Hengeyokai for TS&R Jade

 My second son, Steven, just turned 8 yesterday. He loves playing RPGs (until his short attention span runs out), and while he is half Korean, he's not too interested in Asian historical or fantastic dramas/movies. There was a Jackie Chan/John Cusack movie on TV yesterday while we were visiting his grandma's house. I watched a bit of it. He had zero interest. 

But when I talk about running a new D&D campaign with Asian fantasy tropes, he's down to play a ninja. 

Of course, he wants to be a cat-man ninja. 

Well, I'm not gonna make a Basic D&D version of the Tabaxi (all the rage in 5E), or make Rakasta a playable race (I think some BECMI supplement did that), but I did take a look at the 1E OA for the Hengeyokai stats, since one of their types is "cat."

And to make my son happy [as I did a few years ago by converting Dragonborn to Classic D&D for my older son], I took a stab at a TS&R Hengeyokai race. 

Before I present what I came up with, a few thoughts. 

First, I don't need 12 different animal types. Six, one for each of the six ability scores, is enough. Also, I've already got Vanara converted from 3E OA, so don't need Monkey Hengeyokai. I also had cut the Gumiho/Kitsune (fox fairy) race from my previous version, but sort of get that back with Fox Hengeyokai. And I added a Turtle, because TMNT.

Looking at the 1E OA race, they can be Shukenja (8th level), Kensai (6th level), Bushi (unlimited), Wu Jen (9th level). For TS&R, I think I've mentioned that I decided on 8/10/12 level caps for demi-humans to match the Halfling/Elf/Dwarf caps of BX & BECMI. I decided Kensai shouldn't be a standard class for Hengeyokai, and allow them to be Thieves instead. 

So in my rules, they can be Fighter (12th), Mudang [shaman/cleric] (8th), Thief (8th), Wu Jen [magic-user] (10th). But each subtype gets either a higher level limit or access to a class the other types can't access. And a small set of abilities that match their animal type. 

I removed the ability to turn fully human in appearance. I also changed the transformation ability to match my Druid shape-change. So instead of 1 transformation per level per day, they can transform for up to 1 hour per day, minimum 1 turn per transformation. Quite different from the 1E version, but avoids being a carp hengeyokai who transforms into fish for to navigate that ONE section of the dungeon...only to be stuck in fish form until the next day.

Sticking to the 1E rules, they can only speak to normal animals of their type or other hengeyokai when in animal form, and can't cast spells. In humanoid form, they can understand animals of their type but can't speak to them. 

Anyway, without further ado (and remember this is just a first draft which will be tested for balance in play), here are my Hengeyokai for TS&R Jade: 

Hengeyokai

Hengeyokai are shapeshifters that can take on an animal or humanoid form. In animal form, they are indistinguishable from a normal animal of their subtype. In humanoid form, they are human-sized, stand upright, but have animal heads and features. There are six subtypes, each with their own special abilities. Each subtype also gets an exception to the normal class restrictions for hengeyokai.

Minimum Scores: Dog: Str 9; Fox: Int 9; Turtle: Wis 9; Cat: Dex 9; Raccoon Dog: Con 9; Crane: Cha 9

Class: Fighter 12, Mudang 8, Thief 8, Wu Jen 10

Shapechange: The hengeyokai can change into the form of a normal animal for up to 1 hour (6 turns) each day. The hengeyokai keeps their hit points and ability scores, but other stats are as the animal. They may not cast spells while in animal form. They may speak only to animals of their type or other hengeyokai while in animal form, but understand all known languages. In humanoid form, they may not speak to animals of their type, but understand them.

Restrictions: Hengeyokai are shapechangers, and are vulnerable to any magic specific to shapechangers.

Languages: Common, Yokai, animal type

Subtypes:

Dog: Track by scent 1-4/d6. May add +4 to hit on a melee attack 1/day. Sohei 8.

Dog Form: AC 11, Bite 1d6, Move 120(40)

Fox: Detect secret doors 1-2/d6, Detect traps 1-2/d6. Wu Jen 12.

Fox Form: AC 12, Bite 1d3, Move 150(50)

Turtle: +2 AC. Hold breath for up to 1 hour. Xia 8.

Turtle Form: AC 16, Bite 1, Move 60(20), Swim 90(30)

Cat: Balance 1-5/d6, Move silently 1-2/d6, Jump 10’ high or long. Yakuza 8.

Cat Form: AC 12, Claw 1d2, Move 120(40)

Raccoon Dog: +4 to save vs poison or petrification. Mudang 10.

Raccoon Dog Form: AC 11, Bite 1d6, Move 90(30)

Crane: Half damage from falling. +1 bonus to Reaction rolls. Kensei 8.

Crane Form: AC 13, Bite 1d2, Move 60(20), Fly 120(40)

Dokkaebi

 Yesterday, Nathan Irving posted that he'd done a bit of simple research on dokkaebi because of my post, and made some interesting suggestions on how to modify the class. 

This morning, I randomly found one of my son's books of Korean folklore about a dokkaebi on the floor (along with a few other books). So, even though my Korean isn't great, I read it to him and he translated a couple of points I didn't understand (Korean is very easy to read, even if you don't know what you're reading). 

The story is about two brothers. The older is lazy, the younger one hard working. The older brother sends the younger to the mountain to collect sticks and bring back some food. Younger brother (no names given) finds some sesame nuts and collects them along with the sticks. But he gets lost, it gets dark, he finds a run-down old house to spend the night. But he hears a ruckus outside, and hides in a cupboard just before a group of dokkaebi enter. They smash their spiked clubs (bangmangi) on the ground and both food and treasure appear. They begin to feast. The brother is hungry, so cracks a sesame nut. The cracking sound is so loud, the dokkaebi think it's the roof cracking and about to fall in, so they run away. Brother takes the treasure and one of the bangmangi that was dropped, and heads home in the morning. 

The dokkaebi feast

Older brother hears this and decides to get off his lazy butt and copy his little brother's good luck. He doesn't collect wood, just sesame nuts, then hides in the shack. The dokkaebi come back, looking for the missing bangmangi. Older brother starts cracking sesame nuts to scare them away, but they realize it's just a human hiding, pull him out, and beat him up for stealing the club. He comes home, having learned his lesson, and the brothers use the treasure to buy a new, bigger home. And older brother becomes hard working. 

It's a fairly typical instructive folktale for children. And the dokkaebi in it are rowdy party dudes, but also perform the function of teaching the lazy older brother his lesson. 

One of the most famous Korean folk tales is that of brothers Heungbu and Nolbu (I mentioned this in my reply to Nathan). Heungbu is kind and hard working, but poor. Nolbu is fat and lazy, but rich. Nolbu is so stingy he won't even share any rice with his younger brother's family. 

Heungbu sees a swallow with a broken leg and nurses it back to health. The swallow may or may not be a spirit creature, but anyway it returns and blesses his house by laying magical eggs. When Heungbu opens the eggs, treasure spills out. 

Nolbu hears about this and decides he wants some free money, too. He dresses like a snake to scare a swallow into falling and breaking its leg. Then throwing off the disguise, he nurses the swallow just like Heungbu did. But the bird is not fooled. It does return and lays eggs. But when Nolbu opens them, dokkaebi appear and start trashing his house. Then another egg breaks and floods the house with shit. Nolbu learns his lesson when Heungbu gives up some of his treasure to help Nolbu rebuild. 

The flood of poop, and dokkaebi

Again, a folk tale meant as instructive for children. And who doesn't love the idea of the rich, greedy, lazy guy getting his stuff ruined by a flood of diarrhea? Anyway, this is where my conception of dokkaebi as dispensers of divine justice comes from. 

I just found a third book (my wife, like many Korean women, buys these sets of books from publishers, and most kids never really read all of them) with another dokkaebi story. I should read it a bit more closely (or with my son so he can fill in the gaps), but it seems like a spirit of a mountain is bothered by a bunch of rowdy dokkaebi, and chases them off. Then at the end of the book he gets taught a lesson by a witch (or group of witches? She seems to duplicate in the pictures). Here's a picture from the beginning of the story. 

I've made a quick revision of my dokkaebi class. Now they're a bit more trickster-ish, although still primarily a Fighter-type class. And they have some small ability to create items (but not treasure, obviously) when needed, a few times per day. Also some stealth (Halfling hide ability transfers nicely to them to mimic the invisibility caps of folklore). And I kept two "clerical" abilities from before. One is the ability to detect evil at will (which they had before), but only on a 1-2/d6 roll. The other is the ability to summon a spirit companion (Nate makes good use of the Channel Spirit spell to have Finn, his Dokkaebi Mudang (shaman) PC, summon Fang, his "brother" to help fight).

More Demi-Human Thoughts

 I've spent my free time this week working up Dokkaebi (Korean goblin), Koropokuru (Ainu dwarf), Shenseng (Pan-Asian spirit folk) and Vanara (Indian monkey-men) as classes for TSR-East. 

Mostly I'm satisfied. The koropokuru is mostly a fighter variant, but has a few special abilities, similar to the way the dwarf and halfling classes do in normal Classic D&D. Shenseng are spellcasters, but may be clerical or magical depending on spirit type (forest, mountain, river, or desert). Vanara are just a variant of my new (Flying Swordsmen inspired) Martial Artist class, with some unique martial arts abilities. I think these are all playable and fill niches in the game. 

The dokkaebi class, however, I'm not so keen on. I started out making it another fighter variant, but since Nate is playing a dokkaebi shaman, and in legends they have magical powers, I gave them spell-like abilities instead of most Fighter abilities. While this may fill a niche (slightly better at fighting than a Cleric...but not a lot, and able to fill some Cleric duties but not a lot), the Forest and River Shenseng also fill this niche, although a bit more clerical than fightery. 

Since the dokkaebi is the class with redundant purpose and novel mechanics that haven't been tried before (by me), I'm thinking to revise or scrap it. 

I could go with just three demi-humans. But I would like something definitely Korean in origin. I've been living here 13 years, am going to be living here a lot longer, might as well give Korean legends and myths some love. The problem is, Korea doesn't have a lot of original mythical creatures, and most of the ones it has probably aren't appropriate for PCs in an RPG of dungeon delving and treasure accumulation. 

So, make the dokkaebi class more like the Fighter? Or find something that might fill in a pseudo Thief slot? The koropokuru class has a bit of Rangery ability, with better surprise, hearing, dwarf-style trap detection, and infravision, so they can make good scouts in dungeons or wilderness. 

If I want a more thief/ninja type demi-human, though, there aren't a lot of good candidates with Korean flavor. Bears and tigers are important in Korean mythology, but anthropomorphized bears and tigers seem like variant fighters to me, so I might as well stick with the Dokkaebi. Or maybe I should stop thinking about Nate's character (I won't be switching my West Marches game to these rules) and make the Dokkaebi more of a bruiser and less of a support caster type.

Class Reductionism

 I have continued my thinking about simplifying multiclassing in my game. 

Tonight's thinking is thus: 

Multiclassing is only available for the four main classes. My alternate classes will remain, but any previously allowed multiclass using them will be outlawed (no Cleric/Rangers or Illusionist/Thieves). 

Going by the example set by the BX/BECMI Elf class, there is a single XP track and both class's abilities advance at once. Generally the multiclass will take more advantageous numbers from either base class, but demi-human level caps will take the lower. 

The numbers here are still provisional. The Elf uses double the Fighter advancement (the faster class) if you look at it one way, or the combined total minus 500xp at 2nd level if you look at it another. I went with the latter to figure out these numbers. The amounts for high level advancement were considering that spellcasters tend to get exponentially more powerful, but the MU/Thief is stuck with a d4 hit die, so they get a small boost. 

Multiclassing Rules:

• Take the most advantageous BAB track.

• Take the most advantageous saving throw for each category

• Gain all special abilities of each class

• Use any weapons or armor allowed by either class

• Use the custom XP track and advance both classes

• Use the least advantageous maximum level

Multiclass Advancement Table

	Cleric/Fighter	Cleric/Magic-User	Cleric/Thief	Fighter/Magic-User	Fighter/Thief	Magic-User/Thief
Level	Hit Die: d8	Hit Die: d6	Hit Die: d6	Hit Die: d6	Hit Die: d8	Hit Die: d4
1	0	0	0	0	0	0
2	3000	3500	2200	4000	2700	3200
3	6000	7000	4400	8000	5400	6400
4	12,000	15,000	8800	16,000	11,000	12,800
5	25,000	30,000	17,000	32,000	22,000	26,000
6	50,000	60,000	35,000	64,000	44,000	52,000
7	100,000	120,000	70,000	120,000	88,000	104,000
8	200,000	240,000	140,000	240,000	175,000	210,000
9	330,000	480,000	270,000	360,000	300,000	330,000
10	460,000	600,000	400,000	480,000	425,000	450,000
11	590,000	720,000	530,000	600,000	550,000	570,000
12	720,000	840,000	660,000	720,000	675,000	690,000
13	850,000	960,000	790,000	840,000	800,000	710,000
14	980,000	1,080,000	920,000	960,000	925,000	830,000
15	1,010,000	1,200,000	1,050,000	1,080,000	1,050,000	950,000

Dwarf: Berserker (8), Cavalier (6), Cleric (8), Fighter (12), Thief (6), Cleric/Fighter (8), Fighter/Thief (6)

Elf: Bard (6), Fighter (10), Magic-User (12), Thief (8), Fighter/Magic-User (10), Fighter/Thief (8)

Halfling: Acrobat (8), Druid (6), Fighter (8), Ranger (10), Thief (12), Fighter/Thief (8)

Gnome: Bard (8), Fighter (6), Illusionist (12), Thief (8), Fighter/Thief (6)

Half-Elf: Assassin (6), Cleric (6), Druid (10), Fighter (8), Magic-User (8), Ranger (8), Thief (10), Cleric/Fighter (6), Cleric/Magic-User (6), Fighter/Magic-User (8), Magic-User/Thief (8)

Half-Orc: Acrobat (6), Assassin (12), Berserker (10), Cavalier (8), Cleric (6), Fighter (10), Thief (6), Cleric/Thief (6)

Still considering if I want to keep the Dragonborn and Changeling (sort of like Tieflings) or not. 

Also, my Acrobat class is an amalgam of the Monk and Thief/Acrobat. Assassin is what you'd expect, sort of a Fighter/Thief with an instant kill ability. Bard is a lore-master class, not a minstrel. Berserker is the barbarian (but no rage, no magic-item smashing, basically the Berserker monster turned into a class). Cavalier is a mix of the UA Cavalier and the Paladin. Druid is based on the alternate Cleric in the Companion Set as a full progression class. Illusionist is a port of the AD&D class. Ranger is also a modified port of the AD&D class. 

Assassin and Ranger are both basically a Fighter/Thief, only one is urban and the other is rural/wilderness.

Wacky Races

This image was posted in the D&D in Busan Facebook group and spurred an interesting discussion.

Some comments praised the old-school Tolkienesque humans and human-like demi-humans (elves, dwarves. halflings, gnomes). Others praised the more modern variety of choices. Some pointed out that even in old school games, players sometimes run odd races like frog-men or sleestak (that last would be me, in Justin's old Vaults of Ur game).

But one person made a spot-on comment. In old school games, it was mostly humans because there were drawbacks to playing the demi-humans. Especially in OD&D and Classic, you didn't have much choice (well, disregarding the supplements and home-brew). Even in AD&D, only humans had the freedom to pick any class, and advance as far as you could go in all of those classes.

So yes, I played a Sleestak in Vaults of Ur. But it was based on the Halfling class in Labyrinth Lord, so limited to 8th level. Yes, there are plenty of demi-humans in low to mid level AD&D play, but if you want to play a high level campaign, better be human (or a thief).

In 5E, there's not much incentive to play a human, other than RP considerations. The variety of races get all kinds of cool abilities. The only real saving grace for humans is the variant that lets you pick a feat at character creation. Since feats in 5E can be pretty powerful, it definitely makes up for the lack of racial abilities.

Skill Resolution

End of semester grading and some personal stuff have taken up a lot of my time. So not much blogging lately. And no real time to put together my final response to Alexis on why it's good to have some results of rolls secret from the players. It'll come eventually.

In the meantime, Jeremy was wanting to try a different game tonight -- Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells, but everyone was busy or not enthused. No offense intended to the game designer, who is a cool dude. I, at least, am feeling mentally drained from wading through the research papers of ESL learners and didn't feel like trying to learn a new system tonight.

Jeremy shared a Questing Beast video review of SS&SS, and he mentioned that there is a "background" option to let you flesh out the three character classes more. Of course 5E also has that. And maybe some other game Jeremy was pushing recently (or he just bolted that on from SS&SS into something else maybe).

It got me thinking about how skills have been handled over the years. OD&D through the RC has set abilities for some classes (dwarf detection, elf secret door finding, halfling hiding) that is usually X on d6, where the default is either "can't do it" or 1 in 6 chance of success. Then there are Thieves with their % skill system completely unlike any other. And later, other things not covered by the rules were usually suggested to be done by a roll under an appropriate ability score (on a d20, 2d8, 3d6, 2d12, or whatever). With the exception of Thief skills that improved every level, these skills also didn't change over time (unless you found some way to raise/lower ability scores).

Of course, the ideal of unified mechanics (a bad idea for many games IMO) in 3E meant that skills needed to be handled with the same swinginess of combat, that flat d20 distribution plus modifiers. This was, IMO, a bad move. Unless you really focused your character build (ability score boosts, feats, magic items), your skill use was really unreliable. Especially since the DCs for skill checks tended to go up along with your skill levels.

But all this thinking (on my bus ride home this evening) reminded me of something I've been wanting to dust off and implement for TSR and TSR-East. AD&D's Secondary Skills table.

It seems, from the Questing Beast video review, that SS&SS does something similar to this, although a bit more free-form. You get to pick a background and whatever it is, if you're trying something related to that background, you succeed (or get a good chance to succeed on a roll).

When I was a kid, looking at AD&D for the first time, I thought this Secondary Skills system was too generic. I wanted discrete skills that could be applied, with defined mechanics for how to use them. After all, BECMI demi-humans and Thieves had that, in different ways.

But these days, I think the freedom to just negotiate what your character can do with the DM based on a descriptor like this is a good way to handle these things. We kind of did that when we were kids anyway without having a chart to roll on. It was often impromptu, and something that we just made up about our characters on the spot if it ever came up.

I had a Fighter named Falcon, and somewhere along the way his father's profession became important. I said he was a blacksmith. No reason, I just thought it sounded cool to have a blacksmith for a dad. From that point forward, Falcon was assumed to know a thing or two about smithing, including weapon/armor repair.

I really like that, and I think it's a much simpler way to add some flavor to the characters in an RPG than having to pour over skill lists and micromanage skill points or whatever. Complete 180 from when I was young.

A New Take on Demi-Human Level Limits

This is an idea I've had before, but a quick search of my blog makes me think I've never posted about it before.

So we all know that AD&D had some pretty severe level limits on demi-humans, which Unearthed Arcana and then 2E relaxed. Classic D&D is a bit more generous than AD&D 1E, but you're limited to the race-as-class system. 3E got rid of them altogether and they've remained gone through 5E.

You're probably thinking now, "Thank you Captain Obvious."

I still haven't reverted my Treasures, Serpents, and Ruins house rules to race-as-class (which I'm still considering, but less strongly right now). So my races have limited options for what class they can take, and level limits a la AD&D.

But there's this idea that keeps floating around in my head: What if the level limits only apply to multiclassed characters? 

So TSR classes go up to level 15. Humans have no limits in any classes. Demi-humans do. And unlike AD&D, the highest any demi-human is allowed to go (with the right race/class combination) is level 12. This is to honor the fact that the BX/BECMI Dwarf class maxes out at 12th level. AD&D, as you probably know, allowed most demi-humans unlimited advancement as Thieves.

Well, my idea above would be to allow single-classed demi-humans to reach pinnacles of  power just like a human. It's only when they multi-class that they need to worry about the level limits.

Of course, then some people will ask, why play a human then, if they can't multiclass, and you could get the demi-human abilities along with unlimited advancement as a single-class character?

Well, I do give humans two advantages: dual classing, and Survivability which allows them to roll for hit points with advantage (roll twice, take the higher number). So far, the hit point thing has been a key selling point for the race.

Anyway, it's just an idea that's been rolling around in my head. Not sure if I will implement it or not. We'll see.

TSR-East: Tentative Races

This is still a work in flux. I'm not sure I want so many races, actually. I only included Dragonborn and Changelings (Tieflings with the serial numbers filed off so they don't have to all be demonic) for my son who was playing a Dragonborn Cleric in my West Marches game (who then switched to a Half-Orc Paladin character anyway) and 3 players playing Tieflings.

Now that two of the three Tieflings are gone with the switch from 5E to Classic (and the other is a "Fairy Princess"), and my wife and sons are living in America for the time being (I'm still in Korea for work purposes), I could easily drop them. Goldie the Fairy Princess can be her own thing. Since my son and the other girl who played West Marches are out, Goldie's player doesn't have as much fun in the games anymore anyway. So for regular TSR, I could get rid of them and just be back to the AD&D 1E racial line-up.

For TSR-East, I've of course got Humans. And a few demi-humans can be fun. Flying Swordsmen has only humans (because Dragon Fist only had humans), while Chanbara has some in the appendices as optional.

I still haven't figured out maximum levels in each class yet. I'm pretty sure I'll stick to race and class, rather than race-as-class just because I don't want to add more classes at this point, and I don't want to "remove" a class by making it a demi-human class. Humans should be able to be any of the classes currently developed for the game. So we'll have six races counting humans (probably) which is still fewer than I'd have with TSR-West if I remove the Dragonborn and Changeling.

And who knows, in a month or two, I might decide that more is better, and write up Kappas and Hengeyokais and whatnot!

Also, I decided to go ahead and stick with Vanara as a racial name (from 3E OA) since that's a race of demi-humans from Indian mythology. Instead of ignoring the subcontinent and SE Asia, I should use this as an opportunity to learn more about them and add elements to the game inspired by their cultures. 

Here's what I've got so far (and remember, this is still very much subject to change):

Races

Human: Humans have no special requirements, can be any class, and have no level limits.

Survival: When rolling for hit points, roll twice and take the higher result.

Languages: Common, plus any one other language

Dokkaebi: Savage-looking humanoids with red, blue, green or orange skin standing 7’ tall.

Minimum Scores: 9 Strength

Allowed Classes: Hwarang, Mudang, Ronin, Sohei, Xia

Senses: Dokkaebi can detect evil intentions (as the detect evil spell) on a 1-2/d6. They hear noises on a 1-2/d6.

Languages: Common, Oni 

Koropokkuru: Superstitious and reclusive dwarves that stand 3’ tall.

Minimum Scores: 9 Constitution

Allowed Classes: Hwarang, Mudang, Ronin, Wushi, Yakuza

Senses: Koropokkuru have 60’ infravision. They hear noises on a 1-2/d6.

Combat Bonus: Against larger than man-sized creatures, Koropokkuru receive +2 AC.

Languages: Common, Koropokkuru 

Spirit Born: Spirit-creatures reared as human, and appearing as humans.

Minimum Scores: 9 Charisma

Allowed Classes: Hwarang, Ninja, Ronin, Sohei, Wushi

Gift: Spirit Born gain a +2 bonus to Retainer Reaction checks to hire retainers. Retainers and henchmen of Spirit Born have +1 to Morale.

Languages: Common, Spirit, plus any one other language

Tengu: Crow-headed humanoids that stand 5’ to 6’ tall.

Minimum Scores: 9 Wisdom

Allowed Classes: Hwarang, Ronin, Sohei, Xia

Senses: Tengu have 60’ infravision.

Heritage: Tengu have small wings that allow them to glide 20’ horizontally for every 10’ of elevation they start from, and reduce falling damage by half.

Languages: Common, Tengu, Spirit

Vanara: Simian humanoids that stand 4’ to 5’ tall.

Minimum Scores: 9 Dexterity

Allowed Classes: Mudang, Ninja, Ronin, Xia, Yakuza

Senses: Vanara hear noises on a 1-2/d6.

Climbing: Vanara can climb trees, rough walls, etc at normal speed. They can climb sheer surfaces at ¼ speed on a 1-5/d6.

Languages: Common, Vanara

The Race Question

No, not that race question. The D&D one. In my current TSR house rules document, I have race and class separate as in AD&D. Non-human races have limits on which classes they can be, and level limits on those classes. It's a good way to distinguish the races from each other. In 3E~5E, "race" basically is just a way to optimize (or purposefully not optimize) your character. Having race with limited access to classes and differing level limits helps show players what that race is supposed to be about. Half-Orcs in 1E, for example, were the only class with a level limit in Thief, but they had unlimited advancement in Assassin. That, to me, made the connection between the race and class strong. If you wanted to play your Half-orc in a long term campaign (successful adventuring assumed), you'd be best to go Assassin. For a short-term or one shot type game, sure, that Half-orc Cleric might be fun. Why not?

 And part of my idea of what orcs ARE was formed by that connection. In the Basic Book, it says orcs are militant but actually cowardly. Their leaders need to force them to fight. And AD&D shows us that someone with orcish blood naturally fits into the roll of Assassin. So orcs must not be the big hulking barbarian brutes that Warhammer (and later edition D&D) make them out to be. Early Magic: the Gathering actually got orcs "right" by having orc cards that were unreliable. Sure, you can have your hulked out savage orcs if you want. But that's not how I see them.

So, to bring this around to my TSR-East document I'm working on. I've got some proto-notes for Asian-themed fantasy races, mostly pulled from what others have done before. I have Korobokkuru and maybe a version of Spirit Folk I'm calling Spirit Born, both from 1E OA. I've got Vanara from 3E OA, but since I'm focused on East Asia rather than South Asia (just because I am less well acquainted with South and Southeast Asian myths and legends) I'm calling them Houren (monkey-men). I have Tengu from Chanbara. And I'm also thinking of including Dokkaebi (Korean version of oni) partly because Ruins & Ronin has a half-oni type and partly because I wanted something Korean inspired.*

Right now, I'm writing them up as races separate from class. I've got the available classes decided, but not level caps. I'm still thinking on racial special abilities for Spirit Born and Dokkaebi, if I include them. But there's a part of my brain telling me that for TSR, I should go back to having Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling as classes, not races. And come up with race-as-class classes for my other available races (which wouldn't be hard, my older version is like that). So, I'm wondering if I should come up with some race-as-class Asian races of the selection above. I personally like race-as-class, but I think most of my current players don't. It's simple and players can get into playing faster. But the race-class combinations, possible multi-classing, and level limits can be fun, too. And as I said above, they can help inform the players of what each race is about. And at this point, it will be less work so that's probably what I'll go with!

*Spirit Folk are becoming Spirit Born because I feel like the Japanese fairy tales of old childless couples finding miracle spirit babies in their fruit, by the river, in a tree they cut down, etc. are the real inspiration for the race. And I want them to be different than just "Asian Elves" which is what they seemed to be in the 1E and 3E OA books. I'm throwing out the Hengeyokai as a race option because a) too many animal types to choose from just makes character generation take longer, and b) they really work better as monsters. 3E OA's Nezumi are out because rat-people never struck me as especially Asian. They work for L5R, but I wouldn't put them in a general race roster.

Edit: not sure how the paragraph breaks got removed from this, but I've put them back in.

Dr. Half-love, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the halfling

Back when I first got the Mentzer Basic Set for my 11th birthday, I still hadn't read The Hobbit or LotR.  None of my friends had, either.  And Elmore's art really played a big part in how we viewed the Halfling.

OK, not so bad here.  The chubby Halfling is complaining to the cute Elf chick about something the Dwarf obviously did but is pretending he didn't.  But the other images of Halflings in the set are of one running from a big, shadowy monster, and of one getting put to sleep by a Magic-User (probably Bargle).

We also had all read Dungeon of Dread, the first Endless Quest book, where wimpy and cowardly Laurus the Halfling is the hero Caric's sidekick.

So we didn't have the most heroic image of Halflings in our early games.  And they tended to be used as the butt of jokes.

One summer vacation day, our library was playing the Rankin-Bass animated Hobbit in the background while they had some other activities going on.  So I saw parts of it, between checking out the books on Bigfoot or reading compilations of Garfield comics.  I don't remember much, other than it was on, and the blue elves were freaky.

After a few years, one guy I knew but didn't hang out with so much (Killingmachine spent more time with him) named Bryce had read The Hobbit and LotR, while I had gotten into the Dragonlance books (the original Chronicles trilogy was a step above quite a bit of the fantasy drivel available at the public library that I was scarfing up).  We had a debate once about the merits of the two, even though I had no idea what Tolkien was really about.  It starred Hobbits, who are Halflings, and we all knew how lame they were from D&D.

Then George Lucas came out with Willow.  It looked like a kick-ass fantasy movie, but it was called such a girly name and the main character was a Halfling.  Of course, eventually I saw it, and it was a fairly kickass movie, even though it was about a Halfling.  Madmartigan made up for that.

In high school, Killingmachine read The Hobbit in his English class.  He told me there was actually some good stuff in it, such as the Mirkwood spiders, Gollum, and Smaug.  That got me to read The Fellowship of the Ring, and it also had some good stuff in it.  Ringwraiths, barrow wights, killer trees, goblins/orcs, a Balrog, more Gollum!  Great stuff!  Maybe I'd been wrong about Bryce.  (insert Afterschool Special style lesson learned moment here).

About the same time, I rolled up a character with a 3 Int, and an 18 Dex.  He had a high enough Con, so I made him a Halfling.  Farley the Halfling.  He had amazing AC 0 - platemail plus Dex bonus, a short bow - with Dex and Halfling bonus to hit made him very accurate, and the ability to hide if need be.  Of course I played him as this happy retard who would always talk about how he once "shot deer like this" while picking off whatever targets he was against.  No matter how many orcs, trolls, dragons or vampires he helped slay, it was always that deer he was proudest of.  Dumb as a brick, but friendly and helpful (in his oft mistaken way).  I realized that the Halfling didn't suck, and could be quite fun to play.

Since then, I've played a few here and there.  They're still not my favorite Classic D&D class, or my favorite AD&D race, but I do still get an idea for a fun Halfling every now and then and have at it.  I'm currently playing one in an online RPOL game, and so far he's been pretty fun to play as well. 

Long story short, I'm really looking forward to the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies.  My son, however, wanted to watch the Rankin-Bass Hobbit with me yesterday, but about the time they got to Rivendell he got bored, ran into the bedroom, and called me to come play with the dragon toys with him.  Well, he's only 3.  He'll learn!

Hobbit movie production video blog 2

I just checked out the Hobbit movie's web site, and saw that Peter Jackson has put up his second production video blog.  No groundbreaking reveals or anything in it, but it was still interesting to watch.

I was actually planning to post about hobbits/halflings tonight.  I may still write that post after my son goes to bed.  We'll see.

Hot Elf Chick Ninjas!

Jumping on the bandwagon!

For those of you not familiar with Old School Role Playing Games (what we like to call the OSR), welcome!  We're a bunch of cantankerous, friendly, constantly bitching, mostly welcoming, and highly imaginative people who like to play old RPGs (the pen, paper and dice kind, although a lot of us enjoy the computer/video game versions, too), and modern RPGs made with similar design ethos to those older games.

Take a look around, check out the blog roll, and hopefully you'll find some stuff that makes you smile, some stuff that makes you angry, and most of all, some stuff that makes you want to join a game.

They should have called it the "Dwarven Cloak"

I've been reading Otto Jiricek's Northern Hero Legends and found something interesting.

Tolkien took the idea of the Eldar's cloaks making the wearer invisible (or nearly so) from Germanic legends.  But in the original German legends, it's only Dwarves who wear them. 

Of course, for the Norse and Germans, there was not much distinction between a dwarf and an elf, but anyway, originally those magical invisibility cloaks belonged to dwarves.