Divine Intervention and the Nature of Dieties

How do you do divine intervention in your games?

Following up on the post about Clerics I have thought about how Gods interact with mortals.  Typically I give any character a base 1% chance to get divine intervention when they ask for it.  This is modified by how well they adhere to the tenets of their faith, the nature of their god, and even level (higher level characters can do more).  Of course nothing comes without a price.

In my 4e game coming up I am thinking that that the players will be visited often by the Raven Queen's avatar, in the form of a young girl ala Death from DC's Vertigo line and borrowing heavily from Amber Benson's "Death's Daughter" books.   I might even introduce her in the current adventure arc.

Presently the Dragonslayers are going after Tiamat. While they acknowledge that she is the "Goddess of Evil Dragons"  to them that just makes her bigger and more powerful to kill.  I am thinking I am ok with that for the most part.  It could be that Gods in my game are beings that just got really, really powerful.

If that is the case why do they need worshipers?  What purpose then is divine intervention for?

I had a character once who I took briefly into the Planescape setting.  Basically he was a jerk and didn't think that gods were anything special (sound familiar?), just powerful humans (or humanoids).  I later expanded his belief into an entire Plansescape faction, The Hermetic Order of Sigil, though he was not a member.

Interesting that all these years later I am still going back to the basic assumptions of my games and trying to figure out the underlying realities.

This is why I enjoy reading blogs

James at GROGNARDIA has posted a bit on his thoughts on White Plume Mountain. As many of you know I am currently running my kids through WPM as part of their Dragonslayers campaign.

Well reading the comments I see that there is another add-on for this called Outside the Mountain. Which has another legacy weapon, Frostrazor (don't like that name though).
It doesn't add a lot to what I already have, it's list Dragotha as a Black Dragon Dracolich rather than the Red Dragon Dracolich as everywhere else, but it is still fun to have.

I suppose one day I could run "Return to White Plume Mountain" but I think that when the Dragonslayers are done here then the old volcano will fade back into the mists and the local will not speak of the horrors of the mountain, but of the brave adventurers that conquered it.

Now if work would just let up I can get back to finishing this with my boys.

The Dragonslayers vs White Plume Mountain, Part 3

Today was a good day for adventurers.

The Dragonslayers continued on their mission into the White Plume Mountain.  The defeated the monsters of the inverted ziggurat and immediately distrusted the hooka smoking halfling to recover Blackrazor.  The boys were also extremely distrustful of the black blade and hid it away in a bag of holding.

They made it down the last hall and confronted the vampire Ctenmiir.  The Dragonborn Paladin of Bahmut had a few choice words with the vampire and the characters had made it out with Whelm as well!
Of course, there was more to be done.  The weapons in had they rushed out of the volcano only to have their wizard (with the bag of holding with Blackrazor) snatched up in claws of a undead dragon flying north.
The hunt for Dragotha has begun!

The boys did really great today.  They were able to solve the Prime number riddle with no problem and the sphinx riddle only slowed them down a little.  There is still the effrit to deal with though and of course one of the party has been kidnapped to be taken back to Dragotha's Lair where the final battle will begin.

I have been playing down the guardians of the weapons to lull the boys into a false sense of security. Dragotha and Keraptis are different matters all together.

I am also going to start planting the seeds for my 4th Ed game.  The boys will defeat Keraptis, this is a foregone conclusion, even if it is Dragotha killing him himself.  But as he dies he is going to utter "beware, the shadows".

During the next couple of adventures there will be other clues dealing with shadows.  I'll talk more about that later on, but I am very excited with the prospect of it all.

The Dragonslayers vs White Plume Mountain, Part 2

We continued on with White Plume Mountain.

The Dragon Slayers made their way through and fought the giant crab protector of Wave.  They got the idea really fast about not poking the semi-solid membrane and they even remembered to shut all the doors in case it did break.

They are now in the inverted ziggurat room they defeated the first water layer and the dessert layer.  Then pizza came and the combat was held for another day.  I have mentioned that there are other groups of adventures here also looking for the other items, Blackrazor and Wave (they are supposed to get Whelm for Omar), but I have not pulled them out yet.   I think I will do that next session.

Also the final battle will be with Keraptis and Dragotha.  Dragotha will swoop down and grab the PC holding one of the items and carry them off to the Cave of Bones.  Cheesy I know, but it works.

I have the 3.5 update for WPM and while it is nice to have the stats for the monsters handy I don't care for how the weapons have been re-done as legacy weapons.  Even with everything that you need to do to get the powers up and going they seem less interesting than they did under 1st Ed.  I am thinking of just using the 1st ed stats to be honest, not even really upping them.

Might get some more in tomorrow.

The Dragonslayers vs White Plume Mountain, Part 1b

So I picked up my 4e Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons and read up on Dragotha.

Cool stuff really.  What they have there is largely compatible with what I want to do in my adventure.  Dragotha was Tiamat's consort, he was betrayed and left for dead.  In the Draconomicon he was "aided" by Kyuss.  I think I might not use that part or just not bring it up.

Course now is the big question.  Will Dragotha help the PCs or try to fight them?  I am going to have him under Kerapis' thrall, so as long as Keraptis is alive, then Dragotha will attack.  Would Dragotha know of the PC's quest?  They have not been secret about it to be sure.

So till next session, I'll hit the research.  Certainly I could "just make stuff" up, but I like the feeling of my little game being part of a larger world.  Plus one day, maybe one day soon, my boys will be searching for this stuff online too and I want them to be able to say "yes! I Was there, I did that."

What have I learned?

• Keraptis was a contemporary of Acererak.
• He delved into Necromancy, pretty deeply in fact.  He may have been one of Greyhawk's premier necromancers.
• He is most certainly a lich now; if not dead.
• The magical items are each connected to the elements, Whelm-Earth, Blackrazor-Fire, Wave-Water and a fourth, Seeker, an elven arrow for Air.  
• White Plume Mountain is a place of ancient magics.

To be sure, this is a lot of background for a guy that is essentially the Level 20 Boss.  But a well developed villain is a good villain.

I might change Seeker to a bow and my other son has been looking for a sword called "The Dragon Blade" that he is certain has to exist. I'd give it pluses for killing evil dragons and allow the wielder to be looked apon favorably by good dragons.  He is not interested in Blackrazor at all.  It might end up in Omar's shop!

I even found a place for the final battle, the Cave of Bones.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20010817a

Refs
http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Keraptis
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=465
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=464
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=447

The Dragonslayers vs White Plume Mountain, Part 1

Sunday was cold and rainy, so the perfect day to recover some stolen magical artifacts in a volcano!

The Dragonslayers (my kids' 3.x game) ventured into the classic module White Plume Mountain.  I changed the set up a bit, they have been hired by one of my more infamous NPCs, Crazy Omar, to recover Whelm, which he claims is owned by his family.  He tells them of Wave and Blackrazor and that representatives of their owners (which of course are already dead now).

I spent a couple days cutting out and taping the the White Plume Mountain Dungeon tiles I reviewed a while back, and the boys loved them!  They liked being able to see the doors and being able to write on the maps themselves.  BTW i figured if I printed the map out and connected all the tiles they would be about 7 feet by 5 feet.

Astute readers will recognize Fire and Ice back there as well (they are quasi NPCs in this game). Our minis are an eclectic lot of D&D minis, Heroclix, Darksword, and Heroscape. More astute OSR players will recognize this as room 10. 

My sons' ranger/arcane archer found the deeper pool and they made short work of Sea Hag and her pet, even with me boosting the Hag using some of my new rules on the witch (all hags in my game can take levels in Witch).

We had to cut short the adventure, diner was ready, but we will be getting back to it very soon.  I think my youngest wants Blackrazor, my oldest, who plays the Dragonborn Paladin, wants nothing to do with it.

I am dropping some of the Cthulhu-ish ideas I had earlier in favor of running it "straight", but there is something I just can't pass up.  A totally throw-away by Erol Otis I am sure, but the picture has always intrigued me. 

My boys after all are the "Dargonslayers" and Dragotha has to be one of the most powerful dracolich around. I figure he is a ancient (1,000+ years) red dragon lich.  I'll have him breath "black fire".  Give the boys something to really remember.  Maybe even put Kerapis on top of him, a lich of course.  Make them both pretty difficult to beat. 

Spoke too soon!  I found this online, http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4pr/20081105a.  Sweet.  And given that he is in 4th Edition, I might let him escape to plague the characters when we move over to 4e.  Plus, his stats are pretty much custom made for my son Liam!  Red dragon, dracolich, breaths cold blue necrotic fire, I am a bit surprised he never pointed this dragon out to me before in fact.  He does own all the Draconomicons.

To fit it into themythology of the game, Dragotha was once the red dragon consort of Tiamat.  Like all her consorts though he did something to offend the great Queen of Dragons and she killed him.  Of course Dragotha and Kerapis had already struck up a deal.  Kerapis, already a lich himself, turned the great dragon into a demi-lich and has been in Kerapis' service ever since.   If the players kill Kerapis first then Dragotha is free and he will use that freedom to lay waste to Kerapis' lair; ignoring the characters (till another time!).  The Dragonslayers only need his tooth to complete their own ritual to create a portal to Tiamat's lair.

This will be fun!

Epic Dragonslayers

A couple of the Dragonslayer characters hit 19th level over the weekend.

I let my boys play two characters each, but sometimes the characters can vary.  My oldest has a cast of 6-7 that he uses two at a time.  Well both boys now have a character each that are 19th level.  The lowest ones are still 15.

I am planning to let them take ALL their characters for the final battle with Tiamat.  Yeah, yeah I know, not really a good role-playing experience for them and more of a roll-playing one, but it is the final battle and the last time they will be able to use any of these characters.

Plus I have a couple more adventures I want them to do before that big battle.

So I am considering using the Epic Level rules.

Anyone have any insights, tips, suggestions?

The Message

That is the name of this story my oldest son has been writing.  His teacher is very proud of him and so are his mom and dad!  But beyond how cool that is, today during our Dragonslayer session he ran "The Message" for the very, very first time as a game.  This was his very first time running a D&D game and frankly I thought he did really well.

We took the Dragonslayers, including his own character as a quasi DM-PC (I'll help run him) and I got a chance to play my witch again.  The one I rolled up back when D&D 3.0 was new and my witch book was in playtest.

The adventure was simple enough.  We (the characters) had to cross Druid Woods and deliver a message (thus the name) to a Baron on the other side of the forest.   Simple right? What could go wrong?  Well we were attacked many times in the woods by kobolds, hobgoblins and (much to my joy) a rogue druther and an evil treant. Of course the Baron had been kidnapped and we needed to save him from being the main event in a sacrifice to Tiamat.  We saved the Baron (who turned out to be a Neutral Blue Dragon in human form) and we were attacked by a huge adult red Dragon (in my boy's world Reds and Blues hate each other so much that they will work with anyone to defeat the other).

Baron saved, returned home and the message delivered.  It really was great fun.  Liam (my oldest) said he toned down the Red.  We got the initiative on him and dealt what I felt was a respectable 64 hp damage to it.  Then he turned around and did a 48 to all of us on his first attack (and that was with the elemental protection my witch set up).  He toned the dragon down a touch and we all came out of it more or less intact.

It was really, really fun.  Liam did a great job and it was nice to not only see him running a game and doing a good job, but also running an adventure he wrote all on his own.

Connor (my youngest) also got in some good playing too.  We found a gold necklace and I said his character could have it for his girl-friend, to which he replied "What girlfriend?  I am too busy adventuring to have time for one of those!"  And when we fought a fire elemental he told us that "I hate these guys, when I was younger they attacked my village and killed my mother."  No idea where that came from.

Maybe next time we will hit the mountains.

Next up: At the White Plume Mountains of Madness

The next adventure for the Dragonslayers (my kids' group) is to go to the White Plume Mountain.  They know they need to recover another relic of the Cult of Tiamat, this time the tooth of the largest red dragon that ever lived.  They have heard rumors that what they seek is in a volcano.

The idea of this adventure was to go to a mountain in snowy area.  So I using the 3.x conversion of S2 White Plume Mountain (and the original) and I am going to set it in a near Arctic area.  I am also going to fill it full of Lovecraftian Horrors since my boys both know who Cthulhu is.  Meld the two together a bit for some good old fashioned dungeon crawl of horror fun.

The adventure is actually very short; shorter than I remembered it.  Plus my youngest has been asking about the most powerful swords in D&D so I think it is time he sees Blackrazor.

Playing D&D with Kids

There have been a lot of posts in the blogs and on the net about playing D&D with younger kids.

From WotC: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4tut/kids2#73004
and this classic article, http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4news/april2010

Of course there is my kids' group, The DragonSlayers.

Well I am thinking about running some games at Gen Con for kids this year.

I am also thinking of using the Moldvay/Cook versions of Basic and Expert for it as well.    Nothing is set in stone yet, I am going to chat about it over the weekend with my regular group.  But this might be a chance a debut my long delayed "Return to the Cavern of the Vampire Queen" old school dungeon crawl.

At the moment to make it really old school I need to include more treasure.  There is not really enough of that.

Played some AD&D 2nd Ed today.

Got home from half-day at work today and sat down and played some old-school AD&D 2nd Ed today.  My oldest wanted to try it out (I bought him a 2nd ed Monstrous Manual years ago so he wouldn't mess up mine).

Odd how it happened really, we were going to play D&D 4e Red Box, then it was going to be D&D Basic Red Box.  Finally landed on 2nd Ed.  Spent some time, though not as much as I thought, looking up some rules.  Spent more time just figuring out where I put the XP table for my witch.

It was a fun quick little dungeon crawl, no plot, no backstory, just kicking in doors and killing monsters.  Used some 4e minis and the map from the Dungeons & Dragons' Black Box.

All in all a good bit of fun. Doubt we will continue with 2nd Ed, but it was nice to give is a another try.

Could my Answer be in the Realms?

I am moving my 3.x game over to a 4e one soon.    I have been buying up the Essentials books and some modules and I generally have what I think is a cool idea for campaign.  The world is fleshed out and I know what I am going to use and what I am not.

Except there is one little-bity problem. So much of what was true in my 3.x world no longer "works" under 4e.  Or rather it works so differently now that it is hard to see it working the same way when I was playing 3.x.  Then there are other issues.  My kids want to play the children of their D&D 3.x characters and these characters have some serious magic.  And there is the whole killing Tiamat thing they want to do.   How do I explain the changes?

Turns out the answer was under my nose this whole time.  In the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide.

I was never a fan of the Realms.  I considered it to be a pretender to Greyhawk and not a very worthy one at that.  I picked up the 3.0 Realms Guide when it came out and I liked it.  I felt it was a good book and all it really was missing was monsters.  The new 4e campaign books are a good model too.

But what I like the most about the Realms book is how completely gonzo it is.  Smash two planets together to get one world! I love that!  Spell plagues? Bring it on!

I know I have talked around all of this before in many posts, but it is time to make it more real I think.

So what will I include from the Forgotten Realms book in my Game World?

First, well, it is going to be in the future.  I am going to say about 25 to 30 years.  Not 100% sure, but long enough to have the world changing events happen at least a generation ago.  The Characters of this game have only know the world as it is now, never the world before.

Next, there will be a Spellplague.  The defeat of Tiamat and the Ascension of Asmodeus are just parts of that.  I am also going to have Raven Queen in my game and she just killed Nerull.  There will other things of course, but it was a series of Cosmos-shaking events that left the world changed.  The Fey-wild is now easier to get too, as is the Shadowfell (previously only known as the Plane of Shadow).  The main effect for the PCs is that some of the old magic no longer works.  So there is a quest for sources of "Old Magic" or even "True Magic".  With this, some older magic items are now useless.  Of course the spellplague was chaotic so some normal items are now magical.  There is still magic to be found out there "New" and "Old".
Living things touched by it have been altered.  There will be spell scarred.

The ancient Astral empire of the Tieflings, Bael-Turath, has crashed into the world.  Here I am taking inspiration from the 90's TV show "Alien Nation".  Though this is a "magical crash" so there are now lands where there are ruins of the Tiefling society that seem ancient and always part of the land.  Bael-Turath had warred against Asmoedeus and the devils for countless centuries.  Part of Asmodeus' ascension was to reclaim the power that emperors of Bael-Turath had stolen from the Nine Hells.  The tieflings are now a broken, homeless race with members now fond all over the world and many still in the Astral Sea.

The Blood War is over.  With Asmodeus' Ascension and the Reckoning of Hell, the long war with the demons is over.  Asmodeus even managed to conscript entire demonic species under the auspices of Hell.  With the the power he gained Asmodeus broke the paths through the Astral that the demons and devils used to attack each other, effectively blocking demons from being able to enter the Prime Material.  If a demon wants to get to the Prime Material plane it has to go through Hell first.  By the time of the new game the distinction between "demon" and "devil" is a loose one in most peoples minds.  Plus the entire race of yugoloths were sacrificed in the process, with many seeking refuge in either the Abyss or Hell.
Asmodeus covets the Material World and wanted to bring Hell into it.  Here he failed, but managed to get it much "closer" metaphysically speaking.

One repercussion of this though is demons now focus on the Prime Material.  While it is harder for them to reach it now, many still do and with out the Blood War to contend with it is possible that more demons than ever are now attacking mortals.   This is something Asmodeus wants.  He has placed members of his cult in areas to fit demons and rally humans to his cause.  As the game progresses the influence of this cult will be more readily felt. To combat this the Gods will be using the mortal realm as their battlefield.

I think this is a good start and gives me a good idea of what my end game needs to be too.  Lolth, in one form or another will have hand in all of this too.  Events that began in my Shadow War of 1st Ed are now coming to a head.

Now I need to figure out who the main bad guys are and what they want to get out of all of this.

So...Have you ever killed a God?

As you know I am gearing up for my Dragon Slayer's campaign end game.  One of the goals of the Dragon Slayers has always been to kill Tiamat on her own plane.

This could have some fairly epic effects.

If this were the last game then no big deal, but we are moving to 4e after this and will using the "kids" of the characters  that are retiring.  I have already decided that the kids can have a magic item each given their famous and powerful parents.  But what of Tiamat?  And the idea of the 4e modules is to kill Orcus and maybe even others.

Will she still be "dead"?  What does that mean to all the evil dragons?
While talking with Jason Vey today he says that in his world that unless every worshiper is dead then the god can't die.  I like that idea myself.  But what does that mean the Dragon Slayers did?

Tiamat is at least a bit easier.  She can have a daughter, Takhisis who will become the new Dragon Queen in time.  Didn't Marduk kill Tiamat once too?

Orcus is also not a big deal.  He is a demon, demons can be replaced.  Plus I could put my own demon lord or put Vecna in as God of the Undead (though he doesn't seem like a good fit to me).

What if I continue my plan to have Orcus as nothing more than a blunt tool and have Asmodeus as the Big Bad?  What if the characters kill him?

So what have you all done?
Have you killed a God before?  What happened afterwards?

Getting back in to it

Ok, sorry for the long delay.  Holidays, work, school.  You know the drill.

I am going to start my end game for the "Dragon Slayers" game.  Here is how it is going to go.

The Dragon Slayers are in Glantri now having just solved the mystery of the Palace of the Silver Princess (module B3).
I was going to have them go on to S4 and WG4, but instead I think it will go like this.

First I am going to have to go to the "Forbidden City" (module I1) since I worked on the Wikipedia article a lot.  Then move on to the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (module S4) one of my favorite adventures.  Here they will need to get the copy of Iggwilv's Demonomicon.  Then naturally move on to WG4, the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun and then finally ending in Death's Ride (module CM2) then moving on to Tiamat's lair for the big "boss battle".  Though I am going to have to up the challenges in all the modules since the characters are now between 14th and 17th level.

What I am thinking of doing is expanding S4 and WG4 into one larger supermodule.  There is so much information out there on S4 and it is a module I have owned since 1983, so I am very familiar with it.  Plus there is a lot of cool things in S4 that play well into the overall arc.  We need a copy of the Demonomicon and the Wonderous Lanthorn would be cool to have as would the Prison of Zagig (great place for Tiamat after the Dragon Slayers destroy her physical body).

Something to look forward to.

Up next, Lost Caves, Hidden Temples and Death's Ride

So I am starting up my end game for the Dragon Slayers.

I think their next to the last adventure will be the old D&D Companion Adventure Death's Ride.  I remember going through this one when I was younger and I think it will be a perfect fit for this group.

It will help build up some of the action for the next campaign and it is a good cap for this campaign.

I am going to do S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth first, and maybe squeak in WG4 The Lost Temple of Tharizdun.  There is a blue dragon in S4 that just might become Korbundar in CM2.

Now the question I have for you all.

Does anyone know if CM2 had been updated to 3.x rules at all?  I have a ton of RTF/DOC files of modules that people updated back in the early days of 3.0.  I have them for a lot of modules, but what I don't have is one for CM2.

Anyone know if something like this is out there?

Return to the Palace of the Silver Princess, Session 3, Finale

Well we finished the adventure.

I changed it a bit and actually had the character fight Arik of the Hundred Eyes who was in reality not so much of a god, but a really, really powerful fiendish beholder.  Set him at 20 HD and let the group of characters, 6 of them, 10th to 14th level, deal with him.

In the end it was pretty awesome really.  Lots of fun.  Everyone got a chance to level up and I forgot how much book-keeping 3.x is.

Now need to figure out what to do for the next adventure before they take on Tiamat.

Return to the Palace of the Silver Princess, Session 3

Heading into Session 3 of "Return to the Palace of the Silver Princess" today.  I am basically running a combined version of the Green and Orange covers, updated to 3.x and increasing the threats to cover levels 10-14.

I am expecting the characters to get through most of the adventure today, we have a few hours.
Should be fun!

DIY Minis

One thing I never quite understood was when people slam 4e (or even 3e for that matter) one of the things they point to is the use of miniatures.  Haven't we always used miniatures?   I know I have seen that somewhere before...

Plus minis are so cool to have.  I can imagine with the best of them and I have a pretty good visual memory.  But having a mini on the table is great fun.  I also happen to LIKE the collectible aspect of it all and the surprise of not know what you might get.  I got a Tiamat once out of regular old box of minis for 20 bucks.  You can't really beat that feeling.

But sometimes I want something special or sometimes I something laying around that I can use.  So here are some DIY mini ideas.  Yes you can use them with any version of the game.

This one you have seen before.

Orcus and Aspect of Orcus set me back quite a bit.  Destroyah and Aspect of Destroyah set me back about 10 bucks. Total.

Here are some others.

Some undead dinosaurs threaten the Dragon Slayers.  The one in the back even glows in the dark.  Some of these came from a teacher's supply store, one or two of them where attached to a dinosaur shirt I had bought for the kids at the mall.  The size looks about right to me.

Here the Dragon Slayers see if they can live up to their name.  A couple of HeroClix (or maybe some other similar game) dragons bought cheap at GenCon, a couple of fire breathing dragons bought at the Ren Faire a few years ago, a McFarlane dragon and Sea Dragon and a viper fish from Safari Ltd. a company that makes scientific models for schools of real (and fantastic) animals.  The McFarlane dragon has a sigil on it's wing so we decided that even though he is an evil red dragon, he cares more about finding more magic than hording treasure, or rather he hoards magical items and books.  Need to stat him up one day for you all.

And of course this one.

The Dragon and the Phoenix.

So basically there are tons of great mini ideas out there.  Go read Zak's blog to see all the cool things they do with props and do-it-yourself stuff.  All I did here was raid the kids toys for a bit.  Sometimes we find a toy here or in the stores for cheap and say "we need that for D&D!".  And given my oldest loves to collect dragons, they usually serve double duty.

And not to let my Unisystem games go unloved,

Willow and Tara in the Charmed Ones' Attic during the events of "Semi-Charmed Life" where they also got to meet the Paradox versions of Willow and Phoebe.  Ok, these are a bit bigger than mini, but they are still pretty cool.  All of these I got from CineQuest, my favorite place to shop for little plastic people.

Backstory

How much back story do you like to have for your characters or for characters in game you run?

I get the opinion from many old school blogs that back story only comes up if the characters survive.  The proverbial "you meet an Inn" as if the characters were born there fully formed.  In other games I play  back story is more important.  Even with the same group of players I see differences depending on the game played.

Starting on my My Back to Basics posting, I wanted to get some basic ideas where the players want their characters to come from. 
So I talked to my boys today about it, about their characters and how sometimes the greatest heroes start out as small. So here is what my oldest came up with.
His characaters (I am lettting them play two each) are Dragonborn brothers that grew up on an orphanage/farm.  Farming is not considered to be a good choice for a dragonborn (even though they are raising giant boars) so the lowest members of society are left with the chore.  Dragonborn are used hunting their food, but they see the need for farmed food as well.  So farms are a bit of a necessary evil, but these farms are not easy work.
Liam's characters are dragonborn brothers working on this farm.  They don't know, at least not yet, that their father was a great adventurer who did from "Dragonitis".

I thought this was rather cool. AND it shows why I am loathe to indrisciminantly kill characters.  Could you have imaged a movie or book where you follow the hero for a bit only to have him die in the third scene/chapter only to die and have him replaced by another character.  The movie was named after Indiana Jones, not Sapito.

How much do you know about your characters before the game starts? Or is your character just a collection of numbers to you or do you figure it out as you go along?

D&D: Back to Basics

So I have spent a lot of time (and money it seems) on "Basic" D&D recently.  I now have every version of "Basic D&D" that has ever been made.  That's a lot of rules for characters 1st-3rd level.

and

I REALLY should be doing something with these rules.

I started out with Holmes Basic, moved to Moldvay/Cook and then AD&D.  I never played Mentzer Basic (or any of the BECMI rules) though I now have that boxed set as well and the Rule Cyclopedia.

And this doesn't even scratch the surface of the Retro-Clones.

Of course my kids and I want to play 4e.  I am in a Pathfinder game, I am running a 3.x game, I played the hell out of 1st and 2nd Ed.  It is getting (or has gotten) insane.

So to help me figure this out I am bouncing some ideas here.

My friend Jason Vey has pointed out (and rightly so) that in 4E the characters already start out as heroes.  There is no growth from a normal, mundane person to powerful hero;  ie like Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter or Bilbo Baggins.  This is an important observation.  There is a powerful archetype at work here. So powerful in fact it has it's own name, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Look over the builds I have done for some classic D&D icons ([1][2][3][4]) despite my attempts to "normalize" these characters there is one glaring truth.  For low level characters they are awfully powerful.

Compare that all to this post. http://bxblackrazor.blogspot.com/2010/10/explaining-d6-damage_21.html
JB makes a good point in here that Normal people are supposed to be weaker.  In Basic D&D a normal person has 1-4 hp (as do Magic-Users) so any weapon that does 1d6 has a pretty good chance of killing them outright, and there is still as chance it will kill any demi-human, cleric or thief too.

Now it depends on what I want my game to "be".  Is this a tale of normal people that become heroes?  Or potential heroes that rise up to a greater challenge?  There is a lot to be said about that farm kid learning to be a hero.  But also the biggest gripe I have about playing those early days of D&D is that characters are often too damn weak.

Take the Wizard/Magic-User for example.  Here we have someone that supposedly has been to magic school.  They have learned spell theory, occult knowledge, and all they know is one spell?
Really?  We don't make archers take just one arrow, so why do this?  Plus outside of XP bonuses the Prime Requisites has little meaning in day to day play in Basic.  AD&D improves this a bit.

So I had this idea.

I am going to figure out the make up of the party.  I am letting my players play two characters each, with the caveat that these two have some past history.

Then I was going to run these characters through one of the D&D Basic sets to build up their powers to what you see in D&D4.  So run them levels 1 through 3 and then move on.

So far my oldest son wants to play a Dragonborn Paladin and a Dragonborn Sorcerer and they are brothers.  My youngest wants to play a ranger and a bard, both are 1/2 elf.  Ok.  Problems already.  These classes or races are not even covered in the D&D basic rules.
I suppose I could go very simple and basically use "Dwarf" as a dragonborn and elf as a half-elf; tweaking as needed.

The idea has some appeal to me, but I am not just the only one playing here.

My kids, whose game this is for, could care less about Basic D&D or anything else Old School.  They like and want to play D&D4.

So despite a lot of good games now in my possession, and a lot of good ideas  I am sticking with the new game.  I'll go with the philosophy that while some heroes are made, others are born to greatness and their challenges need to match up to them.  Plus, just because someone has a lot of "kewl powerz" doesn't mean they know what to do with them.
Maybe I'll pull some "Basic" ideas out every so often.

Or maybe I'll just get a separate Basic D&D game going.