"My Kid Wants D&D, What Do I Do?"

Either Wizards of the Coast have done a good job promoting the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons or Stranger Things got it into everyone's head, because a bunch of people have asked me about getting D&D for their kids this Christmas. 

"You know about this stuff, Dave. Where do I even start?"

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!

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.

 The best place for a new player to start is The D&D Starter Set 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 Amazon and Chapter's Indigo.

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.

The adventure, called The Lost Mines of Phandelver, 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. 

Everything in the D&D Starter Set box

To continue playing after they are done with what they get in the box they will need more rules. The Basic Rules are available online for free with a guide for both the Players and the Dungeon Master. 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 Player's Handbook. Dead tree books are easier to reference at the table than tablets and you can roll dice on them without scratching a screen. 

The Player's Handbook 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 Amazon or Chapters in a couple of days.

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.

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. Broodmother Skyfortress 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 Amazon.

After that you might want to look at the Monster Manual or Volo's Guide to Monsters for them but it's not necessary. Save them for a birthday!

Some other things you'll need right away are pads of graph paper, pencils and a stack of character sheets printed out!

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.

Paper minis slid into plastic slotabases. They could have as easily been glued to some cardboard. 

One of my favourite sites for these is Eddnic's Fantasy Paper Minis. 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 Disposable Heroes and Trash Mob Minis. 

Click image to see more detail. 
These are the characters from the web series JourneyQuest and film The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. :)

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 online dice store that can get you a great deal with free shipping (not in time for Christmas)!

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. 

Bloodthirsty 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!

In my last post I talked about running the first ever campaign for my daughters. We're using The Black Hack with the old D&D module B2 The Keep on the Borderlands. This post is the first in a series of campaign play diaries of my daughter's first RPG campaign.

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 The Caves of Chaos 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 The Caves of Chaos on top of their bundle of rumours, so they were able to find the valley without much trouble.

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.

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?"

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!"

At first the girls were excited, "They surrender? Wow!"

"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."

Snekava let fly with an arrow and one-shotted the leading goblin in the face.
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.

Snekava is even sneakier at level two!

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 Sleep 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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 The Black Hack. That meant the Ogre coming through the door folded up like a cheap lawn chair and went to sleep along with the goblins.

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!

They raced back to the keep, again with no encounter on the way out.

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!

Olys specialises in conjuring cans of whoop-ass!

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.

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.

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.

The other thing I'm considering is cutting the power of the Sleep Spell. 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 Lamentations of the Flame Princess version of the spell in the future.

#TheirFirstCampaign

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.

Birtwhistle's Portal of Temporal Convenience #raggisrejects

A while back James Raggi of Lamentations of the Flame Princess fame put a call out for magic items that fit the particular feel of the LotFP universe. Most of them were rejected for one reason or another and people are posting them to the web under the tag #raggisrejects

The following is my reject, Birtwhistle's Portal of Temporal Convenience:

This door appears to be of ordinary size and made of a hard, red wood. Whether the red is its natural colour or it is stained that way is a mystery. Tiny, shallow carvings of arcane symbols cover both facings of the door and seem to swirl around the ornate, silver doorknob.

If this door is placed in a doorway it will swell or shrink to fit the door frame within 1d12 rounds. Once it fits the door its silver hinges will attach themselves to the door jamb within another 1d6 rounds unless someone takes action to do it themselves first. Once the door is hanging and closed the magic activates.

Opening the door converts the room beyond into a temporal anomaly. Anyone entering the room before it is closed will share the same time travel experience and be able to perceive each other. If the door is closed and opened again subsequent people entering the room will see the room as empty and have a different time travel experience requiring its own roll. The door remains for 8 hours after the first time someone uses it to enter the room and then disappears until the occupants exit the room.

To use the Portal of Temporal Convenience a person needs only to open the door, enter the room beyond and close the door. Once inside the person must remain there for 8 hours (the same as the door remains). If anyone opens the door and leaves before the allotted time has passed within the room, they will exit at the same moment they enter. The collision of two versions of the same person will cause a paradox, resulting in a catastrophic implosion sucking everything within the blast radius out of time and existence. To find the blast radius simply multiply the height, width and depth of the room to which the door leads.

If the occupant or occupants of the room remain there for at least eight hours before leaving roll a D30. The result is the number of days forward in time they have travelled. If a one is rolled the Referee must roll 1D6, two D12s, Percentile Dice (D100) and another D30. The D6 indicates the direction in time the party moves: 1 or 2 indicates they will go backward in time and a 3 through 6 indicates they move forward through time. The D12s indicate the month of the year the party arrives in. Choose the result on the die that is closest to the spring. The result of the Percentile Dice indicates how many years the party has travelled. The D30 indicates which day of the month they arrive.

If the door is removed from the outside during the 1D6 hours it exists after the party enters or it is removed by someone else who has used it for a temporal experience that ends before the party inside, the door simply will not open for the remaining party. They can try to exit the room through another door or window but that will result in the same mishap as rolling a one on the D30. The magic of the door makes the doorway safe. Travelling through an untreated portal is dangerous. Any person doing so will take 1D6 damage for every 10 years or part thereof travelled. The only advantage is another portal can be used as an exit before the eight hours has elapsed with no chance of a time paradox implosion.

It is possible that the door will open in a time where the room does not exist. The door frame and the room beyond it will exist as long as the door is open or until eight hours have past. The room can be seen and even returned to through the doorway while it exists. Once the door closes or after the eight hours have past, the door frame disappears and the door falls to the ground.

Edgar Birtwhistle was a wizard whose hatred of winter was only matched by his disgust with travel and foreigners. To solve his problem he spent decades researching and experimenting with forbidden magics and time manipulation before finally creating his Portal of Temporal Convenience. Exactly when the door was created and even when Birtwhistle lived is a mystery as his life is scattered throughout three different centuries. It is believed he lost possession of the door and disappeared out of time when it was removed from its frame by a disgruntled apprentice sometime in the 16th century. The current physical and temporal location of Birtwhistle’s Portal of Temporal Convenience is unknown.

New Class for LotFP: the Monk

Last post I was talking about moving LotFP forward from the Early Modern Era to a Weird Wild West setting. One trope that is often revisited is the idea of the oriental monk in the old west. There's no reason not to have a Monk Class in the Early Modern Era since travel between continents is viable and cultures are mixing through trade. The main inspiration for the class as I have it here is the monk travelling the old west.

I've been pretty disappointed with the Monk Class in the past. It's often a half-assed thief with super fighty powers bolted on top. The beauty of the LotFP system is the point system for skills is more flexible than the percentages for thief skills so there is no reason to feel bound by any of that stuff. The Lamentations adventure Qelong has the Lotus Monk but it's for NPCs only and is basically a mystical fighter with magic powers. It is not a great fit to make a player character in the old west.

LotFP has a system in place to avoid power creep and protect the Fighter's place amongst the classes. The only class that increases in attack bonus is the Fighter, all the others have the +1 attack bonus they start with. I don't think the Monk Class needs an attack bonus to still have the flavour of a mystic/unstoppable warrior.

Monks are incredible athletes, performing amazing feats of balance and withstanding terrible punishment that would drop lesser people. Taking that into account, the best LotFP class to use as the base for the Monk is the Dwarf. The Monk would use the Dwarf experience table and saving throws. The Architecture Skill would be replaced by both Climb and Stealth. None of the other Dwarf abilities would apply and the Monk would use the D8 hit die of the Fighter and use the Fighter minimum hit points for first level to represent their physical resilience. At tenth level the Monk uses a +3 and no constitution modifier instead of additional hit dice.

(The Climb skill for the Monk Class)

Climb is not the careful scaling of sheer walls the Specialist would do but more of a leaping, acrobatic bouncing from surface to surface to ascend bare walls. Stealth is an obvious choice for a monk.

Despite the obvious vitality of monks the Constitution modifier the Dwarf gets is not entirely appropriate. Much of the monk's abilities come from a greater connection to the world and their training is centred around that. The Monk Class gets a +1 Wisdom Modifier.

To embrace the mystical aspect of the monk, add the total wisdom modifier to Open Doors rolls to show how their connection to the world around them gives them power over it and allows them to punch through doors and whatnot. The Referee can apply any necessary modifiers for different materials but I would likely let the Monk PCs break harder and harder materials as they level up.

The monk in Qelong adds level to AC, attack bonus and so on. With this setup, the Qelong monk becomes absolutely ridiculous around level 8. The LotFP Rules are designed to avoid power creep so I think the standard +1 attack bonus is sufficient and no AC improvement ladder is necessary.

I like the monk as a fast, difficult to hit character in tune with the space surrounding him or her and able to use that connection to the world to fight with a preternatural speed.

Wisdom is a huge factor in the Monk's ability to attack and defend. When not wearing armour the monk adds the total wisdom modifier to Armour Class. This bonus is usable with a shield, while making use of cover and in addition to any modifier from dexterity. As long as the monk is only lightly encumbered s/he adds wisdom to his/her attack bonus in addition to any other modifier. These combinations make the monk pretty bad-ass out of the gates at first level, but if you are using the normal roll-three-in-order character generation it should not imbalance the game.

Monks are experts at evasion and grappling. When wrestling they add their level to the D20 roll instead of their attack bonus. A monk may also substitute the wisdom modifier for the strength modifier. Monks can use either wisdom or strength when wrestling, not both. You can fight smart or strong, but not both at once.

Monks are renowned for their ability to fight with and without weapons. The precision and speed of their strikes defy reason. To represent the flurry of of strikes landing in a single round and the improvement that only experience can bring, the Monk's hand-to-hand damage is determined by level rather than the weapon used. This starts at 1D4 at first level. It increases to 1D6 at second level. At fifth level it increases to 1D8. It increases to 1D10 at eighth level and finally to 1D12 at tenth level.

As a warrior of exceptional training, like the fighter, the monk can use the martial manoeuvres: Press and Defensive Fighting.

That sums it up. A simple version of the monk with a framework of rules that should allow a player to roll to do cool monk-like stuff without making and of the other classes redundant. The focus on the physical suits a more modern setting and will work well with the Weird Old West.

Lamentations of the Old West Princess

"I am thinking of running Death Frost Doom as a Western. Maybe set in the Bitternoot Valley/Mountains in about 1875." A friend of mine posted this on G+ and it blew my mind just a little bit. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it so the only cure is to write it out. (Death Frost Doom is the adventure that put Lamentations of the Flame Princess on the map as an RPG publisher who has recently rewrote and re-released it)

(Possible descendants of the three iconic LotFP adventurers: Alice, Michelle and the Flame Princess)

Right off the bat, the character of Zeke Duncaster fits the old west perfectly. The frozen mountain with an ancient temple that has no business being there is a cool thing to hook in the players exploring the frontier. There's no reason there could not be an ancient empire that the Aztecs or one of the early First Nations managed to destroy in the California mountains. Efforts to erase the cult have failed time and again over the eons in North America. In fact, the more I thought about it the more I realised a lot of the LotFP adventures could be adjusted to fit the old west.

The epic, time-sensitive sandbox Better Than Any Man (downloadable for free here), could easily be set in the south during last days of the American Civil War with only minor adjustments. The characters and their motivations fit the era just fine and the arrival of the Yankees with its puritanical officers would end the same as the army in the adventure.

With similar themes, No Salvation For Witches would fit into a town in the old west as easily as early modern era England. Minor adjustments of names and descriptions to improve the fit could be done on the fly.

The church from the God That Crawls could be located in California or Texas having changed hands from the Spanish Catholics that had settled the area to the protestant Americans who came later and took over. The documents the players found could even refer to Jesuits taking possession of the crawling god and moving him and the dangerous artefacts they found in the catacombs to the new world to keep them all far from civilization. It might have happened during the rise of protestantism in England under Henry VIII.

No Dignity In Death: The Three Brides could be reworked to fit the old west pretty easily as well. If anything, it would work better in early america than in the early modern area Europe. The town of Pembrooktonshire would need a new name, but other than that the insular community could have existed in the Old West. The Knights of Science would need to be reskinned into some kind of violent missionaries or travelling law enforcement like marshals, rangers or even Pinkerton men.

Tales of the Scarecrow would fit into the american west with no changes at all other than minor tweaks to the back story of the guys in the cabin. The cornfield has an american feel anyway.

Scenic Dunnsmouth might work best on the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana. All the hooks and reasons for going there still apply. The Elven spy could be changed to an inquisitor (cleric), possibly a weird magic user or diabolist studying the cult for his/her own purposes

Both Death Love Doom and Forgive Us could be set in any coastal town. Death Love Doom needs some massaging to fit the back story into a new time and place, especially the guys in the coach-house. I don't think Forgive Us needs as many changes to work. Really, the coast is not so important as the movement of trade goods in these two stories. They could be set in any prosperous town on a major rail-road route.

Fuck for Satan could be any damn place. Same with the Monolith From Beyond Space and Time. The Doom-Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children (downloadable for free here) can also happen in any small town.

Likewise, The Tower of the Stargazer could be anywhere that a crazy wizard/scientist thought would be beneficial to locate his tower. Maybe near a (now abandoned) mine so Calcidius could build the roof of the tower on the cheap? A Single Small Cut could work in the old west with minor changes too.

Thulian Echoes could be found on the crossing from Europe or moved to the Caribbean.

The Isle of the Unknown could be moved to the Caribbean as well. It could keep its French flavour as a former colony and a GM could spice it up with a some vodoo elements. The Greek statues become something of a mystery, but that's OK.

So all the adventures fit, but what about the rules? How much do the rules need to be altered to get the weird fantasy into the old west?

Lamentations of the Old West Princess or, Weird Weird West

So what about money? The silver standard is easily switched over to dollars at even money. Silver dollars are likely more popular on the frontier than paper money so that aspect of the game can be business as usual. The $50 gold coin was still in circulation in the 1870s so the gp value can be used with this coin in mind. There were also $20 and $10 gold coins but those can be specified, we can assume a gp is the $50 coin. The 2 cent copper was common enough that it can be used as the default "penny" for the campaign, keeping the ration of 1:50 for gp to sp and sp to cp.

The problem with the equipment list is some items are anachronistic and others are just way out of whack with the pricing of the day. The mass production capabilities of the settled areas of the North-eastern United States make a lot of items less expensive than the LotFP equipment lists. Catalogues from 1875 list wagons as only $50 as opposed to the 150 in LotFP. Mass-produced weapons like pistols are less than $5 and a shotgun can be bought for $15. The prices I found for rifles range from $20-$50. The ammunition was dirt cheap, selling for mere pennies. Buying something like a sword might be more difficult since you'd have to buy an old sabre from the war. Depending on the area, such products might be rare and expensive or so common they are worthless. A shortbow and arrows could be traded for or purchased from natives but a longbow or crossbow would not be available except as a collectable antique. Provisions become less of a hassle as canned goods and dried beef are plentiful.

Enough of the list matches up that it could be used for character generation at least and then prices out of old catalogues and some judgement could be used while resupplying in town.

There are some changes that need to be made to the rules...

Firearms

(Princess of the old west, Annie Oakley firing over her shoulder with a mirror)

There are all kinds of terrible black-powder muzzle loaders still kicking around the 1870s West so the normal LotFP firearms rules can be used for those. The muskets of the civil war era are much faster to reload and the use of caps to ignite the charge is much safer. These would function as arquebusses as listed with a three-round reload time and a misfire only on a one in twenty.

Armour penetration is still the same for all firearms with 4 points of amoured AC ignored by them.

These things are obviously more accurate than the antique weapons of the early modern era. I would just take the ranges for modern firearms and convert them to yards instead of feet. Short barrelled pocket pistols like derringers could continue to use feet for range and have the same doubling of penalties at range for the early modern unrifled pistols, but with a two shots and a single round for reloading. They also do only 1D4 or 1D6 damage because of the smaller calibre.

Shotguns use the same ranges as the old muzzle-loaders but instead of incurring penalties to hit at range it goes from 1D8 Damage at short range, to 1D6 at medium range, and 1D4 at long range. It has no armour penetration and reloading a single or double-barrelled shotgun takes one round.

Revolvers of this period are single action, allowing for a single accurate shot per round. They usually have a six round capacity and can be reloaded with cartridges in two rounds. Some revolvers don't use cartridges and the cylinders are loaded with a ball and black-powder. This takes a lot of time and users often carried multiple, pre-loaded cylinders. Switching out a cylinder takes one round loading a cylinder with ball and powder takes 18 rounds. Pistols still do 1D8 damage.

Revolvers can be "fanned" by holding down the trigger and slapping the hammer back. This desperate act adds +1 to hit for every three rounds expended.

Lever-action rifles are known as: "the guns that won the West." My google-fu is weak today so it was difficult to find any definite information on the magazine capacity of these weapons but five rounds seems to be the consensus. Apparently modifications could be made to expand that to 8 or even 13, but I leave that up to the judgement of the GM. I'll likely go with five.

Reload time should be one round of time for every three cartridges. Damage is the standard 1D8.

Lever-action rifles still had a chance to misfire because the tubular magazine caused rounds to go off inside the rifle from time to time. It was rare enough you can ignore depending on your game. Maybe even swap out one or two of the results on the optional D30 critical miss tables for an exploding rifle so it can still happen.

When using a rifle or shotgun in melee they do 1D6 Damage. A pistol is pretty heavy and can be used as a small club for 1D4 Damage.

Classes

The classes as written don't all fit the Weird West model so a few modifications need to be made.

The Cleric:

The 19th century cleric is more of the Solomon Kane type than the Crusader of the OD&D and LotFP rules. Taming the west with a bible and a six-shooter we can get that faith-based frontiersman with a few changes.

(Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider)

The first-level spell Turn becomes a reusable ability. It can be used against any unnatural creature such as a werewolf, undead or mutated thing. A result of Turned on the table means the creature is held at bay and cannot approach the Cleric or harm him/her in any way. A Destroyed result means the creature is actually turned as normal and must flee from the Cleric's presence. The Turn table could also be used to remove fear in a cleric's companions. Roll turn against the hit-dice of the fear causing creature or NPC and if it succeeds then 1D6 + the Cleric's hit dice in people of the group will rally. This group may in turn inspire others allowing another moral roll for hirelings and henchmen at +2.

The Cleric is no miracle worker on his or her own. Clerics don't cast spells, but can use cleric scrolls as normal. These artefacts are ancient prayers written, illuminated and specially prepared in the past. The Cleric accesses the power of the prayer by reading it aloud. It takes one round to read for every level of spell cast from the scroll and the cleric can do nothing other than walk slowly during that time. After the cast the player rolls a save verses Spells to see if the scroll's holiness fades and the scroll is exhausted. The maximum spell level a cleric can cast from a scroll is equal to the maximum spell level available on the cleric's Spells Per Level section of the table on Page 11 of the LotFP  Rules and Magic book. Every level beyond that takes a -1 penalty to the Save verses Spell roll. So a fourth level cleric casting a fourth level spell from a scroll takes a -2 penalty to their Save roll because the normal maximum spell level they can cast is level two.

Scrolls don't need to be scrolls to work this way. It could get weird with something like a mummified saint's hand being invoked to cast cure light wounds and so on. There's no limit to the strange that could be applied here.

The Fighter:

The Old West is full of gunfighters, ex-soldiers and hardened mercenaries. Fighters stay the same.

The Magic User:

There's always someone willing to endanger their soul and study forbidden texts in exchange for knowledge, power or both. The god-fearing folk of the frontier would be quick to burn a witch or other heathen displaying any unnatural powers so a player needs to be careful. The class stays the same but the spell list would change slightly as even more has been lost in the face of modern progress. I'd remove Magic Missile and Sleep from the level one spell list and replace them with Summon for the purposes of creating the first spellbook. Other things I'd be tempted to remove are Fly and the Wall of X spells.

The Specialist:

(The Weird West Specialist has some new skills to choose from)

The specialist doesn't need to change but I would add medicine as a a skill. The barber surgeons and country doctors of the old west have the benefit of modern techniques that make it possible to save a character from what would have been certain death in the Early Modern Era. If a PC is reduced past the usual a person skilled in medicine can treat them if they are reduced to -4 hit points or worse. They must have surgical tools, sufficient light and time to operate.  They make their D6 skill roll as usual but take a -1 penalty for every three points of damage suffered past the negative three threshold. So a character with -9 hp could be saved with a medicine roll made at -2. The medicine skill could also be used as for first aid type actions made while resting after a fight. Patching up a character's would would mean they regain 1D4-1 (0-3) hit points for anyone with at least one point in Medicine.

The Dwarf/Wild One:

There are no magical craftsman living under the Rockies and trading fine axes and other goods with the humans of the surface world. Dwarfs simply do not fit this campaign setting in any way. I usually swap in Barbarians to fill this niche in a human only campaign but those are anachronistic and no better fit.

The main feature of the dwarf class is it is a survivor. It has amazing saves and the best hit points in the game. That's why it could be changed to the Wild One with only a couple of changes. The frontier was frought with dangers both natural and man-made. Mudslides, terrible winters, native attacks and simple bandits could mean any community or settlement. The Wild One is a sole survivor of some kind of disaster. S/he survived through luck, skill or sheer bloody-mindedness and has come through it even harder than before. A few seasons on his/her own before making contact with civilization again has made the Wild One a natural adventurer. The Architecture skill could be replaced with Climb or Bushcraft depending on the circumstances of the Wild One's origin. Tough as nails and used to relying on themselves for everything, the Wild One keeps the Constitution bonus and extra encumbrance allowance of the Dwarf.

The Elf:

There are no elves prancing through the Old West. You could replace them with the Diabolist Class I described in an earlier post. Another option to get something exotic into your campaign is to adapt the Lotus Monks from the Qelong adventure.

The Halfing/Native:

There are no magical little people farming hidden valleys in the Old West either. The easiest way to use this class as written is to reskin it as a Native. The excellent Saves represent their experience with the dangers of the old west and the resolve required to live there without modern conveniences. They rely on each other and their communities so they don't have the extreme hit points of the Wild Ones. The Dex bonus could be restricted to only when they are lightly encumbered. Bushcraft and Stealth fit the Native culture well enough for warriors and hunters of most tribes across north america.

The main problem with playing a Native character in the Old West is the terrible prejudice they face. The player and GM should really discuss how this will play before the game. Racism is not fun, but different people like to play through different things. Just talk it out during character generation.



There's not much that needs to happen to make LotFP fit the Old West or to make a Weird West campaign. I know there are other games out there but if we're adapting LotFP adventures and its weird, horror-based aesthetic to the campaign we might as well make these minor tweaks once and just roll on forward than constantly revise between systems during play. Besides, I already have copies of the LotFP Rules so I'd rather make these changes than buy Call of Cthulhu - Old West Edition or Deadlands or whatever.

Bad News on the Doorstep?

The New Year is rolling in fine with some fantastic RPG material landing on my office doorstep (figuratively speaking) on the 13th. I was sick as a dog and lying in bed at home when the office manager texted to let me know a box had arrived from Finland for me. Despite battling a nasty case of the flu I dragged myself in there after hours to collect my collection of madness from Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

By the time I got the thing in my hands I was feeling a lot better so I opened it up right there. As I peeled back the packaging I was greeted by the words: "YOU ARE DOOMED."

What a great start!

It sounds like bad news to the uninitiated, but in LotFP that just means the stakes in this adventure will be high.

I lifted each of my seven new treasures from the box with slow, deliberate care. Turning them over in my hands and enjoying their look and feel. I flipped through them, glancing at the pages as they spun past. Stopping here and there to take in a piece of particularly arresting art. I laid it one on the table in front of me and once I was done took the whole thing in.

The random postcards were a fun freebie. I was impressed with all of the books. The PDFs just don't do them justice. Still, there is a reason I unpacked them on the red table. I live in a mining town in what many in Canada just refer to as "the North." There are still plenty of people living much farther north than me, just exponentially more to the south. Because of the mild remoteness of my location I have had the pleasure of reading on the internet for a few weeks now about how wonderful A Red and Pleasant Land by Zak S is. One heartless person has even teased me about it without mercy. My anticipation for this particular book had built up to a near frenzy. 

I was pleased that as thing the book lives up to the hype and more. It feels good in my hands while I read it and it feeds my eyes with vivid visuals and balanced layout. I'm taking my time with this one so I'll post proper reviews of it and some of these other books later. For now, I'll stick to first impressions and the highlights that caught me during my unboxing.

Death Frost Doom I'm saving for later. It's the adventure that launched the Lamentations brand. I didn't even open it. Crazy right?

I have a copy of the original Tower of the Stargazer and I've run it a few times so I left the new one aside for now as well. I'll compare the two side by side when I have time.

I've mentioned Zzarchov Kowalski's innovative adventure Thulian Echoes on the blog before, but I know it will eventually get a post to itself. Yannick Bouchard's cover is fantastic and Kelvin Green's interior art lets you know things are going to be weird.

What I was really waiting for from Kowalski was his Lovecraft inspired, adventure creation tool Scenic Dunnsmouth. It's full of seductive, creepy corruption and weird time anomalies. Because each adventure is freshly generated, it's possible to play it more than once with the same group and have wildly different adventures. The kicker for this one though is Jez Gordon's interior art. His signature heavy black shapes are foreboding on their own, but in this book there's a hazy coloured glow on many of the images, hinting at the corruption that could be anywhere in the adventure. I'm hoping to run it sooner, rather than later. It would work well as an intro to A Red and Pleasant Land since the featured river could serve as a way into the Land of Unreason. Regardless, I hope I get to use it sooner rather than later.

The impact of the full colour art in No Salvation for Witches surprised me. It's another one that needs an in depth review. I'd like to play it first though. I'm not sure how the time limit will play out. There's enough clues to figure everything out but they are spread out far enough there's little chance to get all the pieces of the puzzle in time to take action. In the meantime, I can tell you the production values of this book are wonderful. I am thrilled I contributed to crowdfunding project that got me NSFW.

I'm happy to get it all! There's a great collection of RPG madness here to use, inspire me, or dip into to give a lagging campaign a jolt. My LotFP shelf just keeps getting bigger and better.