Revisiting The Past

The last couple nights, I've had the pleasure of watching the first two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again. Man, I missed that show. Vincent D'Onofrio is so great...I've followed his career for years (starting with the Blood of Heroes, cheering him as Rob Howard in The Whole Wide World, even watching him as that evil Billy Corgin-looking serial killer in that Jennifer Lopez movie whose name escapes me)...but his portrayal of Wilson Fisk has got be his greatest role. And Charlie Cox makes a terrific Murdoch/Daredevil. Chef's kiss.

But MCU television isn't the reason for this post's title (although, as usual, it makes me itch to run a superhero campaign. Also, Sofia was watching The Incredibles 2 the other day...I'm sure that's part of it). No. I received an email from someone the other day that read (in part):

Reading The Complete B/X Adventurer I've noticed a teaser for the module "In the Realm of the Goblin Queen". I didn't find it anywhere, was this module published?

Ah, man...I'd forgotten all about that one.

BXC1: In the Realm of the Goblin Queen was an adventure module I had originally planned on publishing alongside...or in conjunction with...my B/X Companion book. I wanted a companion adventure for my Companion that provided a decent scenario for high level B/X play in the same way that B2 was published with Moldvay's Basic set and X1 was included in the Cook/Marsh Expert set.  Unfortunately, it never happened...for a number of reasons.

That doesn't mean there wasn't work done on the thing. Looking through my laptop's hard drive, I not only found my notes on the thing, but whole sections of text that were completed for the module: nearly two dozen pages of text, in fact. Considering the size of other adventures I've written for publication in recent years, this is pretty darn huge...the thing probably would have been close to the size of Dragon Wrack, had it been completed.

Of course, it's too wordy by far, and in need of serious editing. It looks like I last worked on it in 2010 or 2011, and my idea of what's needed/necessary in a module (even an introductory/teaching example, as this one was supposed to be), has changed quite a bit over the last 14+ years. It's not bad...in fact it has some decent ideas in it. But it could certainly be more clear and direct and less, mm, "flowery." There's read aloud text here (similar to that found in B2 and X1), and its presence makes me cringe a bit...I was putting a lot of effort into aping old adventure writing styles at the time.

Understandable, of course. BXC1 was my first attempt at writing any kind of adventure module.

However, it wasn't dissatisfaction with my own writing that kept me from completing the thing. Heck, it wasn't even lack of ideas for content: all the content is pretty much outlined in my notes (and most, if not all, of the more complex encounter areas were the ones I finished writing. Nope. This project got shelved for the two my two biggest bugaboos (of that time): lack of artwork and lack of satisfaction with my mapmaking abilities.

*sigh*

Which is all so dumb. I mean, sure, I STILL drag my feet when it comes to drawing maps (for me, the map is the hardest part about designing an adventure), but I've developed strategies and methods of dealing with that particular weakness of mine. And the art thing? That is sooooo not a concern for me these days. Way too many adventure writers are prioritizing form and style over functionality and playability...to the detriment of the product they're ostensibly trying to create. I'm at the point where I'm more-or-less anti-artwork in adventures. Which I grok is bad for the business side, but the artwork in adventure modules is so rarely helpful/useful. Decorative fluff, rather than truly illustrative.

SO...I should probably just finish this thing. 

I actually don't think it would take that long to do (hahaha...sure, pal! it always takes longer than anticipated!). But seriously, the bulk of the work has already been done. Cutting the extraneous and cleaning up the format doesn't take that long. If I could find my maps (never scanned, though they're around here somewhere), I could probably bang this out in a couple weeks or less. But there ARE a couple things that make me hesitate:

1. It's a high level adventure written for B/X.  I am sorry, but these days I'm not wearing the same rose-colored glasses I once did with regard to the viability of long-term B/X play. Do I really want to be encouraging this concept? Finishing BXC1, at this point, would be more of a vanity project than substantive (at least, so far as my own development as a game designer is concerned). Good practice for writing (maybe), but doubtful in its practicality.
2. I've got three (or four) adventures still in need of writing for Cauldron 2025. And all of eight months left before that little trip...eight busy months (with one kid graduating and starting high school, Confirmation classes, volleyball season/playoffs, soccer club tryouts/tournaments, summer travel, etc., etc.). Not to mention I still need to finish cleaning out my mom's house so I can get it on the market. Just a ton of stuff.

But "being busy" is nothing new for me; I suppose I should be used to it by now (though, to be fair, "not completing writing projects because of busy-ness" is also nothing unusual). Ah, well.

Okay, that's enough for the nonce. I'm currently in the process of thawing out a frozen beef liver for my lunch. Talk about "revisiting the past:" I haven't had liver & onions in some 30+ years. It was one of my mom's favorite dishes, though she stopped making it around the same time I started going to high school...instead, she'd get it for her birthday, once a year, when her best friend would take her to the (horse) racetracks.  Just had a craving. 

Later, gators.

EDIT:  Man, there were a lot of typos in this post (fixed most of 'em). ALSO: the liver and onions dish was delicious.

; )

Gates And Fans

Pretty good day yesterday starting with the fact that there was blue, smoke-free sky for the first time in a week or so, thanks to the pouring rain of the prior 30 hours. Probably should have taken a photo, as it's gone today. At least we got in a good bike ride.

Football was good. A little disappointing to watch the dwarves (49ers) curb-stomp the halflings (Jets), despite the former missing half a dozen starters (Kittle, Sherman, Mostert, Bosa, Solomon Thomas, Dee Ford, Jimmy G) but they are hobbits, after all...I mean what was I expecting? If Durin's folk invaded the Shire the battle couldn't have been more lopsided. The J-E-T-S absolutely S-U-C-K.

Then there were the Seahawks. Oh, Seahawks. I've explained before why they're orks, but man O man did they play like orks. 14 year veteran pro-bowl tight ends butter-handing the dark elves a pick six to start the game. Blatant fouls on defenseless receivers (with a well-deserved ejection). Jumping off sides no less than FOUR TIMES...while playing AT HOME...with NO CROWD NOISE. How does that happen?! Orks. Plus giving up 400 yards through the air to ex-kroxigor Cam-freaking-Newton.

Yes, a win is a win is a win, and Russell Wilson is still spectacular, and it's downright ungracious to whine about a 2-0 start to the season when other teams would love to have our "problems."

Still, it's a fan's prerogative to complain, even when their team is doing well; it's all part of the entertainment package. And I've been a Seahawks fan since the 70s...my family has had season tix since '77. When my parents divorced, they split the tickets (my mother eventually selling her set), and I've managed to go to at least a handful of games every season since...till now. 

[yes, even during the "dry" years of the 90s when I had to suffer through Kelly Stouffer and Dan Maguire and Stan Gelbaugh. Talk about orks. Oh, yeah...Rick Mirer, too. Oh the humanity!]

It's strange to watch games with empty stadiums and phantom crowd noise though, perhaps, no more stranger than anything else in this strangely awful, challenging year. But, of course, it leads my mind to yet another discussion of advanced Blood Bowl and another dive into the 2nd edition Blood Bowl Companion rules.

Modern Blood Bowlers (folks who started playing in the 90s or later) should be familiar with the term Fan Factor and its importance both to determining "gate" (i.e. attendance) for a match and - indirectly - its influence on the match itself. Each team has a fan factor score, purchased at the time of roster creation for 10,000 gold pieces per point. In 3rd edition, gate was calculated by rolling a number of dice equal to the team's FF and multiplying the result by 1000; in the 5th edition you simply roll 2d6 and add the FF to the result before multiplying by 1000. Regardless of the particular edition, having a greater number of fans in attendance than one's opponent results in bonuses to certain results on the kick-off table (generally leading to a bonus re-roll). Regardless of the particular edition, fan factor can only be increased or decreased based by actual results (as one might imagine, your fan factor has a chance to go up with a win and down with a loss).

Things are a little different in "old" Blood Bowl (i.e. 2nd Edition). For one thing, a team's FAME, representing its popularity based on performance, is different from a team's fan factor. For another thing, fan factor is broken down into three distinct categories describing a fan base's characteristics: chanting, hooliganism, and loyalty. 

Do I have to gush about how cool such distinctions are? Sure I do! While I understand that having a single FF score is easy, quick, and streamlined (which might be what you want...more power to you), for a richer campaign experience, adding this complexity gives you some depth. Again: consider the NFL, the professional sports league that BB is trying to model (and, yes, parody). Clearly, most fan bases are passionate about their teams, but that passion manifests in different ways. Some crowds are REALLY loud (*ahem*), some intimidate by throwing batteries and beer bottles, some bleed their team colors even after decades of living in a different city or exhibit a willingness to travel cross-country in order to cheer their tea. In 2E Blood Bowl, each of these aspects of fandom is given its own score (rated from 1 to 4) and affects different parts of the game: for example, loyalty is added to a D6 roll and the result cross-referenced on a table to see how many fans of the team show up at the gate. 

[winning three games in a row entitles a coach to increase one fan characteristic by one point; conversely losing three games in a row requires a coach to remove a characteristic point. Each fan characteristic has a maximum of 5 and a minimum of 1]

Gate in 2E (unlike later editions) has no effect on the appearance fee paid to a team; instead it provides a number called "fan factor" (unrelated to the later edition term) that is modified by the team's Fame and is used to influence crowd noise (along with chanting) and fan riots (along with hooliganism). While the results of the gate roll determines attendance in terms of an actual number (from 15-40 thousand fans), you might think that number is simply color, i.e. "fluff" of no importance next to the actual system modifying fan factor. Au contraire mon frere! In the 2E game, both pitch invasions AND riots can result in fan casualties...yes, the players fight back in old school Blood Bowl. And for every 50 fans killed in a game the team's fan factor goes down by a point (that's one way to quiet down a crowd).

Which I love (duh)...that was always part of the "lore" of old Blood Bowl: star players kept stats that included player casualties inflicted, referee casualties inflicted, and fan casualties inflicted. Record for referee casualties appears to have been held by Zug (31); record for spectator casualties is claimed by star mummy blitzer Ramtut III: 1,851,900. However, there is a note that his record is under official review.

Causes fan stampeding panic...and tomb rot.

Just about the only thing I DON'T love here is that 2E doesn't take into account home field advantage with regard to the gate (and, thus, with regard to fan factor influence). Yes, loyal fans travel, but the majority of spectators in any given stadium should be for the home team, (well, in years where there ARE spectators allowed). I don't think it's necessary to worry too much about alternate "stadium upgrade" rules like you find in later editions: most NFL team stadiums ended up being financed in some sort of unholy public/private "partnership" (i.e. the taxpayers get fleeced for the cost of the stadium), and that's really outside the purview of the coach: have a random roll based on a team's Fame, sponsorship, and bribes (yes, there's a heavy set of rules in the Companion specific to bribery). But hometown fans? Yeah, they should never be the minority in their own stadium, even in Arizona.

[there are rules, by the way, for fans to switch sides DURING the match...which is a good model of how NFL games go down in Arizona in real life]

[also there are rules for fans leaving the stadium, mid-game, in disgust...damn I love this book!]

I know, I know...I should start posting actual rules (or rule changes) rather than just write about them. I will, I promise...I've just been, well, busy lately ("Yeah, busy sitting on your ass watching football, JB..." *sigh*). Plus wouldn't you rather something written up all nice and organized? Maybe in a downloadable PDF?

I'll try to have something concrete in the next day or two. Really.

[all right...let's go check Monday Night Football]

Advanced Blood Bowl

And now for a bit of much needed levity.

It long ago ceased to amaze me the dramatic impact sports can have on individuals and communities. A dramatic win can boost positive vibes in a city for days; a crushing defeat can likewise deflate morale and cast a pall over...well, everything. It took me damn near a year to get over the Seahawks defeat in Super Bowl XL...though that was due as much to the manner in which they lost as the loss itself. These days, my lows don't get nearly that low (have to set some type of example for the kids)...although I do still allow myself the luxury of basking in joyous throat-stomping victories.

Being able to watch the NFL on Sunday was a great balm to the whole family, not just because our team won, but because we could watch other games and pick sides and cheer and stomp and run around like crazy people having fun, eating breakfast food all day and hanging out in our pajamas. Even my six-year old (whose attention span for televised sporting events wanes around the 90 minute mark...on a good day), had a blast, throwing the Nerf football with her brother and dressing up stuffed toys in game day apparel. It all provides a nice break from the dystopian present; bread and circuses, perhaps, but I for one was happy to switch the channel from the CNN for a day.

But enough prattle! What's with the title of this post, JB? What the heck is "Advanced Blood Bowl?!"

Let me, once again, take you on a journey in the Way Back Machine of JB's personal history and nostalgia. The year is circa 1990. D&D is still owned by TSR but the brand has become crap and I haven't played the thing in YEARS. I am in high school, and I've got lots of other stuff on my brain. 

Maybe? Ugh...memories of 30 years ago get so mixed up. Maybe it was 1991. My father left the family in the Spring of that year, and I don't remember him ever seeing my Blood Bowl stuff. My first BB game was purchased at Games & Gizmos in the University District with my own money as an "impulse buy." I carried the box home (in a big paper bag) on the bus. But I stopped taking that bus that same Spring because I commenced from high school, and started bussing through downtown to get to college...and I definitely wasn't making side-trips through the U-District in the summer of '91 (too busy with work and...um...girls). Maybe I got it right before the end of high school.

[actually, I now recall that in both the Fall of '91 and the Spring of '92 I was performing in theater productions of See How They Run and Guys and Dolls at my old high school and probably was taking the bus through the U-District on my commute home. So, yeah, probably circa November 1991]

ANYway...sometime around then I picked up a copy of the 2nd Edition Blood Bowl game, a big box set that I retain to this day. It was the first game with miniatures I'd ever purchased; I wasn't much into minis back then (I'd played RPGs for a decade or more without ever using a single mini), and I'd grown out of toys and "action figures" around age 10 or 11 and had zero interest in painting my own (mainly because I had zero confidence in my ability to paint). But the juxtaposition of fantasy warfare and American football is a powerful aphrodisiac, and I had the money in my pocket, so why not? I'd already become used to picking up new games from G&G, having amassed quite a collection of Rifts and Vampire books since their arrival in 1990.

Still, I doubt that would have been enough to make the buy (I'd been seeing the box on the shelf for years) if it hadn't been for a new, hardcover supplement that I purchased at the same time: Blood Bowl Star Players. Not only was BBSP a book I could thumb through (rather than a dubiously painted box of mysterious contents), it included rules for creating all sorts of different teams: halflings, elves, undead, and - my favorite Games Workshop property - chaos mutants. It also provided various skills for players, showing BB wasn't a simple board game but had aspects of role-paying and promised long-term campaign play...although the latter wouldn't be expanded upon until the publication of another book: the Blood Bowl Companion.

Unfortunately, the Blood Bowl Companion was a book that I would never see in print until last year.

Despite that, I've never been disappointed with my acquisition of Blood Bowl: it led to a love and enjoyment of the game, and other miniature-based gaming (Warhammer 40,000, specifically), and my painting did manage to improve over the years. And I have purchased every published edition of BB since (mainly for the new minis included with every box), and found the rule updates to generally be "for the best," i.e. they've resulted in streamlined, faster play, and (in some ways) brought the rules more in spirit with the fluff of the game...specifically, emphasizing the scoring of touchdowns within a time limit. How well I remember the long, blocking battles of attrition that would occupy the 2E game for hours.

However, as I've written before, there are plenty of aspects of the Blood Bowl game that disappoint. The game doesn't really play like American football: there are no downs, for example, no resets after change of possession, no point variations (touchdowns vs. field goals vs. safeties), no punting. The game often feels a bit more like rugby (albeit with forward passing)...though I won't pretend I know more than the barest minimum of that sport. Of course, there's also the lack of movement of fantasy races between teams, which doesn't echo the state of free agency in professional football (though perhaps that only appeals to NFL fanatics like myself). And point-based tournaments and play-offs are definitely more reminiscent of soccer tables than American football's conferences, divisions, wild card races, and single elimination championship.

Considered mythical
till 2019.

Now, as I said, I finally found a copy of the Blood Bowl Companion last year, used, at my local game shop, and I purchased the thing having long suspected its existence to be mythical: I figured that, like certain other Companion books, it had just never materialized before the publication of 3rd edition game and its Death Zone supplement. But I did so only for the sake of curiosity: I had (sometime in the past 30 years) sold or lost my copy of Blood Bowl Star Players, which one needs to make use of the Companion. As such it simply sat on my shelf gathering dust until a couple weeks ago, when I was able to (again) pick up a used copy of BBSP from my local game shop, thinking now I could read them together. Instead, they both ended up on the shelf (together) gathering dust.

Until Monday. That's when I started actually reading them.

Wow.

Reading the Blood Bowl Companion is a bit like reading all those OD&D supplement books copies of The Strategic Review and seeing how Gygax got from OD&D to AD&D. It is chock-full of rules, extremely crunchy rules, all for the love of adding a deeper, richer experience. And a much more FOOTBALL experience: here are rules for quarters and halves, downs and possession changes, free agency and rookie drafting and player development. Here are rules for kick-offs and field goals, punting and kick returns. Here are rules for hooligans and cheering and fan loyalty, for salaries and player disenchantment, for using referees in play, as well as secret weapons, dirty tricks, and magic items. Here are rules for managing the economy (cash money) of the game, giving you all the powers of a GM (general manager) without resorting to the simple randomness of drawing cards. Here are rules for mixing species on your teams, explaining why an orc might end up on a dwarf team, for example.

Here are rules for turning your Blood Bowl game into an Advanced campaign. 

It's pretty awesome. Like, really awesome. While I can see how the 3rd edition helped create a faster, more streamlined game, readily accessible to any buyer off the street, the info in the Blood Bowl Companion (along with the Blood Bowl Star Players book) corrects issues with the 2E game while providing the basis for a rich, detailed campaign of fantasy football. 

I know that's not everyone's cup of tea: in fact, considering how little interest there is in Blood Bowl in general (compared to GW's Warhammer lines), I can see how the intersection of American football style gaming, league management, and snarky fantasy violence has an extremely limited appeal in the marketplace. EXTREMELY limited...probably didn't emphasize that enough.

But it appeals to me. And just skimming through the rules with my kids, it appeals to them, too...my boy is completely down with running an "old school" Blood Bowl league.

And anyway, it's football season. I'm inclined to give it a whirl anyway. Expect a few more posts on the subject over the next few weeks. 

: )

Elegant Design

I don't write a lot of posts about "the biz" of publishing books, but this is a little strange...there seems to be a slight resurgence in interest in my books.

The B/X Companion for sure: just checked the PDF sales report on DriveThruRPG, and it's on pace to have its best year since 2013. Just to put that in perspective: my Companion was only made available as a PDF in 2012, and the total sales for the first two years exceeds all sales combined from 2014-2019.  

[which is still peanuts, of course (total sales over the life of the product is a bit north of 1000), but considering my lack of business skills and marketing savvy...not to mention the niche market to which my product belongs...I'll take pride in my home-baked slice of the pie]

If I had to guess about a reason for the recent sales spike, I'd probably give credit to the expanding popularity of the recent Old School Essentials (B/X) retro-clone. Back in "The Time Before Covid" I had a chance to take a look at Ye Local Gamestore and it was a pretty nice set of books. Didn't purchase it myself (money's a little tight for picking up products I already own in their original form), but I've heard plenty of praise for the thing, both in-person (from actual people) and on-line (from virtual people). 

ANYway, that's the only reason I can think of...I don't see any reviews or internet mentions of the Companion more recently than 2012 or so. Regardless, my thanks to all the people doing the purchasing...considering the many pirate PDFs of my book floating around the internet these days, I appreciate the money some folks are actually willing to put in my pocket.

Now the stranger part: while OSE offers some explanation for my B/X Companion, I don't know what could account for the renewed interest in Five Ancient Kingdoms, which is also on pace to have its best sales since 2013 (the first year it was published). 

Are people actually playing 5AK?

Allow me to be a skosh amazed at the idea. I mean, I'm not playing the game at the moment, though maybe I should be. I spent much of yesterday reading through the PDFs (for the first time in years) and, man, there is some good stuff in there. Elegant design, if I do say so myself (and I do).  Yeah, yeah...patting myself on the back again. But I like how I solved a lot of particular design issues I had with D&D, adding interesting nuance while still keeping the system streamlined and abstract.

Why did I abandon this line of gaming? 

Now THAT is a good question. I definitely remember feeling a bit pingeon-holed by the setting...even thought the books themselves offer ways to modify the system for other settings. But mostly, I think, that I felt the game lacked appeal...I could never get more than 2 or 3 players together that were willing to give it a go, back during the play-testing stage. Compare that with the offer of most any edition of D&D and you get half a dozen hands (or more) go up in the air, crying to join the table.

*sigh* I'm such a slave to what is trendy.

But no, it's more than that, I think. I worked hard on the probabilities and dice outcomes for 5AK, and they work well, but they're not as intuitive to grasp as a more granular, incremental system based on a D20 or percentile dice. Or perhaps it's just me...I am too used to these simpler granular systems, having been steeped in them for decades. Rolling 2d6 and tossing out "zeroes" just seems too "weird" from my perspective. I need some sort of damn chart/matrix to reference or I feel naked out there!

*sigh again*

As I continue to work on my own world and tinker the rules to better match the parameters of my design needs I read through these books...the three volumes of 5AK...and I keep coming across things that make me wonder "is there a way to add this to D&D?" A way to somehow incorporate these ideas into the standard D&D design without upsetting the entire apple cart? Sadly, I'm not sure there is. Systems in 5AK are built to inter-lock with each other. D&D is a hodge-podge of mechanics created on a "need" or "cool idea" basis (and often as patches when "cool ideas" ended up creating other "needs"). Functional as D&D is, fun as D&D is, its very nature precludes the addition of elegant mechanics.

Doesn't it?

Mentzer's BECMI tried to file off a lot of the "rough edges" and the game suffered for it (in my opinion). Same with 3rd edition...and 3.5 and 4th and 5th. The more well-oiled the machine becomes, the less room there is for imagination. 5AK works because it is, in the main, small scale and firmly based in its fairy tale genre. But D&D's heritage is founded in a wilder and woolier period of imaginings. 

What was it I was listening to the other day? Oh, yeah: Mother Love Bone. Andrew Wood is one of the greatest singer/songwriters that...unless you're really deep into musical lore...you've probably never heard or heard of. Unless you're, like, my age (mid-late 40s) and grew up in Seattle and liked rock music instead of pop and rap. Because Wood died right on the verge of becoming famous, and his bandmates ended up becoming Pearl Jam instead. And Vedder's a great singer and frontman, don't get me wrong, but Wood was a special talent. His music mixed the sacred with the profane, at time profound at times adolescent, all combined with sincerity and humor and beautiful singing ability, emphasizing love in all its expressions (for God, for children, for sex, for the world). I found my old CD in a mislabeled box and ended up listening to it 3 or 4 times through, just feeling...sad.

Because even if I played their CD for, say, my children or some 20-something year olds, there's just such a depth of meaning that would be lost on kids from a different generation. They just wouldn't grasp references because there's so much that doesn't exist anymore in this day and age of internet saturation and multi-hundred TV channels and social media bubbles. It's like: once upon a time the world was a smaller place, but so much more specific...and now its not. Once upon a time, every kid watched Bugs Bunny or Scoobie-Doo because you were a kid and you watched cartoons and there was only a couple channels and a couple times a week that you could watch them. Once upon a time there was only a handful of news outlets and rather than market themselves to a particular "fan base" they tried to report as quickly and accurately as possible. Once upon a time everyone knew the same songs because radio stations that catered to a particular taste only rotated the same handful of bands. We had shared understandings, shared touchstones.

We have so few of those these days, except for world-shattering events. Good things? Or fun things? Or nice things? Those are all over the board. You might know something about it if you're In The Group that cares about a particular thing (role-playing games, for example)...otherwise, it's outside your bubble, outside your sphere of interest. And you chance of having a shared knowledge with someone outside that thing is...slim. I can bitch about Trump or Covid with the other soccer parents while watching our kids practice or I can talk about soccer and soccer kids. Anything else? Chaff in the wind.

D&D...the D&D that I play and that I prefer...belongs to that older time. It wasn't created to be elegant or universal or easily consumed. It gained ascendance by being pretty much the only (or main) game in town at a time when the world was a much smaller place, when choices were more limited, and when people...players...had more shared understandings. Me writing 5AK was an attempt at...hell, I don't really know (or remember) exactly what I was attempting. But with regard to mechanics, I tried to make it as "elegant" as possible, while maintaining some sort of soul and imagination. I just don't know if imagination can exist alongside "elegant" design...it certainly seems more readily found in the inelegant systems of the wilder, woolier past. 

Ugh. This post has gone completely off the rails. Probably need to reset (and maybe eat some breakfast).  Later, gators.

Z is for Zemiros Sulescu

[over the course of the month of April, I shall be posting a topic for each letter of the alphabet, sequentially, for every day of the week except Sunday. Our topic for this year's #AtoZchallenge? Revamping the Grand Duchy of Karameikos in a way that doesn't disregard its B/X roots]

Finally! Caught up to "Z" with only a few minutes left before the end of April!

Z is for Zemiros, Lord Baron of Sulescu. And a secret nosferatu...but the people of Sulescu know the truth ("deep in their hearts," per the GAZ1 text).

"Velcome to my castle."

I've said before that I'm not a huge fan of the "Karameikos-as-fantasy-Transylvania" concept. But a lot of the tropes are already present. The dark woods full of lycanthropes. The superstitious Gypsy-like Traladarans. And, of course, all the damn vampires. Zemiros is a pretty obvious Dracula knock-off (at least in the stories where Big D isn't "all that bad"). He's a ruler (and protector) of his people...even as they are mortal cattle to feed his immortal hunger.

I suppose that even the farmer is protective of the livestock he will (eventually) slaughter, sell, and eat. This is the lie that Allston (writing for GAZ1) would have us believe: that "Zemiros Sulescu isn't really a villain - he is a neutral with great power." No, Aaron. With all due respect, he is an inhuman monster that sees humans as property and a food supply. And since we're playing a human-centric game, we should instead remember that being food for inhuman monsters isn't really the "proper station" for our particular species.

Zemiros should be a boogie man of sorts, perhaps semi-legendary, but probably a Big Bad Evil to be stomped out. I can think of several ways to revamp this character: installing a Rifts-like Vampire Kingdom in southwestern Karameikos (that would be pretty sick and wrong) of which Zemiros is just the outward manifestation of a huge alien intelligence. Replacing Zemiros with Strahd (i.e. the Dracula knock-off from adventure module I6: Ravenloft) and his castle, if not the silly, imprisoning mist (and probably axing the whole random-Gypsy-prophecy adventure...for notes on re-skinning Ravenloft, check this entry by GusL). Heck, I'd even considering making him a normal, mortal man who his people just think is a nosferatu (Zemiros might even think so himself...he's an ancient, eccentric human, prone to fits of murder and blood-drinking simply as a matter of sport)!

The REAL Zemiros

But regardless, the guy is a scourge...a repulsive, blood-sucking tick on the neck of humanity. The only thing that should keep such a creature in power IS power, and the fact of the matter is that no mere vampire can stand up to a B/X cleric of 11th level or greater. And there are a lot of level 11+ clerics in Karameikos, per their write-ups in GAZ1.

So unless we're going to say nosferatu are immune to the turning power of clerics (and why would we?) I'm going to take a page from the "extended playbook" of B/X...specifically, my own B/X Companion...and make Zemiros a Greater Vampire, one of the many monsters I wrote to challenge high level adventurers (Tim Brannan blogged a bit about this here and here; his Dracula write-up isn't a bad jumping off point for Zemiros). Yes, yes, I realize this is tooting my own horn a bit, but it's still a good concept...and there's no reason one couldn't re-write the "Greater Vampire" as a "Greater Nosferatu" in the same way the Gazetteer rewrites the original monster.

Just remember Zemiros IS a monster, not some benevolent lord.

[just like this year's A to Z challenge was a monster...and a fiendishly challenging one...to get through! But I did it (barely) with about an hour to spare]

The Cold, Cold Dead

Snowmageddon Dos. This time, we have about six inches of snow, which is much more like the snowfalls I remember of my youth. Once the kids get up, I'm sure they're going to want to do a little sledding in the park. I'm just glad it's a Saturday...my Mexican wife gets as giddy over snow as any eight year old, and I'm sure she'll to want to play, too.

Me? Well, I'm not so enthused. "Brrrr" is the thought that comes to mind as I look out the window, sipping reheated coffee in the early morning hours. Pretty to look at, sure. But it's nice and warm in here. Glad I don't have any reason to drive in it.

Outside my window.

I'm sorry, I was going to write some more cleric-related posts ...actually, I wanted to get back to posting some undead musings and mods for B/X, like that mummy post I did the other day. Thing is, the snow kind of sucks the air out of my sails. It's not just that I'm driven to distraction by the need to mention it (or my feelings on it), but I don't really like mixing my undead with my snow fascination. Necromancy just isn't something I associate with an arctic climate.

Weird? Yeah, probably. I have done "dead in the snow" themed monsters and adventures before. Snow mummies, for example...they're a "new monster" that appear in my adventure module BXC1: In the Realm of the Goblin Queen. That whole thing is a set in a snow-filled pocket dimension...had to find some way of incorporating an undead or two. Hmmm...maybe I should get around to finishing that one up and publishing it.

[one more project to add to the list this month]

Yes, yes...most everyone loves Game of Thrones with its frozen undead ("the white walkers") and impending Death Frost Doom, zombie apocalypse plot arc. Me, too (do I really have to wait till April for the last season? Jeez!). But the thought of ghoul-sicles...at least in terms of D&D...leaves me a little, um, cold.

First off, there's the whole "creep factor" that comes with undead...for me, it just doesn't mesh well. Undead are these unholy things that lurk in half-buried tombs and forgotten caves, sneaking silently through the darkness, ready to catch you up in a cold, clammy dead grip, possibly chilling your soul (in the case of energy drain attacks) .

But everything is cold and clammy in a frozen environment. Everything scary is going to emerge from the dark in an endless winter or blizzard-swept setting. Everything is going to be creeping silently when you can't hear over the howling wind. In any snowy fantasy, it just ends up doubling up all the creepy strengths the undead already possesses...and to me, that's as ridiculous as shouting "More cowbell!" Give me a break. Undead already have a scare factor of ten...but undead in winter go up to eleven, right?

It's overkill. I prefer fur-wrapped goblins or axe-wielding savages to emerge from the snows. Hell, just give me a pack of hungry wolves (dire or not). Give me something that's going to eat the party (because it's cold and food is scarce)...not something that's going to "freeze them with fear." It's already freezing outside.

And then there's the whole (imaginary) visuals...undead just don't juxtapose well with a snowy landscape. If it's a sunny day, a field of snow and ice is bright. You can't chase a party with a group black-cowled Nazgul across something like that! You need a polar bear...or some sort of fantasy war-sledge driven by ice bandits or whatnot.

And wouldn't bone-chilling cold and snow (factors that already slow movement) grind a zombie march to a halt? Could a skeleton even wade through deep snow? How?

Can you see a wraith in a snow flurry? I don't think so. And an encounter with an invisible wraith is the kind of thing that makes players want to lynch DMs...trust me on that.

No, I just can't say I'm a fan of the concept. A snowy scene outside my window does NOT inspire me to write about undead, unfortunately...I need dry, sandy tombs or humid, disease-ridden swamps or creepy, mist-soaked graveyards. Snow-covered landscapes make me think of hot cocoa and jingle bells...or the jingle of mail and war harness on a gang of axe-swinging Vikings. Not the undead.

So...sorry about that. Hopefully, Seattle will be thawed out by next week and I'll be able to get back to my thoughts on the undead (including how to use them in a world without clerics). Just not today. There's simply too much white outside. And I should probably do some stretching before the snowball fight that'll inevitably occur sometime this morning.

Tell you what: I'll cut-n-paste the snow mummy entry for you. Feel free to add it to your campaigns this winter (or whenever). Later, skaters.
: )

Snow Mummy*

Armor Class: 2                                       No. Appearing: 1-4 (1-4)

Hit Dice: 7+2*                                       Save As: Fighter 7

Move: 60’ (20’)                                      Morale: 12

Attacks: 1                                               Treasure Type: E x2

Damage: 2-16 + cold                             Alignment: Chaotic

Snow mummies are a form of undead found only in Snowfell and other cold regions…they are created using an unusual form of mummy preparation before being stored in ice. Often created to act as un-dying guardians, snow mummies have all the usual mummy immunities, as well as being immune to both cold and fire. They do not cause disease but are freezing to the touch, causing an additional D8 damage to anyone not protected against cold. In addition, anyone hit by a snow mummy must save versus paralysis or be chilled, suffering a -2 penalty on to hit rolls and initiative and only moving at half speed. The effects of chill can be removed by the use of a restoration spell or spending 1 turn bundled up in front of a roaring fire.

[okay...now it's more like eight inches of snow]

Cleaned Out

Well, it appears I just sold my last print copy of my B/X Companion over the weekend (I might have another one squirreled away somewhere, but it's a long shot). Rest assured, I'm in the process of ordering a new print run...a bigger one that should (hopefully) last a couple years.

I'm a little surprised that the book continues to sell as well as it does, both in print and electronic form; I'd have figured I'd already reached the point of saturation in our niche-niche market a while back. Apparently not.

What's even more surprising is sales of Five Ancient Kingdoms has picked up recently...I've sold as many copies of it in the last six months as in the twelve months prior. Weird. No idea who's playing it (perhaps folks are just mining it for ideas?)...one of these days I'll have the "Running Beagle Games" web site up-and-working and maybe I'll get some forum discussion going on the game.

Anyway, still recovering a bit from a weekend-long soccer jamboree and finishing up the last week of school. I hope to keep the blog posting going through the summer...we'll see how that goes.
; )

B/X Companion - Now Available in PRINT

As the title says, I am now in possession of a couple crates of my B/X Companion. For those who have been clamoring for a print copy, you may once again order it directly from me through PayPal by clicking on the drop down menu in the sidebar (make sure it's the menu underneath the correct image), and selecting the book's destination.

Sorry to have made you folks wait so long.

Anyway, my excitement is marred a bit today by the passing of one of the greatest rock vocalists to ever come out of the Seattle area: Chris Cornell. Like me, Chris was a local boy...attended the same elementary school my boy goes to, went to the same high school I would have (if I'd gone to public school) and worked as a sous-chef at a restaurant just down the street from my (current) home. I've had the pleasure of singing his music on occasion, but I'm a poor imitation (at best) being about an octave shy of his full range...and unlike me, Mr. Cornell was an accomplished and excellent songwriter, musician, and wordsmith. Prince and Bowie were losses that most of the world could grieve, but losing Chris...well, that feels much more personal.

Andrew
Kurt
Layne
Chris

Rest in peace, boys.

Louder than Love? Damn Straight.

Fan Service

While I don't miss living in Paraguay, I've actually come to miss some things from that country (as I figured I would). For example, last weekend I ditched my old propane grill and picked up a cheap charcoal burner so that I could do a Paraguayan-style asado at my house...various cuts of red meat, rubbed in coarse salt and slow-roasted over several hours to be consumed in pieces sliced and shared (along with grilled sausages, mandioca, and fantastic sopa paraguayo baked by my lovely wife). Sure we consumed a medley of vegetables, too (we're a little more health conscious, after all!) but it was a nice reminder of flavors we enjoyed...and missed...from our time down there.

Another thing I've come to miss over the last nine months of American life is quality soccer. Sure the Seattle Sounders won the MLS cup this year (my son and I watched the championship game in a local Greenwood brewhouse), but the professional level of play in the U.S. is, unfortunately, not quite to the standard seen in South America (or, indeed, other parts of the world...the Classico this year was one for the ages!). This became readily apparent when my 6-year old (at the time five) joined his first American soccer team and played like a frigging superstar: scoring 8-10 goals a game, going end-to-end with the ball through multiple defenders, scoring goals from mid-field, one-timing passes like Leo Messi. Jaw-dropping for the other parents at his school (who said he needed to play with the 4th graders and bring some much needed power), and immensely entertaining for Yours Truly. However, it's more a mark that the competition in the States...and over-all player skill...just isn't up to the same standards as in South America.

The trophy is taller than my boy. We've measured.

Plus, my son brings a lot of enthusiasm to the game...after all, soccer is really the only show in town in Paraguay, and it's pretty much all he played and talked about with the other boys while he attended school there for a year-and-a-half. It made for an especially memorable MLS finals as we got to cheer famous Paraguayan Nelson Valdez (the guy on the left in the above photo), who was excellent in the Sounders' championship run.  After the season ended, Valdez (whose actual last name is Haedo-Valdez, and who is known in Latin America as Nelson Haedo) transferred to Paraguayan professional team Cerro Porteno, which just happens to be  my son's favorite pro club in Paraguay. When we visited Asuncion in February, we had a chance to see him in his second game with Cerro and, due to my wife's connections, our children got to meet Nelson in the locker room afterwards. He was was warm and gracious and signed all their jerseys (both Sounders and Cerro) and gave my boy a memory he'll cherish forever. For a fan, one couldn't have asked for a better experience.

I would certainly NOT consider myself any kind of "international superstar," but I know that I have a certain degree of fame (or at least notoriety) for my writing. A month or two back, the kids and I were up at Around The Table in Lynnwood (probably playing a game of Blood Bowl), when Nick (the co-owner) introduced me to some guys who were huge fans of Five Ancient Kingdoms; folks who owned and were playing it and whom I'd never before met. Their enthusiasm and praise was...well, frankly, it was a little over-whelming. I'm just not used to complete strangers gushing over my creative works, at least not face-to-face, and I may have been at a loss for words. I only hope I was nice and humble with them and gave them a good impression (i.e. that I'm a nice guy) and not some sort of aloof asshole.

Yeah, sometimes I worry about this kind of thing. I'm not really anti-social...I'm usually pretty gregarious in social situations. But deep down, there's a part of me that simply has a hard time believing folks really value my creations, despite the monthly evidence of payments being deposited for my PDFs and the emails I receive asking for a re-release of the B/X Companion in print form. And perhaps it is this doubt that has (in some subtle, subconscious way) contributed to me dragging my feet when it comes to actually getting around to re-printing the book, despite the numerous requests.

[which has led to some amusingly ridiculous incidents: like the person selling a copy on eBay for over $1K. I mean, it's not like I'm dead or something!]

And SO...I am doing a new print run of my B/X Companion. Called my printer today, in fact, to get a price quote. This will be a limited run...probably a hundred copies or so...and I'll need to check postage rates before I put the order button on the web site, as shipping prices have gone up the last few years. But the book's price should remain the same: $24.99. Once I have product in hand, I'll let folks know it's cool to order again.

Time to get back into this publishing thing.

Doing Things Over

It's been a miserable last few days. The wife got back to town (a good thing) but she was sick when she left and worse when she got back. Both kids have been sick (fevers, sore throats, sniffles), which is tough to deal with when you add in the general heat, mosquitos, and throat-drying AC units. Then the baby's getting her canines in which is...well, let's just say she hasn't slept much and neither have I. Oh, yeah...and my boy was pushed off a two meter high platform by another kid at a birthday party (Friday). Fortunately he didn't land on an arm or leg (or head) but flat on his back, knocking his wind out and giving him some soreness, but no other injury. When I was D's age, I broke bones just rolling out of bed...he's a tough kid. But it was pretty scary, and my wife...well, she was a little beside herself by the whole thing. The kid who pushed D just gloated and laughed over my child's stunned form, and while his parents were apologetic later, they weren't even at the party. In the typical fashion of Paraguayan parenting, they'd simply dropped off their kid with his nanny, who was off eating somewhere at the time rather than watching the action.

[I was recently reading an (American) friend's blog decrying our tendency to micro-manage and "hover" too much about our children these days, but I've seen the opposite end of the spectrum down here, and the end result ain't pretty. Clearly some sort of happy medium is desirable]

I'm not sure how much longer we're going to be down here in Paraguay. There's some stuff going on with my wife's work (the reason we're here), and while they want us here and are willing to pay big bucks (well, by our standards) and seem intent on extending our time here, we're fairly anxious to get back. We're getting two weeks in Seattle in November (we'll be there for the Thanksgiving holiday), and we've been spending a lot of time lately talking about all the things we want to do (and eat!) when we're back in town. It's sad just how much there is to miss in Sea-town...and how little there is to miss here. Cost of living, I suppose. Really big chunks of grilled meat. Chipa (which, by the way, I didn't miss at all when I was home in June). Very tasty malbecs. That deliciously rich cordero dish over a bed of risotto that I order at my favorite restaurant every week.

In the final analysis, it's not enough to keep us here. Hell, nothing they have here (food-wise) measures up to Ivar's fish-n-chips with a pint of fresh pulled Pyramid hefeweizen (slice of lemon mandatory). And I don't even LIKE hefeweizen all that much.

The world's best fish n chips. Sorry, England.

No, we ain't staying. Seattle (and the U.S.) has its share of problems, but the "pros" definitely outweigh the "cons." NOW, one might ask if it was worth it for us to come down here at all? Was it good for us? Did it make our lives better to have this experience? If we had it to do over would we have done things differently?

Much as I miss the mountains, much as I would have liked to be in town for the parade after the Super Bowl win, much as I wish I wasn't going to have to look for a new job (ugh) when we get back...I think we made the right decision to come down here. I think it HAS been good for us, for our family. I think it has been very good for me personally...having to deal with all my personal frustration on so many fronts (most of which I have NOT blogged about), has made me a stronger, hopefully better (and nicer) person. I'm glad we came down here.

But I'm anxious to get home, anxious to get back into my house. Anxious to see the beagles again.

Similarly, I find myself considering the things I've done these last few years with my writing and publications. I find myself of the opinion that the B/X game (of which I've blogged so extensively), may in fact be a game that best balances if it ends at "X." That a game that goes behind 14 levels really isn't needed...not just because of the impracticality involved in advancing PCs into levels 20-something, but because the game itself can suffer when stretched to this scale. Certainly, I'm of the opinion that an 8th level halfling, 10th level elf, and 12th level dwarf are decent matches for any of the 14th level human classes in the B/X game...extending human levels out to 36 makes them far less relevant and the suggested "fixes" (allowing demihumans to advance beyond their maximums or using BECMI-style attack/save bonuses) are poor. While my B/X Companion did the job I intended it to do (providing a rulebook for high level play more in line with the original B/X system), there's a part of me that feels (now) like the thing was unnecessary to satisfying B/X play.

Likewise, there are things I'd have changed in The Complete B/X Adventurer, complexities in some of the new classes that I wish I'd streamlined or reconsidered. It's a neat book, with lots of neat ideas, but much of it feels a bit like a vanity project (despite the work I put into it) adding little value.

However, as with this trip to Paraguay, I'm glad that I did these books. Looking back on them after a few years, there's a lot that leaves me unsatisfied (now), but they were good experiences, growing experiences for me. If I hadn't published them, well, I'm not sure I would have ever published anything. Doing the first book showed me what was possible. Doing the second book showed me it wasn't just a "one time" thing.

The current project...let's just call it "Darkness," for the moment...might look like a small one. And at the physical level it is supposed to be a small one; I'm kind of tired of these games looking more like text books for a college course than like instructions for a game. The challenge is communicating everything I need to within the limited space available, giving the player ENOUGH information to make the game work, and work at a high level. And I'm doing it by breaking a bunch of standard D&D paradigms.

Levels, for example. There aren't any. In fact, in the current (25 page) document, I haven't had the need to use the word "level" even once.

[and no, it doesn't have some percentage based skill system like BRP, either. I told you it's a different paradigm]

The concepts found in the book include things that I've been futzing around with in a variety of (unpublished) projects. I'm just trying to pull it all together to make something that's both interesting and sound, with enough detail to catapult one's imagination, and enough system to see you through. As I said before, given the maximum page count, it's going to be tight trying to meet these goals. The game itself is going to need to be tight.

God, it's going to need some serious play-testing.

In other news, both gaming and Paraguayan, Alexis over at the Tao of D&D has been doing some fantastic maps of Paraguay, as a favor (or rather "a present") for Yours Truly. I can't express how flattered I am by this attention. Remember, this is the same guy who kicked me out of his on-line campaign for being an asshole. And, me, a guy who hasn't even gotten around to buying his latest book. Now that I've shit-canned my South American-based FHB in favor of the "Darkness" project, a guy does me a solid with this beautiful hexagonal rendering? Man, I am a jerk.

So, obviously, I will have to return to the SA-project in a different format...probably as a campaign setting supplement for B/X. Because I just can't let good material go to waste. Waste not, want not, right?

[of course, tell that to my other campaign settings sitting on the shelf: Land of Ash, Land of Ice, Goblin Wars, etc.]

Still, it's Alexis, so I'll try to make more than a half-assed effort.

Oh-oh! The baby's awake again! Got to go comfort! Later, gators!

Bean Counting

Yesterday, I missed most of the football games on television, including the entirety of the Seahawks game. I did hear the first touchdown on my car radio before losing reception in Lynnwood, but between 1:30 and 5:30 I was effectively out of action, because my son and I were at Chuck E. Cheese, celebrating the birthday of a two year old amigo.

Now, I don’t know if Chuck E. Cheese exists as a franchise outside of Washington. Hell, it barely exists here…the one in Lynnwood is one of only a handful remaining in the state. I should note the place was high on my list of All-Time Favorite Places as a child, so there’s a certain nostalgia assigned to it, but I haven’t been to one in years…not since a buddy decided to have his 20^th or 22^nd year birthday bash at one (I’m not the only person subject to nostalgia) and everyone, including my buddy, was sorely disappointed by the experience.

For one thing, the concept seems to have changed immensely over the last couple-three decades. When we were kids, I recall the place being bigger, and having a much larger assortment of video games (what we used to call arcade games)…yes, it had the animatronic rat and cheap pizza and play areas for small children, but pre-teens had much more of the types of games one might find (these days) at the larger arcades, like GameWorks. “Cutting edge” arcade games used to be the order of the day…I remember when Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace were these incredibly awesome, super-cool/high-tech vids and the only place you could find them to play them were at Chuck E. Cheese. But anything resembling cutting edge electronic entertainment seems to have been dropped by the franchise sometime circa 1989 and the place is now geared more to small children (like my son). Perhaps there’s just no way to keep up with the technology and quality of console games available to your average teenager at a reasonable price.

This game took a lot of tokens, back in the day...

So instead, most of the games are of the “carnival” variety (throwing balls into hoops or rings or bopping stuff or shooting water from a gun), and ALL of the games offers tickets at the end of a round of play…tickets that can be redeemed for fairly cheap carnival prizes. How cheap? Well, most games seemed to offer three to six tickets based on the quality of one’s play (several “maxed out” at five) and it took 100 tickets to get a keychain, and 400 to get a non-articulated, 3” Spider-Man action figure (which my son wanted). There were some really cheap-ass board games on the wall that required 1500+ tickets to redeem. I think part of the scam is parents have the ability to make up the difference in the price with cold, hard cash if a child hasn’t earned enough tickets through play (keeping in mind that each play costs money…or “tokens”…as well).

Still, D hit the jackpot a couple times on one or two games and ended the day with almost 200 tickets (186, actually) which we were able to redeem for a small (6” long) nerf rocket launcher, a curly straw, and two tiny rubber frogs. My boy, being two and a half, had nearly as much fun with these “prizes” last night as he’d had running around and playing games at Chuck’s. Okay, maybe “nearly as much” is a stretch, but certainly he had much more than I would have enjoyed had they been my reward for five hours of play.

But, of course, I’m not two years old.

One can draw an analogy (well, I can draw an analogy) between this type of play and the play of our favorite table-top role-playing game. I mean, can’t you? You spend several hours, hopefully enjoying play (as my son and I did), and then you get a paltry award of “tickets” (experience points) that get exchanged for…well, for very little on average. In fact, most game sessions probably sees players receiving NO reward for the actions in a particular session, and only after several sessions does one receive a reward (“leveling up”) and even then the reward isn’t all that great. Depending on the edition, you might receive a handful of hit points, you might (might!) receive a slight uptick in attack chance or saving throws, you might learn a new spell…and that’s about it. 3^rd Edition/D20 at least packed more into the reward by giving you skill points to spend (about as useful as rubber frogs, in my opinion), some bonus feats (staggered by level depending on class), and some attribute increases. Even so, there are still some “level ups” where “not much happens” (ain’t much difference going from 4^th level fighter to 5^th level fighter, for example).

I wrote a bit before about the “leveling-opens-content” thang, and how I’m tired of it…been tired of it for a while, but am now more tired of it than ever before. You know, my big “claim to fame” was my writing of the B/X Companion for high level B/X play…but how many B/X campaigns (or Labyrinth Lord or whatever) actually get to a level where such a book would be useful. In the three or four years I was playing B/X prior to my “play-testing phase” (in which all the games I’ve been running seem to be testing one thing or another), none of the player characters ever reached Name level, let along the 15^th plus range postulated in the B/X Companion. Sure, you could have your players create high-level characters from the get-go, but this is still only a “patch” to the issue of closed content…besides which it trades off (i.e. loses) the actual play aspect of the game (the fighting and finding of all those low- and mid-range monsters and treasures), which is hardly desirable.

Yes, “paying your dues” is an essential part of the D&D game, but not everyone wants to play the young farm boy that grows up to be a glamorous Jedi Knight. Some people simply want to have a series of adventures as Han Solo. And some people want to be Old Man Ben Kenobi from the start without going through all that prequel jazz.

[sorry for the Star Wars references…it’s been on my brain lately]

I’ve been revisiting The Hobbit quite a bit lately, both the novel and the Rankin-Bass film. The reason being that I have a young child to whom I read at night, and who really digs the music (because originally The Hobbit was a children’s fairytale, unlike the ridiculous action film currently being sold to the public as Tolkien). I’ve discussed before my whole problem with assigning a “class” (in D&D terms) to the dwarves or hobbit in the story, but after analyzing the thing (with regard to my recent game concept musings) I see less and less where there is any “advancement” that is taking place in the characters. Despite defeating lots of monsters (trolls, goblins, spiders, etc.) and finding lots of treasure and magic items (from the troll hoard, to Gollum’s ring, to the dragon’s lair) these characters aren’t developing in the traditional D&D sense of the term. They are maturing as individuals, they are seen as more heroic based on their actions, but their inborn effectiveness remains the same at the end of the adventure as at the beginning. Where their effectiveness does improve, it is based on the finding of magical equipment (Orcrist, Sting, Sauron’s One Ring) and the use of that equipment.

[as a side-note, has anyone ever noticed that while the dwarven adventurers are defeated at every turn, the penalty for that feat is ALWAYS capture? At the hands of the trolls, the goblins, the spiders, the wood elves, the dragon…the only consequence they ever face is being bagged, chained, webbed, imprisoned, or entombed in the mountain. The only time any of the character’s dies is at the end of the book/film…and then, that is death in VICTORY (over the goblins in the Battle of Five Armies), not death in defeat. Just thought that was interesting, and certainly something I’m considering in the design process as well]

Now, the game I’m currently working/writing still has “bean counting” because…well, because it appeals to my snarky sense of humor as well as my competitive attitude. However, right now the “beans” turn into a meta-game mechanic, increasing character effectiveness in game (similar to “karma” in the old Marvel Superheroes RPG…thanks, Mr. Grubb!)…there’s no rules for using them to “advance” (i.e. “permanently make more effective”) the baseline character a player is playing. If you start as Bilbo Baggins, you remain Bilbo (though perhaps one who has lost his pipe and pocket handkerchief). If you start as Gandalf you remain Gandalf (though you might acquire a magic sword along the way).

Is that “fair?” Boromir is one tough hombre, but Aragorn is better (and has other skills to boot). Moonglum might be a better swordsman, but will never have the sorcery abilities of Elric (and both will always be better swordsmen than Count Smirogan Baldhead). Does this make them less heroic in the stories in which they appear?

Again, you have to ask what is the point of fantasy role-playing…is it to become more powerful? Why? To open up content? Why not simply open content from the beginning? Because the characters will all die if they’re forced to face the dragon? Would a character in a story die for facing a dragon? Neither Bilbo nor Bard got cooked by Smaug…but Beowulf wasn’t quite as lucky.

Characters die in fairytales…both modern ones (like Tolkien) and ancient sagas (like Beowulf and Arthur).  Sometimes characters die long before the end of the story (i.e. they don’t wait for a “dramatically appropriate climax” in the action)…like Hector or Ajax. That’s fine…the idea of a serial adventure game (like D&D) is that the campaign or saga goes on…the PCs are protagonists and the main characters, but if they go down the story continues and others must “take up the torch.” In other words, I’m not talking about “taking death off the table,” or even meaningless death. Death has meaning in a story…or should have meaning…regardless of the point at which it occurs in the tale.

So why does a character need to have these regular level increases? Why is it important to give the PC an extra 3-5 hit points every five or ten or 20 game sessions? That’s a cheap-ass prize.

There is something to be said for experience…the paragraph Kevin Siembieda includes in every Palladium rulebook holds true to a certain degree. But show me an experienced adventurer, and I’ll show you a guy with a bad back, a trick knee, and a lot of gaps in his teeth. Scars and a hook for a hand…not to mention night sweats and fantasy PTSD from facing giant slavering monsters should be the order of the day for an “experienced” adventurer. Frodo’s Morgul wound never fully heals and bothers him for years after his adventure…why would a veteran of a dozen dungeons remain in happy health, only getting better with time? Because of clerical magic? Doesn’t every raise dead spell sap a point of Constitution?

The issue raised by Will (mentioned in my prior post) was one of what motivates players better than regular continued improvement? What indeed? That’s the real question: what GOALS can you provide players that they can shoot for…what WIN conditions can you provide that will encourage players to come back and keep playing? Because serial play…accompanied by development, identification, and fantasy escapism…is desirable. We don’t want just a one-off game.

This isn’t Dungeon! where a player wins once after collecting 10,000 gold and returning to Start.

More on this later folks.

If I Had to Do It Over...

...I do not think I would have included enchanted weapons and armor of power greater than +3 in my B/X Companion.

At the time I was writing it, I was still in the mindset of culling "the best of D&D" for the thing, and still hanging onto the conceits found in the later books of AD&D...+5 Holy Avengers and Hammers of Thunderbolts and the like. After all, you need a +5 weapon to harm the Tarrasque, right? Even though I was basing MY version of the Tarrasque on mythology rather than the MM2...

In retrospect, the end result means a gradual power inflation to the B/X game which, while not nearly as terrible as in D20 or even AD&D, does a lot to undermine the heroic simplicity of B/X. It's not that it renders some monsters/obstacle obsolete, after all (in B/X even the lowliest creature can damage your high falutin' character with an attack roll of "20"). But the presence of such items in the game creates an expectation in players: 'Hey, I'm a 23rd level thief! Where's my +5 leather armor?'

I don't dig on that.

In fact, if there's one thing I can't stand about D20 and later editions (well, there's a lot more than ONE thing, but only one thing regarding the topic at hand)...*ahem* If there's one major thing about the topic at hand that really irritates me regarding the latter editions of D&D, it's the assumption that part of character development revolves around the acquisition of things. That part of the process of increased character effectiveness assumes a certain amount of "stuff" (in the form of enchanted items and apparatus) will be discovered for use by the PCs.

This is gaming of the lowest common denominator. This is a video game mentality. This is Diablo or World of Warcraft. I've played both those video games, and they were enjoyable fun in their own mindless sort of way, but that is NOT what I expect or want from a role-playing game. Requiring the acquisition of stuff, in order to achieve the proper level of effectiveness for challenge, is just about the worst possible part of a reward system one can dream up.

Why? Because it makes the game less about player achievement (can the players manage the proper risk-reward factor to overcome the given challenge in this gamist-facilitating RPG) and more about proper "seeding" of "loot" during the course of the campaign. Which types of magical treasure to provide, in what amounts, depending on artificial game need.

Why bother to "level up" or measure experience at all? Solely for the sake of hit points?

[no, of course not...wizards who can't use magic arms and armor measure spell power based on level; though it seems only a short step o logic away from imposing WoW-style level restrictions on equipment use: "oh, your paladin cannot use the Holy Avenger sword until you're at least 15th level"]

Bollux on that. As a DM, I have a LOT more important things to worry about than not allowing a +3 sword to fall into the hands of a 2nd level character...or making sure the 9th level magic-user has found a staff of power or the requisite wand of lightning bolts. Must every halfling thief acquire a ring of invisibility at some point in their career? If so, why do they even bother to practice their hiding in shadows craft?

And so here I sit, currently working on 5AK (which will be play-tested this week, hope-hope-hope) and looking at the "magic items" section of the document, still blank. And wondering what the F I want to do with it. Because one thing I do NOT want to do is build a game with an expectation that magic items (and their acquisition) are in any way necessary or integral to the process of the game. BUT, at the same time, I don't want to leave the reader/player/DM with NO info...I don't want to just say, "hey, create your own enchanted artifacts as circumstance dictates." I want to give folks some guidelines. I like random tables, and even more so I like making the DM's job easier, not more difficult.

It's enough of a burden just drawing a map and coming up with a monster roster that makes sense for a particular adventure scenario.

*sigh*

I really haven't figured out what to do yet. The above published gripes don't even discuss what it is I want the game to model, namely the fantasy literature and mythology found in books pre-D&D. It used to be that magic was feared and respected, and that most every magical item found by a hero came at a price...no one just picked up a +3 sword out of some bandit's treasure chest and found themselves super-tough ever after. Real fantasy doesn't work like that. A powerful weapon was usually designed for a specific purpose like killing a demon-dragon...and when that purpose was served the thing usually "went away," perhaps dissolved in the acid blood of the foe it was designed to slay. Items' powers rested as much in what they represented (like Aragorn's blade Anduril or Arthur's Excalibur) than in their particular sharpness or whatnot.

Conan may be a "high level fighter" in D&D terms, but you don't find him running around with a vorpal blade and plate mail of etherealness. Is that because he lives in a "magic poor" world? No...there is plenty of magic and sorcery and supernatural foes and items (review Howard's story People of the Black Circle story). But magic is something to be respected and feared, as likely to turn on you as aid you, and if you can get by without it (as Conan often does), you're better off.

Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone owns a magic sword for the majority of his career...but it is a bound demon that often acts on its own accord, slaying friends and loved ones as eagerly as Elric's enemies (more eagerly...often Elric encounters monsters and foes against whom the blade is partially if not wholly ineffective). Yes, it gives him great strength and power...at a price. And his reputation as a swordsman is good even without the blade (only his cousin Yrkoon is said to be his equal in swordplay).

How to capture/model this kind of thing in my game...while still making it as easy as a few random tables for the DM? Maybe I need three tables:

• one random set of items
• one random set of bonuses/benefits
• one random set of drawbacks/problems

Again with an eye towards giving players the choice of what they're willing to risk for a particular benefit. Ugh...it sounds, good, by only have a couple pages of space in which to get it done. And how does that work with magicians and magic item creation?

*sigh* (again)

I guess I better just get back to work on the stuff I've already got sorted out. For the play-test Thursday, I'll probably just end up using magic items from other editions. Or not. I don't know yet. Ugh!

All right...talk to ya' later.

Winning the Battle, Losing the War (Part 2)

[continued from here]

Of course, most REALLY “old school” grogs still hang their hats on AD&D as the One True Edition, and while OSRIC has had its popularity, most of the folks I’ve seen playing the game around the game shop are still using their original 1^st edition books (and I don’t blame ‘em: those old hardcovers were well-bound and built to last. I still have mine, too). Many of the OSR published adventures have been geared towards AD&D sensibilities, and most of the Old School D&D forums on-line have the largest following/volume in their (1^st edition) AD&D sections. Despite being (until recently) out-o-print, I think it’s pretty safe to say AD&D has remained king of all editions.

And now the PHB, the DMG, and the MM have all been re-released (after being digitized, so they’re an easy transition to PDF form if they aren’t already available): the three volumes that form the cornerstone of the AD&D game. And with them come (from the same PDF site) the many classic AD&D modules that helped the game find such popularity in the escape-craving populace: the G, D, and Q series, the Slave Lords, the Temple of Elemental Evil, etc. It’s like someone grabbed hold of my closed and ran everything through the scanner. While this relegates the whole eBay scouring process to the realm of hardcore collectors (as opposed to hobby enthusiasts looking to play “the original versions”), the real question is what does that do to the burgeoning industry growing up in the (previous) lack of availability?

Think about this. Say I was a teenager or a kid in my early twenties, and my only exposure to D&D to date and been some great sessions with my parents or older friends/relatives using their badly battered copies of AD&D or B/X. Say it gave me enough fire/enthusiasm that I wanted to start my own gaming group with some like-minded individuals…perhaps in a high school club or on college dorm. The only with the name Dungeons & Dragons at the store is 4^th edition, or perhaps some old 3^rd and 3.5 editions, and maybe I pick them up…only to find them completely nonsensical or the learning curb incredibly steep to what my initial introduction is. Being young and tech-savvy, I hop on the Internet to see what I can find. A year ago, I would have ended with one of three options:

-        I could buy someone else’s old battered-tattered editions for an exorbitant sum on some web-site…and even biting that bullet wouldn’t give me anything I could load on my iPad.

-        I could “give up on the dream” and either skip D&D altogether or go with Hasbro’s latest-greatest.

-        I could stumble across the OSR…a passionate, dedicated community…and its retroclone industry. I could pick up copies of LL or OSRIC or S&W (free PDFs, plus available in print when needed), and the scores of adventures and material that had been written for them. I could introduce my like-minded friends to web-sites and blogs and give them links where they, too, could pick up the rules…and then we’d run the game. And the little OSR publishers could continue to provide their material in the vacuum of an In Print presence of the original editions.

But as I said, that was LAST year. Today, you can go and download the original stuff, and pay to have it printed if you like. And the OSR forums and blogs become little more than places to shout one’s house rulings as to whether or not clerics should receive spells at 1^st level and how to make thieves “suck less.”

Is the OSR…as a movement to create new, good material in the Old School style (and thus to promote Old School role-playing)…is the OSR dead?

Did we win the battle to lose the war?

Because I for one was adamant that I wanted to “bring B/X back.” It was a gripe I had for years…since starting this blog anyway…that the original game that I’d grown to love and cherish through introspective analysis and a helluva’ lot of playing, was out of print for all time, and that I would be left alone as a reclusive hobbyist, condemned to picking up any old copy of Moldvay I came across just to “try to keep the fire alive” while all the while watching the books slowly yellow with age and disintegrate. Till nothing was left but my memories and Labyrinth Lord (with its bears that only do D4 damage and its clerics that get spells at first level). Like one of those doomed musicians playing as the Titanic sank, I would go down playing because the music was more important than clinging to the hope of finding a still-empty lifeboat.

Does that sound retarded…or at least melodramatic? It should; it is. But that’s how I felt often enough. Retarded and melodramatic in my “sticking-to-my-guns”…you can see it throughout this blog in fact. No, not in the way I rail against 4^th Edition (4E is still an unmitigated piece of crap IMO)…but my holding up as B/X as the “be all, end all.” It IS a great game, and I did (figuratively) lament to the heavens that it would not be available to my own children, except as a carefully preserved collectable.

And now it IS available…my wish has come true (assuming WotC continues to find it enough of a “cash-cow” to keep it available). My lamentations have been heard…all our bitching (and by “our” I mean other B/X grognards like myself) that Hasbro should at least make the digital copies available…they’ve heard and they’ve done so and at an extremely reasonable price. And while the printed AD&D books were not nearly as reasonable, I still found myself purchasing all three (for reasons already stated on this blog); and as I said, there’s hope for their eventual digital release as well.

And has this skewered the heart of the OSR? It’s as if WotC said: 

“Okay, fine, you win. We know that some of you really don't want to play 4^th edition or D&D Next (5E)...or even 3^rd Edition should we somehow reincorporate that. You just want Basic D&D and if we don’t give it to you, you’ll just make your own, instead of playing the edition we’re TRYING to push on you, so here…take B/X. Take your Queen of the Demonweb Pits and B4: Lost City. Put some money in our pockets, download the file, and go knock yourselves out. Eventually, you’ll get tired of the old material and when you do we’ll be waiting with new stuff (and a new edition for you).
 “But what we’re NOT going to do is leave you no other option then to put money in the pockets of LotFP or Goblinoid Games or Brave Halfling Press. Put your money here…we’ll give you the ORIGINALS, exactly as you’ve been begging for, through word and deed.”

Why shouldn’t I put down the $10 to get original B/X over Labyrinth Lord? Why shouldn’t I take the original Erol Otus artwork over illustrations that are simply supposed to conjure nostalgia in my heart?

And if I am putting my money into the ORIGINAL works, then aren’t I likely to put my money into other original works…like adventure modules? Especially adventure modules that have been written about and blogged about and hashed about on forums for YEARS…instead of some little thing by Raggi or BHP that has little “buzz” and zero squawking fan base attached to it?

And I know money is tight for folks…the economy’s coming up but there’s been a definite drop-off in MY sales. Well, with regard to the new book anyway…and that's probably due as much to my lack of marketing/publicizing and “making the rounds” and whatnot (not to mention general lack of interest) as any lack of “ready-to-burn” income in pockets.

[on the other hand, it appears there has been an uptick in PDF sales of my B/X Companion over the last week. Any chance that has to do with B/X being back on the market?]

Like Hotcakes!

BUT if a large, well-marketed, well-known web site is producing PDF books of well-known, talked about, legendary adventures and supplements, don’t you think THOSE will be getting the lion’s share of folks’ less-than-ample petty cash (i.e. “hobby money”) before the largely unknown and obscure hobbyist publishers earn enough to even break even? Or to sustain their web sites? Or to sustain their INTEREST in doing this “hobbyist-publishing thang” at all?

Look, some folks reading this might be thinking this is all “sour grapes” coming from Yours Truly, but it’s not…the OSR movement and this blog has been a great blessing to me, because it’s opened me up to the possibility of writing and publishing and I’ve found a great love of it and will continue to do it REGARDLESS. I still fully intend to self-publish MY version of D&D someday, if only for my own amusement. AND because it’s awesome (IMO). And because I am one stubborn S.O.B. If the OSR dies, or if these little publishers go bankrupt or decide there’s too little profit to keep working (or too little recognition to keep sticking their hard-sweated masterpieces out there to have ‘em ignored)…even if that all disappears, well, I'll probably continue to do what I do: shouting in the darkness.

But IF those other folks that dip in and out of the OSR movement should dry up and go away, because they’ve been one-upped by WotC (who does, after all, own the IP we all know and love)…if they go away, well, I think it would be a damn shame. Not because I'll be losing a client base (or audience for my blog rants)…I’m sure there will still be people who check out what crazy nonsense is coming out of ol’ JB’s loony head, and some might even be tempted to throw me some cash for a book. Nope, it’ll be a shame because this movement…the OSR movement…is or was or has been or has become a GREAT CREATIVE OUTLET for many, many people. The chance to talk about their own thoughts and feelings and experiences with regard to gaming...and to have those things recognized and validated by other like-minded folks…is a great, great thing. And the creation of game works…whether adventures or rule systems or artwork or dungeon maps or whatever…is a form of artistry and creative expression, something that humans need as part of being fully fulfilled individuals. We all need an OUTLET…from playing the cello to cooking gourmet meals to painting landscapes…and the availability of that outlet through the OSR movement, and the encouragement that has come with it has been immensely valuable to people.

Because, let’s face it: when you have a passion related to a niche or hobbyist culture, it’s rare enough to get accolades…regardless of what it is. Look at that reality show about professional beard growing competitions, or that Full Metal Jousting show. Hell, until beer companies started making commercials about how their brew had won international competitions, I had no idea that there was such a thing as international brewing competitions! And gaming is such a FRAGMENTED culture…there’s so little “cross-pollination” between gaming groups, or editions, or games…that we can end up becoming insular and isolated just by the nature of the beast. Which is a shame when the game itself (i.e. role-playing) has the potential to bring people together and create deeper bonds and greater rapport between folks.

So the OSR has been a good thing…much more active and proactive than a simple “on-line community” hanging out at the WotC boards discussing what class specialization gnomes should have or whether or not attacks of opportunity will be included in 5^th edition. The OSR has been vibrant, full of passionate, creative individuals who were given the space (and encouragement) to express themselves through their gaming passion. And if the release of the original Old School products sounds a death knell for that vibrant community, I can’t help but see it as a Not So Very Good Thing.

Even though I was someone who wanted to see B/X back in print.