Desolation

The last couple days I've been going through the old TSR modules I3: Pharaoh, I4: Oasis of the White Palm, and I5: Lost Tomb of Martek. Pharaoh was Laura and Tracy Hickman's first (self-published) adventure module prior to their being hired on at TSR...along with Rahasia, it was on the strength of this module that the couple were acquired. I've owned the TSR version of Pharaoh...and the its sequel titles...for decades. I first ran I4 for several cousins at a Christmas gathering in Port Angeles, circa 1986 or '87. I ran the entire trilogy for my brother and his friends circa '88 or '89.

I don't think I've looked at them since. And it shows as, in more than a decade of writing this blog, I've mentioned them only a couple times...and then only briefly. 

[oh, what's all this about then? Aren't I supposed to be continuing my prior post about "adventures?" Yeah, I am. Is this a sign that I'm procrastinating? Probably. Still figuring out how I want to start and whether or not it needs to be a two-parter. Patience, folks! I'll get to it!]

So why am I looking for them now? Well, in considering fitting the entirety of the War of the Lance campaign (a campaign played out on a rather small continent) into my little corner of fantasy reality, I started thinking about the Hickman's other noteworthy creation (not Ravenloft): the Desert of Desolation trilogy. After all, the desert was a magical, cursed creation...how big is it that it couldn't be laid over a corner of my world?  

Welp, it turns out...not very big at all. The area it encompasses is about 90 miles across its longest axis and 50 miles the other way. It's too much area to wedge in south of the Palouse (where I would have liked to have it), but it would be pretty easy to throw in that southeast corner of Oregon.  Just means I have to actually develop Oregon, a world building exercise I'm NOT extremely enthused about.

But WHY Desolation? Well, it's in that low/mid-range level of adventures. My players are in that range. And they were pre-Dragonlance/story garbage, so they should be...um, okay? And they're well-written/laid out (i.e. nice and clear for reading) so prep is minimal. And I do have fond memories of them...how would my memories hold up upon analysis with my old, veteran (geezer) eyes.

How indeed.

I3: Pharaoh is "designed for a party of six to eight players of the 5th to 7th levels of experience." I4: Oasis of the White Palm is written for characters of level 6th to 8th. I5: Lost Tomb of Martek is written for levels 7th to 9th. Reading this we can infer that a party of the proper number should expect to gain a level of experience upon completion of each portion of the trilogy (or, at least, after finishing the first two portions).

SO...a party of the maximum size (eight) should EXPECT to receive enough x.p. to level them from 5th to 6th level after I3 and from 6th to 7th after I4. Everyone groks this, right? A 5th level fighter needs 17,000 experience points to rise to 6th level, but I think it's okay peg this at 15.5, considering almost all fighters should receive a 10% bonus, given the ability score guidelines in the PHB. So, 15.5 x 8 = 124K. Now, for me, I'd probably want that entire amount (124,000) available in potential treasure found, especially in a trap/trick-heavy dungeon like Pharaoh, but I'd be satisfied with 60%-70% considering monster encounters and the possibility of selling unwanted magic items (yes, there is such a thing in AD&D). So, let's call it 74K - 86K worth of treasure at minimum.

A quest-giving ghost isn't
bad...but what if the cleric turns it?

How much does Pharaoh offer? 72,335 worth (if one counts the Star of Mo-Pelar as a gem of seeing). And that's pretty close to right! Especially when one understands the Hickman's presume goody-good adventurers who will most likely sell that libram of ineffable damnation for 40,000 rather than retaining (and using) it for 8,000. 104,000 x.p.? Not bad. And while the distribution isn't great (just under 33% of numbered encounters have treasure)...it's OKAY (B/X distribution is one-to-three, but I prefer my AD&D adventures to have more of a 40-50% ratio). Yes, the Hickmans had some design chops, back in the day.

Oasis of the White Palm, unfortunately, is not quite as good. A group of eight 6th level PCs of the fighter variety would need 255K (including 10% bonus) to achieve 7th level...the minimum suggested for the final part of the trilogy. I4 (credited to Tracy Hickman and Philip Meyers) provides only a bit more than 62,000 (62,519, to be exact), of which barely more than 35K is monetary treasure. 

A couple quick caveats: there is MORE treasure than that in the adventure, but acquiring it would require the PCs to rob/kill the many good-aligned NPCs that they are supposed to be aiding (I don't think that's the authors' intention!). The players are working for a Sheik Kassim Arslan, who does offer "the wealth of my tent" in exchange for the PCs' help which means, taken literally, that he could dig up another 17,250 worth of treasure experience (16,250 x.p. worth is actual monetary treasure). BUT...would the leader of his tribe REALLY give up a decanter of endless water (considering they're a band of desert nomads!)? Would he bankrupt his clan out of gratitude? Um...

Even so, that's under 80K in treasure experience. Even if we gave 'em that 60% leeway you're only about halfway to where you need to be (you'd want over 152,000). This is TERRIBLE...especially considering the overall quality of the module (in comparison to other modules of the time) and the attention displayed in I3. Quite possibly Oasis was rolled out with less play-testing (I3 had been developed over several years prior to its TSR publication in 1982; I4 was published in 1983).

Anyway, it IS possible to get the treasure count higher: by selling all the crap magic items that are present throughout the adventure. Four maces +1. Chainmail +2, plate +1. A scimitar +1, shield +2, sword +2. 6 arrows +1 and a potion of gaseous form. And...hoo boy!...more cursed magic items than I've EVER seen in a single adventure; here's the full list:

Potion of poison, incense of obsession (x2!), phylactery of monstrous attention, periapt of foul rotting, necklace of strangulation, helmet of opposite alignment, and the skull of cargath (an evil artifact that injures non-evil clerics if used). Of course, there's also a libram of gainful conjuration that only functions for neutral magic-users and drive NON-magic-users insane. 

I mean, it's really notable just how shitty the treasure is in this adventure. 20,000 g.p. worth of the monetary treasure comes from a pair of gemstone eyes in a statue that will PROBABLY BE DESTROYED by the PCs as the statue summons a relentless hoard of monsters so long as the eyes are functioning, and they may be destroyed far more swiftly than pried out (resulting in the total treasure "take" to be reduced substantially). Likewise, two of the major opponents in the adventure are DROW (in the desert! In the freaking desert!!) armed with all the usual Drow goodies (magic weapons, armor, cloaks, boots, etc.) ALL of which dissolve in sunlight (and such is stated in the module text). Did I mention this adventure takes place in a DESERT?

*sigh* Now I feel bad for pumping the tires on this module.  I'm going to blame the absence of Laura from the design process, but...poorly done, Oasis. Poorly done.

Lastly, we come to I5: Lost Tomb of Martek (credited solely to Tracy Raye Hickman). Assuming, somehow, we get the character to the minimum suggested level (7th) to tackle this, will they find the adventure "rewarding?" How does 127,000 experience points worth of potential treasure sound? To me, it sounds like "not much" for a party of eight 7th level characters. Considering a fighter is looking for 55,000 x.p. to advance (and an 8th level character would be looking for 125K!!!) that's a pretty small dent in the overall pie needed to level up.

"But JB! They don't NEED to level up at the end of this epic adventure do they?" No, I suppose not. But 80+ numbered encounters (in I5 alone)? How many sessions to navigate this thing? How many months spent playing out the entirety of this trilogy? Still: here's the part that REALLY chaps my hide:

There are only eight encounter areas in the entire adventure module that contain treasure. That's less than 1-in-10.  That SUCKS.

And really only SIX encounter areas...because at the end of the adventure, after you've gone through all the time, space, distance distortion levels and fought upteen monsters (many the same-same types of monsters) and halve faced untold frustrations with the crazy tricks/traps...after all THAT you get to Martek's dimensionally displaced tomb and see his treasure halls (three different chambers) with wealth so vast that the thieves that beat you there have LITERALLY DIED OF HEART ATTACKS FROM GLIMPSING THE TREASURE and you (DM) get the following instructions from the module:

Everything in the citadel. including all treasure, cannot be taken out of the citadel without Martek's permission. All of Martek's treasure has been magically enchanted so that it cannot be removed from this citadel. Only Martek can remove that enchantment, so unless he says it can go, it stays.

So, guess what: the PCs don't get to cart off all the treasure. IF they raise Martek from the dead (the goal of the adventure) he thanks the PCs and allows each to select THREE items from the hoard of items available. That 127K figure I came to? That's from assuming you have an average (surviving) party size of six and are selecting the 18 most profitable (in terms of x.p.) items from the hoard.

Still, it would be unfair not to point that many of these items are rare, "big ticket" types, easily worth three to five times their value on the open market: a lot of magical books (including a book of infinite spells), a dancing sword, a nine lives stealer, a shield +5. Selling those items (instead of retaining them) would make for a fairly profitable haul...AND keep the party's inventory of enchanted items manageable.

[for what it's worth, Lost Tomb of Martek is also mercifully devoid of cursed magic items]

When it comes to AD&D, selling magic items is both valid and necessary with regard to the game economy. It doesn't mean that there are "magic shops" in your game world (*barf*)...generally, the DM simply hand waves the sale and the item vanishes from play, replaced with a pile of gold (and x.p.). You can make it a bigger deal, forcing players to find buyers. etc. (I've done this at times), but then you risk players trying to steal items back or knock-over the dude who has the money for such a purchase...which short-circuits the game economy (not the game world economy, but the way the mechanics of the game interacts with each other). 

Still, finding buyers of 20K or 40K items in the middle of the desert (much less willing to buy cursed items) is a bit of a stretch for the verisimilitude of one's campaign.

[as an aside, I'll note that Anthony Huso, in his adventure design, uses the cash value of magic items when doing his spreadsheets for treasure as opposed to x.p. value (which I generally do). This is probably the better procedure for DMs whose players are likely to dig every piece out of all the nooks and crannies, or who play regular, looong sessions. For an intermittent campaign, or one where players routinely miss half of what's available, using the x.p. value for treasure counts seems to work slightly better]

Of course, Hickman is not overly concerned with verisimilitude. He clearly stated his design priorities long before joining TSR with his wife, endeavoring to meet four objectives:

1. a player objective more worthwhile than simply pillaging and killing
2. an intriguing story that is intricately woven into the play itself
3. dungeons with some sort of architectural sense, AND
4. an attainable and honorable end within one or two sessions playing time

That's really the whole "Hickman Revolution" in a nutshell, isn't it? Less attention paid to the mechanics of D&D (like treasure acquisition), instead looking to meeting "story goals." Elaborate plots and story arcs to be played out (with hard rails coded in to prohibit deviation). Expansive, isometric dungeon maps. And assumptions of "heroic goodness" from the players in a battle against evil.

[ha! Just realized Oasis of the White Palm, much like DL2: Dragons of Flame, has one of those "dying bystander" info-dump encounters where the NPC dies, no matter how much healing PCs might apply. See GusL's post for an echo of my opinions on this tactic]

Okay...that's long enough for now; have to run some errands before the kids get out of school (Wednesday's their short day). I have a couple more things to say about the Desert of Desolation series...especially with regard to dromedaries and the logistics of desert travel...but that's going to have to wait for a later post. Maybe tomorrow. When I try to tie this whole thing into the "better adventure design" conversation.

; )

Later, Gators.

Dispel Myth(s)

Just picking up where I left off...

Yesterday I asked a not-so-rhetorical question "have people forgotten how to play D&D?" The pat answer is "Of course not, people all over the world are still playing D&D and enjoying the heck out of it!" The evidence is fairly clear: tons of book sales, tons of convention goers (when pandemics aren't getting in the way), tons of presence on social media platforms, blogs, web forums, etc. The game is again being sold in toy stores and there's all sorts of attached merch and related D&D product.

Clearly the game is enjoying a popularity unseen since the 1980s. Doesn't that indicate people are playing the game? Isn't that popularity coming from the enjoyment folks feel playing the game?

Perhaps. But I'm inclined to think rather differently. 

Regardless (the marketing of D&D is probably a subject for its own post) today I'm writing about folks who are actually playing the game, and specifically to folks who gravitate in the group referred to as "the Old School" or "the OSR" (for short). The OSR is just another marketing term, another badge of identity politics. I know my published works (including blog posts) ties me to the OSR label, too, but I honestly don't identify much with it. I am a gamer...a middle-aged gamer (I'll be 48 this year). I've been playing RPGs with dice since 1981...that's coming up on 40 years. My journey...my love affair...with RPGs started with B/X but it has run the gamut over many, MANY different games though the years.

I'm just a geezer that likes escapist fantasy games. 

And D&D is the one I know best. Not only because it's the one I've played the longest, but because over the last dozen years I've spent a LOT of time and energy "deep diving" the game, researching its workings, its history, its development. Because I love it, and because I find it fascinating, and because it has had such a dramatic impact on our culture...not just "gamer culture" or "geek culture" but world culture. For me, Dungeons & Dragons has importance...in much the same way that a theologian feels about the Bible or a historian feels about classic treatise written by ancient Greek and Latin scholars. It's worth my study.

SO...the OSR. A movement, a market, and (originally) an umbrella term for folks who like to play an older version of D&D. Not an older style, mind you...simply an older version. 

[because "style" is largely a matter of taste...different styles of play have been around since the early days of the hobby...read about or listen to interviews with various TSR luminaries to see what I'm talking about]

As the OSR has moved from an identifier of game preference to an industry, there has been a loss of knowledge about the fundamentals of how to play the game.

And part of the reason for this is this strange and nutty adaption of (and adherence to) a set of stylistic assumptions/guidelines used to define "old school" play. Things like "rulings over rules," "heroic not superheroic," "unbalanced combat," "emphasis on player agency," "high lethality," etc.  These ideas have been taken to heart, cherished, and championed by members of the OSR pretty much since 2008 when Matt Finch published his Quick Primer for Old School Gaming.

I combed Ye Old Blog this morning, but found no mention of the Quick Primer and nothing about Finch, except for an off-hand remark that I'm not a big Swords & Wizardry fan. That doesn't mean I'm unaware of Finch's work: I've both S&W and the Primer downloaded on the hard drive and have read them before. But, especially with regard to the Primer, I think a little context is needed for BOTH of these works.

Finch wrote S&W in 2008 because the OD&D rules were out-of-print at that time. He used Wizards of the Coast's OGL to release the rules so that folks could have and play the game (the original books have since been made available in PDF format). 

The Quick Primer was released alongside S&W in part to explain to "modern" (post-2000 players) the differences between new versions of the game and ORIGINAL (OD&D, 0e, White Box, etc.) Dungeons & Dragons...an edition of the game that was primordial and not yet fully formed.  In this context, as an overview for modern players coming to OD&D needing a radical perspective change, it works fine as a "quick primer" (hence the name). But treating it as a treatise on the subject of "old school play," or as gospel truth, or even as being applicable to other old editions of Dungeons & Dragons (B/X, Holmes, AD&D, etc.) is a catastrophic, erroneous leap to make...let alone foundation on which to build a gaming paradigm.

Let's examine some of the accepted ideas  of "old school" D&D gaming that have sprung from this false understanding and see if we can't destroy their fallacies.

Simple or Few Rules: while older edition versions of D&D do not have nearly the "bloat" found in later editions, calling them "rules light" is hardly appropriate. Setting aside BASIC games (Holmes, B/X, BECMI) which were specifically written as beginning instruction manuals for new players you will find that both OD&D and AD&D did nothing BUT add rules to the game over time: OD&D added five supplements in addition to additional instruction presented in The Strategic Review magazine, nearly all of which were eventually incorporated, and AD&D added manual after manual all the way up to the 2nd edition, which would take the same tack. Even Mentzer's BECMI had an ever-expanding list of instructional texts (not just the Companion-Master-Immortal sets, but the new rules provided in Gazetteers, some of which...non-weapon skills...would later be incorporated into the Rules Cyclopedia). The fact that some people prefer simpler rule sets (like B/X as a standalone game) is NOT endemic of "old school play."

Rulings not Rules: perhaps the worst phrase ever coined in the Old School lexicon. Gygax's instructions to create one's own rules for situations not covered in the textual rules is probably the most misunderstood part of old texts. His admonition "why let us do more of your imagining for you?" was a proscriptive against folks writing to TSR for rules arbitration (in effect, he was saying "Figure it out yourself!"). But just because the rules can't cover EVERYTHING doesn't mean they don't cover SOMEthings...and for many things (like combat) there were existing rules...and more were being added all the time (see above). Finch's statement in this regard was regarding the incompleteness of the OD&D system.

Heroic not Superheroic: another oft-quoted "gem" about how old school PCs are aspiring to be Batman, not Superman. Rubbish. Superheroes are super because they have inherent supernatural powers, and there are PLENTY on display in the D&D game: magic-users, clerics, druids, illusionists, paladins, rangers, monks, and bards all have "super powers" not found in ordinary folks. So do characters with psionics. And if you don't think a high level fighter's ability to cut a swath through 10 or 15 or 20 mooks in a single round isn't "superheroic" (see the rules in both Chainmail and AD&D) than I guess we have very different ideas of the human possibility spectrum. Old school PCs of the mid-high level range are hopping through other dimensions, fighting dragons and demon princes, running kingdoms and commanding armies...this is not "Batman level" stuff. Old school characters are larger than life, much as their inspirations (Conan, etc.) were.

"Forget Game Balance:" and this is why we end up seeing so many published adventures that pit low level PCs against godlike super-beings. Just because encounters aren't "engineered" to allow PCs to win (see 4E, 5E, and 3E's Challenge Rating system) does NOT mean that combats or challenges are "unbalanced." If I throw a dragon in the first chamber of my dungeon meant for 1st and 2nd level characters, that's not "old school;" it's being a crap Dungeon Master! The D&D played using old edition rules is very much about risk assessment and threat management, and about players having the choice of how to approach perils to life and limb. But part of the art of DM'ing is in designing challenges that are difficult without being impossible. And rewards should certainly be commensurate with the challenges being presented, in order to tempt PCs into untenable/difficult situations.

High Lethality: this one, I suppose, is a bit in the mind of the beholder. If you're the type that sees ANY player character death as being "highly lethal" (because you're used to an edition of D&D with "death saves" and "healing surges" and whatnot), then sure...old edition D&D is "highly lethal." But if your definition of "high lethality" equates to "Total Party Kill" (or near-TPK) than, no...old edition D&D does NOT necessarily have a high degree of lethality. Death in D&D is a fail state for the players; it generally indicates 'you screwed up.' It is a possible penalty of poor (or unlucky) play. However, it is easily mitigated by the ample number of ways to bring PCs back from the dead, and by the relative ease with which new characters can be created and advanced. I have found AD&D to be especially forgiving with regard to PC death (due to higher hit points per die, more clerical healing at low levels, and the use of negative hit points as a "buffer")...but even with B/X the game need not be "highly lethal." DMs must still balance encounters based on party's experience and ability.

Emphasis on Player Agency: um...what? If you mean players aren't laboring under a DM practicing illusionism than I don't think that's something very specific to "old school" play. But regarding PCs having a "choice" in what they do in-game (again, not something specific to old editions of D&D!) there are plenty of ways that player agency is restricted and curtailed in old edition D&D: see charm spells, hold spells, paralysis, petrifaction, and (yes) death. Plenty of ways exist to take a player out of play for short (or long) durations. If you're talking about an "open sandbox world" unfettered and unconstrained, I'd counter with a plethora of published old edition adventures featuring "trapped" player characters, including Castle Amber, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, Ravenloft, Dungeon of the Slave Lords, the Desert of Desolation series, the premise for Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, etc. 

Referee Impartiality: um...again, is this indicative of "old school" play? I think not. However, while I am a strong proponent of not fudging the dice...ever (and you should be, too!) I have to say that I love my players and I want them to succeed at overcoming challenges (yes, even though I cackle with glee when their characters die). Why? Because for me (as a DM), allowing players to succeed allows their character to advance which in turn allows me to open up new content and newer more cunning challenges and situations. It's a win-win for everyone. Likewise, it's really tough to run a long-term viable campaign if you let ONLY dice dictate what monsters and treasures are encountered by your players...as a DM you must be willing to set the ship's course; the fun is in seeing how the PCs navigate the waters. And reading Gygax's text in the 1E DMG, I think he was pretty much of a similar mind.

Aaaaand...that's about it. Any other long-standing precious beliefs about ostensibly "old school" game play that I need to stomp all over? If you think of some let me know. Otherwise, please feel free to grump about how wrong I am in bashing OSR-approval-stamped credentials of "real D&D play."

Next Post: I hope to start writing a series about actual "fundamentals" of game play (at least for older editions; sorry, 5E...you can suck it). Need to fill this newly created void with some constructive stuff. Stay tuned!

: )

I6: Ravenloft

A few days ago, Sir Rob asked me if I'd review I6: Ravenloft, not to critique it so much as to analyze whether or not I thought it truly was the Hickmans who started the "Adventure Path" trend (with I6 and/or Dragonlance), and ALSO how I might go about making the game more "player-centric" while still maintaining its "gothic vibe." In other words, how would I un-couple the thing from its railroad aspects while not killing the mood. Being the gracious (and egomaniacal) type of guy I am, I said 'sure, why not?'

THIS. IS. RAVENLOFT!

But first, allow me to say this: when they look back at their lives, I'm going to guess that the Hickmans (Tracy and Laura) are going to say that the greatest thing they ever did for their careers, was to take a job offer at TSR and move from Utah to Wisconsin. Had they not done that...had they instead taken other gigs locally, gotten help from their parents, continued to raise their kids in the same town they'd grown up...I just can't see them going on to having the success they managed to achieve. Without the backing of TSR (and the built-in fan base)...would they have ever been much more than independent publishers of the occasional D&D module? Would they have even continued to do that?

The fact is, Hickman wasn't a great writer...and I say that as someone who has read the first six Dragonlance novels (multiple times!) and enjoyed the hell out of them. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think Hickman becomes a famous, bestselling novelist without TSR. Steinbeck he was not.

[sorry, I've had Steinbeck on the brain a lot recently, considering the parallels between The Grapes of Wrath and our current pandemic-enhanced homeless crisis. But I digress]

What he was...what both the Hickmans were...were rather good adventure designers. I have no experience with Rahasia (one of two modules that got the Hickmans hired by TSR), but I've run I3: Pharaoh two or three times, I4: Oasis of the White Palm at least three times, and I5: Lost Tomb of Martek once or twice...both as "one-offs" and as part of on-going campaigns. While I have a notable soft-spot for anything Arabian Nights related, the adventures were quite interesting, filled with ingenious dungeon design, evocative situations, and (yes) whimsy (the floating tomb of Martek was written/published a year before the rather paltry knock-of appears in DL4: Dragons of Desolation). I especially like the combination of ancient Egyptian mythos with Golden Age Islam fairy tale stuff (this is best seen in I4: Oasis of the White Palm)...but skating over a sea of glass with light-powered sky-ships, avoiding sunspots and purple worms...I mean, come on, that shit is cool!

But it's been twenty years since I've read those modules and it's certainly possible I'd see them today in a less favorable light. The clever intertwining of adventure sites (with actual treasure!) is a bit of a "railroad" but the idea of needing to "solve an adventure to escape" (as in I5) has been around long since before the Hickmans came on board at TSR: Moldvay did this with X2: Castle Amber in 1981, and there's a bit of that in 1980's Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits as well. Likewise, there are other examples prior to the Hickmans' career of both "backstory" and forced compliance with the adventure (a common gripe with the I3-I5 series): you see the former in modules like N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God and B3: Palace of the Silver Princess, and the latter in the introduction to the G-series...all adventures that (generally) receive high praise and/or are considered "classics."

So, now...Ravenloft. For me, I think Ravenloft is best understood (and judged) by looking at what the adventure was and why it was designed. Published by TSR in 1983, the Hickman's wrote the adventure circa 1977 (long before they joined the company) as an adventure to be played on Halloween. It is thus best viewed as a one-off theme-style adventure, NOT something to be viewed as part of an existing or on-going campaign. It is NOT a regular, ordinary adventure.

Viewed in this light, many of the design choices not only make sense, they are...quite frankly...brilliant. The well-themed card mechanic that randomly determines locations of important artifacts, the adventure's antagonist, and the overall motivation of said-antagonist? THAT is an elegant method of ensuring the annual "spooky adventure" is different from year-to-year. Yes, we already know that the living tower is going to attack us with halberds if we aren't careful, but Strahd (or some needed McGuffin) might be up there this year! 

It's almost like a tournament challenge: will we get Strahd this Halloween, or will he get us? Who knows?!

Many of the adventure's problems, I think, can all be laid at the feet of publishing the thing as an ordinary "I-type" adventure, and the changes made thereof. People attending an annual themed get-together are already going to be on-board with the spirit of the adventure...there's no need to add all the heavy-handed stuff that forces a party to act in a particular way (2 hit die villagers, 5 and 6 hit die gypsies, impassable mists, etc.). In a "true" adventure module, there's no need to randomly pull cards to determine locations of important items and adversaries...they should simply be placed in the most suitable, appropriate locations. You can still "read the tarot cards" (or whatever) but with all the "signs" fixed, i.e. set in place. Even though Ravenloft was never run at tournament, it would have fit well with the C series (there's a lot of 1980's C1: Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan in this adventure in Ravenloft), and probably would have benefitted well from a set of pre-generated characters, rather than mandating one PC "must be a fighter with a longsword" or other stipulations.

So then, what if you WANT to make Ravenloft an "actual adventure" for insertion into your campaign?

Well, the module has another rather large issue (besides being purposed for something other than it is) and that is a matter of scale: Ravenloft really wants to be a low-level adventure rather than a mid-level one. I think there are three main reasons it is written for levels 5-7, and they lead to a host of cascading problems:

1. Being placed in the "I" (intermediate) series suggests mid-range (though suggested levels fluctuate wildly across I modules).
2. Having a big, bad Vampire suggests a higher level of character (because vampires are one of the most powerful forms of undead...THE most powerful undead in OD&D and Basic play).
3. General survivability: more levels mean more hit points, which means a longer game experience (especially appropriate in a one-off, theme-night adventure).

The adventure would have been served better by writing it for levels 2-4. This mitigates a lot of issues: the treasure is more appropriate for this level of party (it's pretty slim for any adventure this size, but downright criminal for a 1E adventuring party of levels 5-7...again, remember this was not designed for an on-going campaign!!!). Villagers can be level 0 in stead of 2 hit dice (otherwise, we're going to cast charm person on that 9th level fighter with the intelligence of 3 and retain him FOREVER). The "evil gypsies" can be re-scaled as ordinary bandits rather than wandering minotaurs. Madame Eva doesn't need to be a 10th level cleric (I mean "she never gives aid and never needs any" so why does she need to have spells like raise dead or cure serious wounds available to her? Just make her high enough level to curse insolent players!). Get rid of the wandering specters, banshees, and ghosts (all too powerful as is), maybe substituting a wraith or two, knock the Strahd Zombies down to 2HD (and have them turned as zombies not mummies), and re-do trap damage where appropriate.

[actually the traps are all pretty good, even for low-level parties. The sleep trap at #38 doesn't need to carry a -4 penalty...low level characters fail saves just fine...and the crushing trap at #31 should probably just be an auto-kill anyway (how are they going to pull a party member out that survives the damage?!). Most of the killer traps (thousand foot falls and whatnot) simply need to be telegraphed better to give players a choice of risk/reward]

But what about All The Vampires, JB?! First off, vampires DO have vulnerabilities. Garlic, mirrors, and holy symbols will hold a vampire at bay, and don't require a cleric "turning" roll (would a 7th level cleric really have much chance anyway?). The module gives specific ways that Strahd will attack the party and stipulates he will only attack three times (once each of three methods)...and only ONE attack will be direct combat. 

[of course, the module appears to assume that the adventure will be completed in a single 24 hour time period. Remember! The thing was designed to be played one night (Halloween) per year!]

Whatever happened to half-strength undead? Why are all these "brides of Strahd" full hit dice vampires? Is that not a thing in AD&D? Oh, wait...it is (page 119 of the DMG). As I wrote when first exploring the Dragonlance stuff, the Hickmans come off as DMs used to only using OD&D + Greyhawk, and here's another example. Half-strength (4 hit die) vampires are fine opponents for low-level characters, assuming they don't attack in packs (they don't in Ravenloft)...I might even rule they only suck one level on a hit, rather than two, which puts them on the same footing as an encounter with a single wight, right? Except that they have all the extra (vampiric) vulnerabilities, too. Give them a lesser charming ability (no save penalty) if you like.

As for Strahd ("The First Vampyr"), parties have multiple resources for aiding in their fight, including the Icon of Raveloft and the Sunsword (just allow the entire sword to be found, instead of only the hilt) while using normal preventative measures (listed above) for holding him off till they can find the artifacts. OR they could just use that time-honored method of hunting vampires: wait till daytime and hunt for his coffin, stake in hand. Even low-leveled parties can handle that, and properly hit diced monsters can serve as great guardians. 

Strahd himself isn't all that great shakes as an antagonist. He's not the earliest "classed" vampire to appear in a TSR module (Drelzna the fighter vamp in Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth might be the first) nor even the first magic-user vampire (see Vlad Tolenkov in Q1 or Sakatha in I2). He's not the first antagonist to have a "motivation" that involves more than killing every murder-hobo that enters his lair. He's a Dracula knock-off (much as Vlad was) and there's nothing wrong with that...for an annual Halloween adventure. But there was nothing particularly original or outstanding about Strahd, even in 1983. Regrets over a dead sibling? Unrequited NPC romance plots? See X2 and B3 respectively.

All four of Strahd's possible goals are pretty lame, actually. If he wanted to switch identities, why do so now? What's so special about the PCs? Would a genius level intelligence really make the mistake about the black opal spell component (never mind the fact that a 10th level magic-user is incapable of manufacturing magical items!)? The missing sunsword is pretty dumb, unless you set this up in an earlier adventure with the thought of later running Ravenloft...and the "reincarnated love" living in the local village...I mean, this thing worked for Bram Stoker's Dracula when she was living in faraway London, but do you really need the machinations for the local damsel? And would such an adolescent ploy ever work better than simply offering her a castle and immortality? And didn't we say this guy has genius intelligence?

[just by the way, can I just say I HATE the whole polymorphing undead thing? A walking corpse...or incorporeal spirit...is NOT an animal to be polymorphed, so should fall under the purview of polymorph any object, if such transformation is possible at all. The idea of Strahd polymorphing a PC into a vampire is just...so...arrghh! That is NOT how one makes vampires!And even if it was, why not do that with one of your willing gypsy henchmen?!]

In the final analysis, I think the best way to uncouple Ravenloft from its story is to treat it as a straightforward monster hunt. IGNORE Strahd's "motivations." Who cares what turns his crank...what is it that motivates the PCs? The Hickmans' original impetus for writing Ravenloft came from playing in a dungeon that had some random vampire sitting in a room next to the oozes and goblins for no good reason. Yeah, that's dumb: but that's not what you have here. This vampire has a reason for being in this room: it's his castle! He's been the lord of the realm for a couple hundred years! The villagers are his prey! Etc. Etc.

[I actually really like the idea of Strahd being a greedy bastard. If you draw the card that says Strahd is in his treasury, you find him gleefully "counting his ill-gotten gains." That's motivation right there! The guy is milking the surrounding territory...and any would be passers-through (like the PCs)...to add to his ever-growing treasure hoard. He's the undead equivalent of a miserly dragon! Love it...probably killed his brother over some piece of treasure. Oh My Precious!]

To run Ravenloft for a NORMAL campaign adventure (as opposed to a one-off) I'd do the following:

• First, decide on a motivation for the party to confront Strahd. Maybe they are looking for an artifact that he's rumored to have in his hoard. Maybe they're looking for a friend, relative, or colleague ('what's up Jonathan Harker?') that's being held in the castle. Maybe they've been sent to collect outstanding back taxes due to a greater lord. Maybe their deity visited them in a dream and told them they had a sacred duty to stamp out the undead fiend (or face excommunication). Whatever. If nothing else, appeal to their greed (that guy's been sitting on a load of loot for generations, people!)...it IS AD&D, after all.
• Next, figure out why the villagers remain in this cursed locale. Look, Dracula had his peasants, too, and they weren't sticking around because of some magic, poisonous fog. There are many reasons why a community might decide that sticking it out is better than the alternative: persecution in other lands, friends and relatives, food supply, the devil you know versus the unknown. Vampires only attack at night, right? So as long as you're indoors after dark (and have your garlic/cross nailed over the door) you're safe to go about your daily farming business during the daylight hours and only need worry about the occasional gypsy abduction. Treat Strahd like any other nobleman/lord and his "gypsy servants" as his equivalent of patrols and men-at-arms (which they basically are anyway).  Decide who might be helpful/sympathetic to the PCs, and who is firmly in the pocket of Strahd (for example, the town mayor or anyone else who benefits from Strahd's magnificence...i.e. not being eaten...in exchange for cooperation and spying). Remember that Strahd has some human servants, who may actually be "hostages" of village families. Other village families might have made "deals" with Strahd (given over daughters to be his "brides" in exchange for concessions). We are talking a campaign game, not a Sunday night movie!
• Re-write the thing for a low-level party. I'd say 3rd or 4th would be best (because one vampire hit to a 2nd level character is going to end her adventuring career), but definitely nothing 5th or higher (no need to be flinging fireballs and lightning bolts around your gothic castle mood piece). Gypsies as bandits, villagers as villagers, village idiots as strong villagers (not 9th level fighters...dude should have his own castle!). Shadows and wraiths in place of banshees and ghosts and specters. Half-strength vampire wives instead of full strength ones (treat as wights in all regards). Strahd zombies exactly as written except they only have 2 hit dice and turn as ghasts (inside the castle...outside, they should turn as normal zombies). Probably get rid of the 12 HD trapper (make that the lair of the wandering rust monsters, if you like...clever PCs will find a way to use those on the iron golems). Much as I like the jack-in-the-box of three hell hounds in a crypt, they'll probably destroy most low level parties...knock 'em down to two at 4 HD, if you want to keep Strahd's "hunting dogs" (who wouldn't?). And I kind of love the nightmare (Strahd's "steed") and like the idea of him riding through the streets, bellowing challenges and calls for vengeance the night after the party's first foray into his home.
• Figure out where you want to put the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, the Tome of Strahd, and the Sunsword; I would not stash any in his crypt, but you could still draw cards to figure out where they are, if you don't have a preference (I would not use the bonuses/penalties associated with card suit). Since Strahd (presumably) moves around a lot during the night, I'd just roll a D6 whenever the party enters one of his possible encounter areas, perhaps with a cumulative chance of finding him (1 in 6, 2 in 6, etc.). I would NOT have Strahd in his crypt except during daylight hours (when he'll always be present).
• Treasure: the total value of monetary treasure in Ravenloft is a bit more than 120,000 g.p. -- close to double what eight 4th level characters need to level. However, in an adventure with this much expected energy drain, I don't mind the extra experience points. Magic items range from good (helpful scrolls and potions) to weird (three maces +3 in the treasury?) to wow (a deck of many things!). Probably needs some modification with regard to the blander magic weapons. 
• Stocking: however, the distribution of treasure needs work. In a dungeon this size, I'd expect to find some type of treasure in around 30 encounter areas, not 10. Monsters should be in one-third of the areas, not one-fourth. Around 56% of the castle is EMPTY...just box text description...and while there's fairly good interactivity (especially for DMs that don't mind doing some improvisation when they see "carriage room," for example) I'd want to spread things around a bit more, and probably add a couple more encounters (gypsy henchmen and the like...especially during the daytime). The crypt area especially is a little bland...I can see PCs simply knocking down tombs, one after another, which is more-or-less the same as the (often lambasted) Kick-In-The-Door style of dungeon. Rather than an empty tomb with a bag of coins, I'd prefer to furnish the castle a bit more with golden candelabrum (never lit) and decorative china- and silverware (never used)...maybe a well-stocked wine cellar full of expensive vintages. Maybe figure out where the vampire wives go during the nighttime hours and what the witches are doing when they're not brewing in Ye Old Cauldron. Maybe give the witches a few potions, and give their 42,750 g.p. spellbook to Strahd (they only peruse it when they need to memorize a spell). Hell, put it in his study...simple enough.

With regard to RUNNING the adventure, I'd want to make sure I was keeping excellent track of time, because sundown and sunset becomes VERY important when you're hunting vampires. Party encumbrance and movement rates are going to be essential for tracking time, and every ten minute turn spent searching for secret doors is going to bring the party closer to the witching hour. Probably need to prep some sort of graph beforehand, just to make it all go smoothly. The adventure lists "types of attacks" for Strahd, but they're kind of nonsensical for a character with genius intelligence and centuries of experience. A situational list of actual tactics (based on party location, party defenses, level of vampiric ire, etc.) probably needs to be mapped out and available to the DM so that your players aren't asking 'hmmm...where did these 15 Strahd zombies suddenly appear from when we locked ourselves in this tower room?'  Anyway...

It is doable. That is, it's an adventure one could run FAIRLY EASILY with MINIMAL MODIFICATION. Nothing nearly as extensive as what I'm doing with the Dragonlance modules, because Ravenloft IS a fairly straightforward adventure. It was not the advent of (or precursor to) the Adventure Path or "story driven" adventure design, with its railroads and plot-protected NPCs. Heck, you can't even blame box text on the Hickmans, as that was certainly showing up as early as 1980 (see C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan as Exhibit A). Ravenloft is not some sort of linear rail path requiring specific action from the PCs (besides destroying Strahd, of course). Nothing compels the PCs to deal with (lovely NPC) Ireena Kolyana in any particular fashion...or even keep her alive! The fact that she only has six hit points (as a 4th level fighter?) and no CON score (um...) means she's probably not long for the world anyway.

There is no way in hell I would ever rank Ravenloft "the second greatest adventure module of all time." I wouldn't even call it the second greatest adventure module written by the Hickmans!  But it's not terrible...it's pretty great as a light-hearted one-off played for a spooky theme night. And considering it was written by the Hickmans in their early 20s (they weren't even 25! Just kids!), it is a remarkable testament to their abilities as game designers that they were able to craft something that touched so many people and launched an entire game line and setting.

Then again, it may be that people just love vampires. 

; )

Making The Insanity Work

This is more about this nonsense posted earlier.

I'm going to come right out and say it: I have a newfound appreciation for Dragonlance, the project/product. There is a crap-ton of work that was put into these original adventure modules by the staff at TSR...the artwork, the maps, the story line, the box texts. Just immense. So much, in fact, that if one considers their objectives with regard to the publication, one could almost forgive the thing's failings as an actual D&D adventure. 

Almost.

But "appreciation," I say, and I mean it: a lot of brows sweated to create this thing. There's a lot of crappiness in it, I won't lie, but they get props for the effort in the undertaking. Truly.

Making it work for my own game is pretty ridiculous. There is...hmm...just so little that is actually of use, given that I'm not even intending to use the world of Krynn. And there are LOTS of folks (I can think of one for sure) who would reach through my computer screen, grab me by the lapels, and give me a good shake if they could. Yell in my face, "My God, man! Make your own silly campaign! Don't sweat over this pile of horseshit!" Call it my way of honoring and paying back the enjoyment I received from the DL novels 'back in the day.' I owe those folks, something. Maybe.

But let's talk about these (first world) problems in depth. I've got four modules I'm working with: Dragons of Despair, Dragons of Flame, Dragons of Hope, and Dragons of Desolation (collectively: DL1-4). I do have a practical reason for limiting myself to these four: the only DL products I own are DL3 (picked up a while back from a used bookstore), and the Dragonlance Classics Volume 1 collection (originally published for 2nd edition) which includes all the info found in DL1-4. This one I also picked up used, but it's more or less word-for-word the same...text-wise...as the original modules; you just don't get the PC updates.

[not that my copy includes the PCs anyway...that handout was lost sometime before I ever picked the thing up in a bargain bin]

My "Series Bible"

Each of the four modules features a string of quantum events (the "Dragonlance railroad" one hears so much about) based on the ongoing "story" of the series, and each features a single dungeon. By "dungeon" I mean a static adventure site with a keyed map that includes traps, monsters, and treasure...often plot required treasure.

• In DL1 Dragons of Despair, the dungeon is Xak Tsaroth, a ruined sunken city. A black dragon has been tasked with guarding platinum "holy disks" that could usher back faith in the True Gods to the people of Krynn. PCs are expected to kill the beast and retrieve the disks.
• In DL2 Dragons of Flame, the dungeon is Pax Tharkas, a mountain fortress. The PCs' hometown was wrecked by an evil priest (and his red dragons) and characters are supposed to infiltrate and free the enslaved townsfolk form his clutches.
• In DL3 Dragons of Hope, the PCs are presumed to be leading a ragtag band of 800 refugees, liberated from Pax Tharkas. Hoping to find a place of protected shelter, the dungeon they plumb is Skullcap, the ruined fortress and last resting place of the archmage Fistandantilus, which supposedly holds the key to finding the secret, lost dwarf city of Thorbardin. Spoiler alert: yes, the key is there, as well as Fistandantilus (now a demilich). 
• In DL4 Dragons of Desolation, the dungeon is a floating tomb that holds the hammer of Kharas, a magical artifact players need to recover to pay off the dwarves for letting the refugees stay with them. The tomb has a bunch of traps, but only a single creature (a gold dragon) that the PCs probably shouldn't be fighting. 

These adventures are pretty terrible. I know Bryce doesn't do reviews of old stuff, but I'm sure he'd have a few choice words here regarding usability, linear nature, lack of factions, and overuse of "box text" (among other things). Of the four dungeons, the one I find most interesting is Skullcap (from DL3): it has some of the more interesting encounters (a shadow dragon, stone golems, skeletal warriors!), interaction with potential NPC allies, some gigantic treasure hoards (nearly 500K g.p. worth of non-magical items), and a potential TPK in the demilich...plus Skullcap itself is perhaps the most evocative of the Krynnish dungeons, even if it is (in many ways) a bit of a Tomb of Horrors knockoff. 

Still, I can't see how most DL campaigns wouldn't END after a foray into Skullcap, either due to a total party kill (more than one encounter here is pretty deadly for the 6th to 8th level range of the module) OR because the characters are going to pick up a vorpal longswords, plate +3, and multiple dwarven artifacts.

[seriously: a stone golem? and not one fire-breathing 12 HD iron hydra but two? And the party magic-user is 5th level with only tongues and phantasmal force as his top spells? Come on, Hickman...looks like you got tired of the project by DL3 and wanted everyone dead!]

But...whatever. Here's the thing with regard to MY campaign: I don't intend to run the thing as a railroad, nor even as a larger "war story." So there's no pressing need to - for example - find the "lost dwarven kingdom" or the dwarves' missing artifact of power. And because I'm not running the War of the Lance, there's no urgency in involving the PCs in politics, trying to organize elven allies or send missions to Palanthas, Solamnia, and Tarsis...not that these places even exist in Washington State (my default map).

Oh, there can still be a sense of urgency with regard to Wenatchee being burned to the ground and its people being hauled off to Cle Elum (about where I'd put Pax Tharkas), but this isn't the post-Cataclysmic world of Krynn. Rescued refugees could be taken to Ellensburg or Yakima (albeit with similar food issues if winter's coming on), but PCs could just as easily choose to flee to greener pastures...the Tri-Cities to the south or the Red Empire (Spokane) in the east...rather then stick around. Verminaard's band of fanatics will be able to conquer the area within a day's flight from Pax Tharkas, but overextending his "army" would show, well, a profound lack of wisdom for a cleric.

SO: enemy stronghold (Pax Tharkas)...check. Ancient lich-ridden ruins (for high level characters)...check, by placing Skullcap in the foothills east of Yakima (same area as the tomb of Bendan Fazier). Sunken ruin with black dragon overlord? Checkity-check...deep in the swamplands surrounding Lake Chelan (not the jet-ski vacation spot of 21st century Washington).

And, sure, I've even got a Thorbardin-like dwarf city (which may or may not have a floating tomb citadel in a nearby, hidden valley)...it is the ONLY pass through the Cascades unless someone wants to take a hundred mile detour south through Yakima, and Rimrock Pass is full of giants and monsters and whatnot. Currently. the [yet unnamed] "dwarfgate" remains closed...not because of any Dragon War or Cataclysm but because few folks are willing to pay the exorbitant tolls the dwarves demand. It is, however, the most expedient passage to western Washington (Sea-town and all the rest), which PCs will surely want to visit at some point. 

[however, I somehow doubt the dwarves will want PCs despoiling the magical tombs of their fallen heroes]

If all this seems like a very small scale operation compared to the Dragonlance saga (even just the first four modules): it isn't. The places I'm choosing to place these locations are quite to scale with "the lands of Abanasynia." I mentioned before that Washington feels a little too "small scale" for a campaign world, but Krynn is REALLY small.  Distance from Solace to Xak Tsaroth? 40 miles. Distance from Solace to to Pax Tharkas? 60 miles. Distance from Solace to Skullcap? 100 miles. That's only a five day hike from your idyllic fantasy treetop village to the blasted, ancient fortress of Krynn's (historically) most powerful archmage! There's even a decent road to ride on for most of the way! The fantasy equivalent of taking Interstate 5 from Seattle to Bellingham (on the Canadian border)...something we'd do on a Friday night back before we were old enough to drink legally in the U.S.A.

[actually, we'd go all the way to Vancouver...about 150 miles. But we'd be back in Seattle the next day in time for brunch]

That's the thing: if you remove the idea of the Krynnish gods invading the world and massing an army of dragons and whatnot...well, all you're left with is kind of "small potatoes" adventures. Ones with neat maps and some interesting antagonists, but nothing particularly epic. And that's okay, because my players aren't at a level where they need anything "epic." Let's just give them some interesting things to explore (hopefully with decent loot to acquire). That should be enough...for the time being.

Anyway, that's the progress report. Happy Friday!

Black Magic, Demons, and Seduction

I know that I’ve mentioned this (briefly) elsewhere, but I’ll go ahead and relay the story with a bit more detail, so as to set the table for this post:

Back In The Day (as they say), I started running B/X D&D for my friends and only gradually came to realize that there was this thing called Advanced D&D which was altogether different, cooler, and more elaborate (it would be even MORE years until I realized there was such a thing as OD&D and DECADES…until after the advent of this blog in fact…before I realized how OD&D and its supplements actually relate to AD&D).

 *AHEM* But I eventually figured out…a long time after adopting the Monster Manual into our B/X game and even making use of some of the goodies in the Dungeon Masters Guide. Sometime around 1983-84 I would receive a copy of the Players Handbook (a Christmas gift from my folks, I believe) and my corruption would be complete.

Now, I said some of the goodies in the Guide. The truth is, for the first couple years of my gaming career I didn't have a personal copy of the DMG, despite being the one (for the most part) running the game. My best friend at the time, a girl named Jocelyn, had one that she'd been given by her older brother (11 years her senior)...or found in a trunk of his old things (Lacey having moved out of the house by then). This I was allowed to borrow and peruse on occasion, but it wasn't something to which I was granted constant access. Jocelyn did not even attend the same elementary school as I did.

[boy, there's a lot of history I should probably write up some day...]

21st century hipster

ANYway, I did eventually acquire my own copy of the DMG, and this is how it happened: my father's youngest sister, my pretty Aunt Charlotte, was in her 20s or 30s at the time and dating a guy who would have fit in quite well with the hipsters of this decade. Svelte but athletic, attractive but sporting glasses and a (neatly trimmed) beard, he was personable, bright, and witty. Played an (acoustic) guitar at times, if I remember correctly. His name escapes me, but I seem to recall it being David...that'll work, I suppose.

The guy straight up gave me my first Dungeon Masters Guide, maybe the first or second time I ever met him. He found out that I played D&D and said, oh maybe you'd like this, and just handed it to me as a gift: a brand new copy, with the later Jeff Easley cover. 30-some years later, it's still sitting on my book shelf (along with four additional copies of the book), the interior binding long since having come loose from wear and tear, the middle most pages torn, crumpled, and stuffed inside, and my name and home phone number penned inside the interior cover by my mother's careful calligraphy.

Reading this, folks might wonder (or make assumptions about) why this practically-a-stranger would gift a kid, even his girlfriend's nephew, with such a book. I mean, I only met this person two or three times in total (my aunt did not hang out at our house...I saw her maybe a couple times a year and, being a young woman, she went through multiple boyfriends during my youth). Here's the thing: "David" was a gamer himself...but he didn't play D&D. He played DragonQuest.

Same cover art as the
first edition. Poor dragon!

If forced to guess (I don't know this for sure), I think he either purchased the DMG or was given it by someone in order to "check out" the AD&D game and, deciding it wasn't to his taste, passed it off to someone who played the game. Dave already had his game: 1st edition DQ, individual books three-hole punched and carried in a binder. Either the same day (or a different one), he was at my family's house and he had his DragonQuest gear with him and he walked us through character creation (my brother, aunt, and I all made characters), and talked with us about the game. I found it fascinating. I may well have been exposed to other RPGs by this point in my gaming career, but this was my first encounter with a game that wasn't A) published by TSR and B) a direct rival to its fantasy niche/genre.

I remember my brother rolled up a stone giant (I was envious), while my aunt ended up with an orc and was none-too-happy about it...though her Physical Beauty (determined randomly) still ended up being higher than our characters. "So I'm a good-looking pig-person?" Yeah, David was a cool guy, but my aunt wasn't really a gamer. Her next boyfriend (who I think was named "Daniel") was an older, chubbier ex-hippy type who also played the acoustic guitar (but better) and the harmonica as well. That guy wore shorts a lot.

Years later, as a teenager, I picked up a copy of DragonQuest myself, the 3rd edition published in 1989 after TSR acquired SPI. I probably picked it up in around 1990 as I was in high school and definitely NOT playing D&D anymore, and was curious to see if it was the game I remembered being so intrigued by in my youth. Yep...sure was, right down to random generation of non-human characters (there was stone giants!) and different colleges of magic (which I had thought was especially cool as a kid...still do).

My old copy.

I ran a little bit of it over the summer, did some character creation, ran the sample adventure, used the system to model the Jennifer Roberson "Cheysuli" books I was into at the time (you can make shape-changer PCs). But I found the actual play to be somewhat lacking. It's not that the game wasn't well-designed (though I recall finding some loophole/break points in the experience system that led to gross abuses) or that its systems were too clunky/chunky. No, the problem was the need for miniatures and hex grids to run combat, and the level of detail/design necessary to create stat blocks for NPCs/antagonists, which made doing prep for the game a lot of work.

[looking back, I can see that these things are what eventually soured me to running 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons as well, but 3E took things to even a greater level of headache with the vast multiple of modifiers available to skills and combat maneuvers and the arithmetically increasing stat blocks of high level NPCs/high challenge monsters; by comparison, DQ could be considered "3E light." However, I still find square-shaped grid combat to be far less cumbersome than hex maps]

Sometime in the early 2000s, DQ3 was purged from my game collection during some a general clean-out of "games-I'll-probably-never-play-again," back before I started keeping games around for inspiration and design analysis.

Fast forward to NOW: in considering how I might modify dragons for my campaign setting (and the possibility of blogging about said modifications), I found myself wanting to review the creatures in DQ, as I remember that system being an interesting take on the potent creature. As I don't have my copy of the text anymore, I start surfing the web (natch) to see what I could find in the way of a PDF. Since this post is already overlong, I'll go ahead and bullet point the interesting finds of my research:

• WotC/Hasbro owns all the DQ stuff, having acquired it along with all TSR property. They have since put it "on ice;" it isn't available in any form, and there appears to be no plans TO release it in any form. It is, for all intents and purposes, dead (though I suppose someone could resurrect it in the form of a retroclone...I am not volunteering!).
• The 3rd edition DQ book I owned was, almost completely, a word-for-word reprint of 2E which was nearly an exact copy of the 1st edition "David" had showed me all those years ago. Even the interior illustrations had been retained. The reason the instructions in the book were so much like my memory because it was pretty much the same game.
• That being said, there were indeed some missing bits. TSR's DragonQuest suffered a similar "purification" process to what AD&D did in the late 1980s: an attempt to clean up "the naughty bits." What was culled included the College of Black Magic (separate and different from the College of Necromantic Conjurations which was retained in DQ3), the College of Greater Summonings (including extensive write-ups for more than 70 demons, all taken from the Ars Goetia of The Lesser Key of Solomon), and a couple references to SEX, specifically the cutting of the "seduction" ability from the Courtier/Courtesan skill and editing an example of how hypnotism cannot force "a woman with prim demeanor" to "run naked through a deserted street at night" if her culture has a strong nudity taboo.
• Including these missing pieces, especially the colleges, gives the game a far more "medieval Europe" vibe, not only because of the use of 16th century magical treatise, but because the inventory of "Black Magic" spells includes traditional powers and traits associated with witches and witchcraft. Pacts with the devil, familiars, and the evil eye...yes, of course. But ALSO spells to bless (and curse) crops and livestock, spells to bless an unborn child in the womb, and spells to increase male virility. Fertility magic, in other words: very useful in a game that seeks to simulate a particular type of setting, not so practical in a game of looting subterranean troll lairs.

Looking back at the game with older, more mature eyes, I see a lot of interesting and innovative design choices. No intelligence score, for example...instead a "magical aptitude" and a separate "perception" ability (which starts at a universal number for all PCs and can be increased through experience). No charisma score either; "physical beauty" (an OPTIONAL score, determined randomly and unadjusted for race or gender) has almost ZERO system impact on the game (it factors in a character's seduction skill if you use pre-3rd edition rules; otherwise, its only effect is to reduce the EP needed to advance the courtier/courtesan skill (PB 20+) which simply increases the amount of silver one can earn for "entertaining"). The inference I draw is that a character is no smarter or more charismatic than the player running the character.

Combat is fine for folks who want something more tactically granular than AD&D. For folks who like defense to be modified by agility and shield work (while armor simply acts as damage mitigation) the system is nice and simple; I also like that there is a "close" range inside "melee" (for grappling and knife-work). Weapon use is influenced somewhat by minimums in "physical strength" and "manual dexterity" but not overly much. Rather than simple hit points, characters have separate "endurance" and "fatigue" scores, which are reduced in different ways and are straightforward in their handling (much more so than similar "dual life" systems in games like Shadowrun and Deadlands).  Fatigue is the battery for casting spells, similar to what one finds in Ars Magica or Shadowrun, but again more straightforward (a successful casting always drains fatigue, but not overly so, leaving you have a simple "quiver of ammo" to track that can be depleted by other stress, pain, and hardship).

The magical colleges are very nice, even if they leave no room for the "eclectic" mage or wizard (you can never belong to more than one college at a time, and you cannot learn magic from a college other than your own). Magic s disrupted by more than a few ounces of iron, so leather armor...or even bronze!...is acceptable garb. Weapons larger than a dagger are generally out unless composed of wood and stone (or, again, bronze).

Weights are in pounds and ounces; that's nice. Silver pennies are the usual currency. All abilities, skills, weapons proficiencies, magical abilities, etc. require differing combinations of experience, money, and time to improve, but it's all straight forward and noted on easy-to-read charts and tables (all at the back of the book). There are no classes, but for folks who enjoy building characters from scratch / in a more "natural" fashion (picking and choosing what skills, crafts, or abilities to learn), I don't think I've seen a better system for customizing. There is no "universal skill system" here (Thank goodness!); each skill (of which there are few, all pertinent) being individual. Even weapons differ individually: some train to a high rank (ten being the limit for weapons the like of the rapier) while others top out pretty low (mace, for example, reaching its limit at five).

Dragons differ by color, but they all breathe fire (if they breathe anything at all). None of this Godzilla-like lightning blasts coming out of the creature's gullet.

Yeah, all in all, there's a lot of nice stuff. Considering its small size (both the 2nd and 3rd edition come in at about 150 pages), the game is densely packed: not in the "tiny-font-on-crammed-pages" sense, but in the usability, no padding sense. There IS flavor to the book...including a number of illustrations...it's just kept to a minimum. I still don't find myself wanting to run DragonQuest, but there are quite a few ideas in here that I'd like to...um..."harness" to my own devices. If possible.

Later, Gators.

Supplemental Material

Started work on a new OD&D supplement this morning (my personal "Book IV"), mainly because I wanted to capture the new illusionist material. My intention, once completed, is to have a working "campaign Bible" to supplement (ah! That's the word!) my edited version of OD&D. At this point, it is perhaps putting the cart before the horse, considering I haven't yet set down one word of Book II.

[there are a couple reasons for this "hole" in The Work. First off, I haven't really needed the book yet: I own two copies of Book II anyway, and many creatures in my adventures to date have been hand-designed or else adapted from other sources. But mainly, I'm really considering an entire overhaul of Book II's structure, organization, and contents...and I'm still considering the exact paradigm I want to use. Is this supposed to be a book for me? Or a book for anyone? Or a book for players and DMs who want to use my campaign setting? Or what? I *do* eventually want some "bestiary" type book, but I'm not yet sure exactly what it will contain...perhaps every entry will have an "ecology" section while the tables have the necessary short-hand combat info for inclusion in adventure write-ups]

[oh, yeah...I also want to completely overhaul or do away with the treasure tables as designed. I do make use of them - somewhat - for identifying how much treasure a monster tends to have in its lair, but then I tailor each encounter's hoard individually to suit my needs. And while I have been using the included magic items as "templates" and inspiration, I am striving to make each one unique and special, and none of them are being generated via random roll. Figuring out how to rewrite THAT section is a bit of a bear, and I might not even do so, instead simply throwing some hasty notes into an appendix of Book III]

Why throw a PC class like the Illusionist into a supplement? Because I'm not yet ready for the class to be "open" to players (some things shall be "revealed" in time). For a similar reason, gnomes (as I conceive them) will not be added into Book I but, rather, left for the "supplement;" they are my own strange species (call them "svirfneblin lite"). Besides, I can't be adding a race with an illusionist option before I've introduced the illusionist, can I?

The new supplement should also include the Thief class, once I've overhauled the damn thing. Despite his Gord the Rogue writings, I'm starting to get the impression that Gygax disliked the thief concept, and I'm starting to feel the same. However, I continue to feel a lot of love for the assassin as a concept, and a thief baseline is thus a necessary evil. Starting player characters at 3rd level mercifully solves the issue of new assassins having no thief skills, and the idea currently bumping about my noggin is that of assassins as a sort of "prestige class;" that is, there aren't any 1st or 2nd level assassins (at least, not as player characters). Non-human thieves are NOT going to be the "go to" class (caused, I'm sure, by the unrestricted leveling); instead, any such character is going to be some sort of outcast from their society, probably restricted from training or progression in ANY other class.

[might make an exception for half-elves with a wisdom under 13; i.e. half-elves who are unable to progress as clerics. To me, half-elves are the true "jack-of-all-trades" character]

Of course, that would do away with my favorite multi-class combo: the gnome illusionist/assassin. But since gnomes, illusionists, and assassins are all going to be part of the supplemental material, maybe they'll get some sort of exception, too. Or maybe not...phantasmal killer is fine and dandy for any illusionist styling herself an "assassin."

[as is using a phantasmal image to conceal a booby trap, pit, or hidden assailant]

Bards will probably be a similar story (i.e. unavailable except as a single, restricted class). But then why would anyone choose to be a thief if you could get all the abilities - albeit at reduced level - plus magical abilities, bardic charming, an increased (d6) hit dice?

Why indeed.

I am, of course, looking at bards as originally presented by Doug Schwegman in The Strategic Review (volume 2, issue 1). This particular bard had none of the multi-classing madness (even though it would have functioned better and more sensibly in OD&D...). Schwegman's bard is also available to elves, dwarves, and hobbits, unlike the version Gygax gives us in the PHB. While half-elves are not mentioned, I would guess that this is a case of the class being submitted to TSR before the publication of Greyhawk (or before it was read by Schwegman), just as happened with Aronson's illusionist class (requiring his later update in The Dragon #1). Schwegman's class is a bit over-powered...attacks and saves as a cleric, magic-user spells up to 7th level (hmmm...guess he did read Greyhawk), bardic charm and legend lore, double languages, chain armor, and d6 hit dice, plus unrestricted weapon use. Sheesh.

[can you imagine a teleporting bard with the ability to cast delayed blast fireball?]

I see why A) Gygax threw the class into an appendix as an optional class, and B) attempted an update to make the thing playable within the spirit of the original, while preserving some semblance of "balance" (OR, alternatively, making the class as hard to play as possible in order to dissuade its use). I haven't yet got around to my (planned) post on the AD&D bard, but...well, now I've got this OD&D trainwreck to deal with.

[one might ask why bother? Multiple reasons, not the least of which my soft spot for the class after spending the majority of my AD&D career playing bards. Recently, I've been reading the old MZB Lythande stories...part of my research on Thieves World, one of the major inspirations for my campaign setting...and I am considering how such a character might best be modeled in the game. "Bard" would be a fair choice...]

As for other stuff that will be in the Supplement: info on the campaign world, including its geography, cosmology, history, etc. The various deities, the PC races (how and why they interact with each other), major political entities, etc. Probably The Haggard Goat (the tavern/inn that is the PCs' base of operations) and its proprietor, Meredith. Assuming she survives the players' antics.

Yes, there will be rangers as a playable class...but again, they have not yet been introduced to the campaign (they are outside the city my players are currently exploring). Half-orcs...no. This isn't Tolkien. And even in Tolkien, "half-orcs" appear (to my reading) to have been very much a product of magical cross-breeding (a la Saruman), NOT the biological offspring of two distinct species. My orcs are not the "fecund race" of 1st edition. I'm not yet quite sure WHAT they are (my players haven't encountered any); once I figure that out, I'll consider blogging about it. Maybe.

[probably some sort of magically created slave race, engineered in the misty past by decadent, sorcerous elves. Would explain why elves speak their language, as well as the animosity between the two species. In fact, done. That's the short answer to the "orc question"]

Monks? Ummmmmm...haven't decided. Need to run some mock combats between monks of various levels with a variety of opponent types. That's a loooong way off, at this point. Assassins first.

Druids? Yeah, maybe, probably. This isn't really a foresty setting (as currently conceived). Mostly sand and scrub and swamp and sea...the four S's of environments (also snow and subterranean...six S's, I guess). My original intention was to include them as a character class (the "neutral cleric" option), but I kind of like the neutral clerics I've already added to the game. Nothing in OD&D prevents a player from playing a "neutral" cleric; they're simply limited to 6th level of experience (i.e. no 5th level spells). This has allowed me to add multiple "minor (i.e. neutral) deities" to my world along with perfectly competent clerics that have no ability to raise dead, commune, or create food (they still have the potential to turn any of the undead types). Adding the druid diminishes the impact and utility of such characters...why go to a lesser cleric when one can find a druid? Mainly, however, it's more of a setting/environment thing. I'm not sure yet how many bears and beasts are going to be in the setting. Still developing.

Anyway. Huh. I sat down to blog about elves this morning and I got completely distracted with my own thoughts and ideas. And I didn't even talk much about the campaign, just thoughts on what's going into the supplemental material. *sigh*

Apologies folks. More later.

Finding the Gnome

I am absurdly happy this morning (despite little annoyances) because, as of about 9:30am, I finally, finally have a decent write-up of the illusionist class.

Hmm. Actually, "write-up" is a phrase too far...I have the nuts-n-bolts figured out (including spell lists) and scribbled on a spreadsheet. Sometime in the next couple-few days I'll get the chance to write the class up (hope-hope). But the point is, I've got the mechanics nailed down, especially the aforementioned spell lists which was a major sticking point. Turns out that going back to OD&D was the (as with many things) the cureall for what ails me: building from the ground up is so much smoother (even if it's time-consuming) when you start your construction on the foundation stone.

But we'll address Ye Old Illusionist in another post...this one is about a (slightly) related subject: the gnome.

As they appear in OD&D

I haven't blogged about gnomes much at all over the years. They're just not...well, just not a subject that's come up. They're not a class in B/X (though I included one in The Complete B/X Adventurer) and even back in my AD&D years, I don't remember seeing all that many.

Scratch that, I don't remember seeing ANY.  As a DM, I probably wrote one up as an NPC (I did that at one time or another with most all of the various class/races), but I'm sure it never saw play at the table. And if I had to guess, we neglected the gnome mostly because A) the racial level limits prevented high level advancement, and B) there was a general lack of enthusiasm for illusionists in our circle (and the ability to multi-class as an illusionist is one of the gnome's strongest recommendations). Personally, I've played one or two in Advanced Labyrinth Lord games (generally, assassin/illusionists) but these were all one-off games, not long term campaign play.

So let's talk about the gnome now...prior to starting up an OD&D campaign, I was deconstructing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons with the thought of creating an AD&D campaign. As such (and since then) I have done a LOT of reading/research of the OD&D books, pre-'78 copies of The Dragon, and old records of The Strategic Review (the periodical/magazine that directly preceded The Dragon). For most of AD&D rules, I can find precursors in these older texts...as one would expect, given that AD&D was, by and large, a reorganizing of the complete OD&D material into a readily usable (and uniform) format.

The gnome, however, is not present.

At least not as a player character. The "gnome" has been around as long as CHAINMAIL, where it appears as part of the entry for dwarves:

DWARVES (and Gnomes): Because their natural habitat is deep under the ground, these stout folk operate equally well day or night. Although they are no threat to the larger creatures, Trolls, Ogres, and Giants find them hard to catch because of their small size, so county one-half normal kills when Dwarves and Gnomes fight with them, for either attacks upon the Dwarves and Gnomes or returns...Goblins and Kobolds are their natural (and hated) enemies, and Dwarves (Gnomes) will attack Goblins (Kobolds) before any other enemies in sight...However, Dwarves and Gnomes will not have to roll an "obedience die" (as do Knights) to follow orders...

They are listed on the same line of the "Fantasy Reference Table" and they have the exact same move, charge, special abilities, attack, and defend ratings. There is NO difference between the two, and they are both listed on the side of Law.

In Men & Magic (OD&D book 1), the section on dwarves makes no reference to gnomes, except with regard to languages in which the text states dwarves speak Gnome, Kobold, and Goblin (interesting it does not reference them speaking their own Dwarvish language...unlike the entry for Elves). The reference for the race in the alignment list shows them as Dwarves/Gnomes (rather than two separate entries); the only other "double species" so listed is Goblins/Kobolds.

In Monsters & Treasures (OD&D book 2) the entry for gnomes IS separate from the dwarves and says only the following:

GNOMES: Slightly smaller than Dwarves, and with longer beards, these creatures usually inhabit the hills and lowland burrows as opposed to the mountainous homes which Dwarves choose. They are more reclusive than their cousins, but in all other respects resemble Dwarves.

Their lines in the Monster Reference chart are nearly identical, mainly differing in treasure type and lair percentage.

The Greyhawk supplement is the first time OD&D offers a physical description of the dwarf character  type and here gnomes ARE referenced, stating:

Dwarves are about four feet tall, stocky of build, weigh 150 pounds, shoulders very broad, their skin a ruddy tan, brown or gray, and are of various types (hill, mountain, or burrowers) (such as gnomes).

Greyhawk makes no reference to using gnomes as a player character, nor do any of the later supplements. Neither do I find any reference to gnomes as player characters in The Strategic Review and early (pre-AD&D) issues of The Dragon magazine. Their sudden appearance as a playable race in the AD&D PHB is slightly strange...unless one considers they were being used as such all along.

Look: in OD&D, monsters (other than humans found in dungeons) do not have "levels of experience." Only player characters (or those with the potential to be player characters: men, elves, etc.) have levels. You'll find no group of goblins or lizard men containing a 5th level leader for groups over 50 or 200 or whatever. Liches (appearing in Greyhawk) are a slight exception as they were a high level Magic-User "in life;" the presumption is that now, as a monster, they no longer adventure nor advance in level. Tritons use spells "commensurate with their hit dice," though not mapping on an equal basis (5-7 hit dice mapping to 2nd-4th level ability) and hit dice are based on size and strength, not necessarily experience gained (some tritons are just born bigger, better, and stronger).

1977 Monster Manual

But gnomes, as stated "in all other respects [besides reclusiveness] resemble dwarves." And dwarves do have character classes: one "above average fighter" (of various levels) for every 40 dwarves appearing. Thus, gnomes, too, would have above average fighters of various levels. This is born out in the 1977 Monster Manual (released before the original Players Handbook) which shows gnomes encountered in groups of more than forty having fighter types up to 6th level (normal dwarf maximum per OD&D) and clerics up to 7th (again, normal dwarf maximum for NPC clerics, per Greyhawk). Thus, other than size (1' shorter, per the MM) gnomes appear to correspond in all aspects to their dwarf "cousins."

For me, this is enough to allow a player to claim their OD&D "dwarf" character is, in fact, a gnome...that gnomes are simply a smaller variation of the dwarf species. As I use the increased level limits found in Greyhawk (17 strength dwarves may progress to 7th level and 18 strength dwarves to 8th level), I would limit any such character to a maximum of 16 strength, seeing as how there doesn't appear to be gnomes over the 6th level fighting experience. Easy-peasy.

So then...from whence comes the idea of gnome illusionists?

That's an even more interesting quandary (at least for those who, like me, enjoy this type of pseudo-research). Dwarves are notoriously non-magical in the early editions of the game; they even have a higher resistance to magic than other character types (as do halflings) perhaps as a justification for their lack of wizards...despite raising the sticky question of who it is manufacturing all these dwarven warhammers +3?

My initial thought was that this was a svirfneblin thing. The "deep gnome" race, introduced by Gygax in his classic adventure Shrine of the Kuo-Toa is as notorious in its magic abilities as dwarves are in their absence. Like the Drow, the svirfnebli possess a number of innate spell abilities (summoning earth elementals?!), magical resistance, and enchanted accoutrements that make them inappropriate as player characters (*AHEM*), and I reasoned that perhaps the idea for gnomes as a magic-using (or, rather, illusion using) race might have germinated with this unique adventure.

A little cheap research, however, turns up the fact that Gygax both D1 and D2 after completing the AD&D Players Handbook, as a way of blowing off some steam. Gnomes already had their illusionist capabilities by then, and the svirneblin was simply a suped-up version of the gnome.

So then...what? Peter Aronson's illusionist class first appears in The Strategic Review #4 and neither the original article, nor the class "update" in The Dragon #1 make any remarks about dwarves or gnomes. In fact, no remarks are made regarding ANY racial restrictions for the class, though Aronson's (unpublished) notes clearly state "Where not otherwise specified, they are as [Magic-Users]." 

[a DM going by that statement might be inclined to allow the class to be played by both elves and half-elves, actually]

So what's the deal? Where does the idea come from? Who's to blame/responsible? There are no nonhuman deities in Supplement IV (Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes) that might show a "divine influence" on the species. So somehow we went from a short, burrowing variation on dwarves to the tricky illusionist types found from the PHB on to the present. What's the deal?

As near as I can tell, the first (and only) reference to gnomes having any magical ability comes from the original Monster Manual. For the most part, the entry for gnomes transcribes all the same OD&D material found in the original texts pertaining to dwarves (with some elaboration)...except for a single, additional sentence in the paragraph on special abilities:

"It is rumored that there exists gnomes with magical abilities up to 4th level, but this has not been proved."

It is rumored? Um, okay...where? When? By whom?

Here's what I think: structurally, mechanically, gnomes were no different from dwarves. The main differences between the two were size, temperament, and habitat, all things (more or less) related to each other (hills are smaller than mountains, thus gnomes are smaller than dwarves; hills are easier reached by humans, so gnomes must be more reclusive in nature to prevent their proliferation in the "realms of man").  However, to add variety, gnomes must be distinguishable from dwarves, and the distinct mechanic, from a dungeon-delving perspective, is their lack of size...thus, a lack of strength, and corresponding lack of fighting ability (or potential fighting ability) compared to their larger cousins.

But who wants to play a small, weak dwarf? Not many folks. The solution, then, is to give them some magical ability...something conspicuously absent from dwarf player characters. Of course, you can't give them straight magic-user abilities...that steps on the toes of the thing that makes elves (and half-elves) special. And clerical spells? No...Clerics are the purview of human characters (except for NPCs) as are druids, the "neutral option" when it comes to human magic (as outlined in Eldritch Wizardry).

So illusionists, the only new magical option not addressed in the OD&D books. When the gnome is made into its own separate racial option in AD&D (as opposed to a variation of dwarf), illusionist ends up assigned to the species as a possible class option. And just to keep it really special, no other race (besides humans) even has the option of illusionist as a career.

The OD&D version...well, my OD&D version...would allow progression a little higher than 4th, however. 6th gives the character to access those 3rd level spells that really help a "reclusive" gnome community to hide in plain sight (nondetection, hallucinatory terrain), as well as drive away nosy human neighbors (fear, confusion). Since I'm using Aronson's original experience progression chart (as published in The Strategic Review), I'd stop them short of 8th level ability: no first level MU spells, no shadow monsters or improved invisibility (sorry gnome backstabbers). Call it 6th level base, 7th maximum for gnomes of 17+ intelligence.

All right...that's enough gnome talk for the day. Though I will mention (perhaps to discuss later) that there are absolutely no gnome thieves (nor multi-class thieves) mentioned in the 1E Monster Manual's description of the gnome race. For that matter, there is no mention of thieves (or multi-class thieves) in the descriptions of dwarves, elves, or even halflings. Now this I find extremely interesting.

But I'll write about that later.