I like weird saving throws. In my house rules, one is called “dragon breath, explosions” and another is called “rays, wands”—a bit of implied setting for my players.

For monsters, on the other hand, I like to have just a single save. I use the Swords & Wizardry method: 19 - HD, plus or minus 2 for magic susceptibility or resistance, rarely a minus 4 for even more resistance.

Yay!

Tags: RPGOld School

In 2006, Greywulf was a user of Oddmuse, a piece of software I was maintaining. It’s still used to run this blog/wiki. Greywulf kept talking about D&D and eventually I started reading EN World. There, I discovered Greywulf had a hugethread going. He proposed a minimal variant to D&D 3.5 and called it M20 (original files). I loved it and ended up starting a campaign using it. (It later converted to D&D 3.5.)

In 2008, I came across M74 and discovered the “old school renaissance”. I learned about OD&D and its use of a d6 for hit-dice and weapon damage. I was intrigued and wrote M20 Hard Core. I also wrote a little random character creator for my rules variant.

Some blog posts from back then:

• 2008-04-20 Palace of the Silver Princess– I played an old adventure using Labyrinth Lord
• 2008-08-06 Retro Clones– first mention of Swords & Wizardry by quoting Philotomy Jurament
• 2008-08-07 Hard Core M20– first mention of M20 Hard Core
• 2008-08-07 Fight On– got my first issues of Fight On! magazine
• 2008-10-14 Cannot Please Them All– ran a play test session using M20 Hard Core and realized that my players prefer D&D 3.5
• 2008-10-25 Lulu Wishlist– I added Swords & Wizardry to the list because “I’d like to see a streamlined version of the little brown books” (OD&D)
• 2008-12-16 Lulu Wishilisti– I added Swords & Wizardry: White Box to the list, “although I’m pretty sure nobody will ever want to play it with me.”
• 2009-05-27 Fight On Issue 5– got the 0e Swords & Wizardry Monster Book (Word file)
• 2009-07-24 Ennies– voted for Swords & Wizardry in the Ennies
• 2009-08-31 Lulu – Again– got Ruins & Ronin

(You can get the source files from the Swords & Wizardry download page.)

I was very impressed by Ruins & Ronin. If you check out the Sword+1 blog, you’ll find lots of R&R character classes for download in the sidebar. It really was an eye opener for me. Anything can be turned into a class! This is Do It Yourself D&D!

These days, I still play Labyrinth Lord. It was my first retro-clone. It didn’t have weird elves. I ended up liking race-as-class. As you can see from the list above, however, OD&D and Swords & Wizardry have been an important part of the journey. And I absolutely loved the Peter Mullen covers!

Today is Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day Blogfest! Follow the link and find a list of more than 100 other blogs writing about S&W.

Tags: RPGOld School

With Tenkar’s Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day came a plethora of blogs I had never heard of. I’ve been adding new blogs furiously to the Old School RPG Planet. (A planet is a feed aggregator—it shows an extract of all the various blogs I added, like a public blog roll. This particular planet is controlled by a wiki page, so anybody can submit new blogs.)

If you’re looking for new blogs to add, take a look. Perhaps you’ll find a new blog you like? I know that some people from the “early days” said that they felt the Old School Renaissance was shrinking. My thinking at the time was that this is now what’s happening. What is happening is that some people drop out, stop blogging. If you don’t add the newcomers, those who start blogging, your impression will necessarily be that the OSR is shrinking. Not so! Look at the number of blogs that participated.

If you already follow the Old School RPG Planet, please let me know if I added some blogs by mistake. I think I checked each and every new feed I added. If a feed seemed mostly about video games, or anime, or miniatures, I didn’t add it. Most of the blogs that were listed on the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day post seemed to be very appropriate! Still, one never knows.

Let me know if you spot anything else that’s fishy.

And I'm only half way through!Phew!

Tags: RPGOld School

As I was listening to the episode on Empedocles on the History of Philosophy“without any gaps” podcast, my thoughts turned to cosmology and D&D. Basically, there is a big cycle between the rule of Love, where all the elements mingle and everything is a single perfect sphere, and Strife, where all the elements separate, fire over here, water over there, and so on.

Implementing this in fantasy role-playing games we need to change some of the Great Wheel cosmology of Planescape. The inner planes are now the outer planes: The four elements are the chaotic forces pulling us in different directions. All elemental creatures must be very chaotic and enemies of life. At the center, where all elements meet, there is but a humongous sphere of gray goo. I guess all the slimes, puddings and oozes must be creatures of law. They bring all the elements together and none better than the gray ooze. Given all that, the world we know must necessarily be between the elements and the spherical goo, ie. on the spherical surface.

What about dungeons? What about the “mythic underworld”? I think we have various options:

1. The concept of Love that pulls the elements together is just as inimical to life as Strife: the civilizations that have gone before us have all been pulled underground, closer and closer to each other, until war and attrition destroyed them all; perhaps a few gaunt dessicated members of the old Atlanteans still live down there in the deepest depths, close to the gray goo, guarding their nuclear weapons and their nanotech weapons.
2. The concept of Love offers some form of transcendence over the material world; it attracts good and evil alike; it tests us, breeds us, selects the finest amongst us, and like zygotes we penetrate the deepest secrets to eventually reverse the great cycle, to break the stalemate.

In either case, monsters are drawn down to the center of things just as we are. The traps can be set by our competitors down there, or by the gray goo defending itself against unworthy plunderers.

I think we need one final idea to make it all work: How to explain the heavens and the moon and the stars if “up above” we expect to see the four elements?

1. Our known world exists where earth and air have started separating; the oceans is where the water is. If you sail far enough, there will be no more land and eventually, no more air. You’ve reached the plane of Water. If you climb the highest mountains, eventually you will realize that you have reached the wall of walls. Air ends and the plane of Earth begins. Up where the sun is, fire reigns. It has already left most of the known world. Whenever we light a fire, the flames leap up, up towards the sky, towards the sun, towards the great fire in the sky that burns far beyond the sky.
2. Alternatively, the known world is just like present day earth. The air protects us from space. Space is in effect the Void separating the four elements under the dominion of Strife and the gray goo under the dominion of Love (and its tiny crust of weirdness that is life).

Food for thought, in any case.

I like how the podcast provides two interesting links:

• Stanford Encyclopedia: Empedocles
• Classic Persuasion: Empedocles

The second link uses “font-family:comic sans ms, verdana, arial, sans-serif”. Comic Sans. You have been warned.

Tags: RPG

The One Page Dungeon Contest 2013 is now officially closed. No more late submissions. This year I found two submissions in my spam folder. If you can’t find your submission on the contest page, let me know. This year I also got four late submissions, which is about average, I’d say. I asked the other judges and we decided to accept the ones I received. I have to draw the line somewhere, though… So this is it. Closed.

Here’s how to get all the files:

• Download the archive with All One Page Dungeon Contest 2013 Submissions (47 MB)
• Individual files on Wuala
• Individual files on Google Drive

72 Submissions!

Tags: RPG1PDC

This topic ties together two topics that probably don’t see too much overlap.

1. I play role-playing games of the D&D old school variety.
2. I use Emacs to help me do simple stuff on a daily basis.

The problem: the party of characters my players run is huge. Even if there are usually only around ten characters that are part of a single session, there are more than thirty primary and secondary characters on the status page. Given the wiki table for the status page, how can I quickly add up the correct XP and gold values? Any XP gained is shared equally amongst the characters that took part in the session but any gold gained is distributed according to each characters share. Primary characters get a full share, secondary characters get a third of a share.

I used Emacs widget mode to create a page like this:

XP total:   805          
Gold total: 7191         
[X] Schalk
[ ] Uluf
[ ] Witschik
[X] Schachtmann
[ ] Sirius
[X] Logard
[X] Arnd
[X] Tinaya
[ ] Pyrula
[ ] Pijo
[ ] Garo
[X] Zeta
[ ] Pipo
[X] Fusstritt
[ ] Thor
[ ] Jack
[ ] Gloria
[ ] Hermann
[ ] Urs
[ ] Alpha
[ ] Beta
[ ] Gamma
[ ] Boden
[ ] Basel
[ ] Bern
[X] Nuschka
[ ] Moranor
[ ] Axirios Hectaxius

[Go!]

And here’s the code to do it:

(defconst fünf-winde-regexp "^\\(|\\[\\[\\(.*?\\)\\]\\][ \t]*|[ \t]*\\(1\\|1/3\\)[ \t]*\\)|\\([ \t]*[0-9]+[ \t]*\\)|\\([ \t]*[0-9]+[ \t]*\\)"
  "Regular expression to parse the Status page.
\(let ((str (match-string 1))
      (name (match-string 2))
      (share (match-string 3))
      (xp (match-string 4))
      (gold (match-string 5)))
    ...\)")

(defvar fünf-winde-buf nil
  "Source buffer.")

(defvar fünf-winde-xp nil
  "XP share.")

(defvar fünf-winde-gold nil
  "Gold share.")

(defvar fünf-winde-party nil
  "Charakters in the party.")

(defun fünf-winde-xp-and-gold ()
  "Hand out Gold and XP."
  (interactive)
  (let ((buf (current-buffer))
	(names))
    (save-excursion
      (goto-char (point-min))
      (while (re-search-forward fünf-winde-regexp nil t)
	(setq names (cons (match-string 2) names))))
    (switch-to-buffer "*Fünf Winde*")
    (kill-all-local-variables)
    (set (make-local-variable 'fünf-winde-buf) buf)
    (make-local-variable 'fünf-winde-xp)
    (make-local-variable 'fünf-winde-gold)
    (make-local-variable 'fünf-winde-party)
    (let ((inhibit-read-only t))
      (erase-buffer))
    (remove-overlays)
    (setq fünf-winde-xp
	  (widget-create 'integer
			 :size 13
			 :format "XP total:   %v\n"
			 0))
    (setq fünf-winde-gold
	  (widget-create 'integer
			 :size 13
			 :format "Gold total: %v\n"
			 0))
    (setq fünf-winde-party
	  (apply 'widget-create 'checklist
		 (mapcar (lambda (name)
			   `(item ,name))
			 (nreverse names))))
    (widget-insert "\n")
    (widget-create 'push-button
		   :notify (lambda (&rest ignore)
			     (fünf-winde-process
			      fünf-winde-buf
			      (widget-value fünf-winde-xp)
			      (widget-value fünf-winde-gold)
			      (widget-value fünf-winde-party)))
		   "Go!")
    (widget-insert "\n")
    (use-local-map widget-keymap)
    (local-set-key (kbd "q") 'bury-buffer)
    (local-set-key (kbd "SPC") 'widget-button-press)
    (local-set-key (kbd "<left>") 'widget-backward)
    (local-set-key (kbd "<up>") 'widget-backward)
    (local-set-key (kbd "<right>") 'widget-forward)
    (local-set-key (kbd "<down>") 'widget-forward)
    (widget-setup)
    (goto-char (point-min))
    (widget-forward 1)))

(defun fünf-winde-process (buf total-xp total-gold party)
  (message "(fünf-winde-process (get-buffer \"%s\") %d %d '%S)"
	   buf total-xp total-gold party)
  (switch-to-buffer buf)
  (save-excursion
    (let ((xp-shares 0)
	  (xp-share nil)
	  (gold-shares 0)
	  (gold-share nil))
      (goto-char (point-min))
      (while (re-search-forward fünf-winde-regexp nil t)
	(let ((name (match-string 2))
	      (share (match-string 3)))
	  (when (member name party)
	    (setq gold-shares (+ gold-shares
				 (cond ((string= share "1/2") 0.5)
				       ((string= share "1/3") (/ 1.0 3))
				       (t (string-to-number share))))
		  xp-shares (1+ xp-shares)))))
      (setq gold-share (/ total-gold gold-shares)
	    xp-share (/ total-xp xp-shares))
      (goto-char (point-min))
      (while (re-search-forward fünf-winde-regexp nil t)
	(let ((str (match-string 1))
	      (name (match-string 2))
	      (share (match-string 3))
	      (xp (match-string 4))
	      (gold (match-string 5)))
	  (when (member name party)
	    (setq gold (format (concat "%9d")
			       (+  (string-to-number gold)
				   (* gold-share (cond ((string= share "1/2") 0.5)
						       ((string= share "1/3") (/ 1.0 3))
						       (t (string-to-number share))))))
		  xp (format (concat "%9d")
			     (+  (string-to-number xp)
				 xp-share)))
	    (replace-match (concat str
				   "|" xp
				   "|" gold))))))))

I’m not sure I’m spending my time wisely, but there you go. I used to have a simpler piece of code that helped me distribute XP and gold separately. The drawback was that it would ask me for every person in the table “was this character in the party? (y/n)” and that’s a lot of yes and no replies if you go through the list twice.

It’s also a stark reminder that simpler old rules doesn’t automatically mean less work for the referee. With D&D 3.5, I had a spreadsheet to compute the XP gained based on challenge rating and character level. It wasn’t something to do quickly without a book in front of me. Now the complexity of the task has been reduced, but the number of characters has exploded to compensate!

Tags: EmacsRPGOld School

I’ve finished reading the submissions to the One Page Dungeon Contest 2013. As always, an interesting mix of styles. Less tombs than in previous years. The ever popular “get into the dungeon and trigger a trap” is there. Bandits, undead, but no pirates! This year’s popular rare monster must have been the gibbernig mouther. It showed up in three submissions.

Gibbering Mouthers:

• Intrepid Eddie, The Parched Throat
• Joshua J. Laboskie, The Lost Temple of Tyrandraxu
• Ramsey Hong, Something Happened At The Temple Near Glourm

I wanted to comment on my nominations for the contest winners. I’ve done this before (2010, 2011, 2012). Writing it all down helps me think it through.

• Daniel O'Donnell, Down Among the Dead Men: beautiful map; lovely visuals such as a well surmounted by the jaws of a giant shark or acolytes on stilts “tending” the undead in the water. It’s gruesome. It stands on its own and can be placed in my campaign.
• Gus L., The Brittlestone Parapets: a lovely amalgam of trench warfare, undead soldiers, Beowulf, D&D as an implied post-apocalyptic setting; and it comes with an inspiring map, an interesting list of random encounters, the witch comes with the list of spells prepared, one faction can be hired for a few weeks. It’s fascinating. It stands on its own and can be placed in my campaign.
• Jobe Bittman, Into The Demon Idol: an iconic image, a beautiful map, the giant grab pincer. Best of all: the option of reanimating it! A potential long-term change for your campaign. It’s tempting. It stands on its own and can be placed in my campaign.
• Misha Favorov, Court of the King of No Men: a map that allows multiple approaches; the most important notes are on the map itself. That’s what I love! The two simple magic items are interesting without being overengineered: a sword dealing wounds that heal within 24h, a hammer that can be thrown once a day, a rod that allows you to control the movement of an opponent (but nothing else). It’s sylvan. It stands on its own and can be placed in my campaign.
• Paul Gorman, Faery Ring to Alpha Ari: not the only adventure using myconids and various fungus effects, but what I liked in particular was the strange mix of fantasy and present day space exploration; the observatory and the tiny island on the one hand and a map that looks appropriate for a Mars colony. I also like how enemies come in all sizes from pixies to giant. I’m not sure it would simply fit into my campaign.
• Ramsey Hong, Something Happened At The Temple Near Glourm: a beautiful map with village and five dungeon levels; multiple stairs and entrances; notes on the map itself. This dungeon is beautiful. It’s terrifying. It stands on its own and can be placed in my campaign.
• Rob S, Citadel of the Severed Hand: another beautiful map with notes on the map itself; it also features myconids and “shroom effects”. The part I like is the tragic figure of the orc boss with his staghelm who hates the torturer demon because she has his son in her power. The entire setup with the two slaves is genious. It’s evil. It stands on its own and can be placed in my campaign.
• Roger SG Sorolla, Devil's Acre: when I first read about it on the author’s blog I thought that it was an interesting take on the complex of sin, vigil, prayer, temptation, saint and devils, and all of that in a D&D context. My campaign hasn’t featured these topics, however, so I’m not sure how well it would work for me.
• S. J. Harris, The Baleful Spring: a small tower always comes in handy. This one has a tower with an evil master and a ship with a neutral captain. I like the framing story: two diplomats trying to secure a peace accord have gone missing. It’s nothing fancy with a functional map. It’s useful. It stands on its own and can be placed in my campaign.
• Simon Forster, Church of Consumption: a beatiful map; another cult trying to raise a demon. Unfortunately it’s very linear. Strangely enough it appears to be open on both ends with major treasure sitting right next to one of the two entrances. But… it’s so beautiful. And I love the imagery of the cultists eating their dead god, the meat grinder, the ghouls dreaming about eating the same dead god, one day… It’s gruesome. It stands on its own and can be placed in my campaign.

The One Page Dungeon Contest is just so damn useful it amazes me every year.

Tags: RPG1PDC

I just posted my nominations for the One Page Dungeon Contest 2013. I also liked the following entries.

• Erik-Karl Read, The Issue of Blipdoolpoolp: a small vertical dungeon, ocean, the tide and watery creatures.
• Heikki Hallamaa, The Diamond of Hishep-Ratep: a short tomb raiding adventure with grey aliens, a lovely combination.
• Josh Burnett, The Burial Mound of Gilliard Wolfclan: a short, simple and cute tomb raid with goblins. I liked the map and the elf leader.
• Jens Thuresson, The Giant's Dollhouse: a giant that petrifies and depetrifies people, go! I like the setup. I just wondered what to do about the rod in the end.
• Joe Pruitt, Echoes of Empire: I don’t think I can simply insert this into my campaign, but perhaps my campaign can use this sort of mini-game one day.
• LSF, A Stolen Spring: a beautiful map, a mage’s expedition gone wrong, a nice encounter to insert into your running adventure.

I saw Roger the GS’ recommendations the other day. What about your favorites?

Tags: RPG1PDC

Recently I left a comment on Philip Watson's thread on Google+ where he wondered whether players should know when their thief failed to hide. I said:

I let them roll in the open but will delay the roll until immediate consequences are at hand. Player says their character is hiding, no roll required. Orcs are coming. Now you roll—and if you fail, they spot you.

Consequences happen right after the result of the die roll is known. As a referee, I have have no “information advantage” and thus the question of unfairness doesn’t come up.

I was reminded of Courtney Campbell’s blog post On Skill Deconstruction: Why Roll for Resolution? He lists five reasons for rolling dice.

1. time constraints
2. in conflict with another entity
3. a serious consequence for failure
4. impossible to model at the table
5. (partial results can make the procedure more exciting)

I’m trying to have thieves succeed automatically whenever possible. I’m going to opt for dice rolling when the conditions listed above are true. If the dungeon has wandering monsters, each failed roll to open a door or unlock a chest means one check for wandering monsters. If there are no monsters, we don’t need to know how long the thief takes to unlock the chest. It will succeed eventually.

Tags: RPG

The party had just finished The Eternal Boundary and had found a treasure map that would lead them into The Gray Waste. I prepared a very linear adventure that you can see on the on the right. I decided that the map represented an incomplete list of dangers to be overcome:

• near the roots of Yggrasil sleeps the dragon Níðhöggr…
• in the woods the “children” of Hekate roam freely, the trolls of Niflheim (I’m claiming that Hel and Hekate are the same)
• there are big, flightless birds in the swamps with big hands instead of wings and they are called Diakka…
• there is a plain where nightmares ride, the mighty horses of black riders…
• the larval petitioners live in the sea of fog…
• the island of the black trees is the realm of a ghoul-witch

I also had a number of NPCs in mind:

• Njal, a priest and a drinker and a melancholy man who would act as a guide, if they wanted to pursue their connections with priestess Anja of the Freya temple
• Raud, another priest and a gloomy, apathetic victim of Hades, who can provide them with information about Hades and who’ll offer to lead them to Hopelessness and through its gate to Hades (but this is a false lead since this gate will lead to the upper layer called Oinos where the Blood War rages)
• Lissandra“gate-seeker” will contact them if they brag about the portal they know; she is described in Uncaged: Faces of Sigil; she can lead them to Alluvias Ruskin (in the same book) who will sell them “the holy axe with the wooden root-grip of wisdom” which will be required to travel to Niflheim via Yggdrasil

This was the first challenge: figure out whom to trust and discover through questions that Raud would lead them to the wrong layer on Hades since Oinos ≠ Niflheim. This was also the opportunity for them to learn about the apathy of Hades. One player expertly decided to spend 100gp on books with jokes, fart machines and other ludicrous things to drive away apathy and despair.

They don’t contact Njal but they do talk to Raud and end up going with Lissandra. They made such a good impression on her, in fact, that she decides to tell them about a merchant called Kherion Mallibrun (described in the section about Death of Innocence in the Planes of Conflic box). In return, he wants them to protect him from Hekate’s trolls.

This was the second challenge: take along a guide and avoid fighting rock pythons and giant squirrels on the branches of Yggdrasil.

The dragon is easy: the third challenge is simply to be quiet. The cleric is prepared and casts silence. No problem.

The woods and trolls present the fourth challenge: unbeknownst to the players, I had decided that the forest houses both wolves and trolls. Even though the party was silenced, the wolves had picked up their scent and the trolls were following the wolves. One player who plays a character that can fly decided to take a listen and fly overhead. He soon discovers the wolves and using the fillings of a little rocket full of itching powder they disable the wolves’ scent ability and the flying character distracts and enrages the trolls until they break off the chase.

In the village, they see that the merchant is selling colorful textiles and the fifth challenge is finding a guide to the island. They discover that there is a hunter of nightmares who will lead them in exchange for the funny articles one of the characters had bought. This part was all improvised but it worked well.

He warns them of the giant, flightless birds. Luckily they are slow. The party buys horses for the three characters in plate armor and can thus outrun the the sixth challenge, the Diakka birds.

I had thought that the nightmares would be the next challenge but at the table I suddenly felt strange using the nightmares as predators. As I had seen one of the players get really excited about the prospect of catching and taming a nightmare, I decided that the seventh challenge would be the temptation of catching a nightmare. The party would have to start a fight. And they didn’t…

The eight challenge had not been listed on the “treasure map”: flying yeth hounds. The party moved away from their baying (it’s effect only works within 100 ft.) and decided to avoid the dogs. It worked.

At the edge of the sea of fog, they left their guide who, when asked, said that all they had to do was ignore the larva. And they did. No talking, no eye contact, no listening. Again, the party used silence to bypass the ninth challenge. It worked.

Finally, they reached the witch, the tenth challenge. I decided to use witches from the Shark Den section of the Caverns of Slime, Vialashta and Kurmatesha, the four lesser witches, the tengu horn, and my own treasure I had rolled up. As you can see, I had prepared a different night hag in my notes (including a 65% magic resistance)… Oh well. There was a lot of talking, bluffing and haggling involved, a short discussion on the merits of both Odin and Hekate, but in the end, the orc witch has charmed the talking character and disappeared into the tent and the fight was on.

The party consisted of a cleric 5, a fighter 4, an elf 2, and some henchmen: two giant apes, a cleric 4, a fighter 2, and a magic-user 1.

The enemies:

• Vialashta, the one-eyed crow priestess of the orcs (HD 9; AC 8; Atk 1 orcish hammer (1d6); MV 9; curse at will, roll d6: 1. slowed, 2. blind, 3. stupid like an ox, 4. weak as a baby, 5. contract the plague, 6. crippling pain; save vs. spells to avoid)
• her four witches (HD 5; AC 8; Atk 1 cudgel (1d6); MV 9; curse 3×/day as above)
• Kurmatesha, the orc witch (HD 9; AC 9; Atk 1 staff (1d6); MV 9; spells as per her spellbook below); she has the horn of the mountain cedar which summons twelve tengu once per day: crow-headed, flying swordsmen (HD 5; AC 7; Atk 1 two handed glass swords (2d6); MV 9 fly); if attacked she will polymorph into a shadow wolf (HD 9; AC 7; Atk 1 bite (2d6); MV 12; howl of pain (anybody touching the ground within 60 ft. must save vs. petrification or be stunned for a round and save vs. death or suffer 1d6 damage from bleeding ears)
• the hanging tree (HD 15; AC 3; Atk 8 branches and roots (1d6 each); MV 0); the branches of the hanging tree are loaded with twitching corpses: twelve armless ghouls are hanging up there, unable to free themselves (HD 2; AC 9; Atk 1 bite (1d6); MV 12)

Kurmatesha is reduced to less than 10 hit-points in two rounds. She, in turn, blows the horn and summons the tengus, then polymorphs into a shadow wolf. The party then kills her and have a quick chat with the tengu. They want the horn (and their freedom), but one character is close enough to the horn to blow it again, at which point I decide that the tengu are all dispelled.

The second half of the battle is a running battle as the witches are standing under the hanging tree, cursing all that approach. With a desperate rush, a character delivers the arrow that has silence cast on it to the witches. The witches start releasing ghouls but they are being turned as fast as they are being released. Finally, when the crow witch Vialashta is finally held using magic, the remaining lesser witches flee into the sea of fog.

The witch tells them that the hanging tree is guarding the treasure and since they stocked up on oil and hadn’t used any of it, I decided that burning a 15 HD tree required 15 flasks of oil—and having bought 20 flasks of oil without having to use them against the trolls, that was no problem at all…

• 20’000 gold pieces
• 10 gems worth 1980 gold pieces (1000, 10, 50, 10, 10, 500, 100, 100, 50, 100)
• two pieces of jewelry (“the crown and sceptre of the Ulfides”)
• a halfling chain +1 and a small shield +1 (“the magic armor of a halfling hero with the heraldry of the Oxwrestler clan”)
• the horn of the mountain cedar (I already fear that this item might be too powerful!)

Tags: RPGOld SchoolCaverns of Slime

We’ve been tallying the nominations, looking at our favorites and comparing notes. It looks like we’re going to have 17 winners this year. This looks about right, compared to previous years. In 2009 there were a lot of honorable mentions and runner-ups but only three winners. I personally like to spread prizes around and celebrate the sheer variety of submissions we get every year. It’s a win for everyone.

I hope we’ll be able to finalize the list soon enough!

What will happen next:

1. assemble a PDF with the winners
2. publish the list of winners and link to the PDF
3. celebrate!
4. notify winners by email and ask them to create a wish-list based on the prizes donated by our sponsors
5. try and maximize happiness using another spreadsheet
6. notify sponsors and winners and have sponsors send their prizes directly to the winners (except for the cash prize; I’ll handle that one since the sponsor wants to remain anonymous)
7. celebrate again!

Hopefully my work is done before June 8, because that’s when I’ll leave for a two week vacation to Sardinia. Yay!

Tags: RPG1PDC

We have the winners of the One Page Dungeon Contest 2013. Download the PDF!

Tags: RPG1PDC

A few days ago Jeff Rients wrote How many commandments have you broken? which lists TSR’s Code of Ethics. At the time I said The TSR code is definitely not cool. When asked to elaborate, I said (edited):

Things that are not cool are:

• language like “peak entertainment value”
• “All product shall focus on the struggle of good versus injustice and evil” eliminates interesting moral dilemmas and gray areas
• “shall not present explicit details and methods of crime, weapon construction, drug use, magic, science, or technologies that could be reasonably duplicated” eliminates an aspect of adult entertainment. What is a garrote and how does it work? How does a guillotine work? No smoking of weed, no injection of drugs? Personally, I feel that much of this is relevant to people growing up and learning how to make their own decisions
• “Agents of law enforcement” cannot be corrupt, cannot be part of a tyranny? How to explore the Nazi terror and fascism? They cannot all be “an exception and the culprit should ultimately be brought to justice.”

And so on. Every single point in that ethical code makes the world a bit safer, cushions us from the choices we need to make in real life. Yes, some of this may not be appropriate for all ages. It may have made sense for TSR to have such a policy. Nevertheless, I personally think that this will result in products that I think are not and will never be cool. Cool as in rebellious, exciting, risqué, exploring what it means to be human.

Zak writes about it as well: Thanks For The List, TSR

Tags: RPG

Youseph Tanha asked on Google+ how people identified magic items.

I said:

In my games, I don’t think unknowns add to the enjoyment of the game. After all, nobody knows about them. That’s why I only keep information from my players if one of the following is true:

• it’s random and they don’t know the table I’m rolling on
• I made a mistake and don’t want them to have easy access to the magic item just now
• the magic item is part of foreshadowing and therefore I’m going to dole out info bit by bit
• the magic item will serve as one or more plot hooks as information needs to be gained via quests

In all cases, the How of the identification doesn’t matter and therefore I will just allow any character to discover it by examination in thematically appropriate ways (swinging it, aiming it, studying it, handling it, …).

Example magic item of the “random effect” variety: the wand of the chimera consists of a number of intertwined branches with detailed animal heads at the end: a wolf, a goat, a dragon.

1. hell hound, HD 1–6, AC 4, breathe fire with 1d6 per HD, bite 1d6, MV 12, SV 17-HD (16–11)
2. giant bat, HD 2, AC 7, bite 1d4, MV 3/18 (fly), SV 15, echolocation sees invisible and in the dark
3. lion, HD 5, AC 6, 2 claws 1d4, bite 1d8, MV 12, SV 12
4. giant eagle, HD 4, AC 7, 2 claws 1d4, bite 1d8, MV 3/24 (fly), can carry a human
5. giant goat, HD 3, AC 7, horns (2d6), MV 18, SV 14, +4 to damage when charging
6. dragon, breath damage = current hit points, MV 9/24 (fly)

The hit points of the wand user remain unchanged! The HD are only used to determine the attack of the new form.

This is based on Labyrinth Lord; licensed under the OGL.

Section 15

Chimera Wand, Copyright 2012, Alex Schroeder

Tags: RPGOld School

When I wrote my Old School Hex Map Tutorial, I noticed the Gnomeyland Map Icons and the Making Hex Maps With Inkscape tutorial by Gregory B. MacKenzie.

After a futile attempt to write a tool that would extract those icons automatically and make them usable for Text Mapper, I did the work by hand. Look at the example below… Beautiful! And since this is SVG, you can quickly generate your first map and later you can keep working on it using Inkscape.

To regenerate the map above, visit Text Mapper and use the following “map”:

include http://alexschroeder.ch/contrib/gnomeyland-example.txt

This loads the Gnomeyland example map which uses the Gnomeyland library.

The Gnomeyland example map uses the tiles from the library. Here’s what you would need to generate just the lower part of the map:

include http://alexschroeder.ch/contrib/gnomeyland.txt
0005-0806 trail
0105 dark-green fir-forest "to the caves"
0106 dark-green fir-forest
0205 green fir-forest
0206 green fir-forest
0305 green firs
0306 soil keep "The Keep"
0405 light-soil
0406 light-soil
0505 light-grey mountains
0506 light-green forest-hill
0605 grey grass
0606 grey marsh
0706 dark-grey swamp
0806 dark-grey castle "Dolorous Garde"

Just paste it into Text Mapper.

Tags: RPGMapsSVGText Mapper

I wanted to test the recently added Gnomeyland icons for Text Mapper and looked at the following map:

This is the text description I came up with:

include http://alexschroeder.ch/contrib/gnomeyland.txt
0101 water
0102 water
0103 water
0104 water
0105 water
0106 water
0201 water
0202 dark-grey marsh
0203 dark-grey marsh
0204 water
0205 water
0206 water
0301 water
cave xml <line x1="30" y1="45" x2="130" y2="45" stroke="#6ebae7" stroke-width="20" stroke-linecap="round"/><path d="M 30,45 c 0,-20 -20,-20 -20,0 c 2,0 3,0 20,0 z" stroke="black" stroke-width="2"/>
0303 dark-grey tower cave "Portal"
0304 grey grass
0305 grey mountain
0306 water
0401 water
0402 grey trees
0403 water
0404 water
0405 water
0406 water
0501 water
0502 light-green tree "Silberbäume"
0503 soil
0504 water
0505 dark-grey forest-hill
0506 water
0601 water
0602 green forest
0603 green forest "Faule Wald"
0604 green forest
0605 dark-grey trees
0606 water
0701 water
0702 water
0703 dark-grey forest-mountains "Einhorn"
0704 dark-grey forest-mountains
0705 water
0706 water
0801 water
0802 water
0803 water
0804 water
0805 water
0806 water
lake xml <circle cx="45" cy="75" r="30" fill="#6ebae7" stroke="black" stroke-width="3"/>
0302 dark-grey forest  lake "See"

Note some tricks:

1. the “cave” is defined right then and there, not in a library, and it includes a little water connection to the central bay
2. hex 0302 with the lake comes at the end such that the neighboring hexes don’t overwrite the overflow

Result:

I could work on this some more, or I could just take it, import it into Inkscape, and keep working on it.

The big question is: how much easier is it to work with a text description of a map compared to fiddling with Inkscape directly? As I create new maps, I’m no longer sure this map generator is all that useful, to be honest.

Tags: RPGSVGMapsText Mapper

A few years ago I was working on Traveller Subsector Mapper. As I was thinking about the new Text Mapper, I wondered how feasible it would be to generate a Traveller subsector using Text Mapper. I know, it’s a stupid waste of time because I already have the Traveller Subsector Mapper. But I couldn’t resist the lure of showing off how flexible Text Mapper could be. And it works!

Subsector created using Traveller Subsector Mapper:

Subsector created using Text Mapper:

In order to reproduce it, use the following input:

include http://alexschroeder.ch/contrib/traveller-example.txt

The example file traveller-example.txt uses the library traveller.txt defining everything it requires.

Tags: RPGMapsSVGText Mapper

Last time I talked about the way I use The Red Hand of Doom in my game. Basically, I use it for interesting encounters and as plot inspiration. The last time I also worried about treasure a lot and decided to hand out treasure “as written” and changed some magic items as appropriate. This time I went the other route. As treasure is important for experience points in classic D&D, and since there is a dragon to fight at the end of every chapter, I decided to simply go with what the Labyrinth Lord manual says when it comes to treasure. I also decided not to fiddle with the dragon stats themselves. I think this worked very well.

The big encounter I had prepared was the battle at Skull Gorge Bridge:

• Ozyrrandias, green dragon, HD 8, AC 1, 1d6/1d6/3d8 or 50% for breath attack 3×/day (damage = current hp), F8, MV 24/9, ML 9
• 2 hell hounds, HD 3, AC 4, 1d6 or 30% for breath attack (3d6), F3, MV 12, ML 9
• 1 hobgoblin sergeant, HD 3+1, AC 6, 1d8, F3, MV 9, ML 9
• 8 hobgoblins, HD 1+1, AC 6, 1d8, F1, MV 9, ML 8

When the party saw the dragon flying overhead, they decided to avoid the bridge and check out the Cinder Hills. Oh no, my precious encounter!

Ozyrrandias’ hoard remains untouched:

• 51 gems
• 70 jewelry
• a dwarven war hammer +1
• a treasure map to a chest of gold (20000 gp)
• the elven princeling sword +1 named Alkurbatan with a bound jinn that will grant two wishes (a wish blade)
• the elven princess sword +1 named Algabrea which also grants a +1 to all saves and also comes with a bound jinn that will grant two wishes (a luck blade)

Those where some damn lucky rolls!

Anyway, the party discovered the big camp and decided to ambush a patrol in the forest in order to gather some intelligence.

Based on some of the encounters in the book I decided that there where three “standard” encounters—all of them without treasure—and I asked the players which sort of patrol they wanted to ambush.

Scouts:

• 3 goblins, HD 1-1, AC 6, 1d6, NM, MV 6, ML 7
• 3 dire wolves (“worgs”), HD 4+1, AC 6, 2d4, F2, MV 15, ML 8
• 1 hell hound, HD 3, AC 4, 1d6 or 30% for breath attack (3d6), F3, MV 12, ML 9

Light patrol:

• 1 hobgoblin bladebearer, HD 4+4, AC 6, 1D8, F4, MV 9, ML 10
• 8 hobgoblins, HD 1+1, AC 6, 1d8, F1, MV 9, ML 8
• 1 hell hound, HD 3, AC 4, 1d6 or 30% for breath attack (3d6), F3, MV 12, ML 9

Heavy patrol with vanguard:

• vanguard: 6 hobgoblins, HD 1+1, AC 6, 1d8, F1, MV 9, ML 8
• 1 hobgoblin cleric, HD 4+4, AC 6, 1D8, F4, MV 9, ML 10 with invisibility, cure light wounds, hold person, a scroll of summon hell hound and 2× potion of healing
• 1 hobgoblin bladebearer, HD 4+4, AC 6, 1D8, F4, MV 9, ML 10
• 6 hobgoblins, HD 1+1, AC 6, 1d8, F1, MV 9, ML 8
• 2 hell hounds, HD 3, AC 4, 1d6 or 30% for breath attack (3d6), F3, MV 12, ML 9

You’ll note that I decided to move away from monsters wielding weapons all doing 1d6 damage. Hobgoblins deal 1d8 damage because they’re monsters. Different rules apply.

The party decides to attack the heavy patrol and manages to finish the main body before the vanguard returns and thus smashes them easily, taking a prisoner who then tells them all about the map they found in Koth’s keep.

The party then decides to follow Saarvith into the city of Rhest. One of the players wants to convince the black dragon Regiax to join their cause. (Me thinking: “WTF!?”)

Since I haven’t prepared anything for the city of Rhest, I will need to think fast. So… A green razorfiend? A sort of doped lizard superman? Hm… Also, they want to talk to the guy and the reaction roll comes up “uncertain”. Ok, they know the names of Saarvith and Regiax, they know about the Red Hand, so the green dude decides to take them to Saarvith. I also need to come up with a suitable name… Uh… Garslix!

Saarvith is a goblin ranger… A fighter, I guess? Using the D&D 3.5 challenge rating as am indicator for the hit dice to use… It turns out that doing these on-the-fly adaptations is easy to do!

• Garslix, green razorfiend, HD 6, AC 4, 1d4/1d4/1d6, F6, MV 12, ML 8
• Saarvith, goblin ranger, HD 7, AC 5, 1d6, F7, MV 6, ML 9
• Regiax, black dragon, HD 7, AC 2, 1d4+1/1d4+1/2d10, F7, MV 24/9, ML 8

Anyway, one player wants to trick Regiax and presents him with the dragon skull they found at the keep. Saarvith wants to trick the player and tells him to cross over in a small boat and present it in person. The player hesitates and the others tell him: “it’s a trap!” Saarvith promptly looses his patience and orders the attack. The players win initiative and shoot Saarvith. He dies before being able to do anything. The dragon dives into the water. The razorfiend does not loose morale. Fight!

The party wins and takes Garslix prisoner. I really like the maneuver house rule: you can always propose a maneuver when you hit somebody. Opponents can either accept the consequences of the maneuver or elect to take the damage. That means that once you reduce people to near zero hit-points, they’ll gladly accept whatever you want to do to them.

What about the treasure? It’s in Saarvith’s cabin, surrounded by water, with six ogers and an ettin inside.

• 6 ogers, HD 4+1, AC 5, 1d10, F4, MV 9, ML 10
• 1 ettin, HD 10, AC 3, 2d8/3d6, F10, MV 12, ML 9

A players once again decide to parlay. His character’s charisma bonus is +2. The dice come up with two sixes. That’s super awesome helpful. They basically agree to hand over the dragon hoard, accept the players as their new boss, accept 3000 gold to go and hire a total of 30 ogres in the Giantshield Mountains and meet the party at Witchcross in 16 days to fight the Red Hand of Doom. I like reaction rolls.

The black dragon hoard is rolled up at the table, by the players. They love doing this. Unfortunately, that also means I didn’t write it down. They did. They really love rolling up treasure.

• total gold value of the electrum pieces and the 70 gems: 43’100 gp
• a ring of invisibility
• an elven sword +1
• a treasure map to a wand of trap detecting that doesn’t interest them much

What a find!

I based the goblin treasure on the D&D 3.5 write-up but kept it stingy:

• a goblin bow +1
• 10 arrows of elf bane

I hadn’t figured out what those elf bane arrows would do, but it didn’t matter: the party elected to destroy them all. Works for me!

The ogres and the ettin get to keep their treasure, of course. There was no need to roll it up.

Tags: RPGOld SchoolRedHandOfDoom

I recently switched to the Moldvay Basic D&D price list. You can find a copy at the end of this blog post. The most obvious change is the price reduction for plate mail (also mentioned by Telecanter): leather is 20gp, chain is 40gp, plate is 60gp. The effect on my game? I think the main result is that player characters don’t wear chain unless they cannot afford it for the first session. I think that later, when people will equip armies, chain may make a come back. That’s why I think that chain remains the armor of choice for guards because there are so many of them.

What do you think?

Comment here or on Google+.

Tags: RPGOld School

Rolling for initiative… What is it for?

Let’s start with simple group initiative: each side rolls a d6 and the higher one goes first. It’s what I use, and I think it provides almost all the benefits the other systems provide. The basic rule is: everybody gets to act once per round. It seems to me that the worst case that can happen is that you get attacked twice in a row. But even that cannot happen again unless you get to attack twice in a row in turn. AB/BA/AB/BA, after all. Getting attacked twice in a row is an interesting feature that adds uncertainty to the fight.

Individual initiative without modifiers: each character rolls a d6 and the higher one goes first. Essentially this boils down to “Roll roll once for the enemies. Announce the number. Any player character who beats this number can go, in any order. Then the enemies go. Then the remaining player characters go, in any order.” Whether “in any order” is in fact faster than “in initiative order” depends on whether you allow delaying (which slows down “in initiative order”) and whether your players are often unsure of what to do, which I find is best handled by delaying. With slow players, “in any order” is best.

From the point of view of an individual character, however, the situation is just as it was with group initiative. You can get attacked twice in a row, but only once. AB/BA/AB/BA, remember? Thus, it seems to me that individual initiative without modifiers makes things more complicated at the table by adding randomness but without changing much.

What’s the effect of a higher initiative bonus? Let’s compare A with 1d6+1 vs. B with 1d6: how much more likely is A to win initiative? Reroll ties. All we need to do is count:

    1  2  3  4  5  6
 2  A  -  B  B  B  B
 3  A  A  -  B  B  B
 4  A  A  A  -  B  B
 5  A  A  A  A  -  B
 6  A  A  A  A  A  -
 7  A  A  A  A  A  A

A 21 : B 10 or roughly 68% of the time. What does this mean? Here’s how I think about it: It makes no difference whatsoever until one of them is going to suffer consequences. In D&D, that would be the last round.

• If either A or B can die, A has a 68% of going first, and thus has a higher chance of winning.
• If only one of the two can die, then there’s simply a 68% chance of landing or avoiding the last blow.

In short: player characters benefit from a bonus to initiative in the very last round only. That seems to be a very minor benefit when compared with the increased complexity at the table.

In mid-level D&D 3.5, a high initiative for casters was often essential because they had the power to turn the first round into the last round of combat. In classic low level D&D, this isn’t as important. In my games, there seem to be less casters of offensive spells, and casters have less spells per day, and there are more fights per day. It all makes individual initiative modifiers less useful.

But what about fun? Isn’t rolling individual initiative more exciting? I don’t know. Certainly everybody is more busy rolling their die and remembering their result. When group initiative is rolled, all the players are watching one single die and there is groaning or cheering at the table. I don’t think one of the methods can be said to be “more fun” in general. Personally, I enjoy the collective groaning and cheering of group initiative.

If you’re DM Florian, don’t worry: I don’t mind playing with individual initiative. Other DMs provide inspiration for blog posts!

Tags: RPGOld School