Zatannurday: Deviant Art

I am a huge fan of Deviant Art.  I love that they give up and coming artists a place to showcase their talent. And there is quite a bit of talent there!

So here are some of my favorite Zatanna pics from Deviant Art.


zatanna and raven by ~gianmac on deviantART


zatanna and raven colored by ~gianmac on deviantART


Zatanna quick sketch by *mainasha on deviantART


Zatanna - DSC by *zet on deviantART


Zatanna by ~Kawuamo on deviantART

More soon!

Even Witches have Itches, Part 2

Happy Harry?  Hogwarts Hanky-panky?

Please let that be the last time I ever say "hanky-panky" on this blog.

Anyway new easter egg from the 3rd Harry Potter film.
Found by the Daily What?  http://geeks.thedailywh.at/2011/06/09/harry-potter-innuendo-of-the-day/ 

Madam Vastra and Jenny for Doctor Who RPG

AGAIN WARNING: There are some MINOR Spoilers here for the new Doctor Who episode, A Good Man Goes to War.  If you have not seen it yet, you might want to come back here after you do.

My post about Vastra and Jenny for Ghosts of Albion was very popular.  No surprise really given how popular the  characters currently are.

So it seems only proper then that I also stat them up for Cubicle 7's Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space RPG.  Maybe if I get cheeky I'll even stat them up in Traveler and FASA's Doctor Who game.

You can re-read the background for them on my Ghosts of Albion post.

Madame Vastra

"The Great Detective"
Story Points: 10

Attributes
Awareness 4
Coordination 6
Ingenuity 4
Presence 4
Resolve 4
Strength 3

Skills
Athletics 4
Convince 2
Craft 1
Fighting 5
Knowledge 2
Marksman 3
Medicine 1
Science 2
Subterfuge 2
Survival 2
Technology 2
Transport 2

Traits
Alien (Silurian), Alien Apperance, Brave, Code of Conduct, Eccentric (Mild Cruelty, Speciesm), Gadget (Perception Filtre), Last of My Kind (sorta, only awake Silurian in Victorian London), Tough

Tongue Lash (Strength +2, poison)

Equipment
Perception Filtre (Major Gadget)
Katana (Strength +4)

Home Tech Level: 5-6 (higher than 21st Century Earth, but no indication of FTL travel).

Vastra as a human. 

(in reality Neve McIntosh who played Vastra)

The Silurian Tongue Lash has a lethal poison.  Vastra, like all female Silurians, can choose whether or not her lash injects the poison or not.

Vastra is very devoted to Jenny, her companion and love.

Jenny Flint

Story Points: 10

Attributes

Awareness 3

Coordination 4 

Ingenuity 3

Presence 3

Resolve 4

Strength 3

Skills

Athletics 3

Convince 2

Craft 1

Fighting 4

Knowledge 2

Marksman 2

Medicine 3

Science 1 

Subterfuge 2

Survival 2 

Technology 0

Transport 1

Traits

Attractive, Brave, Face in the Crowd, Obligation (Madame Vastra)

Equipment

Katana (Strength +4)

Home Tech Level: 4

Jenny is the human companion and paramour of Madame Vastra.  To normal people they keep up the façade of a Lady and her servant girl. Jenny had been a servant but she was also already knowledgeable in the healing arts. A skill that has served the combat prone Vastra well.  Jenny herself is not slouch at combat, having trained with Vastra many times.  She is just as deadly with her katana as is her mistress.

Using Vastra and Jenny in Your Game
If you are going to go to Victorian London anytime soon (and you must if you are playing Doctor Who) then Madame Vastra and Jenny are going to be there.  They can be the focal point of an episode, important side characters (as they were in AGMGTW) or just a rumor.


There has been discussion and a post of stats for DW:AITAS already on the Doctor Who boards.
http://dwaitas.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=characters&thread=1469&page=1

But, shouldn't we aspire to be the Hero?

Back in the late 80s, but mostly in the early 90s there was a trend towards "dark" games.  Not just in terms of horror, but dark, grim subjects.  Obviously the ultimate expression of this zeitgeist was the classic "Vampire: The Masquerade", but you could see it in the FRPGs of the time too.  I called it sort of the anti-D&D mentality.   D&D was, at the time, about being a hero-even a super-hero, in a world that needed them.  Sure there was still plenty of "killing things and taking their stuff" but often the things killed were black and white evil, and saving the world was still the end game of many campaigns or at least the published ones.
This anti-D&D mentality was drawn out of the then perceived watering down of AD&D2's content.  In fact there are a number of publishers and authors from the time that I have talked too that have said they published their game in opposition to the loss of demons and devils from AD&D2 or as reaction to the popular media's stance on D&D.  "You think D&D is evil? Wait till you see my game!! ".  Such was the design philosophy of the products from Death's Edge Games.

We kinda got out of that for a while.  But now it seems we are heading back into it again only this time without some sort of reactionary motivation to account for it.

I like horror games. I have worked on a fair number of them over the years and one thing all horror games struggle with is the desire to motivate their players while putting fear into their characters.  Sometimes this is via mechanics.  The Fear saves/checks of many games are usually the first thing used.  The Sanity checks of Call of Cthulhu is also a prime example of a mechanical feature that has effects on the character and the player.  The game Dread does this brilliantly with Jenga blocks.  You can instill a sense of foreboding and doom in players IF you are willing to try.

The latest batch of supposedly Grim-Dark FRPGs don't do that.  They are more akin to the reactionary games of the early 90s.

I am going to pick on one as an example, but there have been and will be others.

I don't like "Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing".

It tries, oh so hard, to be edgy, but really all I see is like watching a little kid dress up in their mother's or father's clothes and pretending to be big.

Let's start with the suggested reading.  This is now nearly boilerplate text in any RPG these days.  Not just to include it, but to include these exact same authors.  There is a reason though, the works of Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, Poe, Howard and Tolkien are all fantastic as sources for a game.  Each had a level of storytelling that was sublime.   LotFP is not sublime and I wonder truthfully if the author actually read those books.

The idea, as I take it, is that LotFP is supposed to be "wierd", but outside of the splatter-porn art and questionable abundance of violence on women, there is nothing in the game that I don't have already in Swords and Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord or Basic Fantasy.  Except with those games I get monsters.
Now the author claims there are no monsters because monsters should be unique.
Frankly that is not only lazy, it's bullshit as well.  The game has an introduction book aimed at new players, yet goes on to tell these new players to make monsters without ever giving them anything to work from?  That's also just bad design. This of course is the bias of an author who has not seemed to have played many games outside of AD&D; I am not sure what games Raggi has played, but venture outside of AD&D and there are a lot of ways to have monsters and make each and every encounter with them unique and fearful.

Let's compare this to Call of Cthulhu the pinnacle of horror gaming for most.  There is a whole chapter on monsters, right there in front of everyone.  In fact there is even a skill in the game so characters can know something, maybe a lot of something, about each and every one.  It still does not do them a bit of good.  Raggi quotes Lovecraft and Smith, but his depiction of what you do with those elements are almost antithetical to what the authors were actually doing.  Browsing through the art (which is fantastic by the way, when it is not over doing it with the violence on women) there is nothing here that would actually have appeared in any Lovecraft or Smith book.  Yeah, there is the vague Nyarlathotep-looking creature on the back cover of one of the books, but that was the exception rather than the rule.   He took the time (and use that phrasing rather loosely) to not include monsters, but didn't bother to say much at all about mood, tone and how to generate a sense of horror that doesn't involve a disemboweling.

Horror is not the only factor in these newer Grime Dark games, there is after all the Grim.
Well to get a good idea on how to best do this I'll take a very recent example, The Northlands, which I reviewed a while back is grim game. The stakes in this game are high; you screw up you will freeze to death and that is your best option.  It very successfully impresses on you the feeling of doom; yet people still live here and make a life out of it.  The Scarred Lands from Sword and Sorcery Studios a few years back is another grim world.  They are grim, but not to the point of nihilism. People/Characters still can rise up and be something more than they are now.

And so far I don't like Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Why are we looking at a game and extolling it's "non-heroic" mien as a virtue?

Plus, on a pragmatic point, neither of these games are particularly original or new.  What new has been added?  Specialists (LotFP) are new and I'll grant that something that would work well in a Swords & Wizardry game.  DCC? Well I am still reading through the BETA to be honest with you.  The art reminds me of the old school art, but lacks the charm of it.

I like the old school games. I still love playing B/X and it's modern clones.

Butt what I did then is what I like to still do now.

Play the game, save the village, town, kingdom,  or even just the princess (or prince), defeat the monster, and be the Hero.

I have both the Deluxe and Grindhouse versions of LotFP and I'll pick up DCC too.
I doubt I'll play either.

Demons Run...when chased by Madame Vastra and Jenny

WARNING: There are some MINOR Spoilers here for the new Doctor Who episode, A Good Man Goes to War.  If you have not seen it yet, you might want to come back here after you do.

Ok?
Good.

Back?  Ohmygodwasthatthecoolestthingyoueversawinthehistoryofdoctorwho!!!???

And of course by that I mean the Victorian Silurian katana wielding Consulting Detective and her human paramour Jenny.
That's makes them perfect for Ghosts of Albion in my book!

I am going to have to do a bit of speculation, but I have some good sources and I consulted Jason Vey who did the EXCELLENT Doctor Who game guide for Unisystem.

Background: Madame Vastra came up from her home deep underground when she thought underground workers were trying to invade. They were not, they were only working on the underground subway system. She was ready to go to war on them when the Doctor arrived to help her.  He was able to save the humans and the Silurians.  Vastra, indebted to the Doctor vowed to repay him helping her.  She knows quite a bit about the Doctor and about Time Lords.  She knows about regeneration and even calls the Doctor "old friend" on many occasions.

At some point she met a young serving girl named Jenny and the two entered into a partnership. They shared adventures as disguised vigilantes/detectives and a romantic partnership as well.

In 1888 Madame Vastra had just ended the career and life of serial killer Jack the Ripper when a blue box appeared in her parlor...

We have little to go on of these two. But if the web traffic out there is any indication then they are already wildly popular with people asking for a spin off!
You can read their TARDIS files here, Vastra and Jenny.
They have their own Facebook page, Deviant Art page,  and an article on After Ellen.  All before the show even airs in America.

Madame Vastra
Very Experienced Master

Life Points 50
Drama Points 10

Attributes
Strength 3
Dexterity 6
Constitution 4
Intelligence 4
Perception 4
Willpower 4

Qualities
Silurian (Homo Reptilia)
Attractiveness +1 (+2 with Perception Filter on)
Charisma
Hard to Kill 4
Fast Reaction Time
Natural Armour (+2 to Armor)
Nerves of Steel
Perception Filter (acts as a Glamour, disgusses her true form) (see below)
Resources 8
Situational Awareness
Status 4

Drawbacks
Honorable (Minimal)
Love (Jenny)
Mental Problems (Mild Cruelty)
Minority (Woman)
Obligation (The Doctor, Important)
Obligation (The Yard, as a consulting detective, Minimal)
Secret 3 (is really a Silurian pretending to be human)
Secret 2 (Lesbian living with another woman)

Useful Information
Initiative +11
Actions 2/1
Natural Armor +2
Observation 1d10 +9
Fear +5

Skills
Armed Mayhem 5
Art 0
Athletics 5
Crime 3
Drive / Ride 1
Engineering 3
Fisticuffs 4
Influence 4
Knowledge 3
Knowledge (Silurian Technology) 3
Languages 2 (Silurian, English)
Marksmanship 5
Notice 5
Occultism 0
Physician 1
Wild Card

Combat

Maneuver	Bonus	Damage	Notes
Dodge / Parry	+11	-	Defence Action
Grapple	+11	-	Defence Action
Katana	+11	12	Slash / Stab
Punch	+10	6	Bash
Tongue Lash	+11	3	Sting
- Poison	-	Special	Strength 4 (same as Con Score)

Madame Vastra in the Ghosts of Albion world is a hunter of criminals.  She is not above killing them herself, she is a trained Silurian Warrior after all.  She does posses a Perception Filter which acts as a Glamour allowing her to pass as human.  Though due to the nature of the device, and it's fragility, she prefers to don a cloak and hood when "hunting".

Vastra as a human. 

(in reality Neve McIntosh who played Vastra)

The Silurian Tongue Lash has a lethal poison in it that has a Strength value equal to the Silurian's Constitution score.  Vastra, like all female Silurians, can choose whether or not her lash injects the poison or not.

Vastra is very devoted to Jenny, her companion and love.

Jenny Flint
Experienced Journeyman

Life Points 40
Drama Points 10

Attributes
Strength 3
Dexterity 4
Constitution 3
Intelligence 3
Perception 3
Willpower 4

Qualities
Attractiveness +2
Hard to Kill 2
Fast Reaction Time
Nerves of Steel
Situational Awareness

Drawbacks
Adversary
Honorable 2
Love (Vastra)
Obligation (The Doctor, Minimal)
Secret 1 (Lesbian living with another woman) (Jenny's is less than Madame Vastra's since she is of a lower class and has less status to loose)

Useful Information
Initiative +9
Actions 1/1
Observation 1d10 + 6
Fear +5

Skills
Armed Mayhem 4
Art 0
Athletics 3
Crime 2
Drive / Ride 2
Engineering 1
Fisticuffs 3
Influence 2
Knowledge 3
Languages 1 (English only)
Marksmanship 2
Notice 3
Occultism 0
Physician 3
Wild Card

Combat

Maneuver	Bonus	Damage	Notes
Dodge / Parry	+8	-	Defence Action
Grapple	+8	-	Defence Action
Katana	+8	12	Slash / Stab
Punch	+7	6	Bash

Jenny is the human companion and paramour of Madame Vastra.  To normal people they keep up the façade of a Lady and her servant girl. Jenny had been a servant but she was also already knowledgeable in the healing arts. A skill that has served the combat prone Vastra well.  Jenny herself is not slouch at combat, having trained with Vastra many times.  She is just as deadly with her katana as is her mistress.

Using Vastra and Jenny in Your Game
The question is why not use them? Or. How can you not use them?  Seriously.
If you are not happy with the Doctor Who connection then make Vastra a reptilian alien from Conspiracy X or a type of demon or even go out further and make her an Unseelie Lady, working to remove the taint of dishonor she sees her people have done.
The Victorian Era is so full of crime and mystery that there is enough for these two to do.

Good to see my regular GM already thinking of things to do with these two.
http://rhoninsramblings.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-really-want-to-do-something-with.html

On Blogfests, Part 2

My numbers held out.

I had a huge gain in followers according to Cyclopeatron's rankings.
http://cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2011/06/fastest-growing-osr-blogs-of-april-and.html

Up 40 by his count and another 3 since he did the list.  43 new followers is not a bad deal.

Thank you all for thinking I have enough interesting things to say to keep on coming back!!

I have some updates on Liam's book, the next Dragonslayers game, the Witch book, what I am doing for Gen Con and how interspecies, intergalactic, Victorian, lesbian crime fighters might just be the next big thing.

Stay tuned!

On Blogfests

Yesterday I participated in the It's All Fun and Games blogfest and before that I participated in the A-Z blogfest and the Horror Movie Challenge.

It was fun to do them all and the numbers of hits, new followers and comments speak for themselves; they were very successful as getting The Other Side some attention.

I know these sorts of things have been derided or mocked in the various OSR/Gaming blogs before, but the impact something like this can have can't be overlooked. While I can't say that it increased the sales of Ghosts of Albion or even Chill (WitchCraft, the only other game I linked is free), I do know from clickthroughs that people looked at the games.

Not gamers mind you.  People. The Normals.  ie. The People we need to bring into the fold of this hobby if we are expected to see it survive to the next generation.

Whether it has a significant impact or not, mine is just one site and an admittedly loose focus.  I am likely to talk games as well as horror movies, comics, and anything else.  This is not a platform blog unless the platform happens to be random stuff that is no longer confined to just my brain.

Later in the month I am going to participate in the Queer Film Blogathon. I am going to explore the meme/trope of the Lesbian Vampire in horror films as the ultimate outsider and compare how she is more often portrayed as a tragic figure than that of a monster.  This can be extended to the Homosexual Vampire too (Lestat, or any of Rice's vamps) and even due to race (Blackula).   This of course will necessitate a discussion on the Evil or Dead Lesbian Cliché and whether or not even a sympathetic vampire still qualifies.

This has almost nothing to do with gaming (but I'll give it the old college try*), but it will expose my blog to a completely new audience that has no idea that we even exist or think that D&D died out sometime in the 80s.

If we want to grow our hobby we should be looking for any chance to go out there and evangelize it.





*Since I went to Southern Illinois University for both my undergrad and graduate degrees that means I'll have to have a few beers and then think about it. ;)

All Fun and Games

I am surprised I didn't see this one before hand, but there is a new Blogfest out there and I am a sucker for these things.

It's All Fun and Games hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh.

I guess since we all talk about our favorite games anyway this is lest of a fest and more of a "Monday".

But anyway here we go!

1. Dungeons and Dragons:  D&D is the 800-lb gorilla in the game world for a reason. It provides what is to many the ultimate experience in a table top RPG.  I started playing this game back in 1979 and I still play it today.  I enjoy all the editions, warts and all, and it is still the game I enjoy coming back too the most.
Not much more I can say about this one really.  It has kept me entertained for over 30 years now.

2. WitchCraft RPG. I was half-tempted to list "Ghosts of Albion" but I thought that might be incredibly tacky and self-serving. Instead I want to list the game that eventually got me to Ghosts.  It was the late 90s and everybody was going crazy for "Storytelling" games.  Games not about killing things and taking their stuff, but about exploring characters, that may or may not be monsters themselves, in a world of...well...darkness.  C. J. Carella's WitchCraft did this better than any other game out there in my mind.  Picking up this book filled me with the same awe as holding that Monster Manual back in '79.
WC paved the way for so many other games for me, not just in terms of playing but in writing.  If it were not for WC then we would not have had Buffy, Angel or Army of Darkness.  Conspiracy X would have remained in the it's original system. There would be no Terra Primate or All Flesh Must Be Eaten and certainly there would be no Ghosts of Albion.
The cover also is one of my all time favorite bits of artwork for a RPG cover ever.
If you have not discovered this game, then I suggest you get a copy now.
It is 100% free at http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=692&affiliate_id=10748

3. Chill.  If D&D was my first and WitchCraft is my current favorite horror game, then a special place must left in my heart for Chill.  Chill is a horror game of normal people in an abnormal world.  It's not as dark as say Kult or as dangerous as Call of Cthulhu and character never get to the levels of WitchCraft, but it was a perfect game for the time I was playing it (the early to mid 80s).
Chill, either 1st ed or 2nd ed, doesn't hold up as well in today's world where characters have as much firepower as the monster they hunt (or even are the monsters), but back in the 80s it was a huge shift in my understanding of how games could be played.  Traveller also represented such a shift for me and it almost made the #3 slot here.   I also have a big post coming up about Traveller here in the near future, so it will get some love.
You can get the 2nd Edition (Mayfair version) of Chill from DriveThruRPG:
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=2888&affiliate_id=10748

That is my Top 3.  I have played scores of RPGs and own or owned many more I haven't played.  And that is not even talking about other games I like such as Dungeon! or even other board and card games.

Zatannurday: Gilbert Monsanto

I have not seen this one before, but I like it.

Gilbert Monsanto

Someone to Witch over me

By now many regular readers know I have been putting together a number of posts for an eventual Basic Era book for a Witch class.
Here is a link to the announcement I made back in March.

Also you may know that Jonathan Becker over at B/X Blackrazor is also doing a witch class for his "The Complete B/X Adventurer".  I personally think that is very cool, and I dig the name of the book too.

I am looking forward to seeing else JB will do with his witch.  I am sure it will be different than what I am doing and I think the Basic Retro-clone market is large and now getting diverse enough to support more than one view on the witch.

I want to talk about his ideas in a bit, but first I want to talk about my own ideas, as they are right now.

Presently this book has about 63 pages of game material and an additional 52 pages of nothing but spells.  Frankly that is WAY too much material for what is essentially just one new class.  Though I have much more than just that of course.  The spells can be used for other classes and there are some new monsters and magic items.

Here is a small sampling of what I'll be offering, though edited to fit the narrative of the book better.

• Cantrips for Original and Basic-Era Games
• Druthers 
• Earth Trolls
• Familiars 
• Gnomes for Basic era FRPGs 
• Gypsy Elves 
• Level Titles for Magic Using Classes 
• Magic Hats 

Plus I am very keen on doing a witch that was likely to have been built back when the Moldvay boxed set was still new.  So I have spent a lot of time thinking about the role of witches and what they do in a game. Again, taking my cues from Tom Moldvay as detailed here, http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/01/tom-moldvay-on-witches.html.  I have tried to address all these points (and then some) in my new witch.

The other issue that is important to me is that the witch must have a role that does not take away from the Cleric or the Magic-User/Wizard.  There should be overlap, that is fine, just like a fighter and thief can both use weapons to attack a monster. The cleric, magic-user and witch all use spells.  They just use them in a different way.

I have done witch books for *D&D before including one for AD&D 2nd Ed and another for D&D3/d20.  There will be some similarities of course, but I am more focused on the Basic Witch to create a book that feels like it was made in the later 1970s/early 1980s.  I am reading witch and occult material that was popular at the time.  I really want a good old-school feel, but while still taking advantage of all the research I have been doing over the last 25+ years.

Now lets go back to JB's Complete B/X Adventurer Witch.

His links are here:

• The B/X Witch
• Ooo-oo, Witchy Woman...
• and an earlier one, Something Wicked this Way Comes...

Jonathan has a good idea of what he wants and I think he is going about it in a very cool way.

His Something Wicked... goes over a lot of the same ground I have gone over here, but he also points out that we get a lot of references to witches without any witches themselves.  Now he mentions he has never read the the classic Dragon Magazine articles on witches (#5, #20, #43 and most famously #114), but I think there is a lot in those articles that bear reading.  One of which is the Tom Moldvay list from my previous post.

I am looking forward to seeing how these two different, but related, interpretations are welcomed by the OSR community.

AD&D1 in Dragon #400

Just was reading through some of the new articles that will be in Dragon #400.  Current WotC employees are talking about their favorite Dragon moments.  Mike Mearls brings back Roger Moore's Jester and keeps it as 1st Edition AD&D.   Odd seeing a 1st ed character in 4e trade dress.

Anyway here it is, but you need to be a subscriber.
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/dra/400jester#74712

New Review: Northlands

Northlands

The Northlands is a very cool campaign setting for a Norse/Viking like area for use with Pathfinder. Not a setting by itself, it is designed to be easily inserted into your game world. Though there is nothing stopping you from just using this book all by itself.

In its 110+ pages you will find a area ready for adventure. There are new classes, skills, feats, weapons and spells. There are rules for variant races (humans and Dwarves) and new races from the bestial Trollkin to the Hyperborean. Everything is given a new look to reflect the cold lands of the north. The culture here is a very different one. It’s not just colder, the people (and thus the characters) are different.

The magic chapter is very cool, with new spells, and new types of magic such as grudge magic and runic magic.

The lands are detailed in both chapter 2 and chapter 5. So there is plenty to work from here. The chapter on monsters contains quite a nice number of creatures and they are not for the faint of heart.

The author capture not only the rules of playing in these lands but the feel as well. Author Dan Voyce obviously has a love for this setting and their real world counterparts that show through the writing. This is a well researched book.

The art is equally fantastic and even though it is spare and black and white, it adds to the overall feel of the book. The cover is one of the best I have seen in a very long time.

The legends of the Scandinavian countries are ripe for adventures and part of the very fiber that makes up the core of the FRPGs. The Northlands helps bring these tales to life.

I originally grabbed this because my local Pathfinder group is called "the Northlands Group" and I thought this might be a cool thing to have.  But once I got it and started reading it I realized I wanted to keep it all for myself! I plan to use it for the areas in my Mystoerth games, specifically the areas right around my version of Hyborea.

Now this Northlands has nothing to do with the Frog God games Northland Saga for Pathfinder and Swords & Wizardry.  But they are not incompatible.

I enjoyed it and I think you all might too.

5 out of 5 stars!

...here there be dragons...

School is winding down for my little guys and that means the summer of no school, no homework and no reading right?

Wrong!

You can't be the kid of an educator and not expect something.  But this time it was my son that surprised me.  I was talking with him the other day and he wants to write a book, and not just any book.  He wants to write one on dragons.
 
Liam has been playing D&D now for years.  He loves dragons and has read dozens of books on them and of course he is the original Dragonslayer in my games.  

We talked and I talked with teacher, so this summer Liam will be writing his first book, "Here There Be Dragons".  There will be stats, histories and all sorts of goodies about dragons.  He wants to do it all for Pathfinder and maybe 4e.  I also suggested doing it for OSRIC and Basic era games too.

He wants spells, prestige classes and even has come up with some very specialized dragon hunting weapons including the dragon hunter's spear ("Because getting close enough to a dragon to use a sword is stupid.")

I will be doing the layout and editing, but all the ideas will be his.

The best part?

We are going to make the book available to everyone.

I don't know all the details yet.  But expect a book of dragons coming from us sometime later in the summer.

Cliff Chiang Bad Reputation

Making the rounds today but it is very cool. Cliff Chiang's mashup of DC women and the Runaways.

I love Black Canary singing and Z on bass.
Course I posted this to Amazon Princess, but given that it had Z in it I figured here is a good spot too.

Something nice till they completely reboot the DC universe. Again.

Other links:
http://cliffchiang.tumblr.com/post/6037210898 Cliff Chiang's tumblr.
http://dcwomenkickingass.tumblr.com/post/6037306593/omg DC Women Kicking Ass
http://girls-gone-geek.com/2011/05/31/dc-women-runaways-mash-up/ and Girls Gone Geek.
http://amazon-princess.blogspot.com/2011/06/cliff-chiang-bad-reputation.html Amazon Princess

Long Weekend

Just getting off of a long holiday weekend.  Lots of blog posts to read, picked up some games too.

More soon.

Zatannurday: Russel Platt

I have recently discovered the art of Russel Platt.
Here is his rendition of the Other Side's favorite Sorceress Supreme, Zatanna.

And one not safe for work, http://rplatt.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=144#/d14qp56
This one is a bit too busty for my tastes, but I love the facial expressions on this first one.

Happy Birthday Christopher Lee

Happy 89th Birthday to Christopher Lee.

I hope I am half as awesome as you are when I am 89.

You can leave your hat on: Magic Hats in FRPGs

“We’re up to our pointy little hats in demonic problems here.” 

- Piper Halliwell, Charmed: A Knight to Remember

Few things stir up the image of a witch or wizard more than the conical hat.  Even some of the earliest art for the D&D game shows wizards and witches in the classical pointy hat.  The trouble is that for an item so tied to a magic using class, there is nearly nothing in any of the books about a magical hat.  Heck even the D&D cartoon had a magic hat.

Well let's change that.

Magical Hats come in a variety of sizes and colors, but all share some commonalities. First the hat needs to be conical.  The cone is symbolic of raising one's consciousness higher and wizards have discovered that other shaped hats do not hold the enchantments as well.  (Modern wizards though have discovered that the Top Hat works very well, this may have something to do with the popular impression of magicians and top hats).
Magical hats do have two basic varieties. A "wizard's hat" is a simple cone with no brim.  A "witch's hat" is also a cone, but has a wider brim.  There is a 50% chance of either and they are other-wise identical.  Wizards though tend to prefer their namesake hat and witches opt for the one most associated with them.
These hats provide no extra protection to the head, unless charmed to do so, and weigh less than 1 lbs.



Magical Hat (Holding)
This hat appears as a crumpled old wizards or witches hat.  The inside though is an extra-dimensional space similar to that of a Bag of Holding.  The user may store up to 10 lbs of mundane (non-magical) material inside.  Regardless of the contents, the hat will only weigh 10-12 ozs.  Typical uses are a place to store spell components and other minor items. The witch cannot pull the hat down over her head to protect it since the entire item must be enclosed.   Any animal placed in the hat will suffocate within 5 mins much as a bag of holding.  Magical Hats react the same to portable holes as do bags of holding.
This hat, despite it's name, can be used by any class.

Magical Hat (Holding, Greater)
This hat appears as anyother Magical Hat and represents 15% of their number.  This hat can hold 25 lbs of materials as well as magical ones.

Hat of Focus
This hat aids the wizard or witch when they are performing spell research, learning new spells or otherwise engaged in any work requiring their focus.
This hat when worn will treat the wearer as if they had an Intelligence* score as one greater than they currently have. This does not change the number of spells they can learn or memorize based on their ability scores, but it does aid them with learning or creating the new spell.

*This can be substituted for Wisdom or Charisma as needed.
d20: This hat will add to the appropriate Concentration, Knowledge (arcana) or Spellcraft roll.

Hat of Focus, Spellslinger
This hat is similar to the Hat of Focus save that it adds +1 or +5% (where appropriate) to any one spellcasting roll.  So this hat could add +1 per die in a Fireball's damage or -1 in a Saving Throw, but not both.

Hat of Focus, Dunce
This cursed hat looks exactly like the Hat of Focus and any detect magic will reveal that it is in fact a Hat of Focus.  This hat though has the opposite effect and lowers the appropriate spellcasting ability score by 3 points.

Hat of the Archmage
This artifact is quite rare and very powerfull.  Created by an ancient archmage that used to joke that he always had another idea under his hat, the hat allows the wizard (and only a wizard) to store a number of extra spells.  It is rumored that this hat can hold 100 levels of spells that can be cast when the hat is opened and the proper spell is commanded to come out.  The wizard can then cast spells into the hat to be used at a later time.
Another, similar item, is known as the Hat of the Queen of Witches and is only usable by a witch.

OGL Section
Section 15
"Magical Hats" Copyright 2011, Timothy S. Branann

Test Review

Pale Demon by Kim Harrison

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Rachel is finally getting smarter, too bad so are her enemies.

Great road-trip style story and the ending is not what I had expected at all. I was just about ready to give up on the Hollows and now I can't wait for the next book.



View all my reviews

RPG Blog Alliance

So I am a joiner.

I joined the new RPG Blog Alliance.


In addition to the RSS aggregator there is a forum and a wiki.
Looking forward to seeing more on this site.

Post 666

I have reached a momentous milestone here at the Other Side.  This is my 666th post.  I feel compelled (by the Power of Satan!) to post about something devilish.

I have talked about Hell before and some of it's inhabitants and some potential inhabitants.  If I follow this logic then devils would be the ultimate foe for the elves.  Not that I don't mind this idea at all. But I think I might focus it a bit more.   Combine the story of Dante's Inferno, Milton's Paradise Lost and Lolth's shunning/betrayal and I can paint a pretty detailed idea of what Hell is in my world.

Hell is the ultimate prison for the fallen.  Gods, Angels and other powers are cast out and into hell.

Let's start with a couple of Goddess that give me some problems.

Tiamat is a Goddess and Queen of all evil dragons.  She has always been listed as having a domain on the first level of Hell.  I have never really liked that to be honest.  Tiamat is in Babylonian myth primal Chaos.  If anything she should be in the Abyss.  Using the new 4e cosmology that would place her in the Elemental Chaos, which is really the perfect place for her.  In Dragonlance her home was always called "the Abyss".  In my games I always called her realm Tehom, which means Abyss in Hebrew and is associated with the mythical Tiamat.  So she really has no place in Hell.  Who should replace her?

Lolth on the other hand is better fit.  Her story is more in line with the casting out of the Angels into Hell.  Though I am not sure I want her in Hell proper, maybe more of the Ante-chamber to Hell, near the Underdark. This would be similar to the first level of Hell that Dante claimed the Pagans went too.  So I am trading a giant dragon for a giant spider.   For a bit of tongue in cheek continuity I would make Tiamat and Lolth allies.  They have different goals and motivations, but I see them as felling they have a common history so if it benefits them to share an alliance, then they would. Lolth's realm is still called the Demonweb and she still has a number of demons in her employ.

Devils in my Game
Demons are easy.  They are evil, chaotic outsiders bent on destruction of everything.  Devils are much more complicated.  I say in my game Devils are only Fallen Angels.  That means there are a finite number of them and once they are gone, that is it.  There are a lot of creatures that are called devils, but most of them are demons pressed into service.  Since they have been forced into service by the Devils they have changed, they can evolve into greater forms.  Pit Fiends are those fiends that have reason up in ranks.  The True Devils still look down on them.

Since I started this post, Dreams of the Lich House posted a bit about using Satan/The Tempter in your games.  It is a good read.  It also ties in nicely with the Milton/Dante-ish cosmology I want to use for Hell.  I would keep the 9 layers.  The top most being the "Ante-Chamber of Hell" and the rest each ruled by an Arch Duke.  Also each Arch Duke is responsible for one of the Seven Deadly sins.

Layer	Name	Arch-Duke	Deadly Sin
1	Avernus	none	na
2	Dis	Dispater	Envy
3	Minauros	Mammon	Greed
4	Phlegethos	Belial	Sloth
5	Stygia	Geryon	Wrath
6	Malbolge	Glayssa	Lust
7	Maladomini	Baalzebul/Beelzebub	Gluttony
8	Cania	Mephistopheles	Pride
9	Nessus	Asmodeus	*

Glayssa was given Lust, Asmodeus' old sin since he is now in charge.  His though is the sin of betrayal.
In the 4e cosmology Asmodeus was the angel guarding the prison that Tharizdun was held in.  Tharizdûn corrupted him and Asmodues and his angels all fell.  I have decided that Tharizdun is still chained, but the greatest deceit is that he is not where all the gods think he is.  He is in fact buried deep in Hell where Asmodeus taps his power. This is how he has been elevated to near Godhood.  Of course this might be Tharizdun plan to to trap Asmodeus in his thrall even more.

Chances are good that the Dragonslayers will run into the cult of Tharizdun sometime soon.  I just need something to do with them.

I am not planning on the Dragonslayers going to Hell anytime soon, so this all might be for nothing.

Once upon there was Irish ways and Irish laws.

One of my WIPs that is very close to my heart is a game of playing mythic Ireland.

Éire (also sometimes called Ériu in my notes) has been in my notes for many, many years and the system has changed based on what I have felt best suited it.  Presently, and likely to be the final version, uses the ORCS system seen in Jason Vey's Spellcraft and Swordplay game.  I chose that over say straight OD&D or some other clone because I like the feel of the game and it has some DNA in it that I really like.

Well the game has languished in the hell of my hard drive since the dawn of the d20 system.  But last night I got inspiration from an unexpected source.

I was working with my son last night on his research paper on Ireland.  We talked about the the Blight, the Troubles and even went back a bit to talk about St. Patrick and my personal favorite Finn MacCool.  After telling him the story of the Salmon of Knowledge my son (whose name is Liam by the way) looked at me and said "this would make an awesome D&D game."

So I am rereading all my notes.  Marveling at some, and wondering what the hell I was thinking with others.
No idea when I'll have it done.  But I feel I should get it done soon.  If for nothing else for my boys Liam and Connor, so they can learn a bit of their own heritage too.

Mongoose to end RQII

So Mongoose is planning on ending their run of RuneQuest II.
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47370

They are keeping the ruleset and publishing it under the name "Wayfarer".

Two things come to mind.
1. Don't we already have a FRPG call Wayfarers?, http://yeoldegamingcompanye.com/wayfarersmain.htm
2. Doesn't "Wayfarer" sound a bit like "Pathfinder"?

I have a love-hate relationship with Mongoose and no dogs in this race, so I am just an observers.

The Dragonslayers vs White Plume Mountain, Part 4 Final

I was feeling a little sick over the weekend.  Caught whatever my son had caught and only ate crackers for lunch.  So my boys asked if we could finish WPM.  I had a bunch of material worked out for the final part, combining the 2nd Ed. Adventure Dragotha's Lair and the WMP Web Enhancement Outside the Mountain.  Since I wasn't feeling well I reduced Dragotha's Lair to a smaller area and removed many of the (redundant) undead.

They battled the Effrit on their way out of the mountain and he was quickly dispatched by couple of cones of cold.  Dragotha did carry off the wizard, but a well rolled concentration check and a quick teleport spell the wizard was safe.

I kept the Hag, Thingazzard and had her using my own 3.0 rules for witches and she provided a good hazard on the way to Cave of Bones.

The Dragonslayers fought Dragotha in the end, taking some pretty serious damage almost loosing one of their elemental sorcerers. But in the end they triumphed. They collected the next part they needed, the Red Dragon tooth, and there are odd notes in Thingazzard's Book of Shadows about the Horn of Iggwilv and an item that might be what they need.

All in all the boys did good despite my general lack of energy.  They may have gotten off a touch easier than they should have, so to compensate the amount of magic is not as great.  Everyone managed to go up a level so next time we will decide what those levels will be.  Liam wants his wizard to take a level of fighter so he can use the cool new flaming sword he found.  I also suggested Bard.

Next up, into the deeps as the Dragonslayers enter the gnome vale and find The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

Zatannurday: Happy birthday Z!

According to the DC Universe (and DC Women Kicking Ass) May 20 is Zatanna's birthday!

So here are some of celebration posts:
http://dcwomenkickingass.tumblr.com/post/5677896286/zeebirthday
http://thehappysorceress.tumblr.com/

Here is Zee and friends enjoying a birthday cheesecake, which I like because that is what I have for my birthday too.

and more,

So happy birthday Zee!

Updated Plans

Not much to this post, I am looking over the Big Plan^TM I have for my Kids' D&D games.

I detailed my plan first here and then updated it here.  Since then I have played some of the adventures listed, just not in the order I had them.

Of the plan I have completed:

• B3 Palace of the Silver Princess
• X1 The Ilse of Dread
• S2 White Plume Mountain

Removed from rotation are (and detailed here):

• C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness.  I am going to be running this under the Doctor Who RPG as "The Ghost Tower of Inverness, Illinois"  (the castle, the Ghost Tower)
• B2 Keep on the Borderlands.  Been done a 1000 times.  I want to run it under Army of Darkness rules.
• I6 Ravenloft. Will run this as Ghosts of Albion: Ravenloft for Ghosts of Albion.

Games I'll run under my Basic Levels plan:

• T1 Village of Hommlet (and come back to it later using the 4th ed version)
• B1 In Search of the Unknown (great dungeon crawl)
• L1 Secret of Bone Hill (been wanting to run this one forever)

Then on to some D&D4 adventures.

Basic Levels: Background and Themes

To continue on with my idea of Basic Levels for D&D4 I want to look at two features of the D&D4 game that came after the PHB was published.  Backgrounds and Themes.

When you are 1st level in D&D4 you get to choose some skills to be trained in.  This gives you a +5 in those skills.  As you move up in level all your skills are your appropriate modifier + 1/2 your level.  So regardless a 30th level character has +15 minimum on every skill and +20 (15+5) on trained skills.

A background is a bit of role-playing that asks what were you before you were an adventurer? Most times it gives you a +2 in two (or sometimes just 1) skills.  So maybe a fighter was once the apprentice of nere'do well Bard and spent his childhood stealing magical items.  He would have a +2 to Arcana and +2 to Thievery

Themes are new from issue #399 of Dragon Magazine (seems odd to call it a magazine anymore) and they are more or less like kits were in AD&D2.  You choose a theme and it gives you some pluses to skills and then at later levels you can choose different powers at different levels.   not exactly a sub-class but more of a flavor.

To do these in the Basic Level model players need to have fairly good ideas of what their character was (or is since we are starting them younger) and where they want to take their character.

At Basic Level 1 they get their Background and maybe training in 1 skill.  If the class has a "default" skill then it will be that one; ie Religion for Clerics, Arcana for Wizards and Thievery for Rogues.  Clerics get their Channel Divinity power (Turn Undead), but no spells yet (just like Basic). Wizards get a spell.

At Basic Level 2 they get training in two more skills (or maybe just one, still looking at the options).  Clerics get a spell as do wizards.  Rogues and Fighters fight get one of their combat styles.

The idea here is to build up that list of trained and background skills and introduce the Themes to the character.  In the end you want all the elements in place for that 1st level character.

While I consider the details here are the past posts that have lead me to this point.

• Character Life-Span development, this was more for modern games, but certainly good for D&D too.
• Immortal Level D&D. My first post on mixing D&D4 with D&D Basic.
• Playing D&D with Kids. Where I first mention my desire to play both D&D4 and Basic D&D.

Plus it gives me a good excuse to use all of these together.

Tell DTRPG About Your Character

One thing that I don't typically do is talk about my characters.  Nothing puts up a wall between the gamer and a non-gamer faster than talking about your character.  I'll talk about my kids playing, I talk about things my players did, but rarely will I talk about a character in public.  I even rarely do it here, outside of the writeups I do, but those are more about stats than personalities.

Fortunately DriveThruRPG is not me.
They want to hear all about your character and are willing to give you prizes for it.

The Tell Us About Your Character contest is going on now and you have two weeks to enter.

I do like characters.  I have extensive histories for characters that have only seen a couple of games.  So I might enter this contest, but I wanted to let you all know about it.  Hell, my for my main withc character I can tell you what she has done every year of her 40 year old life.  But for this contest you need to be able to limit yourself to 400 words.

The prizes are also nice, an Android powered tablet, and gift certificates for 100, 50 and 25 dollars.

Well worth your time I think.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/rpg_character.php?affiliate_id=10748

Respect My Authoritah!

Well according to at least one obscure website I am an authority on the criminology of Elizabeth Bathory.

My Elizabeth Bathory page, designed to be used with an RPG mind you, was linked out by Criminal Justice Degrees.com, on their site of the 15 worse female criminals. http://www.criminaljusticedegrees.com/15-most-heinous-women-criminals

Of course this site is nothing more than a means to get people into a name collection system that many online degrees use.

Now my Bathory page gets about 1,500 hits a month with about 1,000 of those being new visitors, and so far this one has only contributed about 24 this week.  But I still had to laugh.

Basic Levels: D&D4 by way of D&D Basic

Consider this quote from The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

Think of the heroes of modern myth, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, even Bilbo Baggins and the kids from the Narnia books (well the first few). They follow this hero's journey more or less the same way.  Even Darth Vader followed the same path, but failed the final tests.  The point here though is not the journey (yet) but the beginnings.  Anikin began as a slave, Luke a farm boy, Harry a baby and then a 10 year old boy with no idea of his potential.  Each were a "chosen one" of their tales, but all had humble beginnings.

Depending on who you ask the raised power structure in D&D 4 is either a feature or it is "broken".  D&D 4 characters start out as very capable.  They have skills, powers and a variety of things they can do right away.  To some this is a great thing, now all characters can do something.  To others it is a sign of power creep.

I don't buy the power creep argument.  In fact if you compare D&D4 to D&D Rule Cyclopedia you see that they have similar power curves.  A 30th level D&D4 Wizard could go toe to toe with a 36th level D&DRC Magic User, and both may be on paths to immortality.  In fact D&D 4 seems more like D&D RC IF you look at it from the point of view of D&D4 characters starting at about 4th to 6th level.

Let's compare a bit.

Here are the basic skills and powers of a 1st level D&D Basic/RC character.
Magic-User Level 1
Weapons: Dagger 1d4 (1 per attack)
Spell: Magic Missile (1 per day)
HP: 1d4 + con mod (4 to 7)

Not a lot.

How about 1st level D&D4 character.
Wizard (Mage) Level 1
Weapon: Dagger (1 per attack)
Spells: At will: Suggestion, Ghost Sound, Light, Arc Lightning, Freezing Burst.
Per Encounter: Charm of Misplaced Wrath, Burning Hands.
Daily: Fountain of Flame, Phantom Chasm
Skills: Arcana, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, Insight, Religion
HP: 10 + con score (18 to 28 using the default arrays)

9 spells and four skills that this character knows out of the gate.  And that is not counting any of the new backgrounds (which gives +2 to a skill or two) or other rules to help out the 4e character further.

Just as a quick and dirty comparison, a D&D RC Magic User would need to be 7th level and be able to cast 1 4th level spell to equal the D&D 4e 1st level Wizard (Mage).  Now if you use the cantrip rules I  created (or just ignore cantrips) then the character is more of a 5th level Magic User.

Fighters are not much different really.
In Basic/RC the fighter gets a sword and told which end is pointy and which end to hold on to.
In 4e fighters (Knights) get a sword and 3 different battle stances (think of them as advanced fighting techniques) that make them more than a guy with a sword.  These stances imply martial training.

So the D&D 4 characters are not just "fresh of the moisture farm", they have training, they have skills.  This is something the designers of D&D4 wanted and it was an implicit design philosophy.

But sometimes you want to build up to something special.

People have used this argument as a full on indictment of all of D&D4, but to me that is throwing out too much good stuff, but I also like the feel of the early editions, especially Basic D&D.  SO why not have my cake and eat it too.

Basic Training and Levels

Basic levels are the "training" levels for character.  They will break up the powers of the 1st level 4e characters into smaller chunks to represent training.

For my Hero's Journey game, the characters will start out exactly like they do for every single edition of D&D.  Roll a 4d6, drop the lowest, arrange for 6 stats.  I will use the "archetypes" from Basic and 4e and these will be the only characters allowed.  So fighter, magic-user, thief, cleric.  From here they can move on to other "full" classes.  Fighter (and I might even call it "fighting man") wold lead to knights, paladins, rangers, fighters, marshals, and so on.  Magic-Users lead to Warlocks, Wizards, mages, sorcerers.  You get the idea. Or I could divide them up my how they train for their power, Martial, Divine and Arcane.  I like that idea better.

There would be 3 basic levels.  I would divide the powers and skills up so they are getting something new each basic level.  So new skill, new spell or martial stance.  I would include Backgrounds and any other ways to get skills at Basic 1. I would also include all the racial perks.

This is not without precedent, the old Cavalier had levels that came before 1st level so that you had to work your way up to them.

I'd have to put them up in a table so that by the time you completed Basic 3 and then moved to Level 1 you could gain the last powers needed to make Level 1 seem like a big leap.

Basic Levels as Normal People
Having basic levels also make for a good way to represent normal people. The village blacksmith isn't a 0 level human or even a 1st level Knight, he is something in between.  Maybe he has some training, and he is certainly stronger than his fellows, so he could be a Martial Class, Basic Level 2.  Or something.
This makes for a good way to emulate the NPC classes from the D&D 3.x DMG.

I think this needs more work, but I like what I have so far.

Why Do it?
Other than the reasons mentioned above there is also a pragmatic reason.  To play T1, B1 and B2 as intended.  Maybe that is what I can do.  Not worry about XP, but level up on Basic Level after a completed adventure.  I could also pull out the Black Box D&D I got at the last auction as a good intro set.

The more I think about it, the more I like it.  Then they get to Level 1 and the Adventure arc begins.

ETA: Rob Donoghue had some similar thoughts earlier this month. Please also read his post.
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.com/2011/05/leveling-up-to-1.html

Test

Seeing if this works.

Eta: another test

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

For the record...

I have never actually kumbayahed with anyone.