Talking Quasqueton

So I played D&D this past weekend for the first time in quite a little while. Recently I've been going through way too much sweating out the details and getting lost in the process with my new megadungeon campaign – to the point that I finally said screw it I just need to get this mofo started and see what happens. This has always been the best route in my experience, but I'm such a perfectionist that I often end up idling in neutral instead of simply flooring the damn thing and letting the wheels of gaming leave a patch of rubber down the middle of adventure avenue.

For many moons my default module for such impromptu starts was typically B2. The trusty Keep on the Borderlands has served me well for a few decades. There was one problem – I just wasn't feeling it this time. I couldn't get my B2 Jones on. So, I went to the old gaming closet and started to look for something else. I passed over X1 and T1 and B4 then happened upon my old pale green monochrome B1: In Search of the Unknown. In years past I never thought particularly highly of B1. Perhaps this is because in hindsight now I believe that it is in fact the module that came in my Holmes box, and not B2 as I may have misremembered. Much like my misconceptions of the Holmes edit, I think I must have similarly dismissed this quite excellent adventure module.

I decided therefore that it was high time to give In Search of the Unknown another look see. Lo and behold upon leafing through the pages I found the crude scribblings of a 12 year old; my own handwriting from '79 or so, from my earliest days of D&D. It looked like I wrote it with a blunt Venus Velvet No. 2 while riding in the back seat of my Dad's Volvo back in the day. Furthermore, it was clear I had completely disregarded the instructions from the module's author, Mike Carr.

Here are some of the entries I found, shared exactly as written 32 years ago:

2 Elves adventuring and will join Party. Grammar was not a strong suit then either.

Gloves of Bending (increases wearer's Bend Bars percent by 60%). This was placed as a foil for the Portcullis Trap above room XIII, and not an indication that I possessed the Players Handbook at the time (although the latter is certainly possible).

If Statue touched it will speak and say “Good Men, would you be so kind as to touch my eyes?” If eyes are touched, toucher must save vs spell or turn to dust. My sadistic ways were becoming evident even at 12 years old. Pity the poor toucher.

Scroll of Diminution under paper weight. Simple Potion to Scroll switcheroo. Sadistic I tell you.

An insane Dwarf is wielding a broken sword. OK. Just go with it I guess.

An Orc will challenge any one member. He is not ordinary, AC 2, HP 15, HD 4. If killed a +1 Sword will appear. Why the Orc is there and why he's willing to duel characters is a mystery, as is the magic sword.

15 Giant Ants guard 3 piles of eggs, they are friends of the bats. Each Ant has 5 GP. Apparently in this game Giant Ants were fairly intelligent and were capable of befriending bats...which also says something about the bats I suppose.

Giant Ant Chief AC 5, HP 20, HD 3. Wears +1 Chain-mail. 500 GP in chest. I can only deduce that the Giant Ants in my 12 year-old mind were more like intelligent bipedal Ant-men, capable of making friends, wearing armor and collecting riches.

Other Monsters included Green Slime, Wights, Giant Ticks, a Gargoyle and even more Giant Ants.

All of the entries I made, other than the obvious “Get-out-of-Jail-Free” Gloves of Bending, were indeed culled from the pages of the D&D Holmes edit. Apparently I had filled in this module during that short period of time in '79 before I had moved on to 1e AD&D.

Well, back to the present: I read the B1 room keys once through, did a random fill of the 56 rooms, changed the player back story and information to fit my needs, and ran B1 for possibly the second time ever. The group did not get particularly far into Quasqueton in this first session, but thus far the game is a success. In fact the first actual room the party entered, aside from the non-room entrance, was the infamous Room of Pools. I never would've guessed that would be the case, but there they were mystified by the pools and terrified of their contents. The party dispatched some Bogloids, Jackals and Thugs*, collected some loot, and headed back to the safety of Generic Town ™ at the end of the day.

After the session I took to reading the rest of the module. Mike Carr's guides and suggestions in particular drove me to write this post. I am going to give B1 some more thorough consideration and continue with thoughts on the module in the near future.

* - Some things never change. 30 years later I am still disregarding the author's instructions.

~Sham

The Dismal Depths: Quick & Dirty

Quick and dirty. It's often how I roll. When my 14 year old says he wants to play some D&D I have a few options. Allow him to rebuild his Labyrinth Lord group which took a few delves into the Lahromil's Demise section of Ulin-Uthor last year, continue his thus far very unsuccessful, bloody runs into Spawning Grounds of the Crab-men with OD&D pre-gens, pick a module which I have not read in a long time, OR give The Dismal Depths a test drive.

Clearly I took the last option. In fact, the very notion of grabbing four sheets of one-page maps, The Dismal Depths Bestiary, Men & Magic, and a handful of dice seemed perfectly quick and dirty for on the spot gaming. I was not disappointed.

Prior to deciding to run The Dismal Depths, and thanks to Chgowiz, I was turned onto the Eposic Dice Roller. I had already created two sheets filled with what I call character stat blocks. I normally give players a collection of 10 six score strings from which to select their characters. They are awarded a new stat block of 10 six score strings when they run out of living characters. Twelve such collections of scores were on the two sheets, so I asked him to pick a number from one to twelve. For solo gaming, I simply allowed him to play six characters from the get go. I was not invoking the Entourage Approach at this point. Just allowing him to have a decent party ready to roll.

I used the AD&D Character Log in order that he had a single page to game with. Each character was given 3d6x10 gold, allowed to outfit using M&M (with the one change being Plate Armor costs 100 gold), and we were ready to game very shortly thereafter.

Our 14 year old likes Dwarves, and he learned many games ago to appreciate the flexibility of Elves. The starting party was:

Fingles, Dwarf
Meltar, Dwarf
Penwaith, Elf
Blaike, Fighting-Man
Trimble, Magic-User
Yeutz, Cleric

In order to get things going quickly, I told him that an Alchemist in town was advertising a bounty of 5 gold per Bogling head, and that Boglings were known to inhabit the Dismal Depths, a dungeon beneath some old ruins about half a day's march outside of town. There were four known entrances to the dungeon, via the Ruins, the Old Tower, the Woods or the Cave.

Yeah, I know. Remember, quick and dirty. He wanted to get to the dice rolling as soon as possible. If anything, playing with my son reminds me of the total lack of need for any real back story or plot that is forgotten by the players as soon as the first gold piece is plundered. Screw the details. The important thing is finding treasure and living to tell about it. In the quick and dirty game anyway.

As we began the actual play, I declared that we would be running this game in a manner vastly different than the sessions before. I was going to remove the screen entirely, and explain what I was doing as the referee, including exactly what all my ceaseless dice rolls were for. Why? This is on the job training for him. I want him to understand what happens behind the screen. How I keep track of time, why I sometimes roll dice for no apparent reason, that sort of thing. I explained that this would require him to play as if the characters had no idea of these small elucidations. I think it went well. In particular, he learned about Turns and Hours, Dwarves sensing traps, Elves sensing secret doors, Wandering Monsters, Morale, and the general randomness of this particular dungeon.

I treat the keyed dollar sign secret Treasure Troves as random treasure, so I was able to explain the OD&D method of determining treasure, and on return trips I showed him how the Restock rules worked, the Distribution of Monsters and Treasure OD&D method that I have distilled down to a table on the one-pagers.

Along the way he learned the rules governing opening doors, springing traps, avoiding traps, surprise, and sighting distance, along with many other dice rolling conventions that never made sense to him in the past.

As the basic goal was to locate and remove the heads of some Boglings, I did describe what they looked like, but those were the only denizens of the place with which he had prior knowledge. Another one of the features of this dungeon is the blanket of mystery. Even my hardened old Grognard crew will have no knowledge of the dangers which they are to face in these deep, dark reaches.

Locating the Boglings was perhaps a bit harder than I had envisioned. The only entrances to their particular region is through the Ruins, but there are four such entrances in the Ruins, so I determined which was found randomly. The Woods, Tower and Cave lead to other regions. Basically, he had but a 2 in 7 chance of entering The Chambers of Zod, where the Boglings reside.

Yeutz the Cleric fell into a pit and took severe damage, was extricated from the trap only to be overcome shortly thereafter by ambushing Mole-Men in the first real encounter.

Penwaith the Elf was slain by Mole-Men as he tried to save Yeutz in that same melee.

Meltar the Dwarf took some minor damage in a run-in with Mole-Men. The brave warrior was then scared into panic by the sight of the Bronze Idol of the Laughing Minotaur, fled the room and died by falling into the pit just north of the room. The same pit opened by Yeutz earlier.

A pack of wandering Dessicated chased the three remaining members out of the dungeon as they were rolled as Wandering Monsters when the trio tried to make good their retreat back to town. Trimble the Magic User was struck for 5 damage, dropped his torch, and ran past the Fighting-Men and into the daylight. Luck had allowed him to live to see another day. The surprise encounter occurred so quickly that no one in the party even turned to see what had taken them unawares, they simply ran toward the sliver of daylight!

Quite a disastrous initial foray into the Dismal Depths. 1st Level characters are so much fun!

I allowed my son to heal up and recruit replacements for the lost members. Enter Meltar II, Penwaith II and Yeutz Jr.

The return trip began with the decision to enter through the Old Tower. Into the Burial Catacombs of the Burgundy Brigade. After some snickering at my rendition of the ominous warning to tomb-robbers at the Age Old Stone Sentinels, and after avoiding damage from a pit trap, the party was knee-deep in Desiccated bent on exterminating the living.

Yeutz Jr fell first after attempting to roll on the Clerics versus Undead Monsters table, a lucky six did him in before he survived his first encounter. Although only unconscious, he was left for dead when more Desiccated arrived on the scene.

That pack of walking dead was dispatched, but within a few turns the party had become overrun with skeletal pursuers, and made a hasty retreat back to the safety of the surface world.

Two excursions, four dead.

We took a short break to run out and pick up dinner. Upon returning my son couldn't stop talking about his adventures thus far. It was agreed shortly thereafter that my wife would join the festivities. My son, thinking that his mother would muck things up, asked if we could start anew with a half dozen different characters. He is wise beyond his age, as he knows that he and I will likely return to gaming with the Fingles, Meltar, Penwaith, Blaike, Trimble, Yeutz group many more times between now and the next time my wife decides to play.

So, I repeated the character generation process, again using my stat blocks and the AD&D Character Log sheets for the two players. Adventure was quickly afoot thanks to the quick and dirty mindset we had undertaken.

I was still using the “behind the curtain” play style, in hopes that my son would gain a much better understanding of how to play and referee the game.

The Fingles Group, for lack of a better name, was put on “hold” for now, While they were resting up from their most recent excursion, the following adventurers formed a party, likewise in pursuit of Bogling heads for the Alchemist's bounty:

Glotch, Dwarf
Brick, Dwarf
Vain, Fighting-Man
Paryn, Elf (Female)
Tuddle, Magic User (Female)
Saphyn, Cleric (Female)

Bonus points to those who can identify which characters were controlled by my wife! Yes, she has a soft spot for Elves and spell-slingers. Her true adoration is with Elves using Bows. Second to that is magical types. Now, my wife is an old hand at fantasy computer games. D&D is something which, in the past, has bothered her computer gaming sensibilities. Death, downtime and other pitfalls of D&D just don't fly in her gaming ideals.

Nevertheless, she really wanted to make this a family night, and give it the old college try.

The introduction of another player lent an entirely different dynamic to the game. I truly had a lot of fun now. As the referee, I was able to sit back and enjoy the sidebars. On the one hand I had a gung-ho dice rolling hack n slash gamer, juxtaposed with a “I don't want to die” deep thinker. The end result was after three trips back to town to heal up from damage, and no character losses, the party dynamic was boiling over and on the verge of character mutiny.

I had been using one of those white erasable boards for the adventures. I told the players that if they wanted to keep a map, it was up to them, and that I would be erasing the magic marker drawings after each excursion. Well...the need for caution and returning to town clashed with the need for adventure and treasure to the point that the two players recruited our soon to be three year old.

Initially our toddler was employed strictly for rolls to hit and damage rolls, but when loggerheads between which direction to take were reached, our youngest family member was charged with walking over to the white board and pointing at the next direction.

It was a vastly entertaining evening as the entire family was involved in the game.

Due in part to the overly cautious nature of my wife, there were no casualties in the new party, and they not only delved deeper than the previous excursions, but they plundered the only treasure looted from the Dismal Depths to date: 500 Silver and 80 Gold.

The adventure night ended in high spirits, and everyone involved agreed that this is to be a weekly, or perhaps twice a week, time permitting, family event.

The only major sticking point thus far has been the entire “return to Town” thing. As I mentioned earlier, my wife is used to computer gaming. Even though she hasn't seriously played one in years, she thought the entire idea of bed rest to restore hit points a royal pain in the arse.

I explained that I had already house ruled max hits at 1st, and the old stanch wounds rule, it wasn't enough. For this reason I am considering a few new house rules that will give the illusion of not visiting town, but will provide out of combat methods for the characters to restore lost hit points.

Sometimes even an old crusty DM like me realizes it might be best to ease up on the carnage and keep the players coming back. On the other hand, I told my wife that I cannot promise that Peryn won't die the next time the party returns to the dungeon. Yes, it seems that her only concern is the well-being of the Elf, Peryn.

If it means playing D&D once or twice each week, and running some good old fashioned Dungeon Crawls, I think I can stomach a few small house rules to appease the players.

I'm going to add some house rules I will detail later, perhaps as an addition to the Dismal Depths optional rules, such as Take Five, Liquid Courage and Second Wind. The end result will be further minor hit point recovery methods that dispense with the constant need to return to town. Such minor boons won't mean much past 3rd or 4th Level, but might suck the players in to the ongoing campaign and create a permanent family activity.

~Sham, Quixotic Referee

OD&D: Awarding Experience

I’ve subscribed to the OD&D rules of 100 XP per HD of slain monsters. I am, of course, using the 1 XP per GP rule (this is what we did in AD&D for all of those years, and it promotes the fact that treasure should be sought out by any means possible, even if it entails avoiding monsters who might possibly KILL you).

The 100 XP per HD OD&D system actually evens out at higher levels, when slaying a 10 HD Dragon only yields 1,000 XP. Under those rules, that monstrosity could easily kill an entire party of 10th Level PC’s, and the reward is miniscule. It’s cash reward, though, might be worth ten times that. Fitting in my opinion. Look at a Vampire in AD&D. The average Vampire in AD&D yields 4,268 XP. In OD&D, a Vampire yields…800 XP. It encourages players to actually AVOID a Vampire. Who in their right mind wants to face a foe that can drain two full levels of experience from you in a single hit?

There’s nothing inherently *wrong* with the OD&D rules. When I say the OD&D method of 100 XP per HD, I am referring to the original Vol. I-III set up. Gary Gygax, in Supplement I, Greyhawk, refuted the original system as ‘ridiculous’, and set forth the model for what would become the AD&D experience system. So, if you play OD&D, you either using the proto-AD&D Greyhawk experience system; or the one I use.

One of the reasons I enjoy the original experience system is it’s ease of use. For the majority of the first session, there were 10 characters. Talk about a simple system. “OK, you dispatched 11 Zombies,” I mighty say after a melee encounter, “That’s worth 1,100 experience, or 110 points each.” After a character death, we had to engage in actual math, dividing everything by nine. Still, it seems so simple.

There's no complex system for Base XP, XP per HP, XP for Special Abilities nor XP for Exceptional Abilities. Might some monsters be a bit more powerful but yield that same flat 100 XP per HD amount? Yes. Look at a handful of the OD&D 4 HD monsters; Ogre, Wraith, Medusa, Gargoyle. Should all four of these monsters yield the same amount of experience? If played properly I'm of the opinion that each is powerful in it's own right, but there's no doubt that the Medusa could crash a party fairly easily, let alone the Wraith with it's defense and special attack. If one adopts the OD&D method, one must accept that certain monsters pack more lethality per XP than others. It might be a good idea for adventurers to avoid or retreat and regroup when faced with the lethal monsters. After all, it's the treasure the characters should be after in the first place.

The OD&D system will clearly promote faster advancement to Levels 2 and 3, but as noted above, the Greyhawk/AD&D method and the OD&D method equal out somewhere along the way to level 6, and from that point on, OD&D advancement is downright slow.

Another quirk which always bothered me with AD&D was the 'and one' experience tables. I attribute this to an error in editing. In OD&D, the experience amounts were expressed in such a way to show how much experience was needed for the levels, while in AD&D, experience point ranges were given on tables. Thus, a second level Cleric in OD&D needs 3,000 XP to advance to third level; while in AD&D, that same Cleric needs 3,001. Yep, 'and one'. It's on all of the AD&D tables, and I always found it annoying.

While none of the characters earned enough experience to reach second level, I am mulling around the idea of doing away with “training”, and allowing characters to advance in level mid adventure. I’ll have to revise my Cost of Living rules, and also reconsider how cash and items yield experience.

I can fine tune the experience rules as the campaign progresses, and if I end up agreeing with Gary that the 100 XP per HD method is unbalanced, I can address it then. I think the players will enjoy surviving the trials and tribulations of first level, and reaching second level after slaying 200 Orcs or Zombies, instead of 2,000 of them. This of course discounts experience from treasure, but so far they’ve only looted a single treasure trove. Said trove was in the 500 gold piece value range, that’s only 50 XP per man so far from treasure.

~Sham, Quixotic Referee

Session One Report

Session One ended early Sunday morning. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon how you look at it, the game was rolling along and keeping me so tied up in things I forgot to get pix of live play, OR of the post game table! We kept pushing for just ‘one more room’ to the point that my Wife had to come remind me to fire up the grill a few times.

I allowed players to show up ‘anytime before 5 PM’, so we had a rolling start which allowed me to help each player get his Primary Character and Loyal Follower written and geared up. I related an abridged version of the campaign intro, dumped them at the entrance to Dim X, and began describing the old worn spiral stone steps that lead down into Room 1 of Krawlspace, the upper level of that megadungeon.

Aside from the break to grill and serve food, we played from 5:30 PM to almost 2:30 AM Sunday morning. Roughly eight hours of old school D&D fun. This translated to two separate excursions into Dim X, the first lasted for six hours of dungeon crawling campaign time, with a break in between, and a second excursion which didn’t last long, under two hours of campaign time before they retreated to rest, and we called the game just before 2:30.

We had a new guest player, one cancellation, one late arrival, and two no-shows. The party managed to maintain a decent size, running with from seven to ten characters the entire session. Between the methodical, thorough veteran approach to dungeon crawling that was used, and some excellent early dice rolling, the players did very well, and avoided any major calamities. There were two character deaths, three characters reduced to -1 HP, and one who was poisoned, reacted quickly, made two dice rolls, and was lucky to be ‘revived’.

The mix of characters was not what I had expected. Apparently Kobolds and Barbarians are very popular! Of the 12 player characters created Saturday, there were three Kobolds and three Barbarians. Only one Elf, and NO Dwarves! The racial breakdown was Humans: 6, Kobolds: 3, Hobbits: 2, Elves 1, Dwarves: 0 (and Fauns: 0). Not what I had expected. Here’s the other shocker to me; no one played a Cleric. Seems like old times.

Everyone was very enthusiastic and aside from some unavoidable slow moments during game play, a good time was had by all. It was one of those sessions where you KNEW that if we were teenagers back in the early 80’s, we would’ve played right through until Dawn. But alas, players have families and Sunday plans, so I think playing until almost 2:30 AM was quite a surprise (especially considering a few of them drove over an hour to get here). I sent the players home well fed and satisfied, and we talked about arranging the details for the next game day.

Here’s a scan of the player map thus far:


I decided to hand out experience immediately after it was earned, so after each encounter, I told the party the total experience which was to be divided equally. Most of the encounters were of the Wandering Monster variety.

Within the first room the party found a Bumble named Nozzle, and his Welcome Inn; an extra-dimensional tavern of sorts, with a warm fireplace, cots, and a seemingly endless supply of free stew, ale, tea and biscuits. After some serious paranoid role-playing, the characters partook in the services provided. Kobold Henchmen were available for hire, but no one could afford any at that time. The Bumbles are the stewards of Krawlspace, they clean halls, remove corpses, reset traps, and make the entire place inviting for adventurers. What these Gnomes receive from all of their efforts is not known, and they remain just another mystery and oddity of Dim X.

The Northernmost set of rooms, The Terrible Temple, took up a large portion of the day, as it involves swiveling fountains, levers, evil clones of the characters, and a large rift from which 1d4 Vile Spirits emerge each round while living beings are within the temple proper. The whole system of levers and swiveling fountains is rather complex, but ultimately pitted one character against the clone of another character, trapped alone in one of the side rooms.

The party also found The Cartographer's Crypt; a room within which the restless spirit of the dungeon’s architect exacts his revenge upon his former masters by attempting to reveal the dungeon’s secrets via crude drawings and messages on the wall (which are constantly wiped clean by the stewards within).

One major battle was in the room entitled The Pool and the Predator, a secret chamber guarded by a Gargoyle. This beast slew one character, and rendered two others unconscious. Just prior to this encounter the party had slowly made their way through a long niche filled hall choked with dense, silvery mist (called the Fourteen of Smithereen due to the fourteen mysterious iron statues in those niches, each of an Orc with a strange name). Upon exiting, they found themselves caked in this silvery glitter like residue. Little did they realize at the time that this mist temporarily enchants all metal to +0 magic. A few of the characters declared that they were spending a couple turns cleaning it all off. Once they faced the Gargoyle, and realized that it was only struck by magic items, they were second guessing that decision. Nevertheless, one of the characters rendered unconscious in that melee dropped his silvery glitter covered Battle Axe, which was taken up by no less than two others as they finally dispatched the Gargoyle in this melee which was probably very close to turning into a total party kill.

Within that room the characters found their first treasure trove. It was a hard won pay-off, to be sure. One dead, two unconscious.

Another difficult melee, with a few scares, was a simple roaming pack of Zombies. That was the final encounter, after which the party licked their wounds and we called it a night.

Rooms encountered and left for later were the Moldy Mess chamber, with the annoying skeleton named Heckler; and No Moss, a chamber with a huge 15 ton round boulder which clearly rolled around (due to the recessed tracks of it’s various paths).

One other room of note, in which the party encountered a group of Kobolds arguing about who would drink from The Mermaid Fountain, produced two interesting moments. Graffiti on the wall read “These waters heal wounds” and below “So drink deeply, but only from the falling water”. The assumption was then that drinking the spouting water would heal you. One of the Barbarians, reduced to a single HP after a nasty pitfall, decided to do just that, and drink from the falling water. All of his wounds were instantly healed, but he missed his save vs. poison, and dropped dead on the spot. Interestingly, one of the players had a fast burst of inspiration when his loyal follower has poisoned by a Giant Spider just before entering The Terrible Temple. The character snatched up the Hobbit’s body, rushed him back to the magical fountain, and put his mouth under the falling water. I gave him a % chance to survive the poison based on his CON of 8 (he rolled 05), AND he needed to save vs. poison to survive the fountain. Both rolls were made, and the player earned the only Style Point of the day, for quick thinking under pressure.

All in all I am satisfied with the session, and I am looking forward to future dungeon crawls within Dim X. One thing’s for sure, at this rate I have enough dungeon made up for a very, very long time.

~Sham, Quixotic Referee

Saturday Pre Game

So, the hype I've been generating for this first session, to kick-off the Solstice: OF&F campaign, might make room one of Ulin Uthor, the Dim Expanse seem like a big let-down.

Room 1: A 10'x10' room with an Orc guarding a chest.

The build-up has reached a crescendo, and then the party of 16 or so will encounter this and I'll just lean back in my chair, put my hands behind my head, smile knowingly and ask that age old question "OK, what do you guys do now?".

I've a feeling I'll be pelted with cheese curls and beer nuts. So that little joke ends right here. Although actually using that room description, and seeing what might possibly be the real story behind such a bland start to a dungeon could be a fun exercise for another time. The possibilities are limitless.

No, Dim X (as I've affectionately tagged Ulin Uthor, the Dim Expanse, since I'm getting tired of typing that out all of the time) is a living, breathing, vital megadungeon with plenty going on behind the scenes in an ever evolving environment. It's weird, quirky, spooky, dangerous, illogical, and downright begging for adventurers to brave it's depths. I promise to scan in the Krawlspace maps once this group has mapped large portions of that uppermost region, and progressed a few levels. For now, though, it must remain a mystery to all involved (except, hopefully, me).

I'm not sure if I'll ever 'finish' Dim X, unless I drastically change my design approach. It's very time intensive, and I have a feeling that after a few levels of this dense, danger-around-every-corner mythical megadungeon, that the players will be looking to stretch their legs a bit and take on some sandbox style encounters in Solstice. I hope to one day call Dim X 'done', or as close to done as a megadungeon can be (as most, mine included, are designed to evolve during actual play).

Here's a snap shot of the designated gaming table before the players all arrive on Saturday. Note the house copies of Men & Magic, and the bowl of funky dice. These are props for my little 'Game Within The Game' bit. I really want the players to forget all they knew about D&D, especially since these will be the first OD&D games for all of them.


Due to the larger than expected turn out, I had to relocate the game upstairs to the Dining Room table and add two leaves to expand it. Originally, my intent was to play down here in the man cave, closer to the bar and the stereo, in a more private environment. If we end up shifting to late night play, we'll probably be forced to do just that rather than keep everyone else in Casa Sham awake.

You'll also notice I am trying to referee this session sans my tried and true 1e DM Screen, which has been replaced now with a lap top computer. I'll still need a secreted area to roll d6's on, but that shouldn't be an issue. Besides, with everyone involved being 40 years or older now (except Derrick, who could at anytime plunder all of my notes, maps and computer files if he really wanted to), I doubt those wandering eyes will be able to even discern any maps or notes that might be in front of the referee.

I haven't decided if I'll ask for the group to name a caller and a mapper. Calling might evolve later, but I'd like all of the players to be active in the early going. Mapping might slow things down too much (on the other hand, getting lost is one of the real threats in Dim X).

So, the soda, water and beer is on ice, the steaks and bratwursts are primed and waiting to have hot flame applied, the table is set, and the doors to Dim X are finally going to be opened.

If I have my wits about me, I'll take a Saturday Post Game pic for sharing later, along with the Session One Report.

Argh! I need to either change the date or remove it from my camera pix. Ah well, I'm too lazy to redo them now. Game On! shortly!

~Sham, Quixotic Referee