O is for Oligarch

[over the course of the month of April, I shall be posting a topic for each letter of the alphabet, sequentially, for every day of the week except Sunday. Our topic for this year's #AtoZchallenge? Revamping the Grand Duchy of Karameikos in a way that doesn't disregard its B/X roots]

O is for Oligarch. I had a few other thoughts on what "O" might stand for...things like Order of the Griffon or Offensive Stereotypes. But this one seemed like a better fit for a "revamp," thus keeping with my theme.

[going to try to make this a short post, as I've got a lot on my plate today]

In the city of Specularum, capitol of Karameikos, three Great Families struggle for power, wealth, and influence. Identified by their family name, they are Radu, Torenescu, and Vorloi.

These families, and the basic concept of their conflict, was first introduced in adventure module B6: The Veiled Society. I've owned my copy of this adventure since it was first published in 1984; it may have been the last published adventure module I ever purchased new, until 2nd edition's Return to White Plume Mountain (which is the absolute LAST Dungeons & Dragons adventure module I ever purchased new, off-the-shelf). I have an absolutely enormous collection of modules these days, but most have been picked up from used bookstores and bins, and at least a couple from eBay or similar.

B6: The Veiled Society was written by Dave Cook, co-author of the B/X Expert set and an adventure writer of whom I've spoken highly in the past. Unfortunately, B6 is not his best work; I haven't gotten nearly the mileage out of it that I have of works like Isle of Dread, Forbidden City, or even Blizzard Pass (whose small, non-solo dungeon I've used as an introductory adventure on numerous occasions).  GusL's review is pretty spot on, but as written the module may be even worse than that: take out the gimmicky cut-outs (which I've never bothered to assemble/use) and you're left with a 12 page adventure, most of which is box text or snippets of fiction. The adventure itself is next to worthless...it requires new adventurers to care about a murder mystery without providing anything in the way of motivation (neither carrot or stick). Should their consciences fail to incite them to action, the adventure is all of two-three encounters (none of which involve treasure) and a tiny stretch of underground...five combat encounters, no traps, and the only monster possessing treasure is a nonsensical, and gratuitous zombie fight. That's it...nada mas.

And why should the adventurers care about the murdered niece of a wealthy nobleman? Can't he afford to pay one of the city's (multiple) patriarchs to burn a raise dead on her? The spell is available to any 7th level cleric, and there are at least three clerics of 9th+ level residing in Specularum. Small change "murder mysteries" just don't work (or make sense) in a game where any found cadaver can be quickly (and easily) returned to life.

But I digress...despite the not-so-great adventure, the idea of competing rival factions, none of which are particularly "good" (and only one of which is outright villainous) is a good one. Three groups keeps it from being a black-white dichotomy...and the fact that all of them are (more or less) independent of the Duke gives plenty of opportunity for players to align with one or another (or none) and still get up to all sorts of hijinks and adventures.

Allston found the factions good enough to retain and embellish in GAZ1 (and gave kudos and thanks to Dave Cook for B6 in his introduction). If you want to use Karameikos (close to) as written in the gazetteer, I'd recommend keeping these Great Families. Upping Specularum's population from 5,000 (as per both B/X and module B6) to 50,000 (per GAZ1) just means more power, wealth, and influence in the hands of these ruthless rivals.

They are a tad boring though. Here are some possible ideas to "spice them up:"

Radu: I'm fairly good with the Radu as the kind of medieval Cosa Nostra. If anything, I think I'd  want to "Medici them up," getting them all involved in banking and patronizing the arts, etc. Even though the Grand Duchy of Karameikos has only existed for 30 years, it's important to remember that Marilenev was a thriving trading port even 100 years ago when Thyatis took it over, and the Radu clan (a Tralaldaran family) was probably operating even before then. The Veiled Society should be even more weird and cult-y, less like KKK clansmen and more like "The Hand" or similar fantasy ninjas/assassins. These guys should have their own weird temples, some sort of weird ancestor worship, maybe a pact with a Deep One like species made long ago, back when their ancestors were just pirates raiding coastal Traladara villages.

Gao as Anton (12th level thief);
"Come at me, Flameflicker!"

The main thing that bothers me about the Radu is the lack of female representation. Anton & Co. (his brother, his sons) and all the Veiled Society thugs are male. It would be nice to have at least some women in the mix...maybe a strong matriarch (since I brought up The Hand I now have an image of Madame Gao in my mind taking the place of Anton Radu). It's not just that I'm screaming for diversity here...part of B6 involves the attempted recruitment of player characters into the Veiled Society, and it would just be a little strange if the propositioned character(s) were female and then brought into this group of all male thugs. It would be a lot less random to depict them as equal opportunity villains from the outset.

Torenescu: So, stop me if you've heard this one before: head of family is murdered by uncle, too young son is forced to assume the mantle of leadership and figure stuff out even as evil uncle tries to wrest control of clan away from kid. Yeah? Me, too...many times.

The really dumb bit, of course, is that this isn't Narnia's Prince Caspian or Disney's The Lion King or whatever...it's D&D people! It's really hard for people to stay dead! At least if they're anyone that matters (i.e. anyone with a bit of coin in their pocket). You just can't assassinate a nobleman or woman and leave the body lying around...not if there's a even vaguely competent cleric in the vicinity. So why is it 26-year old Aleksander Torenescu is the head of the family and not his father, Christoph? Hmmm...

Making Torenescu interesting hinges on answering this question. While my Game of Thrones addled brain goes immediately to some sort of incest problem (the son with the father, the son with the uncle, the uncle with the father...your choice) that led to the clan not wanting Christoph raised from the dead, that's maybe too cut-and-dry. What if, instead of poison (also easily neutralized about raising...if not before), Christoph had been murdered in "the usual fashion" (garrote or a Charley Manson Special) and it took the loyal clan members a fortnite to find where his body had been dumped? And what if, upon finding Patriarch Aleksyev (leader of the Church of Traladara) was unable to raise Christoph (having passed the max number of days as limited by his level) they had taken the body to Patriarch Jowett, the 18th level head of the Church of Karameikos? And what if he had refused to perform the deed, on the grounds that they were outside the True Faith (being native Traladarans, natch) and had been rumored to be behind several religiously motivated attacks on the church (or at least the culprits had been members of the Torenescu controlled guilds)?

Heck, if you want to retain Jowett as the goody-good guy he's portrayed as (we'll get to him in a later post), you could say he was indisposed at the time and only his fanatical #2 (the 14th level, Traladara-hating Aldric Oderbey) had been available...and no way he was going to raise a tithing member of the rival church! Do you think maybe the Torenescu clan might (because of this) bear a bit of a grudge against the Church? Even as they already bear a grudge against the Duke for his "invasion" of 30 years prior that cost the family so much of their power? Make Torenescu the REAL Machiavallian schemers behind the scenes, not Radu.

Aleksander Torenescu:
"Vengeance is mine."

And make young Aleksander the new Lareth the Beautiful...just for fun.

Vorloi: And speaking of "forbidden worship," let's talk about the Sea Kings. Because that's what these guys are, right? Baron Vorloi as a "successful merchant prince" by the age of 30 (and in Thyatis no less). He has made his fortune (and continues to undercut his competition) by having the biggest and best fleet of merchant vessels operating out of Karameikos. And it certainly doesn't hurt that the Karameikan navy is financially beholden to his house. From whence comes this maritime power?

Reading between the lines, Vorloi is a jerk, but I don't want him to be a chaos worshipper...at least not of the mutating, Warhammer variety. But I would like him (and his family) to be secret cultists of some forbidden, "pagan" sea god (or goddess or demon...your choice). "Neutral," not chaotic, but utterly inhuman and lacking human compassion, empathy, or morality. A force of nature whose worship has long been prohibited in Thyatis (and would be in Karameikos, too, if Stefan had any inkling that the Vorloi clan were perpetuating its vile worship). The "idiot, feebleminded" son of Baron Vorloi? A necessary sacrifice to their deity, even as Phillip's older sister Michaela was similarly offered up and replaced with fey creature. Every generation's firstborn is given to their patron, receiving a strange changeling in the child's place...the weird offspring of the sea god.

Puny mortal

Thus does the Vorloi clan ensure their ships' fortune. The Baron's daughter Marianna knows that she, too, will someday need to give her own child to the Sea, if she wishes to continue the success of her clan. Will she be willing to do so? And will the father of her child acquiesce to such a tradition?

All right...that's enough for tonight.

Thrones of Chainmail

I have a lot of stuff on my mind (as usual) and no idea how to go about blogging it, nor why I have no idea. I suppose I'll just say that when you've been out of practice posting (the A-Z stuff really doesn't count...really), and your mind has a constant influx of thoughts and concepts, it just creates a logjam that's kind of the opposite of "writer's block." Perhaps the solution would be to simply post and post and post random shit until my mind gets "emptied" again, but...well, I'm not sure if that's really the best way to go about my business.

[my "business"...ha! That's a funny one]

*AHEM* Still, before I get to more serious topics (or not), let's start with something easy and (for me anyway) more recent. Had a chance to catch episode 1 of the new Game of Thrones season Monday night. I'm aware that a lot of folks find the series (and the books) disagreeable for one reason or another...I've written myself about how I find the novels a depressing slog that I'm not interested in finishing. But Martin's world is deep, richly textured, and interesting, and the GoT show is what I call "television crack," no different from Sex and the City (which series I've viewed in its entirety) or True Blood (which I watched with reckless devotion until the birth of my first child made late night viewing something that neither my wife, nor I, had the energy to pursue). I could do without the soft-porn fan-service that that the creators insist on including in every episode, but the writing is interesting, the acting is excellent, the production values are spectacular, and the subject matter...courtly intrigue and medieval warfare in a fantasy world...is right in my wheelhouse.

As a result, I'm a fan of the show, and as a long-time acknowledged "killer" or "adversarial" Dungeon Master, I take a perverse enjoyment in the way beloved characters get killed/maimed/degraded with rather reckless abandon. To be clear, I'm not especially happy when one of my favorites gets the ol' "Charley Manson Special" but at least its a refreshing change of pace to know that the protagonists are operating without the magical shield of "plot immunity." It's a schtick, sure, and one we've seen before (the reimagined Battlestar Galactic, which also made for compelling television BTW) if not quite so brutally.

I've lost more than one character to PVP.

[oh, and just so everyone knows, I am aware there are far more important things to talk about in the world today, like Venezuela's current economic collapse. But that shit is absolutely depressing. However, I might make some observations about Argentina in a later post, just to "keep it real"]

D&D, of course, is neither television nor literature and longtime players are probably inured to the idea of a protagonist being slain by bow or blade. How many times have we not seen our own "main character" fall beneath the spears of gibbering goblins or cackling kobolds? And though Game of Thrones IS television, presumably following an overarching plot of some sort (though the casual viewer might be forgiven for not being able to make heads and tail of it), it's hard NOT to equate the game with a fantasy RPG, seeing as how it shares so many tropes found in the hobby...unsurprising given the current state of fantasy these days (largely inspired by D&D and its associated fiction) nor the fact that its author (Martin) has a background in gaming.

[rangers? come on, man]

I've also written before (after my first exposure to the Game of Thrones series) that while some aspects of it are reminiscent of of my old, latter day AD&D campaign, it's hard to imagine anyone using the D&D system (any edition) to run a campaign truly resembling A Song of Ice and Fire...which is probably why Green Ronin (the series's license holder) opted for a completely new system when developing the RPG, rather than building on D20 or something. Heck, that's the main reason I was 'porting the setting into the Pendragon system last year (see my Buckets of Blood posts if you missed 'em)...a little side project that, at this point, I'm not terribly interested into getting back into, new GoT season or not.

[though someday I probably should get around to posting the last couple pages of notes concerning the alternate ASOIAF timeline that's supposed to be used in place of the Pendragon Arthurian/Camelot one. *sigh* if only I slept LESS hours in the night, right?]

Ah...civilization.

Thing is, I was considering that, all soap opera bits aside, a lot of Game of Thrones resembles a war-game campaign more than anything else. Pretty obvious considering Martin cites the English War of the Roses as a major inspiration for his novels. There's a number of large-scale battles in the series, and this is yet another reason why the story seems like a poor fit for a D&D system, where combat is prevalent but based on small scale skirmishes in subterranean environments...NOT open warfare on the field of battle.

And yet...

And yet, I can't help but consider that D&D itself has its roots in a war-game, specifically CHAINMAIL, and how much of the setting...much of the story...could be modeled fairly easily using a Chainmail system with only slight tweaks. Chainmail may have billed itself as "rules for medieval miniatures," but its system encompassed a historic range that encompassed about 1000 years (from the 400s to 1500s).  This could easily be tightened up to account for the specific ASOIAF setting. And if one replaced the Tolkien-based Fantasy Supplement with one based on Martin's supernatural elements (easy enough as they are so few), it's easy to imagine a tabletop campaign based in large part on Martin's books. Just imagine an army of 15mm knights painted in Lannister gold and crimson riding out to battle the armies of the North...

Throw in some Braunstein-like sub-plots and secret missions involving special "character" figures and...well, with a few random tables, one could probably recreate a pretty reasonable facsimile of the series.

It's actually a pretty interesting idea for a gaming project (I've never written/designed an actual war-game before, though I've played more than a few)...especially given my recent research/interest in the origins of the hobby (not yet blogged about) and some thoughts I have on "forward compatibility" (as opposed to backwards compatibility).

But I'll write about that more later. Time to get the kid for soccer practice!

Chargen (and Skills!) in Crowns of Blood

[this is probably "Part 1 of Several." We'll see]

Spent much of this morning using Knights Adventurous (the Pendragon supplement for "non-standard" character creation) to see if I could generate something the equivalent of Robb Stark, one of the protagonists of Martin's Westeros saga. Well, at least until he gets the Charley Manson Special (as  happens to major characters with fair regularity). Even sticking "by the book" (more-or-less) I was able to generate a fairly competent young man that roughly models the character at the beginning of the series.

Which was tricky, 'cause we're talking about a guy who had just turned fifteen when the books begin.

Pendragon assumes knighthood (and, it appears, adulthood) round about age 21. Characters created using the default chargen rules of the game all start at age 21 unless a player wants to have an older character (in which case, you were just an old geezer squire...all PCs begin the game with their knighthood ceremony). In the Westeros world, characters are considered adults upon reaching age 16, though many characters begin their "careers" earlier than that (Robb takes up the "King of the North" mantle at age 15, Jaime Lannister was knighted at age 15, women-folk are married off anywhere between ages 13 and 17). The "game of thrones" might be a vicious game, but it's a young person's game.

Knights Adventurous provides rules for creating characters (both male and female) as young as age fifteen. Of course, a 15 year old character to come anywhere near the competency of the 21 year old knights of the Pendragon setting. Hell, it's impossible to even qualify as a knight at that age, unless you get some extremely lucky rolls...the best most can hope for is to become a squire, and then advance (over several years) to a point of proficiency. Usually around age 21.

For Robb, I was able to just barely qualify him for knighthood at age 15 (even though the Starks, and Northmen in general, aren't big on knighthood, I wanted him to be the equivalent). I first selected what I felt was the closest homeland to represent the Starks: Gorre in The North. The most civilized area north of Hadrian's wall, the people of Gorre are culturally Cymric (the default "knight culture" of Pendragon) but religiously Pagan (roughly as equivalent to Martin's "Old God" religion as the Holy Seven is to "Christianity"). Defaulting him to the eldest son of a bannaret knight (the only noble title possible for the region per K.A., though I suppose I could have "cheated" and made him a straight Lord), I was just able to make the bare minimum requirements for being a night by giving him the family characteristic "At Home in Nature" with its associated bonus to the hunting skill.

"Hey! I'm fifteen!"

Even so, he's a less-than-average knight, lacking any martial skills greater than 10 (the "young knight" of the Pendragon NPC lists carries sword at 15 and lance at 13...my "knight" is a closer equivalent to the "guardsman" NPC). A couple years of seasoning (and good training rolls during the Winter Phase) could probably get him up to snuff by age 17, but its difficult to believe he'd be winning as many battles in his sixteenth year.

I guess having a pet dire wolf helps.

[for a dire wolf, I'd probably use the same stats as an Irish Wolf Hound, though perhaps with SIZ and STR equivalent to a carthorse as Martin's "dire wolves" are as large as ponies]

Does this mean I need to rewrite how skill points are accumulated (in order to better emulate the fiction I hope to model)? Mmm...maybe. Probably, if I want to stick to Martin's canon. If I want young, conquering hero types (Robert Baratheon waged his rebellion beginning in his 19th or 20th year of age) to have a chance against veteran military commanders (crown prince Rhaegar Targaryen was 24 and a consummate badass when Robert beat him at the Trident), then there needs to be some adjustment to "even the odds." Probably that begins with the default (Pendragon) assumptions regarding "adulthood." I know that a team of 30 year old professional athletes will beat the hell out of young college players in the same sport every time (and really wipe the floor with high school players). Wouldn't warfare be a similar affair?

Anyhoo...some long time readers are probably wondering how I can reconcile myself to a game system like Pendragon when it includes one of those "dreaded" skill systems that I've railed about in the past (like here, for example, or here). Well, there are several redeeming aspects to Pendragon's system that assuage my concerns:

1. Despite being a "roll D20" system and not the standard Chaosium percentile, Pendragon is still a "roll under" skill system. There's no GM fiat that comes into play...you succeed or you don't based on the roll against your level in the skill (opposed or not), and the most the GM can do is assign a modifier (plus or minus 5) based on advantageous/disadvantageous circumstance.
2. The game doesn't attempt to create a universal matrix for "every skill in the world," instead providing a finite selection based on a unified theme. You won't find skills like "jump" or "listen" or "hide in shadows" or "pick pockets" because either A) they're not applicable to knightly action, or B) they're governed by other game systems.
3. There's a conspicuous lack of player choice in skill selection. Skills have assigned numbers based on culture and background with a very limited number of "extra" picks for the player character (and even where those picks can be placed is subject to limitation). As such, character creation is not especially drawn out as player choice and "customization" is curtailed. This is a good thing.

Because of these three factors (and its overall elegance of implementation), Pendragon's "skill system" is one I can live with. I was actually a fan of Stormbringer's (back in the day), and I personally think Pendragon's variation on the Chaosium standard is a better design. Certainly, less search-n-handling time and quicker selection.

That being said, I think Pendragon still has too many skills for what I need in Crowns of Blood. On first pass, here's how I'd shorten the list:

• Flirting and Romance can be combined into a single skill called Seduction. Dancing might go here too unless rendered as a DEX check (like jumping and climbing) or rolled into the Courtesy skill.
• Faerie Lore can be combined with Folk Lore.
• Hawking will simply be a specialty within Hunting (other specialties might be boar, stag, etc.).
• A single skill Music replaces Compose, Play, and Singing (becoming individual specialties).
• Gaming, Recognize, Swimming, and Tourney removed altogether (medieval gaming being a matter of luck over skill - I don't care if you can play chess - recognition being part of heraldry, swimming being treated like other physical feats, and tourney etiquette being part of the Courtesy skill if really necessary).
• Creation of a specialized Knowledge skill for specific types of lore (like Religion, Orate, speaking/reading a foreign language, or the setting-specific care and use of "Ravens"). 
• Stewardship, while not knightly, becomes a lordly skill necessary for wise governing (and retaining and hoarding resources).

Skills that have "specialties" require the player to choose a specialty; it's simply treated two points higher than the actual skill level, or four points if the character is deficient in other areas (for example, a character with Music 2 and specialty "Harp" plays the harp as if they had four points of skill. If the character has no ability to compose or sing, they play the harp as if they'd assigned six points to the skill).

To sum up, the non-combat skills in Crowns of Blood include only:

Awareness*, Boating (Sailing), Chirurgery, Courtesy*, First Aid*, Folk Lore, Heraldry*, Hunting*, Industry, Intrigue, Knowledge, Music*, Seduction, and Stewardship.

New skills are marked in bold; "knightly" skills are marked with an * (though, I might modify this list). Hunting, Knowledge, and Music all require a character to choose a particular specialty.

Not bad...only about half the number of skills left to worry about.
: )

PVP

Waaaaay back in January 2012, I started writing this particular post on PVP. For various reasons I shelved it. Now I feel compelled to bring it out again. Why? F'ing Alexis, that's why. Jeez, seems like every third post I write these days has to mention that guy and his blog.

Alexis recently posted a 10,000 word essay on how to play a character (mainly with regard to D&D, but there is good stuff in the essay for other RPGs). If you haven't read it, I suggest you do...it echoes a lot of the same things I've been saying over the years (like being proactive and its effect on the DM), but he does it in a much more concise (yes, for 10K words, it is concise) and elegant fashion then myself. But then Alexis is a writer...I'm just a dude with a laptop.

[he also has some good bits about untwining rope and using your shield straps for something other than carrying your shield on your back...something for everyone!]

Even for DMs (which is the seat I find myself in more often then not) it has good stuff to say, and it is pertinent whether or not you choose to run a campaign world as detailed as Alexis or not. Really. I can use the stuff in this post and the mile-by-mile detail of MY campaign worlds (any of 'em) is haphazard at best. "Nonexistent" would actually be a better term.

So, yeah, a good read. Of course, I didn't it myself till tonight, and only because I was intrigued by someone getting so bent out-o-shape over it that they'd...well, you can read his other post about that if you're interested. Still it got me curious enough to read the whole thing (I was at the bar eating my corn beef and cabbage solo tonight anyway...family's still out of town)...and having read it, put this whole other post (which I did read) in a different perspective, and raised a very significant question for me:

WTF?

I shall now quote from Alexis's original essay (there will be some editing):

Winning 

…We want to win the game.  Or we would, if this was monopoly, and a 'win' was something as clearly designed as a goal post.  It isn't in an rpg.  Winning is this fairly amorphous quality that means different things to different people.  For some, just gathering all the money they can in the shortest space of time defines a win.  For others, having a good time is the measure.  For still others, challenging themselves, either by overcoming the odds or 'solving the problem' is the ideal. 

…three or four generations back, the business of winning was obvious.  Make money, use it to make more money, use the massive amounts of money you've gained to build a personal world of power and triumph, use that to beat back the other fellow and - if you're really successful - use it to tell the state and the other fellow what to do.  You know you're winning when everyone around you is clearly on their knees.  If you're still on your knees to someone ... you're not there yet. 

That doesn't allow for a win for very many people ... but in a strongly heirarchical society, everyone understood that humbling yourself before authority was expected and ultimately  unavoidable...  

The roleplaying game has a lot more in common with the old heirarchical system than with our modern avoidist philosophy.  You're not only awarded for increasing your abilities and influence ... you're positively punished for not taking the power-acquisition path.  How?  Well, the game is boring…If you're not fighting ... and thus increasing both the level of your danger and the potential reward from the risk you're taking, it's just a dull, dull game.

Whatever your personal motivations - coin, fun, challenge - you must first and foremost recognize the social structure surrounding your eventual achievements:  right now you are nothing.  With time and effort and perseverence, you will be something.  To be something requires acquisition - of power or wealth - and that acquisition will come, must come, from someone or something else.  There's nothing to be done about it.  You may be a nice person.  You may have no personal desires for global domination.  But someone has, and your meager acquisition of wealth and power (in the beginning) is, at the very least, an annoyance to someone.  Eventually it will become an annoyance they can't ignore, and in the interest of keeping all the wealth and power they already possess, they will have to put a timely end to your existence… 

So where it comes to the subject of winning, we can at least acknowledge that you will have to be taking something from someone.  Who you take it from is up to you.  Your gamemaster is probably going to make this very convenient for you, nicely standing up strawmen you can beat into submission easily with your pain stick ... but if you have any influence on the decision-making process at all, you really ought to sit down and think.  "What is it that someone has got that I would really like to have?" ... and ... "Who is it that has things that I think really ought to have nothing?" 

Those are two very simple questions, and they will greatly help in establishing a purpose for your character. In the greater sense, they will build up those goal posts we were saying earlier didn't exist.  The questions are open and non-moral in structure.  The who and the what could be anything, after all…[cheat edit]…So first and foremost, go get the thing you want.

[the cheat edit is one where I have deliberately removed Alexis's context; in context, he's saying "go get the thing" from the (presumably NPC) target and its "minions." But for the purpose of this post, I could give fuck all about such boss monsters]

We shall now return to my post on player versus player conflict that I started writing well over a year ago. I will leave out the opening paragraphs about a trip to the dentist and the cutesy-ness that I was able to incorporate with dental puns. You folks don't need that anyway. SO, picking right up:

One of the things that got me in trouble with Alexis’s campaign yesterday [note: 14 months ago], was my stated willingness and/or intention of instigating an intraparty conflict. I had previously read his post on the subject of PVP (to sum up: he doesn’t allow it), but I had completely forgotten about it by yesterday morning; after all, at the time I read it I had not been preparing to play in his campaign, and since it didn’t fit with MY way of running games, I had dismissed it from my mind after perusal.

Needless to say, when I read his post yesterday that linked to that earlier article I felt even more silly…not only had I been a heel, I’d violated a cardinal mandate of the DM!

But as I said, it wasn’t in my mind because that’s not how I run my games.

If you look over to the right of my blog, you’ll see some “badges” (whimsically placed by Yours Truly, not awarded by any neutral panel). A couple of them are the typical “old school cred:” random dice rolls governing cause and effect and regular player character death. Personally, I’ve never been big on “fudging” for a better story/game…in games where heroic success is supposed to be a regular occurrence, designers inevitably include rules for “hero points” or “drama chips” or whatever, and that’s totally cool. And along similar lines, I generally give the benefit of the doubt to game designers that they are making games exactly as deadly as they are supposed to be, with no “fudging for life” needed. Intellectually, I know this isn’t always the case, but I generally prefer life and death struggles with a high body count…makes victory for the survivors all the sweeter.

The other two badges I would consider matters of GM philosophy that might flip either way. The mirror indicates I will mirror back what players give me…that is, player input (if any) will go into the design of an on-going game. Some DMs don’t operate this way, or don’t make it a large part of their game, instead focusing on creating the setting and scenarios for players to which players react. I prefer proactive players, myself…but especially when starting a new campaign (or a new group of players with a fresh and fragile social contract) this is trickier to get as everyone (including the GM) is still “learning the ropes.” Or, at least, tightening the knots.

The last badge…the little stick figure with arrows in his back…indicate I allow, and often welcome intraparty conflict, or PVP (“player vs. player”) as it’s known.

Not everyone does PVP in their games; a lot of experienced DMs (like Alexis) have decided that the cons of players attacking each other far outweighs the pros. And it’s easy to see that point of view:

-        Role-playing is a cooperative exercise and party conflict drives a real wedge into players cooperating.

-        It’s easy for some players, especially those who’ve invested a lot of time and emotion into a character, to get upset (and want to stop playing).

-        Party conflict can derail the “adventure at hand,” sidetracking the party and stopping the whole “fun thing” we’re doing.

-        It’s easy for random dice rolls or unbalanced class abilities to prevent any type of level playing field for actual PC conflict. Unlike, say, a PVP Arena in World of Warcraft, there’s no artificial “Thunderdome moderation” that occurs in an RPG. The magic-user casts power word: kill or the cleric casts harm or destruction, or the fighter uses a vorpal sword , or the assassin auto-kills someone when he’s not looking, or multiple PCs gang up on a lone PC…none of these things are “fair” to the victim.

-        Grudges and vendettas between PLAYERS can spill over into the game leading to all the bad things in bullets 1, 2, and 3. “You killed my elf so my new fighter is going to kill YOU.”

All very valid reasons to NOT allow PVP conflict at one’s table. Long-term, one has to decide what the game is about; once PVP begins to occur, there’s the possibility that this is ALL your campaign will be about…assuming it doesn’t simply dissolve entirely.

And don’t tell me it’s necessary for “realism” to the game…there’s a lot of things in D&D that are unrealistic. Vancian magic. Talking swords (do they have mouths?). 15^th level master thieves unable to hide in shadows (Mentzer’s BECMI edition only). Grell. In a world where many “unrealistic” things are real, it is perfectly acceptable to say, “player characters have a bond of camaraderie such that they would never EVER attack each other.” Kind of like telling the cleric he would never pick up an edged weapon.

Having said all that, I STILL allow player versus player conflict. I welcome it in my games; to a certain degree, I’ve been known to encourage it.

Why, JB, why would you do such a thing?

Ahh, that’s the part I’ve been trying to sort out into words. Let me start with a couple of real examples.

#1 (from many, many years ago): My character, a lightly armored swordsman, encounters a hulking barbarian (the other PC) on the road.  The barbarian immediately begins talking smack to me because he is so much bigger and stronger (18/90+ strength). I draw my sword and tell him he should be more polite or he’ll regret his words. He insults me further. I roll to hit…and miss. “That was just a warning shot,” says I. The barbarian guffaws and makes some more ill-conceived remarks; he may also have attacked me, but I don’t recall. I roll to hit and this time succeed, doing maximum damage and killing the lout. The player is upset; the DM asks why he antagonized my character, instead of just “partying up.” I believe I then bound his wounds (he was only at “death’s door”) and we continued on to our adventure, none the worse for wear.

#2 (from last year): Play-testing DCC, my two 0-level characters ambush our two (cowardly if well-equipped) NPC companions, murder them, and take their gear. Later on, one of my two characters dies in combat. A little while after that, another player in the group decides to attack and kill my remaining PC. When asked why, he explained my character had proven to be a loose cannon, and it was only a matter of time (he felt) before I turned on the other party members. Combat ensued, one of his PCs fell on his own knife (dying, as is a not uncommon experience in DCC), and the other mortally wounded my PC. When I brought a new PC to the table, he (I) did not hold a grudge against the other guy.

These are examples of PVP play in which I’ve been involved as a player. I could cite other examples…a time when another player “lightning bolted” my PC for calling his character by the wrong name one too many times (“That is NOT my name!”), and an instance when two PCs (mine and another) was attacked (from stealth) by a third for a grudge he carried based on treasure distribution. In instances where I was a DM/GM, I’ve had PCs bushwhack each other or plot against each other, and times when a PC simply stood by when another PC was in mortal danger due to a prior slight or argument.

Some will say I’m stupid and/or destructive to allow this behavior at a game table. Some will say I’M a jerk for participating in this behavior at all. As wiser, cooler heads have pointed out:

The character is an avatar of the player. The player is directly responsible for the character’s choice of behavior. It is not a defense of “jerk” behavior to say, “I’m just playing in character;” as the person making the character’s choices, YOU are responsible for your character’s behavior.

[that is a paraphrase and, no, I am not taking it from Alexis, but from a different arrogant intellectual I respect: Ron Edwards]

But there IS a real, down-to-earth reason that I have allowed (and have participated in) PVP conflict over the years and it is this: it drives home, more than anything else, the consequences of one’s actions.

Players DO act like douches from time to time, for a whole helluva’ lot of reasons, justified or not. Sure, as a DM or GM I could “hit them with a lightning bolt from God” or some other type of Divine (DM fiat) Karma. I'd guess many DMs have tried this approach in the past…I know I did on one or two occasions as a kid. But while I take my role as rules arbiter and referee seriously, biased fiat justice of this type just doesn’t sit right with me. It breaks the suspension of disbelief that the game is a game (it IS a game, but we’re using it as a fantasy escape for awhile)…it also gives a feeling of DM “playing favorites” (even if the “favorite” is the DM himself!) by taking a side.

I could also just boot players from the table. That depends on your tolerance level for miscreants. Personally (and I realize this is personal) I prefer a little drama and conflict so long as it is “in character” (that dreaded term) and in the spirit of the campaign…and my long-term games tend towards a darker tone to them. At least, my AD&D games always have in the past.

So for me, the best way to drive home the point of consequences is to allow other players to administer the beatings. Or (as a player) to administer the beatings myself.

[now, that's all stuff I wrote back in 2012. Here's the new bits...]

Engaging in PVP behavior is one form facilitating the gamist creative agenda...of providing an outlet for players to indulge in the mini-game of "who's the biggest swinging dick at the table"...and if you'll pardon the gender specificity of the expression, I've found female gamers fond of the same indulgence from time to time. Part of a game like D&D is showing off "how awesome" your character is...your creativity in designing the character, sure, but also your effectiveness within the game. Your tactics, your strategy, your acumen when it comes to kicking ass. And simply kicking the ass of the DM's "strawmen" does eventually (as I think Alexis implies) wear thin. 

Now creative agenda (showing whose sword is bigger) may not be enough to put PVP in your game, but how about when intraparty conflict is appropriate based on your character's objectives? What happens when the thief wants to fence the loot and party when the paladin wants to give it all to the poor? If you're a proactive player, one not afraid to establish your own goals and agenda, sometimes that agenda doesn't jibe with those of the other players at the table.

So what do you do then? Give up your f'ing goals for the sake of "getting along with everyone?" Based on Alexis's later post, yeah, that's exactly what you should do...because D&D is a group activity, and if you're not "flexible enough" to play nice, then your option is the highway. Even, apparently, if the players at the table are all insipid knuckleheads.

See, I don't agree with that...as a player OR as a DM. I do agree with most everything in the 10,000 word post, including the parts about the psychology of a DM and the need for "self respect;" though in place of the latter term I'd probably use something more prosaic and floofy like "being true to yourself" or something. And if I a player character IS "self respecting" and has an agenda that breaks with the rest of the party, I think that should be allowed and, yes (often), encouraged. Because otherwise you're doing a couple things that I'm really not a fan of:

1. You (the DM) are breaking the illusion of the reality of the game ("why can't I stab Jimbo?" Because you can't, jerk-face)...which interrupts the whole escape portion of the game (i.e. the third foundational pillar on which the game is built).
2. You (the DM) are supplanting the player's own objectives and expectations of play. It disempowers (or "deprotagonizes") the player...and that's as likely to break the player's drive to creatively engage and participate proactively as anything else.

I realize that for some DMs, their attitude towards #1 is "it serves the greater purpose" of facilitating a game that involves a group activity, and the attitude towards #2 is "so the fuck what...I don't want 'em in MY game, they can go play elsewhere." And I also realize that my little post here probably won't change any DM's mind about whether or not they include PVP-type action in their campaign. My point here is to explain my perspective, and why I allow intraparty conflict in my own games. Hell, I have an expectation of party conflict within a game when it's appropriate...and part of that expectation comes from my same reasoning about how to play a character as Alexis outlines in his essay.

To me...well, I guess I only really know how to do this from my perspective. I can "turn it on and off" when it comes to gaming...I can be very in the moment, living vicariously through my character when we're playing, and yet be detached enough outside the game to not let another character stabbing mine in the back irritate me too much, so long as its justified and appropriate. That part is where I see the DM having a role in the issue: as a referee and arbiter.

I'd never shut the door on PVP completely. I'd much rather see PCs administer their own lumps (and suffer their own consequences) then have to "force" cooperative behavior (said force being accomplished in any number of ways). Besides, to me it is totally (forgive the term) "unrealistic" to think that a band of rogues (the typical D&D party) is going to get along all the time or always have the same agenda. In the military, yes, you put your lives in the hands of your brother (and sister) soldiers and trust them implicitly, have been trained in point of fact to lay down your lives for them. But a D&D party is no such Band of Brothers...while they might experience horror and combat and traumatic experiences together, they are still a group of independent mercenaries and sell-swords with grand ambitions and monstrous egos...the kind of Type A personality that drives a man to go brave a dragon's den instead of minding the shop or plowing a field. These are folks with agendas...and agendas that don't always synch neatly with the other characters. Thinking otherwise is just too fanciful for my brand of fantasy.

So, yeah, players should have a mind for what "winning" means to them (and their character)...and sometimes, that means taking it from someone else, even a fellow player character. The way I see it, that's part of the nature of the game, and it's up to each individual player to decide how far they want to push it and risk the wrath of their fellow players; you never know when you might get taken out for being a "loose cannon."

To me it makes for an interesting game. But then, I am kind of an ass.

; )

[and BTW, none of this is meant as a retraction in any way of my earlier post. If you agree to play in another DM's world, you agree to abide by the DM's rules. I'm just talking 'bout how I roll, dig?]

The Paladin Calling

So as I posted early this morning (well after midnight), I decided to change my character in the weekly Labyrinth Lord game from a gnome assassin-illusionist to a human paladin (for those who are confused, we are using the Advanced Edition Companion, or AEC, rules which adapts the AD&D PHB, MM, and DMG to the B/X rule set which Labyrinth Lord clones so admirably).

I rolled up the gnome in the first place because Randy (the DM) had jokingly said I HAD to be a gnome in order “to keep me out of trouble.” I went ahead and took the gnome anyway and decided to see just how much trouble I could get into (I can be a bit of a contrarian). Besides, I really wanted to try playing an assassin, and the wide-open multi-classing of the LL/AEC rules meant I could supplement my skills with some phantasm, something I thought was a pretty hot idea.

The problem I ran into over 4 weeks was two-fold:

• The adventure was not very conducive to the optimal play style of a 1st level assassin; i.e. it has many of the elements of a straight dungeon crawl and a lot of undead and is often linear in progression…all of which hinders the abilities of an assassin. For example, what good is it to disguise yourself when everything just attacks you anyway? What good is your ability to stab kidneys and slit throats when you’re fighting skeletons with neither kidneys nor throats (not to mention an ability regenerate and reform almost instantly)?
• The circumstances of the adventure (large group, specific quest, limited path choice) led to me using my default method of play, for which the assassin-illusionist is NOT a particularly well-suited class selection.

My “default method of play” is kind of a take charge (or at least ‘charge ahead’) balls-to-the-wall style: walking point, interacting with NPCs, getting ‘stuck in’ with melee, taking things fast rather than slow. Anyone ever play the video game Mass Effect? Think “Vanguard” character class…that’s MY personality. Ever play Warhammer 40,000? I’m the guy with the all Khorne Berserker and rampaging dreadnought army. I’m not very patient and I’ve only limited amounts of caution…usually just enough to work out an angle or (simple) advantage. I hate dithering. I’m kind of an ass.

Anyway, with the gnome I was basically acting as a leather clad fighter with minimal hit points: 5 in fact (maximum of the average of assassin + illusionist). I’d use an illusion to provide me with cover and charge the opponent, and then do a bunch of damage…and then get killed. Fortunately, in Randy’s game there’s a lot of resurrection and healing within the dungeon.

Well, maybe NOT fortunately…the fact that we couldn’t get “perma-killed” just made the game feel even more like playing a vid; and led me to continue using the same tactics, which really ISN’T playing an “assassin-illusionist.” I would’ve been better served playing a fighter-illusionist (at least I could have worn the gnome-sized plate armor we found). And the whole point of choosing those classes had been to experience and experiment with a style of play (assassin) I hadn’t gotten much opportunity to try. But I wasn’t doing that, see? There’s been no call for disguise or setting traps or using poison or assassinating anyone. This was the wrong game for trying this particular class.

[the only time I got to really commit “murder” was on my fellow player characters a couple-three times…but even that was unsatisfying. I mean, they just come back anyway…]

So ANYway…I told Randy I wanted to make a new character, even though it meant chucking all the XP, gold, and equipment I’d picked up over the last month of play. Seeing as how our characters begin the game with NOTHING (not even normal equipment!) that’s a fairly ballsy move on my part. On the other hand, it should go to illustrate just how dissatisfied I was with the experience IN PLAY. And since I’m not quite ready to start running my own game again (still writing up D&D Mine), I wanted to continue playing with Randy & Co.

So enter Sir Harold the Tall, 1st level paladin.

What a difference a change can make!

Playing Sir Harold was a MUCH more satisfying experience. My actual style of play changed very slightly, but it fit so well with the character that I felt much more “in tune” with the game. My character could lead from the front…because he’s a fearless paladin, and he wants to lead by example. My character can attempt to hail and talk to opponents…because he’s a lawful paladin and he’s not all about bloodthirsty combat. My character can freely pick up and redistribute loot…because he’s a trustworthy paladin and isn’t looking for his own financial gain (my character took none of the gold we found). My character was welcome to a helm and shield and suit of scale armor we found…because my character’s a battle-worthy paladin and has the “oomph” to get stuck-in and hold-the-line for the others.

Even though Sir Harold is a less effective fighter than the assassin (the Paladin only had a 15 strength while the gnome’s was 16, giving the little guy an extra bonus to attack and damage), Sir Harold was a complete badass in combat. It helped that my dice were rolling hot most of the night (a lot of 18, 19, and 20s, a lot of max damage rolls…and I didn’t roll less than a 6 out of 8 for damage all night!). Of the ten or so “evil” soldiers we encountered, I managed to deliver the death blow on at least half of ‘em myself…and all the while I was offering them mercy and giving them the chance to throw down their arms and trying to be a “good guy” (unfortunately…for them…they were only programmed for fighting not surrender or negotiation).

But I think I just “felt better” playing the character. It was like my basic inclinations all “made sense” in light of the paladin archetype. When one party member was so horribly cursed that he could do mostly nothing the during the session (including hold a weapon or even walk), it made sense that Sir Harold would strap the character to his own back and work his ass off to get him healed. It didn’t feel like I was “metagaming” to organize the PCs to pool their gold so we could buy enough “magic rocks” to remove the curses afflicting three of our party members…that’s just the kind of thing a paladin should do!...whereas the same action from my gnome would have felt “forced” and “artificial.” I mean, as a PLAYER I’d want the other PCs to get healed and back in the game, but why would the sleazy cold-blooded assassin give a shit about the other party members? I mean, they’re just a means to an end, right? And once they’ve lost their usefulness (due to debilitating curses), well that’s the time to loot their incapacitated forms and leave ‘em to rot!

And just by the way, playing cutthroat games like that can be fun, too…with the right GM and fellow players on the same page. But for this game, there’s a much more cooperative-camaraderie thing going on…I mean, we’re ALL cursed in this game (the Halfling strapped to the paladin’s back was just “double-cursed”) and we’re ALL just trying to find the magic objective that will break the curse and let us get back to whatever we were doing before ending up in this godsforsaken realm of skeletons and apparitions and exploding corpse-heads and fast zombies and evil (if slightly catatonic) soldiers.

And goateed necromancers. Can’t forget those dumb-dumbs (we’ve killed three so far).

So, in light of the group AND the adventure AND my personality the paladin is a pretty darn good fit. I enjoyed playing the character, and the session was (for me) the most satisfying one we’ve played in five weeks. It felt like a lot got accomplished. It felt like the group worked well together. It felt like I got to role-play a bit (which is one of the reasons I play these damn games, after all). And I got some good experience playing a class that previously I hadn’t.

And it’s a GOOD class, and yes, plays very different from a normal fighter so long as you keep the whole “goody-two-shoes / Boy Scout” firmly in the forefront of your thought process. Always act polite and try to negotiate with sentient beings. Always offer quarter and be willing to grant mercy. Spurn material goods and wealth save that which is absolutely necessary to your mission. Apply no attachment to the items acquired for they are only transitory (the cursed Halfling loaned me the magical holy shotel (a curvy sword) that he was unable to use…as soon as he was cured it was back in his possession along with my appreciation for the loan).

Detect evil as a class ability is VERY useful for this type of play…it helps you to decide how gently one deals with a potential opponent. On the other hand, it’s kind of an “easy out;” paladin PCs that DON’T have a detect evil ability (like the OD&D version I was adapting for D&D Mine) are FORCED to actually “talk first, kill second” to make sure they’re not unjustly murdering someone with whom they might otherwise come to an accord.

I like that a lot. The standard fighter is a much more practical, pragmatic archetype, regardless of whether they’re honorable or completely mercenary in temperament. A fighter starts out as a 1st level VETERAN…the implication is the character has “been around.” He’s an “old campaigner” (in the going to war sense). The regular fighter knows that if you catch an orc with its back turned, you don’t bother to ask what he’s doing in the area, you just run him through! Same with other potential opponents you come upon…if they fall between you and your objective, it’s better to err on the side of “taking them out.” The only place negotiation has is when you’re out-gunned or need more intelligence on the opposition (finding out how strong they are). War is hell…and the fighter is a warrior that has few illusions or romantic notions about combat and the martial arts.

The paladin, on the other hand, is COMPELLED to be idealistic. At least, he should be (I’m sure there are campaigns where paladins are given a little more “free rein”)…in my own campaigns I have close-to-zero leniency for players who take the paladins restrictions lightly. If you want the bennies, you better be playing by the book! And as long as I’m playing a paladin, I’m going to try to hold myself to the same standard.

But regarding my own game and my inclusion of the paladin subclass: well, I was starting to think that I would best be served by doing away with the “paladin,” per se and just making the character a templar or temple knight. In other words, remove the alignment restriction and make the character a more martial version of the cleric, restricting the character’s “holy powers” in exchange for improved fighting ability. In that way, the subclass might be better served in motivation for “going into the dungeon,” as the templars would still be serving the interest of their church or faith or whatever.

That’s what I WAS thinking, but now I’m not so sure I want to do that. After having the chance to play a paladin (admittedly, in a non-standard adventure and thus one more conducive to the class), I find I have a newfound respect for the archetype…which I see modeled in the figures Joan of Arc, Galahad/Percival, and Charlemagne’s Roland.

[NOT Holger Carlsen/Ogier the Dane by the way…I’ve read Three Hearts & Three Lions and see nothing of the paladin archetype in the protagonist (other than his mysterious “smart horse” perhaps)…that guy is Lawful fighter, sure, and one with a high charisma, but still a more pragmatic warrior and certainly bereft of any supernatural powers]

ALSO, Peter commenting on my prior post makes an excellent point about paladin’s motivation to go into dungeons: paladins have been gifted with certain abilities that make them supremely talented for fighting evil that other (good-aligned) folks can’t. They have a responsibility to use those abilities in their proper service…not just defending towns and working at the local soup kitchen. I agree with Peter and I retract any earlier statements to the contrary.

However, that doesn’t mean a paladin will just delve ANY dungeon. There should still be some hint that a place contains a threat or ancient menace of some sort, before a paladin is ready to join an expedition. I guess I still stand by the sentiment that while most adventurers need no more reason to go to a site than “because it is there,” paladins need some form of unselfish motivation. There are captive hostages. The place is the abode of demons or an evil cult. A warlord is extorting the local townships. An artifact of purity and righteousness was lost somewhere in the depths and needs to be recovered.

Money and power and glory and “adventure” should NOT be the motivation of a paladin. But there are plenty of other reasons a DM can offer a paladin PC for going on an adventure. Assuming it’s not “invading the Keep of Glenda the Wise to slay the gold dragon Pureheart” you can probably find some sort of bone to throw the guy.

; )

"No, Blackrazor!!! Not my souulll...!"

Thursday night's Baranof game started right where we left off the week before. That is: the part had apparently discovered the first of the three missing magic weapons...the black blade Blackrazor...as well as the halfling champion, Quentin Nogg, whom the party had also been tasked with finding.

Folks who own, or who are familiar with, White Plume Mountain are probably going to say, "what the hell is this all about?" There is, of course, no Quentin Nogg in the original S2 module, and certainly no one just hands Blackrazor over to the PCs without a fight.

Instead, the final encounter beneath the "inverted ziggurat" is with an ogre-mage named Quesnef. Quesnef has polymorphed himself into the form of a "doughty halfling warrior" in order to catch the players off-guard and hopefully do them some harm.

Yeah, right.

I've run White Plume Mountain several times over the years, generally with the straight Quesnef encounter, and guess what? No one has ever bought off in the claim Quesnef was a "halfling warrior;" certainly no one has ever considered him to be anything but a villainous enemy, no matter how straight-faced I ran it.

In my experience, ALL the adventurers that ever made it to the Quesnef encounter have drawn blade and executed a full-on Charlie Manson Special before the creature could even begin to spin its pack of lies. They made it past ghouls and crabs and manticores (not to mention microwave corridors and frictionless rooms) and now they find a friendly face? Right where Blackrazor is supposed to be? No way!

Nah, for me the encounter has always turned out to be a big, fat dud. The ogre-mage maybe gets a chance to turn invisible, possibly gets off a cone of cold, and then falls beneath the spells and weapons of a murderous group of experienced adventurers...all with little fuss or muss. Lame.

So instead I added the Quentin encounter. Quentin Nogg is an ACTUAL doughty halfling of the heroic variety. He was initially sent to recover the magic weapons, captured, and held in durance vile. Unable to escape past manticores and ziggurat, he's been rotting down here for three or four weeks, fed by Keraptis's servants and quartered in sumptuous surroundings, but still a captive whom the wizard has been unable to turn.

Placing Quentin as an objective ensured the party would at least pause before gutting him. Not that they trusted the halfling a whit...Terril the cleric still cast know alignment on the halfling immediately (I don't remember if Sweet Tito used his wand of enemy detection or not...I think the party was satisfied once they discovered Quentin wasn't some Chaotic miscreant). Even if they had, Quentin would not have been detected as an enemy...he was indeed a fellow adventurer in need of rescue.

Blackrazor was the true enemy.

The party finished gathering treasure...loot Keraptis had left trying to entice the halfling to join his forces...and then prepared themselves to exit the dungeon. As they had certain challenges they would need to navigate (not to mention possible wandering monsters) I didn't automatically rule "okay you backtrack your steps and leave the dungeon..." as I sometimes do when players are looking to retreat for some rest. The party re-traced their steps, climbing the ropes past the polar bears (who continued to honor the "non-aggression pact" previously negotiated) and headed back towards the frictionless room.

Blackrazor decided to strike once the party was in the narrow confines of the upper passages.

For those unfamiliar with Blackrazor, the blade is a sentient sword based more than a little on the Moorecock weapons, Stormbringer and Mournblade. As an intelligent sword, it has a special purpose: "to suck souls" in the words of Lawrence Schick. It does this by killing sentient beings and devouring their souls, feeding strength to its wielder, even as it satisfies its own dark hunger. Though it doesn't say so in the book, I have always taken the glowing star-like constellations of the blade to be actual imprisoned souls...a new star winks into existence with every death caused.

Blackrazor is never actually used against the players in the normal adventure module...instead it is an objective of play and (possibly) a trap: a Chaotic weapon that can turn on those of weak will, dominating them and compelling them to satiate its lust for souls through ruinous bloodshed.

Anyway...such was the circumstance here. Quentin Nogg was no enemy of the player characters, but Blackrazor was hungry after so many weeks of isolation, and it was determined to have its due in stolen lives.

The party marching order was this: Farnsworth and Gustav, Brian and Sly, Sweet Tito (still weak from his recent raising), Quentin and Terril, and Alster and Borgnine bringing up the rear. Since Terril was closest to Quentin, I had him roll the party's surprise roll. It came up a "1." I had Terril and Sweet T both dice off to see who the halfling would attack, as there was an equal chance of either, and the cleric lost.

With blinding speed (Blackrazor can caste haste on its wielder), Quentin turned on the cleric, black blade flashing. The halfling's eyes had rolled back in his head and he was obviously no longer in control. "Blood and souls!" He hacked at the cleric, inflicting severe wounds, even as Terril yelled for help.

In the following round, Blackrazor stabbed the cleric, deep through the kidneys. The cleric died with a curse as his soul was sucked out of his body. Without missing a beat, the halfling wheeled and brought the black blade crashing down on Sweet Tito's head, pulping his skull and driving his jaw deep into the elf's body cavity.

Alster attempted to cast hold person on the halfling, but Quentin made his saving throw. Brian loosed an arrow at him and Bornine hewed with his axe, but despite the wounds inflicted, Quentin seemed stronger than before as the blade fed him lifeforce. Sly tried to contact Sweet T telepathically, and could still feel his spirit hovering about his body.

[Sweet was wearing a broach of shielding which, in B/X, protects against death magic like finger of death. I decided to allow it to provide him with a saving throw versus Blackrazor's soul-sucking ability...'cause I'm such a nice guy...and Sweet managed to save. The only soul he'd permanently destroyed was the cleric's]

In the next round, Quentin again achieved initiative. A light flashed from the ring on his hand and suddenly there were TWO halflings wielding Blackrazors! Both attacked the cleric praying desperately for a miracle, but neither was able to strike home as the cleric blocked with his shield. Alster cast his 2nd (and final) hold person spell, but the possessed halfling again saved, this time with an 18.

Things were looking a might grim for the adventurers at this point.

; )

Companion Modules (part 1)

From what I've read around the blog-o-verse, my personal D&D history mimics that of several other geezers...I started with the introductory Basic and Expert sets circa 1981, then gradually incorporated AD&D hardbacks into the game (starting with Monster Manuals) while never actually playing OD&D and THEN with the advent of Mentzer's BECMI set, incorporated some of the "high level monsters" into my AD&D game. 'Cause let's face it, those giant dragons in the Companion set were a sweet challenge to characters wearing displacer cloaks and +5 plate mail of ethereality.

So all things "D&D" fed into AD&D. However, one thing we did NOT do was pick up the later BECMI modules. 'Cause really, how do you convert level 10 elves with Attack Rank E into A&D? For that matter, how do you convert a B/X Halfling to an AD&D thief (the only class for halflings, right?).

Later on, when I "came to my senses" and realized BECMI was so much better and more streamlined, especially for high level play, I faced a couple problems: I no longer had a gaming group (at least, I no longer had one interested in playing D&D of any stripe), and TSR was dead & buried and all the BECMI stuff was out-o-print (yes it took me a long time to "come to my senses").

[side note: I no longer think BECMI is the holy grail, and have reverted back to B/X...a second "coming to my senses" I suppose]

Anyway, I was still able to find copies of the Companion, Master, and Immortal rules (as well as Mentzer's Basic and Expert sets), a few Gazetteers, a Rules Cyclopedia and Wrath of the Immortals. What I've never been able to find were copies of the adventure modules designed for use with CMI part of the BECMI equation (with one Immortal exception, but rendered un-workable by the changes in Wrath of the Immortals).

Well, until this last Friday that is.

That's when I was able to pick up copies of CM2: Death's Ride and CM6: Where Chaos Reigns. There was also a copy of CM3: Sabre River, but it just didn't look that good. Plus it was written by Douglas Niles, who's still on my shit-list for the Dungeoneers Survival Guide. So I skipped it.

Anyhoo, since I don't plan on playing BECMI ever again, one might ask why I bothered picking up ANY of these modules. Several reasons, in fact:

- Curiosity (I've never had my hands on ANY of them)

- Historic Value (we'll see)

- Possible Conversion Potential (to an edition of my choice)

But more than those things, I wanted to see A) what does an adventure module for a level 20+ BECMI character look like and, B) was there anything in there that could help/inform/influence my own on-going B/X Companion project.

So now I've read both and I could provide my capsule opinion/review (having playtested neither):

Eh. Not all that great.

Let me break it down by module:

CM2: Death's Ride might have been a good "introduction" module to include with Companion boxed set, if they had bothered to include a module (as both the Basic and Expert set did). Of course, it makes a few references to CM1: Test of the Warlords in it, so maybe THAT fabled adventure would be the better intro. But why make two "introductory" modules? I don't know.

But "introductory" is what CM2 feels like; it does a lot of "showcasing" of the new rules and systems in the Companion set. There's a mass combat battle. There's a chance to use the wrestling rules (everything has its Wrestling Rating in the stat line, too). There's one of those giant dragons. There's a host of the new undead monsters from the Companion set (to challenge high level clerics). There's an evil Magic-User (to blast players with new spells). There's an evil Cleric (to do the same!). There's a hydrax and a beholder and a ton of manscorpions, and a worm hole to another plane.

There's also some new monsters not present in the Companion set including something called a death leech which I can't see as anything other than a big F-You to the players. It's an 8HD undead that only turns as a Special. It mimics normal folks until it attack when it transforms into a blob that hits as if characters had an AC 9. Any hit immobilizes its opponent (no save) and then continually drains 1d10 hit points per round till its victim is dead (save every round for half damage).

These things are present throughout the module...in one room there's ten of 'em! I'm not sure how a normal party of adventurers would not simply be immobilized and killed in one such encounter...especially as the monster is not one present in the regular rules and so would be completely unexpected/unprepared for.

Other than THAT little jewel, the adventure is set-up kind of like a large site-based adventure. Your party goes to a barony to find out "what's wrong." There are several different "mini-dungeons" around the Barony to explore or interact with. They do not have to be dealt with in a particular order, but the adventure will not be completed/solved unless each "lair" is ransacked and its "big bad boss" killed. Of course that encounter with the ten death leeches? That happens at the FIRST encounter site, prior to going to any of the several mini-lairs (in other words, when 1st trying to investigate what's going down). Hmmm.

I guess the main thing that bugged me about the module (besides the death leeches) is that it didn't feel much like a high-level, Companion adventure. It felt more like an Expert level adventure...one could reduce the power levels of the encounters (a regular blue dragon instead of a huge one; lesser undead instead of drujes and odics; etc.) and the game would be no more challenging. It's basically a very mild "whodunnit" of the D&D variety...by which I mean, once you figure out the who, justice is rendered swiftly (after the fashion of the Charlie Manson Special).

Where's the battling armies? The legendary opponents? The courtly intrigue?

Eh, it's interesting as long as the BECMI players all have "wandering type characters." There's not much call for those who've settled down to rule dominions.

Three last notes about the module (I find these exceedingly interesting):

- the module includes stats for all the noteable NPCs of the barony, both living and deceased (right down to the four squires (levels 1 through 4!) of the baron). The assumption appears to be that high level characters are going to be fairly liberal with the raise dead spells.

- specific treasure troves are not given. Monsters have things like "120,000 gps worth of treasure, 1d4 potions and 4 other magic items." Some folks might think, 'oh, it's customizable for the particular party,' or 'oh, it changes every time you play.' To me it seems a trifle lazy...one of the things I wanted to see is how a Companion-level module justified huge amounts of treasure. Still waiting on that.

- without exception, every pre-generated character is Lawful in alignment. The brief blurb for each describes them in heroic terms. I find this very interesting considering my recent thoughts on alignment. Is the author attempting to say something here? Like: only "heroic" characters can achieve heroic levels of experience?

O...and one more gripe. Despite the cover, nothing ever rides the blue dragon. Nor does it wear some sort of chain. Total disconnect between the cover art and the adventure.