V is for Veiled Society

[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. I got behind by a couple days because of the Easter weekend, but I'm trying to catch up as quickly as possible]

V is for Veiled Society, "the most powerful criminal organization in Specularum." GAZ1 states that thief characters can choose to belong to one of three thieves' guilds in Karameikos, and identifies The Veiled Society as one of these (the other two being "The Kingdom of the Thieves" headed by Flameflicker, and "The Iron Ring" slaver organization).

I was trying to remember when I first heard of such a concept as a "guild" of thieves. I didn't read any Leiber "Lankhmar" tales till (probably) high school, certainly not before I was years' deep in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (back in those "pre-internet days," if you were looking for some long out-of-print pulp fiction, you'd only find it at a library with a decent selection...pretty sure my first Leiber, Moorcock, and Zelazny books were pulled off the Seattle Prep SciFi shelf). I probably had some idea of guilds (from history class, encyclopedias, and/or watching Dickens' Christmas Carol on a yearly basis), and there IS mention of "thieves guilds" in the Cook/Marsh Expert set, in exactly two places:

"At this point, a player character thief may want to consider setting up a Thieves Guild (the details of this are left to the DM)."  [page X8, discussing high level thieves building hideouts and attracting apprentice thieves]

"The base town should be large enough to support the services the players will need these include:

• Inns and townhouses where the players stay between adventures, where notices are posted, and where rumors are found.
• Churches, shrines or temples for the clerical orders, including at least one NPC cleric powerful enough to cast a raise dead spell.
• A Thieves' Guild for thief class characters that can provide information, markets for treasure, smuggling, spies, and hireling thieves -- for a price.
• Town militia to keep an eye on the town -- and the players!

"The DM should also decide who is running the town..." [page X54, on building a base town for the campaign, emphasis added (regarding the thieves guild) by Yours Truly]

[man, just to digress for a moment...so much to digest and infer from that little bit of world building. What a great place for a new DM to start! Everything that's really pertinent...including a cleric that can raise dead!...is on that list, save perhaps the blacksmith and "general store" that any town large enough to support the rest should be able to provide. Note, this is the outline for a "home base" for adventurers, not any old village, which could be lacking most, if not all of these components. But for a place that adventurers (i.e. the player characters) come from, YES, it should have all these things...not only for their services but (probably) for the PCs' origins as well: fighters were trained in the militia, clerics at one of the churches, etc. And, NO, it does not NEED to have a wizard or "magicians guild" because, of course, PC magic-users can learn their own spells through spell research (helping to suck off excess treasure in the process)...magic need not be commonplace!]

[ha! Raise dead! Always available at the home base, so why O why was there ever whining about getting killed on an adventure? Sheesh!]

*AHEM* The presence of a thieves guild, given the description in the Expert set provides a number of practical services for player characters (a place to sell treasure! a place to procure thief hirelings!) as well as giving the thief a way to shine that may be welcome indeed (keeping in mind that the low-level thief in B/X is a pretty paltry character, both skill-wise and combat-wise!)...since, presumably, one must BE a thief (and one in good guild standing) in order to interact with the "thieves guild."

[the alternative I suppose would be difficulty in finding places to fence loot, poor exchange rates on treasure, and wild chance if an adventuring thief was available for hire at the local tavern...assuming a thief would be willing to publicly announce her profession in the first place!]

Members in the Veiled Society (briefly mentioned in this previous post) is described in GAZ1 as follows:

"The Veiled Society is appropriate to characters with a grim, Mafia-like outlook on their criminal activities. If this character likes hurting people as much as he likes robbing them, the Veiled Society is for him.
"The Veiled Society demands 15% of all the character's earnings (other than those earnings for Veiled Society activities). It does provide a reliable fence for that fee. It helps the character by trying to spring him from jail or beating or killing those who've done him wrong -- the Society is loyal to its members.
"However, it often makes demands of the characters -- such as "Go to the House of Silks near the Street of Dreams. Break in. Kill the old man and his daughter and then set the place afire." This isn'e a thieves' guild for characters with morals."

Allston states that only Neutrals and Chaotics may join the Veiled Society, but PCs of any alignment...and of any class!...can be asked to join during the course of adventure module where they first appear: Dave Cook's B6: The Veiled Society. In fact, very few of the Veiled Society men (yes, they are all men) in the adventure are thieves...a total of three out of 51 NPCs. For a "thieves guild," they're pretty light on thieves! Cook also includes this little "initiation" ritual:

"You are now on of us," says the man. "If they catch you, they kill you. If you betray us, we kill you. Act in our name but without our blessing, we kill you. Work hard for us and you will prosper. Once with us you cannot leave us."

This is said after donning the Veiled Society hood, which both protects their identities and is the symbol of their allegiance. It should be obvious that the Society does not suffer betrayal lightly (or at all).

The Society's hideout appears to be an ancient, subterranean complex (I'm making it sound more exciting than it is: it consists of all of three chambers and a handful of straight passages). There's something very mystical about the place, and the Society in general. Their meeting hall feels like an ancient pagan temple (though there is no idol, only a gong...which I can't see them using since the members only meet at appointed time and there are no rooms from which to call folks to gather). There are as many high level spell-casters as "thieves" among their members (two clerics, one magic-user) all of which are in leadership positions (unlike the thieves). There are their masking rituals and their oaths of secrecy and commitment, the headdress of their hidden leader. More than a fantasy Cosa Nostra, the trappings of the Society feels like that of a secret society, one with religious overtones, and one that's been operating in the depths beneath Specularum for generations...certainly before the Thyatia conquest.

Personally, I dig it. I've loved the feel of this module ever since I saw it's Roslof-illustrated cover, many years ago...and despite the overall weakness of the adventure design I've held onto it.  A hooded, murderous secret society knifing people in the dark alleys of Specularum after sundown? That's cool...probably should be kidnapping the odd virgin to sacrifice to some shadowy goddess every new moon as well (a ritual leftover from ancient times, blood of the innocent used to "resurrect" the moon). It doesn't have to be ultra-weird and Cthulhu-y...murderous fanaticism hidden behind the facade of "normal" friends and neighbors can be just as creepy.

Okay...I'll end the post here. Man, I am far behind this month. I had wanted to talk about the other thieves guilds as well (including the one located in Threshold...a town of 500...and how preposterous that is), and especially the Iron Ring slavers. But that'll have to wait till another day.

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.

A Different Type of "Skill Check"

I'm sure I've posted the following excerpt in the past, but I can't be bothered to find it at the moment, so here it is again:

"SAVING VS. ABILITIES (OPTIONAL): The DM may want to base a character's chance of doing something on his or her ability ratings (Strength, etc.). The player must roll the ability rating or less on a d20. The DM may give a bonus or penalty to the roll, depending on the difficulty of the action (-4 for a simple task, +4 for a difficult one, etc.). It is suggested that a roll of 1 always succeed and a roll of 20 always fail."

- From the 1981 D&D Expert Set, page X51

A simple enough rule, and one that I've used on many occasions running B/X; it is the basis for the BECMI skills first presented in the various Mystara "gazetteers" and later in the Rules Cyclopedia.

[these, by the way, worked pretty much the same as the AD&D "non-weapon proficiencies" (first presented in Oriental Adventures, a book mainly written by the same guy: Zeb Cook), and exactly the same as Cook's 2nd Edition AD&D non-weapon proficiencies...all of which I hate, by the way]

I never much cared for the BECMI skills (even when I liked BECMI), and these days I'm not even a fan of the "roll under ability" rule. Simple as it is, when I look back on the way I've used it in the past, I find myself shuddering a bit.

Why? Because I used it as a catchall guideline rule for determining whether or not a PC could execute a particular plan or out-of-the-box action effectively, rather than presuming character competence. It's an antithetical approach to my current philosophy of D&D play.

But aside from any "philosophical" issues, as a form of micro-managing character action it leads to a higher rate of character incompetence, which is less fun for everyone involved. Consider one of the classic challenges of AD&D: the suspended disks acting as a "trail" over boiling mud from White Plume Mountain. A standard method of getting across the cavern (for those who aren't able to fly) is to make a series of jumps from disk-to-disk, using a "roll-under-ability" for success. Certainly, that's what I've always done in the past.

[don't laugh]

Here's the problem: with a check of this type, a series of task rolls reduces one's chance of success exponentially. Consider the guy with a DEX of 16...an 80% chance to make the jump to a disk is pretty good, right? Sure...but having to make all nine jumps (there are nine disks in the cavern) means that the cumulative chance of success is only 13%. It's a bit better if (like me) your DM allowed a "reroll" attempt on a miss (a second DEX check to see if the PC can "catch herself") but even then it's no better than a 4-in-6 chance of overall success...and less if the guy has to roll to make it from the last disk to the opposite ledge (a 10th jump). And THAT for a PC with DEX 16...what about the shlub who only has DEX 10?

"Aiieeee! It burns! It burns!"

[by the way, even 3E's alternate skill system runs into this issue in their version of WPM, requiring a jump skill check of 14 for every single disk. Fine and dandy for 7th level PCs who've maxed out their jump and have an 18 DEX (the average L7 thief in 3E)...but what about the guys who didn't put points into jump? Multiply their success chance against itself ten times to see what they're REAL chance of navigating the challenge is!]

Of course, there's more to complain about than just this. Binary (yes/no, success/fail) systems lack any kind of grey-area gradient. There's no room for partial success (nor partial failure), which can curb the irritation at "whiffing completely" while still preserving the old school integrity of character's NOT always failing up just because they're (story) "protagonists."

Thus enter Steve C's rather brilliant idea of repurposing the standard B/X reaction table to account for more than simply whether or not a wandering subterranean denizen wants to take your head as a trophy for its mate. Steve's idea was to use the table to expedite all manner of random issues that might come up in game, rather than spend time searching for obscure systems or hemming-&-hawing over how to rule certain situations...things that other DM's might determine with a simple coin flip (the ultimate binary test) could instead have a non-binary gradient to it.

For folks unfamiliar with the reaction table, it's a 2D6 roll which can be modified by a CHA adjustment (max of +/- two, and usually no more than one point) or circumstance (again, usually by no more than a point or two). The table results break down like this:

2 or less: Immediate attack
3 to 5: Hostile reaction
6 to 8: Uncertain, confusion (roll again)
9 to 11: No attack, leaves or considers offer
12: Enthusiastic friendship

[I realize that this table originally appeared in Might & Magic (OD&D), but Steve's use of an ability score adjustment is what leads me to presume he's taking it from B/X, seeing as how neither OD&D nor Holmes offered specific ability-based (CHA) adjustment to reaction checks...and Moldvay did]

Steve runs with this, giving a simple five-result table ranging from "catastrophically bad" to "extremely good" as a way of judging all those little things that crop up in a game. I say, hell, let's take it a step further and use it to resolve all those "ability saves" in a non-binary fashion!

Take the White Plume Mountain example. Rather than force players to make a series of jumping rolls, why not have them make a single roll (modified by DEX) to see how well they navigate the challenge?

2D6 (modified by DEX initiative adjustment):
2 or less: mistimes jump, plummets into mud (take damage from fall and boiling mud, as usual)
3 to 5: nearly slips but manages to grasp edge of disk though being completely dowsed by muddy geyser (take damage and al further checks to navigate disks are made at -2 penalty).
6 to 8: holds up on disk just in time as a geyser blows (take moderate damage; roll again to continue with cumulative +1 bonus)
9 to 11: made it across! only light damage taken from geyser splatters
12 or more: what a show! made it across without being splashed (and damaged) by boiling mud.

Nice, huh? So much simpler and quicker to resolve than a series of tests, and with an easy range of possible outcomes. Using the reaction table as a base, many "ability challenges" can be resolved in this way, with tastier results than binary systems, and little-to-no need for any kit-bashed skills system.

Some folks may object to such a simplified system of task resolution, saying it doesn't take into account character experience...shouldn't a 6th level character (for example) be better at such a task than a 3rd level character? To those folks I say: HUH? What in a character's class training has taught her how to navigate some mad wizard's bizarre challenge? Why would "experience" count for any such thing?

This isn't a "skill" in which a character trains (like fighting and thieving and spell-casting)...nor is it something that falls into a character's presumed sphere of competence (like knowing how to build a fire or how to tie a good knot or how to mend her basic equipment). We're talking about strange situations, outside the ordinary things encountered...things where the "save versus ability" roll has (in the past) been the main explicit option. Even if a character HAS done the "jumping disk" thing in a past adventure, chances are she hasn't been prepping every weekend since, like some fitness nut training for the American Ninja Warrior competition.

No...success or failure at these kinds of challenges need a system that shows the virtual crapshoot of attempting it (i.e. via random roll), possibly modified by native talent, possibly modified by other DM-arbitrated adjustments (as with reaction rolls). And in such cases, I think it's fair to have a range of possible consequences, only the worst of which is "abject failure."

This is something I'll be throwing into my future games...assuming I ever get back to the gaming table. Thanks for this, Steve!
: )

Money for WotC

Much as it pains me to admit it, I have just now...this very minute...transferred some of my hard earned ducats to Wizards of the Coast via DriveThruRPG. Yes, as a publisher of DTRPG, I realize that not ALL of the money will go to WotC, but even funding them in a minor fashion raises a bit of bile to mouth.

Still, it can't be helped. I needed a copy of the B/X Expert Rulebook for reference and my copy is 7000 miles northwest of my current location. $4.99 was a small (if irritating) price to pay to add the PDF to my hard drive, considering that I honestly have zero idea when will be the next time I make it back to Seattle. Hopefully before July, but I won't hold my breath.

Should have brought my copy to Paraguay.

Some might (perhaps) be wondering what was so immediately necessary that I needed to get my hands on a copy of the book. What could be so all-fired important? Welllll...as I mentioned last Friday, there is this little B/X Campaign Challenge thing going on and, well, I've got an idea for an offering. No, it's not a great idea, but it's an idea, and I'm in the mood to nurture such a project at the moment. Tuesdays are still poor days for me to actually do any writing, but at least I can download the reference materials I need (I already have my copy of Moldvay with me...I refuse to travel anywhere without it...), and start working up an outline.

But really, really, truly...I don't plan on spending too much time on this project. "6.4 months" seems waaaay too long to devote to something that's only supposed to be 64 pages long (assuming it includes random tables and empty spaces for illustrations). 64 days is probably a better timeline for me...I mean, I should be able to write more than a page a day. That would give me a hard deadline of March 29th, or March 30th if I start my count tomorrow. Hell, if I throw out Leap Year, I suppose I could just give myself till the end of March...that seems easy enough.

Sure. End of March.

Updates will follow, of course. Hmmm...maybe I'll do my own illustrations for a change. That should be...well, terrible. But, hey: New Year, new challenges, right?

Sure...why not?
; )

SW Musings: Goofy Fun

Or not...spent yesterday baking gingerbread cookies. Even though it's over 90 degrees outside, my goal was to get this place smelling a little bit more like Christmas. Or, at least, burnt cookie. Mission (more or less) accomplished!

No...they didn't look like this.

My child wanted some of the gingerbread men to resemble characters from Star Wars...specifically Darth Maul, Yoda, R2, and Qui-Gon (we've been watching a lot of Phantom Menace the last couple days). Thanks to being a journeyman Play-Doh mason these days, I was able to get some reasonable silhouettes (I think)...certainly D was pleased with the end result.

I won't discuss the myriad difficulties associated with the task of baking in a country where people don't cook or really know how to do anything more than grill meat and starchy root vegetables. Instead I want to muse a little bit about modeling Star Wars in an RPG...a topic I realize I've visited more than a few times over the life of this blog (with little success).

Once upon a time, I had hit upon an idea for a way to "do Star Wars" as a knock-off of an existing game. Actually, there were couple four systems that would make good "hacks" for a SW-type game. B/X was one. Trollbabe was another. Dogs in the Vinyard a third...though having just purchased the last one and read it over the last few days, I see exactly how mistaken I was: DitV works well for a number of genres, but it is one that really needs to be tied in tight with religion, and there's just not enough theology to the pseudo-religion of the Jedi.

Oh, yeah...I should probably mention that I mean these are good hacks for a Jedi-centric game, not an overall "galactic space opera adventure" game. If you want something akin to the original trilogy (or, at least, the original film)...well, there are other systems to hack for that style. Systems that will allow for goofy fun in more than just a few passing ways. Star Wars, like that other 80s space opera film series (Star Trek) was all about the goofy fun.

There's a part of space opera that really cries out for goofy fun...and by this I mean a "not taking itself too seriously" approach. Probably because it IS "space opera." The technology isn't based on "hard science" (laser guns/swords, FTL travel, AI robots that "feel," psychic powers, etc.). It's fantasy, and melodramatic fantasy of world-shattering destruction (literally). That's why Guardians of the Galaxy, with its goofy cast, is such good space opera.

Despite the fancy special effects and (yes, really) heart that is injected into Episodes I, II, and III, there's very little real humor instilled in the films...especially the kind of self-deprecating type of the original trilogy. Han Solo, for all his bad-assedness at piloting and shooting, often comes off as a lovable buffoon. Leia ends up humbled by Solo's wit more often than any other "princess" I remember seeing on celluloid (and what does it say that she ends up with the buffoon by the end?). And while Luke is certainly a force to be reckoned with by RotJ (no pun intended), he had a lot of ground to make up from being wet-behind-the-ears kid of the first movie...but of course, his story evolves along a significantly different path from the others through Empire and Return of the Jedi.

Very little humor or silliness is found in the prequel films...in fact, the one with the most might be The Phantom Menace and, no, I'm not talking about Jar-Jar. Here we have Qui-Gon failing to influence Watoo with his mind-tricks. Here we have Anakin admitting he's never actually managed to finish a pod race. Here we have Obi-Wan referring to their own party as rather "pathetic life-forms."

Not taking oneself too seriously means allowing yourself to be humbled...to admit that you aren't the invincible action hero but a person with flaws and foibles and ability to laugh (or at least grudgingly smirk) at your own failings.

As a related aside: I realize I never did get back to what I thought about the Star Wars VII trailer. My overall impression was that what I saw was interesting...and that I would be interested in seeing more. I found J.J. Abrams's interpretation of Star Trek was full of contrasts between the seriousness of the situation and the playfulness/humor of the characters...in other words, pretty good space opera. This gives me quite a bit of optimism for a good Star Wars flick.

Hmmm...more on this later (perhaps).

Huh...that's interesting.

Monte Cook is leaving Wizards of the Coast. I guess he won't be involved in the 5E reboot after all.

[thanks to Thomas Denmark for the original link]

Building a New Dungeons & Dragons

AKA “Three Pillars My Ass”

This probably won’t seem like an incredibly constructive post. Hell, maybe it’s not. But I’m not in a bad mood or anything (yet, that is…sometimes when I start typing I get all worked up, ya’ know?). But to start with anyway, I’m feeling cool as a cucumber.

What the F, Wizards of the Coast? I mean, really.

You know, all those guys on the WotC design team…Monte Cook, Mike Mearls, whoever…you know, all of ‘em have a much better design “pedigree” than myself. I mean, measured simply by real hard numbers: they’ve sold a ton more product and been paid a ton more money for their game design work. And, yeah, perhaps if I had ownership of the intellectual property of our niche industry AND the marketing force of a Hasbro corporation I might be able to pull off a similar feat, but I don’t and I haven’t and I accept I'm just a little tiny voice yelling in the darkness of the internet.

Yep, I accept it. However, for my own amusement and my readers’ entertainment, I’ll try to yell just a tiny bit louder.

Okay, so this “three pillars” thang. I spent some of today (and off and on the last week or so) running searches on the internet to try to get it, you know, hammered down what exactly the WotC folks are talking about. I mean, what I’d heard was something like this transcript of “charting the course of the new edition.”

The first place I actually saw it mentioned was at Geek’s Dream Girl here., where e wrote the following:

3 Pillars of D&D

Mike mentioned that they see the three pillars of D&D as Roleplay/Interaction, Combat, and Exploration. That covers about 90% of what goes on in D&D, minus the rules lawyering (that last one was pointed out by someone during Q&A at the end). They think a lot about how they can incorporate all the things that people want to do at the table, without making a rule for everything.

Monte recognized that some PCs will be good at exploration and not so good at combat, and vice versa. But it’s important to have a firm role for each class. If you have a player who just wants to kick ass, you can help that person create that PC.

Continuing on the classes discussion, Mike added that you can be a stabby rogue (more combat-heavy) or a sneaky rogue (more exploration heavy). Monte added that bards can still kick ass.

Hmmm…interaction (“roleplay”), combat, and exploration covers “about 90% of what goes on in D&D” and appears to be the focus of the designers as the presumed foundation of the game. Specifically with regard to characters being balanced against each other. Because if that accounts for 90% of game play, then the most important thing is to account for that in the design of the game, right? And we don’t want one character type to hog the spotlight all the time, yeah?

*sigh*

Anyway, before I jumped to any conclusions based on 2nd (or 3rd) hand hearsay, I figured I really wanted more info on this whole “Three Pillars” concept. I finally found something more in an article posted to WotC’s own site answering some dude’s question.

[it’s dated 2/7/12, though my calendar still says it’s 2/6…not quite sure what that’s all about]

Here’s the link; I’ll quote it in its entirety:

Q: I frequently have games when throughout the entire session we go without any combat whatsoever. What can I expect from the new edition in regards to this style of play?

A: Over the course of the last year, we've distilled the essential experiences of D&D down into three general categories: exploration, roleplaying, and combat. We believe these form the three main pillars of gameplay in D&D, and, while broad, they can help guide our design.

A part of the design philosophy going forward is that each of those three elements contains some very specific things that contribute to the game and culture that is Dungeons & Dragons. However, we also know that individual DMs, players, and gaming groups might favor one of those elements over another; of course, sometimes they might favor one element over the others in one session, and then completely reverse that preference in the next. The goal, then, is to support all three of those elements in the design of the game in such a way that the individual gaming group can choose its focus and have a satisfying game experience. This doesn't mean we necessarily need the same amount of game mechanics supporting each; obviously, combat has tended more toward detail and more rules support, and that may well be true going forward, but we also want to make sure we're paying a similar amount of attention to the other two experiences.

This philosophy is something we want to extend beyond just character design; it should affect adventure design, monster design, setting design, and every other aspect of the game. Our goal is to make it so that you make choices for your character that speak to your preferred play style, and that it's OK to do so even if other members of your party make choices pointing toward a different play style. Adventuring demands a certain amount of competence in all three areas of the game, but when you customize your character you might push yourself more in one direction or another.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. The emphasis added to that last sentence is mine, and it’s there ‘cause I want to draw attention to it.

How does one customize your character to push yourself more in the direction of “role-playing?” I can understand what is meant by combat and I can kind of figure what they mean by “exploration” (exploring the game world, setting, or adventure, right? Something like that?). But when I think of “role-playing” I can only think up a couple-three definitions to the term, and none of ‘em can be customized in the character creation process:

• role-playing as acting (i.e. “playing a role”), something like talking in an accent or hamming for one’s fellow tables
• role-playing as tactical role in the party (for example, “she’s the tank, he’s the fire support”)…but this would be covered under combat specifically and is generally not the "RP" one thinks of in an RPG.
• role-playing by JB’s definition:

When the objective of the player matches the objective of the character.

[there is a series of posts, starting HERE, that explains this more clearly as well as explaining it’s importance to the RPG hobby]

So what then, exactly, is it that the WotC folks define as "role-playing?" What is it you can do during the chargen process to increase the value of this third “pillar” of the Dungeons & Dragons game?

Actually, both those questions are rhetorical…I neither want nor need answers to them because the whole idea that the “essential experiences of D&D,” that the “three main pillars of gameplay [sic]” can be categorized as role-play, exploration, and combat is totally bogus.

As in bullshit.

Or let me put it in a slightly different way: with all due respect to the WotC brain trust, maybe those things are the three pillars of game play in YOUR campaign, but that is certainly not what drives mine, and if attending to them (and the importance of the thre in character design) is how you’re going about Building A Better D&D, then I think you’re starting off under a way faulty premise.

You really think that this is what keeps people coming back to D&D? “Role-play, exploration, combat?” That’s totally f’ing ridiculous. I mean, how do those “three pillars” motivate the DM? What makes him (or her) want to break brain and put together kick-ass sessions?

[not that the DM always succeeds in doing so…]

If the three things that form the essential D&D experience are “role-play, exploration, and combat” and this is your focus, then you are leaving the DM out of the loop. And you are (once again) probably going to end up doing a disservice to the game (and pissing people off).

I’m not saying the whole “modular approach” thing is a terrible idea (though I’m not sure it’s a terribly good one). I’m saying whatever it is you’re making is being built on a dumb-dumb foundation. You all are emphasizing the importance of the wrong things based on a faulty premise.

Sure. That's just one man's opinion (and one small, lone voice...yes, I get it). But I would be remiss if I didn't say something. Not because it will necessarily influence anyone, but because the on-going hobby of role-playing (and the on-going health of Dungeons & Dragons) is, at some level, important to me. And unlike other gamers, I'm not just content to let it go to hell in a hand basket while I play my own game off in the corner.

Well...maybe I am content to do so, but that would be irresponsible of me.

; )

Tell you what: how about if I give you the REAL three pillars on which D&D is based. Three things that ARE essential to the game play of D&D, three things that have kept players coming back over the years, without which the game suffers and stagnates. Heck, I’ll even bother to explain ‘em for you (though I’ll have to wait till tomorrow, ‘cause this post is already getting long). Want ‘em? Okay, here they are:

Challenge
Reward
Escape

These are the truly essential components of D&D game play, and ought to be the focus of the WotC design team. If you're not using those as your foundation, then...well to end this post on a constructive note, let's just say: make these the emphasis and foundation of your design process and you'll get your "unifying Dungeons & Dragons game."

More to follow on this subject.

[sorry, had to post it in the morning after all...]

Friday Morning Updates

Ugh. Day old rice pudding...pretty pathetic stuff, even heated up. The wife told me not to eat it (she said it didn't turn out right), but it's still carbs. And I need some energy...I've got a busy day a head of me.

Last night I went into our Thursday night game mostly unprepared (well, I had a couple D&D scenarios but I didn't have "back-up scenarios" for other games I brought). It went fairly well, and set up a nice little game for next week (when I hope to have more people back)...but last night was a missed opportunity that I'm lamenting a bit this morning.

I got a request to play my space game.

Now, of course, several of my players read the blog (though they're polite enough not to start any heated discussions on the topics posted here) so I should have figured there might be at least a little interest in the game I've been discussing in roundabout fashion lately...curiosity if nothing else. These cats at the Baranof table are a fairly eclectic bunch (in the past I've had the misfortune to run into players who were solely devoted to one game or another to the point of not be willing to TRY anything new). If I needed 'em I have several ready and willing play-testers at hand.

But I was unprepared to field such a request. I've got no "quick start" version of the game, no player introductions, no print-outs of any type. The game even has the stuff for "instant adventure creation" so it's possible I could have put something together on the fly...but my NPC/monster section isn't even close to being completed. And as I said, everything's still on the computer (well, flash drive actually) and I don't bring a laptop to my Thursday night games.

[Bleah! The rice pudding is terrible! There should not be "crunchy chunks!"]

So today, I'm going to try to put together some stuff for the "space game" (yes, it has a name...I'm just not ready to reveal it yet). I have a lot of other chores to do around the house as well...but I won't bore you with THOSE details. Right now, I'm heading off to the bank, post office, and coffee shop. Got to get something to wash these carbs down with!

I'll post more later. I wrote a little something about Buddhism in Space and such (a SciFi follow up to my last post), but it's a little long and I want to look it over once before I post it.

Hasta!

"Dragons Should Never Be Just Another Encounter"

So commented Blueskreem on my last post. Right after he said, "screw balance."

Damn.

I've got three or five blog posts on the tip of my fingertips that I've been trying to decide how to order (which to type first: the begging, the gushing, or the ranting?), and one dude comments and completely throws me into a tizzy.

Dragons should never be just another encounter.

Those words just keep ringing in my head, even as I need to get some sleep before the morrow. Ugh.

How often do YOU throw dragons into your game as an off-hand encounter? Me, I never did. Hell, I hardly ever saw a dragon in one of my games. Ever. Generally, if there was a dragon, then it WAS the adventure, i.e. the whole enchilada.

I can clearly recall getting together with my buddy, Matt, shortly after acquiring the Cook/Marsh Expert Set. Anxious to try out the high level characters. Finally, players could have PCs able to take on the dragons in Moldvay's basic! We rolled up a 9th level (or higher, I don't recall) cleric for Matt, outfitted him with a bunch of mercenary soldiers (those were new with the Expert set also), and sent him out into the desert to find...and fight...a blue dragon.

As far as I can recall, that was the first time I used a dragon in a game of D&D. I don't recall if Matt survived or not (though I almost certainly recall letting his cleric use a lance...those rules were new with the Expert set as well). Ha...even then I treated clerics like paladins.

The next time I recall putting a dragon into a game...hmmm...I think there may have been a green dragon in X1:Isle of Dread, but I'm not sure it was ever encountered. Later...much later (as in, AD&D later) I got ambitious after reading The Hobbit and made a knock-off of Smaug and Lonely Mountain. Again, the red dragon WAS the adventure...get to the mountain, kill the dragon, get the treasure.

I don't remember anyone ever making it that far.

Back when I was younger (before my "creative metabolism" started slowing down), I drew a LOT of maps, nearly all "dungeons" of one type or another. And almost none had a dragon. Frankly, there was always the odd question of how did a dragon get IN to the dungeon in the first place...especially a deep, nether level. Not to mention what did the thing do for food.

[good morning! I fell asleep in the middle of posting!]

But mainly I had a problem thinking up any dungeon where a dragon would be another cheap-o encounter. I mean, they have such incredible killing power. And their treasure hordes are so big. And, and...

I get a little intimidated at the prospect.

I know I've mentioned before, at least in passing, how few old TSR modules had dragons in them. The giant series (white in G2, red in G3). Old I2 had a great black dragon. Um...there was a gold dragon polymorphed into a goody-good humanoid in a couple (X2 and UK1)...but really, not all that many. I mean, considering the game is called Dungeons & Dragons.

But this was fine by me. I always wanted dragons to stay "special" and rare and powerful (and rich!). The idea that you could "scale down" (starting in 3rd edition and I'm sure continuing into 4th) was always...well, at first it seemed nice that low level characters could actually have a chance at confronting a dragon. Now it seems...well, a cop out. Like giving kids trophies for everything just so they feel like they accomplished something. I know, I know...that's a "generational thang." But it feels the same.

In my opinion, you SHOULD have to work hard (at playing a game...sheesh, is that really work?) to have the stuff you need to take on a legendary creature with any chance of survival. You know, back in the "old days" an ancient red dragon was right at the top of the food chain. 88 points of damage with a breath attack? That's instant barbecue to most 4th level "heroes" (or 8th level "superheroes" that fail their save). Non-fighter classes might as well toss their character sheets if they accidentally wake the wyrm.

But now, dragons seem like "just another monster." Oh, a big monster...a "boss" monster (or whatever the term is). But just a monster. Maybe one that talks.

I did throw some Ancient Wyrms into my B/X Companion...what I like to call "Smaug-class" critters...though I didn't devote nearly as much space to it as Mentzer's Companion with his "large" and "huge" dragons (would you like that super-sized, sir?)...just enough to keep 'em interesting up to the highest levels of play. Personally, I think they're fine and dandy as "big bads" and they definitely deserve to have whole adventure scenarios built around themselves alone.

Just wanted to say I agreed with Mr. Blue's sentiment. How could you dare to call a dragon "just another encounter?"

What the Hell IS a "B/X Companion?"

Okay, so I've received enough questions...in emails and comments (here and elsewhere) regarding my B/X Companion project that I figured I should probably tell new folks what it's all about. After all, I just picked up another six followers today...I'm sure they don't relish the idea of combing through the 500+ post on this blog just to "put it all together."

Thing is, I sometimes (often?) forget that I have an audience reading my blog. It's not really designed at hyping/promoting my wares (not yet, anyway), and most of what I share is just my own thoughts and ideas, my excitement about a project or game, reminisces about my personal history...and more often than not serious rants about something or other that's bugging the crap out of me.

So here's the skinny on the B/X Companion:

My B/X Companion is intended to be the mythical 3rd volume designed to complete the work begun with Tom Moldvay's Basic Rules and continued in the Dave Cook/Steve Marsh Expert Rules, both published in 1981. Both promised a "Companion" volume that would conclude the series...instead TSR (and Frank Mentzer) re-wrote and re-published a five volume series (BECMI) that, while certainly interesting, failed to deliver on the promise of those earlier works.

What do I mean by that? A few different things:

- in many ways, B/X edition of Dungeons & Dragons (the 1981 rules) are a codified version of OD&D...the Little Brown Books of 1974. Most everything present in the LBBs are present in B/X. Some of the exceptions (stuff left out) are added back.

- rather than "add to" the rules as written, Mentzer re-wrote the rules. An example are the thief abilities: originally, they were supposed to top at level 14 and NEW ABILITIES were to be presented for higher level thieves. Instead, Mentzer "changed the math" so that they simply stretched to 36. I want my amp to go to 11...I don't want to simply make 10 "a little louder."

- in many ways, the style of the BECMI (Mentzer edition) books is toned WAY down from the mature form of the B/X edition. B/X was designed "for Adults" (as it says on the cover)...the bibliography includes books by Kurt Wagner, Robert Howard, Moorcock, Leiber, Aspirin, etc. as inspirational reading. In every example of play, a Player Character dies and the players exhibit much more cutthroat tendencies (Exhibit A: Frederik's death and the party's treating of the goblin prisoners; Exhibit B: Black Dougal's death and the party's treating of him!).

This mature tone/style is absent from the Mentzer version. In fact, while the B/X edition bears the epigram "for 3 or More Adults, Ages 10 and Up," the Mentzer version says only "For Any Number of Players, Ages 10 and Up" seeming to imply the game is for 10 year old kids. Likewise, there is no bibliography of inspirational reading (adult or not), there is only the imperative for the DM to "BE FAIR" (again, as if telling a child to "play nice") and an introduction to the game where one is forced to learn the rules vicariously through a Lawful hero type as his friendly, Lawful companion...rather than expose young innocents to the whole gamut of human possibility I suppose.

ANYway...

The B/X Companion is not a "stepping stone" to AD&D or a "missing link" between the two editions (as is the Advanced Edition Companion published by Goblinoid Games). It IS mostly compatible with Labyrinth Lord, as LL is mostly patterned after B/X itself. It does not use "intellectual property" of TSR/WotC/Hasbro...you won't find mind flayers or beholders, for example. You will find a lot of other creatures from myth and legend (which is where most of the original D&D monsters came from) as well as spells and magic items inspired by both literature and film. You will also find additional rules for high level play, including rules for managing domains and ideas for running high level campaigns. Also, some cool artwork from several talented (and very generous) artists.

All in a paperback, 64-page rule book...the same size as the original Basic and Expert sets.
: )

When I first started this project (June 2009), I don't think I ever really thought I'd make it this far. It was a lark...a vanity project for my own enjoyment. Kind of like this blog. Now...well, one thing I remember now is how much I really, REALLY wanted those Companion rules to be published as a kid. They're mentioned on the first column of the first page of the introduction to the Moldvay Basic rules...my first RPG as a kid. I played the hell out of the Basic and Expert Rules (itself promising a Companion set) and finally moved onto AD&D long before we even realized Mentzer's Companion set had been published...and as IT was incompatible with our (then) preferred edition, we kept what we liked (magic items, huge dragons, Domain rules) and junked the rest. It wasn't until my 20s that I realized how sweet and coherent Mentzer's design was...and it wasn't until my 30s that I realized it was actually B/X (that 1981 edition) that I preferred and that Mentzer's "closed system" design felt hollow and toothless, a pale shadow of the thing that had originally fired my imagination.

Looking back over my B/X Companion, I am pleased to discover that it, too, fires my imagination. It's almost ready, folks...just wait a little bit longer.

; )

1PDC Entries

Welp, there are a ton of One Page Dungeon Contest entries to review this (week? month? not sure what the deadline is) and much as I cringe at the thought of the extra reading, I am totally intrigued to see what y'all came up with.

I love judging stuff (in case you couldn't tell!) but generally I prefer judging food items. At work, I have been known to come up with creative haiku for all entries into our annual bake sales and chili cook-offs, but with 60+ dungeons in the mix don't expect that kind of creative energy out of me with this project.

Good luck to everyone...I can only hope the winners enjoy their prizes (and the rest of you enjoyed our personal creative out-pourings!)!

: )

No Love for the Blacksmith

Sometimes, it feels like I'm the only one out there that seems to notice these things.

Does no one from TSR's latter days realize B/X was a direct translation of OD&D into a coherent, well-organized format? It seems pretty obvious to me, and yet Mentzer's later BECMI seems to have ignored this in favor of simply making "Basic" its own simplistic animal. I suppose "missing it" is more excusable.

How else can I explain the exclusion of the Blacksmith from the list of specialists for hire.

All the specialists included in the Cook/Marsh Expert set are taken directly from the original Little Brown Books (Book 3, pages 22 and 23 to be exact). The same monthly costs are used for all the specialists (some of the demi-human mercs did get their prices inflated) , and their descriptions are almost word-for-word.

Only one specialist is left out of the Expert set rules (the Assassin...don't worry, I'm putting it back in...). However, while the Smith (aka "blacksmith") was listed in the Cook/Marsh book, its description somehow got dropped off the page (in the biz we call this "errata"). For all those who've ever wondered what their 25 gp per month gets 'em (besides assistants for an armorer), here's the missing text:

"As already mentioned, a Smith is able to assist an Armorer. For every 50 horses or mules in a player/character's force there must be one Smith to maintain them."

Easy, right? Armorer's maintain the men, and Smith's maintain the horses.

But Mentzer leaves them completely out of his book, as does Aaron Alston from the Rules Cyclopedia. They both leave in the smith referencing language of the Armorer specialist ("with two assistants, one of whom must be a Smith") but don't even bother to list the Smith and his 25 gp per month price tag.

Even Proctor's Labyrinth Lord only dodges the issue by simply renaming the Armorer as "Blacksmith," kind of combining the two so the problematic language ceases to be problematic...though now the blacksmith is a crafter of armor rather than horseshoes. Jeez.

I suppose I'm just being grumpy, but little oversights like this annoy me. So easy for those that came later to say, "OH...look, a little something got left out! Let's just put it back." Instead they say, "hmm, once again the old version seems incomplete/contradictory...I'll just gloss over it."

Ah, well. Gotta' run. More later (I'm sure)...

Scourge of the Slave Lords (Part 2)

[continued from here]

Okay, so what do I think of the Slavers modules individually? After all, I salute the effort in getting 'em all out and trying to make 'em a cohesive whole and I think they do a good job of that. But as individual modules? Seeing as how I like to rank my adventure modules separated into their component parts, rather than as supermodules....

Welp, I kind of have to rate them in order...in other words, I feel A1 and A2 are the weakest individually, A3 I like a bit better, and A4 is definitely the crown jewel of the bunch...in fact, the latter really deserves its own blog post (we'll see if that happens).

Now having said THAT, I would like to point out that I have only ever ran A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity. As mentioned earlier, I owned the supermodule at one time, but never had a chance to run it (or even finish reading it!) prior to somehow losing the damn thing. What this means is that my impressions are entirely academic, i.e. theoretical...the true measure of an adventure module is how it plays, not 'how it reads.' So until I have a chance to run A2-A4 (and I should probably run A1 again as well), how they compare to each other is a matter of (academic) debate.

But I can at least give impressions/observations based on a read of the modules with the eyes of an experienced DM.

A1: Slave Pits of the Undecity is the first module of the series, and is written by that master of B/Expert game design, David Cook. It certainly shows a couple of what one might consider Cook's "hallmarks." For one thing, it is set at what (in B/X terms) would be considered "Expert level;" that is, levels 4-7. This is right on par with his Desert Nomad series, the Isle of Dread, or Dwellers of the Forbidden City...in other words, the levels where he has displayed a bit of mastery (in my less than humble opinion). The other thing is the inclusion of the insectile Aspis monster which definitely has a Sword & Sorcery (i.e. "pulp") feel to it that is also present in his better modules.

However, I can't help but feel disappointed in A1, especially in comparison to the other modules of the series. Perhaps it was specifically meant to be a "warm-up" to the other modules; perhaps Cook was not at his best when designing "tournament" modules (I note that he did not write/design any of the "C" - "Competition" modules for TSR). But much of the adventure simply feels like the monsters have been chosen only with an eye to providing the correct "level of challenge" for the characters (the proper number of humanoids, the occasional spellcaster or undead, a not-too-clever trap here or there). Perhaps because of the venue (i.e. tournament) there is little of the leeway or latitude allowed for creativity as present in Cook's other modules. Simply compare the thing to the open-endedness of I1:Dwellers of the Forbidden City or X4 and X5...the whole adventure feels constrained and, I'm afraid, a bit dull.

A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade, described by one review (per wikipedia) as a "good, workman-like adventure" is the longest of the series, being 40 pages in length and almost totally devoid of interior art. Personally, I find it incredibly interesting that Tom Moldvay was a co-designer in this module...this is the only AD&D module that bears his name as a designer. His other modules are all for B/X or the B/X-derived BECMI (his one module of the latter being a Master level adventure). Seeing his name on it is a bit like seeing Holmes' name on an AD&D module.

I LIKE A2 as a module, but I find it to be derivative...that is, it bears a lot of resemblance to the G1-3 series. Here is a fortress the players must enter. By stealth or by combat they must wipe out the inhabitants. Oh, then they find a scroll that tells them there's a DIFFERENT place to go to. Not much here that hasn't been seen elsewhere.

And as I said in my earlier post I consider published adventure modules to be a key method of informing D&D play. At least, they were in MY youth. You can read the rules set for a game, but without specific examples of dungeon design (Tom Moldvay's Basic set, for example) it can be tricky, putting it all together without a mentor to guide you. TSR's adventure modules worked as mini-mentors for those of us that were "self-teaching" ourselves to play. And while A2 is a nice little (or medium) adventure, it ain't teaching anything new.

Really. For example, it does have nice character: unlike the first module of the A series, A2 bothers to name its slave lords, give them some personality, and tweak them slightly with special abilities (the "blind" fighter that is immune to visual spells, the ogre with his ability to disarm foes in combat). But this isn't much different from King Snurre and Queen with the special auto-kill attacks, or Obmi and his slyness.

What I'm saying is that the best adventure modules of TSR's early years each provided something special to the developing DM: Tomb of Horrors gave us the "monster-less" dungeon, White Plume Mountain gave us riddles and special magic items, Barrier Peaks mixed sci-fi with fantasy, the D series provided the epic and wide-open Underdark, Shrine of Tamoachan mixed in Aztec mythology, Isle of Dread gave us a dinosaur "lost world," etc.. I don't see anything new in A2 that would help inform play, or help a DM "take things up a notch." And so, over-all it feels weaker than the later modules of the series.

Which it appears will have to be a separate post, based on the length of this one....

A True Expert: Dave Cook Kicking Ass (Part 2)

[sorry, my earlier post was about to explode into an unwieldy amount of text...figured I'd break it up]

Let me just quote a paragraph from the text or two, so you can see why I just saw more and more awesomeness in the X4 and X5 modules:

In encounter 2 of Part 4 (X4:The Master of the Desert Nomads), the adventurers are relaxing with some caravan buddies, elated from an earlier victory over an attack by bandits (by the way, Cook makes good use of all the human "monsters" of B/X...bandits, Normal Men, nomads, dervishes, etc....not just character classes).

If the party remains, they will be the guests of honor at the night's feast. After a thick, syrupy coffee, the merchants will carry in a large platter of camel meat (still on the bone) laid on a bed of rice. Over this will be ladled burning hot grease and melted camel butter until it flows over the side of the tray. Lamshar will then invite the characters to eat. They will be expected to dip their fingers into the tray and pull out balls of meat and rice, dripping with grease. Lamshar and Khel will dine with them, offering the player characters choice bits of camel meat that they have pulled out. After the characters have had their fill (and to only eat a little would be insulting), the other merchants will take their place at the tray. The meal will finish with somewhat green dates.

!!!

Now all that text is DM's Eyes Only stuff...this is not boxed text to be read to the players (though both X4 and X5 include some boxed text). Cook creates a whole culture and adventure EXPERIENCE in under 30 pages of text.

Some might think, that with this kind of loving attention to the background material, the adventure would be short on action. No way. He still has room for a full set of wilderness encounters and a 60+ encounter dungeon (the Evil Abbey), as well as including half a dozen new monsters, pregenerated characters, and mini-mass combat rules. And that's JUST X4! X5 is another great 30 pages...this is practically a mini-campaign setting between these two modules.

X4 was published in 1983, the same year Mentzer's Basic set was coming out. X5: Temple of Death was also released in 1983. This is before Mentzer's Expert set or Companion rules hit...

X4 has no shortage of interesting tricks and traps (here come some spoilers folks). For example, back to the previously quoted encounter: all PCs taking part in the feast have to make a save versus poison ("I don't know if it was a piece of under-cooked camel or the green dates, but I'm not feeling so hot..."). Those that FAIL are up all night with indigestion. However, those that are AWAKE get a shot at stopping a sneaky little critter that ransacks the camp that night.

How cool is that? The characters that SUCCEED get to brag about their iron constitutions, but the ones who FAIL get a shot at being heroes later on!

There are a several of these kinds of switcheroos...an ancient Champion of Law that is so obviously the inspiration behind the Scorpion King of The Mummy Returns film (yep, it's now gone bad...)...others friendly NPCs that aren't what they seem (similar to The Jade Empire video game)...plants and double-agents. And am I the only one that sees the Nagpa monsters the direct antecedent of Games Workshop's Lord of Change greater daemon?

Cook also corrects one of the issues I have with X1: The Isle of Dread, though it sets a bit of a bad precedent to later adventure modules. In X1, adventurers can wander around a huge island wilderness for days or weeks without encountering anything but wandering monsters due to encounters being in certain set locations. Players (and the DM) basically have to get lucky (or fudge) if they want the party to run into a particular set piect. In X4 and X5, the wilderness map is set, but the location of the encounters are not...players will experience each encounter when the DM deems the time is right.

Now when I say this is a dangerous precedent I say it comes dangerously close to a linear railroad type adventure...where the only thing that can happen is "players succeed at encounter and move onto next" OR "players fail at encounter and die ending adventure." Adventure path or "story path" in the end all you're doing is living the author's fiction...with widely varying degrees of control (depending on the level of authored NPC involvement). When this happens, it doesn't matter how cool and interesting an adventure...your game play is no longer a collaboration between creative minds, and that's a shame.

Cook avoids this pitfall, and he does so through a number of ways:

1) With a couple exceptions, wilderness encounters need not occur in a particular order. The DM is just ensuring they occur...that's part of the adventure (just like dealing with the throne room or the demi-lich is part of the Tomb of Horrors...there are specific bottle-neck points).

2) Success or failure at a particular encounter does not necessarily derail the adventure. For example, in X5: Temple of Death players don't HAVE to get into the flying ship (flying ship? Yeah, as I said, both these modules are frigging awesome). And in fact, even though it would expedite some things, doing so leads to its own dangers (I shan't elaborate for the benefit of folks that haven't played).

3) In both modules there is a centerpiece dungeon that players will eventually find, and unlike, say other modules, there is nothing linear or pre-scripted in what happens once "on-site." Hell, the dungeons don't even include the boxed text that is present in the wilderness encounters! They are wholely Old School dungeons, complete with Gygaxian ecology and wide open for exploitation by creative adventuring parties.

4) There is no force used upon the PCs through the machinations of NPCs. Players are still calling the shots about what happens in the adventure.

For all these reasons, I don't feel the modules are forced or contrived. Heck, they're even less so than the Desert of Desolation series, with which they share certain superficial traits. Despite the lower production value, Dave Cook's two-part series may actually blow the Hickman and Weiss masterpiece out of the water. Well...it's hard to say, though, as I've had such a love of the I3-5 series for so long.

As far as a B/X adventure? It is easily the best pre-packaged adventure I have ever read for B/X or BECMI. Hands down...it is head-and-shoulders above both B2: Keep on the Borderlands and X1: Isle of Dread. And seeing as how THOSE two made my Top Ten All Time list...well, I might just have to re-do the list.

The thing is, Cook's modules are not designed for kids. Or maybe they are, but they have a very mature, adult sensibility. The power of organized religions? Demons and possession? The need to use wits and stealth over hack/slash/fireball tactics? This ain't no pick-up game for ten year olds, no matter what the Expert set box says.

Of course, we ARE talking Dave Cook here. The designer behind I1:Dwellers of the Forbidden City and A1:Secret of the Slavers Stockade. Snake people and slavers? The guy has a Swords & Sorcery mentality that doesn't quit.

And he brings that S&S style to both X4 and X5. THESE are the potential of the D&D Expert Set...THIS is the kind of mentality I am trying to bring to my Companion set. If Cook had written the sequel to B/X instead of Frank Mentzer, I might have never moved over to AD&D. And, heck, I HAVE made B/X my game/drug of choice after all these years...

Dave Cook is my F'ing hero. Like Gygax and Arneson he should be up on the pedestal of RPG Masters. And, yes, I do realize the total irony with which I write that given his spearheading the design of 2nd edition AD&D leading to the saturation of TSR with sub-mediocre material...but you know, anyone who could take the original mishmash of AD&D and re-organize it has got to be appreciated for design chops regardless of how one views the end result...and I DO appreciate it, even as I loathe the game itself.

Mr. Cook, even as I try to dissuade folks from playing 2nd edition, I will heap praises on your name for your Expert work. And X4 and X5 are shining examples of why B/X is indeed the best version of the game to play. Bravo, sir.

Um...but one, little, tiny issue, Mr. Cook sir. Encounter #2 in the Catacombs? In X4 on page 28? There's no such thing as a "permanent Magic Mouth spell" in B/X D&D...there's no Magic Mouth spell at all.

But one flaw in two modules (for a guy publising in two editions at the same time), is pretty flawless in MY book.

: )

A True Expert: Dave Cook Kicks Ass

Sometimes I worry that I'm a crashing bore. Sometimes I worry that someone I know is going to read something uncharitable I say about them and feel hurt. Sometimes I worry that I'm going to step on someone's feelings just because I couch my opinions with in a bit of inflammatory prose.

Mostly though, I don't worry too much about it...I know I've got my insecurities, and my worries are only as strong as my thought that I'm throwing typos and grammatical errors left and right. If I stopped to worry about all this...well, I guess I'd just be reading blogs instead of writing one.

But folks who've been reading know that I do detour off into the occasional attack post regarding...oh, pretty much everything at one point or another. But those same readers know that I save an especially large share of my bile for a particular edition of D&D...the 2nd edition. I mean, I have turned the cold shoulder to D&D3+ and completely ignored the fact that 4E exists at all. Why, why must I rail against all things 2nd edition.

Um...habit? Who knows? Who cares? Damn...it's just one guy's opinion!

However, in launching so many attacks at the game, it's possible (however slightly) that I might be pissing all over David "Zeb" Cook, the lead designer for that particular edition of the game. I don't know...does he consider it his "baby?" Well, anyway, if it seems like I've got a bone to pick, let me state right for the record now that I do NOT.

Dave Cook is a frigging' genius.

Maybe genius isn't the right term...I want a term like savant, but in my head that always has the word "idiot" at the front and I don't think of Mr. Cook as an idiot. Master might be a better term...you know, like the Old Masters of the Italian Renaissance?

Dave Cook is one of the true masters of D&D. If Gygax is the equivalent of Da Vinci, Cook has got to be Michaelangelo. Maybe that's not a fair comparison (Robert Kuntz might feel he's heir to the Michaelangelo title)...but certainly Dave is one of those Ninja Turtle names.

Mr. Cook's old school cred is not in question...he was working at TSR for a long time, and prior to AD&D2 worked on a whole slew of things. Just looking at the works credited to the man on wikipedia, I see a whole lot of stuff that I've owned and continued to own, all of which I certainly enjoyed in my youth: Unearthed Arcana (with Gygax), Star Frontiers, A1:Slave Pits of the Undercity, B6:The Veiled Society, BH2:Lost Conquistador Mine, X1:The Isle of Dread (with Moldvay). I can honestly say that I have used and played everything I've ever owned that was written by Dave Cook. And some things...noteably X1 and I1:Dwellers of the Forbidden City...I have used and played extensively with multiple gaming groups.

Of course, just being the hand behind a lot of good product isn't enough to qualify one as a "master" in my book. Lawrence Schick hit a homerun out of the park with S2:White Plume Mountain, but in my opinion one (exceptionally wonderful) adventure ain't enough. And quantity's not enough either...Doug Niles, I'm looking at YOU.

[there I go talking smack again! bad JB!]

It's only the last couple days that I've decided Cook is firmly in the master category...and this is DESPITE AD&D2 and the non-weapon proficiencies of Oriental Adventures. I've been reading his modules X4:Master of the Desert Nomads and X5:Temple of Death.

They are superb.

Taking into account his work on X1:The Isle of Dread, I can only come to the conclusion that Mr. Cook is a true master of B/X, ESPECIALLY mid-high level play or what might be termed "Expert D&D" (hell, even I1:Dwellers of the Forbidden City is designed for characters level 4-7). No wonder of course when one considers he was the main force behind the incredibly underrated (in my opinion) D&D Expert Set.

Underrated? Hell yes! I played Expert for a loooong time just subbing in the AD&D Monster Manual before I ever got a DMG or PHB. And many of the standard rules from the Expert set were simply 'ported in to AD&D once we started playing AD&D, including all wilderness movement and naval combat stuff. Sure Expert, like Moldvay's Basic, was just a streamlining and codifying of the original LBBs, but they were done in such expert fashion that they were a lot easier to use than either the LBBs or AD&D. And let us not forget that aside from a few extra clerical spells and Larry Elmore art, Mentzer's Expert set is pretty much word-for-word the Cook/Marsh book. And a lot of people still prefer BECMI and the Rules Cyclopedia.

But let's talk about X4 and X5. Wow. Just wonderful. First off, now I understand why the Expert set bothers to throw both Nomads and Dervishes into the mix. Cook uses every last scrap of Expert goodness in these two adventure modules. After playing through it, players will never relegate ESP and Dispel Evil off into the realms of the "optional miscellaneous" and creative use of spells in general is going to be particularly important. Heck, just about every magic item in the Expert set makes an appearance in one place or another, and scrolls and potions feature prominently...the NPCs sure aren't afraid to use 'em to good advantage!

The monsters are clever and their tactics explicit (very nice for a DM, very challenging for the players...and thanks to the fact this is B/X not 3.5, combats are still a dream to run). The new monsters are especially cool...comparing the Soul Eaters to the Death Leeches of CM2 for example and Cook's creations win hands down as interesting, challenging, while not being "F the players" AND they all have nice "personality." I prefer the new critters in X4 to the ones in X5 (the Fraggle Rock geonid look downright silly), but the Dusanu and Malfera are totally worthy opponents.

There are a LOT of demonic type creatures in the game...monsters like the Malfera, Spectral Hounds, and Soul Eaters all hail from different dimensions or planes (the Nightmare Dimension? the Vortex Dimension?) that don't conform to any particular "D&D Cosmology." I LOVE this. Cook displays what the REAL potential of B/X is...you can make your games a grim Sword & Sorcery tale and completely leave out the Immortals of BECMI or the planar/clerical specifics of AD&D and later games. B/X has THE EXACT SAME OPEN-ENDEDNESS OF OD&D, except that the rules are better written and organized.

And Cook only uses what he's got...unlike Moldvay's X2:Castle Amber, there is no speculation of what a 25th level character would be like (c.f. Stephan D'Amberville). The highest level character in either book is 14, where he ended his own Set. His additional rules are nothing that would later need to be retconned.

For example: the people of Hule worship Chaotic deities. Which Chaotic deities? Who knows? Who cares? Doesn't matter because they are DEITIES and they work in mysterious ways, granting strange powers to some and undying life to others, and flaming damnation to the poor souls that drop down the wrong chute. Ha! Does everything need to be codified (BECMI, D20...I'm looking at YOU)? Nah...I don't think so.

These modules reiterate all the things I love about AD&D that I hated in later editions...edginess and open-endedness ("an anything goes mentality"). Except it uses B/X...wow.

And that's not just the half of it....