I is for Indigenous People

[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]

I is for Indigenous People; the aboriginal natives of Karameikos.

We all know what a "native" is, right? A person born of a place. I'm both a "native Seattleite," and a "native Washingtonian." Technically, I'm a "native American," though the term is usually reserved for people who lived on this continent prior to European arrival, and the descendants of those people.

There is a human "monster type" (similar to the bandit, noble, merchant, etc.) found in the classic adventure module X1: The Isle of Dread titled "native." The description for the entry states:

"Natives are primitive people who live in jungles, wilderness, or on tropical islands. The warriors of the more warlike tribes (including cannibals) will all be 1st level fighters, but the natives of peaceful tribes are mostly normal humans with fewer high level leaders. Most natives wear no armor (AC 9), but some will wear the equivalent of leather armor (AC 7), and the tribal chiefs may wear special armor of hardened bone or lacquered wood that is the equivalent of AC 5 or 6. Natives may also carry shields."

Here we see the term "native" used in the pejorative sense of the term. "The natives are restless," likely had its origin in referring to the indigenous (native) people of an area and, over time, came to represent any "primitive" non-Western race that a European (i.e. British) conqueror might currently be in the process of re-making in his own image.

To the point where I asked my eight year old the other day, "when I say native person, what do I mean?" and he replied "Someone who lives in a hut or doesn't have a lot of food or stuff like we do." Oh my. We had to have a loooong conversation.

"Primitive" isn't a very good term for a non-industrial or "technologically advanced" society. I'm not a trained (or even amateur!) sociologist or anthropologist, but even a dummy like me can see that ANY people organized into a society has some sort of culture and cultural tradition...concepts and behaviors that have evolved and been passed down over generations...and any such organized society is going to be as culturally developed as another.  The pre-European contact peoples of the Americas (and Africa and the Pacific Islands, etc.) already had a developed, advanced culture adapted for their lifestyles...nothing "primitive" about it.  We equate a lack of specific technology (steel, firearms, ship-building, etc.) with a lack of intelligence and development...they're a step up from cavemen!...when really the only thing they lacked was the necessity and easy cross-pollination that occurred in other parts of the globe.

[you can kill someone with a stick or rock just fine, but when the guy on the other side of the mountain range is wearing metal armor, you better develop a weapon that will penetrate it...and figure out a way to get some armor of your own!]

Post-contact aboriginals of every landmass had no problems picking up, learning, and using advanced technology, even to the detriment of their would be "colonizers" (in parts of the U.S. it was a capital crime...i.e. punishable by death...to sell firearms to "indians" up through the 19th century). Even learning the language and customs of European was no big deal.  What these indigenous people had a much harder time with (and were oh so stubborn about) was abandoning their own culture...their own language, customs, religion, and mindset...that had developed over the course of centuries, in order to adopt wholesale the culture of these invading people.

"Surely they must be primitive...look at them following these superstitious practices!" As if the Christian religion looks O So Grounded in scientific fact, yeah? Where'd I put that machine that measures grace?

Anyway, humans of all stripes have treated strange peoples as "barbarians" since at least the time of ancient Greece (I know this because the word barbarian comes from an ancient Greek word). Age of Sail Europeans were not the first folks to conquer, enslave, and impose their culture on "others," but developments in technology allowed them to have lasting impact on huge swaths of the globe. It is what it is...but let's not continue to judge different cultures by the standards of 500 years ago, okay?

SO...Karameikos. Going by the B/X description of the duchy, there's no mention of any native (i.e. indigenous or aboriginal) humans. There are peoples residing in the land: gnomes, elves, goblins, orcs, and frost giants...but no fellow humans to be "colonized" by a conquering adventurer. GAZ1 is the first place we're introduced to the idea of an "indigenous people" of Karameikos.

Yes, I realize the concept of Traldar is first introduced in B10: Night's Dark Terror. Here's the thing: the Traldar of B10 have no relation to the people of Karameikos; they are some kind of post-neanderthal slave race who've never been "outside the valley" of the Hutaaka. In the ancient history told by B10, there are no "humans left behind to fight the gnolls." There is no King Halav & Co. -- that part of the story is all spun by Allston in GAZ1. In B10, the Hutaaka simply take their proto-humans and leave the scene...centuries later, all one finds in the region is an unblemished (by human) wilderness ripe for conquest by Stefan Karameikos and other adventurers.

All that jazz about Nithia and a "Dark Age" following Halav's battle and whatnot? That's all ADDED to the mix beginning with the Gazetteer. The "Traladara" with their "shared national identity" is all spun from whole cloth by Allston. And while it's interesting to have the political and social ramifications of an on-site conquered people in one's adventuring region, I find the history problematic, and not just because of the pseudo-Gypsy nature of the indigenous natives.

For one thing, I just can't buy into the whole "high-culture-devolves-to-hunter-gatherer-stone-age-in-five-generations" thing. We're talking a single century that the original Traldar clan (from the pseudo-ancient-Egypt Nithian culture) is in Karameikos before losing their shit. Just wouldn't happen. They're not marooned on some desert island or extrasolar planet (like the MZB Darkover setting)...they're on the other side of the mountains for goodness sake! If times got too tough, they'd head back! And in the fantasy world of D&D wouldn't they have clerics, magic-users, etc. with them? And if they didn't (or if these adventuring types were all killed), isn't it a pretty safe bet that the colony would have all perished to a man? We're talking about a D&D wilderness here: one with dragons and trolls and frost giants! It's a tad more hostile than what Lewis & Clark faced on the Oregon Trail, people.

From Egyptian to Gypsy
in 1000 years.

If the Nithian colony survived at all, it wouldn't have degenerated to a state that some dog-headed artist-types could ply them with "whatever" (see the prior blog post) in exchange for turning them into their labor force. I mean a COLONY expedition would have the people they need to...duh...start a colony, "harsh winters" or not. And if they couldn't hack it, they would have returned to Nithia...or died trying.

Yes, yes...I am a dude with no imagination just pissing in the cornflakes of everyone who LOVES "Mystara" as conceived and published. Here's the thing about fictional histories and backstory, people: for most players of tabletop RPGs this stuff matters very, very little. It matters MAINLY in what it provides as adventure hooks and/or clues to solving current dilemmas (like "how do we defeat this menace" or "where do I find this particular McGuffin").

The person who will find it MOST USEFUL and (hopefully) interesting is the Dungeon Master running the campaign. The DM uses this stuff to understand how and why the setting operates; the DM uses the material to generate adventure ideas and scenarios. The DM uses it as a "setting Bible," a reference to explain to players the answers to questions (about the setting) that might arise in play. "Why do the dwarves hate our characters when we haven't done anything to them?" "Why does this particular village insist on wearing green for the entire month of July?" All that kind of "stuff and fluff" gets answered by the background material AS NEEDED.

[DMs who insist on burdening players with a bunch of extraneous setting detail run the risk of simply BORING their players. D&D is a game of active participation, not a book club]

SO...If I am the Dungeon Master that's running the campaign set in Karameikos, the damn setting better make sense TO ME. If it doesn't, I'm not going to be able to make the best use of it with regard to my players, no matter how cool some people might find a peaceful, advanced tribe of dog-people living in a hidden valley. Sorry.

Having got that all out of the way (and after, once again, deluging readers with a wall of text), let's get some possible ideas for spinning the indigenous folks of Karameikos in a way that doesn't suck too bad (from my perspective):

Option #1: No indigenous humans. This is the easiest, and most "B/X" option. Adventurers seeking to build strongholds or castles are required to clear the area of all monsters and monster lairs before building. As a monster is defined as "any creature or character not controlled by a player," I don't think it's unfair to consider the duchy to have been "cleared" of any pre-existing communities and societies. One might still find hermits, "mountain men" (and "women") or the occasional brave settler family living in the wilds, but most of these (if not all) should be recent arrivals to the region. Any ancient ruins or whatnot found should be from mysterious, long-since-vanished (or exterminated) peoples...and not necessarily human ones.

Andals versus First Men

Option #2: Iron Age rivals. Do any of you folks watch that Game of Thrones show? So, the history/backstory of that setting goes like this: the First Men crossed into Westeross through a (no longer existing) land bridge and conquered "the Forest Children" (elves) using their Bronze Age armor and weapons. These First Men were then (mostly) conquered by the Andals who invaded with Iron Age technology, including plate armored cavalry (knights)...the lone hold-outs were the "Kings in the North" who retained their old culture and religion rather than convert to the Andals' Seven Gods. Finally, a handful of Tagaryan refugees (fleeing the destruction of their ancient island home) showed up with some dragons and used their air superiority to unite the entire continent under the rulership of one Iron Throne. Riffing off Martin's world would probably put Stefan and the Thyatians in the role of the Andals, perhaps with the Black Eagle Barony being the lone "First Men" hold-out (i.e. the Starks of Winterfell). Without drago-riding Targaryans, the land becomes one of constant squabbling between various "kingdoms" (i.e. rival warlords) of which only Stefan has the best foothold of all the Thyatian/Andal adventurers in the region. By the start of the campaign history, the indigenous Bronze Age culture has already acquired and adapted steel technology, putting them on a fairly equal footing with their would-be conquerors (or "equal enough" that negotiation and political strategy will be necessary to uniting the region, not simple military conquest). The elven tribes (in the role of "Forest Children") are a wild card force that doesn't like EITHER human side (seeing as how they chop down their trees for firewood and timber), as are the goblins ("snarks"), orcs ("grumpkins") and frost giants ("giants").

"Gath of Baal"

Option #3: Conquered dissidents. So maybe there WAS a large population of indigenous humans that the Thyatians/Romans overran with their armored legions...think the opening scene from Ridley Scott's Gladiator (or Tacitus's text Germania). Even better, let's look at fantasy equivalents like James Silke's "Death Dealer" series (based on the Frazetta character) with Thyatians in place of the steel-clad, slave-taking "Kizzak Horde" and the tribal ("barbarian") villages of the region being the stand-in for the Iron Age communities of the Forest Basin. Of course, without Gath of Baal to pull the villagers' fat out of the fire, conquest would likely be a walk-in touchdown for the Kizzak/Thyatians. Enslaved and oppressed by a ruthless, technologically superior (and magically formidable) force, the player characters would probably end up fighting a guerrilla war...either as members of the indigenous community or "sympathizers" among the Thyatian conquerors. Maybe. In such a setting, I think it'd be important to start the "invasion history" with Stefan's arrival on the scene (i.e. thirty years prior) rather than GAZ1's published timeline in order to give the PCs a fighting chance of upending the Horde's decimation of the native peoples and deforestation of the region's resources. This is a pretty grim campaign setting, filled with atrocity...but so is any story of conquest, really.

Black Eagle Barony?

Option #4: Conquered decadents. As a slight alternative to Option #3, make the indigenous people an ancient powerful and "advanced" society, overthrown by their own people as much as by the invaders. This is the enslaved tribes of Mesoamerica joining forces with Cortes to overthrow their Aztec overlords...or perhaps some sort of weird and decadent Atlantean/Egyptian society that is in no position to defend themselves from an ambitious, violent invader (they're too busy indulging in hallucinatory drugs and sorcery for entertainment to control the slave uprising that accompanies the Thyatian advance). Plenty of pyramids and thousand-year old strongholds (complete with exotic treasure and still functional booby-traps) are left behind after the conquest of the region, and Stefan is only too glad to allow youthful adventurers the chance to pillage such structures (he knows his coffers will receive a healthy tax on any loot recovered). Perhaps these ancient-but-still-standing fortresses can become castles for Name level adventurers...maybe Fort Doom is the equivalent of Castle Grayskull and Baron Ludwig is just the latest person to "claim" it as a residence.

Ya. More tomorrow.

Best Basic B/X Monsters (Top Ten)

And by "best" I mean, "best at killing players."

I've read more than a few times that the Holmes basic edition is the most dangerous, mortality producing version of the game ever written. This is due in part to certain "expert level" monsters (like the purple worm, manticore, hydra, and vampire) being included in a game where the characters only go from levels 1-3.

Well, I beg to differ...I mean, dead is dead, right? If you're digested by a purple worm you're not anymore dead than being smacked for max damage by an ogre; there's a point of diminishing returns on that kind of thing (i.e. "death").

[unless, of course, you're killed by a vampire...then I suppose you can be "even more dead."]

But Moldvay's red book has plenty of monsters that will wipe out characters in the 1-3 range...many of whom are listed as standard wandering monsters for those very same levels. The idea that Moldvay's version of Basic D&D is somehow safer or "more balanced" is completely ridiculous. At least in Holmes characters with a high Dexterity will (on average) gain initiative (and thus, the upper hand or opportunity to run) in any encounter. In B/X, initiative is always a crap shoot.

The following list is my Top Ten Most Deadly Monsters from Moldvay's red book. Most of them are also my favorite monsters in the Moldvay set (these I've marked with an "*"). Not surprisingly, they are very real PC killers...only a true asshole of a DM would use these in an adventure for characters under 4th level, at least in the numbers listed in the rules (a singular, lone creature is much easier to deal with than a group, at least for a large adventuring party).

Oh, by the way...dragons (of any color) are NOT on the list. While I will be the first to say there aren't ENOUGH dragons in your average D&D campaign, dragons have such wildly varying ability that one can't really say whether they are consistently deadly (a stupid, sleeping, dragon of young age and no spell-casting ability isn't much of a threat if the party can get the drop on it and reduce its hit points before its first breath attack).

Here's the consistent badasses:

#10 Zombies: If there was any question in my mind whether or not "the damned dead" should be here, it was answered by last Thursday's decimation of adventurers. Unlike every other edition of D&D (including AD&D and Holmes), Moldvay's zombies are CHAOTIC (all undead in B/X are Chaotic), which is to say "unholy" and "evil;" probably the reason holy water is so effective on 'em. I already wrote how nasty these guys are...they beat out other 2HD monsters (like gnolls) due to their fearlessness (no morale checks) and immunity to sleep spells. Used in large numbers they are likely to take apart any 2nd level parties they encounter.

#9 Shadows: Again, a change-up from other editions of the game, B/X shadows are NOT undead, and thus NOT subject to turning...however, they are still immune to charm and sleepspells and being incorporeal, can only be hit by magic weapons. They show up on the 3rd level of a dungeon (1-8 appearing!); how many of your 3rd level character are carrying magic weapons? Strength drain is delicious and even if a party survives the confrontation, will probably be left deep in the dungeon in a weakened condition.

#8 Minotaurs*: I've always loved the minotaur as a monster; dug it in the legend of Theseus, dug it in Saturday morning cartoons (an episode of the old Godzilla, if I'm not mistaken), and loved Willingham's illustration in B2: The Keep on the Borderlands. A 6HD monster that gets a +2 on damage when using a weapon. Being larger than an ogre, it is immune to both charm person, hold person, and sleep, and will probably kill at least one or two PCs before being brought down, even by large parties. Minotaurs are also intelligent, and unlike other monsters "will pursue as long as its prey is in sight" (this one isn't distracted by dropped rations). Vicious...did I mention that the normal number appearing is 1-6? What the hell is this doing in the Basic game?

#7 Harpies*: As with minotaurs, I've always loved the harpy; I've been a fan of Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn (both the book and the very faithful film adaptation) for years, and the harpy is an awesome villain...but which is the adventure module where, if PCs fail their save versus the harpy's song it comes and (automatically) "rips their eyes out?" One of the Slavers series maybe? Or the Master of the Desert Nomads? Regardless, that's the kind of encounter I love to see in adventure modules (and that some players...hi, Luke!...absolutely loathe). But if any monster should be a malicious, de-protagonizing bitch, it should be the harpy. Monsters that fly mean monsters that are hard to bring down (and that circle to keep out of range of spells). Three attacks per round (claw-claw-weapon) makes them exceptionally nasty, even without the charming. I used surgically-modified harpies in my Paschendale Necropolis adventure (no singing and no weapon attacks) and they still killed both hirelings and wounded several party members in nothing flat. The fact that they don't rate higher on this list should tell you something about numbers 1 though 6.

#6 Bears*: My love for the bear as a B/X monster is, I think, fairly well known. The only thing that doesn't rate them higher is their low "number appearing" stat (usually only 1, unless in their lair). Often totally underestimated...what? It's just a bear, right?...they will kill party members very quickly before they even know what hit 'em. Except for the black bear, all bears are larger than the ogre and are thus immune to the sleep/charm/hold spells of low level characters, and being animals are fairly immune to reasoning or negotiation (and since you usually only encounter ONE, they're generally NOT subject to morale checks!). Of the bunch, my hands down favorite is the polar bear (even the non-armored variety), because they seem so mundane...right up until they kill you. "Oh...and the bear hits you several times and does [*roll*roll*] ...30 points of damage to you! Holy crap!"

#5 Ghouls*: While these are a personal favorite (nothing says "terror" in the dungeon like a pack of flesh-eating undead) I almost never use them except in high level games or very small moderation. Why? Because they are Total Party Kills waiting to happen. 2HD creatures with claw-claw-bite ability are nasty enough...I've seen a half-dozen troglodytes with the same D4/D4/D4 take down two plate armored fighters and a plate-and-shield cleric without batting an eye. Ghouls do D3/D3/D3 with the same chance to hit, and every attack that hits forces a save versus paralysis (requiring a 12-14 save roll on the D20 for characters under 4th level). Did I mention they travel in packs of 1-6? And being undead they're immune to sleep/charm/hold? That gives 'em a leg up over the tentacled carrion crawler. Did I also mention that per Moldvay they start showing up on level two of the dungeon? Do you know what a 2nd level cleric needs to roll to turn a ghoul at 2nd level? A nine. Fairly long odds...and if you happen upon a lair (treasure type B = 2,000gp average), you'll encounter 2-16. That's a lot of diseased nails raking the flesh from your bones. 'Course it could be worse: in OD&D and AD&D being killed by a ghoul turns you into a ghoul!

#4 Mediums: 1st level magic-users come in packs of 1-4. The only reason they don't rate higher is it's always possible the PCs might get the drop on 'em and take 'em down with a sleep spell of their own. Otherwise, it should be short work for one of the mediums to get off a sleep spell and drop an entire adventuring party. Heck, a magic-missile might well finish off that rival party mage hiding in the back ranks, and if accompanied by their "master" (only a 3rd level magic-user in the B/X monster description!) the party may well find themselves trying to push their way through a web spell to get to said magic-users. In the lair (a school?) mediums are encountered in groups of 1-12...that's a lot of charm spells. Personally, I'm surprised it only rates as a 3rd level encounter.

#3 Lycanthrope: Werewolves*: Although these don't show up in B/X until the 4th level of the dungeon, they are present in the Basic book, and are one of my all-time favorite monsters. I almost never use them. Generally found singularly in old TSR adventure modules (a la the standard horror cinema "wolfman"), when used as written, they can be one hell of an encounter: number appearing 1-6 (2-12 in lair/wilderness). In addition, lycanthropes can each summon 1-2 normal animals to aid them and werewolves "summon normal animals to form large packs with them." On average that's nine monsters (3-4 werewolves and 5-6 normal wolves) or double that (around 18!) in the wilderness or dungeon lair. Any group of five or more has a 5HD, 30 hit point leader that does +2 damage (and is, of course, immune to sleep and charm and hold person spells...at least in wolf form), and all werewolves require silver or magic weapons to injure. Assuming you can tell which wolves are the lycanthropes and which are the normal wolves (how many silver arrows are the low level archers packing?). Wolf packs tend to maul the hell out of characters anyway (I saw three or four normal wolves take down a charmed ogre during a run of M1: Blizzard Pass) and werewolves fight and attack like dire wolves. Such an encounter with "average" numbers will kill several PCs, especially the lighter armored party members. And even should they run, wolves are some of the fastest pursuit critters in the game (180' move compared to the un-armored PC's 120' move). It would be a small matter for such scent hounds to run the PCs down.

#2 Owl Bears*: Probably my all-time, hands down favorite monster of the Moldvay Basic book, they are also probably the baddest of badasses. Cross a grizzly with a griffin and what do you get? A creature that can't be stopped by the spells available to characters level 1st through 4th and that can do up to 40 points of damage in a single round. Claw-claw-bite at D8/D8/D8 plus "bear hug" for 2D8...and did I mention they hunt in packs of 1-4? A normal grizzly is only ever found solo in a dungeon...you can encounter up to 4 times that many owl bears on the 4th level of a dungeon, and they will rip you to shreds. Bears of a feather flock together, I guess. Need it be mentioned that with 5 hit dice they're immune to charm, sleep, hold person, etc.? Oh, yeah...I already said that. When these bad boys come out, even 4th and 5th level fighters tremble in their boots.

#1 Medusa*: Another monster I almost never use. Interesting that the OD&D version had the lower body of a snake, like the classic gorgon of Greek myth...not sure why they changed it in later editions except possibly to not confuse it with the (confusingly-named) bull-like creature. Moldvay's description of the monster constantly refers to it in the singular, which I find strange as the number appearing is 1-3 (1-4 in lair). An average of 2 medusa per encounter, each one of which is 4HD with an auto-death attack (poison) AND and an auto-petrifaction effect (no attack roll necessary). The medusa (in numbers of 1-3) first show up on the 3rd level of the dungeon. What party of 3rd level characters is going to survive a wandering encounter with three medusa? That's just a ridiculously tough encounter...you might as well call 'em half-hit dice mind flayers. I feel mean just putting ONE medusa in an adventure; as I said, most of the time I just leave 'em completely out of the game. Too bad, though, because Perseus and the gorgon is probably my 2nd favorite Greek myth, right after Theseus and the minotaur.

All right, that's the list...and glad I am to get it off my chest. One of the monsters on this list will be featured in blog posts all week long, starting tomorrow, but for right now I'll let you contemplate the sadism of Tom Moldvay's "Basic" set and the death and destruction it is possible to unleash even before opening the "Expert" box. I know I did, back in the day, as I owned the Basic set probably for a whole year prior to getting the Cook/Marsh Expert rules.

Prost!

: )

The Stupidest Film Ever Written

So yesterday I rented the new Clash of the Titans film.

I skipped it in the theater, and had actually put off renting it, simply because A) I don't rent as many flicks as I used to and B) it was kind of low down on the priority list. But I wanted to see it, simply because I really like and appreciate the original film (I should say, "have discovered a newfound appreciation for" having re-watched it 2 or 3 times in the last year...for many, many reasons). I had been told it was dumb by my friend Steve-O which , considering some of his cinematic likes is really saying something, but I figured it can't be that bad. I mean, Avatar was no great shakes as "high art," but it was entertaining, especially if one went into it with fairly low expectations (and really, the whole "alien-druid" thing didn't bother me nearly as much as some folks). So maybe I would be pleasantly surprised? Plus, as I (should) have mentioned before, I have been into Greek mythology since I was a very young child, reading about Theseus and Bellerophon and watching Heracles in dubbed English in sunday morning sand & sandal flicks.

ANYway...my wife had found a Blockbuster gift card when she was cleaning out my wallet the other day, so I thought I'd pick it up with that rather than spend money on it.

Wow. This movie is fucking retarded.

Pardon my French, but this film is FUCKING RETARDED. Oh...did I already say that? Sorry, but it deserves to be said more than once.

The acting was fine for a film of this type...Hollywood action...as was the direction, I guess. It was hard to pay to close attention when I was so totally aghast at the "story" spewing forth on the screen.

The original Clash of the Titans film was a mix of many myths, and certainly took liberties with how those myths interrelated with each other. It didn't bend them over and sodomize them, though. It didn't throw history under the bus and piss on its corpse.

I mean, I wasn't looking for a 1-for-1 remake of a liberal pastiche like CotT. And yet, when I watched the film 300 I didn't expect the Spartans to somehow win the Battle of Thermopylae. When I watched the Clive Owen King Arthur film, I didn't expect Arthur to suddenly side-up with the Saxons and rampage over England. And while Kevin Costner's Robin Hood introduced some Moorish character into the mythos, at least the dude wasn't some sort of wooden alien sorcerer. And, of course, Costner doesn't spit in the face of King Richard and tell the people of England to throw off the yoke of feudalism and the monarchy.

But maybe I shouldn't judge too harshly...after all, I didn't actually get through the whole thing. Try as we might, the wife and I both fell asleep sometime before the hero actually got to his confrontation with Medusa.

And I do plan on finishing the film. I mean, sure, it looks like it's headed for complete travesty (with some sort of "to-the-death" showdown with Hades, silly as that it sounds), but...well even if it does end in complete travesty, I'm curious as to just how bad it can get. Because, in watching the first half of the film, at least three or four times I found myself saying, "well, it can't get any stupider than this," just to be proven wrong again and again.

[by the way, folks, sorry I haven't finished the AP report from Thursday...it's been a pretty good weekend and that means a lot of family time. I'll finish it up tomorrow at the latest...]

Psionics, Power Gaming, and Death

I was a pre-teen power gamer.

I admit it. Much to my everlasting shame I was horrible, horrible! I was rampantly abusive! I made life miserable for other players at the table with my grandstanding and diva-like behavior. My character was a one-man wrecking crew…and he wasn’t even a Cavalier or a 3rd Edition Fighter! Just thinking about it makes me feel dirty and guilty...though as a Roman Catholic, guilt and I have a long and semi-healthy relationship.
; )

Not that that my character didn’t DIE many times…as with all our D&D characters back then, he faced the same high mortality rate as any other character. In fact he probably died MORE often than others (probably a half dozen times if not more) due in part to his many solo adventures. Fortunately, we were playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons where death is simply a minor set-back…my character was wished back to life so many times, it became a bit of a running joke in our gaming group.

[side note to folks wanting to be 1st edition power gamers…getting wished back is definitely the way to go. There’s no loss of Constitution as with Resurrection and as long as you’ve got a little elf blood in you, the extra aging is no big deal]

One of the things that made my character so all-fired powerful was his incredible psionic might. Yes, you know those “un-balanced” psionic powers you’ve read so much about. My character had psionic power for days, man…and the lax rules with regard to game balance (at least by 1st edition rules…we never owned Eldritch Wizardry) truly made him a god-like force in the campaign. It certainly didn’t hurt that he was a bard, and had sky-high attributes (as all 1e bards do), since this is the general determination of psionic ability in AD&D.

Although he had many psionic powers, plus most of the lettered Attack/Defense ranks, only two abilities really jump out in my memory as being his “bread & butter,” and they were really the ones that made him infamous within our campaign: Cell Adjustment and Telekinesis.

Cell Adjustment is basically “self-healing.” Every psionic point you spend (and my character almost certainly had a couple hundred banked) would heal a certain number of hit points. I don’t have my book in front of me, but I’m pretty sure it was a better than 1-to-1 basis (maybe 4 to 1? That sounds right). Since psionic points regenerated extremely fast with rest and “meditation” my character could enjoy extended solo delves relying on no one besides his own badass abilities. As a young fighter, just beginning his adventuring career, it all but ensured he would survive to the higher levels (which he did...boy, did he ever!).

[hmmm…I sure probably stop talking about the character in the 3rd person. After all, it was ME, all me, piloting this monster]

The other ability *I* made great use of was telekinesis. TK as a power is ill-defined in D&D. One can use it to “move things with your mind” like hitting people with big rocks and stuff. Okaaay…what about manipulating smaller things? There’s a maximum weight limit, but no minimum…can you use TK to, say, suck the air out of a person, creating a vacuum crushing your opponent from within? Can you manipulate the tumblers in a lock to open it without setting off traps yourself?

Basically, our campaign was run where, if you could imagine it (and explain it) the sky was the limit within the limits of your powers. There was no attempt at “game balance;” like comic book artists or horror novelists (Stephen King was a great inspiration for us in the 80s) if it sounded possible we’d allow it to happen. No one was interested in “keeping the game balance.” Neither were we attempting to destroy game balance or “break the system.” We (the DMs) thought it would be cool to have a dude in the game with crazy-ass telekinetic powers and there was no attempt at reining him (me) in.

Besides which, he still died. Often. Despite the -8 armor class and the hundreds of hit points and the periapt of protection against poison +4 (another must-have for the power gamer)...despite even the cell adjustment.

I can remember the last (or one of the last) times my guy ended up taking a “dirt nap.” He was solo-ing (again) this time through a classic module I’m sure I’ve mentioned before: Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits. He was round about 20th level at the time (bard level…he was maxed in his other classes) and carving up the ranks pretty good with his dual-wielded Hammer of Thunderbolts and Vorpal Shortsword.

[did I mention how ashamed I feel? Sorry folks…but really I HAVE matured since in the last 23 years…honestly!]

I got to Lolth’s “spider ship” and was pounding the opposition with a combination of invisibility, backstabbing, druid spells, and sheer combat firepower (javelins of lightning, etc.). Got to Lolth and had that bitch ON THE RUN…beat her down, forced her to move, found her again, beat her down some more. Eventually, we ended up in her “last stand” room…a chamber with several animated warrior statues that engaged me while the Queen beefed herself with healing and boosts.

It was somewhere around round two or three (I think) that she hit me with a Cone of Cold and I noticed I’d forgotten to use my Cell Adjustment ability during the running fight.

And I died…again.

But of course, tramping on the turf of a demon goddess as I had, you can probably guess that my character didn’t stay dead for long. Lolth herself brought me back to life…only so that she could torture me 24-7 in a kind of Zeus-Prometheus relationship (not that my character received anything so sweet and gentle as a griffon ripping out my liver daily). And no, I was allowed no rest or relaxation to regain (or use) psionic strength.

In fact, there wasn’t much of me that was kept alive, as I recall…a shapeless lump of flesh, deformed and brutalized and cut on, kept alive and animate only by Lolth’s will. Well, that and my ring of regeneration, which she allowed me to keep wearing if I remember correctly (so she wouldn’t have to spend so much energy on healing).

The story of my eventual escape from torment (after several game months) is a post for another time. Suffice is to say that it was NOT my own badass character that freed himself (he was too busy writhing and suffering torment to find his amulet of the planes).

[did I mention I was a poster child for the "munchkin class?"]

; )

Happy All Saints Day!

And thank God it's the end of Daylight Savings Time...finally the rest of the State is back to MY biological clock. I was able to sleep in an hour and still get coffees and get home before the Seahawks game started.

Also, it means the beagles woke me an hour later than normal this morning...which is nice since we were out fairly late last night.

Back to normal, says I, and once again my thoughts are turning back to Dungeons & Dragons. For as many, many years November has always signalled a craving for D&D in my soul. Perhaps part of this is that my first RPG, Tom Moldvay's Basic Set, was gifted to me for 8th birthday many years ago (November 13th, 1981). Another part of this might be the amount of vacation time afforded to school kids in November...with Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving (two days!) there was a lot of looong weekends for game playing.

A third part has to do with the briskness of the weather which made outdoor play and chores a fading memory every November. And finally, November always brought a family trip to Montana and an opportunity to shop to my favorite used bookstore, inevitably finding something for the Dungeons and Dragons RPG.

Heh...I was at Half-Priced Books yesterday and actually found a copy of the adventure module A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity. A very rare find (besides the Internet), I was tempted to buy it...except that it wasn't half-price (in fact they were charging $15). I still might have picked it up except that I have owned it in the past and I KNOW that somewhere in my mother's house it is still lurking, crammed into some dusty book shelf or box of comics. I passed.

Reading the blogs this morning, I've become interested in the recent conversations on religion floating in a particular corner of the blog-o-verse. I won't bother re-posting my (rather long) comments, but it's got me thinking about clerics again...and alignments and mono-theism.

Now keep in mind that I play B/X D&D these days...originally (in OD&D and B/X) the cleric class was only available to humans. It could almost be considered an advantage human societies had over the demi-humans of D&D-land...they have the ability to commune with God and perform miracles and no one else does. Talk about manifest destiny!

But the original D&D had a dualistic cosmology. There were Lawful clerics (that had "good" spells: curing, resurrecting, etc.) and Chaotic clerics (that had access to "evil," reversed spells). Neutral clerics (at least in B/X) were required to choose whether their deity granted normal spells or reversed spells, not both.

[yes, in B/X clerics ARE still able to use their opposite number...reversed spells for Lawful clerics, healing spells for Chaotic clerics...but ONLY in extreme circumstances]

In essence, choosing Lawful or Chaotic as your alignment determined whether you followed the Lords of Light or the Minions of Darkness...or to put it in Catholic terms, Yahweh or Satan. Being Neutral meant you still had to choose one of these powers (the Light or the Dark), but the alignment would simply seem to indicate the character was less than totally committed to the side (and interestingly, in OD&D, Neutral clerics were admonished for such fence-sitting and not allowed to advance beyond a certain level).

But somewhere between OD&D and AD&D this dualistic cosmology got lost and the game became polytheistic. The assumed game world was anything BUT Christian as supplements (starting with Supplement IV) provided numerous pantheons of divine hierarchies. I can think of several reasons for the idea:

- historical or "sword & sorcery" fiction often featured different pantheons of gods than the medieval Christian. What if someone wanted to play a Teutonic priest of Thor?

- not every player of the game was interested in a Christian duality that the basic game implied

- from a "story" point of view "rival gods" provide great causation for campaign world conflict

But ya' know, historically speaking I seem to recall that in most polytheistic religions all Gods were generally worshipped equally (at least in their own sphere of influence). I don't know...I'm not much of a historian, really. But the ancient Greeks (as one example) might have a patron god of their city-state (like Athena and the Athenians), but certainly wouldn't snub Poseidon when going to sea or Ares when going to war...or Hades when someone died.

Actually, I suppose that the tales of Greek mythology ARE a good example of conflict between certain rival gods...especially when one thinks of the Iliad. But even so, attributing human Alignments to the gods isn't especially helpful...the gods are what they are and they are concerned with their own affairs (a city they patronize, a sphere of interest), and while they may not always be fair or "just" they aren't necessarily evil.

There are definitely many different ways to run one's D&D campaign...probably a reason for the game's enduring popularity...but I can't help but think a return to the old dualistic philosophy (especially with regard to B/X play) isn't a bad little way to go. It sure makes things simpler, cosmology-wise. And I believe it allows for more "shades of grey" within the game world's societies than might occur with a more numerous pantheon of scheming, competing deities.

More on this shortly.

Tales of the Greeks

Just finished watching Jason and the Argonauts.  Since I appear to be the only insomniac blogging about D&D on the West Coast, figured I'd post a quick one while the rest o y'all were sleeping. Don't worry...I still have to get up around 6am tomorrow.

Pretty cool movie, not sure if I've seen it before (if so, it was a looooong time ago).  I love the Greeks and their mythology, though I'm more up on my gods and goddesses than all the various heroes (oh, I know the basics, but I get some of the stories confused...for example, Jason and Odysseus).

Anyway, I'm pretty sure it was Heracles that killed the hydra, and not with a stab to the heart. Cinematic license, I guess.

I loved the portrayal of the Greek deities in the film...even moreso than in Clash of the Titans (which I also recently watched). Ray Harryhausen's films endow these mythic beings with such...I don't know...humanity while still retaining their regal divinity.  

I thought Hera's  character in Jason was especially well-done; so often she is portrayed as one cold-hearted bitch.  Here she was playful, loving, and motherly as well as a soul-mate-spouse of Zeus.  Usually she's shown as a nagging shrew, or a vengeful "wronged woman" (which she often is); but it was nice to be reminded why she's still Zeus's queen.

Awhile back I wrote a series of articles for Vault of Pandius detailing the use of Greek Olympians and Elder Titans in a BECMI campaign.  I was feeling a little miffed that the Greeks (my favorite pantheon of gods) had been so snubbed by the Wrath of the Immortals set.  Perhaps I'll make them available here...at least they have some stats for Grecian Immortals (as well as how to use them in a Mystarran campaign).

BTW: for those who are unaware of Pandius, it is the top resource for non-product BECMI stuff on the Net.  Lots of good stuff there for folks who like Mystarra and the Known World, including a bunch of (bleah!) conversions to 3E. I strongly recommend all B/X players check it out if they haven't already!