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.

Re-Skinning Clerics (B/X)

And hot on the heels of my last post...

Folks who dig hard on the sword & sorcery fiction that inspired Dungeons & Dragons sometimes have difficulty reconciling the (largely based on) Judeo-Christian cleric class. Over the years, a common solution to "the cleric issue" has been to drop the class from the game. While some have rolled the cleric's spell list into that of the magic-user (giving wizards a kind of "white magic" option), others have simply removed all that healing magic from the game...which isn't a terrible idea if you like a more grim and gritty form of D&D (make sure to have plagues break out regularly and give PCs a chance of contracting tetanus or bad infections from their wounds!).

For those who'd like a third alternative...one that A) doesn't lose the spells, yet B) doesn't pull priests out of their temple, soiling their vestments in dank, dirty dungeons...I offer the following, fairly easy re-skins of the class:

BARD

Bards are wandering minstrels. One day may find them singing for royalty and the next find them on the street busking for enough coin to eat. Bards pick up many tales and rumors in their travels, and their music can produce magical effects.

The prime requisite of bards is Wisdom. A bard with a 13 or more in Wisdom adds +5% to earned experience; a bard with 16 or better in Wisdom adds +10%.

RESTRICTIONS: Bards roll six-sided dice (d6) for hit points, adding the +1 HP per level after 9th level. They can use any weapon and wear any armor except plate mail; bards do not use shields. They use the same experience, attack, and saving throw charts as a cleric of equal level. All bards must possess a stringed instrument such as a harp, lute, or mandolin (cost: 25 gold pieces); without such an instrument, bards cannot perform magic.

SPECIAL ABILITIES: Bards learns spells as a cleric of the same level; all spells must be chosen from the clerical spell list. Each bard spell is a song; to cast the spell a bard must have both hands free to play her instrument, and must be able to sing. All bards have the ability to sing for their supper, earning 1d6 gold pieces per day playing in town (the coins they receive may include silver and copper). Bards have a 25% chance to know a useful rumor or legend about any place or dungeon they visit, and a 10% to identify any permanent magic item they come across.

Bards never build strongholds or acquire apprentices; however, bards are welcome to the hospitality of any household of noble rank after sundown, provided the host does not already have suitable entertainment for the evening.


WITCH

Witches are practitioners of low magic, a humbler form of spell craft than the more flashy sorcery practiced by magic-users. Sometimes called "wise women" or "hedge wizards," most witches come from humble origins and focus on magic helpful to the common villager: healing, protection charms, spells to preserve food or combat the elements. Even so, many face prejudice and persecution by the superstitious, and choose solitude (or practice in secrecy) to protect themselves from the very people they could otherwise help.

A witch's prime requisite is Wisdom. A witch with a 13 or more in Wisdom adds +5% to earned experience; a 16 or better Wisdom adds +10%.

RESTRICTIONS: Witches roll six-sided dice (d6) for hit points, adding the +1 HP per level after 9th level. They face the same armor and weapon restrictions as a magic-user, but advance as a cleric and use the same attack and saving throw charts as a cleric of equal level.

SPECIAL ABILITIES: Witches cast the same number and level of spells as a cleric of the same level. Unlike clerics, witches do not have free access to the spell list but are instead limited to the spells they actually know, which are learned in the same way as a magic-user (being taught or else acquired through spell research). The spells available to a witch are the same as those found on the cleric spell list (including all reversed spells), plus the following:

1st: Spoil Food and Water (reverse of Purify Food 
    and Water)
2nd: Charm Person, Phantasmal Force, Sleep
3rd: Fly
4th: Charm Monster, Polymorph Other, Polymorph Self
5th: Animate Dead, Magic Jar

Witches perform spell research as a magic-user and may also create magic items after reaching 9th level. A witch of any level may brew magic potions (with the usual time and cost for creating magic items), so long as the potion's effect is equivalent to a spell the witch already knows. Witches are masters of herb lore and healing and can create poultices for treating wounded characters (cure 1d4 hit points of damage) at a cost of 25 gold pieces per dose; such a poultice may only be administered once (when a character is first wounded), and will have no further effect until the character has a chance to heal fully through normal rest and recuperation.

A witch may build a home or stronghold whenever she has the money to do so. A witch of Name (9th) level that has settled in place will attract 2d6 1st level acolytes seeking to form a coven under the matriarch's guidance and leadership.

[okay, I have to say it: this may be my favorite version of all the "witch" classes I've created over the years. I'm tempted to throw it into my own B/X games in place of clerics!]
; )

The Worst Witch

Apropos of nothing...

The kids and I checked out the new Netflix series, The Worst Witch, based on Jill Murphy's children's books (which we haven't read). Starring Bella "I-kick-ass-on-Game-of-Thrones" Ramsey as the young first year student at a witch school, I have to say I already dig it much more than the Harry Potter stuff. Which isn't really saying much since I hate most everything about Rowling's setting.

[sorry, J.K....much respect for the empire you've built and all, but I absolutely hate your "magical world." It's even worse than the Principalities of Glantri when it comes to making magic mundane]

Anyway, the kids were ready to binge-watch the whole thing (I put them to bed instead), so it's not just me that the show appeals to...and it did scare my three year old a bit, which is something any good story about witches (even a fairly benign bunch like these ladies) should do.

[can I also say I really like that they've set up the antagonists to be their own sister witches and backstabbing politics, rather than some nameless (and noseless) Big Bad hovering in the background like Sauron in Mordor, just waiting for his chance to "rule the world" or something?]

[man, I dislike those Potter books]

All right, that's all I wanted to say. Have to get back to my reading (tonight it's Oman's The Art of War in the Middle Ages). Later, gators.

"The Witch Game" Response

This was meant to be a comment on Tim's blog, in response to his response to my earlier comments. Unfortunately (and as usual) my words ran to the "long-winded" variety (it's 4am and I've been having a little sangria...hey, I gave up beer for Lent, cut me some slack!) and I was prohibited from posting. So I'm posting it here, though I'm not sure it will hold much interest for anyone besides Mr. Brannan and myself...

@ Timothy:

Since you appear to be addressing me directly, allow me to respond to a couple things:

I may have been a tad unclear in my earlier comments. When I say "culture" is the defining part of "witch-ness" in fantasy (other than magic-use), I'm not talking about a cosmetic change. A cosmetic change would be saying (like in Rowling's books), "all magic-users need wands to do magic; without wands they can't cast spells." This would take the place of, say, the restriction that magic-users can't be bound and/or require spell components...that's a cosmetic ("color") change to the way the character works.

"Cultural" means (in terms of a game) tied to the setting in an intimate fashion that affects the system. Even while D&D is "setting-less" in its default form, there are default assumptions one can make based on the systems. Paladins can only be lawful good; acting evil robs them of their abilities. Clerics must act in a certain fashion of lose their spell abilities. Turning undead is tied to being an agent of the divine. The existence of "guilds" (and guild rules) for thieves and assassins. These things define setting. Notice magic-users aren't required to belong to some guild...though that could have been written into the rules (schools of magic, organizations of wizards, etc.).

Consider the Dresden Files setting (which I only know about from having played the FATE RPG at a convention): here you have a wizard society with some fairly strict rules...like not using magic to kill people (in play, our magical investigators had to hunt down a rogue magician that had been using magic "against the rules" - my character ended up shooting her with a gun in order to "stick to the law"). Imagine how such a proscription would change play in D&D! What if wizards were subject to a Law of Three type rule? That's not a "cosmetic" change...that's going to shift system and play in a big way!

The witch culture, in both fiction and "real life" has a lot of ties to womanhood. Kind of. I'm not really sure how to say it...I don't mean feminism or female empowerment (though you see aspects of that), and there are certainly men who practice the craft (in both fiction and reality) but there is something distinctly feminine about it...in a traditional, "this is the female experience" kind of way. Witches share spells the way women (traditionally) share recipes...the Book of Shadows is a lot like a personal cookbook. That's very different from the traditional (and very D&Dish) archetype of wizards being guarded with their secrets, not wanting to share power. Witches work in groups...over and over in fiction and folklore you see this...and they are more potent when doing so. Real witches also involve others in their rituals...ritual magic is very much like performing religious rites, and you get more "oomph" from a bigger participating congregation (just like any church service). There's a sharing of knowledge, and a sharing of wisdom, and a sharing of suffering/experience that is very different from the solitary path of the lonely wizard.

Which may be part of why witches have a history (in fact and fiction) of persecution. They are subversive in a way that wizards aren't. Wizards are weird to normal folks, sure, but they aren't trying to undermine the underlying power structure. They're more likely to use it to make money (getting a job as a "court magician," figuring out how to turn base metal into gold, etc.). Witches are driven out of society (or hide their practice while living within it), because their very culture is subversive. Not because they're "powerful women in a patriarchy" but because of what they embody in the manner in which they work. Helping others, sharing knowledge, helping others to become powerful...these things undermine any power structure by empowering community. Communion with nature, understanding and working with natural forces...these things undermine a (human) culture built mainly on the exploitation of nature and an attempt to master it for human purposes.

The concept of the witch fails, at least in part, due to the structure of the D&D game. Take alignment, for example. Witches can certainly be "good" or "evil" people, but alignment is much more of a "cosmic" concept in D&D (especially AD&D) being based on the whole Law/Chaos struggle of sword & sorcery literature. Which side of the Eternal Struggle are you on? Except in B-horror films (the kind that inspires the "evil NPC witch" found in games like Palladium), most witches have a long history of being on the side of HUMANS (their community, their coven, or - selfishly - themselves)...humans who may be good or evil. On which side of the cosmic struggle are humans? Law? Do witches have to be lawful? What about the wicked crones giving people the evil eye? Shouldn't they be chaotic evil? Does that mean they worship Cthulhu?

Much of witch magic falls into the clerical realm, but (while spiritual) they're not dependent on "the gods" for their magic. Does a witch lose his/her spell-casting ability because she's "on the outs" with the Horned God? No, of course not. But other witches will look at such a practitioner (one who ignores the spiritual component) with disdain and as a rebel who's asking for heavy karma to pay 'em a visit. Similarly, witches don't really fit in the "all things balanced" realm of the D&D druid...they respect nature, they don't work for it. They are humanists (or at least "human centric" or human concerned) first.

The D&D magic-user is much more of a scientist, with the spell research and laboratory thing. You can re-skin it all to be "witchy" making it more of a kitchen/hearth thing, but that's going to call for a restructuring of the rules. Witches don't require thousands of coins to develop spells (especially low-level ones!)...if they did, no archetypal D&D village would be able to support the local wise woman.

The point to all this being you need a system overhaul that really addresses specific setting issues in order to include the witch as a playable character class. At least, if you want to have something that feels "witchy" in the traditional sense. There is very little "witch" to the Hermione Granger character, true enough (though Rowling's overall magic society with its tight community, structured rules, flying broomsticks, and love of potion brewing feels witchy in many ways)...if you wanted, to go that route, you could simply say:

male magic-users are called "wizards," female magic-users are called "witches"

But that would be doing a bit of a disservice to all those male witches out there (not to mention Wiccans!). A similar tact would be in the vein of Bewitched, where the magical society is broken down into "witches" and "warlocks." That's a bit more pulpy (in a kind of Vincent Price The Raven way) but it could work. Give everyone find familiar as a starting spell instead of read magic...you don't really need read magic in a witch-based setting (at least not in the current fictional tradition of needing to be "born a witch" to have access to spell-casting).

*sigh* I could go on and on for days on this subject but its 4am my time and I have to get up soon.

Holmes Rules: The Witch

[just continuing where I left off...but, man, I've been waiting a while to do this particular post]

Witches -- most magic-users tend to be concerned with things beyond the natural world: the celestial bodies, the astral sea, the planes from which magical power seeps into the mortal realm. Those magic-users who instead choose to focus their studies on the natural, earthy realm of existence may become witches.

A magic-user (male or female) must have a minimum wisdom of 11 to become a witch. They acquire and use spells in the same fashion as magic-users, but they may choose their spells from both the magic-user and cleric spell lists (including reversible clerical spells, if a witch is of non-good alignment). The number of spells a witch can cast in a single day is the same as a cleric of the same level (meaning the witch may cast no spells at 1st level); however, the spells are treated in all ways as those of a magic-user.

Unlike regular magic-users, witches do not scribe spell scrolls. Instead, witches may brew magic potions of any spells known (i.e. "in their spell book"). The cost and time needed to brew a potion is the exact same as the expense a normal magic-user faces when writing a scroll, but additional "special ingredients" might be needed for especially potent potions. Witches may engage in normal spell research like any other magic-user.

Witches are masters of natural lore and healing and can minister to a wounded character after battle, restoring D6-1 hit points. Once tended in this way, a character cannot benefit from additional ministrations until they've had a chance to heal through magic or normal rest.

"Double, double toil and trouble...fire burn and cauldron bubble!"

[some additional notes: the limitation of using the clerical "spells usable by level" table means that witches will be unable to cast the highest levels of magic-user spells (5th level if using Meepo's Holmes Companion, or 6th level for most other basic systems). This is by design. Also note there are no special "coven" rules here (just as there are no rules for apprentices or tower building given in Homes); for a basic level game, this is a good enough start and is a good enough emulation of the "solitary practitioner" I wrote about earlier. Higher level play needs to look at the specifics of the campaign setting for such things]

[oh, yeah...and this is my 13th witch related post. I consider that a good omen]

Hunting Witches

This is Tim Brannan's fault.

I love the concept of the witch hunter, of witch hunting, in general. Not in the "red scare" sense of the phrase, nor even the historical Inquisition-mananged mass murder of people-who-don't-think-and-worship-like-us. No, I'm talking about fantasy witch-hunting: the idea that there are dark and sinister supernatural forces out there and some heroic folks have been chosen for the gig of hunting said forces.

Nostalgia of the Nineties

As a premise for an RPG, this isn't a terribly original idea...more than a couple of Pelgrane Press's GUMSHOE games fall into this category, as does Beyond the Supernatural, InSpectres, and (to a lesser degree) Call of Cthulhu. The Mutant Chronicles certainly had a large dose of SciFi flavored witch hunting to it. Heck, there was even a game called Witch Hunters that was published a few years back, though I'd break out the old White Wolf Hunters Hunted supplement (for 1E VtM) long before I'd ever put down money for such a book/system.

[The Hunters Hunted is a truly under appreciated gem of a supplement/mini-game that I should blog about some time.  I realize it led to its own game line eventually ("Hunters Reckoning," I think?) but I got a lot of mileage off that original, slim volume. Very cool and one of the best Vampire products]

And, for more medieval-style games, there are plenty of witch hunters to be found in the Warhammer universe...I'm not sure if the latest version of WHFRP has them, but the first couple editions (through Hogshead) had witch hunters as an advanced career path, and you could play an entire warband of witch hunters in the Mordheim game.

But for old school D&D...the pre-2E editions...the idea of the witch hunter is a bit of a tough sell. After all, old school D&D isn't about hunting anything. Anything besides treasure, that is.

After reading Tim's post this morning, I (momentarily) considered an idea for a new B/X supplement...a campaign setting featuring a world where most of the "fantasy" elements were all (to some degree) aspects or side effects of supernatural evil. Evil of an inhuman, alien nature, filtered in  from other dimensions, through rifts made wide by human sorcerers who were willing to bargain away their souls...hell, their very world...for a taste of power. In such a setting, player characters would have a chance to be real heroes, not just "scurrilous rogues," as they fight against the dark forces threatening their planet. "Orcs" would simply be bestial, mutated humans. "Goblins" would be hellish imps, the lowest demons serving dark masters. All monsters in the B/X game could be re-skinned as devils and demons and twisted pawns of alien intelligences.

But it's a world closer to WHFRP's Enemy Within campaign than Palladium's Wormwood. This campaign setting hasn't yet been overrun, nor even is it on the verge of Armageddon...but without the aid of witch-hunting PCs, it could move to that DEFCON stage. This is a world that calls for hunters to root out the bad juju.

In such a setting, witch-hunters would take the place of the cleric class, as what type of divinely intervening deity would allow the world of Its worshippers to be so mistreated? Undead would certainly play a lesser role in such a campaign, and alternative forms of healing would be needed (perhaps fighters would be able to apply "field dressings" to wounded companions after combat, healing a certain number of HPs based on level). Such a game could be fun, though in a bleak way featuring corruption and cultists and whatnot; maybe something for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Maybe.

Then I took a long nap.

And when I woke up and got my brain to running again, I realized "hey, wait a sec...this has nut-all to do with finding treasure." And that's when the wheels came off the concept. Because the LAZY way of handling such a thing would be to say, hey, it's just B/X with some different house rules...you're still looking to loot the chaotic monsters and evil cultists lairs (in order to earn XP, in order to level up). Because witch hunters need phat loot, too.

Um, no. We are not going to be playing characters interested in making a buck while Rome burns down around their ears.

And since on second (post-nap) pass, I see the concept would need a lot of substantial retooling of the B/X system in order to work to my standards, this is a project that'll have to be shelved for the time being. I'm already in the midst of a retooling/writing project, and I want to get that one knocked out. Too bad, though...I've already got a couple ideas for titles to such a project. And I've got some notes stashed away (somewhere) about retooling Realms of Chaos concepts for B/X that could probably be put to good use on such a project. Yeah, it would be an interesting setting to play/run in...

Shoot, I could probably adapt part of my (reworked) Cry Dark Future advancement system to the thing...

No, no, no...one thing at a time! Maybe if someone wants to collaborate with me on such a project so I don't have to do all the writing myself (ugh, I see why Kevin Siembieda is such a fan o the "cut-and-paste"), I could find some time for it.

Maybe.

Considering Witches

Didn't have much time yesterday (don't have much time today, either). I'm still considering what would be the "set spell lists" or even the choice of "schools" should I go that route (as discussed a couple days ago). In other words, haven't made any progress on dismantling the magic system already written for the new fantasy heartbreaker.

Maybe it's because (subconsciously?) I think it's a bad idea? Maybe.

But flavor...I like flavor. Flavor is important. It makes a game tasty. Without flavor, you might have a robust game system, chock-full of nutritious, caloric-value (just to carry an analogy too far), but I want more than that. I'm not trying to create Hero System: Fantasy or GURPS: Wizards or something. Too bland for my taste. The idea of different schools of magic is flavorful.

Anyhoo...part of the reason I didn't do any work/writing yesterday is that I was again perusing old Dragon magazines. In this case, I was reading every article I could find on witches and witchcraft (for those who're curious that includes issues #5, #20, #43, and #114). I didn't have access to these issues back when I wrote up a "B/X Witch" for The Complete B/X Adventurer...but even if I had, I'm not sure I would've used much of the stuff here.  Certainly not the gemstone level titles (a little too Amway-esque)...not sure where that idea came from. Maybe some of the more interesting NPC spells from issue #5; some of those are pretty cool.

[strange there's no author attached to that article. Wonder if anyone ever figured out the writer]

The point is, maybe because it's so close to Halloween, I've got witches on the mind. I dig the concept of witch mythology (the fantasy witch if you will) - both good and bad - and wouldn't mind seeing something witch-like in the new heartbreaker. The problem is, how to do it without being offensive to folks. 

I remember Long's book with much fondness.

Modern witches, for those who don't know, are very different from the critters you find in classic fantasy literature... whether you're talking The Wizard of Oz or Narnia or those old school Halloween masterpieces. They're very different from the witches portrayed on television and 21st century film, too...but that's not the kind of witch I'm interested in (the witches of Charmed or whatnot are meant for a  different RPG than D&D and its ilk). Nor am I talking about the Satanic, Black Mass coven-types of B-horror films, either.

For me, "old school" witches are more fun than frightening...even if the bad ones do (on occasion) eat children. From Baba Yaga and The Old Sea Hag to the beautiful Circe or Morgan Le Fey...the solitary witch is what I'm talking about. That chick in the first Conan movie or Glenda of Oz. In many ways, they are the female equivalent of the solitary sorcerer: someone who has removed herself from society (generally, by her own choosing) in order to practice her craft. Perhaps out of the (real medieval) fear of being burned at the stake by one's neighbors.

When these Halloween-y witches get together at all, it's only once a year or every seven years or every century (depending on the story) to celebrate in a big brouhaha (bruja-ha?), otherwise staying out of each other's way unless engaged in some petty rivalry or magical dispute. Apart from these occasional gatherings of celebrated solidarity, these "fantasy witches" are private individuals, opting out of any sort of politics, mundane or magical. Any "Queen of Witches" title is more honorary (or a straight recognition of power) than an actual office to which other witches owe "fealty." I daresay the term might be one designed to poke fun at Earthly feudal titles...the witches are, after all, opting out of standard patriarchal society.

Ah, vinyl. In rotation every Halloween.

Does that all make sense? I'm not trying to be offensive here, I'm talking about a tradition of folklore and fiction. I'm not trying to "perpetuate stereotypes" of witches, I'm talking about enjoying some of those stereotypes in a fun fashion...and a little Grimm-dark fantasy to a fantasy adventure game.

Still, maybe that doesn't fly with some folks. Certainly, I've put my "pulp B/X adventure" game on-hold indefinitely because, no matter how one slices it, any game that includes "savages" (or even "natives") is going to tick someone off. It's borrowing from fiction that was created at a time when Colonialism and white privilege was "okay" (and being packaged and sold to folks of a white privilege persuasion). The pagan persecutions and witch-burnings of earlier centuries was also deemed "okay" at the time, and that is where the majority of our folklore on the subject (with its "wicked witches") comes from. If I do a "for fun" version of witches that buys into that folklore, I may be perpetuating harmful perspectives that some people will apply to real world witches and pagans (both present day and historical).

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

I don't want to offend folks. I don't want to contribute to ignorance. And I don't want to include "disclaimers" in my writing...it wouldn't be a big enough section of the game to warrant such singular treatment (in my opinion), anyway.

Am I making too much out of this? People don't worry how elves or wizards are portrayed in RPGs because we consider these to be fictional creations...magic is considered fictional in general and real life hermetic magicians are considered delusional by most of the population (similarly, no one worries about offending people of the "Jedi Religion"). I don't think dwarves are offensive to little people, as they are based on a fairy race of Norse mythology. But witches...well, a lot of people really  did get tortured and murdered back in the day for their non-Christian beliefs. Real people. And there are plenty of real people today that consider themselves witches, though they don't sport pointy hats and green skin. Making light of the history is a bit like making a game where your intrepid explorers (*ahem*) shoot "savages" (pick a continent). And running with folklore that demonized a particular group of individuals is kind of "making light," no?

Maybe I'M just overly sensitive. But, well, that's what I'm thinking about today. More later, I'm sure.

It's not easy being green.

Cacodemon

What do you think of, what image comes to mind, when you hear the word "wizard?"

Is there some iconic character of the silver screen pops into your head? A classic illustration of some sort? Merlin? Gandalf? A video game persona you've been running on your favorite MMORPG? A medieval woodcut?

I wouldn’t be surprised to find that more than a few of my readers have their images of the “magic user” informed by RPG art, especially that of Dungeons & Dragons. Depending on how young you were when you were introduced to the concept of D&D, it’s quite possible that much of your mental pictures of “fantasy” were informed by D&D…or informed by art inspired by D&D.

My iconic wizard.

My own mental image goes back to something different, though. I usually picture the wizard off the cover of the Time Life Book, Wizards and Witches, which was one of my favorites as a child…despite not owning it.

[I don’t know if Time Life Books still publishes these types of series books. They used to be advertised in TV infomercials all the time…volumes on the Old West or WW2, for example. I knew a couple people who collected the “fantasy” series growing up and had a chance to peruse these books…later on, I was fortunate enough to pick up Wizards and Witches, the first volume of the series, in a used book store]

Wizards and Witches provides a lot of good, fun information on the magic users of folklore and mythology, collecting a number of stories from different cultures, not to mention containing many beautiful illustrations. Published circa 1983, this was the first place I discovered Baba Yaga and Vainamoinen and Faust, despite being a (young) veteran of D&D. But then, I was always drawn towards fairy tales as a child (even before D&D) and stories of knights and dragons and wizards and unicorns, etc. would get me amped up faster than a two-liter bottle of Coke. It’s probably why I read so much as a child…back then, books were the main place (or only place) to find such stories, which I devoured when I could get my hands on ‘em.

Anyway, wizards (as depicted in W&W) were pretty much always shown as older gentlemen with long beards and fantastic headgear…miracle workers, with a penchant for flamboyant garb, if an otherwise, respectable and learned “elder” air about them. And I daresay that one will find a similar theme running through the illustrations of the older D&D editions. Whether you’re talking Easley’s painting of “Ringlerun” on the re-vamped PHB (my go-to book for many years) or the Otus drawing on the cover of the Cook Expert set, the robe-and-beard chic instantly identifies an image as a person of sorcery.

Who are these geezers?

THIS is Dungeons & Dragons.

Take a look at the original cover of the AD&D PHB…beautiful and iconic and probably the best depiction of “what D&D is all about” just in terms of the action portrayed. Yes, we have a number of adventurers depicted doing “adventurous stuff.” Can you spot the wizard in the illo? My guess is you’d be drawn to this geezer here:

Withered much?

Now tell me: exactly what retirement home did the party knock over to get this guy on the team?

In my D&D games, I can’t ever recall seeing an “old” wizard. After all, nothing in the rules requires you to create a character that is anything other than a young adventurer in the prime of life…and considering the fact that most campaigns will see you starting at a low level (i.e. “with little magical knowledge”), who would want to play an old coot that’s still “learning the ropes?”

Even if you use the aging tables in the 1^st edition AD&D DMG (we always did, back in the day), a first level magic-user has a maximum starting age of 40, and an average age of 30 or so. The guys on the cover of the PHB seem to about the right age for a group of adventures (20s and 30s that is)…except for the geezer with the staff and the long beard. How is that representative of D&D?

Answer: it’s not. But it IS representative of the iconic figure of the “old, bearded wizard.”

But those iconic wizards with the bent back and long beard are also miracle workers, full of might and power...or at least well versed in magical knowledge. If anything, the rules of D&D allow you to create a young magician and tell the story of how exactly he got to the old age, long beard, and powerful wisdom so often depicted in images and folklore.

Except to do so would make the other heroes likewise old and decrepit. Heroic adventurers (other than wizards) are supposed to be hale and hearty individuals in the prime of their lives…and unless there’s some sort of carry-over from campaign-to-campaign (with old, high-level wizards being “grandfathered in,” no pun intended) you’re never going to see that stereotypical geezer hanging with the young Turks. Well, maybe after an unfortunate run-in with a ghost.

But, okay, let’s forget the whole “geezer deficit” thing for a moment. Let’s ask WHY the archetype is typically portrayed in this way?

My guess (or theory or whatever) is that it has something to do with these individuals being wise and learned individuals. Knowledge and lore is, for the most part, only acquired with time and experience and wizards, having excessive amounts of knowledge (compared to the average person) must have been around for a long time.

[yes, there are some pretty young thang sorceresses to be found in folklore, but the really powerful witches – like Baba Yaga – tend to be portrayed as ancient crones, and more than a few of those female mages are said to augment their appearance with their magic. The main vanity of the male wizard appears to be the length and flow-yness of his beard]

I mean, I suppose they could all be half-demons aging backwards like Merlin or Benjamin Button…but then wouldn’t the stories be littered with child-size archmagi?

No, I think that wizards are supposed to be old and stooped due to the time it takes them to acquire and learn the magical knowledge that sets them apart from their fellows. In a pseudo-medieval world (like your typical D&D campaign) there’s no internet and a near total lack of libraries and “centers for higher education.” Knowledge…especially occult knowledge…is scarce and hard to come by. There’s a reason why your average villager isn’t learning a handful of crop-growing spells. It’s not that there’s a limit on magical talent in the fantasy world…it’s that there’s a dearth of learning opportunity.

And trying to get that learning is going to COST you, too. Being a scarce resource allows wizards to charge a pretty penny for their knowledge…and keeping that price high means keeping a lid on the supply. If the village does happen to have a hedge wizard or wise woman, they’re unlikely to want to train any new apprentices…at least not until they’re ready to retire as the local potion-maker of the region. Any type of “wizard school” is likely to only enroll the wealthiest of students…and knowledge will probably only be doled out by the spoonful, as the majority of an apprentice’s time will be spent doing chores around the tower or recopying ancient, decaying tomes…not to mention working in the gardens, cooking meals, satisfying the wizard’s more carnal desires, etc. Basically paying an exorbitant amount of gold for the privilege of being a slave; all for the promise of learning magic. Only the most intelligent of nobleman’s children are going to learn much of anything anyway…and only after a long time (and probably only after taking the initiative to do their own extra studies in snatched, spare moments).

Is it any wonder when sorcerers turn to supernatural means of acquiring knowledge? Including diabolic sources?

The idea of learning magic from Satan or his minions isn’t a new one, of course. Even outside of fiction, the Christian prohibition on working magic is in part based on the premise that its knowledge is procured from hellish sources (the other part of the prohibition comes from the separation from God that occurs when one attempts to acquire powers that should only be available to our Divine Creator). The word occult simply means “hidden,” and there’s a school of thought that such knowledge is hidden with good reason. The Faust story, retold often over the last several centuries, is the prototypical illustration of this.

Faust is an aged, learned guy who, being jaded and getting on in years, decides to make a pact with Satan to live out his last years with all the decadence that magic and hell can provide. Of course, this costs him his eternal soul…but then, that’s why it’s a morality tale. You learn Faust got the short end of the stick and you shouldn’t make his mistake (even in the Goethe version, BTW…Faust is only saved because of his actual repentance, and the kind of divine intervention no one should expect).

But D&D is a game, not a morality tale. I don’t kill people and take their gold in real life…my normal approach to “conflict resolution” usually involves establishing a dialogue and using a little empathy. Part of the fun of a fantasy game is gleeful immersion in the role of a “scurrilous rogue;” why wouldn’t you make a Fasutian bargain if it was available?

Assuming your character isn’t some do-goody paladin-type, of course.

Now, personally, I don’t think the concept of demon summoning goes very well with the Vancian magic of D&D. The pseudo-scifi-weirdness of Vance’s Dying Earth is…well, it’s a different animal compared to the spell working and conjuration found in many folklore tales. A character in Vance’s DE imprints a spell in his brain through memorization (duh) and “fires” the incantation like a chambered bullet, taking immediate effect. There’s no gathering of ingredients, no waiting for the right stars, no chanting and dancing and ritual…all things associated with magic in tales and literature (the only “instant” spells being…usually…associated with magic items, which themselves may have taken time to prepare)…unlike D&D’s Vancian magic.

Or rather, “unlike D&D’s Vancian magic as originally conceived.” Since the advent of AD&D, magic has become a bit of a hybrid, combining folklore with Vance. Spells have “casting times” often exceeding the “instant” time frame. Spells require “material components,” some of which require elaborate preparation. Whether this was done to make Gary’s world more “mythic” in feeling, or simply a matter of “game balance”…who knows? To me, the answer doesn’t really matter, because the starting point (i.e. Vance; see OD&D) doesn’t work for me. It’s a faulty foundation from which to derive the system of magic most folks now take for “D&D magic.”

Yeah, that’s the heart of the matter, and the crux of this post. I don’t play wizards in D&D, don’t much like wizards in D&D, because they don’t meet my expectations of what a wizard is or should be. How’s that grab you? I don’t want to play a 30-something dude with a sleep spell and maybe a charm spell imprinted on my brain…that doesn’t meet my world view when it comes to spell-casters. What I want are old geezers who can truck with demons and spirits and produce supernatural effects because of the occult lore they’ve accumulated over decades.

Is that too much to ask?

I mean is it? Does that wreck the “game balance?”

Let me tell y’all a story. There’s this little spell in 1^st edition PHB called cacodemon…not sure how many of you are familiar with it. It’s a 7^th level spell; its first appearance (maybe only appearance) in any edition of D&D is in 1E AD&D. It allows the magic-user to summon a single demon of the more powerful type (IV, V, or VI) and bargain with it for service…or condemn it to an otherworldly prison.

You may not be familiar with this spell…I wasn’t (even after many years of playing AD&D) until I saw it used in a game my younger brother was running for two friends. They were about age 12 or so at the time, and it was a fairly typical Monty Haul type game with high level pregens…the kind of game you run when you’re a young DM and have just gotten your hands on your older siblings supercool AD&D books. My brother’s buddy Mike was playing an evil mage (a typical character for this particular player), and when they got into a combat with some monster or other, Mike announced he wanted to summon a demon using cacodemon.

Unfortunately, the casting time is six hours so my brother (in typical young DM fashion) ruled the PC would be out of action for the duration while completing the summoning…presumably off in some corner of the dungeon. The combat proceeded with the other buddy (Brandon) in equally ridiculous fashion, and they all had a few laughs and a pretty good time. I had only been brought in for “consultation,” but having never seen the cacodemon spell in action, couldn’t really provide any great insights.

That was almost 25 years ago. It was the one and only time I’ve seen someone attempt to use the spell.

I like the idea of cacodemon, but I can’t for the life of me see any real application for it in the AD&D game. I guess it could be used like a suped-up invisible stalker, but there sure is a lot of work and effort needed considering its effect…including the need to discover a demon’s “true name?” Why go through the trouble, even to “imprison” the creature; you’d probably have an easier time simply killing the monster if you really had a bone to pick with it!

The presence of cacodemon…and spiritwrack, for that matter…is just odd to me. As I said, I like the idea of it (because, you know, Faust) but it’s a 7^th level spell, requiring a 14^th level character to cast it. And most 14^th level characters don’t have much use for a 7+7 or 8+8 hit dice servant…especially one so resentful and dangerous and so limited in scope of duration. The time to summon such creatures should be when a character is of a lesser level…when the wizard is inexperienced and naïve, and believes the reward outweighs the risk. Not when the wizard can toss around disintegrate spells and14 hit die lightning bolts! I can only assume this is Gygax’s homage to Faust and other demon summoning in literature, and that it was given as a 7^th level spell for purposes of “game balance.” Or maybe it was simply provided as a justification for high level opponent wizards to have demonic servants?

I really don’t know…what I do know is that in 25 years of play, I’ve never seen it used. In fact, I briefly considered trying to beg my way back into Alexis’s on-line campaign with  sole objective of playing a mage and trying the cacodemon spell (how many hit points would a Type IV demon have in his campaign using its size/mass?)…but upon realizing it would probably take 10+ years to achieve the required level, decided the “experiment” wouldn't be worth the amount of effort involved.

Such is the case with a lot of the “high level content” of D&D. You pick up the book and say, “hey, my character can control weather or teleport once I hit X level.” But the chance of hitting that level (and opening that content) is so remote given the normal parameters of table-top play, that you might as well save yourself the despair and skip the spell descriptions of any spell over the 4^th magnitude.

Frustrating. Give me my old geezer who can at least do a neat thing or two. I’m willing to be aged and beardy if it means I can part the sea and call rocks down from the mountains. Hell, I don’t want to play a “young apprentice;” I want to play a wizened loremaster. Forget game balance for a moment…game balance is only a “problem” due to magnitude of spell being linked to ass kickery and putting wizards in the role of “fantasy artillery.” The whole damn class needs a paradigm shift, in my opinion. Which means, from a design perspective, starting from scratch once again.

Consider the desired end result:

-        Magicians should have enough knowledge to be (magically) effective throughout a game session.

-        Magicians should be old geezers and crones by default…unless you want to play someone young and not very knowledgeable/proficient.

-        Magicians shouldn’t over-shadow the other characters. Magic cannot solve every problem.

-        Magic has limitations and/or hazards; there are reasons for not using magic all the time.

-        Magic is not Vancian.

-        Magic is not confined to individuals who possess a special “magic gene.”

-        Magic is not artillery…or only in very limited circumstances.

-        Magic use requires secret knowledge.

-        Magic use requires belief and conviction.

I’ll be building from there. More on all this later.

"Come forth, Mephisto!"