R is for Ravenloft

Ravenloft. 

This might very well be the best module I have ever played, run or mined for ideas. I remember buying this at my then-FLGS (Waldenbooks remember) and then giving it to my then DM and saying in no uncertain terms "run me in this".   I went through it, nearly died, lost a lot of levels and got my ass handed to me many times by Strahd, but in the end I got out, Sunsword in hand.

Since then I have run it many times.  I will go as far as to say it is one of the few modules I have completely memorized.

Ravenloft was TSR's great experiment.  Take the central monster and make him a fully realized character.  Seems odd to ask to do this now, but back then, that was crazy talk.  Gothic Horror in Heroic Fantasy?  Crazy! But it worked.   Sure, Strahd can be thought of as a poor man's Dracula, but he has since become his own monster.

When I got to college and switched over to 2nd ed Ravenlof became my campaign world.  I had everything. All the boxed sets, all the modules.  Everything.  I never got to run it as much as I wanted too, but it more or less became my defacto world.  I even bought most, if not all, the Ravenloft novels.  Looking back it is amusing to see names like P.N. Elrod, Christie Golden, Tanya Huff and Laurell K.Hamilton among the authors.

For 3rd Edition I did get the Ravenloft books from Sword & Sorcery Studios/White Wolf and expected them to do, well, more with it.  I still enjoyed the books, but I didn't get all obsessive about it like I did before.
I also picked up "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft" too, but was fairly disappointed.

With 4th ed, we now have Ravenloft all over the place.  The Ravenloft board-game (which is awesome), Ravenloft as part of the Shadowfell (which is really cool) and now the Heroes of Shadow book which is full of Ravenloft inspired ideas.

Regardless of the system. Regardless of the world around it though Ravenloft is about adding a bit of darkness to your game.  To take that love of Hammer horror and mix it in with the likes of Conan, Elric, the Grey Mouser and Merlin.

I also played Ravenloft using other systems such as Black Rose, a Ravenloft/True20 mix and even tried doing it under Unisystem a couple of times (WitchCraft works REALLY nice for it, but I also like using Ghosts of Albion).

I'd love to run it for my kids someday.  I am not sure how well it would work under 4e, since it is more of a "mood" module than a combat one.  Maybe a one-shot special using OSRIC or True 20 or even Unisystem would work out.

Q is for Quest of the Ancients

Q is for Quest of the Ancients, an RPG I discovered back in the days when I was getting "out of" D&D and looking for something else.

Quest of the Ancients can be described as a D&D clone, a D&D add on or as a collection of someone's house rules.  The author, Vince Garcia, had some publications before QotA came out including some material for AD&D2 and White Wolf magazine.  So he was not a noob to this.

QotA fills that same slot of near-D&D that you will sometimes find other games living in. Similar to the Atlantean series from Bard Games.  Lejendary Adventures is one that comes to mind as well.

Why did I pick it up?  Simple, it was advertised as having the most complete Witch class ever made.  I forget where I read that, but I knew I had to pick up a copy.  So I did. I was a bit underwhelmed, but there were some good bits.

While the game certainly has it's impressive moments, it never struck me as bringing anything new to my table.  I liked the Gypsy class, the Witch class was interesting, but everything else seemed like a poor-man's copy of AD&D.  There were a ton of classes in this book, something like 15 or more, and a bunch of spells.

I want to talk about the witch class for a bit.  Now in general I liked the witch.  Garcia was obviously pulling from some of the same books I was when he wrote up his witch.  Also (and you can tell by looking at the cover) this was a thinly-veiled attempt to have a "Stevie Nicks" character class.  I can't say I disapprove of that.  There was also a gypsy class which was divided into Male and Female gypsy.  I kinda made sense, kinda didn't.  I see what the author was trying to do, but I don't think it worked out as well as he liked.

I have always wanted to pick up the second edition.  I don't know if much has changed in it, but the cover art is much better (featuring the same characters).

I like this cover to be honest.  The Witch looks more like Stevie Nicks than ever and the wizard looks like he has gained a few levels.

I have wanted to get this, but can't actually bring myself to buy it until I see what some of the differences are between the editions.  I am hoping that there is something here above and beyond the first edition, but I am fairly sure there is not.    In the beginning of the 90's this might have been a cool game to play, but today it looks a little a dated.  A+ for effort though.

Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_of_the_Ancients
http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=8756

Buy
Noble Knight Games (best place to get it really)

ETA: And check out Jeff Grubb, also doing QotA for his Q post.  http://grubbstreet.blogspot.com/2011/04/q-is-for.html

Elisabeth Sladen 1948 - 2011

Elisabeth Sladen has passed today at the age of 63.

For those of you not in the know she played the character Sarah Jane Smith, companion to two different Doctors in Doctor Who.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13137674

Sarah Jane was one of my favorite companions and I loved seeing her come back in the new Who series with David Tennent and then in the Sarah Jane Adventures.   There was a time in my life that I seriously thought that if I even had a daughter I'd name her Sarah Jane.  Mostly cause I didn't want anyone picking on Romanadvoratrelundar Brannan.

She will be missed.

P is for Psychoses and Pet-Peeves

I have an undergraduate and a graduate degree in Psychology.  I spent three years working at a facility for the mentally ill that were trying to integrate back into society.   Most never had a chance in hell of doing this, but they still worked towards it.

So naturally you might think that I would like to see mental illnesses represented in RPGs.

Well that would be wrong.

Most of my pet peeves revolve around how mental illness or "craziness" is often represented in RPGs.  For a group of intelligent, literate people, this get bolloxed up more times than I can count.

I think Call of Cthulhu does it right.  I think the True20 "Shadows of Cthulhu" also does a good job on representing them and does a great job with their mechanics.  Many horror games make a good attempt, but others fall short.


Here are some of the things I hate the most.


1. Most severe mental illnesses are debilitating if not treated and cared for.  In today's world we have doctors, medicines and support systems so people with mental illnesses can live a relatively normal life.  That is not the case in many games.  In Call of Cthulhu for example characters often go shit-eating crazy and that is the end game.  But in other games people use it as an excuse to act like an idiot or an asshole, or both.  Often both.

2. Schizophrenia is NOT "Split Personality".  They are not even close.  Having schizophrenia is grounds for a character to removed from play.  Split Personality, or Dissociative Identity Disorder  is so rare that I can count the case I have know about on one hand and still have enough fingers left over to give you the thumbs up, the peace sign and show you my wedding ring.  A lot of games use this as an excuse to allow characters to do thing they could not otherwise do.  In that case, multi-class.

3. Chaotic Neutral is not "Insane". In my games Chaotic Neutral is not insane. Nor should it be in anyone's game.  Chaotic Neutrals should be loners, often anti-social, often assholes.  OR they could be happy go lucky, but if they are on the happy side then why are they not Chaotic Good?  Alignment is a moral and ethical stance, not a mental stability one.

4. Most games should not have Insanity Rules.  Players don't know how to use them, Game masters don't how to run them and I'll go a step further and say most designers don't know how to write them.  A rule of thumb. If you are playing in a time period that lacked mental health care then there is no such thing as insanity.  Yes there are mental illnesses, but insanity is a legal definition and often a societal one.
Fantasy RPGS like D&D should never have insanity rules.  Horror games should, but handled correctly.  Modern games can have them, but should avoid them; games like Spycraft and James Bond they might make good plot points, but avoid using them as a means to get points.

5. If you are going to use them, use them in the time they are given.  I said games like D&D should not have them and that is correct.  People were not insane, they were possessed by evil spirits.  A cleric with Remove Curse or something will clear that up.  If you are playing in a Victorian age game, then use Victorian notions of mental illness.  Talk about "floating organs" and then apply to appropriate remedy.

Now full disclosure time.

I have written a number of different takes on Psychoses for games over the years.  I have never been totally satisfied with any of them.  Most recent was one for Mutants and Masterminds based book that sadly will not see publication.  I like the mechanics of that one, but the representation was not my best work.  I did one for Ghosts of Albion too.  I tried to fit it to the Victorian ideas of mental illness the best I could AND still make it compatible with Eden's other books.
I also did one for Ravenloft that I liked at the time, but now see it as coming up very, very short of the mark.

And lets be honest here.  Player Characters are all insane anyway.
Rushing into dungeons, killing monsters in their lairs to get a gold piece here or there.  Digging through obscure and forgotten texts to discover not only are we insignificant specs in the universe but the universe is so freaking dangerous we should just hide under the covers or any of the other 100 things we have our characters do.

We don't need a game version of the DSM-IV, we all need therapists.

O is for Otherworlds Club

When I was first getting into D&D back int he early 80s there was an explosion of Sci-fi and Fantasy books to hit the shelves in it's wake. For me this was a great time and one I have talked about before: "Reflecting on D&D - Sometimes you can't go back".

Friday I was driving home past a closed Border's, the company that had bough Waldenbooks and it made me think of my now mostly underused Border's Rewards Card in my wallet, and all the cards that came before it.  But the first one, the one I was "proud" of, was my Waldenbooks "Otherwords" card.

For me being part of the Otherworlds Club back then was part and parcel of the D&D experience for me.  Back then my FLGS ("favorite local game store" for those new here) was Waldenbooks in White Oaks mall in nearby Springfield Il. This card (which my dad laminated for me) allowed me to get 10% off an Sci-Fi/Fantasty and D&D book I bought! Given the taxes at the time that pretty much meant I was paying just under the price on the cover.  Sure, not a great deal, but when you are 12 and the money for D&D books comes from your paper route then that is awesome.

The Otherworlds Club had a little newsletter call Xingals that I used to enjoy the heck out off.  I would have upcoming releases and I'd always be thrilled to see the latest D&D book on the back.

Sadly, the Otherworlds club is no more.  It was replaced by successive book clubs at Waldens till Waldenbooks itself was replaced by Borders.

It has been said that the Golden Age of Sci-Fi/Fantasy is 12-14.  Well for me that was 1982 to 1984 and the Otherworlds Club was my ticket.

Today I have frequent buy cards at two different game stores, discount cards for Borders and Barnes and Nobles and of course my RPGA card. But the Otherworlds card was the only one I ever laminated and carried with me all the time.

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.

N is for Netbook

Say "Netbook" and today it invokes an image of a cheap micro-laptop with no optical drive and WiFi. Great little invention really. Get them under 100 bucks a pop and the world of education will be changed.

But that is not what I am talking about today.

Once upon a time Netbook meant a collection of various game related material, often originally posted to places like the AD&D LISTSERV or rec.games.frp.dnd on the Usenet.

It is hard to imagine it in today's post OGL and Creative Commons world, but there was a time when putting together a collection of D&D rules and putting them out there for others was a renegade idea.  TSR back in the day came down hard on any posting anything D&D related, despite the fact that D&D material had pretty much been on the internet since the earliest days.  Eventually TSR backed down (a little) and opened up areas for people to share original creations, via FTP sites like MPGN.

As Usenet, Listserves and ftp sites gave way to the World Wide Web, TSR gave way to Wizards of the Coast. Say whatever you want about WotC, they handled the entire internet issue and netbooks much, much better than TSR ever did.

The mid to late 90s was the Golden Age of Netbooks.  The web was growing and people wanted more material to fill their gaming needs.  Sites like Blue Troll, Planet AD&D and Olik's Netbook Archive grew to meet the need of people wanting to get more material.  These sites are still up (and PADND is still active) so you can download some of these forgotten treasures.

Sites like the Kargatane also grew out of a need for more support for a particular setting, in this case Ravenloft, and they began to produce netbooks that rivaled the quality of TSR/WotC.   Other sites like the Vaults of Pandius for Mystara are not only still active, but still producing material all the time.

The OGL in 2000 changed all of that.  Now you didn't need to post thinly veiled allusions to D&D rules, you could use the OGL and the d20 STL and post a "Compatible" product as long as you followed the rules.  There were still some netbooks produced under the OGL, the FANCC produced a large number of netbooks back in 2000 - 2001.  But all in all the Netbook fad shifted.

Now instead of a Netbook you can make a real book. With the OGL you had new rules that you could use and reuse as you needed.  With places like Lulu and DriveThruRPG you could put your creation up for sale even.

The entire OSR community is the spiritual decedent of  not only the Indie RPG movement, but the Netbook one too.

My Witch Netbooks
Of course I have to mention my Witch netbooks.  The first one is something I had started back in the late 80s and expanded on it through out college. It was originally for AD&D 1st Edition, but I shifted it over to AD&D 2nd Ed back around 89-90.  I remember printing my first copy of what I was calling my "Witch Book" back in '92 on a HP Desk Jet 500.  I expanded it more, read more netbooks online and finally on Halloween 1999 I Was going to release it.  I did.  Almost.  My son Liam was born 3 days before that!  I did get it out onto the web, but I followed it up with a second version on Dec. 22.

You can get a copy of "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks" from Google Docs. Let me know if there is a problem with the link.

A year later we got D&D 3.  I was given the play test files in Feb of 2000 and I picked up my copy of the new Players Handbook on Sept 11, 2000 (I have the receipt still).  I Had begun on my changes to d20 over the summer and with the new game realized I needed to redo the class from the ground up.  I joined the "D&D Community Council" later renamed to the "Fantasy Community Council" so I could get some input/advice on how to best re-do my witch.

I got a lot of help and in 2003 we published "Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks".  You can also get that from Google Docs.

The two books have some material in common, but they are different takes on the same basic archetype.  For example in CNoWW witches are divine spell casters more similar to clerics and in Liber they are arcane ones.  Warlocks, such as they are, are also very different from each other.

Netbooks as a movement may be dead, but their spirit remains strong.