Showing posts with label DnD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DnD. Show all posts

Monday, January 22, 2018

This Could Be Hobbit Forming, Part 2

Note: Part 1 is here and more discussion is here.

Well I have one kid down sick and another I had to rush to the ER because he cut off the tip of his finger.  (Both kids will be fine).  But that, of course, means no weekend gaming report.

What I did though was give a little more thought on what my Middle Earth game might be like.

I know there are some perfectly good Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth games out there.  I played MERP in the past and I was one of the playtesters for the Cubicle 7 The One Ring game.  I will talk about those at a later date.  There are also some other games that others have let me know work well for Middle Earth.  I might touch on those too, no idea yet.  One, Rolemaster, intrigues me because it is not the sort of game I normally would do with RM.

No. Today I want to talk about something I have wanted to do forever.  D&D in Middle-Earth.  So per my normal weekend-game prep I set some books up on the old-treadmill and went for a run.

I think by now we all know that the effect of Tolkien on D&D has been purposefully diminished over the years.  The reasons are varied (and various) but largely seem due to avoid more legal issues.

The evidence is there that Tolkien did have an influence on D&D.  Here is my copy of Chainmail with the Fantasy Supplement.


Moving in on this.


So here we have "Hobbits", "Balrogs" "Ents" and even "Nazgul" among the standard "Elves" and "Dwarves".   These were scrubbed from later editions.

Regardless of all of that, it brings up my first candidate.  Original D&D.



OD&D has a LOT going for it.  The rules are really stripped down, the class selection is few and the overall power level is what I feel represents the average to high-level adventurers in Middle Earth. Despite wizards, dragons, and rings, Middle Earth is a low magic setting.  Even great swords like those forged by the elven smiths in Gondolin are at best what, +3?  Nothing like a vorpal sword, or even a sword of sharpness.  OD&D does this really well.

The biggest issue I have with OD&D is that I already had a grand experiment with it.  Back in 1988 I spent a summer playing in an OD&D campaign with rather mundane characters; 3d6 in order, no substitutions unless an ability was lower than 7.  Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the hell out of that game.  But I am not sure if I want to do that again or not.

Naturally, I thought, maybe Basic D&D is the way to go.


I am planning on limiting my Middle Earth game to just 10th level.  If I throw in the Expert set I might go to 12.   Here again, there are a ton of compelling reasons, for me, to use this.
I love Basic era D&D.  I can do so much with it.  I also even think that race-as-class would work; except for a halfling burglar.

While I really wanted to stick with something pure D&D at about the 1-mile mark I came to a realization.  The game I want does exist.   It is OD&D like.  Limited to 10 levels. And has the feel I Want in a game.   It is +James Spahn's The Hero's Journey Fantasy Roleplaying.



Hero's Journey is James Spahn's love letter to the Hobbit and the kinds of adventures inspired by it.  This is not a grimdark game so it would fit my needs perfectly.  Plus James has worked on Cubicle 7's Adventures in Middle Earth RPG so he has the background to pull it off.

Now. I have no idea if I would include my own Hedge Witch in this.  She doesn't really fit, but I pulled my book anyway to see.  Hero's Journey not only has the feel I want, but it also has the classes I am looking for.  While I am not likely to use OD&D/Basic/HJ's Wizard or Magic-user at all, I do see a spot for the cleric.  Only instead of serving gods they the scholars of Arda.  Plus we will need some healing magic.

I think I am going to come up with a basic character concept, maybe even a couple, and see how well I can create them in these games and selcted Middle-Earth dedicated games.
Obviously I will have to use a young hobbit adventurer, a dwarf fighter of some sort maybe an elf and a human too.


This won't be a long-term or even a serious campaign, but one I can run when I have the desire to do something light.

Just need to find a time to set it all in.  I am thinking at the start of the Third Age or maybe near the end of the Second Age.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Wizards of the Coast Print On Demand: The Results, Part 3

Today is Tuesday so that means new releases.  Wizards of the Coast has some new classic D&D books up for POD today.  Be sure to check them out.

Today I want to compare the POD 3e Draconomicon to the one I bought my son when it first came out.
A bit of background.  The Draconomicon is a watershed book for the Brannan family.  I got it for my son because he loved dragons. Still does really.  Well he carried this book with him everywhere for years.  Needless to say it is in pretty bad shape.  I have wanted to get him a new one for years and I have seen many at Half-Price books and of course at my FLGS, but none have jumped out at me saying "buy me".  We I opted to spend some of the money from the sales of my own books on the POD version.  I splurged and got the "Premium Heavyweight" paper.

In the pictures the original print in on the left side of your screen, the POD on the right.


Side by side it is hard to know which is which.  The art on the POD version seems a little bigger.  You will notice there is a spot on the bottom where the cover doesn't quite make it to the bottom.  I have seen this before on other books.  Sometimes it prints like this other times it doesn't.


The Heavyweight POD is noticeably thicker than the original print.



The POD does not have the dragon art printed on the inside cover.  The images are repeated in the original printing but only one of each in the POD.  The POD actually looks more interesting.



Inside the books are remarkably identical.


My son was 6 when I got this for him.   He carried it to school for two years straight.


This is the LightningSource/OneBookShelf page added to all the books.   So no chance someone will mistake these for originals if they know to look for this.


Equally, the original features an ISBN barcode.  The the POD has a different one that is not an ISBN.


The spines are also very different. This of course is by necessity to accommodate the varying thickness of the paper choices.

In all I am happy with it.  It doesn't look like my original, but that is fine with me.  It makes it more of a "new" book in some respects.  Yes, just like the original I am giving this to my son for Christmas. Don't tell him.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Gaming Weekend

Did a little bit of gaming this weekend. My son got to play some Mongoose Traveller with his other group.  Here at home we started up a new D&D 5 game set in the Skyrim universe that my oldest is going to run.  So far it's a lot of fun. We are hunting down the murderer of the Emporer and have managed to hit level 2 already.

I also got a desire to dust off an older game and give it another go.  It was a lot of fun back in the day and I have been itching to do some more with it.


Should be fun.

Monday, March 14, 2016

The Iconic Witches of D&D

No game this past weekend. I wasn't feeling great and my son was at a birthday party.

I was thinking about Friday's post on the witches of Rahasia and of Ravenloft and it occurs to me that D&D lacks in iconic witches.  There are great examples of Vampires, Liches, Wizards, Priests, Paladins, Rangers, enough Thieves to fill a guild, even Bards.

The witches in Rahasia are one thing, but the ones in Ravenloft don't even have proper names really.

Pathfinder does a good job with their iconics.  Feiya is a proper witch, but even the sorceress Seoni is often referred to as a witch.  Not to mention all the witches to be found in Irrisen like Queen Elvanna.

The witches three. Larina, Feiya and Seoni
I have my iconic, Larina.  But she appears mostly in my Pathfinder books.

Who do we have for D&D?

Well for starters and maybe the most iconic is Iggwilv, the Witch-Queen. We also have Elena the Fair, Witch Queen of Summer. Also, while not as a well know or even explicitly a witch is Skyla.

There is also one witch that both D&D and Pathfinder share, Baba Yaga.


There was also Koliada, the Winter Witch. a Level 26 Solo Skirmisher from the 4th ed era adventure "Winter of the Witch". But there is not a lot out there about her.  Interestingly Pathfinder also has a lot Winter and Cold related witches.

Dungeon Crawl Classics gives us Lady Kyleth, The Witch Queen.

Personally I'd love to see more.  There might be more, I just haven't found them all yet.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Christmas Gaming

It's been busy time this Christmas.  So far I have gotten a lot of gaming in.
We went to my in-laws to see my wife's sister and her kids and my kids brought out D&D.  I got hit with some allergies and could not run, but my oldest decided to run some games.  He got both of my nephews to play some D&D 5.  They had a great time.  So great in fact that I went out got them some dice, minis, a Starter Set and the Basic Rules.


We went back out to visit and Liam ended up running Hoard of the Dragon Queen.  Instead of Tiamat he used his own creation, Aži Dahāka.  It went fantastic.  Really fantastic.




Even their other cousin and her boyfriend joined in for a couple of sessions.

They had such great time that the brand new Xbox One went largely ignored.  Not to bad really.

So I got 4 new people into gaming this holiday.  How did you do?

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Question of the Day: Anyone run/play a fight against Orcus

Still feeling pretty sick today.

But I was looking over some of my adventures I have laying around and I noticed a theme.

For 1st Ed I have the Bloodstone Wars modules.
For 3rd Ed I have a bunch of stuff from Necromancer Games.
For 4th Ed I have the HPE series of nine modules.
And now for 5th ed I have Into the Abyss.

What do they all have in common?

Looking pretty damn scary in his new 5e form.

Well, in the broadest terms they all deal with destroying the Demon Prince Orcus.
(ok 5e is about all demons)
Or at the very least stopping his machinations.

I mean, I get it. Orcus is the most metal of all the demon lords.

Back in the day we gleefully killed him in H4 Throne of Bloodstone.  I was looking forward to doing it again under 4e in E3 Prince of Undeath.   So there is an allure.

So how about you all?
Did you ever run/play a game where the PCs went after Orcus?

If yes, what adventure did you use?
If no, would it be something you would consider?

Bonus question.  Why doesn't Demogorgon get any of this attention?

Orcus Links (I have talked about this before)

Friday, August 21, 2015

RPG a Day 2015, Day 21

Day 21: Favorite RPG Setting

Hard call. It really is a toss up between my home brewed Mystoerth campaign world for *D&D or Victorian England.

Mystoerth grew out of a need for my then DM and I to merge our worlds.  He was a huge Greyhawk fan (as was I, but less so) and my world was the known world of Msytara.

Map by Rich Trickey aka chatdemon



We did not call our world Mystoerth. That name as far as I can tell came from +James Mishler and +Rich Trickey.  Rich made that nice map.

It has worked well for me over the years.



Monday, August 17, 2015

RPG a Day 2015, Day 17

Day 17: Favorite Fantasy RPG

No question.  Dungeons and Dragons.


 








 









Hail to the King baby.


Saturday, August 8, 2015

RPG a Day 2015, Day 8

Day 8: Favorite Appearance of RPGs in the Media

I have seen a few and I always find them amusing.  Supernatural usually does a nice job.  But my favorite still has to be from the X-files.

The first from "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" Season 3, Episode 20

Jose Chung: Aren't you nervous telling me all this? Receiving all those death threats?
Blaine: Well, hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.

The next one comes from another one of my favorite episodes, "Unusual Suspects" Season 5, Episode 1.

Langly: Elron the Druid bets 50! Cash only, Elron... no cheques for the bank of Middle Earth! Come on Natural 20. Daddy needs a new Sword of Wounding. [Byers and Frohike enter] What's the big idea of bringing the Nark in here?
Frohike: Me and the Nark have a proposition for you.
Langly: What proposition?
Frohike: The coolest hack in the world.
Elron the Druid: Lord Manhammer?!
Langly: Say it. Say it!
Frohike: [reluctantly] Your Kung-Fu is the best...

When the Lone Gunmen "died" in the series I rose a toast in my next D&D game to Lord Manhammer.




Tuesday, May 5, 2015

New D&D from WotC

One of the biggest problems of hanging in mostly old-school areas is people still seem to want to bitch and complain about Wizards of the Coast.

I don't get that.

It's ok not to like them. It's ok not to care for 3rd, 4th or 5th edition D&D.  But they are not the freaking devil.

We have the OGL from WotC which honestly has made the entire OSR possible.

We even are getting new content we can use in our games from them all them thanks to DnDClassics.com.

The 3.5 Edition of the Player's Handbook is now out for example.
Why is this a big deal? Because the 3.5 books all got the "deluxe" reprints. There general wisdom has been that reprints have not been getting PDFs.  Well if this is a change we can soon see 1st and 2nd edition core book pdfs.  We already see that with the Basic lines and much of the supplemental materials.

You might not play D&D 5 or have any interest in the current "Elemental Evil" arc, you have to agree that The Elemental Evil Player's Companion is a very important product.  Why? Well it is free, so there is that, but more importantly this is the first product WotC is doing "Print on Demand".  This is a HUGE deal.  Could you imagine it they started offering old school products not just as PDF but as POD?  Copies of old modules for a fraction of what the aftermarket charges?  The ability to have people new to the game buy the classics in book form?

Dragon is coming back AND it looks like it will be free. The new incarnation is Dragon+.
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/dragonplus

There is a new member of their "D&D Adventure System Cooperative Play board games", Temple of Elemental Evil.  Which looks like it could be fun.
http://wizkidsgames.com/blog/2015/04/29/wizkids-temple-of-elemental-evil-board-game-arrives-in-north-american-retail/

So regardless of what system you are playing, there should be something in all this new AND old content you can use.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Checking in on my Plan

Over the years I have discussed my Plan.  The Plan is what adventures I am going to take my kids through.

For D&D 3.x I was content to take anything as it came, make stuff up and generally going towards a  stopping the cult of Tiamat plot.  It was/has been fun and we are nearing the end of that.

For the new adventures I was looking at 3rd, then 4th, then 1st and now 5th Edition as the primary game system.

http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-have-plan.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/02/lets-play-1st-ed-dad.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-kids-are-awesome.html

At the present here is where I am.
  • B1 Into the Unknown, levels 1-3
  • B2 Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3
  • L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
  • X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (where we are now!)
  • I6 Ravenloft, levels 5-7
  • A0-5 Slave Lords, levels 4-7
  • G123, Against the Giants, levels 8-12 (I also have the Stone Giant one from Dragonsfoot, just need to find it)
  • D12,3 Against the Drow, levels 8,9-14
  • Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, 10-14
  • CM2 Death's Ride, levels 15-20. (Again, unless I use it in my current 3.x game which the boys want me to do)
If I don't do Death's Ride I am seriously considering the classic H series to go after Orcus.
  • H1 Bloodstone Pass, levels 15+
  • H2 The Mines of Bloodstone, levels 16-18
  • H3 The Bloodstone Wars, levels 17-20
  • H4 The Throne of Bloodstone, levels 18-100
But I would REALLY edit these since they have a lot of issues.  Truthfully my best plan is to just use H4 and add bits from H1-3 and maybe even some stuff from the 4th Ed E-Series.  But that is if I want to have Orcus as the big bad guy at the end.  It has appeal.

Also I have the mind flayer adventure A Darkness Gathering to work into the mix.

It has taken me a while to get through all this because I am alternating with my 3.x game, some AS&SH and other games.

So far the adventures have seemed random and the characters are wandering about.  But they are about to get some items in the X2/I6 series that will help them later on.  

Right now, with out their knowing about it the Drow, Vampires and Illithids have gathered together to put the final phase of their ultimate plan into motion.  The PCs will discover a little of this plan when they encounter the Slavers.  The slavers are all vampires now and they are not dealing in slaves, but human cattle.    After they have defeated them the last part of the bad guys plan comes into fruition.  

The sun goes completely out.  

There is panic. Everyone gathers in the Freecity of Greyhawk.  The Church of Pelor/Ixion is hardest hit, but also the loudest voice.  All the "big names" are there and they are trying to figure out what to do.
There is a plan to set the moon a flame, but the various clergy of the Moon Goddesses are against that.  Finally they agree to instead use a large asteroid to keep life going till they can re-ignite the sun.
While all the big names are trying to figure this out the PCs have to deal with some raids nearby of giants...

The PCs will then go through the GDQ series to discover the plan and that the drow are working with mind flayers.  After defeating Lolth in Q1 the PCs will have to deal with the vampires who have Pelor captured.  In order to re ignite the sun they will need to set him free from his prison in ..... and that is all I have.

Yeah it is kinda story-gamey.  It's my game, my house and my kids. They will eat this up.
I guess it is hard for me to get away from the idea of vampires as the big bads.

Those of you who have been reading this blog a long time might notice that there was a similar plot in my Buffy Season 7 game, Episode 12 No Other Troy.  Though that one the sun being blocked was a side effect. 

I am inclined to use Orcus as the big bad holding Pelor.  
I have a huge ass mini of him and a crap ton of material for him.

But I have also wanted to use Camazotz as the demon-god of Vampires in his abyssal plane of Xibalba.  Maybe I still can use him in some way.  It is possible he is something like a high priest to Orcus and his job is to sacrifice Pelor on a bloody altar.  Once that is done Orcus will suck up his godly powers and reign as the God of Death and Darkness.

And he would have gotten away with it too had it not been for those meddling PCs.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

On the Road to Averoigne

So over the weekend my D&D5 group completed the castle portion of Castle Amber and the adventurers have entered Averoigne.  They are currently taking a long rest before heading out to find the four items they need to return home.

So far this adventure has been fantastic.  I forgot how much fun X2 was, both as a player and as a DM.

I am still playing around with the 5e rules.  I might use the option that makes healing more like AD&D, but so far I still very happy with how things go.

Story wise I have been dropping hints of the "Oncoming Darkness" with both the ghouls and the Brain Collector/Neh-Thalggu mentioning it.   Once they complete their quest here typically they are brought back to their own world.  Instead I am going to have them go directly to Ravenloft via the mists and defeat Strahd.  In both adventures they get items necessary for them to survive the adventures to come.

I am going to try out this Ravenloft I6 D&D 5 conversion I found here.
Ravenloft is one of my favorite adventures and I am really looking forward to it.

I still need them to come up with a name for their group.