Hollow World series, but on a much more massive scale. Both the inner and outer surfaces of the world would be habitable, each heated and lit by its own star. The combined surface area of the two surfaces would be 5.62 x 10^17 square kilometers (1.1 billion times the surface area of Earth).<br />
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Does an artificial sphere really need to be this ridiculously big? Couldn't the Mnoren simply build a Jupiter-sized sphere that behaves like a normal planet? They could, but there would be some problems with this model. The first is that because there is no solid core, the crust would need gravity generators to prevent everyone from floating off towards the sun, and these need some source of power. The second is that there would be no plate tectonics on such a world, and hence no way to recirculate carbon. In a normal system atmospheric carbon dioxide is dissolved in rain water and precipitated as weak carbonic acid, which eventually makes its way to the oceans. Oceanic carbon is precipitated as calcium carbonate and sequestered as limestone on the sea floor. Eventually tectonic activity subducts one plate underneath another, causing it to melt and release gaseous carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. Without this cycle the world's atmosphere would eventually become too thin to support life. This is exactly what happened on Mars. Originally Mars had an atmosphere much like Earth's, but because it is a smaller planet and further from the sun, its core cooled off quickly and plate tectonics ceased. The carbon dioxide in Mars' atmosphere was slowly drained away, and is sequestered below ground with no way to reintroduce it to the atmosphere. So in order for life to be sustainable on a sphere or ring world it would need mechanisms to regulate the carbon cycle. These would also require a lot of power, as would the undoubtedly large number of other machines needed to maintain the environment of an artificial world. The beauty of the Dyson sphere or strip is that they can function as Freeman Dyson originally intended: as super efficient collectors of solar energy. The diurnal shade strips of a ring world could have giant solar panels on the sunward side; all that would be needed is a way to transmit the energy to the world's surface. Similarly, a portion of the surface of a Dyson sphere could be dedicated to energy collection, and would received enough to meet all the the energy needs that world would ever require.<br />
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So the artificial world of Cidri is unimaginably huge because it <i>needs</i> to be. A sphere or ring built around the sun is the best way to obtain the massive amounts of energy required to sustain the world's life support systems. Whether Cidri is a ring or a sphere isn't really important; either one offers infinite adventure, and far more territory than any adventurers will ever be able to explore. Constructing such a world is a big undertaking, but surely not beyond a people who possess the technological advancements of the entire multiverse.Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-73131613481116880852019-06-06T11:23:00.000-07:002019-06-06T12:05:49.415-07:00Paint the Town Red! A Fantasy Tripper's Guide to CarousingWho doesn't like a good drunken bacchanal? Carousing is an intrinsic element of the sword & sorcery genre, and no mishap can befall our favourite Cimmerian that can't be put right with a flagon of wine and a winsome wench. TFT even has a Carousing talent, so let's tap that keg and get the party started!<br />
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The most obvious benefit of the Carousing talent is a +1 bonus to reaction rolls in taverns. This can be used for everything from securing companionship for the night, to talking your way out of a bar fight. It could also be used as a +1 bonus to IQ on contested rolls when gambling, or as a +1 bonus to DX to cheat at gambling (slipping an ace out of your sleeve or surreptitiously producing your 'lucky' dice). It could even provide a +1 bonus to initiative in bar fights that you were unable or uninterested in talking your way out of. Carousing can also play a role in how characters gain at least some of their experience points.<br />
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There are many different ways of awarding experience points to characters in role playing games. Awards are often made for killing monsters, or for completing quests, or, as in old school D&D, for acquiring treasure. How we choose to award experience dictates what the game, or your campaign, is all about, and it guides the behaviour and actions of the players. If the bulk of the experience is awarded for the successful completion of quests, then players are going to be very mission-oriented. If experience is largely awarded for killing monsters, then the players will sweep through dungeons like angels of death, exterminating everything in their path in the service of character advancement.<br />
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TFT's role playing rules, <i>In the Labyrinth</i>, present a rough guideline for awarding experience that is purposely vague to allow GMs to tailor experience awards to suit their own campaigns. In general, the bulk of the experience comes as a group award at the end of each play session, while individuals can earn small bonus awards for skillful or amusing play.<br />
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Personally, I'm not fond of <i>ad hoc</i> experience awards, as it may put too much pressure on players to stand out. Players contribute to the game in different ways, and while it's easy to single out dominant players or ones who are especially clever and funny, the contributions of quieter, introverted players may go unnoticed. Sure, GMs can use <i>ad hoc</i> experience awards to reward the less obvious contributions of quiet players, but that puts the onus on the game master to be constantly looking for opportunities to make experience awards, and some game masters might be okay with that, but I feel I have enough on my plate just running the adventure. I'm also not entirely fond of arbitrary group awards. There's certainly nothing wrong with this method, but I prefer having a yardstick to measure the group's success each session rather than just spit-balling a group award, and for that I like to use treasure.<br />
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By linking experience to treasure I'm letting the players know how they should be tackling the adventures. As anyone who has played it can attest, combat in TFT is <i>deadly</i> - more so than in most rpgs - and by awarding XP for treasure you let the players know that the only really important thing is coming home with the swag, no matter how they obtained it. So they're free to explore alternative avenues of wealth acquisition that doesn't necessarily force them through the gauntlet of combat. If they can use cunning or stealth to obtain a treasure horde, that's just as good as fighting their way through - better, actually, since they're more likely to make it out alive. It also influences the <i>types</i> of characters that players make. In my campaign you're going to see a lot of self-interested characters cut from the same mold as Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Han Solo, or Snake Plissken, and far fewer inspired by the likes of Sir Lancelot or Prince Valiant. Sure, characters in my games will still end up saving the world, but more due to circumstance than design, and because it's where they keep all their stuff.<br />
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Of course one problem common to all fantasy rpgs is how to keep characters motivated once they have accumulated more treasure than they can ever possibly spend. There's only so much stuff you can buy, and a lot of campaigns end up foundering when characters are swimming in money and magic items. The challenge is to keep them hungry, and I do this by awarding XP not for treasure found, but for treasure <i>squandered</i>. You ever notice that no matter how big a score pulled in by pulp sword & sorcery heroes of fiction, they're always flat-broke at the beginning of the next story? The reason they're always broke is that they blow their score on women, booze, and gambling.<br />
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The idea of exchanging treasure for XP by carousing came from a post Jeff Rients wrote over on <a href="http://jrients.blogspot.com/2008/12/party-like-its-999.html">Jeff's Gameblog</a> back in 2008. It's a brilliant notion, and it inspired me to create my own carousing table, which I've been using in my home-brewed system ever since, and now I'm adapting it to TFT.<br />
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<u>Carousing Tables</u></div>
Characters may carouse at the end of each session that ends in a town or city where they can squander large sums of money and stir up trouble. Carousing characters choose how much money they wish to spend, subject to the upper limit of their locale. Gain 5 experience points for every $100 spent on revelry, and roll on the results table corresponding to the amount spent. A character may spend any amount of silver they wish up to the maximum amount for size of the town or city they are in; after all, there’s only so much trouble you can get into in a small town with only one tavern, whereas a city-state offers far greater opportunities for debauchery.<br />
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<b>Town or Keep</b>: $300 max <b>Small City</b>: $600 max <b>Large City</b>: $1,000 max<br />
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<u>Revels</u> (Up to $300) <u>Boisterous Carouse</u> ($301 - $600) <u>Drink the City Dry</u> ($601 - $1,000)<br />
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1. Accused of Cheating 2. Brutal hangover 3. Blackout<br />
2. My shirt too? 3. Accused of cheating 4. I was just looking for a good time<br />
3. Cut your losses 4. My shirt too? 5. Apparently you had a VERY good time<br />
4. Who are you? 5-6. Tattoo 6. Brutal hangover<br />
5. Interesting rumour 7-8. Cut your losses 7. Give mortal offense<br />
6. Win an item 9. Who are you? 8. My shirt too?<br />
10. Your new best friend 9-10. What fresh Hell is this?<br />
11. Win an item 11-12. Drunken vow<br />
12. Tyche's favour 13. Cut your losses<br />
14. Who are you?<br />
15. Your new best friend<br />
16. Tattoo<br />
17. Win an item<br />
18. Tyche's favour<br />
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<u><b>Accused of cheating</b></u>. Rightly or wrongly, you have been accused of cheating at dice or cards. You: 1-3) get into a brawl, trash the establishment, and get banned from the premises; 4) are beaten and robbed by your accuser and his/her friends; 5) make an enemy; 6) get arrested.<br />
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<b style="text-decoration-line: underline;">Apparently you had a VERY good time</b>. You have been arrested and charged with: 1) vandalism; 2) public debauchery; 3) theft; 4) assault; 5) grave robbing; 6) murder.<br />
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<b style="text-decoration-line: underline;">Blackout</b>. You have no recollection of your bacchanal, but you wake up missing: 1) d% of all your money; 2) your armour; 3) your main weapon; 4) a miscellaneous item or spell book; 5) your clothes; 6) several important teeth. Gain no XP from your revelry.<br />
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<b style="text-decoration-line: underline;">Brutal hangover</b>. You’re afraid you might die, and even more afraid you won’t. Suffer a -2 penalty on all ability checks the next day.<br />
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<u style="font-weight: bold;">Cut your losses</u>. You've spent your limit, and it's time to quit while the quitting's good.<br />
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<u style="font-weight: bold;">Give mortal offence</u>. You have gravely offended: 1) an influential priest; 2) a powerful sorcerer; 3) a captain of the guard; 4) a scion of a noble house; 5) a wealthy merchant; 6) a bureaucrat of the court.<br />
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<u style="font-weight: bold;">Drunken vow</u>. You’ve made an oath before the gods and they intend to hold you to it. You are now under a Geis.<br />
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<u style="font-weight: bold;">I was just looking for a good time!</u> You wake up naked in: 1) a public garden; 2) a temple; 3) jail; 4) a nobleman’s harem; 5) an opium den; 6) deep trouble, bound to a sacrificial altar.<br />
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<b><u>Interesting rumour</u></b>. You overhear some juicy and potentially lucrative gossip.<br />
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<u><b>My shirt, too?</b></u> You suffer a run of bad luck, lose double your money. If you don't have enough money to cover your losses, you will need to make arrangements for payment or expect a visit from hired goons.<br />
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<u style="font-weight: bold;">What fresh Hell is this?</u> You are awakened by 1) painful sores on your nether region (get thee to a physicker!); 2) your new spouse; 3) your bed mate's angry husband, who demands satisfaction in the arena; 4) a summons to Thorsz's court; 5) a prophetic dream of imminent peril; 6) the galley slave with whom you now share an oar.<br />
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<b><u>Who are you?</u></b>. You wake up the next morning with: 1) the goats in an animal pen, and a reputation that's difficult to dispel; 2) the innkeeper's son or daughter; 3) the spouse of a powerful noble; 4) a slave whom you now seem to own; 5) an impatient prostitute demanding payment; 6) Thorsz's favourite concubine.<br />
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<b><u>Tattoo</u></b>. You get inked. Your tattoo is: 1-3) bad-ass (owning player chooses what and where); 4) Lame and embarrassing (player to your left chooses what and where); 5) The name of the person with whom you spent the night - a proclamation undying love; 6) a spell, ritual, or ancient prophecy in arcane script.<br />
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<b><u>Tyche’s favour</u></b>. Luck is your mistress. You: 1-4) win your money back; 5) win your money back plus 1d6 x $10; 6) win back double your money and make a dangerous enemy.<br />
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<u><b>Win an item</b></u>. Due to your luck at the gaming table you have come into possession of 1) a weapon; 2) a valuable gem; 3) jewelry; 4) a scroll; 5) a treasure map; 6) a religious relic.<br />
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<u style="font-weight: bold;">Your new best friend</u>. During your night of drunken revelry, you swore undying friendship to one of the following, and have become entangled in their sordid affairs: 1) the scion of a noble house; 2) a revolutionary; 3) a guild thief; 4) a priest of a proscribed religion; 5) a barbarian vagabond; 6) a wanted felon.<br />
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Of course it goes without saying that no one should feel beholden to the randomly rolled result if it is deemed to be inappropriate to the circumstances or preferences of the group; feel free to use the results for inspiration or make up something else altogether. These are meant to be fun and to serve as a springboard for character sub-plots or even the focus of the next session's adventure. I found that the end-of-session carousing was often one of the most popular activities with my players, who always seemed to enjoy a little random mayhem and hilarity to wrap up the evening's play and serve as a lead-in to the next session.<br />
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I've set the experience award for carousing to be a substantial supplement to experience gained during the course of an adventure, but this can easily be decreased if you prefer carousing to give a small xp bonus, or increased to make it the main source of xp gained.Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-52621645415369072152019-05-30T11:06:00.000-07:002019-05-30T11:06:15.296-07:00The Spider Men of Leng<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In caverns far below the surface of the land of Leng dwell the favoured disciples of Atlach-Nacha, upon whom the spider god has bestowed its blessing - or curse. These once-human cultists, the Spider Men, are now twisted abominations cast out from human society and doomed to dwell in the shadows, spending their lives in service to their god.</div>
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Interlopers into the subterranean realm may find themselves taken unawares by the Spider Men, subdued and carried off into the darkness never to be heard from again. The fate of such unfortunates is unknown, but whether they are used as food, or sacrifice, or as hosts for broodlings, most agree that they would be better off dead than in the multi-armed hands of the Spider Men.</div>
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Horrific parodies of humans, the Spider Men possess eight arms, each terminating in a five-fingered hand, with which they can scuttle across rough terrain without impediment, and climb faster than the most agile of primates. With their five eyes they can see as well in the absolute darkness of the abyss as in the light of day. They lurk in their webs spun on cavern ceilings, waiting to drop upon unsuspecting prey, which they prefer to take alive for purposes known only to themselves.</div>
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Average Spider Man: ST 12, DX 14, IQ 10, MA 12</div>
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Talents and special abilities: Climbing; Dark Vision; paralytic venom (as per Freeze spell); Unarmed Combat II; webbing (as per Rope spell)</div>
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Tactics: Spider Men will try to engage foes in HTH combat whenever possible, often dropping upon them from above, which counts as entering from a rear hex. Because they can employ many hands, Spider Men may punch twice per turn at no penalty, and they receive a +4 DX bonus when attempting to pin an opponent. They will then bite pinned victims to paralyze them (the bite itself does no damage).</div>
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Spider Men rarely use weapons, preferring to attack bare-handed, but those who were priests of the spider cult will be wizards and will attack with spells appropriate to their IQ score.</div>
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Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-89119425272568614082019-05-21T08:46:00.000-07:002019-05-21T08:46:26.813-07:00Release the Cephalophants!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Within the dank grottos of their gene-sculpters, the octopuses have bred a fearsome new amphibious war mount for raids-in-force on the coastal villages of the surface world. </i><br />
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For generations, octopus raids have been small-scale incursions of a few dozen raiders scuttling from their tide pools to steal weapons and supplies. But the creation of cephalophants - monstrous amphibious war beasts - have elevated the octopus threat from nuisance to a genuine menace capable of razing a small town in a matter of hours.<br />
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Unlike their masters, the thick leathery hide of the cephalophant protects it from desiccation, allowing it to remain on land for long periods of time, requiring only periodic submersion in a pond or stream to re-hydrate.<br />
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It is not unlikely that some cephalophants may be cut off or abandoned after battle, and left to roam wild. Over time they may migrate along water ways and spread inland to form herds. It is not known whether cephalophants are able to mate with normal elephants.<br />
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<i>Cephalophant</i> - ST 60, DX 13, IQ 8, MA 15, may attack with up to four trunkacles per turn striking single or multiple targets at range of 2 hexes, dealing 2 dice damage each; charge attack deals 4 dice damage to all targets in its front hexes; when trampling smaller foes (ITL pg. 126) the cephalophant has <i>no</i> chance of falling down; leathery hide stops 2 hits of damage. Cephalophants are 9-hex creatures.<br />
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<i>Optional Equipment</i> - the battle regalia of the cephalophant includes bronze plates that have a 50% chance (roll 1-3 on 1 dice) of stopping an additional 5 hits from attacks against its frontal hexes, and incur a -1 DX penalty; if equipped with full barding. the normal rules apply (ITL pg. 132). A howdah carrying up to three octopus riders may be equipped, incurring a -1 DX penalty.<br />
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<br />Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-65482244934978008052019-05-17T14:02:00.001-07:002023-06-07T06:51:55.792-07:00Why Play TFT?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNPTBIZYA9_itHKiHg_ubHbk0qrdc79JMDhM7xyEdobN1716LbDt4HqMvhAOFCN3nrMfI6er1mmK1q7Sy7oFx3SRsPpp_Yjkk3YSVewhcAES0Z0XskCqg6FRr44ganI6Mm9odIxLBYjfVtKQVTTVtiRRrSuEVOagK3J-ieIb4gxEqY3TxW4QEcYZ1RWQ/s253/The_Fantasy_Trip_RPG_legacy_edition_cover_2019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNPTBIZYA9_itHKiHg_ubHbk0qrdc79JMDhM7xyEdobN1716LbDt4HqMvhAOFCN3nrMfI6er1mmK1q7Sy7oFx3SRsPpp_Yjkk3YSVewhcAES0Z0XskCqg6FRr44ganI6Mm9odIxLBYjfVtKQVTTVtiRRrSuEVOagK3J-ieIb4gxEqY3TxW4QEcYZ1RWQ/w316-h400/The_Fantasy_Trip_RPG_legacy_edition_cover_2019.jpg" width="316" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>I've seen this question posed a number of times on message boards and social media pages, and of course it's impossible to tell someone you don't know why they should play a certain game. But I think what is really being asked is what makes TFT different from every other game out there, and that's a fair question. TFT is an old game, dating back to the early years of the hobby. How does it stack up against all the other games out there today? Does it offer something unique, or is it just one more RPG amongst many, of nostalgic interest only to aging gamers who played it 'back in the day?'<br />
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The short answer is that TFT offers a game experience and style of play that is as unique today as it was when <i>Melee</i> first hit the scene back in 1977. But you didn't come here for the short answer. Like the old lady in the Wendy's commercial, you want the beef.<br />
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As far as I know there is no other game like it, not even GURPS, which is descended from TFT and arose like a phoenix from the ashes of its forebear. Although there are some superficial similarities to TFT, GURPS has an almost diametrically opposed ethos and offers a completely different style of play, as I discovered back in the '90's when I turned to GURPS as an alternative to my long-lost TFT (check out my <a href="http://flamingtales.blogspot.com/2019/05/back-to-blog.html">previous post</a> for that tragic tale of loss and regret). Where GURPS is a highly detailed, complex, simulationist rule set with a heavy focus on realism, TFT goes in almost the exact opposite direction: a fast-paced, easy to learn system that eschews realism for playability. In other words it is a highly gameist system, by which I mean that it is first and foremost a <i>game</i>, where playability and balance trump realism, as opposed to a simulationist system, where balance is downplayed in favour of simulating realistic situations.<br />
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Most games lie somewhere in the middle of the gameist/simulationist spectrum. D&D, for example, has both gameist and simulationist mechanics. It awards experience for treasure as a way of keeping score in the game, reinforcing the idea that the way to 'win' the game is to acquire as much treasure as possible. But AD&D also has a detailed weapon vs. armour class modifier table that assigns a bonus or penalty to hit for every weapon in the game to represent the reality that some weapons are better than others against certain types of armour. TFT skews heavily to the gameist side of the spectrum, while GURPS skews heavily to the simulationist side.<br />
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TFT characters have only three attributes representing Strength (ST), Dexterity (DX), and Intelligence (IQ). Human characters begin with a score of 8 in each attribute, with a further 8 points to distribute between the three. The attributes are balanced so that creating your character is an exercise in trade-offs. Do you want a high ST/ low DX character, or one with high DX and low ST? Or maybe a balanced character with all attributes near the norm? Every single point you assign to one attribute over another changes how the character performs and makes your decisions meaningful. In order to hit in combat you must roll your DX score or less on 3d6. Your ST determines not only your hit points but how much damage you dish out. Your IQ determines the number and level of talents and spells your character can know and use. The beauty of TFT is that no character build is obviously superior to another. Each is equally valid, and requires you to develop tactics to exploit your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.<br />
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Herein lies the gameist element of the system; the mechanics of TFT are not grounded in realism, but in balance and playability. You must have a minimum IQ score to be able to learn certain spells or certain talents; they are grouped by IQ level, so you can't learn a talent or a spell of an IQ level higher than your own. Weapons are grouped by ST; light weapons, such as daggers or rapiers have a low ST minimum, but deal little damage. Heavy weapons such as great swords have high ST minimums and deal a large amount of damage. This is, of course, completely unrealistic, and the weapon weights and the strengths required to wield them do not reflect the real world. For example a great sword weighs 15 lbs (about twice as much as a real great sword) and requires a ST of 16 or more to wield. The ST of an average human is 10, so you need to be extraordinarily strong to use a great sword in TFT (in reality even the feeblest among us could easily wield a great sword).<br />
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Armour in TFT acts to mitigate damage. The heavier the armour you wear, the more damage it stops, and the greater the DX penalty you incur for wearing it. Plate armour and a large shield stops 7 hits of damage per attack, but also confers a -6 penalty to DX, so an average person with 10 DX would have an adjusted DX of only 4! This makes it really hard to hit enemies in combat, although you always hit on a roll of 5 or less regardless of your adj DX. The DX penalty confered by armour also makes going without it a valid choice; suicidal in real life, but fully in line with the tropes of the sword & sorcery genre, making loincloth-wearing barbarians, and amazons in chain mail bikinis viable characters. Again there is a trade-off between protection offered by armour and the penalty to your DX. This is all very unrealistic; in truth a person in plate armour is not much less spry than an unarmoured person, and the benefit of extra protection makes armour mandatory in any realistic combat simulation. This doesn't matter though, because the system works so well; the ST/DX/IQ trade-offs are why the choices you make during character creation are so meaningful. There are no dump-stats in TFT, and every choice you make has pros and cons. So if you want to run buck naked like Dejah Thoris across the martian landscape have at; you'll hit more often in combat, but one critical hit could end you.<br />
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Another unique feature of TFT is that, because it is an elaboration of <i>Melee</i> and <i>Wizard</i>, it is a more tactical game than most other rpgs. Rather than simply running up to your enemies and taking turns hitting each other until one side dies, there are many movement and attack options that significantly influence the outcome of a battle. The tactical nature of the game does not make it complicated or rules-heavy though; it remains fast-paced and easy to learn. It's sort of like chess; you can learn to play in just a few minutes, but tactical mastery may take you years to achieve, making the game endlessly engaging and fun.<br />
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The third feature of TFT is how easy it is, not just to play, but also to game master. I recounted in my last post the story of how bad a game master I was when I first started playing D&D in my early teens. I suffered performance anxiety and stage fright during every session, and it was not until I tried TFT that I actually started enjoying myself. With only three attributes and a dead simple mechanic, running adventures on the fly is a breeze, more so with this game than any other I have ever played.<br />
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So to sum up the prominent features of TFT:<br />
1) Very easy to learn, but challenging to master. Combat will hold your interest for years.<br />
2) A player's choices, both during character creation and advancement, and during combat have a very real impact on the game and on the tactics you adopt to fight a battle.<br />
3) There is no right or wrong way to make a character; however you choose to build them they will have strengths and weaknesses.<br />
4) Incredibly easy on the game master. NPCs can be created on the fly by jotting down three attributes on a scrap of paper.<br />
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If lack of realism <i>really </i>bothers you, then TFT might not be to your taste, but if you're okay with playing a game that revels in its gaminess then maybe you should play TFT. Likewise if you're a '<i>theater of the mind</i>' type who abhors the idea of playing with miniatures or counters on a battle map, maybe you need to look elsewhere. But if you love miniatures as I do, then this may be the game for you.<br />
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<br />Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-59220748529733543302019-05-15T18:45:00.000-07:002019-05-15T18:50:56.588-07:00Back in the LabyrinthHello, my friends. It's been three years since my last post and I very much doubt anyone is still following this blog, but on the off chance that any of my old school gaming and blogging friends are still tuning in I want to explain my prolonged absence. <br />
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Not long after my last post I was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer and the shock of it, and the subsequent depression, sucked away my motivation to do much of anything. I stopped writing, stopped gaming, stopped blogging. I stopped doing just about everything that gave me joy. I didn't want to give these things up, but I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm or energy to carry on with them, or even to care about what I was giving up.</div>
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Now here I am, three years later, still alive and now out of that funk of depression I'd fallen into. I'm still living with cancer, but I'm used to it now; humans are amazingly adaptable and we can adjust to nearly any change in circumstances and make it our new normal. Also, my current prognosis is much more encouraging than when I was first diagnosed, and I expect to be around for many years to come.</div>
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The thing that has inspired me to resurrect this dusty old blog is the return of The Fantasy Trip. As most of you have probably heard, a couple of years ago Steve Jackson reacquired the rights to his first role-playing game, long held by Howard Thompson, publisher of Metagaming. Last summer, Steve Jackson Games launched a Kickstarter campaign to republish TFT in all its glory. I jumped on board the moment I heard about it, and a few days ago my TFT Legacy Edition boxed set arrived in the mail, almost exactly 39 years after first being introduced to TFT at the age of fourteen.</div>
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TFT holds a very special place in my heart. Like many of us, I entered the gaming hobby with the Holmes edition D&D Basic set, and my previous gaming experience was limited to the usual suite of Parker Brothers board games like Monopoly and Payday. The closest thing to an rpg I'd ever played was Clue. As such, I found myself quite overwhelmed trying to figure D&D out, and my first session as a game master, running Keep on the Borderlands, was an unmitigated disaster. I had no clue what I was doing, and my inadequacies were exacerbated by a serious case of stage fright. Nonetheless I was hooked, as were most of my friends who played in that first session cluster-fuck, and they kept coming back for more instead of finding something better to do with their Saturday afternoons. There is a magical allure to role-playing games that no amount of incompetence can quash.</div>
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I'd like to say that I quickly got the hang of things and became a great game master, but I didn't. I continued to suck. Hard. And I couldn't shake that stage fright; the paralyzing fear of getting everything wrong just got worse with every mistake I made, and I made a lot of them. Game sessions bogged down as I searched the rule book to figure out how things were supposed to work, I read aloud text from adventure modules that shouldn't have been read aloud, giving away surprises and ruining the fun, I was challenged on nearly every ruling, and felt the icy cold lump of fear settle into my stomach and make me want to slink down behind my GM screen and not come out. On the bright side, my doctoral defense two decades later was a piece of cake by comparison; the committee members who attacked my thesis had nothing on a group of fourteen-year-old gamers.</div>
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The turning point in my game master experience came after I discovered TFT. I started out buying Melee and Wizard, played some games with friends, and spent the better part of a summer playing arena matches by myself while my friends were away on family vacations. I ran many a character through the solitaire adventure, Death Test, and by the time I finally picked up the role-playing rule book, <i>In the Labyrinth</i>, I had already mastered the game's combat and magic systems. When I ran my first ITL adventure for my friends that old stage fright faded away. There was very little to look up, and I didn't use any published adventures; the system was so elegantly simple I just ad-libbed the adventure as I went along. And for the first time in my life I enjoyed being a game master. I just let the players determine the course of the adventure and responded to their actions instead of forcing them down the railroad tracks of the prepared module; I made up quirky NPCs and spoke with funny voices; I had fun. My group's favourite antagonist was Malcolm Brinebester, the local tax collector who had an uncanny knack for sensing when the characters were just back from an adventure with overladen swag sacks in need of redistribution to the crown. I suspect my players devoted nearly as much time giving Malcolm the slip as they did fighting orcs.</div>
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Throughout my high school years I played many different games from a variety of genres: Traveller, Top Secret, Gamma World, Call of Cthulhu, Ysgarth, The Morrow Project, Champions, and on and on. But TFT has always been special to me; it was the game that taught me how to be a game master.</div>
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And then disaster struck. Shortly after high school I joined the navy and left home with naught but a duffle bag, and while I was away my mother cleared out my room and threw away most of my gaming stuff. Including all my TFT books. For decades I've desperately wanted to reacquire TFT, but I was never able to find used copies for a reasonable price. So naturally, when the opportunity arose to support the campaign to relaunch the game I was all in, and I'm finally reunited with this wonderful game after far too many years. I'm playing Melee and Wizard arena battles by myself again, and soon I'll be pitting myself against the challenge of the Death Test once again. Will fifty-three-year-old Sean be any more successful than my fourteen-year-old-self? Stay tuned. I'm back in the labyrinth.</div>
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Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-9077074644995860282016-04-22T13:32:00.000-07:002018-02-21T10:37:46.420-08:00A Character Record for Deluxe Tunnels & TrollsEver since I started playing Tunnels & Trolls, back in November, I've been on the lookout for a good character sheet, and to date I haven't found one that was able to accommodate all the information that I like to have on hand, especially adequate equipment and spell lists. After all, the well-prepared dungeon delver is going to want to be fully equipped to deal with every eventuality, and you need a character sheet to keep all your stuff organized.<br />
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So I decided to make my own; it's a two page file in landscape view, which is meant to be printed on both sides of a single sheet of paper and then folded in half to create a compact 5.5" x 8.5" booklet. I've posted images of what the pages look like below, and anyone who is interested can download the PDF for free from DriveThru RPG: <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/189318/Deluxe-Tunnels--Trolls-character-folio?src=hottest_filtered">http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/189318/Deluxe-Tunnels--Trolls-character-folio?src=hottest_filtered</a><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPdiI4fReCLkQD7768MkajK5156N2saiWGdDNsfTbDpZ7DkNv9kHhNnGcE0M4Xz1zPk8nBFf5j3xkLZ7XmvyMGMVqSHsTt5GXPOWuIg6zQgL5acAhaCvrA0DPIOzJIoKZRwQeYQhUoymK_/s1600/DT%2526T+character+folio+%25282+pg%2529_Page_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPdiI4fReCLkQD7768MkajK5156N2saiWGdDNsfTbDpZ7DkNv9kHhNnGcE0M4Xz1zPk8nBFf5j3xkLZ7XmvyMGMVqSHsTt5GXPOWuIg6zQgL5acAhaCvrA0DPIOzJIoKZRwQeYQhUoymK_/s400/DT%2526T+character+folio+%25282+pg%2529_Page_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Front and Back Covers</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Interior Pages</td></tr>
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<br />Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-58012831933898455552016-04-11T18:21:00.000-07:002016-04-11T18:21:36.631-07:00Delving the Depths of Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've finally gotten my Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls softcover, and now that I've had some time to read, digest, and even begin the process of adopting some of the new rules to my current T&T campaign, I thought I'd share my thoughts. This newest version of the venerable Tunnels & Trolls role playing game, which was first published in 1975, making it the second-ever rpg, is not so much a new edition as the ultimate expression of the game according to its creator, Ken St. Andre.<br />
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This is a weighty tome of 367 pages, beefy enough serve as a shield if need be. By contrast the popular 5th edition rules were a lean 90 pages. The book is comprised of four parts. The first part is the core rules, which have changed only a little since the 1979 5th edition rules that I'm currently using, and most of the changes are likely to be embraced by players. Low attribute scores no longer give negative modifiers, all classes now have two type-specific abilities and one type-specific detriment, the list of spells has been expanded, and weapons can be customized with bonuses that depend on the materials they are forged from and the ability of the weaponsmith who crafted them. The biggest change is that in place of the traditional method of gaining a new level once a certain experience point threshold has been reached, characters now spend their earned experience points to improve their attribute scores, and their level is equal to their highest ability score divided by 10. So a character whose highest attribute score is between 3 and 19 is a 1st level character, and a character whose highest score is between 20 and 29 is 2nd level, and so on (this means that after factoring in racial attribute modifiers it is possible to begin the game as a second or third level character). The experience point cost to improve an attribute by one point is equal to its current value times 10, so it would cost 150 experience points to raise your dexterity score from 15 to 16, for example. This introduces some interesting choices for players to make: does one focus on increasing their highest attribute to gain new levels, albeit at an ever-escalating cost, or spend those points to more cheaply improve other attribute scores.<br />
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The next section of the book is devoted to elaborations, optional house-rules you can use to customize your game. This part of the book is the gravy. T&T, by the virtue of its simple open-ended rules, embraces the do-it-yourself homebrew ethic in a way that no other game has since the three little brown books of OD&D, and it has been doing so for more than 40 years. Where previous editions have taken it for granted that players will tinker with the game's simple and elegant resolution mechanic to suit their individual tastes, DT&T takes it a step further by providing some neat examples just how flexible the system can be.<br />
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The last two sections of the book consist of an atlas of Trollworld, Ken St. Andre's campaign setting; and two adventures, one GM adventure and one solo adventure.<br />
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There's a lot to like about the new Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls, and it is refreshing to see the game updated without losing any of its old-school charm. That's a very rare thing, and owes a lot to the fact that the game has remained in the loving hands of its creator since its inception.<br />
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Apart from the rules themselves there are things that I like and things I dislike about this book.<br />
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<u>Pros</u><br />
<i>Art and Layout</i> - the book is beautiful, inside and out. Editing and layout was done by Liz Danforth, as was the cover art and most of the interior illustrations. She chose a comfortable font size and generous line spacing that makes DT&T a treat for the eyes, which is something I'm coming to appreciate more and more as I get older. Small, densely-packed text would have reduced the page count considerably, but I'm grateful for the easy to read, attractive text and I'm more than happy to pay a little extra for this. The artwork itself is stunning. If you aren't familiar with Liz's work on T&T over the past few decades, you may have seen her illustrations in I.C.E.s Middle Earth Role Playing Game, and her paintings in the Middle Earth: The Wizards collectible card game. She has been the lead artist for T&T since the 1970's, and this gives the game a very consistent look and feel.<br />
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<i>Physical Construction</i> - the book uses high quality matte paper, which I really like. Many modern rpgs use gloss paper, which I absolutely hate, and I'm so glad that DT&T steered away from it. The binding, at least of my copy, is very good, which is an important consideration for a nearly 400 page softcover. With cheap binding this book would fall apart very quickly, but I can see this one lasting for a long time to come.<br />
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<u>Cons</u><br />
<i>Editing</i> - While I have no problem with increasing the book's page count to allow for comfortable font size, line spacing and profuse illustrations, I am an absolute bear when it comes to excessive wordiness, as can be attested by anyone whose work I have edited. To quote Strunk and White, 'vigorous writing is concise.' A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, and a page no unnecessary paragraphs. This does not imply that one should strive to be brief for brevity's sake, but to make every word count. DT&T often suffers from rambling prose, and many of its paragraphs convey little if any information. There's many a page that could have been reduced to a single paragraph, and this not only needlessly increased the page count, but served to confuse rules that could have been explained far more clearly and concisely in half as much space.<br />
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<i>Index</i> - a book this size needs a comprehensive index, but the index in DT&T is nearly useless. For any rule you look up there is a long list of page numbers where that rule appears in the text, but no indication (by bolding or italics, as is the convention) of the main entry where the rule is explained - so you need to visit each and every page until you find what you are looking for. To make matters worse, many of the index citations are incorrect, probably because some of the text was edited and rearranged after the index was compiled. It's actually faster to flip through the entire book to find the rule you're looking for than it is to consult the index. I know from first-hand experience how much work it is to compile a comprehensive index of such a large body of work, but given that this is likely to be the ultimate incarnation of T&T it would have been worth the effort to get it right.<br />
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So there we have it: despite a few things I wish had been done differently, Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls is a labour of love on the part of its authors, and a fantastic legacy for its creator, Ken St. Andre, and I'll be enjoying this game for years to come.<br />
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So you might still be wondering 'is Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls for me?' It might be if:<br />
1. You are looking for a simple, fast-paced, easy to learn rule system that is readily customisable and very easy to house-rule.<br />
2. You enjoy having full creative control of a system in order to modify it to suit your campaign setting.<br />
3. Are willing to put in the work to make this game your own.<br />
4. Interested in exploring an important facet of rpg history.<br />
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It probably isn't for you if:<br />
1. You're looking for a game with detailed rules for every situation. You need to be able to make rulings on the fly in order to really enjoy this game.<br />
2. Don't have the time or desire to customize the game. There is no bestiary, and only a very rudimentary treasure table, so you'll need to create monsters and magic items yourself. Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-78542238839688526532016-01-11T13:37:00.000-08:002016-01-11T13:37:45.195-08:00Tower of Mazzarin Part 2: The Crystal CavernThe second session of our new Tunnels & Trolls campaign picked up where the last session left off: with the characters resting in the de-goblinized ruined tower of the fabled wizard, Mazzarin the Magician.<br />
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Arya and Zelda opened the door concealed behind the tapestry in Mazzarin's arcane laboratory, and entered into a huge cavern. Its calcite walls glittered in the torchlight revealing a veritable forest of stalagmites growing from the cavern floor. In the center of the cavern a huge stalactite hung from the ceiling, dripping water into a large pool that lay beneath it. The bottom of the pool was strewn with gold coins - hundreds, maybe even thousands of them.<br />
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Eyes alight with the glow of unbridled avarice, Arya reached in and grabbed a big handful of coins. As soon as she did so, the water began to churn and darken, and a nymph appeared in the pool, wroth to see the two mortals stealing gold from her pool. <br />
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She declared that they would meet the last fool who dared to take her coins, then she disappeared and the corpse of a drowned man dragged itself out of the pool and shambled towards them, its dead eyes staring blankly, its cold, wet fingers reaching for Arya's throat. The corpse was little match for the two doughty adventurers and they quickly put it to rest.<br />
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The water in the pool cleared and became still and, reassured that the threat was dealt with, Zelda also grabbed a handful of coins. The water roiled again, and this time two drowned corpses emerged from its depths. While one dead thing was an easy fight, two was more than they could handle, and they might have perished had Zelda not cast <i>Oh-Go-Away</i> on one of the corpses, allowing her and Arya to divide and conquer. Tired and hurt, they wisely resolved to leave the pool alone and not provoke the Nymph's wrath any further.<br />
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On the far side of the cavern were two passages that led off in different directions. Choosing the passage on the left, the pair followed it only a short way before it led to a large oval wooden frame, intricately carved with vines and leaves, whose center was filled with a swirling opaque mist.<br />
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One must always be suspicious of mist-filled portals, so Arya and Zelda experimented by throwing things through the portal, tying one end of a rope to an item, tossing it through and reeling it back, before Arya finally, timidly, stuck her hand into the mist. Since her hand survived intact, she and Zelda threw caution to the wind and stepped through.<br />
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They passed through the mists and into an ethereal woodland glade. They explored for just a few minutes before hearing the sound of something large crashing through the bushes, coming toward them. They hid behind a tree and waited, then saw a leprechaun run past, pursued by an ogre with a butterfly net. After the two had passed by, Arya and Zelda decided to travel in the direction from which the leprechaun and ogre had come. They soon came upon what they supposed was the ogre's ramshackle lair. Among the ogrish detritus, the hut was filled with wooden cages, one of which was occupied by a captured fairy.<br />
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The rescued fairy introduced herself as Flinx, and invited Zelda and Arya to return with her to the Faerie Court so that King Oberon and Queen Titania might pay their respects. They agreed and traveled with Flinx who presented them to the Faerie Court. Oberon and Titania welcomed the mortals graciously, and explained that the ogre, Galoot, had been making a pest of himself of late, abducting their subjects for his fairy collection. They offered Arya and Zelda a bounty of gold and gifts if they would get rid of Galoot for them.<br />
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Arya and Zelda returned to Galoot's home, and found that he was still away. They rigged a noose trap by the entrance to his hovel, hid behind a tree, and waited for him to return. When Galoot finally returned and stepped into the rope noose, Arya and Zelda heaved on the rope, which they'd slung over nearby tree branch, but despite their combined efforts they were unable to even budge the mighty ogre. What they had hoped would be an easy capture turned into a bloody brawl that ended with Arya decapitating Galoot with a mighty swing of her voulge.<br />
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When they returned to the Faerie Court, Oberon and Titania recoiled at the sight of the bloody head and explained that when they said 'get rid of' Galoot, they meant drive him off, not kill him. Oh well.<br />
Arya and Zelda were rewarded with gifts of gold and elven rope that could move on its own and even tie and untie itself to objects on command. Afterwards there was a great feast, and the two humans ate, drank, and danced late into the night before finally going to the portal in the glade, and returning to the mortal realm.<br />
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Exiting the portal, they went back to the crystal cavern and proceeded down the passage to the right, which they had not yet explored. Some yards down the passage the way was blocked by a huge jade statue that opened its eyes and spoke:<br />
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"<i>Answer me these riddles three if you would pass me by; but take heed for if you fail you shall surely die."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
The statue then asked its first riddle: <i>Poor people have it. Rich people need it. If you eat it you will die. What is it?</i><br />
This riddle stumped Arya and Zelda for a long, long time, and they were beginning to despair of ever finding the solution when they finally guessed 'nothing,' which was the correct answer.<br />
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The statue asked its second riddle: <i>The man who made it doesn't want it. The man who bought it doesn't need it. The man who needs it doesn't know it. What is it?</i><br />
They thought for a while on this until Zelda blurted out 'a coffin,' which of course was correct.<br />
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The statue asked its third riddle: <i>What must be broken before it can be used?</i><br />
The statue had scarcely finished the question when Arya answered 'an egg,' which she had eaten for breakfast that morning and came readily to mind.<br />
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As soon as they answered the third riddle the statue moved aside and let them pass. The passage led to a small chamber that contained only an amazingly detailed statue of an old man in robes. Zelda guessed that this might actually be the long-departed Mazzarin, and she cast the <i>Pygmalion</i> spell from the scroll she found in the Wizard's study, which will restore petrified people to life. Sure enough the statue transformed into an old man.<br />
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This was, indeed, Mazzarin the Magician, who had been betrayed by his beautiful young apprentice, Druantia. Ensnared by her beauty he let his defenses down, and she was able to enslave him with a ring of <i>Yassa Massa</i>, forcing him to teach her everything he knew. Once Druantia learned everything she could from the old master she turned him to stone and abandoned him in the cave, presumably for all eternity. That was two centuries ago, and Mazzarin was incensed to learn that his tower had crumbled and had been infested with goblins. He was grateful to Zelda for freeing him of his enchantment, and though he had nothing of value with which to reward her, he promised to mentor her in the arcane arts, to teach her his secrets in hope of making up for having trained the evil sorceress, Druantia.<br />
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The session ended with Arya and Zelda returning to the village of Caer Darrig, shocked to find that several years had passed while they feasted in the faerie realm, and that they had been declared dead in their absence, and their homes and property auctioned off...<br />
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<br />Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-26388182153275179472016-01-06T08:41:00.000-08:002016-01-06T08:41:33.444-08:00The Tower of MazzarinWe kicked off our new Tunnels & Trolls campaign over the holidays and have gotten in a couple of sessions.<br />
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Character creation went quickly although a spate of bad luck left both my wife and daughter with abysmally sub-par attribute scores, so I let them keep rolling up characters until they got ones they could live with; thus was born Zelda the wizard, and Arya the voulge-wielding warrior.<br />
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For their first adventure, Arya and Zelda decided to explore the ruined Tower of Mazzarin, located just a couple of hours west of their home town of Caer Darrig. Mazzarin the Magician disappeared more than a century ago, and his crumbling tower has been shunned by local inhabitants ever since, but in recent weeks area farmers were reporting missing livestock and pets, and the legend of Mazzarin's ghost gained new traction in town.<br />
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The tower was built into the side of a cliff in the foothills of the Mistmorne Mountains, and was visible from the road on the far side of a small lake. The tower could be approached from a path along the base of the cliff on the west side of the lake, or by going through a bog on the east side of the lake. The duo decided to take the latter route because, while the going was tougher, large cattails would conceal their approach from any observers in the tower.<br />
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The bog was not as safe as it appeared, however, and Zelda and Arya were ambushed by a hungry giant frog. But instead of an easy meal of fresh meat, the predator met only the point of Arya's voulge and died quickly.<br />
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Making their way into the old tower, the pair discovered tracks in the dust of the rubble-strewn floor, along with dirty blankets and animal bones. It appeared that something other than the spirit of a long-dead wizard was responsible for the animal disappearances. They passed a stair case winding up the west wall to the crumbling remains of the second story, and headed for a set of double doors in the north wall of the tower. Before reaching the doors, they heard someone say, "UH-OH!" from behind and above them. Whirling around, they looked up and saw a startled goblin on the second floor ruins snatch up a small bow and begin to shoot arrows at them. They dashed up the stairs and killed the goblin in short order. It was obvious that the creature had been a sentry tasked to watch the approaches to the tower, and they saw a rope net strung above the entry of the tower. If they had approached from the west instead of going through the bog they would surely have been caught.<br />
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The doors on the north side of the tower opened into a short hallway with another set of double doors at one end, and a door on the right wall. Easing the door to the right very slowly open, Arya spied three goblins roasting rat-kabobs in the kitchen fire place. The goblins immediately noticed the intruders and rushed into combat wielding rusty kitchen knives and kabob skewers. It was a long and bloody conflict that nearly ended in the duo's untimely demise until Zelda decided to use the last of her spell points to cast <i>vorpal blade</i> on Arya's voulge, which tipped the odds in their favour, allowing them to finally beat the vicious creatures.<br />
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After a short rest to regain some of Zelda's spell points, the two decided to investigate the double doors at the end of the hallway. These opened into what was obviously once a wizard's laboratory, filled with arcane appurtenances: collapsed bookshelves, piles of tattered, crumbling books, a verdigrised brazier, and on the far wall, a tapestry of the heavens. Warming herself by the fire was a goblin spell-singer who had clearly claimed the wizard's lair as her own. Alas, her spells failed her and she quickly fell to the two adventurers. While looting the corpse, they pried a ring off the dead goblin's finger, which Zelda immediately determined to be magical. A thorough search of the laboratory and its adjoining study revealed a doorway concealed behind the tapestry and, amid what papers had not already been used by the goblins for toilet paper, two arcane scrolls containing the spells <i>Pygmalion</i>, and <i>Dear God</i>.<br />
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The first session ended with both characters bloodied and exhausted but still alive, and they decided to rest and recuperate for a few hours before venturing on to explore door behind the tapestry.<br />
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This was our first experience with Tunnels & Trolls and we had a blast. I really liked the cooperative nature of combat, in which all players combine their results to defeat the enemy. In general, combat is very fast paced, except when the two sides are evenly matched, such as the fight against the three goblins. Because large numbers of d6's are rolled by both sides in combat, the totals tend toward the median results, which means that when both sides are rolling the same number of dice, the winning side usually beats the losing side by only a few points, which can lead to some very long and drawn out battles. The only way to break this stalemate is to try and tip the balance. This can be accomplished by the use of spells, which is how Zelda and Arya finally beat the goblins, or to attempt some kind of stunt or feat using the saving roll mechanic. Because this was our first session and everyone was trying to get a handle on the game, I veered away from suggesting that they try any fancy maneuvers because I was afraid it might get confusing, but as we get more comfortable with the rules I'll start encouraging them to use their imaginations to come up with some combat maneuvers. This is also a great way for warriors to do more than just add a large number of dice to the combat result, and will make combat a lot more interesting and rewarding for them.<br />
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In the next post, Arya and Zelda delve further into the Tower of Mazzarin.<br />
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<br />Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-33559961708210983952015-12-27T17:49:00.000-08:002015-12-28T08:29:21.484-08:00A Dalliance with TrollsDuring the early to mid 1980's, which was the high point of my gaming life, (you know, those high school and university years that I should have spent studying my course material instead of game rules) I played as many different games as I could get my hands on. But given the prolification of games in those years it would have taken a very dedicated and financially independent person to collect them all. And sadly, given my very limited finances at the time, I had to choose carefully what I spent my money on. Consequently there were a lot of games I passed on, and which I've spent the subsequent years wondering about. The most prominent of these was Tunnels & Trolls.<br />
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Published in 1975, T&T was first of many, many games inspired by D&D, and given its prominence, it's odd and unfortunate that it never captured my fancy in those early years. I certainly remember looking at it at my local game store, but whether I regarded it as just another D&D clone, or was turned off by its reputed silliness, I always put it back on the shelf and moved on. Until now.<br />
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My interest in T&T was recently kindled as I read reports of the new Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls rule book arriving in the hands of its Kickstarter supporters, and I was thrilled that to see that Flying Buffalo is still in business, and that Ken St. Andre is still at the helm of T&T, which is both gratifying and impressive for a fourty-year-old game. Unable to wait until DT&T was available for retail purchase, I turned to <a href="http://www.nobleknight.com/">Noble Knight Games</a>, and picked up an inexpensive copy of the 5th edition rules (shown above), which is the edition that I remember from my youth.<br />
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After reading the rules, my only disappointment was that I hadn't picked up this game decades ago. Tunnels & Trolls has such a simple and elegant set of mechanics that it is an ideal game for introducing newcomers to roleplaying. For anyone unfamiliar with the game I'll provide a brief summary.<br />
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Combat is exceedingly straightforward: instead of rolling to hit and again for damage, each combatant on either side rolls their combat dice (weapon dice plus attribute bonuses) and the total results of each side is compared. The side with the highest roll wins that round of combat and the losing side takes an amount of damage equal to the difference between the two rolls, which is divided among the players on the losing side. It's easy and fast - there's no fiddling around with initiative, nor does each player need to wait his or her turn. Every player rolls at once, and since the results are combined even the weakest combatant can contribute to the group's success.<br />
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Attribute scores are generated, as was usual for those early games, by rolling 3d6, and characters gain a +1 bonus to combat for each point of Strength, Dexterity, and Luck above 12. At each new level, characters get a number of points equal to their new level to distribute among their attribute scores, so the initial 3-18 range quickly moves up into the 20s and even the 30's allowing for some truly remarkable characters. One of the endearing features of T&T is that it isn't terribly concerned with realism or balance; powerful, unbalanced characters with over-the-top magic items is no unusual thing - it's all part of the fun. And because the monsters can be ramped up just as easily, death is always a misstep away.<br />
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There's a lot to like about Tunnels & Trolls, but the mechanic I like best - the one that really makes the game stand out - is its saving rolls. Saving rolls are made on 2d6 plus the relevant attribute score (T&T uses only six-sided dice), which must exceed a target number based on the level of the save - a level one save has a target number of 20, and this increases by 5 with each subsequent level. If doubles are rolled the dice are rolled again (for each time that doubles are rolled) and the results added, so in principal you could succeed at any save no matter how difficult. (<i>"Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1."</i>) This saving roll mechanic is also used for hitting opponents with ranged weapons, where the target's size and distance determine the level of a dexterity saving roll. It also became one of the first task resolution mechanics ever used in role playing games, and is an elegant way to determine the success of just about anything you can imagine leading players to attempt some truly cinematic feats.<br />
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I was somewhat chagrined to discover that none of my youthful misgivings about T&T were valid. It is nothing at all like D&D; the game is entirely different both in tone and play, nor is it a 'silly' game. The rules have a more whimsical tone than, say, D&D, and it doesn't take itself too seriously, but the whimsy is similar to that of Jack Vance, or Fritz Leiber - it isn't over-the-top slapstick, which is what the rumour-mill had me believe back in the day. Although I regret not having gotten into T&T long ago, in all honestly I'm not sure I would have appreciated it until recent years. Back then I was very much into crunchy game mechanics, and T&T might have been too simple for my tastes. These days, however, it suits me perfectly.<br />
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Within minutes of my first reading of the rules I was itching to play it, and so I've begun a campaign for my wife and daughter. Over the next several posts I'll continue to discuss my ongoing exploration of T&T, as well as describe the campaign setting I've created, and the adventures as they happen.<br />
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Let the good times troll!<br />
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<br />Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-9225390252131293902014-06-03T09:34:00.001-07:002014-06-03T09:34:05.212-07:00Otherworld Miniatures Skirmish GameAs is typical of me, although this news has been out for a while, I've only just heard about it: Otherworld Miniatures is producing a tabletop skirmish game! I thought I'd pass the news along in case there are others, like myself, who remain inexplicably oblivious to various happenings in the gaming world.<br />
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The game, which is due to be released this summer, is a small-scale skirmish game using small warbands that can be constructed with a point-buy system using any miniatures in Otherworld's line. The game will apparently remain true to Otherworld's old school aesthetic, and capture the feel of classic D&D adventures.<br />
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I'm obviously pretty excited about this. I've already got a fair-sized collection of pig-faced orcs; more than enough to make a decent warband, and I'm always happy to see another alternative to the increasingly rapacious Games Workshop.<br />
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Here's a <a href="http://dukeofthebloodkeep.blogspot.ca/">recent Youtube video interview</a> with Otherworld at UK Games expo from the Duke of Blood Keep.<br />
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And here's an older post from last summer with more details about the game from <a href="http://wargameterrain.blogspot.ca/2013/08/otherworld-miniatures-upcoming-dungeon.html">Wargame News and Terrain</a>.Sean Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16429301144221551751noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384696295028916937.post-6508731760238782192014-03-28T16:37:00.001-07:002014-03-28T16:37:57.643-07:00In memoriam: Dave Trampier 1954 - Mar 24 2014I was sad to learn of the passing of Dave Trampier earlier this week. It was his art more than any other that I came to associate with Dungeons & Dragons, and he was certainly my favourite artist ever to illustrate the game. I have no idea how many times in my life I've looked to his illustrations in the Player's Handbook or Monster Manual for inspiration, and I have no doubt that I will continue to do so for many years to come.<div>
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Here's to well-earned treasure at the end of the adventure:<br /><div>
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