Cthulhu Wars

I just heard the news that Sandy Peterson is working on a new board game: Cthulhu Wars.  This is sort of like Lovecraftian Risk, where instead of taking on the roles of human investigators trying to save the world, players assume the mantle Great Old Ones competing to conquer it.  The game looks amazing from what I've seen so far, and best of all it will come with 28 mm scale miniatures for each faction, including the Great Old Ones, cultists, and servitor races and creatures.  By making the miniatures 28 mm, they can serve double duty in Call of Cthulhu games!

Check out the video interview with Sandy Peterson over on Lovecraft Ezine and be sure to scroll down to see the amazingly detailed sculpts of the miniatures.  These are some of the best looking Cthulhu mythos miniatures I've seen yet, and they certainly blow the doors off my old Grenadier minis.  So I'll be anxiously waiting for the Kickstarter, which Sandy anticipates launching sometime in the next month or so.  I don't much like crowd source funding, but I plan to jump in on this one when it launches.

Greens of Cthulhu, himself, and a human cultist for scale.

How Long Will You Survive?

I never thought I'd write about a video game on an old-school roleplaying blog, but Ubisoft's ZombiU, a launch title for the new Nintendo WiiU console, is a survival horror game that captures old school play style in a way that I've never seen in any computer or console game.

The game's subtitle throws down the gauntlet: How long will you survive?
This is more than just a catch-phrase, it is an concise summation of what this game is all about.

You play a survivor in zombie-infested London after the plague of 2012 and your goal is to stay alive for as long as you can.  No easy task; I lost my first character five seconds into the game and went through nearly thirty characters in the first four hours of play.

You begin this dark, gritty, and intensely frightening game by escaping a pursuing horde of the infected, hopefully finding refuge in a safehouse in the London underground, guided via intercom by an enigmatic character known as the Prepper (a modern-day disciple of the sixteenth century occultist, John Dee and a member of a cabal known as Dee's Ravens), then proceed to explore your surroundings by the dim glow of your flashlight, armed with your trusty cricket bat.

It's not all fun-and-games in the cozy confines of the subway tunnels, though; eventually you have to hit the streets to activate and hack into CCTV networks to get a window on the world above.  That's when life gets really tough; the infected lurk everywhere and you need to watch out for corpses - sometimes they get up.

A typical Friday night in Winnipeg

Reviews of ZombiU are all over the map: some reviewers love it; others hate it, and it's easy to see why.  The game is hard.  Damned hard.  If you're looking for a first-person shooter game to unwind with and mindlessly kill some zombies then you need to look elsewhere.  This is not the game for you.

The pace is slow, the combat is deadly, and when your character dies that's it.  Game over.  No reload, no respawn, no backsies.  You start with a new character and lose all your experience and gear.  Moreover if you're bitten by an infected - even once - you're done for and your character rises as one of them.  So if you want to retrieve your gear you need to find your infected character, kill it and loot his or her bug-out-bag.  Of course whatever killed you will still be there, so the number of infected will have increased by one.

This is a big deal because the infected are bloody hard to kill.  One by itself is a threat.  Two is often more than you can deal with.  Three or more and its time to utter the catchphrase of the OSR - Oh, shit, run!  The ubiquitous cricket bat is a ponderous and slow weapon.  You need to time your attack just right - if you swing too soon there is no time for another try (the infected are surprisingly fast); swing too late and, well, you get the idea.  Furthermore, these are no eggshell-craniumed walkers from The Walking Dead that can be killed with the casual thrust of a screwdriver: to put down one of the infected you'll need to hit it five or six times.  So clearly the cricket bat is really only effective against one foe at a time.

Guns are faster.  You can shoot quickly enough to deal with a couple of oncoming foes if you have a steady hand and cool nerve, and you only need to hit one about three times to put it down.  The problem with this is that the zombies lurch erratically as they charge, making a head shot difficult and if you panic you can blow through a clip of priceless ammo very quickly indeed.  Because you have to scavenge every round of ammo, and there is never enough, I save the gun for when I'm really up shit creek.

This is usually when my slide locks back, empty.

So what makes ZombiU appealing to old school roleplayers?  First and foremost, the game challenges the player, not the character.  Yes, your character does get level-ups and weapon upgrades, but these come slowly and are subtle improvements.  To succeed at this game you need to plan carefully, scout your surroundings, loot anything that isn't nailed down, take your time, and don't bite off more than you can bash.  One of the most important skills is knowing when to run and where to run.  If you don't have an escape route planned out you'll end up trapped in a dead-end or flee into a horde.  Does this play style sound familiar?

This explains the many negative reviews that ZombiU has garnered.  The level of difficulty and frustration is more than a lot of gamers are used to, especially if what they are used to is Call of Duty.  It's kind of like throwing a group 4E players into an old school dungeon crawl: they charge in, die very quickly, then complain about lack of balanced encounters.

In ZombiU, like in old school rpgs, there are no kewl powerz or awesome weapons, its just you and your wits against an overwhelming foe.

This contributes to the very effective sense of horror in the game.  I'm rarely scared by horror movies (in fact, I recently posted about misnomer of the horror genre in my other blog), but this game scares the crap out of me.  I find I can't play for more than half an hour before quitting with trembling hands, sweaty palms and my  heart trying to break out of my chest.  The dim lighting, confined spaces and restricted peripheral vision create a very claustrophic experience.  Things can very easily sneak up behind you, particularly when you have to look at the game pad to manage your inventory.  This adds to the tension of the game - you have to rummage quickly through your knapsack or something will come up on you from behind.

Here's a video clip of game play of a character trying to get to Buckingham Palace that will give you a good idea of what I'm talking about.


I'm no great fan of video games, but my feelings about ZombiU should be pretty clear by now: I love it. It is a scary, intense, and insanely difficult game that will undoubtedly challenge me for a long time to come, and it hits all the sweet spots that I love about old school roleplaying games.

 So, how long will you survive?

Review: Dagger - Supplemental Rules for Roleplaying with Kids

Dagger is Brave Halfling's new rules supplement that strips down classic D&D to its barest essentials for playing with very young children.  Most of this stripping away is done to the character classes to make it fast and simple to get started, without having to learn a lot of rules.

There are four basic classes: Knight, Wizard, Elf, and Dwarf, with an optional Halfling class.  No attribute scores are used, and each class gets equipment package so there is no need to fiddle around with starting gold, shopping, or armour types.  Players can just fill out their character sheets, roll for hit points, and begin play immediately.  Knights get two attacks per turn and have AC 2, Wizards can cast two spells per experience level and have AC 9, Elves get one attack per turn, may cast one spell per experience level, and have AC 5, and Dwarves can automatically detect secret doors, can see in the dark, and have AC 2.

The supplement is only eight pages long (including the cover and the obligatory one page OGL) and the meat of it is on the first two pages.  The remaining four pages include spell descriptions and some monster stat blocks.

This supplement is a great resource for role playing with very young children who are not yet able to read and would otherwise be confused by the esoterica of a full-blown version of the game.  There are a few problems, however: there is a monster attack matrix, but no character attack matrix.  I'm not certain whether this is by design or accident, although the monster matrix appears twice so I'm inclined to believe the latter.  To-hit numbers are given for first level characters, but there is no progression for subsequent levels.  It is possible that characters are intended to use the monster matrix, but this is not explained, and if so, it would make more sense just to call it the 'attack matrix.'  In any event, the monster attack matrix is missing the armour classes, so it's of no use anyway.

Lack of usable attack matrices is no problem for experienced role players who will have access to them in other rule sets, and since the supplement contains no explanation of how to play, no equipment lists, and no treasure, a full rule-set of some type is required anyway.  This makes the four pages of spell description and monster stat blocks redundant, though; Dagger could just as easily be a two-page supplement and might be better served if it was.

It's tough to complain though, given that Dagger is available as a free download from RPGNow and DriveThru RPG.

A New Blog For New Times

Things have been pretty quiet here the last few months, and my posts have been few and far between.  There are a couple of reasons for this: after nearly three years of blogging about old school gaming I'm starting to run out of things to say, and I've lately been devoting most of my time to writing fiction.  I've dabbled at writing short stories, on and off, for the past twenty-five years and I've accumulated a good few rejection letters over the years (yes my stories go back to the days when they were submitted and rejected via the post office).  Anyway, I've decided to stop dabbling and get serious about the craft.

As part of this new path I'm on, I've started a new blog, Lore Deposits and Other Rich Veins, which is a platform to promote my fiction, but is also a broad forum for me to post about writing, books, movies, natural history and other things that interest me, including gaming and miniatures.  And it is there that I will be most actively posting from now on.

So my posts here at the Flaming Faggot are going to continue to be infrequent for the foreseeable future, though I will try to make at least a couple of posts each month - I'll try to keep up my session reports at least.  I'll also continue to follow and read all my favourite old school blogs and remain part of the OSR community, but with less active participation.

I hope you'll all join me on the new blog.  Although it isn't as gaming-centric as this one is, there will be plenty of interest, especially since many of you share my interests and tastes in literature, movies, and geek culture.

Cheers,
Sean

Appendix N and My Literary Inspirations

The Dungeon Master's Guide's famous Appendix N has long been the subject of much discussion in old school circles, but has lately cropped up again with a recent Grognard Games video, Cyclopeatron's recent post of his own personal Appendix N, and Aaron Steele's insanely extensive personal Appendix N listed in his recent post on A Paladin in Citadel.

Consequently, I've been giving a lot of thought, lately, to not only the literary sources that influenced Gary Gygax, but also those that influenced by understanding of D&D and inspired my style of play.

When I first discovered D&D by way of the Holmes Basic Set, I didn't have an extensive background in fantasy, and my understanding of the game was very heavily influenced by the small number of books I had read (plus a smattering of Ray Harryhausen movies, particularly the Sinbad movies, and Jason and the Argonauts):

Alexander, Lloyd, The Prydain Chronicles
Burton, Sir Richard, Arabian Nights
Homer, The Odyssey
Tolkien, J.R.R., The Hobbit; The Lord of the Rings

That was about it for my early gaming inspirations, and, many other people, I leaned very heavily on Tolkien as my primary source of inspiration for fantasy role playing.

The funny thing about our literary inspirations - what people are calling their own 'Appendix N' - is that the list changes over time.  The DMG's Appendix N list is static: these are the books that most affected the development of the game; but the books that affect how we understand and play the game changes over the years.  At least mine has.

Even after switching to Advanced D&D, I wasn't particularly influenced by the Appendix N reading list as so many other people were.  About the only books that I was introduced to specifically because of Appendix N were Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, and Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories, and I didn't find them particularly inspirational at the time - I continued to use Tolkien for my crutch all through high school, and for many years after.

During the late '80's to 1990's I was inspired by the many epic high fantasy series by modern fantasists such as David Eddings, Robert Jordan, and Raymond Feist, and so my list changed again.  It wasn't until the dawn of the 21st century that I fully embraced the pulp fantasy stories that inspired D&D to begin with, and my style of play changed with my reading list.  These days my campaigns are dark sword & sorcery adventures so filled with mad cultists, evil sorcerers, cosmic horrors and naked slave girls that the heads of post-Gygax TSR executives heads would explode with the politically incorrect wrongness of it.

So here is my current list of literary sources of inspiration that most directly influence my play style and campaign - some are very conventional, common to most of the OSR community, others may be less so.  It is worth noting the absence of Tolkien from the current list; although I will always love his work, I'm not currently drawing upon it for my gaming inspiration.

Asprin, Robert L. (ed.) Thieves' World et al.
The shared world anthology beginning with Thieve's World introduced us to the city of Sanctuary as presented by some of the most prominent fantasy authors of the late '70's and early '80's.  It will come as no surprise to any reader of this blog, that I have high regard for these books, as the blog title and masthead are inspired by the second book in the series, Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn.  Much of my campaign city of Catapesh was inspired by the stories of Sanctuary, particularly the poor quarter known as The Maze and its infamous tavern the Vulgar Unicorn.

Burton, Sir Richard, Arabian Nights
This 19th century classic, which influenced my early gaming, is the only book from my first list of literary influences to remain on my current list.  This edition was intended by Burton to titillate Victorian readers with salacious tales of the exotic Middle East. As such, it is a gross parody of actual Middle Eastern culture, but as an inspiration for fantasy campaigns with a near-eastern flavour it is an indispensable staple: bold heroes, evil djinnis, wicked sorcerers, and compliant slave-girls aplenty.

Herbert, Frank, Dune
The great houses of my campaign city of Catapesh and the political intrigue that infuses the city, owe their genesis to feudal structure of the empire of Frank Herbert's classic, Dune.  There is much to admire about this book, but the internecine struggles for power between the Houses Atreides, Harkonnen, and Corino always fascinated me, and though I've never consciously tried to emulate Herbert's milieu, the influence is undoubtedly there.

Howard, Robert E., Conan stories
These have, for the last several years, had the most impact on my gaming.  Howard's antediluvian Indo-European/African continent, with its familiar-but-different cultures, the intrinsically evil nature of sorcery, the self-interested protagonist, and the plethora of scantily-clad dancing girls have all contributed to my current milieu.   Also, the fact that no matter how big a score Conan takes, he always begins the next story dead broke, which is a facet that has directly contributed to my house rules designed to keep the players forever treasure-hungry.

Leiber, Fritz, Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories
Along with the Thieves' World novels, Leiber's Lankhmar is an excellent source for city-based adventures.  The protagonists battle the city's thieves' guild, drink and wench in the Silver Eel, battle evil sorcerers, and try, usually unsuccessfully, to strike it rich.  Although Leiber's influence in the development of D&D cannot be understated, the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories are, perhaps, the least important influences on my current list of literary inspiration.

Lovecraft, H.P., The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath
While I like all of Lovecraft's work, with At the Mountains of Madness, and The Shadow Over Innsmouth, being two of my favourite stories, it is Earth's Dreamlands that have been most influential in my fantasy gaming.  Dream Quest was the very first Lovecraft story I ever read, and while it was very different from the horror that I was expecting, it has had a profound and lasting impact on my gaming since 1984.

McNaughton, Brian The Throne of Bones
This is a relatively recent addition to my personal 'Appendix N.'  I bought The Throne of Bones, shortly after it was published, about ten years or so ago, but didn't get around to reading until just last year.  I was immediately sorry I had put off reading it so long.  This book is a collection of very dark stories filled with tomb-robbers, necromancers, and ghouls that inhabit the necropolis of McNaughton's fantasy city.  It has been immensely influential on the development of the necropolis of Catapesh, which is where most of my current campaign's adventures have been set in the past year.

Moorcock, Michael, especially Elric and Hawkmoon novels.
I'm a great admirer of Moorcock's prose style and I love his anti-hero, Elric of Melnibone.  Reading the Elric stories is essential to really understand the nature of D&D's alignment system as more than just an artificial code of behaviour, but as side your character takes in the eternal cosmological struggle.  Hawkmoon I like mainly for it's darkly fantastical real world setting, the likes of which I am becoming increasingly fascinated with.

Smith, Clark Ashton, any, but especially his Averoigne stories.
I'm becoming increasingly interested in real-world historical fantasy settings, and the dark fantasies of Smith's fictional French province of Averoigne have been tremendously influential.

Vance, Jack, Dying Earth stories (The Dying Earth; The Eyes of the Overworld; Cugel's Saga; Rhialto the Marvelous)
I'm not sure if it's possible to truly appreciate D&D's magic system without reading Vance.  I certainly never did until reading the Dying Earth stories just a couple of years ago, despite having played D&D for more than 35 years.  Moreover, a great deal of Vance's exquisite prose style can be seen reflected in Gary Gygax's style, not the least of which in the many evocative spell names.  In many ways a fantasy milieu's tone depends largely on the nature of magic and for this reason, Vance is tremendously influential on my current style of play.

That pretty much rounds off my list of most important literary influences to my current gaming.  Of course many other excellent books have contributed to my gaming style, but not as obviously and directly as those presented above.  It will be interesting to revisit this list in ten years and see how much it may have changed.

Arrrrr mateys!

At long last, I finally know my pirate name!

My pirate name is:

Bloody Sam Flint

Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
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D&D at the Royal Ontario Museum

I've long thought that roleplaying games would be an outstanding tool for museum programming and it turns out that some other visionary thought so, too, and actually made it happen.

The Royal Ontario Museum is hosting a Saturday morning D&D campaign for kids 11-14 years old, which utilizes material from the collections to teach kids about myths, monsters, and weapons of ancient cultures.  Talk about a great way to bring history alive!  I wish something like this had been around when I was a kid.