tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57006046519401604672024-03-06T00:58:27.042-05:00Searching for MagicAfter years as a professional photographer, entrepreneur, business coach, teacher, and more, what I want out of RPGs changed a lot over the years. Spending my days working in Social Services, I'm still Searching for Magic.
Currently an exploration of tabletop roleplaying games and other creative play with a focus on rules-light RPGs.David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-59063846072305481632020-06-05T20:24:00.001-04:002020-06-12T23:23:57.904-04:00Forbidden Lands - Session Report<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQZA7pIKnfN8lYfpJ0O0R2w2NWjzvvQzMFPNtL25J1LxNYQqdi7rn_0gv8gZc-rf7Am0hdB_2dbS19hXTOoFgFMthxQpSaMVNm_kCVYb2CuJ4G38Cz0DwQKLbOw4vALQe023SfDKO4x_8R/s1600/BR+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="692" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQZA7pIKnfN8lYfpJ0O0R2w2NWjzvvQzMFPNtL25J1LxNYQqdi7rn_0gv8gZc-rf7Am0hdB_2dbS19hXTOoFgFMthxQpSaMVNm_kCVYb2CuJ4G38Cz0DwQKLbOw4vALQe023SfDKO4x_8R/s640/BR+1.jpg" width="460" /></a></div>
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I have the tremendous luck to be playing in a Forbidden Lands campaign in the new Bitter Reach campaign setting. Forbidden Lands is the fantasy RPG put out by Free League using their Year Zero Engine rules. I played a one-shot in the main adventuring area called the Raven Lands before moving on to play in a long term campaign in the newly released Bitter Reach, a frozen wasteland north of the Raven Lands.<br />
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At first I wasn't too keen on playing a setting covered by a glacier. I live in Northern Ontario, and I did more than my fair share of winter camping so I don't find the idea of trekking across windswept snows to be romantic. I mostly think of long marches in snow shoes carrying too much gear and getting frostbite. Everyone else was excited so I decided to give it a whirl, even after they all made fun of me for having driven a dogsled team once. It would appear I am a Canadian stereotype. </div>
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It turns out that the game also has no romance for hiking through the cold. The weather is a unpredictable foe, and travel is dangerous! It became another challenge of exploration that I found myself enjoying. </div>
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This post is a session report, rather than a review, so I'll get to that. This report is from this week's game. Looking back, it blows my mind how much happens in a two hour session! The group I am playing with is a tonne of fun! The report itself is written from the point of view of my character. Ellodi is a student of winter elf lore who, until recently, lived on the coast of the Bitter Reach and made a living appraising winter elf artifacts to finance her magical studies. This report comes in media res, several sessions in.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Yeah, it's a lot like that.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-8e4b29c7-7fff-3a94-5ca1-96612b796a99"><i><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First foray onto the glacier, Day 11</span></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We drove our dogs hard across the glacier top, travelling straight southwest from the tower, and leaving Kastor's Edge far behind us. Avalanches, storms and snowblindness slowed our progress and we were forced to make camp before turning south.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The weather broke the next day and we made excellent time to the place we believed was the source of the strange lights in the sky.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The glacier parted before us to form a valley between the glistening cliffs of broken ice, and expose the ruins of an ancient winter elf city.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We proceeded with caution since tracks and campfires indicated we were somewhat late to the party as treasure hunters had beat us to this important find. After scouting out the closer buildings, we decided to explore the unoccupied remains of a sorcerer's tower as a place of interest and potential camp.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The contents of the tower had suffered great damage from the crushing weight of the ice and the recent melt. Only one scroll was recovered after careful work. We were able to find a few artifacts and some excellent examples of the furniture from the period. The tower doors were in excellent condition and with a little work were repaired and secured to protect us from the potential mischief of the treasure hunters who are no doubt raiding this precious archaeological site as I write this report.</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Karina volunteered to remain in the tower and prepare our camp </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(mostly because her player didn't make this session)<i> </i></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">while we made haste to explore the other buildings we had spotted from the upper level of the tower.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We approached an important looking structure that was largely intact due to its extra thick walls. I was hoping for a library of some sort but once inside we found a structure that looked like a vault and in front of it a person that welcomed us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This person was impossibly beautiful and charismatic. They quickly charmed the party. Lucy, the minstrel, was particularly smitten. Djhara also made advances of a romantic nature toward the person but I am uncertain if they understood since the mating rituals of the wolfkin are something of an acquired taste.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The creature claimed to be only interested in one of the many artifacts their research indicated was in the vault. They were happy to allow us to recover all the other artifacts as long as they received the medallion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Opening the lock turned out to be child's play when comparing the stellar components to the sketch Selatula had made of the ancient star patterns in the tower we had previously explored. </i>(The lock was actually pretty difficult and would have been impossible without that star chart. Even then, Ellodi strained to do it, and had to push a lore roll to get the job done)</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once inside the vault we found many scrolls that appeared to be documents indicating ownership. These would certainly be helpful in constructing a translation key for the winter elf language. There was also two medallions similar to the description the creature gave us. Upon closer inspection we noticed that the two medallions had the star patterns of two different areas of the ancient night sky.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We also noticed the creature could not touch the medallion. They deflected all questions about their refusal to touch either medallion. Our suspicions were aroused, but it was being cooperative and I had already marked the star-field on our sketch so it seemed harmless to let it take the artifact as agreed and potentially dangerous to go back on our agreement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Lucy deposited the medallion into a pouch for the charming creature I asked a question about the night sky on their medallion. The creature's charm fell before a rage that transformed it into a monstrous entity with tentacles and yellow eyes that rivaled our torches with their preternatural glow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The demon grabbed Lucy's wrist and I felt the magic flow into her, before seeing it paralyze her mid scream. At the same time the creature roared its defiance and wrath, breaking Djhara's spirit with the horrors it held and we watched in abject terror as the great warrior, Djhara Bloodspit, folded up into a ball on the floor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sela reached for the second medallion, hoping to wrap it around the demon's neck. I was quicker and spoke the words to weave a spell drawing on the primal power of the fires burning in our torches to make the creature's fine clothing to burst into purifying flame. Not knowing if it might be immune to such an attack I marshaled my energy carefully, using only a portion of it. That power, increased by my frailer heritage, made the demon the centre of a pillar of terrible flame.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To the surprise of all of us, fire was the weakness of the creature and it succumbed instantly to the attack, turning to a pile of ash in a heap of burned clothing. Sela's outstretched hand dropped back to her side as her mouth fell open at the devastation of the scene. I too was taken by surprise and exclaimed, "That's not supposed to happen!"</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We recovered the demon's medallion and gathered the rest of the artifacts before returning back to the tower to care for the afflictions wreaked on us by the foul creature. Lucy recovered, and in turn was able to use the power of her music to bring Djhara out of her waking nightmare.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Would that the evening had passed uneventfully, but Sela's sharp ears picked up a call for help out on the glacier. Djhara, Sela and myself went out to a crevice in the ice to effect a rescue of a wayward traveller who is even now curled up by our fire in my spare furs. She says she only wants to return to civilization after losing the rest of her party, but my companions are suspicious after the episode with the demon. Time will tell, I suppose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ellodi</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">It's such a stroke of luck the campaign area fits neatly in a rectangle like this!</span></td></tr>
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David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-54951670072753255462020-04-29T00:01:00.001-04:002020-05-02T15:46:30.178-04:00Old RPG Words That Make No SenseProgress in RPG design and play is held back by the words we use that don't make any sense.<br />
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Hit Points.<br />
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So many RPGs have some version of "hit points" whether it's called hits, hit points, health, vitality, or whatever, it is expressed as a representation of how much damage a character can take. Video games have copied this idea for years, and you see your little digital bonhomme getting wailed on while a bar or a number of hit points gets smaller. Why not? It's there in the name, right? Hit points, those are points you use up getting hit, right?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Someone is hoping the undead giant is almost out of hit points</td></tr>
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Except it's not right. Not really. Hit points have almost always been an abstraction expressing something else entirely. I've talked about the <a href="https://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-problem-with-damage-in-rpgs.html" target="_blank">problem of damage before</a>, but in terms of Dungeons & Dragons and many games using hit points, there is no damage until the hit points are gone. Hit points represent the ability of a character to postpone the inevitable through skill, experience, luck, or script immunity. They represent an ability for a hero to keep fighting when everyone else would be done. They are more a measure of endurance than damage capacity.<br />
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This idea is further confused by the old-school rates of healing where characters only got one hit point back per day of resting. Something ridiculous when characters can easily get to a place where they have 20 or 30 hit points. If they are healing, then they must have been hurt, right? Except that is not how it works. A character is just as effective at one hit point as they are at full hit points. Because they are not hurt unless they are at zero! In the old days if your character went below zero they were dead! Not just wounded, but killed. Luck finally caught up with them and took her due. It wasn't long before rules developed for going into negatives where a risk was involved, but not immediate death.<br />
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Fast forward to the last few years. Two different innovations double down on the idea of hit points as an abstract that expresses endurance. The first is the death and dismemberment tables that came out of the Old School Renaissance (OSR) Blogs. The idea was if your character went below zero hit points they had been wounded and could be badly hurt or even dead. Rolling on the tables got you a result that your character had to live with. Maybe they lost a limb, or an eye, and it had ongoing mechanical effect on the character. After a while they could look pretty rough. Eventually a character could even be forced into retirement by accumulating too many, "old war wounds." I'm a big fan of the death and dismemberment tables. Partially because they reinforce the concept of how things work, but also because they add a real element of risk to fighting to your last. Players with characters who can be brought around in a moment to fighting condition with no consequence are not going to have any good reason to surrender, if there is no consequence to negative hit points. The idea that the table might give them a reason to play as if getting wounded is something to be afraid of encourages more realistic role playing.<br />
<br />
<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://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e1eDy-ha7nw/Xqj2CLVAKjI/AAAAAAAAHok/zaV_HslRY3wuhjg-JZ9bi0Q54wJiDeJnwCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/aleena.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="371" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e1eDy-ha7nw/Xqj2CLVAKjI/AAAAAAAAHok/zaV_HslRY3wuhjg-JZ9bi0Q54wJiDeJnwCNcBGAsYHQ/s400/aleena.jpg" width="307" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oops! You interrupted her short rest.<br />
What's the worst that could happen?</td></tr>
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<br />
The other innovation is the idea of short and long rests. I think the first game I saw this idea in was Barbarians of Lemuria, where a few hit points could be recovered by taking a breather and a quick drink and full recovery required night's rest. This same approach made it into a few different small press games, and the latest edition (the so-called 5th edition) of D&D. By explicitly recovering hit points through short and long rests the D&D, and any other RPG, rules are making hit points endurance. There is nothing wrong with this approach. I like it. It's cinematic and makes for high-speed pulp-fiction action! That's all great! It allows players to accomplish more by giving them more significant choices about how they use the two resources they have, time and hit points.<br />
<br />
The problem is the thing is still called, "hit points," and we generate them by rolling, "hit dice," when these two things are expressions of endurance. It doesn't really matter where the name hit point came from. It may be a hold-over from the war games the designers of the early versions of D&D were playing and using to inform their first RPGs. Maybe someone thought it sounded cool. The fact is, it doesn't fit and is actually misleading. All the grognards and legacy players are already composing their comments about how wrong I am and how the word doesn't matter because obviously we all know what it means.<br />
<br />
Except we don't. Many players think the fast recovery of hit points through rest is unrealistic because you can't walk of a sword thrust to the abdomen. If we expressed it as endurance and described combat with point loss as close calls, bangs, jams, bruises, and numbness in the limbs it would be easier to get more people all in on the concept. The other problem is new players. RPGs have exploded, in no small part to the efforts of Wizards of the Coast to make D&D accessible and easy to grasp. Words like hit points get in the way of that because they suggest the character is getting hit when they lose hit points. Why set them up to fail? Why not call it what it is? Because of tradition? Meh, there are more new players now than ever before. Because someone can tell them? People are learning to play from the books and watching actual play on you tube. Terms matter in both of these cases because that is how the new players will interpret what is happening in the game. I'm not the first to come to this conclusion. The <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/280898/Neoclassical-Geek-Revival-Luka-Rejec-Edition" target="_blank">Neo-Classical Geek Revival</a> <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/270180/Neoclassical-Geek-Revival-Alex-Mayo-Edition" target="_blank">(NGR) fantasy RPG</a> has used the term "Luck" for these points for years.<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://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VmuGkGlc8wA/Xqj2-snr_fI/AAAAAAAAHow/HUQSR6wAqT0M8j9PLG_oTqDWwHFFIRSfACNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/jealing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="512" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VmuGkGlc8wA/Xqj2-snr_fI/AAAAAAAAHow/HUQSR6wAqT0M8j9PLG_oTqDWwHFFIRSfACNcBGAsYHQ/s400/jealing.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Someone is rolling on the death and dismemberment table!</td></tr>
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<br />
The waters are muddied further by the idea of weapon damage. When D&D was first created, almost everything on two legs had single digit hit points. Humans were all assumed to be zero level with, at most, three hit points. That means that first hit was probably taking them down. A dagger could do it, but a two-handed sword had a better chance of ending a generic cultist or town guard in one shot. Fighting fantastic monsters the assumption was they were magical or huge beasts that could actually be hit more than once with little effect. Calling it hit points under those circumstances could have made sense to the people running and playing those first games. It might even still make sense to call the ability of a dragon to keep fighting hit points now. I'll concede that point. Still, for the sake of having a consistent expression it is better to have magical creatures with endurance than characters with hit points for the reasons I outlined above.<br />
<br />
So if a weapon doesn't do damage to a character, what does it do? The way I run it at my table is attacks remove hit points. no one takes damage until they go down. Monsters snarl in pain at flesh wounds, enemy shields buckle under the assault, or they are beaten back as they lose their hit points. I've run it like that for a couple of years now. For example, "Your shield arm is still vibrating from the blow and you lose (rattle-rattle) four hit points." It seems cleaner to move this to something like, "Sparks fly as the bugbear's axe crashes against your sword and you stumble back a step. You lose (rattle-rattle) 7 endurance."<br />
<br />
It's visceral, it keeps everyone in the fiction, and it shows the player what they still have in the tank to finish the fight. Then they choose how far to take it. Can they push through and find a place to hole up for long enough to get their wind back? Has the alarm gone up and they are facing a running fight until they can win or get out? Endurance is no less exciting, or dangerous with the addition of a death and dismemberment table. It's also still all close enough that <a href="https://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.com/2015/10/starting-my-new-5e-d-campaign.html" target="_blank">converting old modules and third party adventures</a> on the fly should be no problem for a referee/game master.<br />
<br />
I run a hugely modified version of the <a href="https://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.com/2016/10/review-black-hack.html" target="_blank">original Black Hack rules</a>. I call the threat to endurance, "attack dice," and it seems to work well. The attack die represents the combat ability of a given character or monster when they attack. It's logical, accurate, and it works well in play. I like to run for new people and experienced players alike. Everyone seems to like it so far.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nRcvoHC3o2E/Xqj3vREUxkI/AAAAAAAAHo8/nuCr786hW5g64RMw6gFQIIelN5rORKWNQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/god%2Bof%2Bwat%2Bcropped.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="543" height="336" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nRcvoHC3o2E/Xqj3vREUxkI/AAAAAAAAHo8/nuCr786hW5g64RMw6gFQIIelN5rORKWNQCNcBGAsYHQ/s400/god%2Bof%2Bwat%2Bcropped.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Belkar Bitterleaf, of the <a href="https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.html" target="_blank">Order of the Stick</a></td></tr>
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<br />
These old words, hit points, have the baggage of old assumptions based on their wargaming routes and new assumptions based on what the words mean. For ease of adoption of current gamers, the words are used. They are a short hand that no one will question. Because no one questions the short hard, the baggage follows us to new games that arguably, would be better off without them. There are a host of D&D clones and D&D-ish games out there thanks to the <a href="https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/systems-reference-document-srd" target="_blank">Open Gaming License</a>. These new and different games all put some kind of a spin on the tabletop RPG experience. The publishers of D&D might fear losing their current base by changing too much, but small press publishers have more freedom to break new ground. That's why most of the best innovations in game mechanics, campaign settings and game art come from the small press publishers.<br />
<br />
If we take advantage of this freedom, and we dump hit points, hit dice, and damage, what is next? What other words make no sense? Levels, maybe? There are character class levels, spell levels, dungeon levels... How many different things do we need to describe with the same word?<br />
<br />
Character level seems sacrosanct. The concept of leveling up is ingrained in western culture thanks to video games borrowing their framework from D&D. If characters get levels, then everything else needs to find a better word.<br />
<br />
Dungeons could be described in terms of floors: Floor one, two, etc. That makes sense and translates well enough to real experience. I don't go to an office on the fifth level of the building, I go to the fifth floor. This seems easy enough to change and will not make it more confusing, at least.<br />
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When we talk about spells, we are talking about power. Each level a magic wielding character ascends gives them access to more spell casting power. If spells were described in terms of power, it would make more sense for a level five wizard to finally gain access to power three spells like fireball! Power one, power two... or is it first power spells, second power spells, etc? Regardless, power is a suitable replacement.<br />
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As designers and runners of games, many of us do our best to trim the fat of game mechanics so our games run fast and smooth. We should be doing the same with the terminology. If we don't we are leaving a barrier in place for no reason other than that's the way it has always been done without asking if it's the best way to do it.<br />
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I'll be trying these out in in my home game and any D&D type games I run online this summer. I'll see how it works out. If you try it, let me know how it works for you. Does it change anything?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOweLG7ukdoM-naLoGaWAQ0mbLeAi2y63roEZ6eSypGGfWJ_aHKCxHS7phJl8AyL8iNKixUQitFx-wStsnzPk1c1dlJMjilZ_n5-K4rhafxc3KArbMn8MO2pS3czV_Ur0eultMAyFGMwpk/s1600/Arrows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="725" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOweLG7ukdoM-naLoGaWAQ0mbLeAi2y63roEZ6eSypGGfWJ_aHKCxHS7phJl8AyL8iNKixUQitFx-wStsnzPk1c1dlJMjilZ_n5-K4rhafxc3KArbMn8MO2pS3czV_Ur0eultMAyFGMwpk/s400/Arrows.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What?<br />
I have the Warrior Princess Prestige Class so these arrows used up temporary hit points.<br />
I'm still at full HP!</td></tr>
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<br />David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-12505654484267650452018-08-16T01:50:00.002-04:002019-01-28T11:42:03.205-05:00Review: TroikaI received a PDF of the "<a href="https://www.rpgnow.com/product/199604/Troika--Free-Artless-Edition" target="_blank">Troika! RPG</a>" in one of the charity bundles I supported. Sadly, I don't even know which one. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time but the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/846377662/troika-rpg-numinous-edition/" target="_blank">kickstarter</a> has a bunch of people talking about the game in glowing terms again so I decided to see what the fuss was all about. Overall I was impressed and wished I'd looked at it sooner!<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://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wyuAqhasC-s/W3UKysKdMwI/AAAAAAAAGrM/EeoASIaUsZAMgl8ima3F-o3rwl4fC2jGgCLcBGAs/s1600/cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="914" data-original-width="643" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wyuAqhasC-s/W3UKysKdMwI/AAAAAAAAGrM/EeoASIaUsZAMgl8ima3F-o3rwl4fC2jGgCLcBGAs/s640/cover.png" width="450" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Daniel Sell and Jeremy Duncan created Troika and publish it under the <a href="https://melsonia.bigcartel.com/" style="text-align: start;" target="_blank">Melsonian Arts Council</a><span style="text-align: start;">.</span></span></td></tr>
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It gives you a lot to work with in only 50 pages, but feels incomplete. It may not be an issue going forward because the new edition is projected to be nearly twice the page count and will come with a series of supporting chapbooks. Still, it's worth mentioning because I'm not sure if the brevity is a feature or a bug.<br />
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I like that the setting is baked into the rules. All of the character classes, called backgrounds here, are full of implicit setting information. The skills, the spells, and the handful of monsters, give you a strong sense of the setting. The way this is executed is great! These brief references to the world(s?) of Troika are an evocative way to root the different game elements to the setting without clogging up the game with pages of text. The problem is there is no other reference to the setting in the book. It's only implied, never described. For veteran gamers this setup is not a problem. The game master will simply run the version of the setting that blew up in their mind as they read the rules. Every group would be playing in their own unique version of Troika. I like this idea, but the game is billed as a good beginner role playing game. While the rules are easy, I think people new to RPGs would be a bit confused about what they should be doing and what is supposed to be going on in Troika.<br />
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The setting, as far as I can tell, is amazing and full of wonder. It takes place in a series crystalline spheres that hang in a "humpbacked sky" and serve as the stars for each other. It's possible to move between them on golden barges powered by mirrored sails. It also appears to be possible to fall out of one and land in another. Goblins seem to be able to connect underground labyrinths from one sphere to another. In these ways people and cultures from the different spheres mix with each other and adventurers have the option to get into all kinds of new brands of trouble. If things get stale in a long campaign the party need only move to another sphere to get a fresh start or new experience!<br />
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Troika is science fantasy, with a mix of swords, energy weapons, and magic. Personally I love the science fantasy, sword and planetesque style RPG setting. If you want a more pure fantasy game, the science fiction elements of Troika could be scrubbed out without much trouble. Certainly a lot easier than the <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.com/2014/10/retro-speculative-d6-star-wars-what-is.html" target="_blank">old Star Wars RPG</a>.<br />
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The rules are based on an RPG that grew out of series of solo adventure books. Both were called "Fighting Fantasy" and were apparently quite popular in the UK in the 1980s. Living in Canada, I never saw either and I don't remember any ads for them.<br />
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The system uses regular six-sided dice for everything but manages them to get a wide variety of results. The core of the system is 2d6 + base skill + advanced skill vs opponent or 2d6 to roll target number or under of the total skill (base skill + advanced skill). So if your character is using a hammer to fight an enemy you roll 2d6 add your skill and any skill you have in hammers and hope you get more than the GM does with 2d6 plus the enemy's skill. If your character is climbing a cliff, you need to roll 2d6 and get the total of your base skill and climb skill or less to succeed. Advanced skills are attached to specific things like climbing, etiquette, specific spells, and swords. I found it easy to grasp and good for all kinds of situations. The roll high sometimes, roll low others I find a bit irritating but it's hardly the first game I've played that switches back and forth.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2yXorKjYFRk/W3ULCFwy4zI/AAAAAAAAGrQ/Ks7vtjzLnNQsrHE3Uq5N2UqiQ5Yl5lG1gCLcBGAs/s1600/Background.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="420" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2yXorKjYFRk/W3ULCFwy4zI/AAAAAAAAGrQ/Ks7vtjzLnNQsrHE3Uq5N2UqiQ5Yl5lG1gCLcBGAs/s640/Background.jpg" width="450" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">A sample page from the character generation section with two backgrounds.</span></td></tr>
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The book opens on character generation which is fast, random, and wild. I like character generation at the front of an RPG rule book, since it is the portion used the most. The system allows you to produce a character in a few minutes. There are no classes, but there are 36 backgrounds rolled for using d66 (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, ... 65, 66). Because there is no class and level advancement these backgrounds are starting places for each player's character. The character improves the skills they use and learn new ones they spend time and effort on. With so many different starting places and no clear path forward, playing each character should be a unique experience.<br />
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The game only has three stats: skill, stamina and luck. Usually a game with so few stats ends up with little to differentiate the different characters from each other. In this case, Troika avoids that fate by having a long list of specific "advanced skills" that create the detail and flavour of each player character. It might be more accurate to say this game has one stat and two resources. The base skill is the raw talent the character can apply to any action and augment with a relevant skill if they have it. The stamina is the character's total effort that they use to take lumps and keep going or fuel their spells. It's recovered pretty quickly for an old school game. It is fairly close to 5e D&D's hit points in that respect. The character's luck is another resource they can spend to tip the balance in certain situations or as a saving throw. It's by no means certain, it is luck after all, but it can run out.<br />
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One thing I noticed with the advanced skills is there are none for social situations outside of etiquette. I'm guessing this comes from the creators relying on player skill and roleplay for situations that would call for a deception or insight roll in another system. Although the rules specifically invite the invention of more advanced skills, so it;s easy to adjust it to your play style.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC_HLHhoyFbMr2FBoUVqjKRoS3Z0nd-05OVSEXKEwGHHWs5qanfs3x3G2QCgjdSbp1b_2cTV44zRd1Dqqnp1a4nLIF7u2STcJQ-aovc_wHqj2mDXayKvHQN_pAOvycQZKMkOWomLblyOq3/s1600/cover+new.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="816" data-original-width="575" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC_HLHhoyFbMr2FBoUVqjKRoS3Z0nd-05OVSEXKEwGHHWs5qanfs3x3G2QCgjdSbp1b_2cTV44zRd1Dqqnp1a4nLIF7u2STcJQ-aovc_wHqj2mDXayKvHQN_pAOvycQZKMkOWomLblyOq3/s640/cover+new.png" width="450" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The cover image from the game's first print run.</span></td></tr>
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The backgrounds are summed up in a few paragraphs including starting equipment, skills, any special rules that apply and a brief description. The variety of backgrounds include some of the usual suspects with a handful of warriors, priests, and wizards each with a flavourful spin of its own. They also have odd things like a lost king from another sphere who no one has heard of. It turns our a king without a kingdom is just a random person in a crown with a high etiquette skill. The dwarves in Troika are not born, they are made by other dwarves. Each dwarf is an artistic achievement, except the poorly made dwarf character. To other creatures they look like an ordinary dwarf, but other dwarves either ignore them or have a discussion about their flaws and draw on them to emphasize the points made. There is definitely something for everyone in the list. A party randomly rolled of such options would be a motley crew and makes me think of the groups of characters found in Terry Prachett's Discworld.<br />
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The encumbrance system is streamlined and easy to use, but has a clever innovation for finding equipment in a hurry. Your character has 12 slots of carrying capacity before they become encumbered. Some items take multiple slots and others, like arrows, can be packed into one. Any time your character tries to grab an item you have stowed like a potion, or a crossbow bolt, you need to roll its position or higher on the list with 2d6. Otherwise they must stop and rummage through their belongings to find it. This set up means players need to "pack carefully" to keep the important stuff, like weapons and ammunition, within easy reach. It's a fun quirk and adds a sense of urgency and suspense to changing weapons or getting a rarely needed item.<br />
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The other big innovation is the initiative system. Players each put two tokens in a bag for their character while the game master puts in the appropriate number for the enemies' initiative and the end of round token. Tokens are pulled one at a time to determine the order in which each character or creature in the conflict acts. The bag is refilled and a new round starts when the end of round token is pulled, so it is possible some wont act in a given round while others act multiple times. This makes combat a completely chaotic mess where opportunities are taken as they come and sometimes you get caught flat footed! I love the idea of this system even though I'd need to dig out my poker chips or find something else to make it work.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-694tJQW1h1E/W3t1tcd6JkI/AAAAAAAAGsM/JGuWSWZqImc42sFLVK4F0luOSXo6DDZcgCLcBGAs/s1600/Troika-26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1251" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-694tJQW1h1E/W3t1tcd6JkI/AAAAAAAAGsM/JGuWSWZqImc42sFLVK4F0luOSXo6DDZcgCLcBGAs/s640/Troika-26.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br />
For me, the section that could use the most expanding is the enemies section. The monsters are fantastic! The dragons are wonderful beings of light and thought, the manticores are brilliant bookworms living in splendor. Each monster entry only takes a few paragraphs and includes a d6 table of creature moods when they are met to keep the encounters unpredictable.<br />
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My favourite monster is the parchment witch. This is a long dead sorcerer that covers their bones and rotting sinew with leather, parchment, paper or vellum to hide their true nature. Their thin disguises are vulnerable to water and fire which can make things awkward. They can also wear someone's skin for about a week before it starts to rot and becomes useless. This one is so messed up and it doubles as one of the background options! The parchment witch is only part of the picture though. Some of the monsters are rooted in comedy, like the road knight that appears to be a reference to the black knight of Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail.<br />
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The magic system has a simple skill roll and stamina cost to keep spell casters in check. It also has an "Oops!" table for when the player rolls box cars. This system means magic is a bit unpredictable and dangerous without making the casters a constant danger to themselves and everyone around them. The spells themselves have enough variety and are flexible enough to be used in a wide variety of circumstances. This section is probably the most complete in the book.<br />
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The equipment section is brief, but doesn't appear to need anything more than it has. One thing I like is how the damage for different weapons is on a d6 table. Rolling a 1 on the d6 does dramatically different damage when the character is using a polearm than it does when they are using a knife. The weapons are defined by their damage spread and how they punch through armour. The armour is a simple damage reduction.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-moTubSQj-Z0/W3ULk1i0C9I/AAAAAAAAGrc/1arPVwqGbCAhwSCgEtUT4wuaRM8tWFZCgCLcBGAs/s1600/chargen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1127" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-moTubSQj-Z0/W3ULk1i0C9I/AAAAAAAAGrc/1arPVwqGbCAhwSCgEtUT4wuaRM8tWFZCgCLcBGAs/s640/chargen.jpg" width="450" /></a></div><br />
The art is consistent and good. It fits the contradictory elements of comedy, grittiness, and the strange captured by the text.<br />
<br />
From a GM's point of view, this game is easy to run on the fly with heavy improv but doesn't need to be run that way for it to work. The stat blocks for monsters are skill/stamina/initiative so everything is there at a glance. The damage tables are in the back of the book so they are easily referenced. I will definitely run this game the first chance I get!<br />
<br />
I like that it's not another in a long line of similar games with a twist. Like the d20 retro clones, the Fate games and the powered by the apocalypse games that are becoming legion. By using lesser known system as a jumping off point their game is all twist! Troika is different in a way I respond to. It reaches for the wonder found in the best science fantasy art and I think it's a good tool for a group to get there.<br />
<br />
Like my review of The Black Hack, this one is a bit late. I think the reason is the same though. Both games have terrible names that don't inspire me. I thought Troika had something to do with eastern European legends, which I'm not overly interested in. The fact that it hits my sweet spot for crazy science fantasy with a magnificent mixture of awe, darkness and silly, is not referenced in the name. I asked Daniel Sell about the name and he said it was combination of it being the name of the tri-city that was the main population centre of the setting (something not in the book), a reference to the three stats, and something that sounded funny. I can't argue with that logic.<br />
<br />
If you are looking for a tight, rules-light science fantasy game with a wide open setting, check out the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/846377662/troika-rpg-numinous-edition/" target="_blank">kickstarter for the Numinous edition of Troika</a> they are running now. It's already funded and the stretch goals will add to the supplementary setting and adventure material that this new version will have to expand what is at its core a solid game. So solid that I think we may see some Troika clones next year.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--tHdSAkxXXM/W3XBjOewjkI/AAAAAAAAGrw/1He5fEtffO4Ldjs-IApqu66If6SEPbQcQCLcBGAs/s1600/Troika%2BSheet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1118" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--tHdSAkxXXM/W3XBjOewjkI/AAAAAAAAGrw/1He5fEtffO4Ldjs-IApqu66If6SEPbQcQCLcBGAs/s640/Troika%2BSheet.jpg" width="446" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Have a crazy character sheet I found online.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
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</script>David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-36501439460250543742018-05-22T16:55:00.004-04:002018-05-24T00:46:52.178-04:00Review: UVG - the Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black CityWith all the awesome things released this year it blows my mind that one I will use first is both free and, according to its author, incomplete.<br />
<br />
Luka Rejec released an <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/241606/The-Ultraviolet-Grasslands--Free-Introduction" target="_blank">introductory version</a> of the "Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City" last week. It's a 78 page point crawl with only one location fleshed out. According to <a href="https://www.patreon.com/wizardthieffighter" target="_blank">Luka's Patreon</a>, the complete version will be released in August of this year. While I'm looking forward to it, this teaser version has plenty to offer.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/---nxThnT1I8/WwR1iS_TOBI/AAAAAAAAGko/qP5tIId26wQieIPXuvLZPztQ_aki0TR4ACLcBGAs/s1600/UVG%2Bintro%2BCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="860" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/---nxThnT1I8/WwR1iS_TOBI/AAAAAAAAGko/qP5tIId26wQieIPXuvLZPztQ_aki0TR4ACLcBGAs/s640/UVG%2Bintro%2BCover.jpg" width="458" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The cover by Luka Rejec</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
<br />
At long last, <i>WONDER!</i></h3>
<div>
I downloaded UVG for the artwork. Luka's work has a way of expressing a great deal of detail and movement with a few simple lines. It reminds of the work of Jean Giraud, A.K.A. Moebius, while showing me something new and original. His work carries a sense of wonder and the fantastic while not settling in any particular genre. I am a fan.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggzwlAUGmUNzj0drlc0Ps7ml-8V8_bZ53EL7voBSB92e0M1_E6_4Rc9IqzkkK4TeNEwZGb1bfUD0DnhljkOjMtUsmVtML5oOPRB6Uj3jGDAHTXrnRo3DUE-UzI1CMoiOasVGciHkVTRocF/s1600/The+Rusty+Arc+UVG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggzwlAUGmUNzj0drlc0Ps7ml-8V8_bZ53EL7voBSB92e0M1_E6_4Rc9IqzkkK4TeNEwZGb1bfUD0DnhljkOjMtUsmVtML5oOPRB6Uj3jGDAHTXrnRo3DUE-UzI1CMoiOasVGciHkVTRocF/s400/The+Rusty+Arc+UVG.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"The Rusty Arc" by Luka Rejec</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Ultraviolet Grasslands leans into this same aesthetic. Luka is is upfront about the influence of the Dying Earth and psychedelic heavy metal on the setting/adventure. The sense of an ancient world, full of sorcery and super-science haunted by the, "long ago," is carried through the adventure's descriptions of the rotting technological remains, strange locations and local inhabitants. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The new creatures and cultures introduced by the book add to the strangeness with a light touch. Each group, from humans to para-humans, has a brief description and then a table of rumours you can build your campaign's version of them from. Randomly generating the true and false features of these para-humans helps preserve that sense of uncertainty in the unknown and doubles down on the exploration theme of a fantasy RPG. It reminds me a bit of how Traveller's 76 Patrons was set up with a single premise or set of characters with multiple details on a table under each. It allows for the whole thing to be used more than once and be surprising for both the referee and the players.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
UVG captures the wonder that the small press RPG community seems to be reaching for recently. It is exactly what I've been looking for. Judging by the sudden addition of Patreons since last week's release, I'm not alone.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HdA7HGMg9U4/WwR7A-UAD2I/AAAAAAAAGlY/IAvo-iTIVLgZKIdFI9gmH7wLBi7dYkMRQCLcBGAs/s1600/Tower%2Band%2BHill%2BUVG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="839" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HdA7HGMg9U4/WwR7A-UAD2I/AAAAAAAAGlY/IAvo-iTIVLgZKIdFI9gmH7wLBi7dYkMRQCLcBGAs/s640/Tower%2Band%2BHill%2BUVG.jpg" width="446" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Tower and Hill" by Luka Rejec</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
<br />
Innovation!</h3>
<div>
It seems like almost every notable small press RPG release from the DIY D&D and OSR communities has some sort of game-changing innovation. UVG certainly delivers in this area. Luka created some new rules for travel which simplify encumbrance and travel while still making them work in a new way. His ambition was to convey both the vast size of the adventure area and the danger of travel through his weird savanna. I'll know for sure once I incorporate it into my regular game, but from reading it, I'd say he succeeds. Besides that success, he also creates a rules-light system for speculative trade that reminds me of<i> Classic Traveller</i>. The simplicity of Luka's system gives the players real choices about how much cargo to carry versus supplies, how large to make their caravan, and even what form of transport and retainers to use. All of these choices have an impact on the speed of travel, potential for encounters and even the likelihood of starving to death. Things like caravan speed and visibility also change the chances of starving and having an encounter.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K_xGtOX-TDI/WwR3zrUabII/AAAAAAAAGlI/qOeL2SEwSqQ9rY2uFD126-WhbzQSjKoFACEwYBhgL/s1600/Hacking%2BTreasure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1180" data-original-width="1200" height="392" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K_xGtOX-TDI/WwR3zrUabII/AAAAAAAAGlI/qOeL2SEwSqQ9rY2uFD126-WhbzQSjKoFACEwYBhgL/s400/Hacking%2BTreasure.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Hacking up Treasure for UVG - Luka Rejec</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I like the switch from days as a unit of time for travel to weeks. It helps to create the sense of isolation in the wilderness when there is only one encounter rolled per week. The party is on its own so they better have what they need. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Because space and weight are issues that can kill a party, treasure can't always be hauled away with ease. Because of this feature, there are rules for hacking up the treasure for the best bits. This form of looting does terrible damage to these finds, turning the party into vandals, but it allows them to make choices about how they want to deal with large pieces of treasure.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
While the UVG is a sandbox filled with all kinds of creatures and points of interest, the distance is the biggest enemy that needs to be faced. I enjoy this feeling of the vast openness as an opponent and can do a lot with it. It certainly marks this adventure as something special and reminds me a bit of how the darkness is handled in Veins of the Earth.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I like how once there is trouble, or something to explore, we return to shorter time units, from days for starvation, down to seconds for combat. It's a way of narrowing the focus and placing the players into the context of the current size of the environment they are interacting with. I'm looking forward to saying things like: "Four days into the second week you see movement on the horizon..."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ZWhQ3OzZsD_gjngajIXkd6MaNaPAtHdsuzJDQmAPj0FKc6I5gJOANtO6HSBmJHxEzcHHkvmydGmnhInfSNpaz5_n8f5IM9quC6-nvYmUX5l2V6qUWTiqeRSrauuMeenzjZrgNZcUpsvC/s1600/UVG+Caravan+Sheet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="854" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ZWhQ3OzZsD_gjngajIXkd6MaNaPAtHdsuzJDQmAPj0FKc6I5gJOANtO6HSBmJHxEzcHHkvmydGmnhInfSNpaz5_n8f5IM9quC6-nvYmUX5l2V6qUWTiqeRSrauuMeenzjZrgNZcUpsvC/s640/UVG+Caravan+Sheet.jpg" width="452" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Luka Rejec's Caravan Record Sheet for UVG makes tracking the new important bits easier!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
<br />
How does it work?</h3>
<div>
Luka describes it as a rules-light, RPG point crawl and it is that, but it is clearly set up with some version of 5th edition D&D in mind. The saves reference the six classic statistics. Also the rolls for success use a roll high verses a ladder of target numbers. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I tend to run a heavily modified hack of <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-black-hack.html" target="_blank">the Black Hack</a> so the stat-based saves fit in fine, but the progressive target numbers are a bit harder to work with if you aren't using a skill system. The easiest thing seems to be dividing the stat by three and adding it to the d20 roll, but the most accurate might be to compare how much the check against a stat is made or missed by to the target number ladder. Someone using LotFP might want to multiply skill pips by two and add that amount to the d20 roll.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Despite the few 5e-isms built into the system most things are designed for cross compatibility. Encumbrance and movement rates are simplified when translated into a weekly turn system. All prices are in "cash" so it doesn't matter if you are using a gold piece, silver piece, or tic-tac as the main currency. All the creature and transport descriptions are expressed in terms of hit dice so they will work with any of the D&D editions or clones with minimal work. The weird weapons and items work with minimal conversion as well. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WSXUnrKJg30/WwR2b2cywOI/AAAAAAAAGk4/qxdtkjKh1P0TG5matEnh-j80aCVAa-89ACLcBGAs/s1600/Point%2Bof%2Binterest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="842" data-original-width="1199" height="280" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WSXUnrKJg30/WwR2b2cywOI/AAAAAAAAGk4/qxdtkjKh1P0TG5matEnh-j80aCVAa-89ACLcBGAs/s400/Point%2Bof%2Binterest.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Another Point of Interest in UVG - Luka Rejec</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Basically the innovations are rules light and completely compatible with any system, while the details like weird weapons and armour are mostly expressed in terms of the 5e D&D rules with ascending AC for the armours and weapon terms such as, "finesse," and, "versatile." Any DM/referee using a stripped down "O5R" style rules will not need to convert anything. For the rest, it can be converted or ignored as usual.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
The point crawl itself has a series of destinations arranged on the map with the different routes between them marked in how many weeks it usually takes to travel them. There are also spots for placing or generating, "points of interest," near the destinations or off the routes that the party might want to spend some time investigating. These points of interest are investigated in days instead of weeks. There is one sample, but no random generator for the points of interest. You'll need to create those on your own. I expect the full version will have more.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In this introductory version of the UVG, only the first destination, the Violet City is fleshed out. The rest are given a paragraph of description that is enough for anyone looking for inspiration, but leaves a lot of work for the referee to detail. The other locations are available to Luka's Patreon contributors up to #22, <i>The Cage Run,</i> but more are being added all the time. I like it as is. The paragraphs give me enough to work with that I can add details on the fly or make a few tables to generate some points of interest. I might even cannibalize LotFP's Carcosa for some points of interest and other terrors left over from the, "long ago." </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AzX-Ou5BjkU/WwR1-0g6CRI/AAAAAAAAGk0/vj-bcltz5RQ75D9XFdvPR9GmGNii55qLgCEwYBhgL/s1600/More%2BUVG%2Bart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="978" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AzX-Ou5BjkU/WwR1-0g6CRI/AAAAAAAAGk0/vj-bcltz5RQ75D9XFdvPR9GmGNii55qLgCEwYBhgL/s640/More%2BUVG%2Bart.jpg" width="520" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Point of interest from the "Long Ago" - Luka Rejec</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<h3>
<br />
UVG! What is it good for?</h3>
</div>
<div>
The sandbox can be used whole hog as described in the adventure and there are plenty of hooks to entice a wide variety of players to enter the Ultraviolet Grasslands. That's my plan.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The rules for hacking up parts of treasure for encumbrance reasons are going to be part of my campaign from the next session onward! </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
UVG's rules for overland travel through what is essentially a desert are great! I'll be rolling those into my normal game for long distance travel. The simplicity and presentation of important choices to the players are the perfect tool for me. I may make some modifications for water-based travel so I can keep everything consistent. A new obstacles table is the first thing to create, but the UVG one is a great model!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The rules for trade and even market research could be used in a seafaring campaign or other trade-based adventure. If you spent a long time creating a vast world full of vibrant detail, or you spent a lot of money on supplements of the same, the trade and travel system might be a way to get the party moving around the map so you can use more of it. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Para-humans of the different factions in the UVG can easily be lifted and dropped into any fantasy world. There's no reason why the Cat Lords or Porcelain Princes can't be secretly be in charge of Vornhiem, Calimport, Lankhmar, or any home brewed city. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The art is fantastic and could inspire a kick-ass campaign on its own! Knowing that the art would be awesome is a big part of why I took the time to check this intro UVG out! Without it, I might have waited for the finished product.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDU3iTGgcv8rkKiehZRll-9HmM4QV4dbvbgxFK_Qu7j0juMu8-0LbG_s-Kjfqp-65ziWKLvcRnez4jIMxugQi_O1dlMSPExa2brV3ka-Ln6lc7S5w1voNopV8tFoBVsjJTBh-kO9ZujxXm/s1600/Welcome+to+UVG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="1200" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDU3iTGgcv8rkKiehZRll-9HmM4QV4dbvbgxFK_Qu7j0juMu8-0LbG_s-Kjfqp-65ziWKLvcRnez4jIMxugQi_O1dlMSPExa2brV3ka-Ln6lc7S5w1voNopV8tFoBVsjJTBh-kO9ZujxXm/s400/Welcome+to+UVG.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<h3>
Final Thoughts</h3>
<div>
For a teaser product, the intro version of the Ultraviolet Grasslands is surprisingly complete and usable. The table of contents makes it easy to find specific information. The layout is clean. There are caravan tracking sheets that are well designed to be compatible with the system for the sandbox setting. The point crawl map is made to be printed, written on and used at the table. It is designed to be a tool and I can see it working well for me. The tables for obstacles and bad happenstances are nice details as well. The example of the Violet City is a fine template for fleshing out the other destinations. For a free product, I could not ask for more. It's more than a lot of referees will ever need to run a long campaign. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's barely referenced, but elves appear to be an affliction in Luka's campaign that infects the half-elves and turns them into tree-hugging monsters. I have my own horrific version of elves, but I'd love to know more about these ones!</div>
<div>
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<div>
I'd love a little more information about the purple mist. I may have missed it, but other than its change to the sunrise I'm not sure what it does. </div>
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Did I mention the art? The art is great! I printed it out as an A5 booklet in black & white and it all looks great! The muted colours in the PDF set a wonderful tone and help create the feel of the sandbox setting for the adventure.</div>
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Even though I'll be incorporating the intro version of UVG into my campaign as a location as soon as I can, I'll definitely pick up the full version once it's available. Hopefully there will be a print version of some kind. Luka's ideas are different enough from mine to add a lot to my game, but still close enough I can use his work with almost no changes. I can just drop the Ultraviolet Grasslands onto the western edge of the map and start giving my players hints and hooks.</div>
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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><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xKTbCE1wDhY/WwR8CUYniFI/AAAAAAAAGls/W8nUS1QIfjExVN8RRsS2XUsfUQ1eBGrEQCLcBGAs/s1600/Characters%2Bin%2BUVG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1001" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xKTbCE1wDhY/WwR8CUYniFI/AAAAAAAAGls/W8nUS1QIfjExVN8RRsS2XUsfUQ1eBGrEQCLcBGAs/s400/Characters%2Bin%2BUVG.jpg" width="331" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">There are plenty of NPCs in UVG!</span></td></tr>
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How to get UVG and more from Luka!</h3>
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If I've peaked your curiousity, there are a few places to go for more: </div>
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You can find the intro version for the PDF on Drive Thru RPG <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/241606/The-Ultraviolet-Grasslands--Free-Introduction" target="_blank">here.</a> I printed it out as a half-letter sized booklet on a laser printer and it works great at that size. I'm torn on my expectations for the size of the final product. I am hoping the final product is A5 for the ease of use at the table, but I also want it to be A4 so the art is bigger!</div>
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There's more information on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/wizardthieffighter" target="_blank">Luka Rejec's Patreon.</a> You can get access to more detailed descriptions of the destinations by contributing as little as a dollar to <a href="https://www.patreon.com/wizardthieffighter" target="_blank">the patreon</a>. I expect I'll be sign up myself, now that the review is done.</div>
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If you are interested in seeing more of Luka's work, his website for his art and writing is<a href="https://www.lukarejec.com/" target="_blank"> here.</a> He has a "rough portfolio" of art <a href="https://www.behance.net/lukarejec" target="_blank">here</a>. His art is also featured on his <a href="https://twitter.com/stratometaship" target="_blank">twitter here</a>, and on his <a href="https://www.instagram.com/wizardthieffighter/" target="_blank">Instagram here</a>.</div>
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</script>David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-18064484361878214052018-01-23T16:24:00.000-05:002020-04-12T18:37:55.512-04:00The Ecology of My Goblins or, How to Make Goblins Fun!<div>
An article about <a href="https://kotaku.com/goblin-fights-in-d-d-are-the-worst-1822301602" target="_blank">how boring goblins are from Kotaku</a> is making the rounds right now and it is clear that the author is missing the opportunity presented by goblins as a monster in an RPG.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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They define goblins as stupid automations "produced in a factory" for the sole purpose of a fighting encounter as though they were a video game creature identical to the ones behind them and never leaving their spawn area.</div>
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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://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jJqkDI32b4s/WmeZErFeIaI/AAAAAAAAGZU/5hAS199N3Js4h4s6tKa42tjupuTCdr9jgCLcBGAs/s1600/taunting_goblins_by_shockowaffel-d5qmpxo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="651" data-original-width="886" height="292" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jJqkDI32b4s/WmeZErFeIaI/AAAAAAAAGZU/5hAS199N3Js4h4s6tKa42tjupuTCdr9jgCLcBGAs/s400/taunting_goblins_by_shockowaffel-d5qmpxo.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://shockowaffel.deviantart.com/art/Taunting-Goblins-347060940" target="_blank">Taunting Goblins</a> by Thorston Erdt AKA <a href="https://shockowaffel.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">Shockowaffel</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
Goblins have never been brave or even terribly capable fighters, but they have always been sneaky fighters. The author says they aren't "tricksy" or use traps, but even in the old modules goblins would use traps, raise alarms and run for help so they could overrun the party.</div>
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<div>
The biggest breakdown is in their suggestions on how to make goblins more interesting. One suggestion was an ambush failure because of a lover's quarrel in the goblin ranks. They suggest revealing cultural elements during encounters to make the goblins more sympathetic to the players. This direction is a missed opportunity to introduce the other and make goblins alien to the players.</div>
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<div>
I'm all for creating villains the party can relate to, but instead of humanizing monsters, why not use humans? Humans can be on the fringes of civilization even more easily than goblins. It makes sense for them to have stockpiles of currency as treasure and they start as relatable so you don't need to build a bridge to them with contrived situations. You can have lawless bandits that are causing trouble for the townsfolk. You can have a resistance group fighting the lawful, yet tyrannical local lord. You can have a chaotic cannibal cult terrorizing the area. You can have camp of refugees from a disaster in another kingdom that has taken to raiding local farms to survive. In all cases the party is dealing with humans who are evil from the point of view of the local population. They can employ whatever solution they want and easily justify it. If they go with combat they still have the problem of what to do with the children. Are the cannibal kids redeemable by society or is it more merciful to kill them? Does the party need to worry about survivors developing into recurring villains? If those are the things you want to deal with in your game, don't go half-way. Use humans.</div>
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As for goblins, I use them as scavengers and upcyclers that are close to civilization so they can raid and steal what they need to make things better for their nests. They repurpose all kinds of stuff into ramshackle contraptions that are dangerous and sometimes comical. This use they have for the player characters' society explains why goblins are often the first creature encountered by adventurers as they begin to push into the frontiers.</div>
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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://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5HKMv3_yulc/WmeZy-L0zVI/AAAAAAAAGZc/zQKq940rvLs9_5yJv4achd9rPlRuvgvQQCLcBGAs/s1600/goblins_by_llaiii-d4dlwvh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="900" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5HKMv3_yulc/WmeZy-L0zVI/AAAAAAAAGZc/zQKq940rvLs9_5yJv4achd9rPlRuvgvQQCLcBGAs/s400/goblins_by_llaiii-d4dlwvh.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://llaiii.deviantart.com/art/goblins-264722093" target="_blank">Goblins</a> by <a href="https://llaiii.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">Llaaii</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
I organize goblins into nests rather than tribes. The hive-like organization explains why so few of them have any ambition for individual achievement (in that they don't take class levels despite being close enough to society to get the resources they need to do so). The rulebooks (in whatever edition) usually have the goblins ruled by a chief with higher hit dice. I give them a queen, whose hit dice come from her immense size. She rules the nest populated almost entirely by her children. The rest include her honour guard consisting of her sisters and her mates. Her bloated form towers above them all as she is at least as tall as a hobgoblin and massive enough to lay the huge eggs.</div>
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Goblins in my world are hatched fully grown. They have a certain amount of genetic knowledge passed to them that allows new goblins to start contributing to the nest without wasting resources on developing them. I describe goblin rookeries as something out of one of H. R. Giger's nightmares.</div>
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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://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WiWUTjZHz2M/Wmeb9-EqAbI/AAAAAAAAGZo/7EDGNxOBlgI4uF6KQ1JVuLwblguhHL9yACLcBGAs/s1600/Alien_Landscape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="884" data-original-width="1200" height="293" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WiWUTjZHz2M/Wmeb9-EqAbI/AAAAAAAAGZo/7EDGNxOBlgI4uF6KQ1JVuLwblguhHL9yACLcBGAs/s400/Alien_Landscape.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Alien Landscape by H. R. Giger</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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This lack of childhood and hive organization make goblins different from humans. They are alien in outlook and motivation. They caper with delight as they take pleasure in the sadistic sport of an ambush. They are selfish and cowardly while still putting little value on individual lives. </div>
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They make great opportunists, working with other pack and swarming creatures like wolves, rats and stirges. I love the look on my players' faces when they realize the goblins ambushing them with nets and bows also released stirges to attack.</div>
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Goblins need to be sneaky gits to cause the party major grief, but players can also underestimate them because of that. My favourite goblin trap was a shabby wooden construction in the outer entrance to the nest. The party could hear the rats squeaking and scratching in the wooden walls and ceiling but thought nothing of it. Their low opinion of the goblins also caused them to ignore the unstable construction. That made it a surprise when stepping in the wrong place caused the ceiling to fall in and drop a swarm of rats on top of them. The noise brought the guards who raise the alarm and took pot shots at the party while they scrambled and fought their way out of the wreckage. They decided to retreat and come back with a plan.</div>
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If you are wondering about hobgoblins, I run them as larger, more martial versions of their smaller cousins and their queens are the size of an ogre! They are organized as warrior cooperatives that value the damage they can do as a group to expand the holdings of the nest. Combat is not a forgone conclusion though. I had a party played by kids find a back door into a hobgoblin nest, kill the queen and then bluff some other hobgoblins into believing they had bought some of the prisoners so they could get directions to where they were held. (B2 Keep on the Borderlands is the gift that keeps on giving!) </div>
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Goblins, like everything else in D&D, are an opportunity to spin your game into something your group will love to play in. Monsters are a place to build your world into something fantastic and different. The darkness surrounding the light of civilization can define the world as much as points of light found in the towns and cities. A great example of that brand of storytelling in the 5e D&D Monster Manual is the aboleth. Although the best example of world building through monsters I know of is the system neutral monster book <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/148614/Fire-On-The-Velvet-Horizon">Fire on the Velvet Horizon</a>. All monsters allow you to double down on the strange and wondrous elements of your fantasy world. Don't skip the goblins because of their low hit die!<br />
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What it comes down to is there are as many ways to use goblins as their are DMs. There is no wrong way. If you are happy with goblins as a twisted mockery of humanity that needs to be cut down like the vermin they are in the search for gold and XP, great! If you want them to have a complex society with speech patterns that confuse and confound your players during negotiations and interrogations, great! If you want to give my spin on the goblin a whirl, great! Goblin encounters are what you make of them as a group. Enjoy it!<br />
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David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-77905038654351823952018-01-07T13:32:00.000-05:002018-01-07T18:45:58.105-05:00Running 5e D&D for Newbs!I ran a game last night for a group of people new to tabletop RPGs because one of their kids got 5e for Christmas and they asked me to show them how it's done. One of the dads was also dying to play Since his older brother enjoyed it so much when they were kids.<br />
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Character generation was SLOW with so many new people and only two Players Handbooks. My girls are experienced old-school gamers but had never played 5e so even they needed to be walked through it. I was glad my eldest had decided to roll hers up ahead of time so she could help the boys with their characters.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLkn3Nx_x7yr2oxdkW335kKSA5AttB7gIjwadvyO_-5si_UID_ECa6GkqoijvzD5wUv6gdIhm0EVcEU_xTwbfNzeduFS9yB3f0TwVdDFbesEOfHxF-qCH_dQWY2n8bhp4vaPTAel-2rN7/s1600/rolling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="669" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLkn3Nx_x7yr2oxdkW335kKSA5AttB7gIjwadvyO_-5si_UID_ECa6GkqoijvzD5wUv6gdIhm0EVcEU_xTwbfNzeduFS9yB3f0TwVdDFbesEOfHxF-qCH_dQWY2n8bhp4vaPTAel-2rN7/s640/rolling.jpg" width="478" /></a></div>
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The game itself went well! I had a few plot hooks laid out on the rumour table for after the party got into town. They spread some gold around the tavern and talked to the locals until they got an idea of what was nearby and decided to tackle an old-school dungeon crawl a couple of days from the town.<br />
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Not all of the parents were playing. At one point one asks: "So you're grave robbers now?"<br />
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The table answers: "No, were saving this stuff from the goblins!"<br />
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My daughters adjusted well to the new system. They used their heads well and got everyone thinking outside of the box and how to work as a team.<br />
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Darkvision came into play in an interesting way. They knew the goblins had it and were afraid of alerting them with their light so they had the stealthy gnome rogue scout ahead so they could avoid stumbling into ambushes.<br />
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They played it smart pretty much the whole time. They were cautious and avoided traps. They played their fights out with sound tactics and busted out spells and spell like abilities at good times. They also found the secret door with player skill rather than rolling dice.<br />
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They talked about how much fun they had had after the game and the little guy who got D&D for Christmas talked his parents' ears off the whole way home and then some.<br />
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For me it was a tonne of fun helping some more people into the hobby and satisfying to have my tomb/dungeon cleared out in a single session. These intro games are a blast and always surprising!<br />
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<br />David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-21648055337098986402017-12-20T23:01:00.001-05:002017-12-20T23:01:30.764-05:00Why Let D&D Be the Gateway? Teach Your Kids to Game Week last week started me thinking about introductory games. In my last two posts I talked about wonder in RPGs and gave some advice to non-gamers on what to buy to get their kids into tabletop RPGs. These two things are tangled up in another idea I have struggled with for some time as well.<br />
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<h3>
The Problem</h3>
It feels like the RPG hobby is set up to make D&D and all its assumptions the default. This situation is perpetuated by WotC being the only company actively marketing to people who are not gaming yet. By ceding this introductory space to D&D we allow the idea to persist that D&D is the default RPG and for many, the correct way to play.<br />
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There is certainly good aspects to the situation. It makes it easy to jump from game to game as all fantasy RPGs have familiar elements such as elves, dwarves and hobbits. It is easy to understand who the good guys and bad guys are and understand the basics of the world without instruction. In this way, the bar is lowered for entry as the D&D platform for play has been repackaged for other media over the years, from video and board games to books and films. These advantages only serve the argument that D&D is the best product for introducing the hobby to new people who do not have someone to guide them into the hobby.<br />
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In my last post I explained why Fifth Edition D&D would be my first choice as a tool for someone to introduce themselves to RPGs. The thing is, I would not use it to introduce new people to RPGs when I run. I have done so, and it works well enough, but I prefer using something else for many reasons.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Philippe Caza</span></td></tr>
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Genre is not one of them. I love playing in fantasy worlds. I love the possibilities allowed by the magic or blend of sorcery and super-science that is available in such settings. Genre may be a factor for others though and it is certainly a valid reason to try to grab people before D&D gives them ideas about the right way to play.<br />
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This past year, I used The Black Hack to introduce my kids and some others to playing fantasy RPGs. With my kids and their friends we call it D&D even though we're using a completely different 20 page rulebook designed for experienced GMs to run fantasy games with simplicity and flexibility in mind. <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-black-hack.html" target="_blank">I've reviewed it before if you are interested.</a> Although, between their play and the <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2017/10/rules-for-pets-in-black-hack.html" target="_blank">blank spots in the rules</a> we've added and changed so much it's not the Black Hack anymore either.<br />
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What bothers me about D&D as an intro-RPG is also one of the reasons it works so well. It is generic. It is the fantasy that everyone is familiar with and that means it in many ways is not fantastic at all. My struggle with this issue is mixed up with my post on <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2017/12/wonder-vs-weird.html" target="_blank">wonder in RPGs</a>. When I started playing D&D it was an amalgam of the different ideas in the fantasy genre. It drew on all kinds of fantasy traditions to create a tool to allow groups to play in worlds of their own creation, inspired their favourite stories and themes used by the game's creators or jump into their favourite worlds from the list of influences, such as E.R. Burroughs' Barsoom, R.E. Howard's Hyborian Age, Jack Vance's Dying Earth, Tolkien's Middle Earth, H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands, and the world of Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions.<br />
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Forty years later, controversy and corporate design has scrubbed it clean. Now its place in fantasy has eclipsed the media that inspired it and the elements in the game are part of regular fantasy.<br />
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"Regular fantasy."</div>
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"Normal fantasy."</div>
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"Mainstream fantasy."</div>
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As accurate as these descriptive terms are, they are words that simply do not belong together! Fantasy is expansive and wondrous! I think the first game should open doors to new spaces, like it did in the 70s and 80s, rather than present people with a well-worn path. While the well worn path leads to fun, it does not often lead to wonder. (I know it can, and since that earlier post generated so much discussion I'll certainly talk about that in another post. There's a lot to process!) I don't want new people who pick up an RPG, flip through it and try it with their friends to only have fun. I want them to have their minds blown the way ours were blown when I first started playing.<br />
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I'm not saying it is bad that so many people are exposed to fantasy as a genre, but the regulation of it makes the achievement of wonder more difficult. Reinforcing the walls around the fantasy gospel with the intro to fantasy gaming only makes it harder for people to hit one of the the high points of the gaming experience; the 'holy shit that's amazing' moments.<br />
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<a href="http://www.tripleacegames.com/store/sundered-skies-products/sundered-skies-core-setting/" target="_blank">Sundered Skies</a> is a campaign setting for the Savage Worlds RPG that suffers from where it stays inside the walls. The world is a shattered collection of rocks floating in an glowing mist full of madness and fantastic creatures. These islands of rock float in a chaotic arrangement that only increases the dangers of travel between them. Many could be lost or cut off to develop outside of the core society. Adventures feature characters sailing through the mists to explore these floating islands. The concept seems ripe for moments of wonder, at least in the short term, but it is populated with elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. Everything largely follows its type with a few changes to the elves. There are some playable fantasy creatures created exclusively for the setting that are interesting because they interact with it in unique ways, but even their origin is tied to the elves! <br />
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That's not the real problem though. Even if the publisher had committed to the setting and created everything to enhance their vision of the world no new players would have discovered it as their first RPG experience. It was made for Savage Worlds, a generic RPG system that is marketed to experienced gamers. In fact, the target audience for Savage Worlds is people tired of playing crunchy games like Pathfinder and 3e D&D.<br />
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If you agree with me, and I'm sure many of you don't, we're still stuck with a number of serious problems. How does a person design a game with wonder in mind? As an introduction, how much is too much when it comes to RPG conventions like levels and hit points? How do make sure the game works as an intro but is still fun for experienced players so they don't need to abandon it in favour of other games? How do we get an introductory game in front of the potential player without millions of dollars and 40 years of cultural capital?<br />
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Can a game be created to introduce the concept of RPGs, be fun to play and be a good platform for moments of wonder? What does that look like? To design something like that every element of a game's design could be examined with the criteria in mind to make sure it supports these three goals.<br />
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<h3>
Hacking It Together</h3>
My home game, based on the Black Hack, could be a good place to start such an experiment (it certainly is for me), but almost any system or setting could work. I think simplicity is important for entry so a medium to light rule system is probably the best way to go. The lighter the better to keep rules from becoming a distraction that pulls people out of the events in the game.<br />
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Because the Black Hack is a D&D clone with bits cribbed from other, more modern games an intro version might be a gateway into regular D&D. The mechanics are different enough, and take enough from other sources that it should lead different places for different people. Hopefully, this means they explore RPGs with less of a bias than they would had they started with D&D. Besides, I think the main problem is the assumptions built into D&D that keeps it and many of its fans trapped in its lane.<br />
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One big thing from D&D that I did away with that is so ingrained in the system is initiative. The words 'roll initiative' signal a change from open roleplay and exploration to regimented, turn-based combat. 'Roll initiative" is such a part of the D&D culture it is an easily grasped punchline or image caption. I threw it out in my game with the kids because it was boring. Their short attention spans makes the moments where they are waiting their turn excruciating. Also, as the Black Hack has all player facing rolls so it seemed silly to keep it. Because they don't know when the monster will turn on their character or have a set time to act, they pay attention throughout the round, tense with anticipation or looking for opportunities. It's good for adults with smartphones too!<br />
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In practice, instead of switching from doing stuff to the combat game the players continue doing stuff in combat. This lack of transition is supported by the resolution for combat staying exactly the same as every other action. I've found this set up stops players from staying inside the box in combat. There's very little 'I roll to hit' and more of the 'I throw my maul at his legs' and 'I jump on the lion's back' I enjoy so much as a GM. It probably helps that I threw out half of the rolls from combat to cut down on needless die rolling as well. Anyone who plays Dungeon World will recognize these things as pretty normal, but from a D&D perspective, it's pretty revolutionary to separate RPGs from their wargame roots.<br />
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I'm keeping humans as the main playable choice because I think it is good to have us as a reference point to start from. I also added other options for creatures that characters can play as well as a host of human origins. The human origins help place the characters in the setting and add an extra dimension to them without needing too many character classes. They range from traditional staples like Barbarians and Street Rats to extraordinary ones like Child of the Prophecy, Driven by a Terrible Secret and Haunted. One good point made in the discussion about wonder was that it was most effective if it was interactive and personally relevant. These origins help flesh out the character's background with a single role or choice and that is something that can be used. The head of a giant statue might invoke wonder, but one that opens its eyes and delivers some important bit of information about a character's situation takes it up a notch.<br />
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I made playable creatures other than humans each its own origin. It makes the shared identity of each alien group important. Their otherness presents opportunities for conflict, roleplay and maybe even wonder. That's where I want to keep the focus. Otherwise the players are merely playing humans with pointy ears, etc. Lizard Folk have a different set of cultural values from humans largely based on their biology. Siebh (sheeve) are utterly alien hedonists cloaked in dreams. I was mocked on the internet for including felinoids and the like in my campaigns before because of the popular derision of furries, but they are fun to play, some people love them, and if I can think of a reason they support the presentation of wonder I'll keep them!<br />
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Goblins remained much as they were from our campaign as these malformed creatures, hatched fully grown, with a basic set of genetic knowledge and instincts. How does entering the world without a childhood change a creature's outlook? How much of that influences goblin behaviour, culture and history? Does playing that out give opportunities for wonder? I'll have to playtest it to find out.<br />
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I think there can be wonder found in playing something that thinks or feels different from humanity. Committing to that otherness might lead to some interesting ideas or interpretations of events that could change the whole group's perspective on events.<br />
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One game that built up each fantasy race as a different element well was Talislanta. It had a great variety of creatures to play with unique cultural identities. An example is how the desert people always wore elaborate masks. At one point in the fiction the masks were likely for protection from the elements but by the time the game was set in the masks had cultural and even religious significance. How does such a thing create opportunity for wonder? I'm not sure in that particular case, but room needs to be made for players and GMs to create those moments.<br />
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I don't feel like there is much room for wonder presented by another dour dwarf with a wretched Scottish accent. Fun? Certainly, but probably not wondrous. Do dwarves sap a game's or setting's potential for wonder simply by being present?Should they stay part of the mix because so many people love playing them? Is there a line that needs to be drawn? Am I being too hard on dwarves?<br />
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Maybe we accept dwarves the same way we accept humans and make sure there are no hobbits/halflings. The last time someone tried to make hobbits more interesting we ended up with kender. No one wants to take a chance on anything like that happening again!<br />
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The next thing is classes. Do character classes contribute to wonder?<br />
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Having each character inhabit an archetype of some sort ensures them spotlight moments. Dungeon World commits to that idea by not allowing two characters of the same class and going as far as saying the cleric, ranger or thief in the party is the only one of their class in the game world. Their archetype is unique in that setting. With the mix of stat variety, origins, classes and player choices every player character should be different enough to present the spotlight moments for everyone.<br />
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Is a spotlight moment wonderful though? On occasion, maybe, but they certainly are fun. With a good GM classes aren't necessary for spotlight moments but they might be for the sake of wonder. If anyone can cast spells is magic still magical? Besides, classes or any other form of specialization helps to ensure spotlight moments which might be important in an intro game where there is a learning curve for the GM.<br />
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For an intro game I think it's important to have clear differences between the classes. My nine options even start with different letters to make it that much easier to differentiate them (or put class in an NPC stat block with a single letter). In my campaign we have two spellcasting classes with the cleric and the magician. Their magic differs in significant ways. There are three classes that have magical abilities but no spells with the bard, druid and sorcerer. I set them up as reflections of each other, being structurally the same but thematically different. There are three classes that are exceptional at doing certain things with the expert, thief and warrior. The last one, the ranger, is so skilled at certain things they are kind of magical. I find this covers plenty of bases for fictional archetypes without being overwhelming. I didn't want to have more than nine because I read somewhere that the ideal number of significant choices is seven, plus or minus two.<br />
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Bards get a lot of hate for being lame, but in our campaign they are keepers of the law and truth. They are semi religious figures more like paladins, celtic bards, viking skalds, or biblical judges than the singing fools the class is often identified with. It works well with the Moorcockian Law verses Chaos vibe that I like to have in my games.<br />
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Levelled character improvement does serve the idea of presenting wonder. It allows the GM to scale events up so the experiences in the game can become bigger, more amazing and more epic. That process allows for more or easier opportunities for wonder. There's also an upward curve so the campaign feels like it is building. It's also good for new players as they get to grow with the character, learning how to play their archetype in slowly increasing stakes as they become more effective.<br />
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Hit points are a sore point for many and I can see both sides of it. I won't go into all of that in detail again since <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2015/09/the-problem-with-damage-in-rpgs.html" target="_blank">I've posted about it before.</a> The real question is do hit points help with the presentation of wonder?<br />
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Hit points as an abstract certainly promote the cinematic style of play. That can help a group get to a place of wonder. The loss of hit points is often presented as a wound or other damage sustained which quickly becomes silly and makes it difficult to suspend disbelief as the characters level and gain more hit points. Making the recovery of hit points a healing process only exacerbates that problem. To keep new players from scratching their heads and to make hit points cinematic they need to be presented as the ability to continue fighting rather than soak up damage. Then hit point recovery needs to match the concept. With all of that, the abstract matches up with the levels and it all serves to get to those moments of wonder without breaking the fiction.<br />
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Based on the ideas above and my experience running it for the better part of a year I think our version of the Black Hack could deliver fun and wonder. I know it works for new players, but it needs to be repackaged for them.<br />
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<h3>
Organization and Presentation</h3>
The problem with an intro game is how much of the necessary parts of it become useless the more it is played. The hate for the "what is a role playing game" section of every rulebook has featured in game reviews and internet arguments running back for years. It is a waste of space the moment it is read and understood, but it is necessary info to deliver in an intro product. This problem could be solved by putting the what is a roleplaying game on the back of the book along with the description of what is this roleplaying game.<br />
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As a reference an RPG works best with character generation in the front, followed by the rules and other resources for play. The how to play, and how to run are not necessary for most of the people using the book. In fact, the only person that likely needs to read such information is the first person to run it in a social group. They know their group better than any game designer and can explain it far more efficiently than we can. That means all the how to play, sample play transcripts and other nonsense can go in the back with the how to run a game advice.<br />
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The only problem with that is, as an intro book it's pretty crazy to expect someone to slog through all the other bits before getting to the context in the back of the book! Does that mean there should be a companion pamphlet that can be discarded? Would a 'how to use this book' section of the introduction/first page pointing new players to the relevant appendices in the back do the trick? I like the idea of the the context of what an RPG is and how to play it staying in the book because I'd like to be able to hand someone new the book and know they have everything they need. That's part of the problem with the game I'm playing now. I have nothing to hand to one of my players and say: "Here's the game. Have fun!"<br />
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<h3>
What About the Marketing?</h3>
Let's say it's possible to have everything on how to play in the book without ruining it for experienced players. That still leaves the biggest problem: How do we reach the people not playing RPGs yet that would enjoy it without the advertising budget and place in our culture that D&D has?<br />
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Numenera owes much of its success to how its early marketing communicated a sense of wonder. The art was a huge component of that, but the setting itself seemed full of possibility. The idea of the Ninth World, an impossibly ancient version of Earth, filled with relics of an advanced past captured my imagination. The game itself is simple, the mechanics are easy to grasp and system takes no experience to run. It is organized so all the important rules are in the first 60 pages. The layout and design is nothing short of brilliant and it is a great reference book for game play. It could do all the things as far as presenting wonder and introducing new people to gaming.<br />
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Too bad it's marketed to experienced gamers based on Monte Cook's reputation in the gaming industry. It makes sense to do that. It's difficult and expensive to create new players for a game. Why not market to a receptive audience? It's good business!<br />
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Fate is dramatically different from D&D despite being part of its Open Gaming Licence. The gang that published Fate spent more than a decade building the audience for their game that they leveraged to create a hugely successful Kickstarter for the current version. With the exception of the Dresden Files fans who came to to Fate through their licensed RPG for it, Fate's core audience is gamers looking for something different. It's more of a game design kit, than a game itself.<br />
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Certainly there are games other than D&D used to introduce people to gaming. Plenty are brought into the hobby with all kinds of small press and indy games, but only when introduced by an experienced gamer. That limits new people to what they can find. For instance, there's no way anyone in my area plays Fate. I haven't even found anyone who has heard of it and there's no place to buy the special dice it uses within several hundred kilometres!<br />
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Even Hero Kids, a game designed as the first RPG for children, is marketed to gaming parents who are looking for a system they can use to introduce their children to the hobby. It's great for that, but it's not likely to be purchased by someone not already invested in the hobby.<br />
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D&D's fifth edition is the only RPG marketed effectively to new people. Pathfinder has its own starter set but you'll only find it at a gaming store. Even then, I'm not sure how many store owners would suggest Pathfinder to brand new gamers. When it comes to access, D&D is in the local bookstores and toy shops on top of the gaming stores. It is everywhere and that means many people will start with it not even knowing there are other possibilities. That's how it managed to cement its place in the market in the first place. I bought my first copy of D&D in a department store in 1982.<br />
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When successful gaming companies are shying away from the intro market what can a person with no money, reputation or cultural impact hope to accomplish? How can I get an alternative to D&D into the hands of the new people that don't even know they want it yet?<br />
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I can think of two ways to approach it.<br />
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The first is a grass roots marketing effort. I'd reach out to people I know in the library system and try to get open games running there (because it fits with their mandate of promoting literacy). I'd need to convince them to support it with copies of the game book in the city and town library branches. It's possible local success could be built on to roll it out to other city libraries.<br />
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The local library also runs the local comic con. That's another cost effective way to get the word out to people receptive to the genre and possibly interested in the hobby. Getting some tabletop RPG intro games into the Con as events might even be possible.<br />
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There's a video game con that is put on locally that has potential as a place to reach the like-minded gamers. A lot of the common themes used in tabletop RPGs made their way into video games so it shouldn't be too hard to get some people at the con to try it out.<br />
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Both of those would do better with an online component. Luckily I'm married to a film maker who could shoot and edit a series of actual play videos. With those in place the people on the fence could see a demo that looks like actual fun. It also allows for a reach beyond the local area, which is key. A solid website is another necessary component but also not that hard to manage these days. That online component could then be delivered to bloggers and podcasters in any space that overlaps with RPGs. Building out from the face-to-face built core.<br />
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The other facet of the grass roots campaign would be marketing it to the current RPG market. Plenty of current players would love a solid tool they could use to introduce new players to the hobby that they could also hand off to them. Building some excitement in the gaming community for the game on its own merits would be important too. The more people playing it, the easier it will be to find a group to play with! A Kickstarter for an edition with colour art or a large print run might help build excitement and a reputation too.<br />
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As for the second method, I'm working on another approach that might completely change the RPG market. I'd be throwing out most of what I have above to operate on a level no one has conceived of before for gaming. I'll get to that in a later post. There's a lot of work I need to do first to see if it's even possible.<br />
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In the meantime, I'll at least get my rules into a printable version so I can hand it over to my players. The sooner they don't need me to play the better!<br />
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<br />David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-84427379308785948012017-12-12T17:17:00.001-05:002017-12-22T00:20:29.322-05:00"My Kid Wants D&D, What Do I Do?"<div>
Either Wizards of the Coast have done a good job promoting the latest edition of <b>Dungeons & Dragons</b> or <i>Stranger Things</i> got it into everyone's head, because a bunch of people have asked me about getting D&D for their kids this Christmas. </div>
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<b>"You know about this stuff, Dave. Where do I even start?"</b></div>
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Good question! If you've never played a tabletop Role Playing Game before, guiding your child into the hobby could feel like anything from confusing to terrifying. Luckily, I have your back!</div>
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There are actually a lot of games that give you a great RPG experience. Some of them are even specially designed for young people. Despite that, I'm going to suggest starting with the fifth and current edition of Dungeons & Dragons for a few reasons. Everyone who has contacted me has had their kids ask for "D&D" by name. They want something that says "D&D" on it. As the former kid who received a Tandy COCO II from Radio Shack instead of a Commodore 64 for Christmas like everyone else, I'm telling you it's best not to disappoint them with an almost what they asked for. (Don't worry, my parents don't read my blog. Their feelings are safe!) The other thing is D&D has always been something of a lingua franca of roleplaying. Because it is so ubiquitous in the hobby almost everyone has some experience with it and can relate what they are playing to it. It's also the most popular game so it's easy to find other people to game with. The last reason is they've went to a lot of trouble to make it easy for new players to pick up the game without someone helping them through it.</div>
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The best place for a new player to start is <i><b>The D&D Starter Set</b></i> box. It has a stripped down version of the rules with a set of sample characters to play and one of the best starting adventure campaigns ever! They can open the box on Christmas, read through it, choose someone to run the game and be playing as early as that evening (although Boxing Day is probably a more reasonable expectation). Everything necessary to jump in and actually play is in the box, including the funny dice. It's carried by some book and gaming stores, but it's also available to order on <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Dungeons-Dragons-Starter-Set-Roleplaying/dp/0786965592" target="_blank">Amazon </a>and <a href="https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/dungeons-dragons-starter-set-fantasy/9780786965595-item.html" target="_blank">Chapter's Indigo</a>.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgXJRAJFMc9R6joiW8HumGIJ35fcU6xQViGisY5IY6r4HX4XXXMc5OlQiAF7Buz1xDTjBzWTaBnfE4DQsWtgo45kwWd8zlJxFHmTxUafrq6MuUDcnUhtLBa3I52LjcH0a0AHcBlBkZbAX/s1600/Starter+Set.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgXJRAJFMc9R6joiW8HumGIJ35fcU6xQViGisY5IY6r4HX4XXXMc5OlQiAF7Buz1xDTjBzWTaBnfE4DQsWtgo45kwWd8zlJxFHmTxUafrq6MuUDcnUhtLBa3I52LjcH0a0AHcBlBkZbAX/s400/Starter+Set.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Each player controls a character who is an avatar in the shared, imaginary world of the game. One person is going to need to take the role of the referee who adjudicates the rules, runs all the people in the game not played by the players, and presents the problems and situations for the players to solve with the resources of their characters and their wacky ideas. This referee is know as the Dungeon Master or DM. The series of adventures in the box helps a new DM get the hang of running all these things with a great advice and explanations.</div>
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The adventure, called <i><b>The Lost Mines of Phandelver,</b></i> has a series of locations that the players can interact with in any order they like as they figure out what is going on in the campaign area. This is important because it introduces the idea of player choice to everyone playing. The fact that the players can do pretty much anything they want is what makes a tabletop RPG so much better than a video game. </div>
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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://1.bp.blogspot.com/--4BG1z1Cx78/WjBQALJyWGI/AAAAAAAAGV8/qR0ymKIpQYoLY5ER2sWmLsvc2VlBzqmzwCEwYBhgL/s1600/Starter%2BSet%2Ball.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="901" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--4BG1z1Cx78/WjBQALJyWGI/AAAAAAAAGV8/qR0ymKIpQYoLY5ER2sWmLsvc2VlBzqmzwCEwYBhgL/s400/Starter%2BSet%2Ball.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Everything in the D&D Starter Set box</span></td></tr>
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To continue playing after they are done with what they get in the box they will need more rules. <b><i>The Basic Rules</i></b> are available online for free with a guide for both the <i><b><a href="http://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/PlayerBasicRulesV03.pdf" target="_blank">Players</a></b></i> and the <i><b><a href="http://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/DMBasicRulesV05.pdf" target="_blank">Dungeon Master.</a></b></i> These will allow them to create new characters and adventures of their own that can keep them going for years. As much as I love how the ease this creates for entering the hobby, I think it is worth spending some more money on a hard copy of at least the <i style="font-weight: bold;">Player's Handbook. </i>Dead tree books are easier to reference at the table than tablets and you can roll dice on them without scratching a screen. </div>
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<i style="font-weight: bold;">The Player's Handbook </i>for D&D has all the rules and offers all the possibilities needed to create characters to suite the imaginations of the players in straightforward steps. It's fairly easy to get. Most book stores carry it and you can get it on <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Players-Handbook-Wizards-RPG-Team/dp/0786965606/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=P5TEM80D7G18Q023DBVC" target="_blank">Amazon</a> or <a href="https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/9780786965601-item.html?ref=item_page:richrel:rr-carousel:json1" target="_blank">Chapters</a> in a couple of days.</div>
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At this point you are up to nearly $60 in stuff, but if you are sure your kid is going to love it and you want to spend money on things that fit neatly on a shelf, there are a couple more things you can look at right away.</div>
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The first is not made by the D&D people, but one of their competitors. It's compatible with D&D and has a great deal of value beyond the adventure itself. <i><b>Broodmother Skyfortress</b></i> is an adventure in the first half of the book with all kinds of options to tailor the adventure to their taste. It is amazing! The second half is full of advice on how to create campaigns, settings and run adventures. The advice is super useful to a DM new or experienced. The other wonderful thing is the Jack Kirby, 1960s comic book style art is a nice contrast to what you get in the D&D products and might help them think outside of the box. It's from a publisher in Finland called Lamentations of the Flame Princess but is also available in a few days on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Broodmother-Skyfortress-Lamentations-Flame-Princess/dp/9525904504">Amazon.</a></div>
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After that you might want to look at the <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Monster-Manual-Wizards-RPG-Team/dp/0786965614/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=P5TEM80D7G18Q023DBVC" target="_blank">Monster Manual</a> or <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Volos-Guide-Monsters-Wizards-Team/dp/0786966017/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=13FXD7P07TZ7A3PBZKDN" target="_blank">Volo's Guide to Monsters</a> for them but it's not necessary. Save them for a birthday!<br />
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Some other things you'll need right away are pads of graph paper, pencils and a stack of character sheets printed out!</div>
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To make playing easier you could look at player tokens or miniatures. Painting miniatures is a whole other part of the hobby that comes with its own costs and entry hurdles. If people ask me about that I'll do another post, but for now I'll give you some resources for paper miniatures. These can be printed out on a home printer and used as needed to help the players keep track of where everything is when they are playing. They aren't necessary, but I found with my girls that when they were younger (6-8) having miniatures helped them engage with the game.</div>
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One of my favourite sites for these is <a href="http://minipapermodels.blogspot.ca/" target="_blank">Eddnic's Fantasy Paper Minis.</a> They can be printed and folded to create all kinds of monsters to help run encounters! It is possible to find these with some time spent on Google or Pinterest with a simple search for "fantasy paper miniatures" if you have the time. If you don't you can buy PDFs of different printable miniatures for a few dollars (a good use of someone's allowance maybe?) and download them from DriveThru RPG. I'm a fan of the <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/51405/Disposable-Heroes-Fantasy-Statix-1-Heroes?src=hottest_filtered&coverSizeTestPhase2=true&word-variants=true" target="_blank">Disposable Heroes</a> and <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/191449/Dragons-25D-Model-Kit" target="_blank">Trash Mob Minis.</a> </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Click image to see more detail. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">These are the characters from the web series JourneyQuest and film The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. :)</span></td></tr>
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After that they'll want more dice. To keep them for stealing all the normal dice out of your boardgames you should probably buy them a set or two at some point. This is another thing that there is no rush for. You can buy them in comic shops and order them online. I know a guy with an <a href="https://save-or-die.com/" target="_blank">online dice store</a> that can get you a great deal with free shipping (<i>not</i> in time for Christmas)!</div>
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If you are wondering about the benefits of RPGs as a hobby for children, it is a social game that helps develop problem-solving skills, creative thinking, imagination, vocabulary, math skills and teamwork. There are all kinds of benefits so if they want to do it there's no downside. After 35 years of gaming I have no regrets for the time spent. My involvement in RPGs has allowed me to meet some incredible people and is a part of some of my longest lasting friendships. </div>
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</script>David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-67479948509664286442017-12-11T08:00:00.000-05:002017-12-17T00:44:27.851-05:00Wonder vs WeirdThe idea of Wonder verses Weird is one I've struggled with for a long time.<br />
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Kiel Chenier of <a href="http://dungeonsdonuts.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Dungeons and Donuts</a> fame started a <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+KielChenier/posts/dxVji9YPEa3" target="_blank">thread</a> on G+ back in March of 2015. He was talking about how the OSR seems to be caught up in the pursuit of the weird. According to his post old school gaming seems to be reaching toward more uncomfortable material and going for the ick factor while chasing the weird. What he's looking for from a gaming experience is wonder. The feeling of being taken aback by a scene and momentarily stopped by awe.<br />
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Wonder is a great thing to aim for in gaming but it's much harder to achieve than weird. I'd say the two of them are solutions to the same problem with most fantasy RPG material.<br />
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The majority of fantasy RPG material made in the last 40 years is based on the tolkienesque assumed setting of Dungeons and Dragons. There are certainly exceptions, but most fantasy games have the humans, elves, dwarves and halflings defending civilization against the evil creatures like orcs and dragons. These games influenced and inspired writers in the fantasy genre, entrenching these assumptions as "traditional fantasy" in RPGs and all kinds of other media like books, films and video games.<br />
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This common ground certainly makes entry into the hobby a bit easier since there is so much less explanation required. An introduction can be as short as saying the game is just like whatever movie, TV show or video game the person is familiar with that makes use of the common fantasy tropes and that's it. One sentence explanation. That easy summary has it's advantages, but it saps a lot of the wonder that comes from exploring something completely new.<br />
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That's not to say there was never wonder in D&D. I can remember opening up my Mentzer Red Box in total amazement at the scenes and creatures inside. I've seen that same look of wonder when I used the old Basic and Expert books to see if my daughters would want to play an RPG. They were blown away by what they saw and excited to explore the new world it showed them. The points of light in the "known world" setting worked well in terms of developing that sense of wonder as well. Civilization was in small pockets, slowly expanding into a wilderness full of monsters, ancient secrets and wild wonders. It's important to note that when I first encountered D&D I had not read any tolkien or his imitators. My exposure to fantasy by that point was small. Mostly books by Ursula K LeGuin and "historical" fiction with fantastic elements. I also read every Greek, Norse or Celtic myth and legend I could get my hands on. The only fantasy films I'd seen were Excalibur and Legend. When it came to D&D I took it all in like I was starving. Soaking up the elements of Vance, Leiber, Moorcock and even Tolkien with all the wonder my ten-year-old brain could muster.<br />
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I started this post while musing about introducing a couple of brand new players to the RPG hobby and dealing with the pretty serious problem when it comes to wonder. As uber-geeks who have consumed all the fantasy and sci-fi pop-culture can provide there is little in the D&D multiverse that they haven't been exposed to at least in some part before. They had their players' handbooks and they'd read them cover-to-cover. The game itself held a sense of wonder in that it was a new experience and they have nothing on which to base expectations. They knew it has rules so they can count on it being something, but they can't know what that something is until they've tried it out and become familiar with it. If role playing is the novelty then they are likely to jump from campaign to campaign, and game to game and ultimately system to system looking for that feeling again. We played for the better part of a year before life got in the way. There was wonder as they explored the world and tried different things. The fact there was no edge to the map, that adventure could be found almost anywhere as long as they interacted with the world it would present endless possibilities to explore.<br />
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When I started playing D&D, and when I start any new campaign, the wonder comes from the world itself. A world with its own set of rules can hold its own wonder. Learning those rules, exploring the world for more surprises can provide all kinds of fun. But the more the world conforms to expectations, the more the players need to delve into the edges and dark corners to find something new, something that has its own set of rules.<br />
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That's how games like Call of Cthulhu and Lamentations of the Flame Princess build the impact of the adventures. They don't even try to provide wonder in the setting. They've given up that fight as unwinnable and built their world into the shadows of the one we have here. That's the foundation of the weird. It disrupts expectations instead of creating new ones. It changes and tears at the rules and assumptions. It also tends to be terrible in some way. The weird revels in the tension it creates but it needs the mundane as a contrast. Tension needs the norm to pull against.<br />
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Wonder is something different. It doesn't need to be grounded because it does't rely on tension. Wonder inspires awe. Lovecraft did it with his Cyclopean columns in the ancient ruins of unknowable peoples. Carroll did it with the dream-time logic of Wonderland. Fantasy and sci-fi has always had graceful or delicate towers reaching into the sky and strange people with customs that need to be unravelled to be understood.<br />
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Goblins, orcs and elves present little mystery these days. Even the fresh takes on the old themes are grounded in the common expectations surrounding these common fantasy creatures. How do I inject wonder into these common themes without disrupting them so completely they become weird? Does the audience matter? How much do I add to the basic framework of goblins and kobolds for my new players? Am I merely creating uncommon expectations they will attach to familiar names only to have them disrupted by their next group? Is that even fair? It's probably not necessary to change things dramatically to get that burst of wonder. No matter how the world is set up the players will figure out its mysteries and make it "normal" for them.<br />
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I've also been running games for my kids and their friends with the <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-black-hack.html" target="_blank">Black Hack.</a> They don't know the rules and have zero expectations. They are developing them as they interact with the world and explore. Wonder is easy as each new thing is amazing. I could leave everything bog standard D&D and they would eat it all up, but I've made changes. These things, like goblins hatching from a queen's eggs fully grown, they accept as part of D&D. No matter what they read in rulebooks later, goblins will have queens and their nests will be an HR Geiger nightmare with a bloated queen and egg pods everywhere. Those changes are for me, not them.<br />
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For someone new to tabletop gaming the smallest brush against a fantasy trope can create wonder. I rolled an encounter for them at night and had a dragon fly over their camp. They didn't fight it. Their characters couldn't even see it. It was a silhouette revealed by the stars it blotted out above, but it blew their minds to be so close to a dragon! They talked about it for months as that time they saw the dragon with the wonder written all over their faces!<br />
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For adults, wonder seems easier for something like science fiction. Planetary romance or space opera can move from planet to planet. Each new planetfall brings a fresh world with its own set of rules and consistencies that need not relate to any other the characters have visited before. Even hybrids like Vance's Dying Earth where the long past of the Earth lays shadows on the world so that any location could be out of sync with the campaign would the characters already know. I think that is the draw of games like Traveller or even the Planescape and Spelljammer settings of D&D. The perpetual need to explore, to figure out the rules of the current locale and the wonder they present.<br />
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Many of the small press fantasy creators focussed on the disruptive and weird in the past few years, but it's the stuff that captures a sense of wonder as well that seems to gain the most traction and be talked about in the most glowing terms. I think when people use words like "original" and "different," they are really talking about the sense of wonder they found reading or playing it.<br />
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The little products that snag ENnies and get talked about with such passion online are the ones that present worlds with new rules that create a whole new set of expectations through play. A few examples that spring to mind are A Red and Pleasant Land, Yoon Suin, and Veins of the Earth. All three of these present new worlds. The two LotFP releases straddle the weird by having entrances to the real/normal campaign world with a R&PL on the other side of the looking glass and Veins laying deep below the surface, beyond the deepest dungeon or mine. Yoon Suin is a place that can be entered by ship like the original Tékumel where your players need to figure out how things work and find a place in it. All three have their own systems for just about everything and incredible visuals that can deliver the wonder missing from the muddy roads linking the pseudo-european fantasy settings that have all started to look like New Zealand since 2001.<br />
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Maybe the audience doesn't matter. Maybe the need for wonder is my own no matter if I'm playing or running. I think for my next campaign setting I need draw inspiration from the crazy fantasy illustrations and paintings that have no limits like the work of someone like Moebius. Start with visuals full of wonder and build a fantasy world that makes sense with that.<br />
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</script>David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-82009313176195000752017-12-05T23:17:00.000-05:002017-12-06T12:09:21.687-05:00Party Up Like It's 1976!I played the original version of D&D, the one published in the little brown booklets back in the 1970s, for the first time last night. Even though I've played clones like White Box Swords & Wizardry the old game presents a unique experience.<br />
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We were using the <a href="http://www.dmsguild.com/product/28306/ODD-Dungeons--Dragons-Original-Edition-0e" target="_blank">reissue PDFs</a> Wizards of the Coast released a few years ago. Those versions were cleaned up with a better typeface but they still use the same layout and art that the original booklets had. I thought we were going to stick to the first three books with the core classes of the cleric, fighter and magic user. One player wanted to play a thief, another wanted to play a druid and I don't see the point of standing in the way of a player's fun while DMing so we added the class info from books 4, 5 and 6. For quicker reference I was using one of the fan made single volume versions with a better layout and art. It included some rules from Strategic Review like grappling to fill in the odd blanks as well.<br />
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We needed to dip into <a href="http://www.dmsguild.com/product/17174/ODD-Supplement-I-Greyhawk-0e" target="_blank">Greyhawk</a> for the thief class and the rules for the druid class is spread out across Greyhawk, <a href="http://www.dmsguild.com/product/17174/ODD-Supplement-I-Greyhawk-0e" target="_blank">Blackmoor</a> and <a href="http://www.dmsguild.com/product/17176/ODD-Supplement-III-Eldritch-Wizardry-0e" target="_blank">Eldritch Wizardy</a>!<br />
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Character generation went well. Everyone rolled a good spread of abilities with some 15s and 16s balancing out the odd 4 and 7. When it came time to roll hit points everyone rolled a 1. All of them! The fighter starts with +1 to their hit die, so she ended up with 2 and the druid had a 15 Constitution so he also added +1 for a total of 2. The thief was out of luck with only one and refused to name his character until second level. When asked he called himself Thief. This led to some odd roleplaying, but he insisted that he was named that way because everyone from his culture was named after a calamity of some kind to keep them safe from it.<br />
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In play the old rules held up. As well as the rules work in play though, the organization is a total mess. It was clearly a "make it up as we go along" project over the two years the books were published. I'll be adding tabs to the pages I need the most before the next game!<br />
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Combat was easy to run, and with everyone doing 1D6 damage it made for some creative maneuvers rather than strategic weapon choices. One of my favourite moments came when our the player with the fighter said: "Damage is always 1d6 right? So it doesn't matter if I hit the goblin with my sword or smash him into the tree with my shield?" New DMs, the answer to 'can I smash the goblin into the tree with my shield' should always be yes!<br />
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Strategy featured high as the players used hit and run tactics to keep the advantage over their foes. Surprise is a great advantage and easy to achieve if you plan for it. Without the hit points to take a hit and keep fighting they planned for it!<br />
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For all their clever tactics, the group didn't manage to do much in the way of adventuring. Being afraid to take anything on in a straight up fight left them unable to commit to entering the only dungeon they found.<br />
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Most of the first session was spent getting the lay of the land and roleplaying in the town serving as the centre of the campaign. They started by entering the frontier town called Swan's Landing by river barge. They spent some time gathering and verifying the rumours they dug up and made a quick foray into the woods on the eastern shore of the large lake called the Deepwater to raid the goblins they heard were there. After surviving that they felt they needed to find some magic. That led them to track another adventuring party across the Serpent River to the west that disappeared about a week ago. Player skill made the difference here as they asked around and found someone who saw where the other party entered the woods so they could pick up the trail easily. Their other option was to accept a Geas from the local wizard and they weren't too keen on that.<br />
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The setting itself is a small sandbox with a few secrets of its own. Everything should shake out over time. We have plenty of things for them to mess with and otherwise destroy to get us well into the New Year. I'm looking forward to seeing how things change when we add the people who were missing and get into the wilderness adventuring the party is headed for now.<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://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yOYQr59qEEg/WidsrdqEdjI/AAAAAAAAGUg/FvQRPSDhrhAddC7gmGoJbO0jqyiQvSSeQCLcBGAs/s1600/Eldritch%2BWizardry-pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1124" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yOYQr59qEEg/WidsrdqEdjI/AAAAAAAAGUg/FvQRPSDhrhAddC7gmGoJbO0jqyiQvSSeQCLcBGAs/s640/Eldritch%2BWizardry-pic.jpg" width="448" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">So much better than the original cover!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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As a system I liked it. I have pretty much everything I need to run in those first three books and the rest I can easily make up or borrow from somewhere else. It's a bit quirky, with the miniature wargaming roots really showing, but it's not like that gets in the way. There's so little there, it's not like we'll break it by ignoring a rule or two.<br />
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The single best thing in the old rules is the 2D6 based table for initial reactions and the hiring. It made for some interesting role playing moments and gave Charisma a relevance it rarely receives in later editions. People say that system doesn't matter but the existence of that table caused one player to say: "Hey, in this edition we can talk to anyone and anything and it might work out, right? I think we need to do that all the time!"<br />
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The other thing I enjoyed was the titles of the supplements. Greyhawk, Blackmoor and Eldritch Wizardry all evoke a feeling of the fantastic in a way that something newer, such as The Black Hack or Dungeon World, does not.<br />
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This foundation RPG project is going well so far. Everyone enjoyed it and delving into the OD&D game should give our whole group a new perspective. If you are interested in how one of my players found it, you can check out <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?4726-Surviving-A-Dangerous-Night-Of-Gaming-With-Original-Dungeons-Dragons#.WiczNiMrJcA" target="_blank">their post here</a>.<br />
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</script>David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-17892499311770980732017-11-23T23:40:00.003-05:002018-01-31T12:54:17.935-05:00And Now for Something Completely Different, but First, More of the Same Black Friday CommercialismA few years back my group decided to give the Fate and Fudge systems a go for a couple of campaigns. I'm not going to review these games (unless someone asks me to do so) but I did have quite the adventure looking for the funny dice that you need to play those games.<br />
<br />
Fate and its predecessor, Fudge, both use six sided dice with two plus signs, two minus signs and two blank faces. With the popularity of the Fate system I thought getting a set would be easy. I was wrong.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Sadly, good art costs money. I'll add that to the list!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I live outside of a city of 160 thousand people. There is one comic shop and two gaming stores that all sell table top RPGs and the dice you need to play them. No one at any of them even knew what Fate or Fudge was. At one store when I asked for Fudge dice they handed me loaded dice!<br />
<br />
I know what you are thinking, "The internet will provide," right?<br />
<br />
I thought the same, but I was wrong again. I live in Canada. Up north and far from the border so I can't keep a US Post Office Box to beat the crazy shipping costs. As much as the internet had reasonably priced Fate Dice, getting a set for less than $30 was impossible after shipping was added.<br />
<br />
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For most of the games I used a set of wooden cubes with plusses and minuses drawn on with a marker. I eventually purchased a set at the Complete Strategist while on a family vacation. Thankfully it was only a couple of blocks from the Empire State Building and my family was willing to indulge me.<br />
<br />
The idea that I had to go to New York City to buy a set of dice for ten dollars is completely insane! Thinking about it reminded me how hard it was to get different RPGs up here back in the day. So many games only existed in the pages of Dragon Magazine. There was no Traveller, only Star Frontiers. No Talislanta, only AD&D. We had access to only the most mass produced and widely distributed games.<br />
<br />
Now, getting the actual games in PDF is easy no matter where a gamer is. In many ways this might be the best time ever for RPGs. The problem of getting dice is still a real one for many gaming groups. The more remote you are, the less access you have to other media, the more attractive an RPG can be as form of entertainment, but the harder it is to get the dice!<br />
<br />
And the dice are important. A die rolling app on a computer or phone is not the same. There is a greater feeling of tension built by the time it takes to roll the dice and for them to stop! There is satisfaction in the physical act of rolling! It's fun!<br />
<br />
Besides, funny dice are awesome!<br />
<br />
For all these reasons I decided to create an online store to sell dice this fall. I spent a great deal of time finding manufacturers and distributors that could ship to just about anywhere at a price that would make dice accessible to anyone.<br />
<br />
And that is how the <a href="https://save-or-die.com/" target="_blank">Save or Die</a> store was born!<br />
<br />
I created Save or Die so anyone could get the <a href="https://save-or-die.com/collections/polyhedral-dice" target="_blank">polyhedral dice</a> they need to enjoy gaming. I set it up so <i>shipping is always free.</i> The price shown is the price people pay. Depending on where people live they may have to wait a little longer to get their dice, anywhere from three to eight weeks, but they won't get boned on shipping.<br />
<br />
It's Black Friday/Cyber Monday this weekend so I'm opening the store early. There is still plenty of work to do. The promo isn't done. The product line will continue to expand, especially with the other things people need for gaming like <a href="https://save-or-die.com/collections/design-notebooks" target="_blank">graph paper notebooks</a> (something else that is hard to get around here). I haven't completed all the SEO. <strike>There's no Facebook page.</strike> <strike>I haven't set up PayPal yet</strike>. The list goes on. But the dice are available!<br />
<br />
So head over to Save-or-Die.com and take a look around. If you have any questions shoot me an email.<br />
<br />
NOTE: We now have a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SaveOrDieRPG/" target="_blank">Facebook page for Save-or-Die!</a> Take a moment to like it!<br />
<br />
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</script>David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-70922586552825975922017-10-13T14:56:00.002-04:002020-04-29T00:14:24.676-04:00Rules for Pets in the Black HackThe longer I run David Black's stripped down old/new school D&Dish retro clone called <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-black-hack.html" target="_blank">The Black Hack</a>, the more I find myself writing rules to suit the situations my players create and modify the game to our taste. The more I add and change the more I find myself with what looks like the beginnings of a great RPG that straddles the old school and new school well enough to function as a great little introductory fantasy RPG. That might fuel some posts for later, but for now here are the rules I created for running pets and animal companions in the Black Hack.<br />
<br />
My players for my Keep on the Borderlands campaign went into the woods to see if they could find the dragon they heard about and only found the crazy hermit and his lion. They killed the hermit and then they tracked down the lion so they could use a <i>Charm Monster</i> potion on it. The warrior character treated it well and fed it more than the hermit did while they had it under control. I gave the player in control of the warrior a Charisma roll when the potion expired to befriend the lion. I figured with a 6 Charisma I was safe and the lion would just run away.<br />
<br />
That's when they rolled a critical and the lion became their pet. Now I have rules for how pets work in the Black Hack. These are the expanded and polished version of what I sketched out during that session so they could use their lion right away. They've worked well so far. If your players force you to make up rules for pets you can use these ones!<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG9f6Fdv12ZRkR5t-TrKHgrLWj_RvqtMoEil9sL82sujNzeN7oO9zF9YGB6vPlkJNDNMlJwxD1tnFWt49-TVNrQ4p02WpWjeLLI8jN68-na1EjMV_JFMBftbsG9Lle2aaG_K3Qn1a3pK08/s1600/Moebius+Magic+Lion+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="501" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG9f6Fdv12ZRkR5t-TrKHgrLWj_RvqtMoEil9sL82sujNzeN7oO9zF9YGB6vPlkJNDNMlJwxD1tnFWt49-TVNrQ4p02WpWjeLLI8jN68-na1EjMV_JFMBftbsG9Lle2aaG_K3Qn1a3pK08/s640/Moebius+Magic+Lion+.jpg" width="521" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">There is a Moebius image for every blogpost!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Creature companions/pets have three attributes besides their regular DMG, HD and HP: Action, Sense and Loyalty. The ACT and SEN attributes are based on the creature’s HD. ACT is 10 + HD to a maximum of 16 and SEN is 10 + HD + (roll 2d6 and choose the lowest one) to a maximum of 18. LOY is a usage die and depends on how well trained and well treated the pet is before bad things start happening. A faithful dog that has been with the character for a few years will have LOY of d8 or even d10. A pack animal that was recently purchased will have a LOY of d4.</span></span><br />
<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtDXF9C5-j0oN-q-46bJ2BFBfgW3oQthXwpS6kOZ6Co4FzHOOXCyomRGv_GoWyrwa8spKBJk_z5fEra3lbGUxGF4x8uJY3Sjrn-OZB93S7S0C8pCKP4I5Eosl2XTFa493C2EzK7Qa3l7ry/s1600/The+Black+Hack+RPG.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><br />
</div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ACT is used for physical tests like dodging falling rocks or combat. SEN is used to notice something, track or any test that depends on the animal’s senses. LOY is tested any time something bad happens, such as the beast is wounded, mistreated or neglected when hungry. If the LOY result is a 1 or 2 on a d4 the animal will attempt to run away.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pets and creature companions can play different roles during combat. One option is to attack independently using their ACT attribute. If used this way they risk damage from opponents if ACT rolls are failed. Another option is for them to fight with the character that owns them and add a +1 to their effective HD for the purposes of fighting powerful or multiple opponents. Pets could also harass and distract a single opponent to create an opening and allow the character that owns the pet to get Advantage on an attack. It depends on circumstances, but creativity should be rewarded.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pets get one action or attack, the same as the characters. Their damage based on HD already reflects the results of using all their natural weapons. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s an example notation of a lion that was charmed using potions and then became a pet:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ACT 15 SEN 15 LOY d8 </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">DMG 1d10 HD 4+1 HP 18</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; white-space: normal;">This way all the rolls stay player facing while they roll against the stats their pets have when they take some kind of action. The loyalty die allows whoever is running the game to keep things from getting too out of hand. If the pet is being overused they can call for more loyalty rolls.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; white-space: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; white-space: normal;">Let me know what you think in the comments. Especially if your try them out too! </span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: small; white-space: normal;"><br />
</span></span></div>
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</script>David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-32116483330214534392017-08-10T10:50:00.000-04:002017-08-10T10:50:02.079-04:00#RPGaDAY 2017 - Day Eleven<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-k_ZnEubTPLA/WYxw5FambZI/AAAAAAAAGJ8/V-gBd4i17mwe9WsCavgtymVhM47vFXvuACEwYBhgL/s1600/MSH-Basic-Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="644" data-original-width="501" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-k_ZnEubTPLA/WYxw5FambZI/AAAAAAAAGJ8/V-gBd4i17mwe9WsCavgtymVhM47vFXvuACEwYBhgL/s640/MSH-Basic-Cover.jpg" width="496" /></a></div>
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The "dead" RPG I would like to see reborn is the old Marvel Super Heroes FASERIP system from TSR in the 1980s. It can't be declared truly dead since so many people are still playing it and all of the PDFs from its original run are free online. But it is out of print and no one is taking advantage of all the game design improvements of the last 30 years to tighten up the game and improve the play experience.<br />
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That's not a criticism of the game. It was both ahead of its time and a product of it. The resolution chart for success, in particular, was en vogue in game design for a while in the early 1980s but disappeared quickly. Still, much of what makes the game work well found its way into modern games like FATE. I wrote a <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2015/01/return-to-marvel-super-heroes.html" target="_blank">post about that along time ago.</a> The wonky experience system that is burned for luck is a feature I find in more games lately as well. The experience rewards themselves are a brilliant way to encourage play that gets the kind of situations that happen in Marvel comics all the time.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The infamous chart. I remember we had a cardboard wheel that worked the same as the chart for a while too.</span></td></tr>
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The biggest barrier to a renewed Marvel Super Heroes game is licensing. Back in the 80s Marvel likely saw an RPG as a way to expand their market on the rising tide of D&D's insane success. Their properties also weren't worth what they are today, thanks to some outlandishly successful movies and small screen offerings. The recent Marvel Heroic RPG collapsed under the weight of the licensing agreement Margret Weiss Productions made to get it. Their game existed for a year before that dream died. There were other problems with the game, notably a lack of original character generation, but any other publisher is going to have to deal with a similar financial imbalance. RPGs have shrunk as a market and Marvel as an IP has gained a whole new level of success. The viral success necessary to afford to keep the license is difficult to manufacture.<br />
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That said, this is about what I want, rather than what I think can happen. I'd like to see the FASERIP rules streamlined and cleaned up a bit. It could be brought into the 21st century with a few tweaks. Maybe that chart could be replaced with a target number system? Maybe the percentile dice could be dumped for something more simple, like a D20? The details are less important than the core game moving forward and evolving.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">You won't see one of these in the new game! :P</span></td></tr>
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There are plenty of old adventures available from <a href="http://classicmarvelforever.com/cms/" target="_blank">Classic Marvel Forever, </a>but I'd like to see some new ones. How about a Marvel Cinematic Universe Sourcebook? That's a way to make a grab for new fans.<br />
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The Marvel Universe has grown and changed a lot since the game went out of print. It would be amazing to see what could be done with it all now.<br />
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<b>Note:</b> <i>If you are reading along, you might notice that I'm skipping days here and there. Part of it comes from my schedule, which is quite busy in the summer, and part of it comes from me finding some of the topics uninspiring. I know I called this process microblogging and a big part of it for me is to rebuild my blogging habit, but I'm not going to pull something out of my ass or write a single paragraph for the sake of checking off a day.</i><br />
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<br />David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-36795984946352746342017-08-10T08:04:00.000-04:002017-08-10T09:45:00.106-04:00#RPGaDAY 2017 - Day Nine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--ekhA0eI69Y/WYvJ7nAPnOI/AAAAAAAAGJk/y3JoRLK_wGcohjA0I-Wc7yaB3FVQyVisQCEwYBhgL/s1600/Taken-from-Moebius-Arzach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="998" data-original-width="1308" height="305" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--ekhA0eI69Y/WYvJ7nAPnOI/AAAAAAAAGJk/y3JoRLK_wGcohjA0I-Wc7yaB3FVQyVisQCEwYBhgL/s400/Taken-from-Moebius-Arzach.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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A good RPG for about 10 sessions is the <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/178359/The-Black-Hack" target="_blank">Black Hack</a> by David Black. It's a 20 page fantasy RPG with streamlined rules and a surprisingly robust system. I reviewed it in detail <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-black-hack.html" target="_blank">way back when</a>, but here I'm going to focus on why it's good for 10 sessions.<br />
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While the system can handle any situation with a quick judgement the rules as written appear to break down in long term play. This isn't hard to change, and the Black Hack begs to bent to the whim of the table, but I figure for this question I should stick to the rules as written.</div>
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Part of the reason it's so good for a short campaign is character generation. Characters can easily be created in five to fifteen minutes so there is no reason you can't get right into the action in the first session. With time limited in the campaign you don't want to waste too much rolling characters.</div>
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Another point in its favour is the speed of the system. At 20 pages it's about as rules-light as you can go with D20 game. There is no time lost looking up rules, and there are no fiddly bits to slow down the players. They declare and action and test against a stat for success. That's it. This allows the group to cover a lot of ground in whatever adventure they are playing.</div>
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The advancement system is loose and can be as fast as one level per session. That means the characters end the campaign at level 10, the old name level from the original fantasy RPG. This means in only 10 sessions the PCs can develop all the way from zero to hero. That short development is something you aren't going to get with another traditional RPG rules as written.</div>
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The system is adaptable. You can use it with the list of monsters in the back to put together your own adventure or adapt on the fly anything made for the D&D family of systems. What it comes down to is the Black Hack is an easy choice for a short campaign, whatever your goal.</div>
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David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-24038118463163687172017-08-09T22:08:00.000-04:002017-08-10T09:44:47.843-04:00#RPGaDay 2017 - Day EightWhat is a good RPG for a two hour session? There's plenty of micro games and pocket mods that could fill a short session with some crazy fun, but I think one of the best games for a complete game in two hours is Classic Traveller.<br />
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I know I said Classic Traveller is game I wish I was playing in the <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2017/08/rpg-day-2017-day-one.html" target="_blank">Day One Post</a>, but that's not why I think it's perfect for two hour session. I've played quite a few two-hour sessions and with Classic Traveller using the 76 Patrons adventure book.<br />
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76 Patrons is basically 76 adventure hooks with important features randomized on a D6. It could be a twist, a betrayal, a change to the maguffin. It doesn't matter, it means there are 76 times 6 (456) potential scenarios in that little black booklet. Each page has enough information laid out to improvise a good adventure scenario. They can be completed by a motivated group in less than two hours unless the GM pads them out with extra detail or complications.<br />
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Traveller itself allows for pretty much any kind of play. The galaxy is consists of endless isolated planets full of mystery and opportunities. The party can encounter any level of tech imaginable so there is no itch that can't be scratched in a short game.<br />
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Making characters in Classic Traveller can take a few minutes and be recorded on an index card. Despite this speed and brevity, the characters are amazingly fleshed out with a storied past and plenty of experience (or skills) to bring to bear on any situation. The six stats run from raw talent to education and social standing. This and a smattering of skills give the players everything they need to figure out how their characters fit into a pulp adventure, a careful exploration, a political intrigue, etc.<br />
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If you want a quick game, the core books from Classic Traveller along with the 76 Patrons supplement will get you a short evening of fun and adventure!<br />
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<br />David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-67473089619000716102017-08-04T01:05:00.004-04:002017-08-04T08:23:01.588-04:00#RPGaDAY 2017 - Day FourToday's microblog topic, courtesy of #RPGaDAY2017, is the RPG I've played most since August 2016. I've easily played more 5e D&D than any other game in the past year.<br />
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I've played in a steady Sunday night game for a a couple of years or more. It's been pretty amazing. I managed to get my Warlock up to 16th level, the highest I've ever managed in 35 years of D&D. The system has adapted well to our dirty tricks under one of the best DMs I've played with. I've played a total of three characters in the campaign, but my Warlock is definitely my favourite. Had I know it would last so long, I might have chosen my class more carefully, but I have no regrets.<br />
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I ran 5e D&D campaigns for a couple of new groups of players. Both groups wanted me to specifically run "the new D&D" for them. Mostly because they had bought the books but didn't really understand how to use them. Partially because they wanted to play the new shiny D&D.<br />
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Outside of that, I've played all kinds of other games, from Marvel FASERIP to the Cypher System. Never as consistently or as long as D&D though.<br />
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The latest D&D is a pretty good game. I like the addition of backgrounds. The different types of each class that are chosen between 2nd and 3rd level remind me of the kits from 2nd edition. The feats are no longer overwhelming and merely add some colour to a character. There are enough player facing choices that t's easy for two characters of the same class to be completely different in play. All in all, it's pretty good.<br />
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I do find it fiddly at times. I don't like how much I need to consult the books during play, but it's not too bad. It's far more streamlined than the 3rd and 3.X editions. Left to my own devices I would play something more old school, but the best edition of D&D is the edition someone else is willing to run for you.David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-79184999754546219722017-08-03T22:11:00.000-04:002017-08-03T23:52:40.748-04:00#RPGaDAY 2017 - Day ThreeHow do I find out about new RPGs?<br />
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How does anyone find out? There are few things gamers like to talk about more than games. There are a myriad of online spaces full of gamers talking about all things RPG. There are blogs, podcasts, forums, and plenty of pages and communities on social media.<br />
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Google Plus is still the best place to find out about new RPGs for me. Without fail someone will post a link to a review of a new RPG, a creator's game development blog, or a play report. I do it myself. There's so much information about new games I don't even follow all the links.<br />
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News travels fast on the internet. It's easy to find if you want to, and so many of us do. We all love to grab a new game, read it, see if there's something there that will give us an experience we want or haven't had in play before. Hoping to see if someone came up with anything new or good we can adapt to what we are already playing at our own table.<br />
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There are few things as gratifying as being surprised by a new game innovation. It's why we can't help ourselves. I have a library full of PDFs of RPGs, old and new. I have so many I had to pay for extra space in my Google Drive.<br />
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Following the line of thought from my <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2017/08/rpg-day-2017-day-two.html" target="_blank">last post</a>, I still wonder how to get the news out to new players. Is it the online community for board gamers? Is it book stores? Are libraries the key?<br />
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That's a more interesting question to me. How do we get the word out past the confines of the RPG community? We're great at telling each other what's happening, but how do we find the people that don't know what they are missing?<br />
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I wish I knew.David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-23429244013217982862017-08-02T22:32:00.001-04:002017-08-02T22:32:09.960-04:00RPG a Day 2017: Day TwoThe topic for day two of #RPGaDAY is what RPG I would like to see published. Since the ease of self-publishing and open licenses on so many RPG systems has led to a surge in the variety of RPGs available it feels like there is a game for almost every taste out there. When I run them, I find I still need to tweak things. Sometimes I massage a game's rules so much it's not really the game I started with but my tastes run toward pulp action with an element of danger in casting magic.<br />
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That doesn't mean I want a new pulp action fantasy game. It certainly couldn't hurt. I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes the kind of game I like, but that's not what I'd like to see published right now. I'd like to see a game published that is designed for and marketed to new players. The only game out at the moment that seems to even consider new players in its design is Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons. Every other game is aimed at people who are already players. That means the entire hobby rises and sinks on the success of D&D. The latest edition is pretty good, but it has some fiddly bits and 50 years of expectations as baggage. All of that might form a barrier to new players. Besides, I don't trust a bunch of corporate stooges with my hobby.<br />
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What I would like to see is a new game that doesn't have the baggage of 5e D&D that is designed to be easy to pick up and play for new people. I'd like to see a game that delivers all the wonder and excitement that can be packed into a fantasy RPG, with intuitive guidelines that allow for flexibility and don't have players consulting the book during play unless they are looking for something awesome.<br />
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I've been thinking about this since I started running the <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-black-hack.html" target="_blank">Black Hack</a> for a new group of players. They love it and might try playing on their own if I could give them a rule book that they could run a game with. But the Black Hack is 20 streamlined pages designed for an experienced GM. The player facing parts are exceptional but there is nothing in there for the new GM.<br />
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We have all the talent in the DIY RPG/OSR/Indy RPG publishing scene to make a game that is a tool for play, an instruction book for learning how and an inspiration for years of fun. What we have less of is people with the will and money to market such a thing outside the RPG scene.<br />
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As long as your game has some good layout and art (or at least doesn't have bad art) you can count on making enough sales to recover whatever you put into it. If the game is good, you get lucky, or you get the word out to the RPG scene you could make a tidy profit from it. That means there is no incentive for a small publisher to spend the effort or money necessary to push outside the existing market. One of the results of that is we have all kinds of games. Some of these games come from amazing risks that make great RPGs that push game design forward. Others are pretty terrible. Most are somewhere in the middle, but suit a niche and make a group of players happy by catering to their particular tastes. Another result is we creators stay inside the bubble and new players looking for way into the hobby that isn't D&D don't have the options that were available in the 1980s.<br />
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I guess that means I'd like to see a whole bunch of games published. Games aimed at new players and different genres. Games made by gamers for new gamers they don't know.<br />
<br />David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-68847890047366669012017-08-01T22:15:00.000-04:002017-08-01T22:16:45.830-04:00RPG a Day 2017: Day OneIt's #RPGaDAY time again. I participated once before by covering all the topics in one giant <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2015/08/bandwagon-blogging-rpgaday2015-in-one-go.html" target="_blank">omni-post.</a> This time I'm going to try to do the challenge as written. One RPG topic a day, every day, for all of August.<br />
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Day One is the question: "What Published RPG do you wish you were playing right now?"<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Spoilers!</i></td></tr>
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At the moment my gaming life is pretty rich. I play in a regular 5e D&D game. I'm playing good old Marvel FASERIP with my longtime group. I'm also running a streamlined version of the Black Hack for my kids and some of their friends. There's not much missing, but I do have a game I'd love to be playing right now: Classic Traveller.<br />
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I blogged about Classic Traveller <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2015/09/classic-traveller-playing-for-first-time.html" target="_blank">once before</a>. Since then the game has grown on me. It is a brilliant bit of design! It's a simple, skills-based system that makes science fiction adventure easy to do.<br />
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I like the way the loose, implied setting can be adapted to any idea the group has for the kind of game they want. It's easy to take inspiration from so much of the genre to build your setting or add detail to the implied setting until it feels right. That's why I love the original three little black books. In them, the galaxy represents infinite possibility. Anything can happen out in the vastness of space! There are dangers, opportunities and adventure out there with no reason to ever stop.<br />
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Traveller characters are experienced adventurers with the right stuff. That means the Traveller character generation is a process of creating a past for each character. This approach is brilliant for science fiction where character knowledge and experience are the tools used to overcome obstacles.<br />
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A lot of chaff is thrown at the possibility of Traveller characters dying during character generation, but it turns the process into a game in itself. A gamble with the highest of stakes! Push things too far, and that character that you are starting to like might wind up dead! Don't go far enough and you won't have the skills you need to survive in play! It's also fast enough that starting over is no huge burden. There are even some great online random character generators out there that allow you to make a character (sometimes even a dead one) in seconds.<br />
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There are piles of classic books available, but the game I want to play is in the 3 LBBs, Charts and Tables, Citizens of the Imperium and 76 Patrons. That's my dream set for the long Traveller campaign I haven't played yet.<br />
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That is why I want to play it so bad! I found Traveller only a few years ago, when I bought the charity bundle. So far I've only had short runs and one-shots with the game. Just enough to let me know how much I like it and what I want to do with it. I know I want a crumbling galactic empire, like in the Foundation Series, mixed with the oppressive regime desperately clinging to the remains of power like Blake's 7, mixed with the wild sci-fi adventure tourism of Doctor Who, all held together with the cynical opportunism of FireFly. The Traveller umbrella can cover it all and more!<br />
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<br />David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-76632226842167059682017-04-16T15:38:00.001-04:002017-04-16T15:38:42.830-04:00The Outsiders - 200 Word RPG Contest<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I decided to give the 200 Word RPG <a href="https://200wordrpg.github.io/" target="_blank">Contest</a> a whirl. It turns out that’s too short for my design aesthetic. I can either create a robust resolution mechanic or deliver tone and atmosphere information, but I can’t do both. I think 300 words might do the trick (my first draft came in at 279 words) but I’m guessing that wouldn’t be much of a contest. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The choice itself is interesting. It shows what each designer feels needs to be locked down. Anything we leave out is given to the people at the table to handle. We trust they will make the right choices for their table or don’t feel those choices will significantly change the experience we are going for. I’d love to have a conversation with the many designers about each of the games to find out why they chose to cut and what was left out.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For me, I found the editing process made my little game better, but there was no room for examples which I find help with clarity. At 200 words, tight rules is an understatement.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I've had horror on the brain lately. My inspiration for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Outsiders</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> came from Lovecraftian horror and urban fantasy such as Forever Knight, Dresden Files, Blood Ties etc. I love the the idea that once you see the things hiding in the shadows you are drawn into a whole new dangerous world. After that first contact you keep coming into contact with the supernatural until it kills you.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I tried to convey as much of the genre idea as possible with the space I had, but it boiled down mostly to word choice since I gave space to the shortest mechanic I could develop that would handle the game I wanted to play. The mechanic itself gives some information on how things should go since it is weighted toward failure and failure comes with a snowball effect.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Hello Mother"</span></i> </td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Outsiders RPG:</i></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The world is threatened by a reality few ever understand is even real. The history of the fight is passed down from generation to generation in stories. As people controlled more of the world and pushed light and order into the darkness and chaos those histories became mere stories, twisted and perverted in the name of entertainment. There is little value in them now as anything other than a warning. Those who know what is hidden protect the world. These characters run by the players are known as Outsiders. Everything else in the world is run by the player that creates the scenarios and judges the results of die rolls. This player is known as the Other.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Character Generation is open and simple. Characters are a brief, written description outlining look, attitudes, background, skills and experience with the supernatural. To keep things reasonable it makes sense to restrict the character sheet to the size of a half sheet of notebook paper or an index card. During the process, the players share these descriptions and makes changes to their histories to link them to each other. They can be regular humans or be supernatural themselves depending on what kind of game everyone wants to play. The other can use them as inspiration for the scenarios and threats presented to the players.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gameplay depends on a handful of dice. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When a character tries something where failure would be interesting the player makes an Action Roll. The player rolls one, two, or three D6s if their character is Unprepared, Ready, or Prepared (respectively) based on their character description and previous actions. Being prepared could be a matter of experience, such as an ex-soldier always being ready to fight or a matter of planning such as a librarian stepping into a blind spot in the stacks and readying a weapon in ambush.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The Other rolls one, two, or three D6s for Stressful, Hard, or Longshot actions (respectively). What each of these levels of difficulty represents will be different with each group and how they want their game to play. For myself, something like picking a lock under a time constraint is Stressful, throwing a baseball across a room to push a small idol off an altar is Hard, and throwing a heavy candlestick across a room to knock the dagger out of a priest’s hand is a Longshot.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The player succeeds with one die higher than the Other’s highest. Two higher is a success with a bonus and three higher is a critical success. A bonus can be a better than expected result, such as the idol in example above rolling away into the darkness and being lost. A critical success is basically the best outcome you can imagine, such as the the priest in the example above getting knocked unconscious after taking the candlestick to the head intead of the hand. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A tie means success with a deadlock or a Difficulty. The player can chose to hold the action in a deadlock or take on a penalty to succeed in whatever they are doing. Maybe the person picking a lock could succeed, but sprain their wrist in the process to distracted by the pain until they deal with it or break their pick leaving them unable to open any more locks. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two dice under the Other’s top die is failure and Difficulty. Three under takes a character out of the action until they can sort themselves out or be cared for (KOed, flees in terror, mark makes public scene, etc).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Difficulty can be something that affects the game such as losing something important, but is commonly a die added to Other rolls against that character. Difficulty is mental, emotional or physical stress that reduces character performance shown with coins or tokens placed on the character sheet and removed through meaningful character action. How they are removed depends on how they are received. First aid will do little to patch up a bad scare or a loss of face in a social situation, but it perfect for a physical injury. Therapy will do nothing for a broken arm but is perfect for psychological stress. An evening of rest in a bar with the rest of the group might be applied as a cure for many ills.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Other will present the scenarios in the form of rumours, cries for help or whatever else will attack the attention of the players. The players will decide their priorities and have their characters deal with whatever threats or mysteries seem the most credible or important.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ7RSgXd7KimvXsH8ICDDRnOlLIua0EL088l5sK0YrkeSmEkE3t5GCDePl-65blLXaZ4dNB6k-rFLyjE2AA0Z0wa4WoffOEYqEjrNWcCssDICLCpTr3wnLKsWYo939MoqnZ2fD7YoFm5kb/s1600/pit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ7RSgXd7KimvXsH8ICDDRnOlLIua0EL088l5sK0YrkeSmEkE3t5GCDePl-65blLXaZ4dNB6k-rFLyjE2AA0Z0wa4WoffOEYqEjrNWcCssDICLCpTr3wnLKsWYo939MoqnZ2fD7YoFm5kb/s640/pit.jpg" width="450" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"The Pit"</span></i></td></tr>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s the complete game at approximately 750 words. There’s no need for character advancement since you play the character that you want to play. I like it as a pickup game for those times when a player fails to show to a regular game session.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like the resolution system for an open system. I may use it for more short game designs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you are interested in the <a href="https://200wordrpg.github.io/" target="_blank">200 Word RPG Contest</a> they are accepting <a href="https://200wordrpg.github.io/2017submission" target="_blank">submissions </a>until the end of day Eastern Time on April 23rd. If you’d like to see the 200 word version of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Outsiders RPG,</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I'm positing it here as a JPEG, but you'll also find it with the rest of the submitted games <a href="https://200wordrpg.github.io/2017entries" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2s8SOeOz4d7TI9uOC8ZpDvv9DOBHFRU3E7klf2sXx9uvnsET4R1Te3E5GzR-5JvFZEk-r7ACJM_TRCL4z646QjSu9zhapbXlpJYeiDFrmDBzd3KDwO5SWSIcLjt_SWBsm71QhreKJIsCr/s1600/OutsiderRPG-SubmissionVersion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2s8SOeOz4d7TI9uOC8ZpDvv9DOBHFRU3E7klf2sXx9uvnsET4R1Te3E5GzR-5JvFZEk-r7ACJM_TRCL4z646QjSu9zhapbXlpJYeiDFrmDBzd3KDwO5SWSIcLjt_SWBsm71QhreKJIsCr/s640/OutsiderRPG-SubmissionVersion.jpg" width="452" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>200 Word Draft of </i><b>The Outsiders RPG,</b><i> click on the image to make it big enough to read. =)</i></span></td></tr>
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<br />David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-23640749935495019252017-02-28T22:10:00.000-05:002017-02-28T22:10:01.945-05:00Moulding Young Minds and Other MadnessThis post was supposed to be the third session report of my <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2017/01/their-first-campaign.html" target="_blank">D&D campaign with my daughters</a> but I'll be combining several weeks of play into this post to bring you all up to speed and talk about a few of the developments.<br />
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We're still using <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-black-hack.html" target="_blank">The Black Hack</a> by David Black along with the legendary D&D Module, <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2017/01/bloodthirsty-children.html" target="_blank">B2 The Keep on the Borderlands</a>. I've made changes to both since we started but the biggest change is the expansion of the group.<br />
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I volunteered to watch my friend's son while she took her daughter to the clinic one evening and since it was D&D night, after supper I asked him if he wanted to play. Carter had never even heard of Dungeons and Dragons so I described it as "like a video game, but everything happens in your head." He thought that sounded cool so we rolled up a character. He decided on a Warrior named Dabber. When he rolled four for his Charisma he asked if his character could be missing an eye with a big scar and loose flap of skin. I was a little worried I'd need to draw that so I suggested a scar with a metal plate nailed into his skull to hide his empty socket. Carter thought that was a great idea and we were off!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Eg1HhAVNO64/WLY1olkdkyI/AAAAAAAAFSk/kZDzC6PPThIE20PimfF34DxH1fU1Eu6AwCLcB/s1600/Character%2BSheet%2BDabber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Eg1HhAVNO64/WLY1olkdkyI/AAAAAAAAFSk/kZDzC6PPThIE20PimfF34DxH1fU1Eu6AwCLcB/s640/Character%2BSheet%2BDabber.jpg" width="494" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The Black Hack Character Sheet for Dabber, the Warrior played by Carter, 9</span></td></tr>
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Getting him to the rest of the party was easy enough, he simply followed the trail of corpses in the goblin cave to the supply room where the girl's characters were finishing up a short rest. Their rest had been interrupted early on by some hobgoblins coming through a secret door, but they were ready to go. They accepted their new party member since he was a bad-ass looking warrior and the Conjurer was tired of getting wailed on in combat.<br />
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It didn't take them long to find the seat of power for the goblin caves. I swapped out the original chieftain, honour guard and mates for a goblin queen and her retinue in her nest. I described it like something out of a HR Giger painting and they ate it up. The kids loved the large, bloated queen with her chain-mail stretched across her heavy body, swinging her great-axe at them while shouting in goblin. The large black eggs stuck to the walls and floor where goblins hatched as full-sized and functioning adults was alien and great scenery for them to work with as they moved around the room fighting the queen's honour guard.<br />
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They managed to kill the queen and ran through the last of the honour guard after she surrendered. Not much for mercy, these kids. My daughters also argued over who got to stab the goblins that fell to the Sleep spells because they both wanted to do it.<br />
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That was also the session where they started chanting, "One, one, one!" while rolling important hits in hopes of encouraging a crit.<br />
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With their huge treasure hall they were able to buy better armour and spend a month at the Keep trying to learn the Goblin and Giant languages from some people they found who were willing to teach them for a fee. They made their Intelligence tests at the end of the month and each added the language they had studied to their respective character sheets. Then they made another delve into the goblin caves only to find a giant spider had taken up residence in the common hall.<br />
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Apparently Carter talked about D&D and how much fun he had non-stop for a week. Since it worked out for everyone's schedule I offered to take him and his older sister on Wednesday so they all could play. Hailey was a little wary since Carter's excited descriptions made zero sense to her, but since my youngest, Pascale, was playing she said she'd try it out.<br />
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Hailey rolled up a character with both a high Strength and Dexterity. She decided to play a Thief like Pascale's character but wanted to use a giant, two-handed hammer. Since weapon damage is by class in The Black Hack and I had thrown out the weapon restrictions on day one anyway, I saw no reason to say no to her idea. Erie started tiptoeing around the caves with a giant hammer on her shoulder.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IjsQpC5UryY/WLYy1EujdMI/AAAAAAAAFSY/oZ5dA_tpPJE48IDl2FVBtQWwmjoluI5owCEw/s1600/Erie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IjsQpC5UryY/WLYy1EujdMI/AAAAAAAAFSY/oZ5dA_tpPJE48IDl2FVBtQWwmjoluI5owCEw/s640/Erie.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Erie, the maul-wielding Thief played by Hailey, 10</span></td></tr>
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The group spent time bribing the ogre (now that they could talk to him) for safe passage and using their sneak attack on the hobgoblins that they found behind the secret door in the store room. My oldest, Chloe, thought it was hilarious that the hobgoblins had looted all the stuff from the goblins that the party wasn't able to carry in the previous session.<br />
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They tangled with the Hobgoblin Queen and ended up in a huge fight since coming in the back door allowed the bad guys to raise the alarm. The crazy fight stretched over several rooms and took the better part of the session. Two characters where knocked Out of Action, but the cleric's spells held out long enough to get them on their feet again and good rolls left them no worse for wear. Dabber ended up going toe-to-toe in an epic battle with the Hobgoblin Queen. She was immense and had as many hit points as the ogre from earlier that they were afraid to fight as a group. He held her off in her throne room until the rest of the party was able to mop up everyone else and pitch in.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0SoLqHUjpg8/WLYy1Vsjs8I/AAAAAAAAFSc/QRjgm0XgR30NNz_wgHgRgOsWJyx7XutpQCEw/s1600/Wojeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0SoLqHUjpg8/WLYy1Vsjs8I/AAAAAAAAFSc/QRjgm0XgR30NNz_wgHgRgOsWJyx7XutpQCEw/s640/Wojeb.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Old Wojeb, the NPC Cleric they like having around even though his <br />abysmal strength and occasional cowardice make him kind of useless.</span></td></tr>
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The kids poked around the room until they found all the treasure, but didn't even bother opening the doors to the rookery, or searching for the secret door into the complex. They were all satisfied with the crazy combat and wanted to get their characters back to the keep to sell their loot and heal up.<br />
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The next session they went back in through the goblin caves to get back into the hobgoblin lair to chase down the rumour about a captured merchant. They decided they weren't going to chance sneaking past the ogre's cave now that tow of them had chain-mail and they weren't paying the ogre any more money. Instead they drew him out into the open where they delayed him with a wand of web they had and filled him full of arrows before closing for melee. Some good rolling kept the party safe from thrown boulders and they took him down. They stripped of his outfit in the hopes of getting some gold for the bear pelts he was wearing.<br />
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This time they found the rookery. My 13-year-old felt pretty silly about not finding it or the secret door the first time. They destroyed the eggs and made their way into the armoury. They found out that telling the guards they had killed the queen was a bad idea but won that fight too.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXL7awIFtQQtFDIzxfmq1-aXNS-vmOg7843VrsNWw-X_Q2VVN0sSQB7wUCnAtuARTaxHS1OxY8vtsHW6mN0tzo2IsPHjRemiF3uu6EWF6Ocp6mvAFIdS2v-Xj6xK4FmSRGbK2S34QEOBJ_/s1600/Olys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXL7awIFtQQtFDIzxfmq1-aXNS-vmOg7843VrsNWw-X_Q2VVN0sSQB7wUCnAtuARTaxHS1OxY8vtsHW6mN0tzo2IsPHjRemiF3uu6EWF6Ocp6mvAFIdS2v-Xj6xK4FmSRGbK2S34QEOBJ_/s640/Olys.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Olys, the Conjurer played by Chloe, 13</span></td></tr>
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They wanted to tap and scratch at every wall in the hopes of finding secret door but also wanted to be stealthy and sneak around. When I pointed out it was impossible to do both they decided on stealth.<br />
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The funniest part of the session is when my oldest decided to bluff the goblins preparing the hall for a feast into believing that they had paid the queen for the return of one of the prisoners and had gotten turned around in the caves. My youngest was trying to goad her sister into casting Sleep instead, "I don't think it's very heroic to lie to them."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-edjGpBu9Vnc/WLYy1JW8ezI/AAAAAAAAFSg/CKfBR0micRsltsswBNT9A7cexHGkUoS3wCEw/s1600/Snekava.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-edjGpBu9Vnc/WLYy1JW8ezI/AAAAAAAAFSg/CKfBR0micRsltsswBNT9A7cexHGkUoS3wCEw/s640/Snekava.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Snekava, the Thief played by Pascale, 9</span></td></tr>
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They pulled it off and got directions to the prisoners. A short battle and a running fight later and they were high-tailing it out of the ravine and heading for the Keep.<br />
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So far they've cleared out the goblins, the ogre and crippled the hobgoblins. It should be interesting to see where they go next. At this point they still trust the chaos priest spy at the Keep and have promised to come and get him to help them if they ever find any chaos altars, worshipers or relics.<br />
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As far as the rules go, I found the 4D6 HD for the Sleep spell was hugely overpowered when spell slots are only lost on a bad roll. I decided to use the LotFP version with only 2D8 HD affected by the Sleep. It's working out much better.<br />
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When we started I used the ablative armour with the recovery on short rests. I found it worked OK, but I slowly phased it out in favour of the damage reduction optional rule, starting with shields first and eventually moving to all the armour as damage reduction. The damage reduction solves the shield problem and speeds things up a bit. The monsters still get extra hit points from armour because hitting for zero damage is not fun!<br />
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The party is shaping up! They only have a handful of low-powered magic items, but they are well equipped now that two of them have plate mail and everyone else has exactly what they need. The Conjurer has added a spell to her spell book and the party has a townhouse rented inside the walls of the Keep for the next month. They are building relationships with the NPCs in the Keep and getting a feel for the Caves of Chaos. The characters are second and third level and they've all had a couple of stats increase while leveling.<br />
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All four are having the time of their lives and can't wait to play again!<br />
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#DandDwithKids<br />
<br />David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-86311713443535483252017-01-24T12:31:00.001-05:002017-01-24T22:16:03.009-05:00Bloodthirsty Children!It turns out my daughters have something of a bloodthirsty streak. My ruthless little gamers are quickly becoming the scourge of the minions of chaos!<br />
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In my <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2017/01/their-first-campaign.html" target="_blank">last post</a> I talked about running the first ever campaign for my daughters. We're using <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-black-hack.html" target="_blank">The Black Hack</a> with the old D&D module <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17158/B2-The-Keep-on-the-Borderlands-Basic?manufacturers_id=44&it=1" target="_blank">B2 The Keep on the Borderlands.</a> This post is the first in a series of campaign play diaries of my daughter's first RPG campaign.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nGwaueWvkMY/WIeLSdVdSLI/AAAAAAAAE-0/vFhLepb9TMw1SQiulOa1GHltQkOmkrWKgCLcB/s1600/IMG_2663.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nGwaueWvkMY/WIeLSdVdSLI/AAAAAAAAE-0/vFhLepb9TMw1SQiulOa1GHltQkOmkrWKgCLcB/s400/IMG_2663.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The first session went well, with the girls getting the lay of the land in the keep and interacting with the odd characters there. They spent some time asking around about the area and collecting rumours about <i>The Caves of Chaos</i> to the northeast. Unfortunately for them they picked up plenty of false rumours, including the one about "bree-yark" meaning "we surrender" in goblin. Random tables are a wonderful thing. Thanks to a critical success with their roll to find information, they managed to get some decent directions to <i>The Caves of Chaos</i> on top of their bundle of rumours, so they were able to find the valley without much trouble.<br />
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They had some luck on their first foray into the valley with all the caves and I rolled no encounter on their way in. The girls had heard there was magic armour in the southern caves so they started by sneaking into the entrance to the goblin caves.<br />
<br />
They crept through the rough tunnels with care, avoiding one group of goblins walking through the halls by ducking down a dead-end passage. For all that sneaking around, when they found the goblin guardroom they decided to walk in with their weapons drawn and say: "Hi goblins! What's going on?"<br />
<br />
While I loved that they strutted in there liked they owned the place, the response from the six goblins was negative. One pointed and shouted, "Bree-yark!"<br />
<br />
At first the girls were excited, "They surrender? Wow!"<br />
<br />
"No, not so much. They leap to their feet and charge at you with their spears raised," I said. "Looks like 'bree-yark' means attack or something like that."<br />
<br />
Snekava let fly with an arrow and one-shotted the leading goblin in the face.<br />
As the goblins closed, Wojeb whipped his rapier around like toddler going after a pinata. Most of the goblins went for Snekava and with three twenties, she was tasting the stone floor by the end of the round.<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://2.bp.blogspot.com/-13tedPDSObI/WIeLimJ-FqI/AAAAAAAAE-4/pKOg_vvafLkbBEHx_CAsJ-AzcDqrDg4TgCLcB/s1600/Snekava%2BCharacter%2BSheet%2Bcomplete%2Blvl2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-13tedPDSObI/WIeLimJ-FqI/AAAAAAAAE-4/pKOg_vvafLkbBEHx_CAsJ-AzcDqrDg4TgCLcB/s640/Snekava%2BCharacter%2BSheet%2Bcomplete%2Blvl2.jpg" width="494" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Snekava is even sneakier at level two!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
It was looking bad for the group as the not so hand-to-hand characters tried to turn the tide back in their favour when Olys decided to use that <i>Sleep</i> spell she had prepared that morning. With that action the fight was over, but a failed intelligence check meant that Olys expended her spell slot for the day.<br />
<br />
They placed Snekava on the table in the guardroom and Wojeb set about patching her up while Olys stabbed the crap out of the sleeping goblins with her dagger. Despite their desire to continue they realised they were not in any position to handle another fight. They looted the goblins and left the caves. They were lucky again and I rolled no encounter on their way out of the caves.<br />
<br />
Once back at the keep they were pretty bummed about their poor performance in the caves. I've set the adventure in the old Grand Duchy of Karameikos. The Keep is on the Duke's Road just before it passes into the Black Peak Mountains. This information is relevant because it means the chapel in the keep is part of the Church of Karameikos. The party cleric is from the old Church of Traladara and was sent north to tend the old Traladaran shrine in the fountain square of the keep. The reason he is adventuring is he was given no funds for his mission and living in the keep is expensive.<br />
<br />
The party managed to find a Traladaran priest who is staying at the keep. He was friendly and willing to heal Snekava for free as a favour to his fellow cleric. He also convinced the party of the dangers of touching any artefacts or altars of chaos. They promised to return to the keep and get him if they found anything like that in the caves. He was interested in their adventures and talkative. He was also surprised and grateful to learn about the old Traladaran shrine.<br />
<br />
The next day they headed back to the caves with vengeance on their minds. They approached the goblin cave through the tree cover and spotted an ambush near the cave entrance. They used their longbows and made short work of the four waiting goblins.<br />
<br />
They did better with the first guardroom this time and found the reinforced door to the hobgoblin lair. They heard what sounded like monsters too big and numerous to handle on the other side and decided to return, "When we're more experienced."<br />
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They found the second guardroom and entered with an actual plan this time. With no armour besides her shield, Snekava was finished with her bow and ready to mix it up with her sword from now on. They started the battle strong. Since the goblins were on alert, the goblin squad leader kicked over the water barrel and made for the hidden door with a large jingling sack.<br />
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Once it was clear the goblin was summoning help through the door, Olys decided it was time to use her sleep spell again. She rolled close to maximum on the 4D6 (twenty-one!) for the hit dice (HD) put to sleep. There are no restrictions on what creatures are affected by the spell in <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/178359/The-Black-Hack" target="_blank">The Black Hack</a>. That meant the Ogre coming through the door folded up like a cheap lawn chair and went to sleep along with the goblins.<br />
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They thought that even sleeping, the ogre was too big to kill outright, so after dispatching the goblins with their daggers, they left him alone and walked past into the lair. With no limit to their time, they searched all the nooks and crannies of the ogre's caves. Between his treasure and the gold the goblins had to pay him to fight, the girls hit the motherload!<br />
<br />
They raced back to the keep, again with no encounter on the way out.<br />
<br />
Once back at the keep they spent some money on better equipment, purchasing leather armour for Snekava and chain mail for the cleric. They basked in the glory of their success and partied in the keep's tavern, The Duke of Cups. I decided this was an effective milestone, having experienced both failure and success. They also had bested the ogre. They were thrilled when I told them they had levelled up!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UF44e2o0TnA/WIeMgEX7QuI/AAAAAAAAE-8/NfFFSRQ0uWciF5bfKJyPwBZMERCgrkeywCLcB/s1600/Olys%2BCharacter%2BSheet%2Bcomplete%2Blvl2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UF44e2o0TnA/WIeMgEX7QuI/AAAAAAAAE-8/NfFFSRQ0uWciF5bfKJyPwBZMERCgrkeywCLcB/s640/Olys%2BCharacter%2BSheet%2Bcomplete%2Blvl2.jpg" width="494" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Olys specialises in conjuring cans of whoop-ass!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The levelling process for the Black Hack was a blast with the kids. They rolled up the improvements to their characters with gusto! Cheering for each incremental bonus gained to their stats and hit points. My oldest, Chloe, actually managed to roll over her 17 intelligence so now Olys, her Conjurer, is a magical force to be reckoned with.<br />
<br />
As far as first games go, it was a good one. The girls are hooked and it looks like my Wednesday nights are booked solid until the end of the winter.<br />
<br />
Mechanically, I made a change to shields. They absorb damage every round, with small shields soaking 1 hit point of damage and large shields taking 2 points. The rest of the armour I left the same. It doesn't make a huge difference but it is nice for the shields to continue to be useful throughout all the fights. Otherwise, players could have their characters drop them after the first round. It also means characters will continue to use shields at higher levels when armour seems like not much of a big deal.<br />
<br />
The other thing I'm considering is cutting the power of the <i>Sleep Spell</i>. At 4D6 hit dice it is always going to wipe a small group of opponents. There should be less certainty when it comes to using magic so I might use the 2D8 hit dice from the <a href="https://www.lotfp.com/RPG/" target="_blank">Lamentations of the Flame Princess</a> version of the spell in the future.<br />
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#TheirFirstCampaign<br />
<br />David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-91112294592598768642017-01-19T23:00:00.000-05:002017-01-19T23:00:29.584-05:00Their First CampaignI've gamed with my daughters in the past. So far we've played a few one-shots to try out or playtest games aimed at kids.<br />
<br />
I tried to get them into D&D with the Mentzer Red Box a few years ago. Both of them loved the images and the ideas in the book. The youngest didn't really have the attention span for it at the time and the game died out after the first session. D&D is not much of a solo game.<br />
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My oldest (12) has been pushing me to play again so I asked my youngest (9) this weekend how she felt about trying D&D again. She was super-excited to play!<br />
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We made their characters Sunday evening. The level of engagement this time was on a completely different level. When they were younger I was using the art to draw them in and help find out what they'd like to play. This time around we talked it out. Part of that came from their maturity level and part of it came from my decision to use <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/178359/The-Black-Hack" target="_blank">The Black Hack</a> as the rules for our campaign. It has no pictures and the rules are so simple all we needed to talk about was class-based concepts and what they wanted their characters to be able to do.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GqmP2sVOT6A/WIGH0fVuf3I/AAAAAAAAE9o/DBr8Yu6sHWE6Pv4o5XrsgFW-0ZEGfpdwACLcB/s1600/IMG_0752.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GqmP2sVOT6A/WIGH0fVuf3I/AAAAAAAAE9o/DBr8Yu6sHWE6Pv4o5XrsgFW-0ZEGfpdwACLcB/s320/IMG_0752.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
They responded well to starting with rolling the stats to find out about their characters and learn what they were good at. From there we looked at the four classes, what they could do and which ones would be complemented by the strengths and weaknesses of their characters. We also talked about what each class excelled at.<br />
<br />
The short one liked the idea of a sneaky character who does things quietly and carefully, so she was keen to play a Thief despite her character's low Dexterity. Fortunately The Black Hack allows for two stats to be switched around during character generation and she didn't care if anyone liked her character, so she traded her DEX and CHA around to get herself a grumpy thief to play.<br />
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I barely started to ask the tall one what she wanted to play when she exploded: "Conjurer!"<br />
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This girl wants to play a wizard. I think it comes from reading her the Earthsea trilogy when she was little. She rolled a 17 Intelligence for her character so no stats were swapped.<br />
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Names came next and after some talk about naming fantasy characters we ended up with Snekava the Thief and Olys the Conjurer.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw_1LCQEqwpylkcYT-FmORzZKnWeTvgu1NqzZHEN8TVFFoI5gLleUVzK4zbTG44U01pXizBxQ7H5wp1tx1sy3eVZxQwSbKUFllRhyphenhyphen7N2wMJPkn6hvoeAL-M8SLhq-Sz73BwPeCQl5al-yE/s1600/Snekava.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw_1LCQEqwpylkcYT-FmORzZKnWeTvgu1NqzZHEN8TVFFoI5gLleUVzK4zbTG44U01pXizBxQ7H5wp1tx1sy3eVZxQwSbKUFllRhyphenhyphen7N2wMJPkn6hvoeAL-M8SLhq-Sz73BwPeCQl5al-yE/s640/Snekava.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Snekava the Thief "...because she's so sneaky!"</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
While the girls shopped for their equipment I rolled up a henchman to help support their characters and avoid the TPKs that come with a party of two. Wojeb the Cleric (AKA Ol' Wojeb) came out of a low STR and CON but relatively high WIS. He can't carry much more than a torch and a shield but his hit points are high enough he should make an effective meatshield.<br />
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For the campaign I think I'll start with B2 The Keep on the Borderlands. It's a good spot for it and the Caves of Chaos allow for all kinds of different approaches to dealing with its monstrous inhabitants. Besides, it's an iconic adventure with sandbox elements that I ran recently in 5th edition so there's little for me to do in terms of prep.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AMRCtgQ8Um4/WIGH_Z9NhCI/AAAAAAAAE9s/XMi3imfNRLgsTU1jwX3B2nzmhl-jhmchwCLcB/s1600/IMG_2663.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AMRCtgQ8Um4/WIGH_Z9NhCI/AAAAAAAAE9s/XMi3imfNRLgsTU1jwX3B2nzmhl-jhmchwCLcB/s400/IMG_2663.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The iconic Keep on the Borderlands</span></td></tr>
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As for the larger world, I'm not sure what I'll do for that. I'm considering setting it in the old D&D Known World setting on Mystara. I've already done all the work of sprinkling my favourite OSR and classic D&D adventures throughout the setting. I've also subbed out chunks of the setting with cooler stuff from the Hydra Collective. For all that, the world has a history that makes suspension of disbelief easy to achieve. No matter what I do, it's all new to them, so exploring it will blow their little minds!<br />
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As far as system goes, I chose The Black Hack for a few reasons. I've already seen that it's simplicity makes it attractive as a way to bring beginners into D&D style gaming. I also like how it uses some of the modern gaming mechanics like usage dice and advantage/disadvantage. I want my girls to benefit from the old school, but I don't want them trapped there! I also like how damage by class makes weapon restrictions irrelevant so I could let them use whatever weapons they wanted without messing up the game balance. The biggest thing that made me want to use it for my daughters is the level advancement. Every level they'll roll for each statistic to see if it increases. This kind of obvious character improvement is going to make levelling that much more exciting and keep them engaged in the campaign. It also means low stats are not a big deal since they are more likely to increase than high ones.<br />
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We've decided on Wednesday evenings for our games since my wife is out that night and both of the girls are home. I'm looking forward to campaign play with the girls. I can't wait to see what they discover about their characters as they change and grow through play!David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-6184700027449873872016-12-10T16:22:00.000-05:002018-01-20T23:08:37.022-05:00A Dungeon Master's Favourite Spell or, Why Bother with Lichdom Anyway?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwKyBeKanXzWIxnZ4tE5Mkk_gofUTB7153RdcWwMSy0xFt6rZ8SCmYJuDP0jCt-1w-LxXomhaa0_IiR2LM2bcF_BMkg4nX36imFRE-FQSMuc0eeQE2zIG9L1jgEOzw3OJwgNzCBvYqMX0V/s1600/casting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwKyBeKanXzWIxnZ4tE5Mkk_gofUTB7153RdcWwMSy0xFt6rZ8SCmYJuDP0jCt-1w-LxXomhaa0_IiR2LM2bcF_BMkg4nX36imFRE-FQSMuc0eeQE2zIG9L1jgEOzw3OJwgNzCBvYqMX0V/s400/casting.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Since the very first edition of Dungeons & Dragons the spell list for magic users included <i>Magic Jar.</i> It is in every edition and almost every OSR retro-clone and second generation clone. Its inclusion is a huge benefit because this spell could be the core element of a horrific villain in any campaign.<br />
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<i>Magic Jar</i> is a fifth level spell in most D&D-type rules (except in 5e, where it's 6th to stop players from combining it with Contingency*). With slight variances between editions and games The <i>Magic Jar</i> spell works by placing the caster's essence, intellect, personality, experience and soul into some kind of gem or crystal receptacle (the magic jar). From the magic jar the caster can possess the bodies of others. Originally the caster could possess any living creature but in later editions eventually became any living humanoid.<br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>The potential for a magic user to terrorise a party with this spell is delicious!</i><br />
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Suddenly anyone, even trusted allies, could become an enemy wizard without warning! This device would be most useful in a long-running campaign where the player characters have connections to the world and the players have built up expectations about how the NPCs will act in certain situations. The disruption of those expectations would definitely freak out a party before they put together what is happening.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhALH3kfRIfEiqmAfvPUROOBnfPWKIEZ0hy_0fg-0qSTYvJIzH4gXfsk7sTHmq8FpSL0Ho2sj-CwObv8eTZR0-eEBcPbKalEQPVDqBRVEQuMW_RIM3qFUIBBPlOT46px7nH7l685R2zbkms/s1600/lannisport_spy-by_Patrick_Keith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhALH3kfRIfEiqmAfvPUROOBnfPWKIEZ0hy_0fg-0qSTYvJIzH4gXfsk7sTHmq8FpSL0Ho2sj-CwObv8eTZR0-eEBcPbKalEQPVDqBRVEQuMW_RIM3qFUIBBPlOT46px7nH7l685R2zbkms/s400/lannisport_spy-by_Patrick_Keith.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Iannisport Spy" by Patrick Keith</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Another feature of the spell is the effects of body death. If the host body dies the caster is pushed back into the gem, the soul of the host body is then pushed out and dies. From there the caster can try to take another host within range. The spell doesn't end until the caster returns to their own body so there is no limit to the number of times the caster can experience this kind of death. If the caster's body dies the spell effectively never ends. The caster continues to move back and forth between the magir jar and new hosts until the magic jar is destroyed. The destruction of the magic jar only strands the caster in the host they are in and destroys the soul of the host body. Even then, it's no big deal if the caster has another suitable container and time to cast Magic Jar again. The real danger comes from being in the jar when it is destroyed or stranded in a host when it is killed.<br />
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Why would a caster trade their humanity for lichdom when they could become functionally immortal with a fifth level spell?<br />
<br />
The idea of a caster trapped in a gem creates some interesting possibilities. An adventuring wizard could cast Magic Jar in an attempt to survive certain death and become part of a treasure hoard. The party could defeat some terrible monster only to find out part of the treasure is cursed with the ghost of a dead wizard that keeps possessing people around them. The gem could be in the belly of a sea creature that attacks the ship the party is travelling on, leading to one of the crew suddenly casting spells and insisting they not let sea creature sink out of sight.<br />
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A magic user could be waiting in a gem for a suitable host <i>any</i> length of time. This circumstance will have a pretty profound effect on them once they are able to act in the world again. They would have lost all their resources in the intervening years! If they had a tower it would have new inhabitants at best and be a crumbling ruin at worst. They have no spellbook so all the spells they have are the ones memorised when they entered the magic jar. Any magic items or wealth they had at the time of their body's death would be long gone as well. All friends and allies are dead. It might be that no one even remembers they ever existed at all! A terrible blow to a heroic wizard! Such losses will likely motivate them to regain their lost wealth and position. They might be able to rationalise all kinds of terrible behaviour. Even a hero who died defending their world may not feel any kinship to the people of the current era and plunder it ruthlessly.<br />
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A long sojourn in a gem could have some severe psychological effects as well. The caster might become unhinged. If you want to have a crazy, body-stealing wizard stalking your party, this setup is a plausible one.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"hello mother" by <a href="http://paintausea.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">Paintausea</a></span></td></tr>
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A magic user who started using the spell with the best of intentions to extend their life so they could continue to protect people will begin to feel less empathy for people with each life they steal. The party could meet this heroic figure of legend only to find them descended into a narcissistic psychopath and even more powerful than in the past in which they made their name.<br />
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What I like best about this idea is how I could use it in play. Even though such an enemy could start with less spells and resources at their disposal they can use hosts to spy on the party and influence others against them to undermine their position in the land. They could use hosts the party doesn't want to kill, or at least not want to let the locals see them kill. If the wizard possesses an eight-year-old girl to go after the party in the middle of a crowded market it's not going to go well for them when they fill her full of arrows.<br />
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Depending on how angry the villain makes the players with these sorts of antics the party might spend a whole campaign trying to track down this magic user and stop them with a minimum of collateral damage. They may need the help of others, need to quest for an artefact or special spell. Who knows what adventures it could lead to?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Memorising <i>Lightning Bolt</i> to blast the party!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">* I think the designers of 5e D&D did an excellent job adjusting and tightening up the descriptions of almost every spell so it could be used only the way they thought it should be used. I would not call this situation progress.</span>David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700604651940160467.post-43110383203256442362016-11-10T00:48:00.003-05:002016-11-10T00:48:50.074-05:00Character Generation: How Much is Too Much?Here's a look at my game development woes. Complications like these are part of what makes adapting something simple like Swords and Wizardry or the <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-black-hack.html" target="_blank">Black Hack</a> to a unique setting so appealing!<br />
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While the playtesting for my <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2014/11/national-game-design-month.html" target="_blank">3D System</a> is going well, I have run into what might be a snag with the character generation section. The graduated success mechanic using 3D6 that relies on the interaction of six attributes and 12 skills has turned out to be intuitive and robust in play, but the system I created to generate those attributes and skills has me worried.<br />
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For a variety of reasons, I integrated the character generation with the setting. It worked well with the small playtest setting for the Archipelago in <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2016/03/island-crashers.html" target="_blank">Island Crashers</a>. Going through the process delivered the assumptions of the setting to new players without spamming them with text they didn't want to read. It took ten minutes to create a character rolling randomly and about twenty minutes to use the generation tables like a flow chart and choose everything.<br />
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For the Island Crashers <a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5FDecZw466ccV9USUE2YUhfOU0?usp=sharing" target="_blank">playtest</a> character generation takes up ten pages of a google document and 35 small tables on spreadsheets. The process of moving through them is intuitive and easy. Brand new players are having no trouble with it even though no one has taken the time to read the rules first. Each area of origin has its own background that informs the basics of the character. These areas also have unique tables with some starting careers more likely than others. The tables themselves tell the player a bit about where their character is from.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Good thing character generation only takes ten minutes!</span></td></tr>
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I'll use a more familiar setting to make the idea clear. Say you were using this system to play in Robert E Howard's "Conan the Barbarian" setting of Hyboria. Characters from Conan's homeland of Cimmeria would have basic survival skills they learned growing up in an uncivilised area. They also would get a boost to their physical attributes because their life makes them harder than the civilised peoples. The possible starting careers for characters from Cimmeria would include things like blacksmiths, barbarians, hunters, bandits, leather-workers and maybe druids. The kingdom Conan eventually conquered, Aquilonia, would have a table of starting careers that includes nobles, merchants, soldiers, courtiers, servants, thieves, priests and wizards. A place of ancient corruption like Stygia would have a table of starting careers filled with sorcerers, priests, sages, slavers, thieves and slaves. The flavour of each of these lands is evident in the choices provided.<br />
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That's what I'm doing with my setting for the larger game that is using the working title of: "The Last World." The problem is the Archipelago is a small cluster of islands. Even Hyboria is only an area the size of Europe and the Mediterranean! The Last World is huge in comparison, with all kinds of different areas! These areas aren't heavily defined, with the implied setting leaving room to develop them through game play, but each country and some major cities have their own tables. I'm only about a third of the way through the character generation section for the places of origin and I already have 26 pages of briefs and tables in my document. The descriptions of the playable creatures document is another 9 pages long! I haven't even started on the tables of general career progressions. I'm worried about it being unwieldy, but I want players to be able to start as nearly any creature or culture they could encounter in the Last World and move through a plausible list of careers to create a viable character with a developed past and a list of useful equipment.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Shopping for equipment is the time-killer!</span></td></tr>
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The point is to create characters similar in power to what you'd find in levels five through seven in OSR-type games. Like Traveller's character generation, the process creates a competent character with a background story that makes sense. I find the most fun in old school campaigns happens around those levels, but the early levels help define the character's development and flesh out their personality. That's another reason I make a ten minute game out of character generation. It delivers setting information to new players and creates a backstory for the character that will help a player choose how to play in a way that makes sense. It also anchors them to the world with their past.<br />
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In playtest it's worked well so far, but I'm worried all the flipping back and forth thought the tables in the larger setting will kill it. A PDF could be cross-linked/bookmarked, but using a book might become unwieldy. I was hoping to get this all into an A5 (digest size) hardcover!<br />
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So how much is too much? Does it matter that there are pile of pages to flip through as long as character generation stays around ten to fifteen minutes? Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks in any event? I feel like the only way to find out is to finish it all and play using the full setting.<br />
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If <a href="http://searching-for-magic-blog.blogspot.ca/2015/09/the-problem-with-damage-in-rpgs.html" target="_blank">any</a> of this stuff intrigues you and you want to be part of the larger playtest for the #3DSystem , let me know!<br />
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<br />David Rollinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04677943842060923114noreply@blogger.com0