New Big Dragon B/X Screen Sheets

So a while back I backed the Classic Edition GM's Screen from New Big Dragon and +Richard LeBlanc.

Well, the files went out this week and they look great.  If the physical product is this cool (and it should be) then this was a great project to back.

As an added bonus (well to me because I forgot about it) were files for character sheets.
They also look fantastic.  Since I have been printing out sheets for various versions of D&D for my summer games I thought I should give these a go too.

The sheets look great if you ask me.  I love the class-specific ones and there is even a generic one.

Really looking forward to this one in the mail.

A to Z of Adventure! Z is for Zanzer's Dungeon

Z is for Zanzer's Dungeon.

Here we are once again at the end of the A to Z challenge.

Z, like some other letters here, does not signify a module code.  In this case there is an obvious choice.  Back in the early 90s the D&D brand was in transition.  There was the Dungeons & Dragons line, with rule-books named Basic, Expert, Companion, Masters, and Immortal (BECMI) and a single book Rules Cyclopedia that combined the first four.  Then there was the completely separate Advanced Dungeons & Dragons line which had rules-books named Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monstrous Manual.  These books were in their 2nd Edition.
Confusing?  Yeah it was to us too.

In 1991 TSR, the then publisher of D&D released their newest, and what would be one of their last, in the "Basic" sets. The set was called "The New Easy-to-Master Dungeons & Dragons Game" but gamers often called it the "Black Box".  The adventure inside was a bit of preview of things to soon come.  Zanzer's Dungeon was laid out like a board game complete with little plastic minis for the characters and paper fold top minis for monsters.  This was compatible with the BECMI flavor of D&D and worked as a replacement for the Basic Set and an introduction to the Rules Cyclopedia.

While the game was highly praised for it ease of use and intuitiveness. I never bothered getting it at the time.  I picked up my copy (pictured here) many years later as a means to teach my kids how to play.  Turns out they learned like I did...just by playing.

The board-game like play area is welcoming to new players.  Now they can see what they are doing.
Persoanlly that annoyed me because for years my rule books would say that you don't need a board, only your imagination!  Though today I use tiles and maps just like this.

In fact Zanzer's Dungeon here is the same scale as the maps used in 3rd and 4th edition D&D (and 5th if you care to), so the minis we have been using will work here too.

This set would later be expanded with the Dragon's Den boxed set, which was also board game "shaped".

One day I'll use these as an intro game for something.  Better than them collecting dust on my shelves!

Werewolves For Basic Era Games

Tomorrow night is Walpurgis Night.  A night when witches, vampires, and werewolves are known to be out.
I have already given you Witches and Vampires so now I present Werewolves.

Werewolves: The Beast Within is a 10/20 level race-as-a-class class for your favorite Basic Era OSR game.

From the back cover:

Werewolves…
The fear to loose control and become a hungry, blood lusted
beast has haunted our nightmares since we clutched together
in the dark. It has also been the secret desire of others.

Lycanthropes been a staple of role-playing villains, monsters, and
anti-heroes since the dawn of the role-playing hobby.

Now you can play these fearsome monsters of horror tales and
movies in your Basic-Era style games.

Presented here is a full 20 level class with all the classic
werewolf powers.

Fully compatible with the werewolf monsters you have been
using for nearly 40 years.

Also fully compatible with my books for Witches and Vampires.

This one is a buck, but that is really just to pay for the art.

So celebrate "Half-aween" (half way to Halloween) with some classic monsters.

A to Z of Adventure! X is for Expert.

X is for Expert.

This is not some attempt to grift the Challenge.  The Expert Set adventures were given the code X.
Of course, the most famous of these is X1, The Isle of Dread.

I got this adventure along with my Expert set back in the early 80s.  It is an obvious King Kong homage, but it is a great one.  It is another one of those adventures that people keep coming back to time and time again.
Maybe second only to B2 and B1 in terms of numbers of players, but The Isle of Dread is one of the best Basic-era adventures out there.  In today's frame of mind the adventure is equal parts Pirates of the Caribean, King Kong, and Jurassic Park.  It is a heady cauldron of tropes, ideas and just plain crazy fun.  It was included in the original Expert set and it still had expanded maps and more creatures.  I never understood why the creatures where not just in the main book, but it did make the module special.
What was so nice about X1 over B2 is you had the feel it was more integrated into the Expert rules; it felt like a logical extension.

This is also the first published adventure I ever ran for my son.  Up to this point I had ran ones I had made up for him.  He was young (6 or 7) and adventures like "Cave of the Stinky Goblin" or "Trouble in West Haven" were more appropriate for him.  But X1 had the great big dinosaur on it and he loved dinosaurs.

We had a blast. To me, 20 some odd years later, it felt like a very different adventure.  There is a lot of untapped potential here. Enough for several adventures really.
Later on I bought my son his own copy to run sometime.  It was also the first time that my kids began to recognize Tom Moldvay's name on the covers of adventures.

X2: Castle Amber
Another one of my "holy grail" items. I managed to score a copy when I moved to Chicago.
There is so much to love about this adventure, but I have detailed it all before in these pages.

• Castle Amber by Candle Light
• Castle Amber, Butterbeer and the Order of the Platinum Dragon
• Averoigne via Ravenloft
• and I explore the Castle Amber / Ravenloft connection here. 

Again, this is another Tom Moldvay adventure and we all loved it.

The other X modules came out a bit later and were more tied to the newer Frank Mentzer-edited Expert Set, as opposed to the Cook-Marsh-edited set I had owned. (I guess these modules should have really been called "E" for expert then). Of these I only later owned Quagmire.  I got it cheap at a used book store in Carbondale, IL.  I completely gutted the module and only kept the tower and swamp.

X3 Curse of Xanathon
X4 Master of the Desert Nomads
X5 Temple of Death
X6 Quagmire!
X7 The War Rafts of Kron
X8: Drums on Fire Mountain
X9: The Savage Coast
X10 Red Arrow, Black Shield
X11 Saga of the Shadow Lord
X12 Skarda's Mirror

In particular, I would like to get print copies of X4 and X5 for my Second Campaign game.  Saga of the Shadow Lord also sounds like a lot of fun!

This is my problem...too many great games/adventures and so little time.

A to Z of Adventure! R is for RPGA Adventures.

R is for RPGA Adventures.

Growing up in the 80s I read about the RPGA, Role-Players Game Association, with great interest.  As a kid it was important to me then to be "Best at D&D" (whatever that meant) and the RPGA seemed like external validation of that.  I had heard there were some people in my small-ish town (22k at the time iifc) that were members, but I don't think I even knew for sure.  For me though being in the RPGA was like a badge of honor, like running a Call of Cthulhu game was.  Something only Real Roleplayers^TM did.

Well today I am not going to get into the details of the RPGA, past or present, instead, I want to talk about the adventures.  Now normally with this challenge I want to present some material that my normal readers will like and that new readers will also find approachable.   The adventures from the RPGA are, as you might expect from reading the above, not very common or easily accessed.

Back in the early days of eBay I hit the internet hard looking for copies of these adventures.   One of the first ones I grabbed were the first four I knew of.

R1 To the Aid of Falx 
R2 The Investigation of Hydell  
R3 The Egg of the Phoenix  
R4 Doc's Island

These were written in 1982-83 by Frank Mentzer.  I focused on these since they were the ones I knew about and I had a chance to go through them in the late 80s myself, but never finished them.
Unknown to me at the time they were all collected into a larger adventure and sold as I12 Egg of the Phoenix which I talked about on I Day.

Re-reading these now I am very curious about Frank Mentzer's own campaign setting of Aquaria.   I found these links that gave me a bit of a better idea what it is all about:

• http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2010/08/frank-mentzers-aquaria.html
• http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=4140

I am going to need to find out more about it to be honest.

The next set of RPGA adventures that got me interested were the RPGA series.

RPGA1 Rahasia
RPGA2 Black Opal Eye
These were written by Tracy and Laura Hickman and then later combined into the module B7 Rahasia.  Reading these earlier treatments is actually very interesting. I pulled them out when I was thinking about this challenge and after I got the new Tracy and Laura Hickman inspired Ravenloft.   I talked quite a bit about Rahasia and The Black Opal Eye.
http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2016/03/rahasia-ravenloft-and-witches.html

RPGA3 The Forgotten King 
RPGA4 The Elixir of Life
Both of these were written by Bob Blake in 1983.  I have them, but I have not really gotten into them.

There are others, mostly featured in Polyhedron Magazine.

As publications, they are an interesting piece of D&D history especially from the so-called "Silver age" of D&D; that early/mid-80s time when D&D was at its cultural peak, but the best adventures were for the most part already published and behind it.

As adventures, many are forgettable save for the ones I mention here.  This, in particular, came as something of a blow to me.  I had expected the RPGA modules to be the cream of the crop, but that was not the case.  Rahasia and the Egg of the Phoenix caught my attentions, but that is about it.
Many of the best would be later reprinted under other module codes (like Rahasia and Egg of Phoenix).

Still. There is something uniquely nostalgic about picking up these duotone books and flipping through thinking of an age when Walkmen, pastels, Trapper Keepers, and Rubic's Cubes ruled the land.

A to Z of Adventure! M is for Masters Series

M is for Masters Series.

The Masters series of adventures were created for the BECMI version of D&D.  Typically around here I have BECMI as roughly synonymous with B/X D&D or "Basic D&D" well....the M or Master Series is around to remind me that this is not really the case.

So a bit history.
The first Basic Set was authored by John Eric Holmes in 1977.  Gamers often call this "Blue Book Basic".
The next Basic Set was written by Tom Moldvay and was followed by the Cook/Marsh Expert Set. These books are collectively known as B/X.
The next set would be the last "Basic D&D". It was written and edited by +Frank Mentzer and included the Basic, Expert, Companion, Masters and Immortal sets. Also known as BECMI.
Each set detailed more levels of the game; 1-3, 4-14, 15-25, 26-36, and Immortality, respectively.

The Masters set and M series of modules were designed for experienced players and characters of 26th level and higher.

Only five M series modules were made.

Code	Title	Levels	Author(s)	Published	Notes
M1	Into the Maelstrom	25–30	Bruce Heard, Beatrice Heard	1985
M2	Vengeance of Alphaks	28–32	Skip Williams	1986
M3	Twilight Calling	30–35	Tom Moldvay	1986
M4	Five Coins for a Kingdom	28–32	Allen Varney	1987
M5	Talons of Night	20–25	Jannell Jaquays	1987

Of these I only own M1, M3 and M5.

The simple matter is few characters get to this high of a level and often when they do the DM usually has their own adventures for them.

M1 Into the Maelstrom is a cool adventure with flying ships which became some of a fasination for +Bruce Heard.  If I were to play this one I would naturally have to include material from Bruce's own Calidar, In Stranger Skies setting.  Or set it in Calidar...hmmm this gives me some ideas.

M3 Twilight Calling is from the creative mind of the late Tom Moldvay.  Tom is something of a celebertiy in my home games. Every adventure I have run of his my family likes.  Likes enough to ask who wrote it. After saying Tom Moldvay for the third time (Castle Amber, Isle of Dread, Lost City, Secret of the Slavers Stockade...).   It is my favorite M series module and has the players go on a plane-hopping adventure to finally get to the Plane of Nightmares.  I have often thought it would make for a perfect "Final Adventure" for any party.

M5 Talons of Night by Jannell Jaquays is also fun, and really deadly adventure.  I grabbed it becuase of the dragon on the cover.  If M3 is the finale for my "Come Endless Darkness" game then M5 should be the finale of my "Dragonslayers" game.
Plus, it always reminds me of this song.



I mentioned H4 with it's 18-100 level range, and it is deadly.  But that adventure is just really a scaled up 20th level adventure.  These adventures are qualitatively different.

I am just disappointed that they are not available yet on DriveThruRPG as PDFs, though I am glad I have mine.

A to Z of Adventure! B is for Basic Adventures

B is for Basic Adventures.

The Dungeons and Dragons Basic set is a tried and true introduction to the D&D game.  Since the first Basic set, written by John Eric Holmes, was published there have been included adventures.  

The first was the aptly named, In Search of the Unknown, and had the code B1.  This was and still is my go to adventure for starting out a new campaign of first level characters.  The plot, as much as there can be one, is thin. There is a castle that has been abandoned. Let's go check it out!

The next Basic Set, and really the start of the whole Basic line of D&D was the one from Tom Moldvay.  This set introduced us all to the Caves of Chaos and the titular Keep on the Borderlands.  There are estimates that close to 1.5 Million copies of B2 Keep on the Borderlands were printed.  An entire generation of gamers visited those caves in search of glory, gold and experience points.

The B-series of modules would go one to produce some of the best and most memorable adventures ever printed.   There was the controversial first print (orange cover) of B3 Palace of the Silver Princess which had all copies destroyed and now fetches top dollar on eBay.  This was followed by the sublimely weird B4 The Lost City, which along with B2 made the list of the top 30 D&D adventures of all time.

I ran all these first four for my kids over the last few years and it was a blast.  I never played in or ran the remaining 8 (yes 8!) adventures.  But all are designed for starting level characters, levels 1 to 3 and most importantly starting Dungeon Masters learning their new craft.  I know own them all, and really want to play them sometime.  I am planning on running Rahasia (B7) as part of my "War of the Witch Queens" campaign someday.  I'd also like to run B5 Horror on the Hill and B8 Journey to the Rock as well.

Links

• Retro Review & Commentary On The OD&D Adventure Module B1 In Search of the Unknown
• Actual Play Of The OD&D Adventure - B3 Palace of the Silver Princess With The Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea Game
• Retro Review & Commentary On The OD&D Adventure Module - B4 - The Lost City
• The 30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time
• Grognardia Retrospective: In Search of the Unknown
• Grognardia Retrospective: The Keep on the Borderlands
• Grognardia Retrospective: Palace of the Silver Princess
• Grognardia Retrospective: The Lost City

The adventures at the Dungeon Masters' Guild:

• B1 In Search of the Unknown (1978)
• B2 The Keep on the Borderlands (1979)
• B3 Palace of the Silver Princess (1981)
• B4 The Lost City (1982)
• B5 Horror on the Hill (1983)
• B6 The Veiled Society (1984)
• B7 Rahasia (1984, 1979)
• B8 Journey to the Rock (1984)
• B9 Castle Caldwell and Beyond (1985)
• B10 Night's Dark Terror (1986)
• B11 King's Festival (1989)
• B12 Queen's Harvest (1989)

Koliada, The Winter Witch for D&D BECMI

Yesterday I wrote about Koliada the Winter Witch for D&D 5th Edition.  While I really enjoyed how she worked out I could not help but think how she might fare under the 36 levels of the Basic-era D&D BECMI.

I felt from the start of D&D 4 that is shared certain characteristics with BECMI.  Both go to really high levels (30 for 4e and 36 for BECMI) and both have immortality as a possible option for characters at their highest levels.
Early on, and I am not sure if I posted this or not. I remarked on how 4e characters start out fairly powerful. I said, at the time, that really a 1st level 4e character is closer in power to a 5th or 6th level classic character.  I have been wanting to put that idea to use (and I'll talk about this next month in fact), but I thought I would give it a go here first.

In D&D4 Koliada is a 26th level character.  Let's work under the assumption that the translation for D&D4 to BECMI is to add four levels.  So Koliada would be a 30th level Basic/BECMI D&D character.  But what kind?
In 4e she is called a "Solo Skirmisher".  When I translated her to D&D5 I opted for a Warlock with the Magic Initiate feat to give her some Sorcerer spells too.  BECMI is not as flexible in terms of class customization.  Magic-User is a choice.  But, and this should be no surprise, I am opting for Witch as her character class.

My 5e conversion made it pretty obvious that she is a Fey Pact. In my Witch book this would translate as a Faerie Tradition.  Though I think there is now ample evidence to me that there must be something like a Winter Witch Tradition too.   Not ready to debut that just yet though.
Also, in complete dumb luck, a 30th level witch in my Basic Witch book has the level title of "Winter Court Witch".  Witch it is then!

Now I Would have LOVED to convert this for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. After all what can be more Hyperborean than an evil winter witch?  But the level caps would not give me the conversion I wanted.  Sure I could do a 13th level Koliada, but that would not give me a decent basis of comparison.  So instead I am going with the D&D Rules Cyclopedia.
I also went to the 4e book, Player's Option: Heroes of the Feywild for ideas on their witches and on the Feywild.

Koliada, The Winter Witch
30th level Witch (Faerie Tradition)
Female, Chaotic

Strength 16
Intelligence 17
Wisdom 15
Dexterity 20
Constitution 19
Charisma 20

Saving Throws
Death Ray/Poison 3
Magic Wands 4
Paralysis, Polymorph 3
Dragon Breath 6
Rods, Staffs, Spells 5

Hit Points: 80
AC: -3
(leather armor +4, Ring of Protection +3, Dex 20 -4)

THAC0: 8
(I know, THAC0 was not used in Basic D&D. You know what this means)

Occult Powers
Familiar: Iceling*
(like a frozen sprite. From Dungeon 162)
Lesser: Speak to Animals (not plants as well)
Minor: Fae Shape
Medial: Curse
Major: Shape Change

Spells
Cantrips (6): Alarm Ward, Chill, Daze, Ghost Sound, Inflict Minor Wounds, Spark
1st (9+3): Bewitch I, Black Fire, Cause Fear, Charm Person, Chill Touch, Endure Elements, Fey Sight, Ghostly Slashing, Glamour, Light/Darkness, Minor Fighting Prowess, Silver Tongue
2nd (8+3): Bewitch II, Defoliate, Discord, Enthrall, Freezing Gaze, Ghost Touch, Hold Person, Invisibility, Phantasmal Spirit, Spell Missile, Whispering Wind
3rd (8+2): Arctic Grasp, Bestow Curse, Bewitch III, Dispel Magic, Feral Spirit, Improved Faerie Fire, Lifeblood, Spirit of Hyperborea (Spirit of Avalon), Toad Mind, Witch Wail
4th (7+2): Analyze Magic, Bewitch IV, Charm Monster, Elemental Armor (Ice), Fluid Mastery, Intangible Cloak of Shadows, Phantom Lacerations, Spiritual Dagger, Withering Touch
5th (7): Bewitch V, Blade Dance, Death Curse, Dreadful Bloodletting, Hold Monster, Nightmare, Waves of Fatigue
6th (7): Bewitch VI, Death Blade, Evaporate Fluids, Eye Bite, Mass Agony, Mislead, True Seeing
7th (6): Bewitch VII, Death Aura, Greater Arcane Eye, Greater Blindness, Insanity, Wave of Mutilation
8th (6): Bewitch VIII, Destroy Life, Greater Mislead, Mystic Barrier, Wail of the Banshee, Imprisonment (Ritual)

Note: Koliada's spells will manifest with some wintery, cold, or icy aspect.  So Black Fire is cold, Defoliate will cause a freezing wind to blow and kill plants, Elemental Armor will be ice and so on.

She has a lot more spells here than either the 5e or 4e version.  But both 4e and 5e have a number of "at will" powers or other powers/spells that can be regained.  BECMI characters have to wait till the next day for their spells to return.  So she also has some spells that have similar effects to other spells.

I also think I need a Winter Witch tradition and some more cold based spells.

Books used in the conversion process.

• Dungeon #162
• The Witch: A sourcebook for Basic Edition fantasy games
• Player's Option: Heroes of the Feywild
• D&D Rules Cyclopedia
• Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea

Leprechauns: The PWYW Experiment Continues

Something I put together for St. Pat's day, but didn't get through the approval process in time.
Two options for adding Leprechauns to your games.

First up is a race as a class option for "Basic Era" games.
Leprechauns for Basic Era Games

While I working on that one +James Spahn released his very fun Hero's Journey, so I felt a Leprechaun race option might be fun for that.
Leprechauns for Hero's Journey

The PDFs cover the same essential materials, so having one will give 80% of what the other has.
Both are Pay What You Want.

If you have some spare change and what to try a new class/race might I suggest this.

Kickstart Your Weekend: Five for Friday

Lots to talk about today, so without further ado.

Classic Edition GM Screen
from +Richard LeBlanc and  New Big Dragon Games Unlimited.

I have been waiting for this one for some time now ever since Richard first teased it.


Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood
from +Jonathan Thompson and Battlefield Press

This one looks interesting. I enjoy the Robin Hood legends and this is multi-stated for 5th Ed, S&W and Pathfinder.


Baker Street RPG: Jack the Ripper and Missions from Mycroft
from +Bryce Whitacre

I played Baker Street at Gen Con and it was a fun time.  This looks like an excellent addition to the game.  Honestly with the way Baker Street works this could be an excellent addition to ANY Victorian-era game.


Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for Pathfinder

Sandy Petersen knows Lovecraft.  To see this for Pathfinder is a real treat!  And this one looks so good.


Hollow Earth Expeditions: Perils of Mars
by +Jeff Combos

I enjoy the heck out of the HEX books.  This one looks like a ton of fun too!

Class Struggles: The Basic Vampire

The great thing about Basic-era D&D (OD&D, B/X, BECMI) is how flexible it is.

That flexibility and something I always had regarded as a negative, race as a class, is now something I wish to exploit more.

For that I give you the updated and slightly revised Basic Vampire class.
The Blood is the Life - Basic Vampires

This is actually part of an experiment for me. Well two really.

The first is to see if the Vampire as a class would be something that others would want or play.
If so, there is a whole game I have been playing around with for a while that I think will do nicely.

The second is an experiment on publishing a "Pay What You Want" title.

I have had conversations with other publishers about PWYW and they are unwilling to do it. Claiming that they will never get the money they need to make it worthwhile.  I disagree, I think the gaming community at large and the OSR community in particular would rather pay for the materials they want.

If this is successful, and success is a relative term, then expect to see more from me like this.

The Race-as-Class works so well for the Vampire. Afterall if an elf can fight and cast spells, then a vampire can fight and do all the things that make a vampire cool.

Mind you I am not trying to do a Basic knock off of Vampire: The Masquerade here.   This is still the same basic-era vampire we have been fighting for 40 years.  He just now can start at 1st level and work his way up.

Let me know what you all think.

Rahasia, Ravenloft and Witches

While reading the new Curse of Strahd book I could not help but notice that Rahasia was listed as inspirational material.  This prompted me to go back and look over my well worn copy.

Like Ravenloft Rahasia was written by the Hickmans. It began life as a two-parter for the RPGA, Rahasia and Black Opal Eye.

Between this and the new Curse of Strahd book it got me thinking about thinking about how witches are portrayed in the Hickman's adventures.

The Ravenloft "Bavorian" Witches are fairly stereotypical to be honest.  While that is fine in the confines of the gothic horror tropes, there is always room for improvement.

In Rahasia, the "Witch Sisters" are much more powerful when the are together and have access to the Black Opal Eye.   This includes taking over the bodies of others and communicating with their black panthers.

I still can't help but think they might be more interesting as one of my Basic Era Witches.

Karelena, Solorena & Trilena
Human Female Witches
Faerie Tradition

Level: 1 (5 when together using the magic of the Black Opal Eye)
AC: 9
HP: 5 (11), 4 (10), 6 (13)
Move: 120' (40')
Attacks: 1 (athamé)
Damage: 1d4
Save As: W1 (W5)
Morale: 6 (12)
Alignment: Chaotic

Familiar: Black panther for each

Each knows the following cantrips:
Chill, Close, Dancing Lights, Irritate and Spark

By themselves the witches can cast the following spells:
Karelena, 2 of the following: Command, Magic Circle Against Good, Sleep
Solorena, 1 of the following: Charm Person, Pop Corn, Sleep
Trilena,  1 of the following: Light, Spirit Dart, Magic Circle Against Good,

When encountered together they can cast an additional spell above and any two of the following each.  Hold Person, Knock, Levitate, Mind Obscure, Spell Missile

Together they can also cast:
Level 1 Ritual: Consecration Ritual
Level 2 Ritual: Calling the Quarters
Level 3 Ritual: Imbue Witch Ball

This makes them a little bit more of a threat.

Weekend Gaming. Modern threats and Ancient enemies

This weekend was the end of the first part of the module A3; the boys are about to enter the city of Sudderham.  But before they left the maze they took a long rest.

And then the dream sequence kicked in.
The boys were transported back to the Dawn War where He Who Was was killed by The Destroyer (who will become Demogorgon) and Dis, the god that dies and then becomes the demon Orcus.

The old Dungeons & Dragons toy troll and ogre are Demogorgon and Orcus prior to the battle respectively.

I had them fighting a new creature, well, new "then"; demons.

I ran the game using 30+ level "gods" using the B/X and Companion rules (with some AD&D 1 to smooth out some edges).

It was a lot of fun.

Now to tie it into the current adventure.

BLACK Star

I love White Star. It's been a ton of fun so far and I really, really enjoy it.
But I also love Basic D&D more than I do White Box S&W. What's a guy to do?

Simple. Make a new mashup of everything I enjoy!

Basic? Yup! Horror? Sure why not!  Lovecraftian beasties?  Of course!

In the little campaign I am working on for my Sci-Fi game it is a giant big Galaxy that has been mostly explored.  So it is less Star Trek and more Star Wars, but certainly there are Trek enfluences.

However there is trouble on the horizon, and that trouble is in the form of the Old Ones.
The stars are finally right.

This is not really an original idea.  But It does include a lot of things I have laying around.

White Star
Starships & Spacemen 2e (for ideas on using Basic)
B/X Basic and Expert (for the rules)
Labyrinth Lord (for rules up to 20th level)
ACKS (for more rules)

So Basic, Labyrinth Lord, ACKS, and Starships & Spacemen...

Welcome to BLACK STAR! ;)

For some background I want to use Eldritch Skies.
I would then mix in Psionics and Lovecraftian Beasties.
A place to adventure and place to play.


The obvious tribute to David Bowie also makes this appealing to me.

Class Struggles & PWWO: The Intergalactic Rogue

The Scoundrel. The Rogue. The Thief.  If you are going to have a galaxy full of Knights, law-enforcement or otherwise protectors of the public trust and law and order then it behoves someone to give all those people work to do.

This is where the rogue comes in.

It doesn't matter how advanced we get as a society there will always be the fringe element that does not want to play by the rules, either as a lovable, if "scruffy" scoundrel or the actually evil thief.

By chance I picked up a number of print copies of some OSR books. I grabbed hardcovers of White Star from +James Spahn, Between Star & Void by +Matthew Skail and a softcover of the B/X Rogue from +Gavin Norman.

One of the first things I noticed was how well the Star Knights might work as a Green Lantern like police force.  And that the galaxy needed more rogues.

Thankfully Gavin Norman's B/X Rogue is so flexible that we can swap out the bits that make it B/X (sorry) and add in the same bits from Swords & Wizardry.  In truth it is not even that complicated.
In the B/X Rogue all the "Thief Abilities" have been replaced by "Rogue Talents".  You start with 4 and  work up to more.   Talents have a high margin of success, only failing under rare circumstances.  So that makes the Rogue into something more versatile.

Magic Talents are an issue and should be taken out.  But I mentioned before that +Richard LeBlanc's Basic Psionics Handbook can be used to add some of wild talents for rogue talents to create a rogue with some power.  Maybe they are a failed mystic, Knight or Sister but still have some powers.

I would also assume that anything like pick locks would extend to their futuristic White Star analogues.   Same with pick pockets.  Instead of actually taking money out of their pocket the rogue has a device that captures transaction codes and allows them to steal credits.

While our model of a classic rogue is often The Grey Mouser, Shadowspawn and even Bilbo our White Star rogue is Han Solo (to a degree), Neo (at the start of the Matrix), mostly James "Slippery Jim" Bolivar DiGriz from "The Stainless Steel Rat" series, Peter "Starlord" Quill (movie version at least), and 90% of the patrons of the Mos Eisley Cantina...I assume.

Now we have a Scoundrel class already which fits some of this thanks to Tenkar.  But the rogue is something a little different.  This now practically begs someone to build a Bounty Hunter class ala "Cowboy Bebop".

Plays Well With Others
A total cheat on my part here.  Both White Star and the B/X Rogue are so flexible that feats of Game Master legerdemain  are not needed here.
There are some features of the B/X Rogue though that make it more suited for White Star than saw the thief from S&W.  This allows for differences in Starlord and the Stainless Steel Rat.

Actually this gives me an interesting idea, but that is for another post.

Mail Call!

Look what came in the mail yesterday!

Hardcovers of White Star from +James Spahn, Between Star & Void by +Matthew Skail and a softcover of the B/X Rogue from +Gavin Norman.

They all look great and since they came in at the same time I am thinking a Plays Well With Others is in order.

Class Struggles: Race as Class

My love for D&D Basic era play is well known and well documented, but my love is tempered and not complete.  I have a confession.  I really am not a fan of B/X or BECMI style Race as Class.

In the D&D Basic rules Dwarves and Halflings are basically fighters with level limits.  Elves are multiclassed fighter/magic-users, also with level limits.   While this certainly works, it also seems rather, well... limiting.  I mean really, the archetypical halfling/hobbit is a thief.  This was one of the reasons I think so many people went over to AD&D.  I know it was true, partially, for me.
Over the years of game-play I have worked around this, but I never quite got used to it.

Now one thing I do like is the idea that different races should different class expressions.  So not a "thief" per se but a "burgler" would be cool.  Something special.

The ACKS Player's Companion does a great job of this really. This includes such new classes as the dwarven delver, dwarven fury, dwarven machinist, elven courtier, elven enchanter, elven ranger, and the gnomish trickster.  While these could, at the surface level, be viewed as mere renaming of the basic four classes, there is a little more to play with here in terms of special abilites.
As mentioned in the past, this is also the book you need when you want to create new classes.

+James Spahn's Barrel Rider Games has a number of demi-human classes in the Class Compendium.  These include various dwarven classes; Raging Slayer, Rune-Smith and the Warchanter. Some elves, Dark Elf, Greensinger, Half-Elf and the Sylvan Elf.  And as to be expected, Halfling classes, Burglar, Feast Master, Huckster, Lucky Fool, and the Tavern Singer.

I think there are a lot of options for race-specific classes or archetypes.

Back in the 2nd Ed days we had "kits" for various classes and some of these were racial archetypes. The Complete Book of Elves is a good example.  There is a lot of fluff and some backgrounds, but the real meat comes in when we get into the sub-races.  I was never a fan of the Drow-fetish that plagued much of post 1st ed D&D, but a sylvan elf or something stranger like a snow elf, would have been cool to play.  Heck I even created my own elf race, the Gypsy Elf, to fill this need.  We don't get to any of the class kits till Chapter 10. There are some nice choices but we also get the nearly 'broken'* Bladesinger.    *I say broken, but really I just don't like it all that much, and it was abused a lot in groups I was in.

The books for the Dwarves and the Halflings & Gnomes book are similar.  What gets me though is really how much we are lacking in race-specific classes.  Sure the entire idea behind "Fighting-Man" and "Magic-User" is so they can be generic enough to cover all possibilities. But I think after we got past 0e and certainly into AD&D we would be at a point where there should have been more race-specific expressions of class archetypes.
Something like what I did for the Dwarven witch, the Xothia.  Still a recognizable archetype (witch) but presented through the lens of a specific race (dwarf).    Honestly I would like to see a reason, given in a similar format, for the gnome illusionist.  Why are there gnome illusionists? What are they called?

The Companion Expansion from Barrataria Games does cover gnomes and wild-wood (sylvan) elves, half-orcs, half-ogres and half-elves as race-classes.  Wood elves share the same spell lists as do druids and gnomes share a list with Illusionists and bards.  All for the B/X system.  Maybe something +Gavin Norman and +Nathan Irving could look into for their updates for their respective spellcaster books.

I think in the end I would like to see more racial, or read that as cultural, applications of classes.

Class Struggles: The Wizard, Part 2 The Wizard Class

Last week we discussed the Magic-User and his cousin the Wizard.  One thing seems certain, the Magic-User is a bit overpriced in terms of XP.  Also, and I am not the only one as we will see, the wizard lacks some powers he really should have.

One of the things I liked (back then) when 2nd Edition came out was that the Magic-User was now properly called a Wizard.  Again, the nuance of magic-user was lost on me but obviously it was also lost on the design team.
The wizard, as he for evermore will be known, is really not that different from the magic-user mechanically speaking.  Some spells are rearranged but that is about it.  The true difference comes when you choose a speciality school or apply a kit, like the many found in The Complete Wizard's Handbook.  Here the wizard gets a few more spells at starting level from their speciality school and the kit can provide them with some powers.   Though the cantrips as 0-level spells that the Unearthed Arcan gave us are now gone.

Yesterday I reviewed The Principalities of Glantri book and it's school of magic. What stood out for me was things that your wizards can now do if they go to a premier school like Hogwarts The Great School of Magic.  The Seven Crafts provide a bit of extra kick for magic-user characters.  Personally I think they could use something at 1st level as well.

Since I covered the basic (and really Basic) Magic-User last week, I want to jump into some of the clones and near clones now.

Spellcraft & Swordplay is a near clone that models Original D&D and it's Chainmail roots much closer than Swords & Wizardry does.  It does take some liberties though.   One is the Wizard and the wizard class elite paths, Warlocks and Necromancers.  In S&S wizards can Read Magic at 1st level.  We are also given more detail on how to create magic items.  An Elite Path like the Necromancer or Warlock also get other powers.

Fantastic Heroes & Witchery also has a wizard class, as well as a wise man and a warlock.  Additionally, it also has 666 spells split up into gray, white and black magic.  The wizard here does not differ much from the standard magic-user, but the number of spells included is not insignificant.

Adventurer Conqueror King System gives us a similar looking Wizard, the advantage here are the skills/proficiencies that all classes get.  Going back to last week this is similar to the skill checks I give wizards when identifying magic.

Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts also has a wizard class. Many in fact.  The wizard is still a Magic-User clone, but there are plenty of other wizard types in this book that the case for experimentation is made here.

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Ah now this is what I was looking for.  Each of the books so far has done a little here and little there, but the Magician in AS&SH is waht I have really been looking for.  Right away he gets a familiar, the ability to read magic and scribe a scroll. At 7th level he learns som alchemy.  The subclasses, Illusionist, Necromancer, Pyromancer and Witch all get similar powers.

Moving out from clone-land and into old-school land proper there is The Arcanum.  I keep coming back to this book because it keeps on delivering.  There are a lot of magic-user like classes, Alchemist, Astrologer, Charlatan (more of a thief), Enchanter, Mage, Magician, Necromancer, Savant, Sorcerer, Thaumaturge, and Witch.   There is, of course, a Wizard as well.  What they all have in common and share with some other books is the ability to read magic at first level.
These classes all also get new powers at every odd level.  Some are just redefining things the wizard could always do; write scrolls, make potions and magic items.  This just defines them a little better.  Interestingly this book also allows the wizard to choose a weapon.  The book also has plenty of spells to choose from.

It should be noted that these problems are solved by 3rd Edition and beyond.  Both the shared XP values across all classes and more features for the Wizards has made all the above points moot really.

My recommendations for the wizard are:

• Cantrips
• Read Magic/Identify magic as a skill at 1st level.  Can be a simple Int check.  A bonus equal to level with a penalty equal to spell level.
• Find Familiar as a ritual, but not a spell.
• Signature Spells. A spell that can be cast twice or three times per day with one memorization.
• Some powers at 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th level.  Signature Spell can be one of these.

I would group powers along something like Arcane Traditions like I do for the Witch and like D&D5 does, save I would call them something else.  Schools maybe.  I already use "Philosophies" in Ghosts of Albion so I would not want to use that here.  Schools are good since I can go beyond "enchantment" or "necromancy" and into things like "Miskatonic Grad" or "Apprenticed under Mordenkainen", that sort of thing.

I would run this wizard through the various class creation kits I mentioned last week, but especially the one out of the ACKS Player's Companion to check the numbers.  Might be worth looking into deeper.

Why Are my Magic-Users not like Mages?
Spend any time in any other game but D&D, especially one that uses a lot of magic, and somethings just don't make sense.  Except as that special branch of logic known as D&D logic.  Being first D&D gets away with a lot. Invariably someone will ask though why can't D&D magic be more like the magic in World of Darkness, namely Mage.

The difference, of course, is one of scope. While the D&D wizard might become a "master of reality" the Awakened of Mage are of a different sort. The assumptions of the worlds are too different.   Maybe a WoD style Mage could be something the D&D Wizard could aspire to be, I still would not take a Mage with me into a dungeon or try to identify a scroll or potentially magic sword.
So I don't try to make my Wizards into Mages.  I keep the Vancian magic intact.  If I want to play a Mage, I will pick up Mage.   But really, playing both games will give you a better understanding of things your wizard/mage can do in either game.

Hopefully your wizards are more like this:




Than this:



Though that Keep at 3:30 looks familiar.

Review: GAZ3 The Principalities of Glantri

Still spending a lot of time thinking about witches, wizards, schools of magic and witch queens.  So naturally my thoughts turn to +Bruce Heard's masterpiece, GAZ3 The Principalities of Glantri.
I have mentioned Glantri here a few times. It was the homeland for my characters back in my D&D/AD&D days.  I built up the country from the small bits of information from D&D Expert Set, Isle of Dread and Castle Amber.  It was not till much later I discovered the Gazetteer series and picked up Glantri that I discovered how really interesting and fun the place was.

GAZ3 The Principalities of Glantri
The pdf is 102 pages (the original book was 96 pages, a detached cover and large map of the country and Glantri City).  The PDF is a good quality scan and retains all the information found in the print book.   The cover art was done by the fantastic Clyde Caldwell.  While this book is a D&D "Basic" book, there is so much here of use that it can really be used with any D&D system.  This book really set the stage for all the other Gazetteers to follow.
The first part, Welcome to Glantri, gives a very brief overview of what the country is and what this book sets out to do.
Up next is the History of Glantri. I spent hours and hours reading this over and over.   I won't go into great detail, but linking Glantri to ancient Blackmoor was wonderful in my mind. Mostly because I loved the link but also I had done something similar for my own games.  What follows next is a time line from 3000 BC, The Rain of Fire* (Before Crowning of the first Emperor of Thyatis)  to 1000 AC (today) and even on to 1200 AC.  *I always wondered if the Rain of Fire that destroyed Blackmoor was related or even just the same spell that destroyed the Suel in the Greyhawk world.
Geography of Glantri is next.  Like much of Mystara, Glantri is a mix of all sorts of races and people, but Glantri also has it's fair share of "monsters" those will be detailed later.  Glantri's climate is also touched upon, making it one of the colder lands.
The is followed by The Glantrian Economy. I really enjoyed this section because it really breathes life into the people that live here.  Each of the Principalities is detailed here for the first time.  A quick read and one immediately recognizes analogues to Scotland, Italy, France, and even Transylvania. Glantri is very cosmopolitan.  We move into the Grand Army of Glantri and Politics and Rivalries of Glantri.  Glantri is the place to play out political intrigue where everyone is mage of some sort or has one on retainer.  Like the Economy section, this section breathes more life into the people of the land, in this case all the great houses.   I will admit once again that the interior art by Stephan Fabian links this to Ravenloft in my mind.  Not only are there humans here, but vampires, werewolves and liches ruling.  We will get to witches in a bit.
Guilds and Brotherhoods are also one of the more important features of this book and life in Glantri.  There are so many here that characters could each belong to many and none overlap.  Some are complimentary to each other and others at cross purposes.  Really good fodder for role-playing.
Glantri City by Night details what happens to the 39,000+ residents when the sun goes down. The book is like a what we now call Modern Supernatural.  So all sorts of "monsters" come out and mingle with everyday people.  It says "by Night" but really this an overview of the city itself and all it's sections.  It reminds me of a travel guide to London I once read, so I am rather fond of this section.
Living in Glantri City details life in the city including the laws, who is in charge, magic use and various holy/high days. There is no religion in Glantri, but there is a state philosophy. Of course it is tied in with magic.
The Great School of Magic.  Outside of Hogwarts or Professor Xavier's school has a school been so rich detailed. Though there is enough here to make me want more, a lot more.  This is followed by Creating Spells and Magical Items and The Secret of the Radiance. The source of Glantri's magical power.
Nest we get into The Seven Secret Crafts of Glantri.   If you only buy this book for this section then you will be well rewarded.  Think of these as schools or even colleges of magic. Each one ads something special to the Magic-User class, almost like a Prestige Class or Paragon class feature.  They include, Alchemy, Dragon magic, Elemental magic, Illusion, Necromancy, Rune magic, and of course, Witchcraft.
We wrap up with Adventures in Glantri.

The Gazetteer series were works of art and none more so than the Glantri book.

I mentioned before that this book would work fine with other versions of D&D.  Looking deeper into the Seven Secret Crafts of Glantri, one could EASILY replace the Arcane Tradition feature of the 5th Edition Wizard and replace those powers with the craft powers.  The 5e wizard gets 4 Arcane tradition powers/features and the Basic craft wizards get 5. They work out to about the same levels too.

So if you have not picked this up, do so. I highly recommend it.

I also recommend Bruce Heard's latest Calidar kickstarter Beyond the Skies.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ambreville/calidar-beyond-the-skies

Calidar is a load of fun and this promises to be great.

DIY D&D

One of the great things about the whole self-publish, self-produce, osr movements is the ability to  not only have games we loved in no forms, or books we never had (B/X Companion and Adventures Dark and Deep) but it has allowed us unprecedented access to all sorts of material both new and old.

My fondness for PDFs is pretty well known.  But I love books, first and foremost. Hardcovers especially.  Thankfully I grew up in a town that had a book bindery so I managed to get this done:

It's not great, but it is a hard cover of the old Realms of Horror "super module" of the S series.
The nice thing is it has lasted me nearly 30 years.  So I guess I should not complain.

Today we have Lulu.com and DriveThruRPG/PRGNow (and I assume others) for our PDF or physical book needs.  We just have to provide the digital files.

Since I already was providing the files for the print copies of The Witch and Eldritch Witchery, I thought I would make my own hardcovers as well.

I like the hardcover a lot.  I generally like the hardcover Witch better than the softcover one, but prefer the softcover Eldritch Witchery to the hardcover.

Since I was at I thought why not round out the whole collection.

I am not selling these.  You can still find my old netbooks online somewhere. But these were for my own collections.

You might see where I am going here.

So what am I supposed to do when I have this:

But my Rules Cyclopedia looks like this:

Sad. I know.

Well. I love the RC, but cover never really struck me as being "D&D" enough.  But you know what is D&D enough? Uriah Heep's "Demons & Wizards".  So some scanning. Some work late night when I couldn't sleep and I have this:

I will freely admit I am unsure of the legality of this.  I mean I will never sell it (I have my name in it now anyway).  It looks like if I own the PDF I can print it for my own use. Of course I don't own that cover art.  This would be a "table copy".
That aside I think it looks pretty sweet.

It has been a nice little challenge to put together versions of book I have physical copies and pdfs into something new.

My favorites are this combined Basic and Expert hardcover and a combined World of Greyhawk one.

Again, just my own private use at the game table.  But I think they are pretty nice.

I have done something similar to some print outs I made of the Basic and Expert PDFs, which can see here: I Cut up My B/X books!   I think I am going to have to print out the B/X Companion as well and stuff it into this binder.

Now we just need Wizards of the Coast to start giving us more POD options for classic D&D books.