Tuesday, April 18, 2017

BECMI/4e Conversion, Ghost Tower of the Witchlight Fens

Last week I talked about RPGs and Sunk Costs.  This lead to a discussion of me converting my 4e collection into something else.  As is my wont, I opted for the most difficult conversion I could do and still be D&D; converting 4e to BECMI.

Since this is a test run I want something simple and something that others can look over to see what they think.  So for this trial, I am converting the free low-level adventure Ghost Tower of the Witchlight Fens. I am also using the D&D Rules Cyclopedia for ease of conversion here.



Ghost Tower of the Witchlight Fens is the 2nd adventure for a single player coming off of the D&D 4e Starter set.  The one that looks like the BECMI Basic Set.  Given this the character you are playing should be about 2nd level.   Now when I run this for real I am going to likely use it with a party and scale up the encounters.  But for now I want to see what a quick conversion looks like.
I am taking a lot of cues from the Classic Modules Today folks and just providing the monster conversions. I am not attempting to balance anything at this point.

Special Note: IF (and that is a big IF) I do these conversions I am going to all use the "Prince of Undeath" conversions for the HPE modules that were done by Myrhdraak a few years back.  This conversion makes it more of an Adventure Path style campaign that we now see from Paizo and WotC.  Plus it makes the Orcus plot more interesting.
Details are here:


Ghost Tower of the Witchlight Fens Conversion

Skill checks: Use the appropriate ability score. Perception is normally Wisdom, but use Intelligence where applicable.
Skill Challenges: Use as skill checks, but only provide XP if properly role-played.

Poison Dart and Poison Gas traps are Save vs. Poison or die.
Psychic Staircase trap is Save vs. Paralysis or take 5 hp of damage.

Sareth is a 1st level Elf with 7hp and 1 first level spell: Shield

Kobold Quickblade is a kobold chieftain (RC p. 187) with 9 hp (10 xp)  [100 xp]
Kobold Tunnelers (4) are normal kobolds  (RC p. 187) with 1 hp (5 xp each) [25 xp each]

Decrepit Skeletons (2) are normal skeletons (RC p. 204) with 1 hp (5 xp each) [25 xp each]
Grasping Zombie is a normal zombie (RC p. 213) with 13 hp (20 xp) [100 xp]

Skeletal Blackguard is a skeleton with 2HD (RC p. 204, 214-215) with 18 hp (25 xp) [250 xp]
Tomb Rats (5) are giant rats (RC p. 201) with 1 hp each (5 xp) [25 xp]

XP values in parentheses () are for BECMI D&D.  For comparison the D&D4 XP values are in brackets [].

In 4e a player would get a total of 725 XP from combat.  In BECMI/RC this becomes 110 xp.
So progression will be slower for RC.

I could follow this up with  The Dungeon of the Ghost Tower the next adventure.

Also, I can tell already that the combats for the BECMI version is going to be a hell of a lot faster.  This might not be such an insane idea after all.

Monday, April 17, 2017

Witch & Witchcraft Reading Challenge: Silverglass

"It takes a witch to enter Yth and return, so be thankful you have a witch with you!" Nyctasia said defiantly.

Silverglass by J.F. Rivkin

Silvergalss was always "one of those books".  One of those books I had meant to read, or always saw and was curious about, or picked up a couple of time but never bought.  A chance encounter at my local library book sale though changed that.  For a mere 50 cents (well a $1.00, book 3 was there too) I was able to grab this book.  I knew it was fantasy and I knew it had busty blonde warrior-woamn on the cover (complete with 80s hair), but that was about it.

I had some down time so thought I'd read this and knock a few out of my TBR pile.  Turns out there is a more (and less) here than I thought.

Silverglass is less about our cover girl here (no shock) and more about the dark haired woman behind her.  Though it is about both women and their adventures.   The blonde, Corson brenn Torisk, is a hard drink, hard fighting mercenary for hire who is in Rhostshyl only long enough to spend some money before headed home to see her lover; a respectable bar owner in the next town.  It is for this reason that she is hired by Lady Nyctasia r'n Edonaris.  Who, up till very recently, was a respected member of one of the richest families in the country. She is also on the run from the family of the man she was supposed to marry (and now wants her dead) and her own family (who also wants her dead).  Nyctassia is also a powerful witch.  Corson has no patience for the idly rich or magic, AND she was just hired by both families to kill Nyctassia.   Nyc offers to pay her more as a bodyguard.
Both women are thrown together to get out of town before they are killed. Their destinations? Both are running to men they love who have more "respectable" lifestyles.  Corson's Steifann owns a bar and wants Corson to settle down.  Nyctiasia is returning to Erystalben who wants her to live with him to study magic. At least that is the plan.  Things change on the road.  Given that this is book one of four you can bet there is not a lot of settling down.

A few things jump out at you in this book.  Corson is a swordswoman, a good one at that. We learn she was in the army before this and was convinced by a former officer to take up the life of a mercenary.  Yet at no time in the book does anyone ever call attention to the fact that it is a woman doing this.  It is just a matter of fact.  Not a big deal today to be sure, but in 1986 when this came out? Crazy I am sure.  I am glad I read this now, but I wonder what it could have been like in 86 to have read this.

I am also very much fascinated by Lady Nyctasia.  She has secrets on top of secrets, and like I said, despite the cover she is the focus of the book.  This becomes obvious on the later covers.

Don't read this series looking for deep insights or an epic tale. The first book is about two women trying to get back to their respective loves and not get killed in the process.  It is a fun little romp through a low-magic world with lots of threats, spooky forests, dive bars, gritty pirates,  and a ton of people trying to kill our heroes for the slimmest of reasons.  I enjoyed both characters and looking forward to reading more.

The "author", J.F. Rivkin, is actually two different people. One wrote the first two books and the other wrote the last two.  I am not sure who J.F. Rivkin is and I have not found out any information about a real identity either.

The book is out of print and there are no digital or audio versions I have found.  They pop up every so often at Half-Price books.

2017 Witches & Witchcraft Reading Challenge
2017 Witch & Witchcraft Reading Challenge
Books Read so far: 11
Level: Mother
Witches in this book: One really.  Nytasia, though I suppose that Erystalben could also be considered one.
Are they Good Witches or Bad Witches: Nyctasia tries to be good, so that has to count for something.
Best RPG to Emulate it: Honestly, a LOT of RPGs work here. I did a quick and dirty write up for Corson and Nyc for D&D 5, Swords & Wizardry, and Blue Rose.  Just because.  I am thinking I will try them out in the new AGE-powered Blue Rose in a bit.
Use in WotWQ: Nyc will certainly make a guest appearance at some point.


Friday, April 14, 2017

Kickstart Your Weekend: Forest Kingdom Campaign Compendium

The quickest way to make me interested in something is to tell it is dual stated*.  Such is the case here for Legendary Games' newest Kickstarter.

(*ok, two different books one 5e and the other Pathfinder, but still)

Forest Kingdom Campaign Compendium for Pathfinder and 5E
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/legendarygames/forest-kingdom-campaign-compendium-for-pathfinder


There is something about old forests that scream "adventure" to me.  Hiden fey realms, goblin cities, and creatures that never leave so never seen by the likes of you and me.

Plus there is so much cool stuff in this compendium.
The add-ons make it even better.  Add on their Gothic Campaign Compendium? Hell yes!

There is so much great looking art and material in this I am not sure where to even start.
Just check it out for yourself and then pledge.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

This Old Dragon: Issue #175

This might be the "newest" Dragon I have in my big box of old mildewy dragons.  It's also in the worst shape, to be honest.  Well, let's see what we can get from this. The date is November 1991, I am in my first year of grad school and this is Dragon issue 175.

I don't recall actually reading this issue before this. The cover is Spelljammer-ish and I wasn't into that world.  I was always much more of a Ravenloft guy.

Right out of the gate we get a nice big ad for Waldenbooks. Wow, that brings back memories. There is an 800 number here that I am dying to call. Stupid I know.
The first three ads, including the Waldenbooks one, all feature TSR products, no surprise really.

For those that like to keep track, James M. Ward is the Publisher and Editor is Roger E. Moore.

The letters section has an interesting one this time.  A letter describes a new channel coming to cable, the SciFi channel. And it's going to be 24 hours a day!

The feature of this issue deals with Campaigns.
Of particular interest to me are two articles, The Perils of Prehistory and Creative Campaigns: A New Recipe. These two together would help me figure out my Doggerland game someday.

The Marvel-Phile has a couple of heroes I honestly have never heard of. Not that this a big deal really, I had moved back to DC by this point.

TSR Previews covers some new items coming out soon, first up is the new D&D Rules Cyclopedia.  There are more of course, but this one sticks out.

Part 22 of +Bruce Heard's Voyage of the Princess Ark. One day I am going to need to collect all of these and read them in the proper order.  I missed so many back in the day so I really don't have a full idea of what it's all about.  I appreciate the Arsenic and Old Lace reference in this one.  One of the first plays I was ever involved in back in High School.

The Role of Computers is much larger than I recall it being in other issues. Lots of games covered too. Let me think. About this time I had worked on a grant and was able to buy a 286 PC-Clone with an EGA card and 2 megs of RAM, I was so cool. Granted the 386 was already out, but hey, I was still buying it for "work".  Though I have to admit I don't remember any of these games.

The is is listing of the 1990 Origins awards winners, as expected TSR and AD&D grab most of the awards.  Creatively TSR is doing great even if we now know that financially they are in a dire situation.

Like the cover, Sage Advice is Spelljammer focused.  Typically when this is the case the special "feature" of the issue is also likewise focused, but not this case.  Maybe they didn't have enough Spelljammer material?

Ah. Here we go.
Reviewer Allen Varney gives us a brief glimpse into what the 90s is going to look like. Role-playing Reviews covers two new games.  First up is +Lester Smith's Dark Conspiracy RPG.  Kudos to Smith for predicting the economic crashes of the early 21st Century. Sadly it didn't lead to cyborgs and monsters in the streets, just idiots. Dark Conspiracy is not the first modern monster hunting game, but it does help pave a road built by Call of Cthulhu and Chill.  I remember picking this game up in the late 90s when I was on a hard core horror RPG kick, looking for something new.  While I never played this game there is a lot here I really enjoyed.
Next up is the game that defined the 90s. Vampire the Masquerade.
I remember having a conversation with a Vampire player back in the early 90s. Right around this time in fact. He told me then that Vampire was going to destroy D&D.  I told him that other games have said that before, but I was thinking he was out of his mind.  Well...Vampire did do a lot of damage to D&D in the 90s and it did change the face of gaming forever.  Old-school gamers like myself try to dismiss V:TM.  But really people that deny the impact on V:TM do so out of ignorance, jealousy or spite. The review here sets that stage; something big is coming here.
The way the Allen Varney reviews this it is as if Mark Rein-Hagen had taken all of then sacred cows of RPGs and slaughtered them. No equipment lists, weapons only take up a 1/4 of a page, only four pages dedicated to combat! Even skills got a brief overview, but the things that describe who your vampire is? Pages and pages.
My take away from reading this review nearly 26 years later is that Varney doesn't know exactly what to make of the game save that he know he has something very new and very good in his hands. He even takes a moment to discuss the cover which was so different than any game out at the time.
We did not know it then. But this article was a glimpse into the future.  In 10 years time TSR will be gone, White Wolf will be one of the biggest names in gaming and we waiting in eager anticipation as White Wolf's own Sword and Sorcery Studios puts out a Ravenloft book.
Note: A star rating system guide is given, but the games are not actually rated.  Varney has high praise for both games, but not a quantitative rating.

Rhyme & Reason is almost a jarring jolt after reading the reviews. It is something more out the Dragons of the 80s than the 90s. Using riddles in your game.  No offense to author Scot Roach, but I was tired of riddles by that point.  Though it did give me an idea. Instead of having to face the Riddle of the Sphinx I am going to have my players face "The Ridicule of the Sphinx"!
Author Mark Anthony follows this up with another article about riddles.

Ads for Dungeon and for Rifts.

Dragonsmirth has some comic artists I have not seen before. None of the "classics" are here.  Thre is Yamara and the Twilight Empire.  I never read all of the Twilight Empire. I might need to do some research and find where it started and ended.   Anyone have any light to shed on it?

Another ad for Rifts.

In the ads section, I notice that TSR was still running a play by mail game, Conquest of the 25th Century.  I am pretty sure I had an email account at my university at that time (quick check, yes I did) so I suspect that PBM was very soon going to be a thing of the past.
Interestingly, on the next page is an ad for Play by Modem! There is a phone number and you can connect at 300 or 1200 baud! I had a 300 baud modem on my first two computers and I believe by this time the machine I was using had a 2400 baud one. If those words have no meaning for you ask a greybeard. ;)

Again, no cover on this one means no back cover either. I pulled out the old Dragon Magazine CD-ROM archive as saw there is an awesome ad for the Rules Cyclopedia.

At 124 pages this issue feels smaller for some reason.  Maybe it was because the articles didn't grab me or maybe because I was winding down nearly 12 years of gaming at this point and was focused on grad school that the magazine did not resonate with me as much.

Do you have memories of this one?

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

RPGS and the Sunk Costs

Often you will hear people exclaim that they don't need to buy any more/new RPGs because they have more than they will ever play in their lifetime OR they have found the only one they ever need.
I can certainly appreciate both of these claims.  I DO have more than I'll ever play AND I have the game (or really 3 games) I could play forever and never need a new one.

Yet.  I still buy games.

I am fortunate really. I can make my hobby pay for itself. I can buy the books I want, when I want.
Thankfully my needs are also small and specific, so I also tend to write the material I want more out need of the material than out of a cost saving feature.
Sometimes though I buy something and I never use it, or, I never use as I wanted to use it.

Take for example D&D 4e.


I have a lot of 4e books.  Many I bought REALLY cheap, but some I got new. In any case it represents a sunk cost for me. Even if I unload them all at my FLGS auction, I am not likely to make anything at all back from it.

I'd love to do something with it someday, but am I playing into a Sunk Cost Fallacy?
That is I'll never make my money (time, resources) back by put more money/time/resources int it.

I would love to the run the HPE adventures that are centered around Orcus and the Raven Queen.  I have read through them many times and started them and think it would be fun.

There are three scenarios I am considering.

1. Run them under 5e.  This one is more of a thought experiment for me really.  I'd try to run it as a 4e/5e hybrid to scale 4e's 30 levels down too 5e's 20.   I like this idea since it would make for an interesting experiment and test my knowledge on both systems.  Converting 4e to 5e is easier than say converting 4e to something else.

2. Convert 4e to Something else.  I am honestly thinking of doing this under BECMI. Using the honest to goodness Red Boxes and everything.  This idea appeals to me on a lot of levels. BECMI's 1-36 levels map nicely onto 4e's 1-30.  Both end in characters being immortals.  Naturally this is the hardest to do and appeals to me the most, though I have done it before.  The level differences and system differences would allow me to start H1 Keep on the Shadowfell at BECMI level 4 or 5 and give me 1-3 for other adventures.  Maybe even the Aleena adventure in the Red Box and the Witchlight Fens adventure in the...Red Box.


The more I think about this the more I like it really.   I would need to decided on Class and Race (like AD&D) or Race as Class (as BECMI).  In truth it would not be difficult.  The 4e races all have a class they seem to prefer.  Dragonborn would all be Paladins, Tieflings all are Warlocks, Half-Orcs are all Barbarians and so on.  Plus there is a lot I still like about BECMI that I want to do.
This is something I think needs delving into further.

3. Run the adventures under 4e.  The simplest solution, naturally, has no appeal to me.

Am I sinking more resources into a fruitless endeavor?  Should I cut my losses and run?

No idea yet.  But I think I can invest a *little* more resources with out (too much) loss.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

The Video Game Question

So. I had a posting for today (and yesterday) but I have opted to delete it.

Instead, I want to talk about something else.

My son bought himself a gaming computer a while back and recently upgraded the video card.
I got the old video card and suddenly I have a whole new world of video games open to me.

I have played a little Skyrim and DragonAge on the Xbox, but generally, I don't have much time for video games.

I *would* play some more, but I want to know what are the better choices out there.
In particular, I am looking to you, my readers, to help me out here.

I am looking for something as close to D&D as I can find.  Yes, I know there are D&D video games out there. If you like those let me know!  But I Am also looking at other versions of DragonAge and the Witcher looks really good.

Don't tell me what you think sucks. Tell me what you think is good!

I love RPGs, magic, combating monsters. I enjoy character customization options.  But mostly I want to hear about what you all think is good.

Bonus. What D&D video games have you enjoyed?

Friday, April 7, 2017

Kickstart Your Weekend: Castles & Crusades Players Handbook #7

The good folks over at Troll Lords have a Kickstarter up for the next printing of the Castles & Crusades Player's Handbook.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/676918054/castles-and-crusades-players-handbook-7


They have five days left and only about $1,000 to go.

Castles & Crusades is my favorite game that I never get to play.  Well...I do get to play it, but not as much as I would like really.

This Kickstarter has a lot of really nice perks and the Troll Lords are super great guys.

Check it out!