Doctor Who: Night of the Doctor

In case you have been sleeping this came out today.


I think it is great that Paul McGann is getting his due screen-time.  And long time readers here know of my enjoyment of the Sisterhood of Karn.

Cubicle 7 also plans to release a hardcover of their Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space.
http://www.cubicle7.co.uk/doctor-who-aitas-limited-edition-anniversary-edition-cover/

I think I am going to celebrate a little and run some Doctor Who this weekend instead of the AD&D 1st ed game we planned.  Though I think I might run Ghost Tower of Inverness, IL.
Should be great.

Running the Classics

I don't consider myself to be one of those GMs/Players with "Gammer ADHD".  I like to make a plan and stick with it.  My BIG PLAN for some time now has been to run my kids through all the classic D&D modules in some form or another.

I have detailed my attempts here and here. Since that time we have gotten new reprints from WotC and the DNDClassics PDF store opened up.  My kids also dropped 4e in favor of 1st Ed Ad&D.

So I have an embarrassment of riches here.  I have the systems, I have the modules and I even have the willing players.  What I lack is time to do it all.

I guess the only thing for it is to make the time. That and stop buying games.

In my kid's 3.x game we are going to do the Tomb of Horror and I'll talk about that one later.
In their 1st ed game they are still investigating the Caves of Chaos.  After that that we are doing T1 and L1 before moving on to the A series, to eventually do the GDQ series.  I'll work other classics in there where they fit.

Here is my plan so far.

• B1 In Search of the Unknown, levels 1-3 (played at Gen Con 2012)
• B2 Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3
• T1 Village of Hommlet, Intro-levels
• L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
• A0 to A4, levels 4-7
• A5, The Last Slave Lord, levels 5-9
• G123, levels 8-12
• D12, levels 9-14
• D3, levels 10-14
• Q1, levels 10-14

The trouble is that living in a post-Drow world the impact of GDQ is just not the same unless I make them very different.
Also while Queen of the Demon web pits is fun, it lacks the final confrontation that I would like to do with a "big bad".  Plus I'd like to go to 20th level.

I could scale everything up a little and stick I1, Dwellers of the Forbidden City in there before the A series.
Other candidates are X2 (I already took them through X1), C1 and C2.

That would round out the classics really.  Here is how they stack;

• X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (after L1)
• I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City, levels 4-7 (after A but before G)
• C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, levels 5-7 (after A but before G)
• C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness, levels 5-7 (after A but before G)

Not to bad really.
It's not too difficult to turn the GDQ series up anyway, but are the drow and Lolth interesting enough?
Since this is the "NextGen" game after my 3.x one maybe Lolth is taking some revenge for her ally Tiamat, or moving into the recently vacated "most evil goddess" role.

While I don't need it a huge Lolth figure would be nice.

My Kids are Awesome!

With the new reprints of 1st Ed AD&D now out my kids want our next game to be a 1st Edition one!

How freaking cool is that?

We have done just about everything we have set out to do in 3rd Ed and our 4th Ed game is still moving right along.

So what should we do then for 1st Ed?
I know I am going to throw in some house rules.

• 1st level HP will be equal to Con scores for all characters and NPCs include 0-level humans.
• I will be using bards, I am just not sure which one yet.
• Double damage on a natural 20.
• Will use strict multi-class and dual-class rules.
• If it is written down somewhere and it works with AD&D1, 2 or Basic D&D then it will be considered for this game.

I know I am going to use ideas from ALL the retro-clones where appropriate.  So it will be less of a 1st Ed game in rules, but certainly one in terms of tone and spirit.

Here are the adventures I want to use.  Again, I like sticking with these old school modules.

T1 Village of Hommlet, levels 1-2 (IF I don't use it in the D&D4 game)
B1 Into the Unknown, levels 1-3 (my go to starting module)
B2 Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3 (how can I NOT do this?)

L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (love this freaky module, though it sticks out as the only Non-Greyhawk one)
A1-4 Slave Lords, levels 4-7
C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness, levels 5-7
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, levels 8-12
G123, Against the Giants, levels 8-12 (I also have the Stone Giant one from Dragonsfoot)
D12,3 Against the Drow, levels 8,9-14
Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, 10-14
S1 Tomb of Horrors, levels 10-14 (IF I don't use it in the D&D4 game, it is an AD&D classic)
CM2 Death's Ride, levels 15-20. (Again, unless I use it in my current 3.x game which the boys want me to do)

AND if their 4.e group does not get to the end, then I could use the Bloodstone H series too.  But that is getting WAY ahead of myself.

If you look over my previous plans here and here, you see I am sticking with the modules. 
I am running the HPE Orcus ones for 4e, and used many of the other classics in my 3.x games.

So far the boys have gone through B3, B4, S2, S4, WG4, I1, and X1 for 3.x (and a bunch I made up when they were younger like "Cave of the Rainbow Dragon" and "The Stinky Cave"), and H1 Keep on the Shadowfell for 4e.  So they are getting, as my youngest put it this morning, a full Dungeons & Dragons education.

Again.  This is going to be a lot of fun!  I am not expecting this one to start anytime soon, I still have a 3.x game to finish with them. 

Primeval RPG

Primeval is the latest game from the fine folks at Cubicle 7, the same that gave us the excellent Doctor Who RPG.


There is an absolute ton to like about this game.  First, things first, yes. It is the same system as C7's fantastic Doctor Who game.  That end and of itself is enough to merit it a good review.  The system is simple and gets out of the way to allow you to just play the game they way you like.  Secondly let's talk about the art and layout.  Plenty of stills from the series, but the layout is still top notch and the text is easy to read.

So what is Primeval? Well if you have not watched the series in England (or on BBC America here State-side) then you are missing out on some fun.  Basic premise: Anomalies in Time are opening up allowing all sorts of creatures from the past and the future to walk through, whether it is a Dodo or gigangantic Giga-Rex. The team at the Anomaly Research Center have to deal with it.  Which means of course now YOU have to deal with it.  Of course maybe your cast is not with the ARC, instead you could be independent.  Frankly I can't wait to run a game with an investigate news team seeking out anomalies to get them on the news or net.

Like many games, you have basic Attributes.  In this case six of them that are ranked 1 to 6.  These are all point buys, so choose wisely. You also have skills, whit general skills and areas of expertise.  You could be great with Technology, but your specialty is Computer Hacking or Surveillance Systems.  These are also ranked 1 to 6.

The basic rule is Attribute + Skill + 2d6 vs. some Target number.   Simple as it can get really.

You also have various Good and Bad traits that can be bought.  Sometimes these add to your roll, but could subtract from others. These help define who you are.

You character is then topped off with Story Points, which can be used in play.

After all the character creation rules we get a nice bit on Group Creation where you can also buy some Group Traits.

This is followed by the official cast stats including the human adversaries.  We also get some tips on playing ARC-related games.  This is followed by something completely different and we given tips on how to play a "Dinosaur Hunter" style game.  So two campaign models for the price of one.

We get into the basic rules section, including combat and chases.   You spend a lot of time running away from things in Primeval.  There is a nice overview of gadgets and equipment.

Next up descriptions of the various epochs of time.
And the Monsters.  The Monsters of course are the real treat of this book.  Plenty of examples are given and advice on how to create your own beastie from the past, or future.

A Gamemastering section is included on how to run the games. Followed by chapters on Adventures and Conspiracies.

A look into the Future is up next.  Primeval tends to focus mostly on Dinos, I think because Dinosaurs are cool.  But the creatures from the future are also very interesting.

Primeval is a fantastic game that should give a creative GM many, many sessions of adventure.  While there is certain emphasis on dinos coming in from the anomalies, there is no reason to limit it to that.  What about Neanderthals? or worse a victim of the Black Plague wanders into modern London?  The possibilities are endless really.

Now of course I have to mention that the game is compatible with Doctor Who.  It opens up an exponentially growing amount of stories when the two games are combined.  The game becomes worth it for the dinos alone for Doctor Who, or the creatures in Who for Primeval.  Honestly there is no way to go wrong here.

Interestingly enough my original playtest for Doctor Who was called "The Ghost Tower of Inverness, Illinois".  The premise was that there was a Time Beacon in Inverness, IL (which is next door to my town) that malfunctioned and pulled in characters from all over time.  They had to get into the Tower (which looked like a Light House) and fix it.
That playtest would have worked just as well for Primeval.  In fact I might even run it again one day.

If you are a fan of the Doctor Who then get this.

Quintessential D&D (Half-baked ideas), Part 2

So building off of my "Half-Baked Adventure" and my sorta-update here is a plan.

Here is what I have at the moment.

Basic:  B1 In Search of the Unknown
AD&D 1^st Ed: C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness
AD&D 2^nd Ed: RM4 House of Strahd. Total cheat I know, but I'd run it as if it were in Ravenloft.
D&D 3^rd Ed: Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk
D&D 4^th Ed: The updated Tomb of Horrors

So some remakes and updates.  But all with classic roots.
Now to buy a copy of Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk.

Quintessential D&D (Half-baked ideas)

So building off of my "Half-Baked Adventure" a couple of days of ago I have decided that I want to choose good dungeon crawl 1-shots from each system.

So here is what I have at the moment.

Basic:
AD&D 1^st Ed:
AD&D 2^nd Ed:
AD&D 3^rd Ed:
D&D 4^th Ed:

Not much.
Basic might be the easiest.  B1 In Search of the Unknown is my go to adventure of choice and totally sandbox.  I can fit it to anything really. Plus it is simple enough to get through in a session or two.
AD&D 1 I am aiming at 4-7 level ranges, so that is not so bad either.  Ghost Tower of Inverness might be good.
AD&D 2 would be above "name level", so above 10th level to 14th or so.  Something from the Forgotten Realms might be good.
D&D3 would need to be above that but not yet 20th.  The 3.5 update to Tomb of Horrors fits here.
D&D4 would be above 20th level. The 4e update to Tomb would also work here.

Using the updates might sound cheesy, but I want it to be an epic adventure and I want it to tour the history of the game.

Still planning!

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.

Recycled Adventures

So it is well known that I love the old D&D adventures from the early 80's.  I think they are well done and a lot of fun to play.  I have been playing them with my kids but I have not been able to fit in all the ones I have wanted into our 3.x game.

But I have lots of games.

So here are some of the recycled adventures I have done using other systems and the classic adventures.

Ash vs The Keep on the Borderlands
System: Army of Darkness and Dungeons & Zombies
Module: B2 Keep on the Borderlands

The character get sent back in time to the Keep and need to clean out the Caves of Chaos with a shotgun.

I designed this as a way to play-test Dungeons & Zombies under the Cinematic Unisystem Rules.

Never got to play it all, but the bits I did were a blast.  Characters I created for the game were Xena and Gabrielle (seemed appropriate) and used a version of Indiana Jones I found online.

One day I should run this at a convention.  I think it will be a blast.

The Ghost Tower of Inverness, Illinois
Systems: Doctor Who and Angel.
Module: C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness

From the intro:
"No one has ever asked why there is a lighthouse between Palatine and Inverness, Illinois.  The closest large body of water is Lake Michigan, over 20 miles away. But it has always been there, quiet.

Till the day the Time Beacon went crazy."

The Ghost Tower of Inverness, IL was an adventure that I had converted for my playtest of Doctor Who.  Outside my town there is a water tower that is painted like a light house.  I thought it would be cool if it were a real lighthouse, but not for ships at sea, but ships in the time stream.  On top was a beacon to warn passer-bys "warning, primitive culture ahead!" Well one day the time beacon goes nuts and start pulling in people from out of their times (an excuse to convert a bunch of Unisystem characters from Ghosts and Angel).  The characters have to go through the tower and shut down the beacon.  Each level of the tower is a different time stream, so I had dinos, Victorian, post-apocalyptic and all sorts of terrible things.  At the top was the control center and the time beacon.  So I converted the original Ghost Tower module and replace the Soul Gem with the Time Beacon.  Part Doctor Who, part Angel, part Ghosts of Albion, part D&D and a dash of Primeval and Torchwood.  It was going to be the first adventure in a new campaign, but I never got it going.  Too bad, really.

Why does Inverness need a light house?

Ghosts of Albion: Ravenloft
System: Ghosts of Albion
Module: I6 Ravenloft

Ravenloft might be my favorite classic module ever.  Ghosts of Albion is of course my game.  It was natural to me to bring them together.  Ravenloft has that great Gothic feel.  Ghosts of Albion deals with all sorts of magical weirdness, and while it is hard for us today to really understand this, to the Victorians the world was a wild and scary unknown.  Unknown lands were meant to be explored and conquered.  What can be more unknown than Barovia?  Who is to say it is not on the map somewhere in 1840?  Plus you might have noticed that  Ghosts of Albion movies and books all have one word titles, "Legacy", "Astray", "Witchery" and my adventures have followed suit, "Obsession", "Blight", and "Synchronicity".  So "Ghosts of Albion: Ravenloft" also works.
The idea is simple.  The characters are travelling by rail to the east.  Their train suffers some malfunction, and I start the Ravenloft adventure by the book.  I include the mists and Madame Eva and everything.  And that map of Castle Ravenloft is still one of the coolest maps ever made.  One day I'll build a 1" = 5' miniature of it for play.  That would be very awesome.
For this I have bits I am using from the Ravenloft world, WitchCraft RPG and the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft module for 3.x.

I still have more games and more adventures.  I'd like to try some other pairing in the future.

I Have a Plan…

It's not a great plan, or even a well thought out one, but it is a plan. I am going to be taking my two sons (and now it seems, my wife) on a massive 4^th Edition D&D campaign. Yes I know this will take years, but that is fine, I have those years. I am going to place it in my "Mystoerth" world.

Given my penchant for all things horror, I am going to set up the campaign to focus on the ascent of Orcus to godhood. Orcus is a great enemy to have. He is unrepentant evil, his minions are undead and he is full of rage, horror and violence and everything a good upstanding hero would want to stop.

I'd use some of the "new" mythology of Orcus and Raven Queen, plus a bit of my own. But not all would be railroaded plot-driven arcs. My oldest son loves to fight dragons so that would also be there. Plus I want to make this very, very relaxed. The unfolding meta-plot is my extra enjoyment, but I want to do it in such a way that we all have fun.

I am going to place it in my world's version of Glantri. Glantri is from Mystara and in that world was a Principality, now I have at as Theocratic Monarchy where the King is also the head of the Church of State. So basically, Fairy Tale England, or more to the point Fairy Tale Western Europe, since I also have influences of France and Italy here. The Princes are gone, defeated in a coup, but their lands remain ruled by nine dukes under the King. The Dukes are mostly the old family of the Princes, looking for a chance to reclaim power. So I have political intrigue if I want it, but I am going to be keeping my good and evil mostly easy to spot, at least in the beginning. The Dukes allow me to use older Glantri material, I just swap out the terms. Under the Dukes are various landed nobles, typically retired adventures, known as Barons and Counts. My thinking here is to give my boys all the full D&D experiences; so there are knights and dames, courts of intrigue and chivalry, and the way for brave adventurers to return home as heroes. Sure it is not "grim-dark" or even "points of light", but it can be part of the "oncoming darkness".

My world has a Blackmoor, a Desert, a Hyborea, not mention Greyhawk, Glantri and Kara-Tur all in one world. So, more than enough to keep me and my family busy for years to come really. Though there are only four of us, I might have to bring in some others, maybe some of their friends as well. This is one of the main reasons I am going with 4^th Edition as opposed to say an older version (the D&D Rules Cyclopedia would be so awesome for this) or another game (like Ghosts of Albion). I am more likely to find others that play 4E than some other game AND it just makes the most sense really given all the tools for 4E out now.

Here is the "Hero Tier" to borrow a phrase. These will be local and be the Mystara flavor of the epic.

• T1 The Village of Hommlet, levels 1-2. I do have the 4^th Edition update for this.
• B1 In Search of the Unknown, levels 1-3 (can run this one in my sleep)
• B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3
• B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, levels 1-3 (using bits from both the "Green" and "Orange" versions).
• L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
• X1 The Ilse of Dread, levels 3-7
• X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (place it in the Shadowfell, which is the new Ravenloft anyway)
• C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness, levels 5-7. Though I won't run it as a tournament module and that is if I don't use it as a converted Doctor Who adventure.
• I6 Ravenloft, levels 5-7. That is if I don't use it as a convert Ghosts of Albion adventure. Use some of the Ravenloft campaign/world setting stuff here too.
• S2 White Plume Mountain, levels 5-10
• I10 Ravenloft II, House on Gryphon Hill, levels 8-10 (maybe. They might be burned out on undead by this time.)

Now begins the "Paragon Tier" and I will start with the Gygaxian canon.

• S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (with some of the info from the 3.5 update), levels 6-10
• WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, levels 5-10
• S1 Tomb of Horrors, levels 10-14 (though some of the instant kill traps changed, more skill challenges)
• S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, levels 8-12
• G123, Against the Giants, levels 8-12
• D12 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, levels 9-14
• D3 Vault of the Drow, levels 10-14
• Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, levels 10-14
• CM2 Death's Ride, levels 15-20. This sets up the next tier, or I could even make this the start of the next tier and keep the Epic levels nothing but Gygaxian Greyhawk. I like that idea.

I can also fit Gary's "Dungeon Land" and "The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror" adventures here as well to complete the Gygaxian saga. But I need to re-read those to be sure.

Now here would also be a good spot for the DA series Blackmoor adventures for made for the Expert D&D set, but there is a lot of high tech stuff mixed in with those. I might pick and choose things, but I think I am more likely to go with the newer d20 Blackmoor stuff.

The "Epic Tier" is harder, but here some ideas.
Some of the Master level modules (M2, M3 and M5 in particular) look like they would work well. Plus they have the Mystara high fantasy feel that some of the Greyhawk modules don't have.
Of course I would do the Bloodstone series here, just make them harder, maybe even pair them up with the Orcus related adventures for 4e (the new "E" series), though old H4 and new E3 cover a lot of the same ground. I would want to add some other planes adventures here too. So to follow my rule of thumb I should try to find at least 6 more adventures for this tier.

• H1 Bloodstone Pass, levels 15+
• H2 The Mines of Bloodstone, levels 16-18
• H3 The Bloodstone Wars, levels 17-20
• H4 The Throne of Bloodstone, levels 18-100

I could also do a sub-campaign in my desert area using:

• B4 The Lost City, levels 1-3 (though I am using this one now in 3.5)
• I3 Pharaoh, levels 5-7
• I4 Oasis of the White Palm, levels 6-8
• I5 Lost Tomb of Martek, levels 7-9
• X4 Master of the Desert Nomads, levels 6-9
• X5 Temple of Death, levels 6-10
• I9 Day of Al'Akbar, level 8-10. Useful for the Cup and Talisman of Al'Akbar.

Now granted these levels are all for AD&D and Basic D&D and might not translate well into 4E. But I have a lot of tools at my disposal to help with that. I have a load of maps, a DDI subscription, monsters and even some third party stuff to make it all work. If I plan everything out correctly I can have them go up a level at the end of every adventure. I like that too. Also I can set up a titanic army of the undead using all the previous "bosses" from these adventures. So Strahd, Drenzula, Korbundar, Acerak, and more I know I am forgetting. Plus some GM PCs I'd love to try out that I know I'll never get to play in a 4^th Ed game.

To borrow a Klingon quote, "It will be glorious!"