The Adventure Starts Here

As the chaos of the summer draws to a close and we come closer to the structured time of the school year (not only am I an academic, but I am married to a teacher and we two teenagers!) and rugby season (still going even as I dash towards fifty), I started thinking about planning for an autumn game for the family, and in doing so thinking about the bits and pieces of my own gaming history that revealed the promises and possibilities of roleplaying games. And this image here is pretty central.

So, sure, I had explored the Forest of Doom, the Island of the Lizard King, and had trekked across Sommerlund, but when it came down to sitting at a table and adventuring the vast majority of my time had been spent in funhouses full of straight lines; a universe in two dimensions, constrained by graph paper. We did not own any adventures, so that was how we played the Basic set. But then we got the Expert set - was Expert better than Advanced? I wondered at the time. 

And there was an adventure and it was classic. As with mapping the The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, I would hazard that exploring the wilderness of the Isle of Dread is an almost universal experience for gamers around my age. Pirates! Dinosaurs! Zombies! Kopru? Phanatons? Perhaps if we had had access to a Basic level such as The Lost City we would have already advanced our game to something that involved more than kicking in a door and killing everything inside, an analogue version of the arcade classic Gauntlet. But we did not, so the Expert Set was a revelation and totally transformed how we played D&D.

And a MAP! Every young fantasy reader's favourite part of a novel was the map, which promised the reader a bigger world that whatever sub-Tolkien quest they would read over the next 300 pages. You could look at the map and imagine what better stories were going on in those curiously named places. Well, now you could imagine them together!

And that is the sort of feeling I want to relive, and recreate for my players.

(Seriously, I got quite a thrill digging these out of my BECMI box in the cupboard. Kinda makes me regret that I have discovered better games...)

Life Among the Ruins

As a result of my boundless vanity, I occasionally check out from where the few hits of my blog come from. This doesn't take too long. The other day I noticed a few hits coming from a really interesting post by Joseph Manola titled "OSR aesthetics of ruin". It is a few years old, but I really recommend that you read it. I was busy cutting quotes from it to post here, but found that what I would have ended up doing was repeating almost all of it back to you. So read it! 

So what I will add is that the comments Jean-Francois Lebreton recommends the paintings of life in the ruins of Rome by Hubert Robert and... wow! This stuff amazing - ripe for providing the visuals of a great FRPG setting. And, from this pointer, I found that there is a whole style of painting called Capriccio -  "architectural fantasy, placing together buildings, archaeological ruins and other architectural elements in fictional and often fantastical combinations". I could see an entire OSR-game (or other game in which exploration was a key game 'mode') built around Capriccio.

View of the Port of Rippeta in Rome - Hubert Robert

A Capriccio of the Roman Forum - Giovanni Paolo Panini

Arches in ruins and Hecuba’s vengeance over Polymestor - Viviano Codazzi

And more, and more, and more. 

Wage Rates and Treasure Hoards

On my other blog, I wrote about the route to a quick fortune in the Old World of WFRP1e - busking. Not too long ago, I wrote about my preferences for systems that accommodate the PCs employing NPC hirelings. Both of these posts touch on another concern of mine - levels of reward.

I have no need for the extensive price lists found in many games. I couldn't give a flying feather about the price of a chicken. I couldn't give a snort over the cost of salted ham. But that is because those kind of 'realistic' price lists are focused on the wrong kind of thing for my game. I don't need to know the minutia. But I do want to know, at a glance, what it will cost a PC to live. And I do want this broken down, not into a series of line items, but into consequential differences - into a series of bands from 'poverty' to 'princely'. I don't care about the difference in price between a cup of mead and a jug of ale. But I want to know what a carousing session costs, perhaps broken down by quality of neighborhood. Cost of a cloak? Pah! Cost of 'dressing in finery' vs 'dressing in rags', yeah, I can use that.  And so on.

As an aside, this is why I also can't be bothered with platinum and electrum coins. Gold, silver, and copper are enough - in fact, in practical play, two types of coins often provides a perfectly workable system, with simplified accountancy.

Thing is, I do like keeping track of the cash available to the PCs. I do like having the PCs grub around for the gold to cover their living expenses. This can lead to trouble, and trouble leads to adventure. But I don't want to play a game in which the players discuss whether they can do without cloaks, or whether they will wear boots or shoes, and so on. I don't find that fun.

What's this got to do with levels of reward? Well, a good, game-able pricelist allows a GM to calibrate rewards based on wealth. And more importantly, it allows players to understand the level of their PCs' wealth with regard to the game world. They are being paid 500GP to recover the Icon of St. Cuthbert? Is that the same as the yearly income for someone of their class? Is is 10 years' income? Is it the revenue a minor baron would collect? How many months of 'upper class' living would this reward grant the low-born PCs? And so on.

Of course, the much maligned (outside the OSR, at least) random treasure tables provide an additional mode of reward calibration, this time by risk. More or less. So is this a deadly adventure, akin to taking on a Dragon? Or it is like knocking over a couple of Goblins? Either way, and anywhere in between, D&D (and its clones) has you covered.   

Old School vs Old School Revival?

Moving house (which has turned into a very drawn out process) has knocked my gaming temporarily, but has prompted me to think about the value I place on different aspects of my collection. What do I value? What would I hate to lose?

Sitting in my brother's house, a half-way house, I only have a couple of boxes of books with me; a box of AD&D books -

- and my relatively recent Lulu/DriveThru books -

And I realise that I prefer the OSR to the OS, despite my sentimental connection with the originals. And this lot doesn't in include my copies of Kevin Crawford's stuff, or my Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventures, etc. I realised that I could imagine selling my collection of TSR-era D&D materials - yes, even my Gazetteer collections - and play only using the vibrant, forward-looking products of the OSR without my gaming skipping a beat. My heart might ache to lose the material that reminds me of the time when I first found D&D, but some of those books in that box are in danger of turning into memorabilia rather than resources.

Cheap at twice the price!

I recently got a big order from Lulu. Taking advantage of their 30% off coupon, I got the Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion, White Box and Core Swords and Wizardry, a collection of Backswords & Bucklers books, four books by Richard LeBlanc (including his D30 books), and that dizzying expression of what a D&D campaign can be - Yoon-Suin.

All of these combined I got for less than the price of some of the big, commercial RPG books. I have to keep reminding myself of that when I am suffering a bout of buyer's remorse. Which isn't that often, as these are exactly the kind of books that will get used at the table.

(I did feel a bit guilty showing them off as 'rpg porn' on Google+. I half felt a bit like I'd just pasted a picture of my wang and invited everyone to admire, and half like I was one of the spoilt Super Sweet Sixteen 'princesses' presenting conspicuous consumption as some kind of virtue.)

BUT my Lulu haul wasn't the real bargain. No. The real bargain was James Raggi making the Lamentations of the Flame Princess (LotFP) 'Grindhouse Edition' Referee Book available as a free pdf. The full art version, no less, so be careful where you read this on your tablet, or where you print this out. No-one reading this needs telling that LotFP is a very elegant B/X derivative, which by a couple of small changes produces a very different feeling game. Niche protection for Fighters, Turn Undead as a spell for Clerics, no flashy 'boom' spells of the Magic-Users, and a Thief (erm, Specialist) that really works. Good race-as-class Elves, Dwarfs, and Halflings, a lovely encumbrance system and a nice clean set of rules for exploration and adventure. None of it radically different to B/X, just different enough that a game run using LotFP will have a different flavour. As well as Raggi's Early Modern 'Real' Earth 'setting' (which would, of course, also make LotFP a good match for a Warhammerish game), I've long thought that this particular set of rules would make for a good OSR Swords & Sorcery game, a fine competitor for Crypts & Things and Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyberborea. Lower magic than 'traditional' OSR games, a Fighter who really fights, Clerics that can't simply blast their way through the undead, etc. If only the books weren't full of fantastic, if not-safe-for-work, art that reinforces the idea that this is a game for the Early Modern period.   Sounds good, eh? Well, you get none of that in the Referee's Book.

[Insert body-horror image that stretches the bounds of decency here!]

Whatever image you have imagined, it is probably also a graphic representation of your deepest sexual nightmare. 

No, what you get in the Referee's Book is James Raggi's advice on how to run LotFP. Well, no, it is James Raggi's advice on running any OSR game (applicable, most likely, to any traditional RPG) with a 'weird', indeed horrific, tone. It has advice on designing adventures, running campaigns, and on designing NPCs, Monsters and Magic Items. You really can't lose, because James is a good writer with keen insights on RPGs, and so even if you disagree with him, reading the Referee's Book will help crystalise your own ideas on what is important in an RPG.

If you do want those elegant rules that I briefly sketched then you need the Rules and Magic Book, which is available as free-no-art or pay-full-art versions. Say, couldn't I paste my own Swords & Sorcery pictures into the free-no-art version...?

 

Crypts & Things Remastered

Here's a Kickstarter that I backed: Crypts & Things Remastered.

I like the orginal Crypts & Things - it is a neat swords & sorcery-specific take on Swords & Wizardry. The game has tough, human-only PCs, magic is risky (and magic items even more so), there is a simple but effective 'skill system' based on Saving Throws, and the GM advice (and list of inspirational material) is top notch. I find it to be a more effective evocation of the swords & sorcery genre than Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, though AS&SH, which I like a lot, is a very clean and well put together 'Advanced' OSR game. I'd use AS&SH over AD&D1e, (and happily allow demi-humans, pulling the rules straight from the 1e PHB), but if I wanted to run straight-up OSR swords & sorcery I'd choose C&T.

But where AS&SH was clean, well-edited, with a consistent art style throughout, C&T had more than its fair share of typos (sorry Newt) and featured a broad mix of art, some very good, some a little rough. I'd imagine that to some readers these superficial vices might obscure the many virtues of the game. So I was very pleased to find out the C&T is getting 'remastered'. The most obvious change will be a consistent art style, with David M Wright providing the art for the entire book, and a thorough re-edit. But there will also be changes to the system - but importantly none which break its basic compatibility with OSR games and classic D&Ds. I am particularly looking forward to the replacement of Saving Throws with a Test Your Luck mechanic, and expansion of the PC background table, and a streamlined system of consequences for the use of Black Magic - PC sorcerers tempted to use darker magic accumulate corruption points! That said, it sounds like the use of White Magic now carries its own consequences too - using magic to resist corruption and protect life attracts the attention of... things.

With a week to go, it looks like Crypts & Things:Remastered will hit all its stretch goals, and all backers get immediate access to the Beta. It is this kind of thing that makes me really excited about the OSR - for all its distinct flavour, it is fundamentally intercompatible with AD&D 2e and earlier editions, their clones, and other derived games.

Here's a transcript of a web chat in which Newt discusses C&T: Remastered.

The Hanging Garden - (not quite) Skeleton Encounter #4

Another Skeleton encounter (well, sorta) that fits on two sides of a 6"x4" index card. Earlier encounters in this series can be found here:

#1 Archeologists

#2 The Cursed Holmgang

#3 A Travelling Show 

#4 The Hanging Garden

Alone in a meadow is a tree resembling a tall willow with a dense curtain of hanging branches. It sways gently, creaking and groaning, even without wind. If the PCs approach, the tree will burst into blossom; red, white and yellow flowers opening along the hanging branches. The tree reeks of sweet decay and small skeletal birds flutter here and there. This is a CARNIVOROUS PLANT, and the flowers are its ‘mouths’. An aberration, it fed on birds until people settled nearby and began to use it as a way of disposing of their criminals and other outcasts. Years of ritualised murder, combined with whatever residual magic produced the tree, keeps the dead from their rest. Tangled in the branches of the tree are 10 SKELETONS. Some are able walk a few feet from the tree, as if one a leash, while others are higher into the canopy and jerk ineffectively as they dangle. 

The PCs might well conceive of reasonable a plan to destroy the tree; if so they will recover the some trinkets and jewellery worth 3d6GP. However, the tree is difficult to set alight and the trunk cannot be reached without entering the hungry curtain of branches. Unreasonable plans might result in PCs being tangled in the branches – Save vs Paralyzation or be trapped, taking 1d4 damage per turn until a successful Saving Throw is made. Other PCs can help, granting a +2 bonus to the tangled PC’s Saving Throw, but risk being entangled themselves. Skeletons ‘freed’ have a 2in6 chance of attacking the PCs; otherwise they will head towards their ‘home’ village.

This encounter presents little threat to a party that doesn’t do anything silly. Unless the PCs decide to destroy the tree, this encounter serves as atmospheric foreshadowing. The next settlement that the PCs reach will be the one that uses this tree as its means of punishment. A sign outside the village reads, ‘Sinners Shall Tend to the Garden of the God’. PCs should watch their manners…

The 6"x4" index card format really restrained me here. I left out the Skeleton stats, something that I'd thought about before as which ever OSR (or other) game you are using has standard Skeleton that supercedes the Labyrinth Lord statline I would reproduce here. This wouldn't always be the decision - a monster or NPC that varies from a standard would need the statline included - what I want here are index cards that I can draw from a file and [almost] immediately play. 

It also isn't all that Skeleton-y. It started out as an encounter with a number of Skeletons in gibbets, but this gives the players much more to do. Or, well, much more to mess about with. I haven't provided any stats for the 'tree' as it doesn't need any. No more than an oak tree would, anyway. It is an environmental hazard, not a 'monster' to be fought. Of course, it is really an introduction to a proper 'Hammer Horror' village, and the PCs have more choices to make when they find that. 
 

1d6 Skeleton Encounters [1]

Skeletons are boring. They have no motivation of their own and cannot be reasoned with, so a reaction roll doesn't provide for particularly interesting play. They require no morale checks, so that under-used gem of a D&D procedure is rendered useless. In my games, I have been guilty of encounters with Skeletons that are a bit… programmatic. As the DM, I know how the Skeletons will react, that they will not retreat, and that lacking any creativity they will not do anything inventive. 

But it doesn't need to be quite like that. And I want to do this without rewriting the Skeleton entry from Mentzer Basic (or your preferred cross-compatible OSR game). While I have sympathy for the point of view expressed in LotFP and DCC RPG, which suggests that [nearly?] all monsters should be unique and therefore truly 'monstrous', part of allowing the players and PCs to have ‘agency’ is to allow them to make informed, meaningful decisions. Too much novelty, too little stability in the game world undermines the ability of players to make these kind of decisions. 

Anyway, in the format of my 1d12 collection of Goblin encounters [part one, part two*], here is the first of 1d6 Skeleton encounters to add a bit of variety to another stock low-level Wandering Monster. Again, this text should fit on two sides of an 6"x4" index card when printed in Calibri 11pt.

1. Archeologists

The party enter an area of scattered stones. These are not natural features; though worn largely featureless they were clearly once shaped blocks. Several are piled atop each other, the remains of columns long tumbled. Skeletons (6) work with trowels, brushes and small shovels in a shallow pit, collecting pieces of broken pottery and the occasional golden trinket (just 50GP worth in total) in buckets lining the dig site. They are ‘archeologists’, working for the necromancer-sage Angavel Thurm.

SKELETONS (6) = AC: 7, HD: 1, HP: 4, MV: 60’/20’, ATT: 1 tool, DAM: 1d4, SV: F1, MR: 12, AL: C, XP 13

The Skeletons will pay no attention to the PCs unless they disturb the dig site. If the disturbance is minor, the Skeletons will hurry to the disturbance and, using brushes and trowels, attempt to rectify the disturbance. If the disturbance is major, or if the PCs attempt to remove any of the artifacts in the buckets, the Skeletons will attack.

A powerful magic user, Thurm is likely unsuitable as a direct opponent for low-level PCs. If the PCs follow the Skeletons they will be led to a mostly-buried astrological observatory. Thurm is using the dead of an ancient city as the ‘manpower’ to further excavate its secrets. On a hostile reaction, Thurm will send Skeletons armed and armoured in ancient bronze (AC: 4, DAM: 1d8-1) to drive the PCs away. On a favourable reaction, the bookish, cobwebbed Thurm will be interested in exchanging information on ruins – near and far. He can supply adventuring information such as the location of ruins, likely traps, ancient guardians, the translation of hieroglyphs etc. He will also buy ancient trinkets and baubles that the party recovers. Thurm might have use for a particularly powerful party when, in the future, he awakens some sleeping evil, or, accidentally-on-purpose, he prompts the PCs into doing so. 

 [Image by Leonid Yablonsky, borrowed (apologies) from pasthorizonspr.com]

 

(*I have no idea why everything listed in my Goblin encounters has a Movement Rate of 30' per round. A copy and paste error for sure - I have given it as the Movement Rate of Wolves and Boars as well as Goblins. But which D&D or Clone was I referencing that gives Goblins this Movement Rate? Not Labyrinth Lord or ACKS, which I carry around on my tablet for easy reference...)