Kris

Yesterday, Friday, at 5:48pm, my good friend Kris passed away. He was 55 years old.

I'd like to eulogize for a minute. 

Kris Michael Loving was affectionately known (to me) as "Doc" or "the Doctor," a moniker I gave to him many years ago. I've mentioned him in many past blog posts, even detailing some of his physical and mental ailments. The last few years were not kind to Kris. He suffered from Parkinson's, brought on from the years of medications taken for his mental disorders, including bi-polar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia. Not only did he have extreme difficulty walking (ending up in the hospital on multiple occasions from falls suffered), he was plagued by voices...voices telling him all sorts of bullshit that wasn't true or accurate. He would call me every now and then, when they got particularly bad, asking for advice. More than anything, I think he wanted to talk with someone who was real, not some disembodied "other" telling him (in his head) that everyone hated him and wanted him to die or that he had to "do" things (like marry people unrelated to him and care for their unborn children) just because it was "the right thing" for him to do.

A few centuries ago, Kris would probably have been diagnosed as being plagued by demons. This would not be a bad analogy.

More than once in the last couple years he mentioned killing himself. He suffered a lot. I would always advise against this, as I would advise against listening to the "voices" (ever) just as a matter of course. He had a therapist, and a psychiatrist, and a doctor...all for different aspects of his suffering...but they were rarely available outside his normally scheduled sessions. Truth be told, I was seldom available to take his calls either (I'm an extremely busy guy), but I would take his calls every fourth or fifth time, and would call him back when I could. I would talk sense to him...reality...then steer the conversation into something lighter and always end with suggesting he do things to take himself out of his head. Walk (as best he could) or play music (as best he could) or do something artistic (as best he could). Something positive, something constructive, something concrete and real.

Kris never did kill himself. He suffered a stroke on July 30th, and was hospitalized (and intubated) ever after. I received a call from his sister...his caretaker of the last few years, a woman I'd never met...on Thursday, explaining what had happened and that they were removing the tubes Friday afternoon. I drove up to Skagit Valley Hospital (in Mount Vernon) Friday morning to say my goodbyes and to meet his sister. She was a nice woman...she said she'd really wanted to meet me, and thank me for being one of her brother's only friends, and for making his life more enjoyable for him.

...

To an outsider, Kris and I would seem to be very, very different people. Very different. Most would probably consider me a "responsible member of society." Graduated from a four year university. Had a professional, white-collar life (prior to becoming a stay-at-home dad) for some 20+ years. Wife and kids. Church-goer. Socially functional. Well-adjusted, pay my bills/taxes, do volunteer work, coach kids, etc.

Kris, on the other hand...well, even before his health went to shit, he'd probably be labeled something akin to a "burnout." Graduated high school, but not much of a student. Worked a variety of line-cook jobs: Tony Roma's, Red Lobster, Hooters. Drove a shitty hatch-back (fast, smoke-filled, loud music) till he got a DUI and had his license suspended. Drank cheap beer, smoked weed, shot pool. Lived with his (retired) parents, till they died. A bit of a misanthrope...didn't care what your race/gender/religion/sexual orientation was, but if you were an ASSHOLE he'd walk...without a word or backwards glance. Just did not suffer fools, at all. Terse. Smoker. Heavily tattooed (some done by himself). Leather jacketed hoodlum. Had a mullet into his 20s...and could pull it off. About 6'1, Swedish ancestry, brown hair, blue eyes. But nothing "smooth" about him. Awkward...or just plain close-mouthed silent...when it came to ladies, or straight-laced types. No spouse. No girlfriend. No kids. Beer, weed, and rock music and fuck off. That was Kris.

Why would I be friends with that? Why would I continue to keep in touch with such a man...especially as everything in his life started to roll downhill and the the (few) people that were in his circle quietly bowed out, allowing him to disintegrate on his lonesome?

Kris liked me...and I liked him. Truth be told, reflecting on our history, I'd say I got a hell of a lot more out of our friendship than he got out of me. There are MANY people who might say otherwise...they might assume I pitied him, or I was just a compassionate person or some such crap. I think, perhaps, that Kris's sister and former caretaker (both of whom I talked with at the hospital) might have thought this. Heck, they had no idea what to expect, although his sister said Kris's mom had talked about me fondly (which is amazing as I had no idea I even left an impression, only meeting her...briefly...once, maybe twice, three decades before).

Kris and I bonded over beers, shooting pool, and a shared love of music. For all his heavy metal persona, Kris had eclectic music tastes (as do I) and while we PREFER the hard rock, we have deep appreciations for everything from Prince to ABBA to classical music. The last time I talked with Kris (July 22nd) he was telling me about some country bands he was getting into...not my jam, normally, but then I just discovered Outlaws a couple days ago. Doc was a musical encyclopedia...picking his brain about some group or other, and letting him share his expertise, was the kind of things we did. He burned me many CDs over the years, introducing me to the glories of Judas Priest and Dio-backed Sabbath. Our mutual admiration for Kiss...a vastly underrated band, in Doc's opinion...was probably the first brick in cementing our friendship...the nickname "Doc" comes from playing on his last name (Loving) and their song, Doctor Love. 

[jamming Iron Maiden songs was also a shared hobby...he'd play the guitar licks and I'd do the operatic vocals]

But more than music or cocktails or hours spent shooting pool in smoky bars (and, to be clear, Kris taught me how to shoot pool...to the point I could hold my own against the occasional shark and place in local tournaments), we bonded over a love of gaming, especially D&D. Without Kris, I might not even be playing D&D today.

As I've related before, I'd given up the game sometime in high school, instead focusing on other games...So Many Games. I met Kris circa 1997, and when he found out I played RPGs he was more than glib about how he used to play (and love) AD&D...not something one brought up in casual conversation back then. 

But he did. And we put together a game with another mutual nerd I'd made the acquaintance of (an ex-USMC scout-sniper who was trying to get away from a murder career), as well as my then-roommate Mike. We had a good, silly session of 2E D&D, mostly intoxicated (someone else DMing), a lot of laughs and plenty to critique later. After that, Kris was...often enough...my go-to guy for bouncing gaming ideas off of. 

When 3rd Edition came out, we fired up a campaign...multiple times. I converted Village of Hommlet to D20 and ran Kris solo through it. He ran me solo through a bunch of stuff...Forge of Fury I think it was. We swapped off DMing two or three other times, including a high level (15th) adventure he designed that he simply folded after a single combat...in disgust. D20 wasn't the same thing as AD&D, and after mutliple botched attempts, we shit-canned the whole system. 

Ran some Top Secret. Some Maelstrom. Ran a Hunters Hunted adventure for Doc using 1st edition VtM that scared him so bad, he asked me to stop (he had asked me to play a human rather than a vampire; afterwards, he told me he'd be a member of the kindred next time).  We both loved Gamma World as kids and collected a bunch of stuff for it, talking about getting a game off the ground...it never materialized and he sold my books (!!)...accidentally...before moving to Oregon. Still haven't quite put my collection back together. 

Not that GW is all that important without Kris around.

He moved out-of-state before I got back into D&D proper...sometime in the early 2000s. Used to come over to my apartment and cook for/with the wife and me. He liked her, too. Like me, Kris found she fell into the "non-asshole" category. Kris could be sweet and funny and generous...even though he was an odd duck and not the kind of person my wife would ever have (normally) warmed up to. Getting to know him, through me, she found him endearing.

When I started the blog and the D&D writing, he was out of town, but we kept in touch via phone and email and he encouraged me with my first books. He always encouraged me. Just as he encouraged me with music, in his own way ("these guys suck, you're a lot better than them"). Honest to a fault, he could rub thin-skinned folks the wrong way. Fortunately, he knew this and simply kept his mouth shut, rather than badmouth people to their face. We went to a Tommy Lee concert (I think it was in his Methods of Mayhem project) at the Moore and realized during the first song (due to a glitch) that the band was lip-synching. Kris just said "Let's go" and we left. Who was I to argue? He'd bought the tickets.

I say this to illustrate that his encouragement (or criticism) was often simple, direct, and genuine. As such, his belief in my writing was very welcome and helped me through any "imposter syndrome" I felt, being a hack with no background or education/training in writing. And you may think that's a very little thing, but 20 years ago, I didn't have a purpose or meaning or vocation in my life. My life was not unexamined, but it WAS...mostly...without direction. These days, I have a direction...because of my choices...and Kris helped start me down that road. That's no small thing.

Kris's family, no doubt, thinks I'm some sort of saint for taking his calls, and taking time out of my life to listen to him, talk him through schizo episodes, put up with his crazy. I'd guess they think I did it out of loyalty or nostalgia for days of friendship past or whatever.  All bullshit. Kris was a good friend to me. Plenty were the times HE would listen to ME and all the drama in my life...my problems with my idiot brother or my dying mother or whatever stress or issues or injuries I was dealing with. He was an open ear that gave just as much to me...if not more...than I ever gave to him. The burnout metal head who could barely talk thanks to the missing teeth, the palsy, the anti-psychotic meds...our last few phone calls, I could barely make out what he was saying. But I'd listen to him and give him encouragement, and talk to him of positive things, and tell him to stop listening to the voices, that NO, not everyone "hates you," I certainly don't I appreciate you and value you and treasure your friendship and what it's meant to me.

Not everyone has a friend that "gets you." Even if he is a vastly different person with a vastly different life path. Kris approached the world in a different manner from me...but he still "got me" in a way that few individuals in my life do. Maybe no one, really. Steve or Michael, maybe. It takes a similar type of upbringing. Seattle in the 1980s. Kris grew up in Edmonds, but that's close enough.

I already miss him. And I know that as time goes by, I'm likely to miss him more. That sucks.

I am glad Kris is at peace now. I am. I really am. BUT. I wish I could go back in time to when we were both younger, spryer. Wish I could buy him a beer, shoot some pool, hear his wry chuckle which always brought a smirk to my face. Wish I'd had a chance to run some AD&D for him before he left this planet. I know he wanted to play with me, but the logistics never worked out these last few years.

*sigh*

Rest in peace, Doc. You were a good friend to me...better than most. That's something.

My Magic (Part 3)

Not much time to blog today (plus, I'd like to get to some other subjects...like the new Dungeons & Dragons film). But, for the sake of completeness, I wanted to add one more installment to this series. I'll keep it short.

Druids. Illusionists. Bards.

The last time a player ran an illusionist in one of my campaigns, I was (maybe) 14 years old. Maybe. I can't even recall any gnome multi-class types. Just a single illusionist...a pre-gen created specifically to try running D1: Descent into the Depths of the Earth.

I have never had a player character druid in any campaign I've run. Ever.

I have an (adult) friend, who really wants to join my game, and wants to play a druid. Unfortunately, he resides on Camano Island and isn't exactly mobile, which means the only way we'd be able to play is via the Zoom or something...which I am loathe to do for a number of reasons. Still, there remains the possibility that I'll see a 1st level druid in my campaign at some point in the near future.

But I have had time to think about it, and my gut reaction is to simply leave druids exactly as written in the PHB. Yes, they must memorize (or "pray for") spells at the beginning of the day, unlike my clerics; however, this "memorization" represents the druid preparing their mistletoe and whatnot (via shamanic/ritual magic) in anticipation of the coming day's events. 

Besides which: I've never seen a druid in my game (didn't I just say that?). So why should I go about "fixing" something that may work perfectly fine?

Illusionists are a...slightly...different matter. I've written extensively about my love for the illusionist class as both a concept AND as originally imagined/designed for the OD&D game by Peter Aronson. As reworked by Gygax for the AD&D system, the spell list for the class is...poor (see prior blog posts here and here, and specific discussions on color spray and phantasmal force). The class, unfortunately, needs a lot of "clean-up."

But how can I say that, when I haven't actually seen a player run and develop an illusionist character over a long-term campaign? How do I know that the class...as printed in the PHB...wasn't reworked specifically due to extensive play-testing and is, in fact, the perfect representation of the class?

How indeed.

I would love to play an illusionist character...if I were playing in the campaign of a DM that I respect and trust. Say, someone like me. I have played illusionists before...on two occasions with different DMs. Both times they were using the Advanced Labyrinth Lord rules (which just means B/X with some AD&D adaptations). Neither game lasted more than a single session, and the character had little opportunity to "stretch its legs." But, then, neither of those games was what I'd call "open worlds;" just dungeons that we were stuck in. You know...typical Basic level play.

[I'm so tired of basic play]

SO...illusionists. Don't really know HOW I'd run them now, because no one wants to play them in my campaign. I do have extensive spell list revisions stored somewhere on my laptop...I'd be tempted to break those out. But probably, I'd just start with the standard rules (if someone wanted to play an illusionist). Probably tack on the same house rules I use for magic-users. Probably. There's a part of me that likes the idea of an illusionist creating more than one phantasmal image in a day...so long as it's not the same image. 

The testing is all in the playing.

And as for bards: welp, since I started my new campaign I haven't seen any of those yet, either...although Diego keeps saying he'd like to play one; he just keeps missing on the ability scores needed. 

Oh, right, forgot to mention: I scrapped the whole single-class bard idea, I posted a while back. The fact is, I've played and run MANY 1st edition bards over the years (eight that I can think of off the top of my head, and not counting pre-gens like Olaf Peacock in Dwellers of the Forbidden City) and, in my experience, the class works fine as written. Would I prefer their magic is a little more "bardic" in nature, rather than druidic? Sure. And perhaps I'll do something about that one day. Like, the next time a PC actually acquires a 1st level bard in my campaign (after first progressing through fighter and thief classes). Until then, I'm not terribly worried about it.

Which, by the by, is also my attitude towards high level rangers and paladins (both of whom receive some spell-casting ability). I've seen a lot of high level fighters over the years; I can't recall ever seeing a ranger over 7th level or a paladin over 3rd. SO...unless and until I do, I'll just run these characters By The Book. 

That's all folks.

: )

Explictica Defilus

I've run N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God a few times over the years...mostly as a B/X adventure (see these ancient posts, if interested) but at least one time as an AD&D adventure in the early 2000s (before this blog was even a "thing"). That was for my buddy, Kris, but we were both pretty drunk if I recall correctly and I'd never even read the thing...I was just trying to run it as best I could while simultaneously skimming it. A very abbreviated session that didn't go anywhere (as one might imagine).

Welp now, as previously mentioned, I'm running it for my kids, per their request. Haven't yet got around to posting my "first level problems" post (eventually, eventually) but one of the things about playing "no-hold-barred" AD&D: characters die. Sometimes all of them. And then you're left scrounging for low-level resources when what you'd ACTUALLY like to be doing is sending them up against frost giants and kuo-toa.

*sigh*

N1, as I've blathered in the past, has a lot going for it. It also has a lot of problems, especially power curve versus low level adventurers of the type for which it's intended. Some of these things it tries to fix on its own (including a 7th level "ringer" NPC wizard to accompany/aid the PCs); some of it are fixed by getting the rules correct (spirit nagas impersonating deities don't grant clerical spells, so converted clerics shouldn't have any). But still, given the scope of the adventure, I'd hardly call it a scenario for "novice" players...more an intermediate (or tougher!) module for experienced players using low-level characters.

Enter the PCs.

"Investigation" is not my kids' strong suit: problem solving, negotiation, ally building, bold action is their more usual modus operandi. N1 expects players to investigate the town and figure out what's going wrong with it. My players are just looking for adventure. It's definitely not the perfect marriage...they aren't curious about "plot" and "backstory" even when such things might provide them with clues or aid in their problem solving. Here's how things have gone down thus far in our play of N1:

Two zero x.p., first level characters...Salamander the elven assassin and Potter the half-elf fighter...enter the town of Coeur D'Alene drawn by rumors of mysterious disappearances and goings on in the community. After gaining rooms at the Slumbering Serpent Inn, inquiries got them directed to the nearby hut of local eccentric Ramne who, while friendly enough, was rather cryptic and tight-lipped in his conversation. Deciding the old hermit was a dead end they decided to explore the town and, finding the prices at the Golden Grain Inn to be more reasonable, shifted base.

At this point, running low on coins after one too many "simple suppers" the PCs were only too happy to partake of innkeeper Bertrem's free drinks, even as they hobnobbed and traded barbs with the greasiest-looking scallywag at the bar (Derek Desleigh, 4th level assassin). Beginning to feel groggy, and suspecting they'd been drugged, Potter retired to their bedroom while Sal went down to the river to soak his head and sober up. He returned to the Golden Grain Inn just before sundown but found his room empty, his traveling companion vanished into thin air!

Rather than investigate further, Sal decided to wait until midnight, when the inn was shut down for the evening...he then crept downstairs and began a search of the empty common room. Picking the lock on the kitchen door led him to a cellar stair that he descended torch in hand and sword drawn. At first, little of interest was discovered, until his elvish senses detected a secret door that led to a hidden room where he found the odious Derek standing guard over a hog-tied and hooded Potter! Combat ensued, and Derek was defeated by sheer dint of luck and tenacity. Potter was released and the assassin's body searched for goodies, but little was found besides the fiend's short sword and dagger, with which the half-elf armed himself.

The stout, barred door in the corner of the hidden room was ignored in favor of the ladder leading to an obvious trapdoor, which Salamander pushed through, sword in hand. The trapdoor gave way to a bedroom, where a sleeping figure was stirring in a large bed. Sal drove his shortsword through the man's belly before he could fully rouse and a lighted candle revealed the fat innkeeper's startled and death-stricken face, his bedsheets now pooling with blood. Searching a nearby armoire and finding nothing save clothes and a scabbarded longsword (which he took), the assassin descended through the trapdoor where he and Potter decided to "play it cool" and hope the authorities blamed the murder on the deceased Derek. They carefully closed up the secret room and made their way back to their own bedroom(!), there to slumber the remainder of the night.

Instead, they were rudely awakened some hours before dawn by scaly hands covering their mouths. Finding themselves assaulted by three troglodytes and a slim, hooded figure, Salamander decided to struggle using the dagger he kept close by. Unfortunately, his aim was poor and the trog was easily able to put the elf in a stranglehold (130# of elf is no match for a 180# reptile man in a wrestling match). The elf's bite was little more than a wasp's sting as the sleeper hold forced him into unconsciousness. Potter, meanwhile, surrendered and allowed himself to be bound and gagged once again.

After this, the captives were marched some 30 miles north and east, through hill and forest, into the swamplands surrounding Lake Pend Oreille. There they were brought to the very lair of the fiend, an island surrounded by muck and murk, the lake waters held back by a dike of mud and bramble and pinewood, a gaping hole in its center revealing wooden plank stairs descending into darkness.

Down, down, down the adventurers were led...down passages carved from wet, swollen earth and wretched mud. Through nightmarish tunnels, over subterranean lakes, past giant toads and snakes and cold-blooded maws of reptilian monsters (and worse) they were paraded till they reached yet another stairway, guarded by the same hateful troglodytes that forced them grimly on, ever deeper into the muddy labyrinth.

Past giant spiders and poisonous centipedes and walking corpses performing mindless routines, with the screams of captives echoing wetly through the muddy halls, they came at last to a huge underground cavern, yet another grotto of unknown origin, its vault held aloft by stone columns covered in a phosphorescent lichen, bathing all in a ghostly green light. A flat-bottomed barge was poled into the water, ferrying both captives and captors to the lone island where the adventurers would confront their destiny.

It was not a long wait. She slithered from the alcove almost at once, disgorging a shower of coins from the hoard of loot and spoils. Enormous in length, hideous in visage, ancient in her evil, Explictica Defilus the reptile god emerged into the ghastly illumination. 

Only an asshole
puts a spirit naga in
a 1st level adventure.

Salamander and Potter could only stand in awed silence as the spirit naga communed with their human captor, receiving a full report of the going ons in the inn, even while the troglodyte servitors emptied a chest of loot (including the characters') onto the ever-expanding pile. Finally, satisfied, the god focused her gaze on each of the adventurers in turn, swaying back and forth as she enslaved them to her will.

"You will replace my servants whom you have slain," she hissed at them in her sibilant tongue. "You shall assume the roles that they played, bringing me more slaves, more tribute, more worshippers to spread my cult. Only through your worship and servitude may you atone for this offense against my divine will. Now pick up your weapons, return to the surface, and do my bidding."  This the PCs hastened to do.

Except that Salamander had made his saving throw with a 17 and still possessed free will.

The elf only pretended to succumb to the naga's permanent charm ability. I guess I screwed up, because I only now remember and realize that both elves and half-elves have resistance to charm (in my defense, the players didn't remember/remind me either) so I'm glad that at least one of the party members made their save. Explictica, perhaps, might not have been fooled by the elf's false worship (she does, after all, have ESP as one of her spells), but a precedent had already been set earlier in the module itself with the person of Derek...the assassin pretending to be a worshipper despite NOT being charmed. So I let it stand...the PC wasn't doing anything to give it away anyway (running, attacking, etc.). 

SO...pretending to worship the naga and doing her will, the assassin slowly gathered his weapons, studying the creature even as he got within sword's reach...and decided to try assassinating the monster!

A surprise roll was made for Explictica, with a roll of "2" indicating complete surprise. Per the PHB, "if [assassins] surprise (q.v.) a victim, they may attack on the ASSASSINATION TABLE...the assassin decides which attack mode he or she will use: assassination, back stabbing, or normal melee combat." Diego (playing Salamander) elected assassination. The chance of a 1st level assassin auto-killing a 9 HD creature is 10%. Diego rolled an 02...monster dead.

Oh my.

Explictica's death ended the charm effect on Misha (the cleric) and Potter, but not the troglodytes (who were understandably upset about the death of their god) and the scene turned into a general melee. However, the party emerged victorious; though not unscathed, all three survived and the trogs were cut down. The cleric, being freed of the naga's baleful influence immediately communed with her goddess, Merikka ('Merica?), and provided needed healing...even as the two PCs set about looting the naga's den. 

We stopped there. The tumult of rejoicing in the house pretty much precluded anything else.

; )

"Story Awards"

[file this under the "bashing someone's edition" category]

Comments on my Wednesday post had me going back and forth a bit with Dan regarding 2nd Edition AD&D and its reward mechanics...so much so that I had to go back to my battered copy of the 2E DMG (I keep one on hand for reference) and try parsing out the system yet again. 

First, a note on my experience with 2E: it ain't much. I quit playing AD&D around 1988 after my original gaming group "broke up." Met some kids in my high school who still played, but A) they continued to play 1E even into the '90s, and B) D&D just wasn't my "scene" any more (at that time). We gamed together, but it was generally Palladium, Vampire, Stormbringer, or something weird (Toon or random shit). Later on, in my 20s and looking to get back into D&D I delved deep into the RC/BECMI realm...and could find no takers. So I decided to buck up and get the 2E books. Ran one aborted game (the group dissolved in argument before we even started) and played in another with an experienced 2E DM...however, while I had fun with the latter the whole thing degenerated into a shit-storm because:

A) we wouldn't play on the DM's rails, and

B) all the PCs had different agendas

[the party consisted of a ranger, a rogue, and a "war-priest" (this latter being a mechanical fighter who fashioned himself the holy man of a god who did not grant spells or turning ability, but instead allowed edged weapons and better combat prowess). The ranger was happy to do whatever (as long as he could shoot guys with arrows), the "priest" wanted to build his religion (asserting dominion over bandit groups and whatnot by besting their leaders and converting them), and the rogue was being played like an old-school thief, picking pockets, sneaking around and stealing shit, etc. The DM eventually threw his hands up at trying to manage us into his adventure]

I own exactly three 2E-era modules, and only one of them have I tried running (as a 1E adventure); two of them I picked up for...um..."research" purposes. We'll get to those in a minute. Point is: not much experience with 2E. Had a buddy in college that wanted to start a 2E campaign (can't remember, but he might have wanted ME to run it. Didn't happen), but that never got off the ground. Still, while I have read the books, once or twice, I'm far from an expert on 2E, nor have I any experience of running or playing in a 2E campaign. Its nuances are bound to escape me.

[oh, wait...I did some SpellJammer stuff with/for Steve-O. That's 2E, right? But that was a loooong time ago; we played far more Rifts than SJ]

Back to yesterday...Dan wrote:

You keep calling Individual XP "standard" when it's specifically called out in the book as an optional rule. Never used it, and never played with any else who used it either.

Dan is correct. On page 46 of the 2E DMG; here is what it says in the Experience Point Awards section:

There are two categories of experience point awards: group and individual. Group awards are divided equally among all members of the adventuring party, regardless of each individual's contribution. The idea here is that simply being part of a group that accomplishes something teaches the player character something useful.

From a strictly game mechanics point of view, this ensures that all player characters will have the opportunity to advance in experience points at roughly the same rate. Individual awards are optional, given to each player based on the actions of his character and his character's class.

Emphasis added by moi. This is the only place where it is noted that class XP awards are optional...it is NOT noted on page 48 (where the class awards are listed), although there is a side bar regarding individual awards for clever ideas, role-playing, encouragement of others, etc. that is EXPLICITLY noted as being an "optional rule." When you list one "optional rule" in a sidebar to another section, I think you can be forgiven for making my mistake (especially when the section text begins with "there are two categories of XP awards: group and individual..."). Ah, well. 

[I will note my one stint playing in someone's 2E game, these individual awards were NOT deemed optional, which was part of what led to our breakdown in play: fighter was trying to fight, thief was trying steal, etc. Does not make for a cooperative atmosphere]

SO there are only two ACTUAL, non-optional XP awards in 2E: combat awards (hello 3E, 4E, and 5E!) and story awards. Combat awards are strictly mechanical: there's a table based on a defeated opponent's level/HD which is modified by special abilities...very similar to all prior editions of D&D. The "story award" is different; here's what the text says:

This other group award is that earned for the completion of an adventure. This award is determined by the DM, based on the adventure's difficulty. There is no formula to determine the size of this award, since too many variable come into play. However, the following guidelines may help:

The story award should not be greater than the experience points that can be earned defeating the monsters encountered during the adventure...

The story award should give a character no more than 1/10th the experience points he needs to advance a level...

Within these guidelines you have a great deal of leeway. 

There is more to the section but it offers nothing concrete, only discussing how XP is used to monitor (and regulate) character progress, some notes about handing out arbitrary "survival" awards (properly noting "survival is its own reward"), and penalizing XP earned by PCs that died during an adventure.

What isn't discussed is...well, a lot. Like the fact that different character classes require different XP amounts to level so that "one-tenth" limitation isn't going to apply equally among classes. Nor is there a discussion of what constitutes a "story" or its "completion" or what to do when the party deviates from what the DM feels is the story proper.

[is Bilbo's story about killing a dragon or is it about stealing some gold from its hoard or is it about finding self-reliance, courage, and leadership? And is his story the same as the Thorin's?]

So, I spent the morning digging through the closet in my office (a monumental feat if you've never seen it) to find the three 2E adventures I own for a little guidance on this whole "story award" thing; they are: Return to the Keep on the Borderlands (John Rateliff), Return to White Plume Mountain (Bruce Cordell), and Night Below: an Underdark Campaign (Carl Sargent). Hoo-boy!

As I noted back in 2017, Rateliff in RtKotB strongly urges DMs to use the "optional" (old edition) mechanic of giving XP for treasure found. This in addition to "any appropriate story awards." Regarding the latter Rateliff writes:

Appropriate story awards are listed at various points in the text; generally speaking, rescuing hostages, defeating the plans of evil characters, and eliminating a threat to the Keep are all achievements worthy of experience point awards. For each cave in the Caves of Chaos that is completely cleaned out, give the group a story award. 

He then lists some actual numbers: 100 XP for Caves A through E, 200 XP for Caves F, G, H, and J, and 300 XP for Caves I and K. 

These story awards are in addition to any experience points gained in actually exploring said cave [note: Rateliff's emphasis, not mine]. When the adventure deviates from the established script [??], extrapolate the story awards listed in the text to come up with appropriate awards for your player characters.

Okay, then. What story awards are actually listed in the text? Nothing. There are none. Good work, Rateliff.

[please feel free to point out any I missed. I read/skimmed the book twice today and found nothing]

Okay, so: "completing the adventure" equals "genocide." Or something. I see why he "strongly urges" DMs to use the old x.p. for gold system. Moving right along...

Cordell's Return to White Plume Mountain is the adventure I have (years ago) tried running with 1st edition rules; it didn't go very far, but I am familiar with it. Cordell's a pro's pro and explicitly lists the (2E) XP Awards in a prominent section at the end of the adventure:

The characters may be eligible for additional experience points based on their actions. Each character actively involved in ending the threat of the False Kerapti should receive an XP story-award of 1,000 times his or her level. If the heroes save the child-Keraptis from the shade of the vengeance, each receives an additional 2,000 XP. If they refuse to give the child-Keraptis up to the Resistance (the easy way out), but instead find a good and proper foster home for him, award each PC an additional 3,000 XP. 

Well, that's all pretty cut-n-dry right? Defeat the bad guys, save the kid, and get him to a good home and you can earn 12,000 to 15,000 XP (the adventure is for characters 7th - 10th level). Which is a bit outside the one-tenth guideline limit for story awards, but it's close (unless you're playing a rogue).

What's NOT cool, though is this: you've got a fairly brutal, 80+ encounter dungeon with a "hook" that has NOTHING to do with defeating "false Kerapti" or "saving a [special special] child." The (multiple) hooks boil down to:

• Retrieving a stolen magic weapon (yours or someone else's)
• Rescuing an old friend
• Investigating "rumors of evil"
• Curiosity (anything in that-there mountain?)

Screw. You. Cordell.

SO, assuming you're running the adventure straight AND you're not using any optional rules AND your DM isn't telegraphing the plot like a madman (i.e. railroading, etc.) THEN the only x.p. you could potentially end up with is from the monsters you fight? What does that encourage PCs to do?

I *thought* (briefly) that perhaps "story XP" would be awarded for recovering the various magical weapons. I mean, that's one of the main hooks for the adventure (go find Wave). And look here! Each of the magic weapons lists an "XP Value" with its description. That must be what it's for, right?

No. ALL magic items in 2E have an XP Value. But I thought 2E didn't award XP for finding treasure. It doesn't:

Note: XP Value is the number of experience points a character gets for making an item.

[DMG2E, page 135]

Remember those "optional" individual XP awards? Right. Wizards (optionally) earn XP for enchanting items. If your 2E wizard makes Blackrazor (and the DM is using the optional individual awards), you character will get 8,000 XP. Yay...fun D&D, that.

SO...we go on this cool adventure...that has a hidden goal/objective. We spend multiple sessions exploring its multiple levels of danger. We maybe NEVER accomplish the "hidden" story award of the thing. But as long as we're fighting and killing everything we encounter, we'll earn experience towards leveling. 

Great. Plowing ahead...

Big Fat Adventure

Night Below! This book is massive. I ordered it POD off DriveThru sometime back, and it's a couple hundreds of pages (not counting dozens of maps). Originally a three-book boxed set, it is considered one of the finest offerings of the 2E era (here's a review); it is an ENTIRE CAMPAIGN designed to take PCs "from 1st level to 10th level and beyond." Check this part out (from page 9 of the introductory chapter):

Earned XP

This campaign assumes that characters gain XP for monetary treasure, at the rate of 1 XP for each gp value of the treasure. DMs not wishing to employ this optional rule should increase XP story awards to compensate, ensuring that the PCs advance at a sufficient rate to meet the challenges of the adventure. Playtesting shows that to maintain campaign balance, PCs should earn some 60% of XP from sources other than slaying monsters.

Oh, 2E.  When it comes to XP for treasure, 2E says "I just can't quit you."

Night Below offers an interesting sub-system called Social Collapse Points (SCPs) that PCs earn as they destabilize the evil subterranean societies, and succeeding at bringing about this collapse does earn the characters bonus XP in the thousands, but almost all of the things that earn SCPs are either slaying monsters or destroying/vandalizing property. But that's part of the "story awards" for Book 2 of the campaign (that section effectively ends once collapse had been achieved). The story awards I could thus find include:

• 1,000 XP for concluding Book 1 IF the PCs can wipe out the bad guys in a single foray.
• 5,000 XP for earning 50 SCPs in Book 2
• 5,000 XP for earning 100 SCP's in Book 2
• 100,000 XP for destroying the ultimate Big Bad in Book3

But there IS a lot of treasure in Night Below....though probably not enough, considering the lack of XP awarded for magic items in 2E.

Hey, folks. I know the following thought is probably going to be met with some ire, but I'm going to post it anyway. In my last post, with regard to "story awards," Dan wrote:

I have no idea where you get the idea that this discourage self-starters. An adventure is an adventure, regardless of whether the DM lays it out on a platter or the PCs choose it themselves. Finding a goblin lair in the wilderness and looting it is a completed adventure just as much as slogging through a boring Dragonlance module is. I have never run a game with XP for treasure in my life, and player engagement has never been a problem.

How does one define adventure? In B/X, it is a single game session; does this hold true for 2E? If not, where is the adventure's beginning? Where is its end? Who says when it's over? The DM? In a B/X or 1E game, PCs can beg off at any time...because they don't like the scenario, the risk versus reward, whatever. But this idea that a "story" must be "completed" is a shitty, shitty concept.

What it SOUNDS like...and please disabuse me if this is wrong...is that 2E advancement is, at its simplest, just "combat experience multiplied by two." That is, you get experience points for defeating opponents, and then you get the same experience ("x.p. equal to defeated opponents") whenever the adventure is considered to be "done." Which...well, that's just 3E again, but with a different formula for calculating it, no?

Am I mistaken?

I want to continue this discussion (somewhat) in my next post, but it won't be about 2E specifically. In an effort to be constructive, I'm going to talk about the positive aspects of 1E's reward system.

Have a good weekend, folks.

: )

Whimsy

Weird dreams this morning, right before waking: was watching "young people" (late teens, early twenties) live their lives in small towns. Places like you find in central and eastern Washington: Ritzville, Winthrope, Leavenworth, Cle Elum maybe. Having fun with each other but mainly complaining about where they lived and how they wanted to get out or get back (to college, presumably) to somewhere more interesting. "The deadest part of my week has been my time spent here, except for my shift" one girl complained to her friends as they worked the kitchen of some eatery...maybe a summer job, earning money off the city tourists traveling to Chelan (or wherever) to get away from their rat-race life.

I've never lived in a small town. I've visited them often enough, seen them in film (of course), had friends and relatives who lived in or were from small towns. I have no idea what it's really like (and, of course, each town is different) and my views are surely biased by the folks I've talked to who wanted to get away...obviously, small towns continue to exist and have (small) populations so SOME people enjoy living there. Other people were not made for (or meant for) the life into which they were born. My mother wasn't...she moved to "the big city" (Seattle) from Missoula when she was 18. Neither was my wife, who escaped via travel (as an exchange student) multiple times before she met me.

Me, I was meant for the town I live in. Oh, I don't always feel that way...there are plenty of times when I find Seattlites to be annoying as hell, and understand why some parts of the country hate our particular piece of the American pie. I get it, and I sometimes feel like a man out of place, even here. The concerns some folks have (which aren't real concerns) or their approach to concerns I share, or their attitude towards...oh, any number of things. Stupid, stupid Seattle. And, no, it's not just the transplants from other parts of the country (we've had a lot of those the last 30 years)...there was stupid here even since my youth. I've had a few good friends, living here, and they've been evenly divided between "natives" (like myself) and "newbies" (people who moved here less than 25 years ago). 

[if you're not a native, but have lived here more than 25 years, you're simply considered a "local"]

Thank goodness for the internet where I have been able to interact with many more like-minded people. I assume they're "like-minded" because the only thing I have access to IS their mind: their thoughts spilling out on pages and blog posts just as mine do. Sure, it's possible that some are lying or crazy or whatnot ("Mama, we ALL crayzee here") but most of what I read tends to have a good measure of "soul baring," making for a decent window into someone's brain. Beware the persons unwilling to discuss their personal connections to the material they're discussing!

One gamer dude blog I've been reading a lot of recently (the last year or three...tough to keep track of that kind o thing) has been Prince of Nothing over at Age of Dusk. I like Prince's writing, I enjoy his (rather dark) sense of humor, I appreciate (much of) his stance with regard to gaming. Based on several strong reviews, I picked up print copies of his adventures The Red Prophet Rises and The Palace of Unquiet Repose. 

Eh.

I am weary. I am old. I am curmudgeonly. Know This O Prince, and take what I have to say with a grain of salt: I will probably not be running these adventures. 

I understand that I am technically a part of "the OSR" or whatever, but these days that's about as meaningful as saying "I'm into tabletop role-playing games." The OSR is a very large pond...as is Dungeons & Dragons!...and I am but a single fish circling a particular piece of the shoreline (I won't carry the analogy any farther, because it will get weird). My type of "old school gaming" is different from what so many people are doing these days...it's just...*sigh* how to explain? How to explain in a way that's helpful? Helpful to those few fish swimming in my part of the pond?

About 20-some years ago, my buddy Kris, AKA "The Doctor" (he is not a doctor) gave me an adventure he penned (typed); it sits next to me as I type this. It's in a blue folder with those metal bendy thingys used to hold three-punched notebook paper. In small, black letters on the cover are the words Black Rock Island. The cover page calls it The Dungeon of Black Rock Island, and notes that it is: "an Adventure for 1st edition AD&D; 5-6 characters level 8-10." The first paragraph before launching into the adventure proper says:

BACKGROUND:

You have come to the city of Appleton, on the shores of the Sea of Serenity. You have come together in one way or another, be you long time friends or having just met somewhere along the paths that brought you all here. It is springtime and the time is ripe for adventure. This is good because the fair is in town this week. Fun and frolic for one and all. And just the place to get caught up in a tale you will all tell your grandchildren about some day...

The Doc was no great shakes as a writer. He was born and raised in Edmonds, just north of Shoreline (which used to be "unincorporated Seattle," back when I was growing up). He got through high school and spent his adult working life as a cook in various restaurants. He was a metalhead and a hell of a guitarist, but never did the "band thing" so far as I know (we would jam sometimes). He enjoyed smoking weed and drinking beer, drawing and painting. We shot a lot of pool together. In his mid-20s he "became" (was diagnosed) bi-polar manic-depressive after witnessing a traumatic event (someone being stabbed in a parking lot behind the restaurant he worked at). He got on medication, and then SSI, and soon became unable to work. He's bopped around a bit the last 20 years (living with various siblings and halfway homes since his parents died); the last time I saw him in person, he looked about 78 years old (he's two years older than me)...he'd lost all his teeth (had a hard time talking), his hands had some sort of palsy that prevented him from playing music or painting; overweight, bald, crooked posture, waiting to die.

I met the Doc circa 1997 and we gamed more than a few times together: usually AD&D, but also 2E a couple times, Vampire, Maelstrom (Story Engine), Top Secret, as well as my entire stint with 3E (we both became disgusted with it about the same time). I did some of my first "on-line" gaming with him (both PBEM and in chat rooms...no cameras back then). After he moved away from the area (too expensive) we still kept in touch (not gaming, though) until I moved to Paraguay, though I can reach him on Facebook (just messaged with him yesterday, in fact). Despite our vast differences as individuals, we are kindred spirits. Knowing him as I do, I think he might actually HATE the stuff Prince has written:

4. Rodeo

This area is 120 yards X 80 yards. It is completely fenced off and the center if filled with loose dirt. As you approach, you hear a man's voice calling out, "WIN 500 GOLD - RIDE THE WILD IGUANADON - WIN 500 GOLD!!!" At one end of the ring is indeed an iguanadon. It's mouth is roped shut and it's claws are covered with some kind of leather gloves. There is a small, crude saddle on its back and you can see even from this distance that it is stained with blood.

Kris's adventure design exhibits the "box text" style prevalent in 1980s D&D modules, but it is mercifully short in most places. Since he couldn't make actual boxes for the text, each entry uses black ink for the read aloud bit and follows with red ink for the stats and DM information. All encounter areas correspond to a number on the map. Here's an example (I'll use italics instead of red font):

9. Milo's Amazing Flying Machine

There is a small lineup of about 20 people waiting to board. A smiling Halfling, apparently Milo, waves people to come aboard. He shouts, "Come one, come all! Men, women, and children! Take a ride on my fantastic flying ship! Right this way now!"

If questioned about the function of the ship or where he came across it, Milo will tell the party it was passed down from his grandfather, Olnick Featherstram, who was a great sailor and explorer The ship was discovered on one of his many fantastic voyages. He's not sure how the enchantment works, but he does know how to sail it. If pressed further for details on the origin of the ship, Milo will simply say that, "It was a long time ago that my grandfather discovered this ship and I'm really not sure how it was that he came across it."

There's no excessive backstory for the adventure; a list of rumors can be heard if the PCs visit the food area of the fairgrounds. Most encounters help funnel the party to take a ride on the airship, which will be attacked by an evil wizard and his fire newt henchmen riding a giant flying whale. Assuming the party survives the attack, the ship will be forced to crash land on Black Rock Island, the abode of the said evil wizard (and his gnome assassin henchman!). The whole adventure is delightfully whimsical: magic statues ask riddles and spray poison if answered incorrectly. The gnome has a maze on dungeon level 2 that he likes to stalk PCs in (reminiscent of Enter the Dragon or Man with the Golden Gun). Xorns that demand silver. A dragon turtle on level three lives in a giant fishbowl, complete with miniature castle (answering the creature's riddle correctly allows party's to raise the portcullis and find the treasure inside...if they can breathe water). Down three long flights of stairs, in its own sub-level, a Type V demon waits in the middle of its large chamber, described as follows:

44a. Type V Demon

The walls and floor of this room are smeared with blood. And a crude pentagram has been drawn in blood, covering the floor. It is dimly illuminated by four candelabras, one in each corner of the room. There is a dark crevasse in the wall on the other side of the room. Suddenly, there is a flash and a Type V Demon appears in the center of the room. She attacks you on sight.

Type V Demon (AC -7/-5, move 12", HD 7+7, hp 62...

I love this entry. I love that it offers no information whatsoever why a Type V demon is here...players don't care anyway, they're just going to attack, so why bother (probably it was summoned by the wizard using a cacodaemon spell and HE still hasn't decided what to do with her). I love that the read aloud simply says "a Type V Demon appears;" this is an AD&D adventure written circa 2000 or 2001...everyone who's playing this knows what the hell a Type V demon is (and if not, you can show the players the MM illustration; the page number is listed in the monster's stat block). The PCs are supposed to be 8th to 10th level, after all. 

There's no treasure with the Type V demon...the crack in the wall leads to a small cave where the party will find the dismembered body of Appleton's mayor, Regis Fane Wellington III. But there IS treasure to be found in the dungeon: hundreds of thousands, squirreled away in various areas (and not a small amount of magical treasure, too) as befits an adventure for characters of the suggested level. 

No, it's not great "design" or high concept stuff. But it's both fun and dangerous. And rewarding, too, not just for looting (little x.p, bonuses abound, like the critically injured passengers of the crashed airship who will die off on a daily basis...the party can earn 1,000 x.p. for each one saved). It's an adventure that's written to be played in the style that Kris and I grew up playing. It's meant to be experienced as a game, in-play.

This sense of whimsy and playability isn't present in a lot of the newer OSR stuff...even the good stuff, the well-written stuff with an eye towards usability and design. Prince's stuff is plenty moody and evocative, but there's a lot of "awful" in it. Not awful writing or design, but just awfulness. His world is grim and perilous and dark and everything sucks and is awful and if the players are winning they're still probably losing because it feels like everything in this world is shitty and it's only a matter of time before you get stabbed in the back or robbed or lose your soul to some demonic purpose. That's not my kind of escapism...that kind of thing should potentially happen in the game, but it shouldn't be inevitable. 

Do folks grok me? I LIKE swords & sorcery of the darker variety...I just ordered two Elric hardcover graphic novels last week! I'm a fan of Karl Wagner's Kane. I read post-apocalyptic fiction which almost never has anything like a "happy" ending. But...dammit! Elric still searches for his happy ending, even if he continually makes incredibly poor choices, dooming himself...his destruction is caused by his own hubris, not some inevitability of doom and gloom! 

It's like folks can't get over the whole "killing monsters for money" thing. These people must all be assholes, living in an asshole world, because only assholes murder people and take their stuff. Yeah, that's true...IN REAL LIFE! It's like people keep forgetting this is a game with talking dragons and evil faeries (goblins) and shit. Oh, the humanity of our orcish brethren! Not to mention the grell lurking in the corner.

[Black Rock Island DOES have an encounter with a grell. It has no treasure]

Maybe this is part of why I keep coming back to Dragonlance. Dragonlance is stupid, pretentious (at times), poorly designed (for its game), and inconsistently written. But it still has whimsy to it (more so in the original novels)...it's not a true post-apocalyptic fantasy...it's "post-apocalypse lite." It's D&D...when the PCs meet some hobgoblins on the road, they talk to them before the (probably inevitable) bloodletting by the side of the road.  In the novel, the talking is nice and civilized; after the combat, the victorious PCs are fairly gleeful at the murders they've just committed. This kind of thing, for me, harkens back to an Alexander Dumas tale: the musketeers are all fine and dandy exchanging barbs and witticisms (i.e. communicating), and just as easy at dealing death (with nary a sign of remorse). It's adventure fiction. D&D is adventure fiction that you get to play. 

Game of Thrones isn't adventure fiction (it ain't historical fiction either); it's blood opera and sadness and awfulness. There's neither whimsy nor adventure nor fun to be found in the books I've read (I've only read the first couple). It doesn't work as D&D, though maybe it'd be okay as re-skinned fantasy melodrama like Pendragon. I wouldn't know because, in the end, it's not really my cup o tea for longterm play (nor that of my "kindred spirit" gamers). 

But I'm hopelessly obtuse; hopelessly behind the times. I've watched Big Trouble in Little China a couple dozen times over the years, and it was only yesterday (not watching it) that I thought about the fact that, hey! Those people they rescue from the bamboo cages when they're freeing Margot and have that fight when the ninja chicks on the bridge and whatnot? Most of those people were victims of human trafficking, destined to be involuntarily addicted to heroin and forced into prostitution! That's like incredibly creepy, shitty awful stuff, that I completely ignored in my mind for decades! As I said, I am hopelessly obtuse...but if my mind didn't once consider "who are these people the protagonists are breaking out of cages" it's because I was so caught up in the story being told by director...not one of oppression and slavery and humanity's awfulness towards each other, but gleeful adventure fiction. Delightfully whimsical. 

Anyway. This is what I've been thinking about since yesterday. Saturday was a delightful day: sunny and beautiful. Got to watch my kid's last soccer game in the morning (followed by a pizza party), then watched him play Little League ball in the afternoon (I love watching Little League...it's the Bad News Bears out there, every day, every team), before ordering pizza (again) for dinner. Couple cold beers to wash it down with followed by the Mariners clawing their way back to .500 (that's not going to last) and then early to bed (for me) to sleep off the second vaccination dose I got administered at 7:45am. I feel good today, even though I'm about out of coffee...but I'll make another pot as soon as I finish posting this. 

Whimsy. It ain't so bad one or two days a week. And how often per week do you get to play D&D?

A Hard Look At Thieves

I've written quite a bit about thieves over the years; this will be my 24th post with the "thief" tag.

While trying to put my thoughts on the character in order this morning, I asked my nine year old to give me his thoughts on the thief class. How do you feel about it?

"Overrated," was the reply. I asked him to elaborate.

"Even though thief can open locks and such, he's going to get killed." He said. "Especially in OD&D, he's just too weak in combat to survive; he doesn't get to use bows, he's forced to fight in leather armor, and even his chances of being sneaky aren't very good."

He went on: "In B/X the thief is a little better, because he can use bows and his dexterity gives him a bonus to his armor class. But you don't give DEX bonuses in OD&D and leather armor isn't good enough. They have useful abilities like climbing walls and stuff, but they're killed too easily."

What about his ability to backstab? "Well, there is THAT, but you need a couple beefy fighters in your party to distract the monsters so you can sneak around and get him from behind." You couldn't sneak up on someone? "Well, your percentage is really bad especially at low level. If I was going to take a thief to, say, the Tomb of Horrors, I'd want to be at least 6th level. At least! Then I could go armed with a sword and daggers."

So if you were to rank your class preferences, where would the thief land? "Hmm...top of the bottom." Out of four classes? "Oh, you're not talking about elves and dwarf classes? Well, if it's just the basic four [cleric, fighter, magic-user, thief] he comes in at #4 (last place) in OD&D, and maybe tied with cleric or slightly better than cleric in B/X." Clerics are worse? "Well, in B/X they don't get a spell at first level, and it's really tough that they can't use bows and arrows." That's the same in OD&D. "Yeah, but in B/X thieves get the DEX bonus and they can use bows." Oh, right, I see. And thieves need to use bows because they're kind of weak with bad armor? "Yeah, unless you're in one of Sofia's dungeons, because then you can talk your way out of fights with monsters and still get millions of gold pieces." Okay.

So is it worth having a thief in an adventuring party? "Yes, so long as they have fighters for protection. Then you can use them for other tactics." Tactics? "Like picking locks. But they need protection." Picking locks is useful? "Yeah, and fighters can't do it. Well, maybe they could, but they'd have a lot harder time. They don't have the right equipment or skills." Okay, thanks.

No mention was made of traps or hearing noise in this conversation.

As I mentioned (briefly, in passing) in my last post, I haven't actually implemented thieves in my OD&D game...if you were to read my compiled/cleaned up copy of Book 1, you would find no mention of a "thief" class. My son's inferences of the "weakness" of the OD&D thief come from (I believe) my OD&D rules (like the lack of ability score bonuses) and discussions of different weapon proficiencies in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons...the OD&D thief presented in Greyhawk appears to have the same proficiencies as the B/X thief (i.e. no restrictions on weapon use at all).

Anyway...I wanted my son's input before writing this because...well, because I appreciate his opinion on the subject. I understand that the D&D thief is/was an iconic character class for DECADES (only supplanted by the "rogue" archetype in modern versions of the game). But much as I've worked with it and used it over the years (24 posts!), I dislike the thief for a number of reasons:

- A skill set that dividing the party: picking pockets and "backstabbing" encourage PVP play. Moving silently requires the PC to be alone in her sneaking. Hiding in shadows requires the thief to be left behind (no movement) to be effective.
- An alignment restriction that might be at odds with other party members (if Paladins can't adventure with non-Lawfuls, and thieves cannot be Lawful, well...).
- Low survival rating (as pointed out by my son) without adjusting hit points and/or increasing attribute bonuses.
- As written (in OD&D and AD&D), providing demi-humans with a means of unlimited leveling, moving the game away from being humancentric by taking away one of the unique abilities of humans (the only species allowed unlimited leveling).
- Emphasizing mechanical "traps" in dungeon exploration, in order to give the thief a way to earn her keep. How many strongboxes really need poisoned needles?
- In OD&D: implies something strange with regard to the thief's (1d4) hit dice: that humans are weaker than originally modeled (1d6 hit points). I can take a magic-user's lowered survival ability being related to the pasty, sedentary lifestyle of an academic (or the corruption and body wracking toll of learning sorcery). Why d4s for thieves? Vice and (medieval) city living? Okay...but then that concerns ALL folks living in the squalor of King's Landing (or its equivalent).
- Thieves Guilds as required institutions.
- Lock picks on the normal equipment list.
- Combat considerations (backstabbing) that adds an element of tactical detail to what should be the abstract, chaotic swirl of melee. Extra justification required to explain just how backstabbing works with a number of monster types (slimes, golems, undead, beholders, dragons, giants, etc.) or else the inevitable restriction/nerfing of the class's beefiest attack form.
- Unique abilities (skills) that are so ineffective at low level as to discourage use.
- The ability to "read magic" without a spell or read and understand languages that the character doesn't know like some sort of super-linguist.

All that being said...

I could work with most of this. I have worked with most of this throughout my decades of playing D&D. And for many years I haven't had to do much with it because thieves are so garbage no one wants to play them...

[there are a lot of exceptions to this last. AD&D players with demi-humans always worked thieves into their multi-class mix. A level or five of "rogue" was often taken in my 3E days (both by myself and others). I've played thieves on more than one occasion, including a Nehwon based B/X convention game that included ONLY thieves and fighters. And my old friends Kris and Jason were notorious for ONLY playing thieves in D&D games]

I dislike that all thieves have the same skill sets, all progressing at the same increments. And yet I dislike EVEN MORE the idea of implementing a "skill system" to the D&D game.

I dislike thieves. I dislike them a lot.

The OD&D game has a character type that finds traps: the dwarf. The OD&D game has a stealthy character type: the halfling. The OD&D game has a character type that reads old, dead languages on maps: the magic-user (with the proper spell). The OD&D game has a character type that "hears noise" well: demi-humans. Does the game need to combine all these abilities in a single package?

What happened to having a party of multiple individuals contributing their individual skills, being forced to rely upon one another?

I think...I think that instead of including a "thief" class, I'd prefer to include a list of "adventuring skills" that player characters could choose from. Maybe someone is adept at free-climbing. Maybe someone is good at setting (and disarming) small traps. Etc. Characters could take a number of these skills based on their intelligence score (learning one such skill in place of a language they might otherwise know).

Maybe I'll include other skills like tracking, woodcraft, and herb lore (for healing).

I wouldn't tie success chances to level...skills would be either you have it or not. Climb sheer walls with 90% ability (penalties if doing it in windy, rainy, or snow conditions)...or whatever. Some players could build their own thief, mixing and matching the skills they want. Perhaps a magic-user was a street conjurer and pickpocket prior to her apprenticeship. Perhaps a fighter is skilled at commando-like stealth, having been a scout for the army. Whatever.

We've been playing OD&D without thieves for a while now, and I really don't miss the class. As a DM, I like having a character type that can pickpocket and backstab, but I don't like seeing it in my players' adventuring party (not in a "dedicated-to-this-way-of-life" type of fashion). My players haven't missed the class or complained about its absence. But they might appreciate adding an extra distinction to their character.

Yeah, thieves. I'm kind of done with them.

Childish Things

Saturday night I managed to lose my wallet, which is at least as embarrassing as it is inconvenient. There's little in it that couldn't be replaced (aside from the punch cards for my local bierhaus), but still...it's a pain in the ass.

One of the major ways it's a pain is the hindrance to my ability to drive. Oh, I could still drive (one needs a vehicle to drive, after all, not a license), but I just replaced one tail light bulb and I know it's only a matter of time before the other needs a similar treatment...and do I really want to risk getting pulled over for something silly and getting a giant ticket for not having a license on me?

No. I have better ways to spend my money.

Unfortunately, Department of Licensing offices are few and far between these days (government cutbacks), and they're closed on Sundays. And also, apparently, on Mondays (did I mention government cutbacks?). You can get a temporary license on-line (and print it at home)...but you need a bank card to do so. And my bank card was in my wallet.

*sigh*

So, I'm on bicycle, at least till tomorrow. Which is fine, probably good for me (I have a trailer to haul my kids to and from school, so no worries there). I've been biking a LOT lately, something I haven't really done since high school. The wife was in town the last three weeks and her office was doing some sort of "bike month" contest, which (because she's my wife) she was ultra-competitive about winning. We ended up riding nearly 16 miles yesterday before she hopped on a plane for South America.

My "car" this week.

Like I said, it's probably good for me. My muscle tone's been coming back, though that's at least in part due to changes I've made to my diet. Well, not today...this morning I'm down at the Baranof eating biscuits and gravy and hash browns and eggs and bacon (hey, I'll be biking later!). But MOSTLY I've been trying to eat more grains and raw vegetables and less of the crap that I usually do.

[still drinking too much, though. Exhibit A: misplaced wallet]

Spending a lot of time on my bike means firing up old muscle memories and, of course, that means waxing nostalgic about gaming, especially Dungeons & Dragons. Back when I used my bike as my main mode of transportation, the places I was going were (usually) gaming related: I was going to my friends' houses (to game) or we were riding to and from school (talking about our games) or we were riding to some book store or other (to buy games and game-related product). And just humming along at a leisurely pace, my mind drifts into imaginative brainstorming, thinking about things I'd like to do in-game...

But even if that wasn't enough to (naturally) get me thinking about D&D, it doesn't hurt that the dude who owns the local bike shop (where we picked up some fittings for our bikes) is a big ol' D&D player/DM and hangs out with other D&D DMs (at the shop) shooting the breeze about the hobby. This is all news to me, though totally unsurprising. The D&D hobby seems to enjoy a healthy following in the Greenwood 'hood, even though I've never before made the acquaintance of any of these people. I am either incredibly anti-social or incredibly self-involved. Probably both.

Anyway, had a decent conversation with these folks in passing though (as usual) I spent more time simply asking questions and listening and zero time expounding on my thoughts on the game (don't like to scare people). Interesting tidbits: these guys have played for looooong periods of time. They run separate games (they're not all in the same group). They have kids the same age (or a little older) than mine and have recently been introducing youngsters to the game (at the request of others). For this, they're using 5E, though with heavy edits ("cuts") due to accessibility/teaching issues.

[asked about older editions, one guy said his preferred edition was "3.5" but felt that was waaaay out of reach for most kids...or adults. The other guy joked he'd wanted to make his kids play through every edition of D&D in chronological order, starting at 0E. I'm not sure that's a terrible idea, actually...]

These things, these thoughts, have made me wonder what ever happened to the gaming companions of my youth. I mean, I know where they are (Facebook, yeah?) and a bit about their lives: spouses, kids, jobs, etc. But have they really quit gaming? Have they found other creative outlets for their imaginations? Or has that part of themselves really just withered and died over the last several decades?

It hasn't for me, though Lord knows why not. Even when I'm not gaming, I'm thinking about gaming (or how things relate...or how they could relate...to gaming). I think my parents assumed I'd "grow out of it" (my father probably thinks I did...). My non-gamer wife hoped I'd give it up sometime, though I think she's resigned herself to my hobby at this point.

[gaming is my "porn"...sneaking old editions into the house or looking at PDFs when she's not around or using my book profits as a "slush fund" for buying game product without leaving a paper trail in our bank records. Sorry, sweetie. I'm not dishonest with my wife, but Scorpios have secrets (as she well knows, being one herself)]

'Course it might just be that I've had too easy a life. My old buddy Kris ("the Doctor" or "Doc," as I like to call him) has returned to Seattle after living down in Oregon for nearly two decades. Visited him the other day, and man, he is doing awful. Looks to be in his mid-70s despite being only a couple years older than me. Has a hard time talking because his dentures are all broken; has a hard time moving because his back is all screwed up. He's been on Social Security Disability for the last 25 years and the pills he takes for his bi-polar disorder have him all fucked up...can't use his hands anymore to paint or play guitar (and he used to be badass at both). His parents are dead, he has no one who can look after him, he was homeless in Oregon for a couple years and he's now living with MY fucked up brother in a house owned by our mutual friend who's fallen back into his heroin addiction. Just a f'd up mess. And he hates it. Hates it. But what can he do? You can't find a place to rent in Seattle for the $500 month he has in housing allowance.

Another old gaming buddy of mine (this one from high school) has just decided to move east of the mountains, where the cost of living is 40% of Seattle. That's understandable enough...except that the guy was born and raised in the heart of this town and has lived here his whole life (with the exception of his time at University of Chicago). But despite being untethered to a family or mortgage, he just can't make it here (i.e. survive) as an artist...and art is his raison d'être.

Maybe if I lived in a "survival mode" of scrambling just to feed and shelter myself I'd have zero time for gaming. Maybe...though I suspect I'd need the solace of escapism that gaming provides even more than I already do. Maybe I'm just an asshole.

All right...this is a weird, wandering post that doesn't seem to have much point, so I think I'm going to cut it off. I've got a couple half-finished drafts on the old blogger that'll probably make more sense; I'll try to get them finished and posted over the next couple days. When I'm not busy biking and whatnot.

Later, Gators.

RPGaDAY 2017 #9

From the #RPGaDAY2017 challenge (info here):

[as I'm starting this thing a little late, I shall be doubling up on my daily posts until I catch up. Early posts will be post-dated to the date they were originally supposed to appear]

What is a good RPG to play for about 10 sessions?

Ten sessions? That's a tough one. And it depends on a lot of factors: how long are these sessions we're talking about? Short, two hour sessions? Or those eight hour marathons sessions we used to play on the weekends in our youth?

Do the ten sessions include prep between sessions? Are we allowed pre- and post-game maintenance phases a la Ars Magica or Pendragon? Are players familiar with the system that's being played? Is this one of those games where you have to kill an entire session just to create characters for the game?

There are a lot of games that can be adapted to this kind of "mini-series" format, but they won't always provide satisfying gameplay. Some RPGs, like Dungeons & Dragons, only show their true strengths over long-term play. Some RPGs, like Ron Edward's Sorcerer, can't be drawn out past three or four sessions without feeling contrived and over-long. Even Call of Cthulhu begs for a shorter time period...if half the group isn't insane after five or six sessions, your GM isn't doing it right.

However, tough as it is, JB does have an answer that satisfies...at least if it was ME that had to run a ten (and only ten) game session. And that answer is The Hunters Hunted from White Wolf.

No, I don't mean that big orange monstrosity they put out in 1999; that was Hunter: the Reckoning, and it helped make a game line (World of Darkness) that was already a little too super heroic even more so (to my chagrin as a fan). In fact, even though I stopped insanely collecting every WW book and supplement about the time of the original Wraith ("the Oblivion") it was the publication of Hunter: the Reckoning which caused me to turn my back on the whole WoD game line (I had still been picking up the occasional Black Dog imprint for Vampire). Ugly.

Nope, I'm talking about the original VtM supplement written by Bill Bridges and published in 1992. At under 90 pages it provided pretty much everything you needed to create and run a Hunter campaign, in the classic vampire horror story style (think Fright Night, Salem's Lot, Bram Stoker, etc.). It's quite good, for what it is, and it's absolutely perfect for a short-term series, whether you want to play over-the-top (Buffy, Blade) or something darker and more grim. Ten sessions is plenty of time for a group of would-be hunters to chase down the handful of vamps (or coterie of mages or clan of werewolves...whatever) inhabiting a medium-sized city.

THIS one! Yes, it's scary...scary fun!

And ten sessions is great for the type of development that occurs in the standard Vampire game (characters start out relatively proficient, and won't grow to super heroic proportions in ten sessions...especially mortals who lack vampiric disciplines). Unlike other systems (Palladium, D20 Modern) there's no pressure to "level up," as there are no levels. Yeah, the short time frame of the saga won't be a hindrance to character advancement in HH.

I've only had the opportunity to run a Hunters Hunted saga once...and (if I remember correctly) it was the last time I ran any World of Darkness game (I ran WW games through the end of high school and all through college...a good five or six years, at least). My main player wanted to try a WoD game, but "didn't want to play a monster;" a Hunters game seemed like the obvious choice. While we had a great time, he decided he wanted to switch to a standard vampire after the first couple of sessions...the overall vibe of playing a mortal had been a little too freaky/scary for him. Too bad, really (especially as we never got back to VtM, switching instead to 3rd Edition D&D), because I had really been grooving on the whole thing. Unleashed my inner Crypt Keeper or something.
; )

I've often thought of dusting off Ye Old Hunters Hunted and rewriting it with a B/X chassis (perhaps using elements of Beyond the Supernatural), but I just haven't had the heart to do so. Bridges wrote a fine little supplement for Vampire. It's one White Wolf game I wouldn't mind running again.

OLD School Inspiration

I've been up since 4:30 or so, but I passed out a little after 11 last night, which means I got more than five hours of sleep and am thus feeling more rested than usual. It's the "wee hours" of the morning (I think...I don't really know the definition of that phrase) and because my wife's out of town and it's Wednesday, I'm going into work late today due to the need to drop the boy off at daycare. Since I don't need to wake him up till 8, that gives me some time to drink some coffee, eat a slice of week-old apple pie, and catch up on "things."

I really hadn't intended to post ANYthing to Ye Old Blog until after the total publication of my eleven part monstrosity on role-playing, but it would seem I've been especially inspired to write this, and while that may mean a few double or triple posts, I'm sure you folks can handle it, right? After all, I'll be out of the country here pretty soon, and I doubt I'll have much time to write while on my trip (more's the pity...I still need to finish my edits/rewrites of volumes one and three of 5AK...*sigh*...man, I hope that's finished before the end of the month).

Some of the things I wanted to post about: The Lone Ranger movie, the television show Defiance, and the recent posts making the blog rounds regarding "D&D summer camp." Of all those, the only one that's really time sensitive is The Lone Ranger, because it's gotten a mixed reception and will probably be leaving the theaters soon. Since I'm not going to take the time to post on that today, you might want to go check out the movie now before it's gone: it's a weird little film, and I liked it...but for pretty different reasons than one might expect (that would be the subject of the post). However, if your budget's tight, you grew up in a time post-Ranger (I, at least, had the Saturday morning cartoons and the 1980s feature film), and if you aren't a fan of the kind of twisted-campy-action that made the first Pirates of the Caribbean film so successful you might want to skip it.

Oh, and I wouldn't take small children to see the movie, by which I mean "children under 13."

So if I've got all these things to post about and I'm NOT going to do so at this time, what exactly is the subject of this post? Inspiring old school junk, my friends. Specifically old Grenadier miniatures for AD&D.

My buddy Kris is crazy. I mean literally (he's on medication for this, not to mention SSI). But even without that, the Doc (as I call him) is nutty about stuff. He's a fairly smart guy, but he doubts himself and his own abilities a lot (he's a talented musician and painter for instance but is a bit self-consicous of both). I don't see Doc as much as I once did because he resides in a small town in Oregon where the cost o living is a lot less and where he's closer to his parents...however, we still keep in touch and our conversations are often about gaming.

So a few weeks ago he told me he was getting rid of all (or most of) his miniatures and he asked me if I wanted them. I, of course, asked "how much?" and he said something like $15 plus S&H. I believe I ended up sending him a check for $25, because I already felt like I was ripping him off. But Kris wanted to get the stuff off his hands and out of his apartment, so he felt like we were doing each other a mutual favor.

And probably we are...I'm sure my wife would be less than happy with me adding another big box of clutter to my office.

Here's the deal, Kris had picked up the 4th Edition core books when they came out and acquired a few minis and battle mats over the years and such for use with the game (to be fair, I believe the accumulation started earlier with edition 3.5, but I couldn't say for sure). Anyway, after reading the 4E books and (maybe) playing once or twice, he decided the whole game was huge stinking pile of crap. Doc got rid of the books, but he's been holding onto the minis because A) he likes to paint (he usually paints things besides minis, but painting is painting), and B) he could still use the minis in D&D games (he last ran an AD&D game for a neighbor couple a couple months back.

However, he finally decided it was time to clear some space and the minis weren't fantastically necessary to his life and so shipped me a box. Which I got (finally) a couple days ago, and which I opened last night. This morning I've been going through the specific contents and it was enough to get me to start blogging.

Wow. In addition to a rolled battle map (vinyl, I think) with squares on one side and hexes on the reverse. I received four sets of Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Tiles (kind of like three dimensional dungeon geomorphs, but with cooler artwork), each with a different theme. The sets I got included Ruins of the Wild, Dire Tombs, Lost Caverns of the Underdark, and Fane of the Forgotten Gods. They are most unassembled and appear to have been unused or almost never used. I'll have to check these out in more detail later.

Kris also sent me a large tackle box filled with foam trays containing minis in various states of paintedness. This is a mixed bag (ranging from Ral Partha to Citadel to Reaper), but includes some really nice pieces. There's an unopened Reaper blister back with what looks like a Type V demons and another unopened back of "crossbowmen," though the latter come with equipment packs and whatnot that would put any older adventuring minis to shame. Diego and I were looking these over last night and he made me put a couple of the pieces at the very bottom of the box because he found them to be too scary. The most scary? Something that appears to be a ring-wraith or something (it's just a black cloak and hood with no face or hands). D did not like the looks of that one one bit!

But that's not all! The Doctor also sent me five boxes of Grenadier models of the kind that used to be advertised in the old Dragon magazine. Four of these are specifically for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and are complete in their entirety. The fifth is from their "Fantasy Lords" line and says it is "for use with Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy games." This one, called Skeletons: Raiders of the Undead, is not complete (it's at least missing the "free starter scenario" that is supposed to be included), but since it's packed with a bunch of extra minis, I'm not too worried about it. Besides, I'm more excited by the other boxes.

The four complete boxes are all from 1980, and include the following:

5002 "Monsters"
2006 "Specialists"
2010 "Denizens of the Swamp"
2007 "Females"

These are fantastic. I've collected a lot of minis over the years (mainly from Citadel for GW games), so I've seen a huge range of quality when it comes to miniatures. These minis of 1980 are pretty substandard as far as actual modeling (they're small, their features obscured, their details simplistic at best), but they exude a charm in their themes and their forms that I just find incredibly fascinating. These figures don't feel like they were pumped out with the specific aim of flooding tournaments around the world with armies (like Warhammer), but were instead designed to be used in intimate surroundings...perhaps around a kitchen table...by people who wanted to put their imagination into a physical form. These things were NEW once upon a time...and I mean a whole new CONCEPT in what was a miniature. You don't have a dozen similar lizard men in a box; instead, you have two ("lizardman" and "lizardman with club"), along with a troll, a basilisk, a giant snake, a shambling mound, a sahuagin, and two gnolls (one of whom is a "gnoll leader"). It's like the company didn't know WHAT might be needed or required of the players, and so just put together a likely group.

The "monsters" box is a similar hodge-podge, including one of each undead type, a couple lycanthropes, a balrog (though referred to as a Type III demon which is completely inaccurate in any edition), a wind elemental, a medusa, a gargoyle, an ochre jelly (though who's to say it couldn't double as ANY particular slime), a couple goblins, and a couple orcs. The orcs and goblins are very similar in appearance (big headed thugs) but the orc figures are physically bigger and meaner looking. There is a "naga spirit" that looks like a giant hooded cobra topped by the head of a bearded old man. Stylistically weird, but interesting...it makes me want to design an adventure or dungeon or board game using ONLY the models found in the box (and I'm sure there were people "back in the day" that did just that!).

The "specialists" include ten different character types (half-orc, monk, druid, paladin, mage, ranger, bard, assassin, cleric, and gnome illusionist). What's interesting is that the specialists appear to be simply "non-fighting men." Again, they are stylistically interesting: the druid appears to be a Cossack or Hungarian, the monk is wearing a karate gi and looks like something out of a Bruce Lee movie, and the only way I can tell the paladin and ranger are the devices on their shields (a cross and tree respectively). The half-orc, too, is undistinguished except that he looks poor and filthy (slovenly) compared to the others...the assassin has a cloaked/hooded appearance with a mace raised high to brain someone. The mage has a high collared robe but is still wearing a backpack for adventuring. The cleric has a cross, a Pope hat, and something that looks like an urn of frankincense or something.

The "females" box is quite nice, as it contains all female character classes (none of the "specialists" are female). They are, for the most part, fully clothed and proportioned and outfitted as you would expect for adventurers. They include: a lady with her panther (scantily clad), a fighter, an archer, a "guardswoman," a magic-user (high collared cape and crawling with snakes!), a "swordswoman" (with a terrifically giant hat that mounts a small dragon!), a cleric (who actually looks like an adventuring cleric), a dwarf (no beard), and a thief with sling (the only other model that is scantily clad).

Despite a lack of polish, all of these characters are interesting to look at, and would provide easy inspiration when creating a character. For the most part, none of them look "superheroic" (or even really "heroic")...they look like non-nonsense adventurers in a fantasy setting, willing to do battle in their search for treasure. These old and clunky minis makes me want to play in an Old School Way...something like AD&D without being AD&D. Maybe "Advanced B/X" or something.

Hmmm...okay, I'll have to think about it. Right now it's time to put the house (and myself) in order before D wakes up. Installment #3 of my series "On Role-Playing" should be appearing in the next couple-few hours.
: )