Curly Horns and Counter-Spells

It will probably come as little surprise to readers that I fall into the camp of preferring "real world" armor and weapons in my RPG over the fantasy arms and armor depicted found in many of the commercial RPGs being published these days. I mean that's really "old school," right? And I'm (kind of) one of those "old school guys?" At least, when I'm not doing silly things like talking about how to chop saving throws.

For me, it's not about having a more "realistic" world, it's just a matter of aesthetic preference: I want armor (and weapons) in my game to look practical and functional, not like something out of Star Trek (do half-orcs still use "double-axes?" I don't see them in the 5E Basic PDF).

However, the same aesthetic does not apply when it comes to wizards. Wizards don't wear armor and don't (usually) use many, so there's no reason for anything they wear to be "practical" or "functional." For me, wizards should be as eccentric and flamboyant as possible. Well, maybe not "as possible," but definitely they need more than a single color robe and a pouch of spell components.

Even if magic in the game is limited or understated. Hell, especially if magic in the game is limited or understated. Wizards need to be able to rely on their reputation and their appearance even more than their magic...they don't want people challenging them or requiring tests of their magical might. Why? Because their magic IS limited. Whether it's a finite number of spell slots or spell points or fatigue levels or whatever, nearly all RPGs place some sort of limiting factor on the use of magic. If they didn't, I suppose they'd take over the (fantasy) world, right?

I dig on curly horned hats.

So a certain amount of intimidation (or outright flimflammery) should be cultivated by the wizard. An air of both mystery and panache. Magic might be understated, but the wizard himself (or herself) should never be! Unless you're trying to escape a good ol' fashion witch-burning or something.

[do you use the Spanish Inquisition in your D&D campaign?]

With this in mind, I am strongly considering including a new (and abbreviated) random hat table in the new heartbreaker. I wrote yesterday that it can be difficult to convey mood, but things like a selected list of backgrounds or appearance/description options can help, depending on their specificity. Whereas my previous hat table (the one you find in The Complete B/X Adventurer) is both large and (quite) whimsical, this one will be short and focused...after all, it's a very, very small part of a simple (basic) fantasy adventure game.

[a little update...the tables are all but completed since starting this post and they look pretty good!]

Hmmm...the section on counter-spells is getting pretty long. I'm going to throw that in a separate blog post. Sorry!

B/X Headgear - New Charts to Gear Up Your Game!

Even though the time signature may be earlier, I didn’t finish yesterday’s last post till well after midnight…which is unfortunate because my brain was starting to go by that time.

HOWEVER, the only reason I was writing about headgear was as a precursor to this “goody” which I came up with yesterday afternoon. Since I wanted to give people a chance to check out the Exceptional Traits for B/X tables, I figured I’d better hold off on posting THIS deal-i-o till today. Unfortunately, I could hardly contain myself…hence the reason for the late night (and rather bleary) posting.

Sorry about that. Hopefully, this will make up for it.

; )

Every D&D character should have some recognizable head decoration or accoutrement. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it till someone tells me otherwise. However, it wouldn’t be “Old School” D&D without some random tables (yeah, that’s not a question), so I figured I’d do all the creative “heavy-lifting” for people and provide some. Because they’re so extensive, I’ve made a one-sheet .pdf that you can download from here:

B/X Headgear


Yes, it is also useful for non-B/X versions of Dungeons & Dragons…even 4th edition (though would anyone playing 4E care? Probably not…). This is all just set-dressing (or rather “head dressing”)…there are no mechanical bonuses or systems associated with it. Just something to help characterize each player’s adventurer.

[by the way, I think the lack of system mechanics is a PLUS. While helmets are, admittedly, a form of "armor," I prefer AC determination to be limited to suits and the active use of a shield, not a person's headgear or lack thereof. As such, magic-users and thieves are fully able to wear crazy-ass helmets in MY B/X game]

DMs running campaigns with high level characters may allow players to roll more than once.

The headgear tables’ purpose is four-fold:

A) To immediately instill a character with a recognizable trait (“decoration”)

B) To help paint a picture in the player’s mind (“hmmm…ok”)

C) To supply an otherwise “boring” set of stats with personality (“what does this say about me?”)

D) To have a quick and easy “add-on” to character creation (really, no sweat here).

Anyway, I think it’s fun. I shall be giving all my pre-gen characters random pieces of headgear for my upcoming B/X game and fully intend to make any new players “dice for a hat.” Hey, you know how quick chargen is for B/X? This is hardly an extra minute of added time!

Hope you enjoy!
; )

Old School D&D = Ridiculous Headgear

If there was ANYthing that would interest me in buying Pathfinder (it won't happen, but hypothetically), the ONE thing that might would be the great artwork used to illustrate the character classes. Really, the "class art" is some of the coolest, most inspiring pieces I've ever seen.

Not all of them. Specifically, I like the barbarian, the cleric, the paladin, and (God help me) the halfling druid-chick. The bard looks like a gnome on crack and the wizard reminds me of the dudes I see at astrology conventions (though less bald) and the other class pictures (the anorexic rogue, the monk with the curved sickle, etc.) are fairly "eh" ...but those first four are totally dope.

[why is it the chick pictures that are so cool? hmmm...another post for another time]

I know that some "old schoolers" absolutely hate the "fantasy chic" of Pathfinder and D20 and 4th Edition...not medieval enough or too "fantastic" or "unrealistic." You know what I mean: Over The Top. "Cheesy." Etc.

I myself have said much the same. Hell, at least Elmore's artwork had some semblance of decorum, right?

Well, the last week I've revised my opinion. Oh, not enough to buy Pathfinder (or 4E) for the pretty Final Fantasy-esque pictures alone (it will be a cold day in Hell, my friends...), but I have come to the conclusion that D&D fantasy is waaay crazier than what I was previously picturing it.

This inkling that has blossomed into a full-on epiphany started...oh, I don't know when. It's been bubbling along under the surface for months, I suppose, as I've blogged and read and researched the various books and trappings of the Old School...those pre-1983 works. After '83, Elmore and Easley and all the rest helped color the face of D&D turning out the art upon art upon art that made the game tame.

What the hell am I talking about? Jack Vance, folks. The Dying Earth. Michael Moorcock on acid. Psychedelic fever dreams, probably best illustrated by Erol Otus.

Here, go read this over at Axe and Hammer, if you haven't done so already. You see how weird-ass crazy those games were? How downright silly in some regards? It's like reading a Vance Dying Earth story, with pelgranes and demodands and bizarre incantations and fairly amoral treasure seekers. This isn't just "pulp fantasy." This is tripping balls on mushrooms.

And even if those early gamers were playing the game entirely straight, the adventures they wrote and published (things like Tomb of Horrors and White Plume Mountain) are cut from the same cloth. Yeah, they break the rules. Yeah, they are "un-balanced." Yeah, they are totally silly at times, completely illogical and resting on half-baked foundations.

But none of that gets in the way of them being a total blast to play...so long as you can go with the weirdness.

I think those early mid-western gamers, who gamed in so many different diverse styles, making up their own rules to fill in OD&D's blanks...I believe they were at a serious loss as far as understanding what the game was all about. Because the tone of the writing and the artwork that accompanied those first, Little Brown Books failed to convey the weirdness.

I think that the artwork by those late 70's early 80's artists (Otus, Roslov, Dee, etc.) were both closer to the spirit of the game as Gygax intended (in a true Vancian/weirdness style) and apt enough at their artistic chops that they could express it in the artwork of those early modules.

Sutherland? Too serious. He had the gritty, down-and-dirty, semi-medieval hardscrabble going, but Dungeons & Dragons is MORE than this. Hell, I think Gary may have had a hard time even getting it across in his writing of the AD&D books (damn his need to be so dry and clinical) except in his occasional "light humor" touches.

I think D&D is supposed to be Over The Top fantasy. The Vancian magic system only works in that environment. The idea of ancient cultures leaving behind their sprawling dungeons is totally post-apocalyptic (as another blogger recently mentioned...not that I can find the frigging link!), much as Vance uses it in his Dying Earth stories.

[this is yet another reason why I am totally at ease with psionics in D&D]

Hell, it's certainly more like the way I used to play as a kid. Man, if anything rubs me the wrong way, it's trying to put some sort of "sane" world culture/background on your D&D campaign (you know, like the Forgotten Realms, etc.). Commercializing Greyhawk may have been the biggest creative mis-steps Gygax made, assuming the world of Oerth grew OUT OF his original D&D campaign (similar to what Maliszewski has done with the world surrounding Dwimmermount). By codifying it and selling it he said: look this is what you do! Create a whole world with factions and nations and religions THEN try to figure out how "your heroes" fit in!

That's the worst and hardest thing ever. It's what makes my head swim as a DM. So much easier to create the world a piece at a time, as needed, as the weirdness allows. So much more satisfying (to me at least)...and dammit, easier!

Otherwise, you're taking the game...a fun game, a sometimes silly and ridiculous game...waaay too seriously. Which is what I think Pathfinder (and D20 and AD&D2 somewhat) does, I'm afraid. 4E does something different, of course...it just shits all over the entire scope of the D&D legacy. But those other editions, they miss the crazy-ass weirdness. The guy trying to get the giant spider/rot grub/green slime off his back while his buddies douse him with oil and try to burn it off with torches? That's just whacky, deadly, hilarious fun. Those dudes aren't worried about Eberron or whatnot...they are just trying to save their buddy (kind of) and keep the spider/slime/grubs from jumping them next. While searching for loot.

If you want to play D&D the way God and Gygax intended (I don't know enough about Arneson to even guess at his preferences...) it might behoove you to get a silly hat for your character. You'll notice none of those cool looking characters in Pathfinder are wearing a ridiculous hat (though many of them do appear to use some sort of "product" in their hair). Meanwhile look through any old copy of D&D product circa 1977-1982. How often are the depicted characters wearing some sort of head piece, hood, hat, or helmet? Most of 'em. That right there I would call Old School Aesthetic 101. It is very Vancian/Dying Earth to covet or blow money on something fancy for your noggin...hell, to worry about your character's features at all! Check out the pre-gen character descriptions in WG5:Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure:

"Bigby's attire is unassuming: a simple hooded dark grey robe. When this hood is thrown back from the usual covering of his face (for Bigby is a somewhat retiring and secretive man), his lean and healthy features will be exposed: studious brown eyes, light brown hair, and a laugh that precedes jokes on almost a forced level. To those who do not know him well, he might be viewed as oddly nervous (or paranoid), but this is nowhere near true..."

This for a module that might be considered pretty much a straight "dungeon crawl;" there's no over-arching theme or story after all, simply a fantastic adventure. Why give a rip what color a character's outfit, or how he wears his hair? Or what his personality is? Or how he talks. I know WotC/Hasbro wouldn't give a shit about such trivia.

I didn't get all that many comments of interest in my earlier tables for "customizing B/X characters with special features." Well, I'm not done with the tables yet, as part 2 of this post will show you (call it random week). Unfortunately, THAT will have to wait until the morning. Forgive the rants and typos...I'm a little sleepy...zzzzzz...

Um...Where Are The Hats?

Picked up a couple or three Reaper miniatures today.  As I may have mentioned previously, while I play a lot of GW games and own hundreds of minis for their games, I never owned, painted, or used miniatures for D&D as a kid. Certainly I may have had a couple, never painted, simply to look at...but that's it.

However, as I delve more and more into Old School D&D I find myself drawn to the idea of at least having physical representative icons of PCs (both past and present).  Plus, it's getting close to football season, which is always when I start getting the itch to paint minis.

So...Reaper.  What a great line! Not only do they have a wide variety of models to choose from, and plenty of female miniatures (a real change from the Ral Partha days)...um, why are there so few pieces with helmets?

I mean there are plenty of female warriors, rangers, knights, etc....and they all have this long flowing hair just waiting to get *clonked* on the head by an orcish war maul.  What the hell?

I asked the dealer, what kind of person goes into combat without a hat?  She told me, "Reaper sculptors."  So it would seem. I was looking for viking-type minis with beards and helmets, but apparently the main theme is the clean shaven, bare headed hero of the flowing locks (male and female). This may work for the "high fantasy" of D20, but it ain't to my taste of gritty fantasy.

I picked up two dudes with hats and one chick (of course, I had to get a "female vampire" to find a female mini with a cool helm).  If I get 'em painted anytime soon, I'll upload  pix to the blog.