Imagining D&D meme

So on Friday Grognadia had as the Open Friday this bit:

when you think about Dungeons & Dragons, the cover of what product comes first to mind?

For me it was a toss-up.

This is the version I adventured in the most, back in the day:

But this is one I played first and the cover is more evocative of "D&D" to me.  Wizard and fighter battling a red dragon sitting on a treasure hoard.

But this is the version that gets my geek fondness into overdrive.

I Stand on the Shoulders of Giants

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
- Isaac Newton (1642-1727) in: Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1676

The giant in this case was Descartes.  Later the same quote would be used to describe Newton himself by Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. Each generation builds on the work of the last.

Giants are not revered for their size, but because of their ability to see further.

I take a lot of praise for my work and because I am human I enjoy it. Because of who I am I also take it with a bit of surprise.  Afterall I like to write stuff that I like, it amazes me that others might enjoy it too.  But I understand that nothing I, or anyone else does, exists in a vacuum.

Ghosts of Albion would not exist at all had it not been obviously for the creative talents of Christopher Golden and Amber Benson.  It is their world, they define it, shape it and tell us how the characters live in it.  The rules for the game exist because of C.J. Carella.  Not only did he write the Cinematic Unisystem game that Ghosts uses, it was his Classic Unisystem game WitchCraft that inspired me to want write for Eden in the first place. Will Ghosts sell better than WitchCraft? I have no idea. Will people like it more? I know some do, others feel WitchCraft is still the superior game and I will not fault them for that.
Even taking all that into consideration I had help of editors, playtesters and general advice.

My various Witch books are the same way. As are my academic and professional lives.

Standing on the shoulder of giants is not about reverence of people, but rather acknowledgement of their work, of their contributions and why that work has helped make our lives a bit better.

We stand on the shoulders of giants so that one day others may stand on ours.

Return to the Palace of Silver Princess

Like a lot of gamers my age I am familiar with the module B3: Palace of the Silver Princess, and like most of those gamers my experience is with the "Green" cover version.  Well I had heard about the infamous "Orange" cover version of course, but never hoped I would see it.  Well Wizards of the Coast had changed that when they released the banned Orange version a few years back along with the story of why it was banned/deemed inappropriate.   An interesting bit of game history, but really I think nearly everyone feels that the edited Green version is the better module.

Reading the Orange version with knowledge of the Green is an interesting experience and one that almost always leaves the Orange one coming up a bit short.  Not that the Green version, with edits by Basic Game guru Tom Moldvay, is a stellar module, it does have it's moments.

B3 holds a special place for me since it is the first module I ever bought specifically to run and not play in.  There was a lot for a neophyte DM like myself in 1981 to like.  The programmed adventure in the beginning was a nice touch to kid just learning how to also program the computers in Jr. High.  Arik of the Hundred Eyes was an awesome sounding bad guy and one I had hoped would make another appearance one day. And it was easy for me to place this all in Glantri from the Expert Set, it seemed to fit well with other things I had going on at the time.

Reading over the Wizard's site this past weekend got me thinking.  I have wanted to use B3 in my kids' game for a while now.  Thanks to the maps (linked below) from the Vaults of Pandius and the update to D&D 3.0 version of the monsters and encounters I could run this is as-is for them now.  Of course I'll want to bump the encounters up a bit to make them more challenging.   Course the maps are for the Green version and 3.0 update is for the Orange version. 

I think I'll take a suggestion from Wizards and run this as "Return to the Palace of the Silver Princess".  The events of the "green" cover happened many years ago, but something went wrong that lead to the events of "orange" cover.  The Eye of Arik wasn't destroyed properly and soon the entire area became cursed.  Ellis the Strong (The Silver Warrior) became the the cause in the minds of the locals.  While the evil energies pouring out of the fragmented eye caused mutations in all living things in the castle.  Plants became vampire roses and archer bushes, the staff became Ubues (gotta explain them somehow), Aliegha, Catharandamus and the dwarves Boron and Xyzom were adventurers that came here previously and are now coming under the affects of the Eye.  Catharandamus is going insane, thinking he can summon Arik, Aliegh is turning into a wolf (or bear or a bear-wolf crossbred-thingy) and the dwarves are slowly becoming orcs.  I do plan on using Candella and Duchess, as randomish NPCs, but they had just gotten there and have not started to mutate yet. I just liked that picture of the two of them being caught by surprise. 

I doubt I will drop any hints here to the upcoming 4e adventures or even the on going Dragonslayer's plot.  So Arik is not really another name for Tharizdun, and I doubt I'll make the Eye of Arik a part of the summoning ritual they need for Tiamat.  Just a little side adventure to amuse me and them while I build them up to the big finale.  Though the Knights of the White Drakes from the Green version allays interested me.  Maybe once the adventure is over I'll have the Knights send them their thanks and offer them a great gift, a Drake (a riding dragon) for them to use in their battle against Tiamat.  My son would LOVE that.  Of course that only works if the the guy on the dragon that everyone thinks is evil is actually good and the characters help clear his name.  I do like that idea.

Links

- Wizard's page for the Orange version, http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20020121x7 

- Grognardia reflects on B3, http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/11/retrospective-palace-of-silver-princess.html

- As does Emerald Lich, http://www.emeraldlich.com/post.php?post_id=1162

- Acaeum overview, http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/modpages/b3.html

- Cool maps from the Mystara uber-site, Vaults of Pandius, http://pandius.com/maps.html

- d20/3.0 conversion at ENWorld, http://www.enworld.org/cc/downloads/files/palace_of_the_silver_princess.rtf

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks

Just so you all know.

The module, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is today's featured article on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

I worked a bit on this article back when the deletionists were trying to get all D&D related content removed from Wikipedia.  Some of them seemed to be on a crusade of one sort or another.

This is a great honor for any page.  Wikipedia has over 3 million articles and only 365 of them can be a featured page in a year.  There is even a Facebook page to celebrate.

So celebrate this classic module.  How?  Oh I don't know.  Mix some sci-fi in with your old school games.  I might need to run this one for my kids one day.  It is a lot of fun.

I remember buying this module in Springfield, IL at White Oaks Mall.  I sat on the floor of my parents van (yes kids on the floor with NO seat belts) reading this as we drove to some diner or something. I can't recall where we were going, just that I had this module and I ate it up.  Great memories of this one.

Old School day!

I spent the weekend with the people I used to game Basic and AD&D 1st ed with, the week opened up to some cool old school news for me.

First I got my copy of Palace of the Vampire Queen!
I plan on running this with Spellcraft & Swordplay as soon as I can.

And in other cool news. ChicagoWiz's blog is back! I was never 100% sure why he had left in the first place to be honest.  But I am glad to see his blog back with us.

What if Gygax had done 2nd Ed?

Quick one for now. I am on my way to campus.

I have been following the OSR scene now for a while and have seen the attempts to do retellings of the most famous RPG in history. Associated with that is the wave of nostalgia for all things from the hands of the Old Masters (Gygax, Holmes, Arneson) and this had gotten me thinking.

What would 2nd Ed AD&D have looked like if Gygax had still been at TSR?

  

I suppose we should look at the variables.  What was TSR doing at the time (late 80s), what was Gygax doing (Mythus, Dangerous Journeys, and later Lejendary Adventures) and how would that have all blended into what could have been the 2nd Ed AD&D as written by Gary.

This is all speculation; I am not a Gygaxian scholar by any stretch of the imagination. But I am curious to know what you all think.

Would we have seen more classes? (I think so) More skills? (certainly) and I also think given the direction that TSR was headed and what Gygax did in DJ/Mythus that we would have seen more "world" books for different genres of play.  So instead of Spelljamer (D&D in space) we would have gotten a Space Opera game that used the AD&D 2ed rules.  Or not.

Thoughts?

EDITED TO ADD: Thanks to Herb and Jason Vey.  They uncovered this link for me.
http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2009/02/ad-second-edition.html
I will have to read that in detail when I can.

John Eric Holmes 1930 - 2010

By now many of you have heard about the death of Dr. John Eric Holmes, known better to us in game circles as Eric Holmes.  Holmes was the editor of the first "Basic" set of D&D, often called "the Blue Book Basic" where I grew up. The cover of that book pretty much tells you everything you need to know about D&D.

Holmes gave us a new edition of D&D and opened the doors to many people to play the game.  You didn't the "Little Brown Books" anymore.  Holmes D&D was set up to run in parallel to Gygax's own AD&D released at the same time.

Myself, like many in the OSR and RPG community, have fond memories of this book.
Dr. Holmes will certainly be missed.  March it seems is turning into a terrible month for gamers.

You can read more about the man and his work in these links.  They say everything I would have said.

• http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/05/rip-j-eric-holmes-1930-2010.html
• http://underdarkgazette.blogspot.com/2010/05/osr-news-from-underdark-gazette_08.html
• http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2010/05/rip-john-eric-holms-1930-2010.html
• http://eiglophian.blogspot.com/2010/05/rip-john-eric-holmes-1930-2010.html
• http://cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2010/05/j-eric-holmes-1930-2010.html
• http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2010/05/holms-obituary.html

As a GM I don't like to kill characters, but...

But I have.

Details in a bit, but first more on character death and the great battle, the Shadow War.

Many notable and non-notable personages made the ultimate sacrifice in the war against the demons.  Skie Iskatarian, who claimed to be the great-great-granddaughter of Kas the Destroyer, died on the field of battle.  She was given a heroes funeral by the Queen she would have rather seen dead, not visa versa.  She was found next to a man that by all accounts she hated more than anyone, Kiev Scorpious.  They were found back to back, fighting off the hordes that stormed the walls of the city.

Kurt, the affable monk that everyone seemed to like, had also been found.  The great warrior Jar Tearn. Not felled by any weapon, his great age was his doom and he died on the field when his heart failed him.  His wife Victoria, rushed to his side, but never quite made it.  Kara Foke, King of the neighboring country offered his son to aid Glantri, and lost that son.  Leaving his second oldest betrothed to the Queen.  She was 9 he was 8.

Some speak of the great dark warrior Absom Sark how he was never seen again after the war.  Others speak of Arachnia, the drow female warrior that roamed the lands prior to the war, but never after.  They have statues as well, even if their bodies were not found.  (they ran off together after the war. sometimes love is more important than honor).

But the greatest loss some say was the King's son, Johan III.  Lost, and he had disgraced his family and the faith by bedding not just a common girl, but a supernatural one (she was a psychic...and something else), he had returned from the Nightmare Lands (Ravenloft) in his country's darkest hour.  But the girl that was his undoing in life was his undoing in death....

--
The cool thing about being a tech-head was this great little program that my then DM and I had written for the Tandy Color Computer.  It was a combat simulator.  We could load ten characters and ten monsters in it at once and they would go after each other till all of one side was dead.  I used that and in some cases, I also rolled up the combats on my own.  Something to pass the time to be sure.

So, lots of people died so that the new generations, Quenn Celene and her future Husband Kara Werper could take center stage.  And they will, or rather would have, had it not been for that troublesome girl.

Morgan.

Morgan began in my game with only her nick-name, Raven, though she did have other names.  Raven Ebonflame, Raven the Hunter of the Dead, Raven the Daughter of Death (her father was nicknamed "Death Blade").
She was psychic, which was a strict taboo in my game world.  Sure magic is fine, because the mage schools and guilds control that. Random psychic power?  Bad juju.

So what does this girl do?  She gets herself hired in the mercenaries guild and eventually hooks up with John the 3rd, future king of the land, and gets pregnant.  When I was coming up with ideas to start my war, I decided that she ran off to have the kid rather than cause her lover any more grief.  Trouble was Johan loved her too.  Had he married her things might have been fine, but he ran off after her only to get pulled into Ravenloft.  She thought he didn't care and gave birth to their daughter.

There is one other thing about Morgan.  Something I decided on her first outing as a character back 1985 or so.  Morgan was a killer of Vampires.  She killed one at 1st level.  And then proceeded to go after more.
Morgan, Raven Ebonflame, was the very first Slayer.

And then I killed her.

She was in the war and played a minor part.  I remember being out on my bike one day thinking about what she might have done.  Then it came to me.  Morgan fought Yoln Shadowreaper, the general of the Armies of Hell.  She fought him and killed him.  By herself, single-handed, the girl that everyone in the game hated, changed the course of the War.  She gave them victory.  But it cost her her life.

Her lover, Johan went crazy and was soon killed in battle, not before taking out several dozen demons.  The priest said he could not raise her, her soul was gone.  A pact was made by the three most powerful remaining characters, the guild master (her father), the advisor (her teacher) and the King (father of her lover).  Her father went to Hell to find her soul.  In the 3rd Edition years, I worked that into the great Reckoning of Hell.

Her death was the most powerful scene I played up to that point.  But years later I so regretted killing her. I thought it was a waste (and I had more personal reasons too).

Then I began The Dragon and the Phoenix.

This was a Willow and Tara centric season for the Buffy game.  In the fifth episode, Heaven Bleeds, Willow, Tara, and Buffy travel back in time to this battle.  There they meet Willow and Tara's past lives, and all three witness Morgan's battle with Yoln.  I did retcon her into a Slayer, but it was not much of a change.

Now I redid the scene of her death as before, this time using the Cinematic Unisystem rules.  And this time Buffy was there to help.  I had players that played Tara, Willow, and Buffy, but I still played Morgan out. She still defeated Yoln, this time with her sister Slayer's help.  But she still died.  Somethings can't be changed I guess no matter how much you try.

As Morgan dies, she touches Tara and asks her to remember her.  Morgan's soul does not go to Hell as everyone thought, but instead, it is in Tara.  When the season ends she lets go of Morgan's soul to her final rest.  I have a scene in later games, Season of the Witch, to be exact, where Morgan's father meets up with Tara and is given peace.

As a DM I don't like to kill characters.  People invest way too much of themselves into their personas.
Kurt, Skie. Kiev, Jar, Victoria, Sebastian, Fjalar, Johan II and Johan III.  They all had memorable deaths and that had meaning.

But Morgan, Raven Ebonflame, the Daughter of Death, Hunter of the Dead, had the most important death of all.  Her's changed two worlds. Set things into motion that I am still using in my games. And changed how I think about characters and how I write this stuff I do.
And hers was the hardest to do and deal with and the one I have always and will always regret the most.

To pull out my comics metaphors, she is though more of my Barry Allen than Tora Olfsdotter or even Tara herself.  She died and saved the world and to bring her back now would give the character less meaning.  She died well and now deserves her well earned rest.  Tora and Tara died too (and came back) but their deaths were meaningless and meant to shock people and ultimately empty.  Mark Waid, who wrote the issues in which Tora died has since admitted it was a huge mistake as a typical and clichéd Women in Refrigerators moment.  Too bad Whedon has not had the same insight and maturity as Waid.  But I took care of that on my own.

So GMs/DMs/Directors/Story Tellers?
Do you kill characters?  Do you try to save them even if the dice fall on the side of the Reaper?

Yes...yes I can already here the Call of Cthulhu Keepers out there.  I know your point and I know there are worse things than death.

It was…a good death.

I started a new campaign this last weekend. It has all the potential of one of those long-running campaigns that will feature heroics that the players will be talking about years to come. But of late it is endings that I have been thinking of the most. The end of my long-running “Willow and Tara” Unisystem game a few years back, the end of my epic AD&D 1st edition game that spanned my high school years.

The end of that game ended in the deaths in many characters, but they were all good and heroic deaths. Well except for one, but I’ll talk about her later.

The deaths were honorable, heroic and did what they were supposed to do. Clear the slate for me fo when I went to college (and unknown to me at the time, pick up 2nd Edition AD&D).

That final battle was part of a war that had been building for a long time and finally exploded across the globe. It destroyed my DM’s own countries (he had some areas outside of the former Suel Empire) and tore mine to near shreds, I was HQed in Glantri on the other side of the world. Everywhere knew war. We called it the Shadow War. On my side of the world, the armies of Hell were marching in in an attempt to take the magical artifacts we were protecting. The war was long and it claimed the life of the King, his oldest son and their chief advisor. The head of the mercenaries’ guild vowed to stay uninvolved till his wife was killed and he disappeared. His son pledged his loyalty to the new 9-year-old Queen. It was a dark time.

The game took a little over two years in real time from say about May/June 1986 to mid-1989. Once I learned there was 2nd Edition coming (hard to believe we lived in a time where we didn’t know everything about a game line) I extended it. I took the individual battle scenes and played them all out. The return of the King’s son from Ravenloft (he wasn’t dead), the advisor, the guild master with an army of his own. Also, all my “lesser” characters that I may have rolled up and used once or twice in games got a chance to take center stage.

Here is one.  More to come.

Fjalar Snowcrest, was a dwarf thief. Kicked out of his homeland and disgraced and dishonored. He was in the city when the armies of hell overran the settled areas inside the walls. He was running, looking for a fight or to get away when he heard screaming. A few bearded devils (hamatula) had broken into a school, killed the teacher and were making their way to kids. Fjalar, never a brave dwarf, still hated bullies. When the war was over, Fjalar was dead. But all the children were alive. They told a tale of this dwarf with an axe of fire and muscles of stone who protected them from the monsters. Even when he was wounded and losing blood he continued to chop at the devils. Fjalar’s broken body was discovered, on top of 20 (though the children would later say 50 if not 100) Hamatula. At the end of the War of Shadows statues were raised to all the lost heroes. Fjalar’s was set in a public square where the dwarf stood majestically with several children behind him and his axe in front of him. The Queen herself invited his father and mother to come to see, they finally came 10 years later. She told them the story and said she knew of his dishonor, which is why his hands had been placed covering his family crest on the axe. The family said nothing till dozens of young adults and their collected scores of children came to the square. They had been the children saved that day and with them were their own children. Many children who bore names similar to Fjalar and Snowcrest.  The Snowcrest parents were moved. They said that they could not undo the dishonor their son had done and his name was still cursed, but that they were proud of their brave and honorable son.

Pathfinder, Game 2: The Big Kids

We started what will hopefully be a long running Pathfinder game with the "big kids".  This is my normal play-test group of the last few years, plus some guys that my DM Greg knows.  So far it has been a lot of fun.  Some of our players are missing the over the top acrobatics and "cinematic fantasy combat" of 4e and we are still making references to 4e in the game, I think it will go over well.

Our DM Greg is posting the play reports over on his blog, Rhonin's Ramblings, so some of my discussion about the game might end up over there as well. http://rhoninsramblings.blogspot.com/2010/04/pathfinder-campaign-chapter-11.html

We call it the "Big Kids" game since it is not the Pathfinder game I am currently playing with our kids; Greg's three boys and my two. In both games I am playing very different characters.  A witch in the "little kids" game and a paladin in the "big kids" one.  It is working out well I think.  I have made "mirror" versions of them in 4e and it will be interesting to see how they evolve together, but separate.  Or rather I made the 4e versions first and am now playing the Pathfinder versions.  One day I'll come up with a crossover adventure that involves all four characters in one world.

I still have my D&D 3.x (3.0, 3.5, BESM d20 and other d20 stuff mixed in) that I play with my two sons and we are supposed to get a 4.0/1st Ed cross-over game going sometime too.

That's a lot of D&D.

The cool thing is it gives me a chance to really get a feel for all the versions of D&D.  When my 3.x games ends I have to decide where to take it next.  The choices are continue with the hybrid 3.x game (throwing a bit of Pathfinder in), move up to 4e or even try something "new" like Labyrinth Lord or the D&D RC.

Our Big Kids game is once a month (or so) and the Little Kids game is about the same.  Advancement will be slow, but I am looking forward to it all.

Dave Arneson

I was not going to mark this day anymore than I marked Gary's.  But I did want to say a couple of things since I have been so engrossed in Blackmoor of late.

Days of death strike a more resonate chord in humans. People always talk about where they were the day Kennedy or Lennon died. I for one always remember where I was the day I had heard Marvin Gaye had been killed or Curt Cobain had died.  It is natural to want to mark them.

Me. I will always remember 8/16/2008 as my Dave Arneson day. That was the day I met him and got a chance to thank him for all he had done.

So again. Thank you Dave.

Sanctuary

You feel lost. Hurt. 
Helpless. Desperate. 
Alone.

Something happened to you or to people you love.
And no one understands. 
No one believes.
And no one can help.

But we understand. 
We believe.
We can help.

We are Sanctuary.
Someday everything is going to be alright.

Sanctuary

Sanctuary began in my 1st Edition AD&D game.  Located in the Principalities of Glantri (from Mystara and Basic D&D), Sanctuary was a group of healers that specifically dealt with the attacks on normal people by supernatural creatures, werewolves and undead in particular.  Since many of the rulers of the land were the very monsters they were fighting Sanctuary had to become covert and hidden.  The only way to know you were in a "Sanctuary" was by a open palm hand in blue paint.
Eventually they were one of the groups that lead to the political coup of Glantri, tuning it in to a Theocratic Monarchy, but that was many years ago.

I revived the idea of Sanctuary for modern horror games back around 2004 or so.  They are  group that helps people deal with the after-math of a supernatural creature attack.  You or your loved ones are attacked by a vampire or werewolf?  Well going to the police or the hospital won't be much help (even if they do know) and talking to a therapist will either get you a nice quiet rest or hooked up with enough anti-psychotics to dull every pain (and in fact many do just that).

But Sanctuary is different.  They staff doctors, social workers, psychologists and even an array of computer experts to help rebuild lives.  Like all social services they are understaff, over worked, under funded and at least six months behind on their case loads.

I had wanted to introduce them in Season 2 of my Willow and Tara game, Season of the Witch.  But it never worked out.  Instead they worked out much better in my Season 3 Willow and Tara game, Generation HEX. Here the girls could contribute to Sanctuary a little more.

In the world they are a bit like occult social services and clinic as well as occult relocation program.

In an episode or adventure I use Sanctuary in my modern occult/supernatural games as part resource and part plot device.  Typically in their role of helping someone the monster of the week does not want helped.

I have not worked out any stats for the group, typically all I need is an NPC ready to go as a councilor or social worker and the monster.  Though in Generation HEX I did have an older Sarah Bailey working at Sanctuary.  She basically was there to yell at the cast saying she often had to clean up the messes and broken lives they left behind.

As a group they are not very old, game time wise.  I put their development around the 1990s.  Maybe they got their start up funds from the Clinton administration. But this goes along with my theory of supernatural games needing to up the ante each generation.  Back in the days of Chill monsters were rare, but as time went on more and more of the beasties were crawling out of the woodwork. So there has been more of an in-game and in-universe need for a group like this.

Those with a good memory might be able to guess where the name and the symbol of this group comes from.

Hard Core Gamers

Notice: I am not taking down this post because I feel it is more important to leave it up, but also update everyone on what is happening now as of February 11, 2019. Please see this newer post first. http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2019/02/i-am-going-to-talk-about-zak-today-and.html

In case you have been living under a rock all week, the new video version of the hit blog Playing D&D with Porn Stars is out now.

Called "I Hit it With My Axe" it features, well, porn stars, playing D&D.   It's actually quite a good blog and features not only some interesting insights to the game and how people play but also commentary from the likes of Mandy Morbid, Satine Phoenix (below), Zak Sabbath (blogger & DM) and special guests like Sasha Grey and Justine Joli.

It certainly busts a few stereotypes. Like that all gamers are geeky guys hiding out in their basements and all porn stars are sex craved but empty headed.

Looking forward to more!

Taking a new path

So. I had a plan. It was a good plan as far as these things go. That is till my regular DM decided to do something unexpected.

We have a few games going, I have one with my kids (3.x), he has one with his (4.0), we have one together with some friends (4.0) and one with both families (4.0).   I was going to finish out my game with my boys and start up a 4.0 game with them to go through all the classic modules.

That is till last night.  Turns out that my DM now wants to use Pathfinder.

Now don't get me wrong, I like Pathfinder, it is a nice book and really a good looking game.  I also happen to think that there is some life left in the D&D 3.x game too.  But this does mess up my master plan. ;)

We were talking today about what adventures he wants to do with this group (him, his three boys, me and my two) and it was very, very similar to my plan I had for 4th Ed.

Last night I was less than thrilled about "going back" to 3.x, but today I am actually quite excited about it.

I have been on Paizo's website and there is a ton of fun stuff there. And the Pathfinder stuff is compatible with all my other 3.x stuff.   Plus I am going to get to play their witch (which is not exactly like mine for 3.x, but close enough).  So this could be very fun to be honest.  I can still use all my 4.0 stuff with my boys, I just might need a new plan on adventures.

So it looks like I'll be playing D&D 4.0 AND Pathfinder/D&D 3.65 (or something like that).
Anyone else playing Pathfinder? Any tips or advice?

WotC does Retro? Clones go Advanced? Up is Down!

Well a few things going on have the OSR on notice and many are ready with the "I told you so!"s.

The big one of course is the new Dungeons & Dragons Essentials,  which is everything you need to play the D&D 4th Ed game in a basic, condensed form, with counters and dice all in a red box.  So. A Basic Set in a Red Box.  Sound familiar?

 

or even,

More about that can also be read here, http://daegames.blogspot.com/2010/02/essentials.html

That and a new Gamma World game is coming out, Castle Ravenloft gets the board game treatment that sounds almost like it is solo-D&D, and even D&D 4 evangelist (and I mean that in a good way) Mike Mearls is going on about how the best way to write a D&D 4 adventure is do it in OD&D or BD&D first.

What is cool about all of this is that Wizard's sees that the OSR is a vital community and has their finger, well maybe not the pulse, but a pulse of the gamer community as well.  Call it what you like, I call it cool.

And moving at least into the 80's, the one of the OSR darlings, Goblinoid Games, has released their expansions to Labyrinth Lord, the Advanced Edition companion. A game that bridges the gap between the "Basic" and "Advanced" games of the Golden Age.

I grabbed the "artless" version since I am not sure what I doing in or with the OSR "Basic" scene these days, but this book is really cool.  I am reminded of the old days of sitting in my bed room roughly age 11 and trying to figure out why my Expert Set Cleric was not the same as the one I was reading in the Player's Handbook and not figuring out why.  This is not a D&D Rosetta Stone by any means, but it is a good translator.  I would have loved this game back then and today, well I still think it is pretty damn awesome.
I like it much more than OSRIC and it might even replace Basic Fantasy RPG as my Basic go-to-game-clone. Which, oddly enough had replaced LL in the same context.

Now of course I am itching to write up a witch for Basic and Advanced versions of the "Greatest Fantasy Roleplaying Game of all Time"

Monks come from Blackmoor, part 2

So reflecting on my previous post, Monks come from Blackmoor, I went back and looked over my new (new as of Gen Con) 4e Blackmoor book.  Right there, just as I remembered was the Mystic.  Not what I liked about this Mystic class is it reminded me so much of the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia Mystic.  I am not sure how they stack up against the official 4e Monks, but right now that doesn't matter much to me since these Mystic look like they fit the bill I want as is, right now.  So well in fact I am going over my 4e Blackmoor book with a renewed interest.

Their power source is "Spiritual" rather than "Psychic", but that could just be splitting hairs.  The effect is largely the same for my use.  Though Spiritual is a bit better sounding for what I want to do with them.

They do compare well to some of the other 3rd party monk classes I have seen for 4e, so I Am inclined to say, balance or not, they are roughly compatible with the 4e monks.

Given the roots that Blackmoor share with Mystara I might even go out on a limb here and say Blackmoor has no clerics in the traditional sense.  The people of Blackmoor worship, or at least honor, immortals.  They are not gods and don't grant spells.  Clerics, normally the healers of a group, can be replaced by nobles  who have healing powers and the wokan who also have healing powers and herbalism.  This is not really a big issue as one might think.  D&D4 is using the paths to immortality that was fairly common in Basic D&D and with the Leader roll and everyone having access to healing now, the cleric can be left be things other than the party medic.  Nobles then could gain this as part of their background fluff.  They are trained as both healer and soldier. This also gives the the Nobel class something to do. The hands of the king are the hands of the healer anyone? The msytic/monk then can focus on the spiritual aspects of life.

The people then of Blackmoor do not believe in gods per se. They know their are supper powerful beings out there, but they are hardly owed worship.  Honor in some cases yes, for their deeds, not their words.

I like this idea to be honest with you. Sets up a very different sort of culture for Blackmoor and I like that.

My game world is taking shape.

What Should an OSR Witch Do or Be?

So Eldritch Witchery is on the (far) horizon and it has been getting me thinking.
What should an Old-School Witch do?

One of the strengths of the older games, and maybe something we have gotten away from in newer game design, is trying to do more with less.  The older games had four classes (give or take) and these represented roles of the characters, it was then up to the player to detail and refine those roles and characters.

Lets look at the class "Magic User" for a bit.  Magic User does not automatically mean "Wizard".  It took me a while to get that  (I blame 2nd Ed).  We lost this distinction in later versions of the game and even in popular thought during the "golden age".  But really Magic User should really mean anyone that uses magic, whether you call them Wizard, Wu-Jen, Sorcerer, Illusionist, Mystic, Necromancer or even Witch is up to the player (but not Cleric or Priest...).  For most people this is fine.  Others want more definition to the role.
In Spellcraft & Swordplay we already now have a Necromancer.  One could argue there is a bit of "divine" magic that a Necromancer must channel to do his job.  He is still a "magic user" just a very specific one.  Same was seen in AD&D 1st Ed with the Illusionist, but that was a separate class.  Druid, Ranger, Paladin and Assassin are the same way for their respective roles.  It is is easy to see why it happens and even why it needs to happen.  So accepting there are general roles and then some specific roles where can we go with a concept like a witch?

The witch then, as a class, should be something special.  When I write for Buffy, WitchCraft or even Witch Girls Adventures, the witch is the defacto magic using class, but in a world where magic is largely unknown.  In D&D and it's clones the Wizard is the main class.  The role of the witch then should be to provide that air of mystery and "otherness" that the wizard and other magic-users no longer supply*.
*The caveat here being "in many games", there is nothing saying you can't have mysterious wizards in your game.

When I did the witch for 2nd Ed AD&D, she was basically a type of divine spell caster with access to various arcane spells and occult powers.  In 3rd Ed/d20 I flipped that to make her an arcane spell caster with access to divine spells and occult powers.  The same seems mostly true for all the other d20/3.x witches I have seen over the years.  IF (that's a big if) I were to do a witch for 4th Ed then I would up the occult power angle with access to "divine" and "arcane" powers.

Looking to games like Spellcraft & Swordplay, Basic Fantasy RPG or Labyrinth Lord I think I want to keep the arcane power base, to make her mostly similar to the current "Magic Users" in those games, but continue to shuffle to spell list to offer some differences. Add things like some minor healing spells (at later levels than the Cleric gets them), and certainly increase her ability to make potions and other minor magics.  Someone has to be stocking all those dungeons with potions and Amulets of Protection.  To aid that air of mystery she should have some powers that wizards/magic-users don't have.  Something that when she uses them the other characters need to be thinking "how did she do that?"

One thing I don't want though is class bloat.  That seems too much against the Old-School thought.  I have an edition of D&D with 100s of classes.  Actually I have more than one edition.  But an OSR game should be tight. Add what is needed and no more than that.

So what is a witch in an old-school game?
She is an arcane spell caster. So she learns her magic from other agents, be they familiars sent by powers unknown, the powers themselves or handed down mother to daughter.  She also gains certain divine magics due her ties with the natural world. This puts her at odds with more traditional wizards, who see her as little more than a hedge wizard, and clerics, who see her as a heretic to their beliefs.  Witches also gain a set of occult powers, magical effects she can use like spells, but come without study or practice.  Witches learn in Traditions (how their magic is taught to them) and form Covens, groups of other, like minded witches.

The prime ability for magic-users is Intelligence.  For clerics it is Wisdom.  Witches have been called "the craft of the wise" and I have been using Wisdom as their prime ability for years.  But I think a strong case can be made for Charisma here. This is the section on charisma from Spellcraft & Swordplay:

Charisma is a combination of a character’s personal magnetism, presence, and appearance. The higher the charisma, the more impressive the character is. Whether this manifests as an ominous intimidation or an ethereal beauty is up to the player in question.

If the witch is dealing with other-worldly agents to learn her magic, then only the most successful ones are the ones with the personality to hold their own.  I think charisma then is the way to go here.  Plus if we have three magic using classes now (magic-user, cleric and now witch) then it makes sense that each one uses a different mental stat for their magic workings.  I would say though witches still need a high wisdom in order to be successful.  Of course this leads to the all witches are therefore good looking cliché seen all too often in games and stories.  Not that I have anything at all against a sexy witch (far from it), but Baba Yaga is also a witch and mentioned in the OD&D books.  Obviously then Baba Yaga has a very high charisma, but in the terrifying and intimidation sense, not in the hot witch sense.

Why do witches go on adventures?
In the pulps and related fictions that had an influence on the fathers of role-playing games, witches occurred fairly frequently.  But they were often the means of the quest, not on it.  The heroes went to the the witch, or she was the one sending them on the quest or the reason they were questing.  In games terms that puts them in the NPC category fairly squarely.    A witch though might want to go on adventures for the same reasons that wizards and other magic users do; to learn more magic.  Or maybe she is on a quest of her patron power.  Or she is on a pilgrimage to a sacred site.  In truth any reason why a wizard or cleric would adventure is a good reason for a witch.  And let's not forget the most tried and true reasons, to become a hero or at the very least kill things and take their stuff.

Do witches belong in D&D?  Well that would depend on your own games I think.  But given all the attempts over the years, from the earliest Dragon magazines to Paizo's latest playtest, I think there is certainly a desire to include her by many.

Here is hoping that Eldritch Witchery lives up to all of that!

Monks come from Blackmoor

I have been re-reading all my old original D&D books lately.  Fun stuff.
But I caught something today that I know I have read before, but now it jelled differently.

The Monk Class was introduced in the Blackmoor supplement.
Monks come from Blackmoor.

Now I am thinking for my Blackmoor, whether I use an OSR game or 4e, will have monks.  Sure it might not fit, but it is certainly an interesting concept.

Of course when most people think monks they think Kwai Chang Caine or Oriental Adventures. What if this sect of Monks were still psychic ascetics who trained their mind and body, not so much for a higher religious purpose, but more like something from the psychic awareness boom/New Age we saw in the 1970's.  So less Caine and more Uri Geller.

Yeah, the more I think about this idea the more I like it.   New Agey, crystal wearing hippie monks with psychic powers come from the "forgotten lands" of Blackmoor.  In the community of Blackmoor they replace the clerics as the spiritual leaders, getting people to work out their problems through peace, love and understanding.  When that doesn't work, they go all Neo on you and bend a spoon on your ass.  I'll look over  the "Mystic" class again in my 4e version of the Blackmoor book and see if there are any parallels that I can make work with this concept.

Blackmoor is quickly becoming my go to place for doing some cool Old School sandbox creating.

Elmore Art for Old School

I am working on Eldritch Witchery for Elf Lair Games and I have the bulk of it written now.  There are some editing issues and I need to tweak a few of the spells and monsters to fit the old school theme a bit better than when I originally wrote them.

But I do have a question to pose to the OSR.  Elmore art, use it or not?

I love the art in the Spellcraft and Swordplay and would love to have something very much like that in EW.  I also am a fan of Larry Elmore and since for as long as I can remember (or at least since 1986) I have wanted to do a witch book with Elmore art.  It's a thing.

I know that the original version of S&S that had Elmore art was criticized and the new art is a lot better, but Elmore and witches have such a close relationship in my mind that I would not be doing myself justice if I didn't include at least one piece.

I know many in the OSR equate the advent of certain artists to be indicative of "the end of the Golden Era" (mini rant here: Yeah like the art in the LBBs was so excellent it could never have been improved on!) Which I have to say is not very fair to the artists in question.

But at the same time I do respect the feelings the OSR has.  After all if it were not for that passion 90% of the old-school/retro-clone games would have never been made and I would not have had the chance to even do this book.

So Old Schoolers, what do you say?

Going (Up) to Hell? Cosmology

I was reading a very interesting post by Mike Mearls the other day about dropping the structure of the planes in favor of something more local. Read his post here, http://kotgl.blogspot.com/2010/01/kill-planes-abyss.html.

Ok? good.

I think his reasons of course are sound and fit nicely with something I have wanted to do forever. When I first picked up that 1^st Ed copy of Deities and Demigods I loved the Planes. It had so many interesting places and so many things to do. I got very attached to the Great Wheel cosmology that I began to evaluate fantasy and later horror on how closely it fit that model. Then I began to get lazy. Not in the sense that would not write, quite the opposite, I would come up with elaborate schemes to make things fit the model or not. Whether it needed to or not. Even in my AD&D Grand Opus Adventure the characters went to Hell to confront the evils that invaded their world there was still the Great Wheel. It worked, then, but now I feel it's limitations. Well along came 3^rd Edition and suddenly the planes are mutable, changing and even expected to be different depending on how you look at them; 4E changes this even more.

Mike Mearls mentions in his blog that one of the issues of the planes being "out there" that they lose some of their value. History tells us that demons, devils and other bad things came from under-ground, or beyond that mountain or from across the sea; here there be monsters. Monsters come from "beyond the sky" in Lovecraft related fiction, which is fine for tentacle horrors, but devils at least are concerned with the same things humans are. Devils need to be close. They need to be something the common man, woman and child fears. Not just because they are evil, but because they are nearby.

Mike says move the Abyss to your world, I say move Hell.

Hell in 4e now seems to be a planet floating somewhere in the Astral Sea. This puts it on par with everything else, even Heaven. Now I am not a religious person, but doesn't Hell lose some of what makes it Hell if it just a planet with bad environmental conditions? They describe it as planet some 7,000 miles in diameter with the "layers" lower and lower subterranean continent sized caverns. Like Mearls, I say take all that and shove it inside your world. Drill down a few hundred miles and there is the entry way to Hell. Just like Dante described. What keeps the devils in? Same thing that keeps them there now, gates. Like the roach motel it is, it is easy to get, impossible to get out. Or nearly such. Of course the point between the Underdark and Abyss sharing a nature is sound, I think I can get the same thing with the Nine Hells really. In fact I might even make Lolth more like a devil (she is more devil like than demon like anyway) given her status as former Goddess, cast out and down. Sound familiar? It certainly fits with what Hell is supposed to be better, an underground dungeon for the damned. The Abyss is a maelstrom of evil and chaos, it fits better in the planes.
Of course this is not without issues. First, and the one that concerns multi-versal games the most, is that Hell inside a planet means that for every copy/twin/multiverse that planet is in there is a corresponding Hell. This might be fine really. I don't care for some of the changes made to some of the Arch Dukes in the last few books (3 & 4), but I can write that off as that is just the way things are in that universe. Which is something we all do anyway, I am just making it explicit. Of course the new 4e cosmology also gives us the Shadowfell and the Feywild, which I like, but if they are dark and twisted reflections of our own world then what about the Hell for those worlds? I say that their Hells are ours. That if you drill down in the Shadowfell you end up in the same Hell as if you did it in the Feywild or the campaign world.
Back in the day there was a great series of Dragon articles about the various Arch Dukes and Dukes of Hell. The article began with a bit of fiction about a Paladin (a holy warrior for good) marching on to Hell to defeat evil at the source. This scene works better today than it even did then with Devils now generally evil rather than exclusively "Lawful Evil". And it works better if the Paladin is marching to Hell, not paying a wizard for an Astral Projection spell.

Sure *where* it is physically located might mean little to PCs and DMs with access to magical means of travel, but the world should make sense to normal people too. What is there to fear about a creature, evil and immortal or not, if it takes a great amount of magic to get them here.

Gygax was a reader of Dante, Milton and of Ovid. These authors, as much as anything and maybe more so, shaped what we think of when we think of Hell. "Planet Hell" inside the Earth/World then fits very well with all these writers. More than a plane "out there" somewhere. Which does bring up an interesting point. Here is a quote from Milton's "Paradise Lost",

"Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name Of Demogorgon."

— John Milton, Paradise Lost II. 966.

So. Lucifer is cast out of Heaven and down into Hell, he meets up with these demons in some…what, ante-chamber of Hell, a place where Chaos rules with Night. Sounds like the Abyss, but where is that again? I have often wanted to merge Hell and they Abyss into one place where demons are the masses of creatures and devil are the upper-class. If I put Hell inside my world (or the Abyss like Mearls) then do I have room for both? Do I need both? Are they the same thing with different names? Then there are other issues I have avoided because of the aforementioned laziness. Tiamat is described in myth as "chaos" and her body is destroyed to make the firmament of the Earth. But then she gets tossed into Hell? Sure, it fits the outcast god model, but Tiamat is chaos. Lilith is also cast out, but she wants order, her own order, but order all the same; at least that is how I read it. Grazzt looks like a Devil, but is a Demon or maybe he is not. And there is the bit from Milton. So what is a world builder to do? And where is this antechamber of Hell were Demogorgon and Orcus act as the Welcome Wagon for Lucifer and the cast out Angels, now Devils? Hell has the River Styx, where the souls of the dead are ferried across, but now the souls of the dead move through the Shadowfell. This makes me want to break out the WitchCraft RPG seprioths and see if I can't make it all work.

Well here is my stab at it. The Antechamber is of course the Underdark. It is hundreds of miles below the surface of the planet. Here in the deepest pit was where the fallen angels were cast. It is here that they meet the demons. There is a great battle, Orcus (then a dark god) is killed only to come back from the dead, Demogorgon has his head cleaved in half (to regrow as two heads) and Ades…well that was the last anyone heard of him. The devils (as they are now known) take the realm once controlled by demons. Once there though the devils discover that Hell is not the home of the demons, it was only the realm they could control this close to the world. The devils seal the opening to the Abyss, place Tiamat there to guard against demonic entry and the devils themselves descend lower into Hell. Physically the Abyss and Hell (and Tarterus and Pluton and Gehenna) are all the same place locked deep within the Earth in a area were the Prime Material, Shadowfell and Feywild all intersect. The nine layers controlled by the Arch Dukes and Devils is known as Hell. Everything else is simply "The Underworld". The conditions are, well Hellish, it is inside a planet afterall, but great and powerful magics keep the denizens alive, though it warps other magic and prevents them from escaping. The areas known as the Abyss are open and there is much fighting, the area known as Hell is gated. It is supposed to be a prison after all.

At the bottom there is a dark chasm who feeds into the elemental chaos. I like the description of the Abyss in the new Manual of the Planes, it makes it sound like a black hole in the Astral.

It needs some work to be sure. Demons, like Demogorgon, Orcus, Pazuzu and others have more interest in human affairs than the mindless hoards of demons because they are more devil like, and thus, more human like. Older demons such as Dagon are more elemental chaos. Even Tiamat now is more demonic than diabolic. This helps explain the Bloodwar a bit better, explains the similarity between demons and devils and why in popular parlance (in the world) they are often confused. It also helps explain why some seem to switch sides every now and then. Or simply put, devils are the cast out immortals of good that betrayed or otherwise became evil. Demons always were evil.

Of course I could keep the Abyss as is in 4^th Ed. There are plenty of good reasons to keep it in the elemental chaos in the Astral. Demons are more elemental, more chaotic obviously and more alien. Of "demon" can just be a term to refer to anything that is evil that is not a devil. If I go that route then "Devils" would refer only to the Fallen and things like Ice Devils, Malebranche and the like are demons, just a different kind. After all, Succubi were demons and now they are devils, so it's not like there isn't precedent.
What does removing the demons and devils from the "outer planes" rob us of in D&D? Well, Planescape to a large degree would need to be rethought. To a lesser extent the nature of Tieflings will need to be changed, though maybe not. Typically to get to those outer planes takes characters of some power, so there is the build up to go to their home turf and fight that is now gone; ie. anyone can find the opening to Hell and stumble in.

OR maybe demons come the "Hells" of the Shadowfell and Feywild.

Of course there is one huge advantage of reshaping the planes. I can shape them in a way to work with either my 4^th Ed game or my OSR/Basic game or even something like Ghosts of Albion.

That is the fun thing about fantasy cosmology, it can be a mutable as I need it to be.