Old RPG Words That Make No Sense

Progress in RPG design and play is held back by the words we use that don't make any sense.

Hit Points.

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?

Someone is hoping the undead giant is almost out of hit points

Except it's not right. Not really. Hit points have almost always been an abstraction expressing something else entirely. I've talked about the problem of damage before, 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.

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.

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.

Oops! You interrupted her short rest.
What's the worst that could happen?

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.

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.

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 Neo-Classical Geek Revival (NGR) fantasy RPG has used the term "Luck" for these points for years.

Someone is rolling on the death and dismemberment table!

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.

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."

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 converting old modules and third party adventures on the fly should be no problem for a referee/game master.

I run a hugely modified version of the original Black Hack rules. 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.

Belkar Bitterleaf, of the Order of the Stick

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 Open Gaming License. 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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

What?
I have the Warrior Princess Prestige Class so these arrows used up temporary hit points.
I'm still at full HP!

Why 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.

The Problem

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.

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.

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.

Philippe Caza

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.

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. I've reviewed it before if you are interested. Although, between their play and the blank spots in the rules we've added and changed so much it's not the Black Hack anymore either.

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 wonder in RPGs. 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.

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.

"Regular fantasy."

"Normal fantasy."

"Mainstream fantasy."

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.

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.

Sundered Skies 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!

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.

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?

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.

Hacking It Together

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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?

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!

The next thing is classes. Do character classes contribute to wonder?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 I've posted about it before. The real question is do hit points help with the presentation of wonder?

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.

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.

Organization and Presentation

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.

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.

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!"

What About the Marketing?

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?

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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?

The 3 iconic player characters from the Lamentations of the Flame Princess RPG - LotFP.com

I can think of two ways to approach it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Dangerous Magic in Fantasy Gaming

I started reading the Elric Saga by Michael Moorcock just before Christmas. The magic in the stories and some other things that have come up while gaming has me re-evaluating magic in fantasy RPGs.

Back in the days of 1e and 2e D&D, when I played a magic user I would bend spells until they broke. I found ways to use spells that had little to do with their original intent but worked within their description. I drove GMs nuts with my descriptions of how my characters were using the spells because they'd would constantly need to make a ruling on whether it would work out the way I wanted or not. Things like casting an Enlarge spell on a wooden door in a stone frame so it would shatter as it grew too big for the space it was in, or casting a Knock spell to unlatch all the buckles on the enemy's platemail.

The newer games have either nerfed the spells or created far more explicit descriptions that don't allow for these interpretations of effects. That's progress I suppose.

I recently found myself exercising those old creative muscles again in a Fifth Edition game I'm playing. We're well into our second year of play and my Warlock hit 9th level. That means she can summon Elementals now. When I saw that ability as one of many on the menu to choose from at 9th level I thought about the Elric stories and all the things I could get an Elemental to do during the one-hour duration.

Now I look at the abilities of the different elementals and figure out what kind of things I can do with them. The reaction of horror from the other players when my character commanded an Earth Elemental to drag an opponent into the ground and leave him there was something of a surprise. I figure a Warlock has the moral flexibility necessary to bury imaginary bad guys alive.

Between the four kinds of elementals my character can solve a lot of problems. Combat and movement are two common ones. For instance, Air Elementals can carry your character through the air and blast your enemies. So much more fun than a regular Fly spell!

I've mentioned before that I'm working on my own fantasy game system and one of the priorities I have is to make the magic system more open. To design it to reward creativity and unconventional thinking. As wonderful as that is, it's taking a long time for me to test everything and make certain the game does all the things I want it to do (like be fun to play). Not to mention that a lot of people don't want to change their game even though they might like to bring what I'm talking about to their table.

The pulps that influenced the creation of the first RPGs leave their marks on the magic systems we take for granted now but the structure keeps magic safe and largely predictable. Magic was always a bit scary in those old stories. A good example of something that they brought into the structure is the creature from Robert Howard's first Conan story, "The Phoenix on the Sword," inspiring the Invisible Stalker spell. When you read Michael Moorcock's Elric stories though, they summon water elementals to create a fog to hide their navy or fire elementals to set fire to a town when attacking. They summon terrible creatures of chaos to get secret knowledge or help navigating the different dimensions. These creatures have their own agendas and goals. Sometimes negotiation is necessary and sometimes they simply oblige.

I know that Stormbringer has a magic system that works like this, but I don't play Stormbringer nor do I know anyone that does. What I think I need is an OSR/5e D&D compatible character class that uses magic from other creatures and does no magic other than summoning and binding them to the caster's will.

Using the Magic User/Wizard class as a base, we could get there pretty quickly. For whatever system you are playing in simply adopt all the hit dice, skills, weapon and armour restrictions, etc of the Magic User/Wizard class and swap out the spellcasting for summoning and binding magic that can be used any time.

"Summoner"
This piece is actually my own attempt at drawing. I'm hugely jealous of people who can illustrate their own blogs so I'm going to try to learn to do this. If you are interested in my journey in that department or you want to see the links to the reference model you can see it at DeviantArt

This makes it easy to drop the class into whatever game you are playing without disrupting the game balance as it exists. If you are playing LotFP you get a character that can use any weapons and armour, like the rest of them but the lower hit points and lack of martial manoeuvres balances out the magic abilities. In 5e, the proficiencies and characteristics fit the flavour created by that system and its assumptions about setting.

Although for 5e, it might make more sense to use the warlock as a base for a summoner class. Once I've tested it out it would be nice to see if it would work for an Eldritch Knight. Elric was a warrior first. He only summoned elementals for large scale effects or to save him from drowning. He fought for himself.

The magic of summoning should be accessible but dangerous. Since the entities often want to get to our world for whatever reason summoning them should be easy while the real challenge comes when trying to control the creature. I also like the idea that it gets more difficult to control new entities throughout a single day. That way there's a good reason to conserve the magic and use it only when it's needed. That escalating danger is a good reason for characters using this kind of magic to be universally feared by ally and foe alike.

I already have summoning magic baked into my own game and tests are going well so far. I'll be putting together an OSR Class for summoning soon, but since I'm playing mostly 5e and playtesting my original game I'll probably do one for 5e D&D first. If you beat me to it, send me a link!

The Game Master Player Character, or Why I Broke My Own Rule

I don't like Game Master Player Characters. They make me uncomfortable as a player and as a GM. I don't mean Non-Player Characters, but party-members controlled by the GM that get a share of treasure/experience and act as protagonists in the game.

The dangers of a GM PC are huge! The moment they do too much it stops being a game. Once the GM is controlling both sides of the action in the game it's just a story. That means the other people in the group go from players to spectators and that isn't fun for anyone. As a GM, a lot of the excitement for me comes from not knowing what the players will come up with in any scenario. I do my best to anticipate them so they are challenged and enjoy the game, but the surprises are where the magic happens. A GM PC threatens that.

An evocative image from the late Dave Trampier

There are some terrible reasons to add a GM PC to the party. Some of the worst are things like, "guiding the story," or, "protecting the plot." If you want alpha readers for your novel it will go better if you are honest about it. Don't trick your players into doing that for you. "So the GM can play too," leads to some terrible wankery as well. Even if you have the best of intentions as the GM, you know what is coming, the deck is always stacked in your favour. It's not a challenge and it's definitely not much of a role playing game if the only variable is the dice.

Sometimes people will want a GM PC if a "critical" character class is missing from the party. This sort of thing often happens in D&D when no one wants to play a cleric. GM controlled clerics that are essentially just walking heal-bots ("OK, Kolbar casts Sanctuary and prepares to heal you guys") can always be replaced with a cache of healing potions. Solid play can solve a lot of these problems too. Hit points are a resource that are spent during the course of an adventure. Clerics are one way to extend that resource but solid strategy and magic items can do the same.

Fifth Edition D&D doesn't have the same niche problems. Between the backgrounds and the feats it's not hard to cover off all the skills and abilities that are useful during an adventure. For example, I play a Warlock in one game with the Healer feat who does an excellent job as the party healer even though we have a cleric, because the cleric player would rather cast battle spells and fight.

GM PCs are a good way to mess up a game. I don't like them and I don't use them. You can imagine my horror when I realized I needed one for a game I'm running.

I'm running a game for a couple of new players who didn't want to play with experienced players even though there are a tonne of amazing, supportive players who are great to new people in the hobby. It's only them and a party of two people is a problem. It's too small to challenge without risking a Total Party Kill in every encounter. One bad round is the end of them. Creative play can allow a party of two to dish out plenty of damage in an encounter but they still only have so many hit points. The players chose to make stealthy characters which helps but there are times where even the most clever players end up with their characters in a pitched battle. They need at least one more character there to divide the attention of the opposing forces.

I didn't want this added character to overshadow the PCs but I wanted a character that could draw fire and have the hit points to stay in the fight. My players also didn't create characters that could cast magic, which is pretty common for new players. That's why I also wanted the character to have some casting ability to help show the players the possibilities and get them comfortable with the magic rules.

I thought at first a fighter or paladin who went with a protector martial role would be good. Add in the Sage background, the Magic Initiate feat and we have a wizard's apprentice who took up arms after his/her master was killed in the field.

As cool as that sounded, I decided to go with a straight up wizard. I knew I wasn't introducing her until they got closer to their destination so I could start her at 2nd level with a School of Wizardry already established. I made her an Abjurer. The defensive magic and extra hit points make her extremely hard to kill. I decided that a Rock Gnome with their extra knowledge of magical devices would be handy because she could not only identify the function of magic items, but also their names and history which makes them more interesting. Even a +1 sword is special if it has a history. The Rock Gnomes also have a bonus to constitution which adds some more hit points.

I decided the only fair way to make the character is with the standard statistics (15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8) and standard hit points. I'm fairly lucky when it comes to rolling so this keeps the character in balance with the party, stat wise. I used the standard HP per level instead of rolling as well. It's high enough to hit my objective without giving them the wrong expectation for what a Wizard can be. Either of them could have made this character. Also, if one of the PCs dies the player might want to take over this character rather than roll up a new one so I need to keep it all fair and balanced.

In our second session it worked out well. The players had a forbidden book, the Malleus Deus from the Tales of the Scarecrow adventure they did in the first session. This forbidden item allows a wizard to cast a selection of cleric spells. After their new party member explained how dangerous it was to even know the location of this dreaded item they wrapped it up and locked it away at the Keep's vault. After some play they decided they trusted the wizard enough to let her transcribe a couple of spells into her book before locking it up again so she could cast Cure Light Wounds.

Another one of Dave Trampier's images

After railing against NPCs covering traditional party roles I have a little wizard who can take some serious damage, cast some useful wizard magic and healing spells. Still, she has no serious offensive spells, with only Sleep and Hold Person she is strictly support. No chance of overshadowing the rest of the party or becoming some kind of mobile weapon. So far, when in melee she casts Blade Ward or Shield to keep herself in the fight since she doesn't actually have an offensive cantrip.

We're several sessions in and the players like her, considering her a part of the team. They say she is useful without being in the way of anyone's fun. Jeff is more reckless than Megan so he tries to get the NPC to break standoffs with a third vote. The first time it happened I was surprised but should have realized that they would get the third member of the team to cast a vote. I'm not comfortable with that because I don't want to guide the party, but I do my best to keep my GM ideas out of it and rely of the character's back story and experience to make those calls.

Now that they are closing in on fourth level and have a third player starting next session I'm looking forward to transitioning the wizard out of the party and into a friendly NPC living at the Keep.

Session Report: The NewBs become Players!

I'm running a small, 5e D&D campaign for a group of first-time players. Last game something amazing happened. They became Players.

It wasn't until after the session that I understood what had happened and I only thought it through because I was wondering what was making me grin so long my face hurt.

The transition from new person to RPGs to Player is a a subtle change. It has nothing to do with knowing what die to roll, the rules, or where to look for stuff in the Player's Handbook. It happens the first time a player figures out how to transcend the rules and make their characters more effective than they have any right to be on paper. That first wacky plan or strategy that bends what you have on the character sheet into something incredible. That's the moment when they stop imagining the board game structure in their heads and realize they can try nearly anything.

My gang is running through the Caves of Chaos in old Gazetteer-era Mystara. The party is small, with only three of them so they explore with great stealth and care. A common tactic is to send the party wizard's spider familiar ahead to recce the hallways and rooms before entering. The spider can get under most (but certainly not all) doors in the rough hewn caves and that makes the difference between a stealthy retreat and a TPK.

They encountered the hobgoblin guardroom at the top of the stairs from the goblin lair (room 23) from the goblin side. From there, they couldn't get any information other than the sound of a lot of voices. When they encountered it from the other side they found out there was around a dozen well-equipped hobgoblins (actually 13, it's hard to count from a spider's perspective). They slipped away, snuck up on some torturers, saved some prisoners and fought their way out of the ravine. The success of saving the prisoners increased their renown at The Keep on the Borderlands, but they kept thinking about that room.

They knew they couldn't take it in a straight up fight. The party has had close calls with goblins and it's obvious the hobgoblins are far tougher than the goblins. They started looking at their sheets and asking questions. The teifling could cast Thaumaturgy which, among other harmless effects, makes tremors in the floor. "That's pretty scary in a cave, right?"

The wizard had cast illusions in the past to improve their chances to hide from patrols in the valley so they asked some questions about how the tremors mixed with illusions of rocks falling out of the ceiling might work and the bold gambit was hatched: They would fake a cave-in and strike in the chaos. An elven thief, a tiefling monk and a gnomish abjurer against 13 hobgoblins.

I live in a mining town. Work occasionally takes me into the mines and I've been down as far 7,400 feet underground. While I have never experienced a cave-in (and I hope I never do), you can't go down to any depth without being aware of how dangerous it is. While sounds of tremors coming from the walls would not create panic in hardened warriors, it would induce immediate action. Adding falling rocks would create some panic and a lot of action.

With the hobgoblins spread throughout the room I decided their actions would be based on where they were. The two closest to the door the party was coming from would exit and run down the hall, away from the cave-in. The two closest to the barred door would get the door open and get out and down the stairs. The rest would try to get under the table or press themselves against the walls and between crates for safety.

Despite the monk never hitting once with his spear the entire session (he even dropped it once), the surprise round went well. Two hobgoblins went down to a sleep spell (and looked like they were crushed by rock!), another one dropped to the thief's sneak attack with an arrow and a fourth reeled from a nasty kick by the monk. I ruled that the hobgoblins couldn't use their martial prowess ability that gets them extra damage on each hit when fighting in groups because they were too distracted by the falling rocks to work together effectively. The removal of that advantage was key to the party survival as they took some lumps but didn't lose anyone. With the hobgoblins engaged in escaping the room the party was also able to attack them in smaller, more manageable groups.

The party won, quickly grabbed some loot and then ran for it through the goblin caves (and four goblins) to get away from the hobgoblin reinforcements coming to help after the cave in.

Certainly some critical rolls went in their favour, but the conception and execution of a plan that basically tripled the effectiveness of their plucky little band marks their graduation to seasoned RPG players. Now they'll be searching their environment for advantages and trying all kinds of crazy stuff to turn the tables on their more powerful foes. That is where player skill changes the game.

I know they've made the switch because once they got back to the Keep they started reviewing everything they know about the different factions they've encountered and how they relate to each other. They are discussing how they can make use of that.

From a DM's point of view the campaign levelled up. I need to be ready for all kinds of crazy stuff from here on out.

I couldn't be happier.

First Session Report: Journey to the Keep

Last Monday we kicked off our first real session of our new 5e D&D campaign set in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos and the Known World of the BECMI D&D era. A historic night here in Canada for all sorts of reasons but for my players it was their first game ever.

All the good stuff for the first session!

For two people who had never played an RPG before they dove right in and played well. During character generation last time they chose to link their bonds. The Tiefling Monk with the Hermit background learned his monk skills while on his hermitage and it completely changed how he interacted with the world for the better. His hermitage started because he was implicated in one of the scams run by the Elven Rogue with the Charlatan background. The Rogue's bond is guilt over burning the Monk by shifting the blame to him. Thrilled with his new worldview, Traorin (Tray) feels grateful to the Rogue, Ano, for setting him on the right path and he returned to Specularum to help her see the light too. Sadly his return caused problems for Ano, who was in the middle of a Scam at the time and they had to leave the city in a hurry. These background choices helped us get the party moving and give a reason for them to adventure. The party headed north to the Barony of Kelvin but didn't stay long because of the harsh rule of law attitude of the place. They continued north along the Duke's Road to the Barony of Penhaglihon in the Wufwolde Hills. That's where they heard about the Keep on the Borderlands which seemed like a good place to lay low for a while and scam the odd merchant from Darokin.

The pair made friends with a halfing trader named Bobberto Farstrider, who was taking a wagon load of dry goods up to the keep. Bobber was pleasant company who was flattered to be travelling in the company of an exiled elven prince from Alfhiem (Ano's default persona - she's actually a Vyalia wood elf). He happily gave up his tent to make Ano more comfortable while he and Tray slept under the wagon.

Tales of the Scarecrow cover image by Jason Rainville

The magic started when they came upon a ripe cornfield by the side of the road. They knew something was fishy right away since it was early spring and there's no way corn was going to be ready for harvest at that time of year.

Megan, who plays Ano, was not down with the cornfield. She felt her character would see no profit in exploring it and she thought it was a pretty obvious trap.

"This is a frickin people-hunting alien cornfield and it's going to eat us!"

They argued in and out of character with great reasons on both sides. Jeff, playing Tray, wants to explore and check out the strange things and Megan, playing Ano, doesn't want their characters to die in the first session. To break the deadlock, Tray asked the NPC, Bobber, what he thought. Of course the NPC wants you to go down the trail through the unnatural cornfield to the strange farmhouse! Bobber felt adding a few bushels of ripe corn to the wagon would definitely make this a more profitable trip for him and wanted to inquire at the farmhouse they could just barely see from the road.

I'm impressed with these two. Once inside the clearing in the centre of cornfield they did well. They investigated the interior and exterior of the cottage with care. They worked under the assumption that everything would kill them but were still open to possibilities. They were compassionate with the lone survivor in the house and managed to get quite a bit of information out of him because of it. They tried to save him even though they figured out he was cannibalizing his friend.

They lost all the NPCs but managed to come up with a great plan that saved themselves involving the harpsichord and the wagon. They also lost the oxen though, so they left the wagon by the side of the road with a sign warning others away from the field. I was a little worried about inflicting a Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure on brand new gamers, but as scary as they are there is always a way to think yourself out of them. I had been through the Tales of the Scarecrow once before as a player and my character came out of it well ahead. It's just a matter of figuring out how to use what you have. Besides, I gave them extra resources with the merchant and everything in his wagon (that they dumped on the ground for their plan). Turns out I didn't need to worry. They have the natural paranoia necessary to navigate an LotFP adventure.

They took the two books even though they discussed the option of just leaving them there. Both books now link them back to Specularum and I'm hoping I can use them to pull the party into B6 The Veiled Society or some other kind of shenanigans in the big city. They are hoping to sell the books since the receipt they found says they are so valuable.

They kept the Sword Which Is Uncertain, a beautifully crafted magical rapier. The rapier treats all targeted ACs as 14 no matter what armour they have. It also strikes a random target on a modified roll of 16 or 17. I'm thinking of simplifying it to an unmodified roll of 13 or 1. Ano is using it despite the curse because Megan thinks Jeff deserves to get a few random stabbings for dragging them into that cornfield.

The Keep on the Borderlands by Erol Otus

After that they hiked the rest of the way to the Keep, travelling safely and sleeping comfortably in Bobber's tent (one of the few things they were able to keep and still escape).

Once at the Keep they got a room and made friends with a Gnomish Wizard (Abjuration Tradition) who was able to identify and put a value on their loot. Their new friend managed to get close to the Caves of Chaos once, before her party was slaughtered by goblins. She knows vaguely where the Caves are and has agreed to join the party to provide some magic support.

The Tales of the Scarecrow turned out to be a great encounter adventure for the road. They could have driven past with no consequence, but I'm glad they played it out. For new players I wanted them to play a modern adventure before they got stuck into the Caves at the Keep so they'd realize there are all kinds of possibilities and more than one way to play any situation. I was also glad to see they were willing to talk and investigate since that will help them in the Caves of Chaos. They are a small party so they need to be smart.

I enjoyed seeing them get a little more sense of the world as well. Talking to the NPC they learned he was travelling out of the Duchy into the Republic of Darokin and specifically to his home city of Vornheim.

This version is WAY better! Go get one at RPG Cartography!

Next session will be the Caves of Chaos. I'm using the DnD Next conversion from the playtest for the Caves while using B2 for the Keep. I have a beautiful, colour coded map of the Caves of Chaos with the monsters listed in their locations I downloaded from RPG Cartography here. I'll be converting anyone from the Keep on the fly as needed.

It will be interesting to see how they approach the Caves of Chaos. There is a lot going on there, and they could definitely play the different factions off against each other. With a Rogue, a Monk and a Wizard, the party is also light and stealthy. They might be able to do a lot in the Caves with hit and fade tactics. I can't wait to see how they play it!

The gear for the first session:
B2 Keep on the Borderlands, GAZ1 The Grand Duchy of Karameikos,
LotFP's Tales of the Scarecrow, the map of the Known World from X1 The Isle of Dread,
 and my little black book of campaign notes.

Starting my new 5e D&D campaign...

"I've always wanted to play D&D and never had the chance."

This phrase implies a barrier to play that I have never known. Based on what I've heard from others I was lucky that no one stopped me because I was too young or doing it wrong or whatever. I don't understand the wall that keeps someone from our silly little hobby but I am happy to cut a hole in it and wave them on through.

Last Monday was full of firsts. It was the first session for my new group. It was my first time running Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons. More importantly, it was also the first time ever that my new group played an RPG.

We went with fifth because they have copies of the 5e Players Handbook and wanted to play the latest, greatest version of the world's most popular role playing game. As far as the editions go, fifth edition is probably my favourite. It has a good balance of streamlined rules and extra parts that can be used or not without breaking anything. If I have to run D&D (and for these guys I did) I'd rather run 5e than any of the older versions.

The character building system for 5e really shines with new players. It presents solid choices and each choice leads to another. I found the background section particularly useful. It allowed them to quickly flesh out their characters, giving them a grounding in the world. We ended up using the suggested bonds as inspiration, creating a shared history that bound them together.

(The Gazetteers and old adventures print up into a nice A5 booklet!)

After we got the characters all done I asked them about what they wanted out of the world. For people steeped in the genre like we are, the possibilities are virtually endless. As newcomers they were looking for a "Traditional D&D" experience. They wanted all the D&D stuff like elves, goblins, dwarves and dragons. Intrepid heroes pushing into the uncivilized wilderness to explore forgotten temples in search of adventure and treasure!

As we talked I got a feel for what they wanted and suggested we play in the "Known World" that was used as a backdrop fro the "B" and "X" D&D modules. The Grand Duchy of Karameikos was my introduction to the world of D&D so it's a joy for me to share it with them. It features pockets of civilization stretched across a vast expanse of untamed wilderness full of monsters, ancient ruins and mystery. The open nature of the original setting fits the modern style of sandbox play I prefer and it will give them control over their characters' fates. It also gives me plenty of room to place some of my favourite locations and adventures from Lamentations of the Flame Princess. To give them a balanced experience, I plan to use the better classic adventures like (B2) Keep on the Borderlands along side the best the OSR has to offer like Death Frost Doom. Other play will be stuff of my own and the things that develop out of their decisions. I'm wicked excited about this campaign! I don't know how long it's going to last, but I can keep us going for years!

The group is excited to play the Keep on the Borderlands. Our next game will start with them heading up the Duke's Road from the Barony of Kelvin. Perhaps on the way they'll come across a cornfield that is suspiciously lush for the time of year and investigate. Maybe they won't investigate and I won't get to use Tales of the Scarecrow after all. Who knows?

(Some of the stuff my players could stumble into over the course of the campaign.)

I'm looking forward to leaving trails of rumours and other breadcrumbs to all the corners of the sandbox. The classic modules already have their place in the Duchy so I just need to dust them off (or print them out) and read through them before they get there. That's settled, but the stuff I have from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, especially the older adventures that don't fit the new assumed real-world historical setting, can be placed anywhere.

Some of them are obvious choices. The town of Pembrooktonshire is crying out to be placed on the edge of the Black Peak Mountains north of Threshold. The hidden country of Voivodja (A Red & Pleasant Land) needs to be cradled in the Altan Tepes mountain range. Nestled between the Duchy, the Empire of Thyatis, the Emirate of Ylaruam and the Republic of Darokin, it is well positioned to secretly influence the many countries of the Known World. Rumours of the ruins of the great palace of the vampire lords that ruled Karameikos during the dark age point toward those mountains. There might be stories of gardens full of treasure for anyone brave enough to follow the Volaga river to its source.

Speaking of the Republic of Darokin, Vornheim needs a home. Corunglain, the northernmost city, seems a natural spot. Foreboding and dreary, next to the Broken Lands while sitting astride important trade routes. That's the locale that mixes melancholy and wealth together to produce Vornheim! The mountains that border Darokin and Rockhome is probably the best place for The Hammers of the Gods, an old LotFP adventure centred on the Dwarves. I bought it strictly to find out the big, bad secret of the dwarves. Maybe I'll get to use it and my players will find out too.

The Grinding Gear is another old one, with its goblins and stirges, that could be used as is anywhere around Threshold. Likewise the Black Peak Mountains could hold the little cottage from Death Frost Doom. I think I'll place it near the Lost Valley of the Hutaaka and weave into that story. Still, it might be better in the Altan Tepes Mountains, near the frost giants and Castellan Keep. I have time before I spring that one on them and I can put it pretty much anywhere if I wait until play delivers us a macguffin worth the effort.

The horror-show adventure Forgive Us could fit in any town in the Duchy on a trade route (nearly all of them). The same could be said for Death Love Doom, bu if I use that one it will be on the outskirts of Specularum. That adventure would be a good impetus to get the players to leave the Duchy for a while and head south to the Thanegioth Archipelago and the Isle of Dread (X4) or the Isle of the Unknown. Perhaps they would even go as far as the southern continent to find Qelong. I was going to put Qelong on the western edge of the map, on the other side of the Malpheggi Swamp where the Atruaghin Clans are supposed to be, but I'm thinking that's a better spot for the Slumbering Ursine Dunes (by Chris Kutalik and the Hydra Cooperative).

What I'm really going to have fun with is the God that Crawls. It can be placed in any remote location but instead of St. Augustine of Cantebury as the cursed monster prowling the maze it could be Halav, the first king and saviour of Traladara. Gnoll warlocks could have captured him after their defeat and used a ritual to transform him into the crawling monster. Zirchev would have captured him and placed him in the holding place for the cursed Blackmoor artefacts for everyone's safety. Petra built the original Traladaran temple on top of the maze so Halav could be cared for. That's probably the easiest way to work the adventure into the setting. The secret would not undermine the Church of Traladara if it got out because it only increases the suffering of Halav for his people, but it would completely destroy the Cult of Halav who depend on the idea of the Duke as the reincarnation of Halav. Halav can't be the Duke and a monster at the same time. But if he can be restored he could lead the Traladar back into a golden age. That's something the Thyatian ruling class might want to keep a lid on.

(Inside foldout image from The God That Crawls by Jason Rainville)

I'm hoping to get that one in right after they are done with the Keep on the Borderlands. It would be nice to do it earlier but I'm not sure they will take the bait and head off the Duke's road to some remote village while they have a goal in mind. It will likely depend on how things go in the first encounter.

I'm excited about this hybrid setting! All this material blends well and gives me a lot to work with before we add the influence of the players who may change things as they go knocking bout the world and looking for trouble and making assumptions about how things work. There's no better source for material than the paranoid musings of the players after all.

The rush of ideas came after I printed out the old Gazetteer for the Grand Duchy of Karameikos. I wanted to read through it to give the Keep a world to have a place in. The more of these old Gazetteer PDFs I read the more I am impressed with the Known World setting. It has its own rich history and intrigues but nothing is so important that it can't be tweaked or changed to taste.

My big challenge will be adapting the experience awards in the adventures to suit 5e. I'm reading through my new DMG in the hopes that I can figure out a fair way to assign experience since the adventures I'm using where designed to use treasure as the main source of XP rather than the conflict. I'm hoping there's something in there like the old Palladium System had or the 2e optional experience system that rewarded good ideas, RP and problem solving. If not, I'll come up with something based on what I've done in the past, test it out and we'll have an exciting blog post about experience points in 5e D&D!

Because of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend here in Canada we won't have another session for a week-and-a-half. You can expect a session report sometime after that. Good or bad, I'll be talking about it.