Full Circle

Yesterday, Maceo (another elvish assassin) was able to rejoin our campaign for a four-hour session (one more backpack to fill with loot!)...surprisingly, we were able to get him to join rather plausibly by simply having him follow the trail of bodies and destruction through the castle (we said his character had slept till noon and hadn't got up to the place till 2) all the way to the belfry/treasure chamber. Even more surprisingly, they decided to continue their explorations, eventually defeating three harpies (elvish blood), a flock of blood hawks, a nest of 37ish giant rats, a 5th level illusionist (color spray!), and a mother-f'ing banshee. The clock has just struck 5pm, there is four hours of daylight left, and the party keeps trudging up to tower roofs in their search for the Countess, figuring a vampire must be sleeping upside down somewhere like a giant bat.

*sigh* This is what comes from children not being allowed to watch vampire movies anymore. At least both Mace and Diego leveled up (4th and 5th respectively). Everyone is still alive, but the ranger was driven hopelessly insane following his perusal of a libram of ineffable evil. So it goes.

A couple folks (most recently Stacktrace) have brought up the the subject of my transition from being one of the "leading proponents" of the B/X system of D&D to now being chest-deep in AD&D. Since I've got a couple-four hours to spare, I figured I'd take the time to chronicle my personal history (as best I can) for readers interested in "the Evolution of JB." Not sure that's really enough time, but here goes:

Circa 1981 (age 8, 2nd grade): while at a Fred Meyer store, I see the Dungeon! board game on display and plead with my mother to buy it, citing the fact that it says its for children of 8+ years and I am old enough. Surprisingly, she does so (a fact that surprises me to this day: my mother was never one to cave to a begging/pleading child back in the day). I am somewhat disappointed by what I find inside...I had intended to purchase Dungeons & Dragons having already learned of this game from the playground at my school (and being, by this time, familiar with the terms "class," "fighter," "magic-user," "assassin," "magic missile," "Demogorgon," and "Blackrazor"). Still, the game provides an education into the very rudiments of D&D concepts (dungeons, monsters, treasure, secret doors, expendable spells, green slime, etc.). It contains a pair of green, plastic D6s with numbers etched on them (instead of dots)...the first I've ever seen. I still own this game today...my children have played it extensively.

Circa 1982 (age 8 or 9, 3rd grade): I discover the Moldvay edited Basic D&D box set at J.C. Penny in the toy section, and (again) talk my mother into acquiring it, perhaps explaining that this was the game I originally sought out. Again (surprisingly) this works, though this may have been in November and the idea was that this would be a birthday present for Yours Truly. I have detailed my delight and discovery of the wonders of this set in other blog posts. I read it cover-to-cover, struggle with the module, and instead create my own "dungeon" (a castle map, no doubt based on B2's Keep, that players must besiege).

Shortly Thereafter: my parents host a caucus at our house for local Democrats. I am upstairs in my room running my adventure for my younger brother. One Dem has brought her daughter, Jocelyn (a year older than myself) to the caucus, and my mother asks if she can join our game. I give her a halfling to play. When it is time for her to finally leave, my brother has been killed two or three times, and Jocelyn has infiltrated the castle, avoided all guards and is making for the castle treasury/armory. This is my introduction to a girl who will become my best friend, later co-DM.

3rd grade: I play D&D mainly with my brother and my best friend, Jason. Jason runs a thief named Sneakshadow. Jason is good friends with Scott (they both have single parents...moms...so they share time with each other). Jason's mom is our soccer coach.

Summer of 1983: I meet Matt during the summer during Little League baseball.

1983 (4th Grade): Matt has joined our school; we become friends. Circa November, I receive the Cook/Marsh Expert set, probably as a birthday gift. At a sleepover at Matt's house (I can pinpoint this to December, as I remember watching the Eurythmics video "Here Comes the Rain Again" on MTV), we make him a high level cleric to try the Expert set rules (giving him fanatic followers and sending him into the desert on a quest to find a blue dragon). Matt owns the Dark Tower board game, which I play long into the night after everyone else has gone to sleep. He also has a vinyl album with Conan the Barbarian stories. In later years, we will dive deep into his older brother's stack of Heavy Metal magazines and share a love of Thieves World books.

December 1983: Jocelyn gets me the AD&D Monster Manual as a Christmas gift. It is incorporated into our games, though a lot of it is difficult to parse as we are still using B/X as our rule base.

1984: We play D&D. Sometime in this year, Jocelyn discovers a copy of the DMG at the bottom of chest of old stuff belonging to her youngest brother Lacey (11 years her senior). I am allowed to borrow it on occasion...much of it is difficult to parse or completely alien. However, we begin to use the combat matrices (which seem to line up with the MM) and incorporate the expansive magic item list, especially the artifacts and relics. Some of the effects are waaay over my head (satyriasis? nymphomania?) but sex-change magic is always good for a laugh when your players include both boys and girls. Jocelyn's character, Bladehawk, has become the premier fighter of the campaign and is legendary for escaping death traps. At Jocelyn's home I run a game for four(?) players including my brother, Jocelyn, Jason (I think) and Jocelyn's friend Brian Hackett. Brian has a high level cleric with the blade barrier spell (also a hammer of thunderbolts) which, because we cannot find it in my rulebooks, I disallow. Years later, I will encounter Brian in high school (he was a junior when I was a freshman) and he will remember me respectfully as "The Dungeon Master."

Fall of 1984 (age 10, 5th grade): at soccer practice, Matt brings me a copy of N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God, asking if I can run it for our group. While at first I am put off by the low-level of the adventure (our B/X characters have reached lofty heights), I begin to notice various strains of weirdness in the adventure: single class elves, "longswords," "ring mail," etc. Reading the cover ("for ADVANCED D&D game") and seeing the level range (1st to 3rd) it finally dawns on me that "Advanced" does not equate to "Expert" and that the MM and DMG must be for this other, mystery game. The key turns in the lock, the veil falls from our eyes, and all is revealed.

The start of 
my AD&D career.

November 1984 (age 11, 5th grade): I receive a copy of the AD&D Players Handbook for my birthday, the only thing I wanted. Now, with my copy of the MM and Jocelyn's copy of the DMG, we can begin playing proper AD&D. I make a high level magic-user character for my (now) friend Scott, both to make use of the new rules (intelligence factor! new spells!) and to put him on par with other long-running PCs Bladehawk, Sneakshadow, and Sunstarr (Matt's cleric). His wizard is named Lucky Drake after a character in a Choose Your Own Adventure book. This will be the core of our group for the next several years.

[EDIT: I now believe that the PHB was a Christmas gift, not a birthday  gift. I still believe I received my first DMG slightly later]

December 1984/Winter 1985: my aunt's boyfriend, a DragonQuest player, gifts me with my very own AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. No longer forced to borrow Jocelyn's (as she doesn't attend the same school as the rest of us, I don't see her often enough), I can delve the thing and really learn the rules.

Winter 1985: Matt picks up a copy of AD&D Deities & Demigods (cleric guy, remember?) and we immediately incorporate it into our game. Sneakshadow fights Thor and kills him.

Spring of 1985: I discover the appendices in the back of the PHB after trying to figure out references to the psionics and bards in the DMG combat tables (previously I hadn't finished reading my PHB as I assumed it was just "all spells" after the mid-point). I immediately make my own character: a half-elf bard with psionics named Landon Weiguard. I show him to Jocelyn. Jocelyn expresses interest in doing some DMing.

Circa Fall of 1985 (age 11, 6th grade): Jason leaves our school. In addition, his family become Born Again Christians and his mother no longer allows him to play D&D. I see him only a handful of times after this. Jocelyn and I decide to blow up our original campaign and re-start the whole thing (all 1st level characters!) as strictly AD&D. She and I alternate as Dungeon Masters. 

November 1985 (age 12): my brother gives me the Unearthed Arcana for my 12th birthday. Jocelyn already has her copy (and incorporated comeliness and all the rest into our new campaign). I believe I receive my copy of Legends & Lore in December, perhaps as a Christmas gift. This will be the bulk of our "canon" going forward, only occasionally adding bits here-and-there from Dragon magazine or the Mentzer Companion set (which Jocelyn owned). 

1985 to 1988: we play AD&D. DMing duty is split between Jocelyn and myself. When I run, I tend to run AD&D adventure modules, rather than original material. Jocelyn runs a couple pre-packaged adventures including (Ravenloft...though I wasn't present for that) and Castle Greyhawk. At some point we re-boot the campaign a second time (we now distinguish "eras" of play by campaign: the Original Campaign, the First (AD&D) Campaign, and the New Campaign), again beginning characters at 1st level. When we do this, we use the World of Greyhawk map, but add our own material (factions, politics, etc.). We have some DragonLance modules (we are fans of the novels) but only use them for the maps, judging the adventures themselves to be "terrible." As time goes on, Jocelyn does more of the heavy lifting of campaign management...I am (mostly) content to just play. We also venture into other RPGs: we play Marvel extensively, BattleTech, some Star Frontiers. We dabble in James Bond and Twilight 2000; get our first taste of Warhammer 40,000 (the book...none of us acquire minis). AD&D remains our main game, however.

Spring/Summer 1988 (age 14): Jocelyn and I have a falling out. Kids fall out with each other: that's a part of life. Often times, over the years, Jason or Scott or Matt would be "on the outs" with the group, but we would always (eventually, somehow) bring 'em back into the fold. As we were transitioning to high school (the boys...Jocelyn at 15 and already in high school) I was the one that got kicked...and the group never recovered. We all ended up at different high schools, going separate ways.

1988-1991 (high school): I make new friends, some of whom play AD&D. I do not play AD&D with them...instead I play Palladium games (Heroes Unlimited, TMNT, Rifts), Stormbringer, or (later) Vampire the Masquerade. I still collect old AD&D modules when I find them, including White Plume Mountain and Against the Giants. For about a year, I run my brother and his best friend Brandon in an AD&D campaign, up till about level 12. I do this mostly to try modules I've never previously run (including the Desert of Desolation series I3, I4, and I5) and to try re-capturing the magic of my earlier campaigns. It doesn't work and I quit playing AD&D.

1991-1995 (university): I do some gaming, mostly White Wolf stuff (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Ars Magica 3E). Towards the end of university, one of my buddies (Joel) suggests we start up an AD&D campaign; I agree only on the condition that it is 1st edition, none of this crap 2E stuff. While he consents, nothing ever comes of the conversation (no chargen, nothing).

1996 (after graduation): while living with a non-gamer girlfriend, I get heavy into WH40K. Fact is, our relationship was heading south (it would be very up-and-down for another year, up through 10/1997) and getting into some kind of gaming felt necessary for my sanity. A game shop close to our apartment ran 40K tournaments. We would break up (and I moved out) before she moved to New Mexico for grad school.

1997-1999: no real gaming, though I meet some guys (Kris, James, Alex) who played D&D in their youth. In 1998 I will run an aborted session or two, and play in James's (single session) attempt to start a 2E game. All of these ended in disaster. The weed probably didn't help.

March 1998: I meet my wife. Having grown up in Mexico, she has never heard of D&D before meeting me.

2000-2002: 3E is released. I acquire copies and run some games, mainly for my friend Kris and a couple randoms whose names escape me. By 2002, I am done. I am still collecting BECMI edition D&D (the Mentzer sets, the Mystara Gazetteers, the Rules Cyclopedia, Wrath of the Immortals) feeling it is the most "complete" version of D&D. I do a lot of solo stuff with it. In 2007 some stuff I wrote about the Greek Gods will get uploaded to Vault of Pandius. Mostly, I end up finding the BECMI edition to be (both) too staid and too childish for my tastes.

2003-2007: sometime in this period, I make the acquaintance of The Forge and indie gaming and start studying game design. I get the idea to write the Great American Indie RPG (trademark pending!). This is all crap, but it starts me down the road of taking RPGs (and my love of them) more seriously. I do not play D&D during this period, though I collect and read a LOT of other RPGs. As far as I can recall, I didn't play any RPGs at this time (some light indie stuff...Capes, InSpectres...with my nephews perhaps). Sometime towards the end of this period, a person posts an Actual Play report on The Forge about how they tried playing an old game of Basic D&D "by the book" and it was actually fun.

Circa 2008: While reading an interview with indie-game designer Kenneth Hite, I am made aware of James Maliszewski's Grognardia and fall down the rabbit hole of Old School D&D blogs. This leads me to a number of sites, the most influential of which is Pat Armstrong's Ode to Black Dougal. Having the fires of nostalgia stoked by memories of my first RPG, I decide to go "back to the beginning," where my love for the hobby first started.

June 2009: I write down a quick list of 100 possible blog posts (to make sure I can generate content) and start the B/X Blackrazor blog. 

2009-2011: I play B/X D&D regularly, mostly off-line (face-to-face), sometimes running up to nine or ten players at my local bar. This three year period more-or-less matches the time I spent playing B/X at the beginning of my gaming career (1983-1985). I write (B/X) books during this time that are still selling today.

January 19th, 2011: my son Diego is born.

2012: I start developing other games: Cry Dark Future (2012), Five Ancient Kingdoms (2013), various indie type games and other genre games using the B/X Chassis. At the time, if I'd been asked, I probably would have said I was showing the versatility of the game (or writing my own fantasy heartbreaker with regard to 5AK). However, I now believe I was beginning to run up against the limitations of the B/X system...I was growing bored. And I was becoming tired of writing my own "support" for the system.

2013-2016: I am in Paraguay until August 2016. During this time, I do not play D&D.  I reflect on it, read about it, blog about it, work on a couple different "new" heartbreakers. There was a lot going on for me (mentally, emotionally) and my gaming thoughts were pretty random. A lot of good reading on the subject of D&D care of Alexis's books...but I had difficulty grokking some of the concepts he was trying to communicate.

April 21st, 2014: my daughter Sofia is born.

2016-2018: no gaming. Back from Paraguay but too busy with new children in a new school and transitioning to that "stay-at-home-American-dad-thing." Blog posts from this time are depressing...reading through a couple makes me think of a dude who is in need of help but doesn't know how to cry for help because he is unaware of how helpless he is. The blog was treading water just to assuage the ego with "relevance." Ugh. 

August 2019 (age 45): I hit rock bottom while attending a Dragonflight Convention; a convention at which I had the opportunity to play four Basic (three B/X!) game sessions with four different DMs. I was done with B/X as my "go-to-game-of-choice." It is still...and always will be...a fine teaching tool for learning the basics of Dungeons & Dragons.

Circa August 2019: I discover Anthony Huso's blog.

Circa 2019-2020: I discover (and start tuning into) the rather amusing GrogTalk podcast. Because they moderate their language, I sometimes listen to the podcast with my son (especially when it's just the two of us on long soccer drives). 

October 2019: I decide that the only way I will ever be satisfied with D&D again is to commit myself wholeheartedly to running a campaign, rather than one-off sessions. Just like I hadn't done since the age of 17.

February 2020 (age 46): I run my children through their first B/X adventure.

March 2020: the COVID 19 pandemic hits in full force. Schools (and most everything else) close down.

April 2020: I decide to go back to the LBBs and play OD&D with my kids, feeling I can simply add to the game (from supplements, house rules, etc.) whatever is needed for the campaign. At this point, I still feel "tinkering with rules" is the thing that will get me to the game I wanted. Ridiculous. This lasted a month or so before I shut it down. I play no D&D for the next six months.

November 2020 (age 47): I begin running AD&D for my children, teaching them the Advanced game.

February 2021: Taking advantage of a Total Party Kill, I start the AD&D campaign over from scratch using Washington State (and the Pac Northwest generally) as my campaign setting. My world has been in existence for 17 months now...longer than ANY "B/X campaign" I ran back in my Baranof days. 

June 30, 2022 (today, age 48): I've now been running AD&D exclusively for nearly two years; we've only barely begun to scratch the surface of play. The system is so robust...and so deep...that I don't anticipate exhausting its possibilities any time soon. Fact is, unless I get sick of my world (which is hard to see happening, considering its "mine" and I can remake any particle of it, any time I choose), I don't see how the game would ever end. It can only grow larger and more developed with time.

Currently, the AD&D books are available both digitally an in Print-on-Demand form from DriveThruRPG. I recommend every D&D player who doesn't already own a set acquire copies of the PHB, DMG, MM, and Fiend Folio. The MM2, DDG, and UA have useful elements, but are not strictly necessary for play. 

All right, that's all for today. 

Anti-Clerics

So, yeah...after very little deliberation, I've decided to re-write DL2: Dragons of Flame for use in my home campaign. As has been detailed ad nauseum (here and elsewhere) the thing has problems, most due to DragonLance in general (duh) some for stuff I just find a little nonsensical; for example, there are not one but TWO chambers containing a huge, ancient red dragon, but no easy means of egress/ingress for either (no treasure hoard in their lairs either).  

[*sigh*]

However, I rather like the Big Bad Leader, "Verminaard" (well, except for his name). I'll admit I'm a fan of "dragon highlords" as a concept anyway, but an evil 8th level patriarch battle commander is right in my wheelhouse. 

[remember I'm also a fan of Jagreen Lern]

But the "battle commander" is the important bit. Waaaaaay back when I was a kid, before I even knew there was such a thing as "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" I don't remember ever having a cleric in our games...not until I got my hands on the Mentzer/Cook Expert set. Remember that my understanding of "D&D" as a concept was mostly informed by playground gossip/play (which featured fighters, magic-users, and assassins), the Dungeon! board game (elves, heroes, superheroes, and wizards), and the occasional comic strip advertisement (which, to that point, had yet to feature "Serena the Cleric" or whatever her name was). 

[films like The Hobbit, Clash of the Titans, and various Sinbad films also played a role in my understanding of "fantasy," of course]

But the cleric class? Um...huh? Doesn't really seem like Friar Tuck does it? Certainly didn't seem like my parish priest...my encounters with "the undead" at a young age were mainly limited to the occasional Dracula re-make on television...my parents did NOT expose me to a lot of horror stuff.

And so, since I didn't have a good grasp on the concept...well, it didn't see action in my games either. 

However, this changed when I got the Expert set. All Moldvay wrote as a description was:

Clerics are humans who have dedicated themselves to the service of a god or goddess. They are trained in fighting and casting spells. As a cleric advances in level, he or she is granted the use of more and more spells. However, clerics do not receive any spells until they reach 2nd level (and have proven their devotion to their god or goddess).

Yeah, why would I want to play THAT instead of an elf?

The Expert text, on the other hand, gets things fired up:

At the first 3 levels of experience, the power of a cleric is extremely limited. As characters advance to higher levels...[they obtain more spells of greater power, having proven their faith to their god or goddess. Because of this, it is very important for clerics to be faithful to the beliefs of their religion and alignment. Should a cleric behave in a manner that is not pleasing to his or her deity, the deity may become angered and punish the offender. This punishment could take many forms...[examples]. The DM may decide what punishment might be in such a case. To regain the favor of the deity, a cleric might find it wise to donate money and magic items to the religion, build a church or temple, gain large numbers of converts, or defeat some great foe of the religion...

All that is heady, world-building stuff. This isn't just some dude with a list of healing spells and a weapon restriction...dude's got responsibilities to a god (or goddess). Failure indicates consequences! Compliances yields great rewards (like fanatically loyal FREE troops, and half-price strongholds!)! DMs are given major leeway to punish and persecute such characters, sending them on quests, whatever-whatever.

The first new character rolled up using the Expert rules (for my buddy Matt) was a cleric. I made sure of that. And because I was 10 years old and had no patience for waiting for someone to reach "name level," he was created as a 9th level character with a troop of devoted fanatics and a small stronghold. His first adventure: he and his men were ordered by his god to enter the desert and confront a blue dragon in its lair. Now, forty years later, I can't remember how the mission turned out (I suspect there was a lot of death by electricity), but I'm sure it was glorious. I know this: for the rest of the time my original group hung together (about five years, mostly AD&D), Matt nearly always played a cleric of some sort.

Fast forward to today.

I have some pretty solid opinions on the cleric class, basic assumptions on what it is, how it works/functions, and the justifications for various systems. These "solid opinions" have definitely changed/evolved over time, and I would happily enumerate their current standings if I thought anyone would really care terribly (I don't). However, I previously mentioned that one of my Lenten activities involved curating the PHB spell lists, and since the clerical list was the FIRST one I culled (and because it somewhat applies to Verminaard), I thought I'd detail a little of that particular bit.

In brief: I'm not using alignment these days. Lots of reasons for that. Nor am I using Deities & Demigods in my game, except for its rules on ability scores outside the normal range (and I'm thinking of cutting those as well). What then are clerics, and how do they function? Are they just a different type of spell-caster (i.e. another magic-user with a different list of spells and a different set of weapon/armor restrictions)?

No.

They are still clerics...priestly types, in other words. But there is no pantheon of deities/alignments to choose from. There are acknowledged "lords of light:" life-giving, creator gods (or God, depending on the particulars of one's religion). Clerics have access to a standard list of spells based on healing and protection and generally all the (non-reversed) usual spells available in the PHB. They don't get to animate dead or cause wounds or slay living creatures...none of those powers are granted by the lords of light. They are tasked with spreading light, fighting darkness, making a better world for all. 

Pretty simple, pretty straight-forward, pretty easy. It's more-or-less "acting in aid of The Good" which doesn't necessarily mean killing orcs and building civilization...in fact, sometimes it means saving orcs and destroying civilizations. But well-fed, harmonious communities growing in wisdom and acting with simple kindness to each other is...generally...the desired end result.

Then there are the anti-clerics.

Some folks just don't want to get along with others. They'd rather subjugate and destroy, dominate and command others and aggrandize themselves. Rather than follow the lords of light, they pray to diabolic or demonic powers, who can grant them many of the same powers. Many, but not all. 

Anti-clerics in my campaign world are clerics with a different spell list. They still have some of the lower level healing spells, but for the most part they use ONLY the reversed spells found in the PHB. The dark gods aren't big on creating light and life; anti-clerics cannot raise the dead for example (although they can animate corpses in a gross parody of life). In simple terms, anti-clerics are bad apples who, for whatever reason, have decided they'd rather have the power to inflict fear and death on others, though losing their soul in the process.

The whip is not an
edged weapon.

This then is Verminaard (or rather Hanse Werner...that's his name in my game world). Being an 8th level patriarch he has his own band of loyal followers (who will take the place of various draconian and hobgoblin denizens of Pax Tharkas). Seeking to carve out his own small kingdom, harboring ambitions of grand conquest, he works to rebuild an ancient elven fortress, from which he can launch attacks (especially raids for slaves and supplies) on the local communities. Control and conquest is his aim.

An adventure for 1st level characters.

Messing With NPCs

The god-killing series will continue, despite the crickets heard around my most recent post. While I was originally going to start writing Part 3 this morning, my "favorite" web site for pirated adventure modules is currently down (as happens from time-to-time), which means I'll have to dig my original hardcopies out of the closet in the office...a time-consuming task I just don't have the enthusiasm for at the moment. Have you read the Bloodstone modules? They are...not good. And I don't relish the re-read just for an excerpt or two.

[actually, it's not that...it's the prospect of digging out five to six modules, including N2, B4, D1-2, and G1-3, in addition to H2 and H4. Maybe WG4 and D3. All of them are in a pantry, behind boxes of office supplies, book inventory, and crates of tax stuff and moving all that...and then putting it back...is going to be a tall order. Plus, my wife will be on video calls in there most of the day, and I don't want to be a pain in her ass]

But it's Friday Funday (as mis ninos call it) so I might as well write something for the weekend.

The kids (my players) continue to delve deeper into the swamp. I have to say that writing (well, re-writing) and running Dragonlance puts me in a fey mood. Ideas keep popping into my head about how to mess with it. This morning, for instance, when the dogs woke me up at 4:30am (maybe that's part of my mood...) I had a "great" idea for re-skinning the prisoner NPCs in the DL adventures: I'll just use the pre-gen DL heroes.

Okay, okay...let's slow down a moment and lay this all out in a way for pleasant mental digestion.

See, in re-writing Dragons of Despair (well, the dungeon anyway), I've done away with the vast bulk of the DL "fluff" of the adventure series. There's no epic story, no Queen of Darkness on Earth, no capital-H Heroes with a Destiny-To-Fulfill, no Berem the Everman. And, of course, none of that other DL-specific stuff: draconians, taunting kender, steel coins, divine abandonment. I am NOT, after all, playing Dragonlance. I am playing Dungeons & Dragons. The DL adventures just happen to have both A) dungeons, and B) dragons and all I'm doing is repurposing them. Capisce?

One nice thing that BIG adventure modules tend to do (and DL1's Xak Tsaroth IS a "big" dungeon...even more so now that I'm stocking it with actual encounters) is the inclusion of the occasional NPC prisoner/hostage who are willing to join a party if freed. This is a classic D&D trope, and is a great way of adding "beef" (meat shields) to a party or replacing downed henchfolk...it also telegraphs 'hey, these monsters will accept surrender and take prisoners...don't feel you need to fight to the death!' DL1's dungeon provides THREE such NPCs: a 3rd level kender thief named Hugon Barker and two 2nd level Que-Shu fighters named Sunstar and Raven-Eye.

[fun fact: as kids, my buddy Matt's long-time cleric was named "Sunstarr" (with two "r's"). His character was created looooong before DL1 was published. His PC was also male, not female]

But those guys are all lame...devoid of any explicit traits or personality. And I've still got half a dozen pre-written characters from Weiss and Hickman to play with (remember, Caramon and Raistlin have already joined the party as NPCs; Kitiara bugged out after the whole Forest Oracle debacle). So, I'm thinking of cutting the NPCs as written and instead substituting three nonhumans from Wenatchee: Tasslehoff the halfling, Flint the dwarf, and Tanis the half-elf. Of course, I'll have to skin them a bit to make 'em even more interesting, right?

• "Flinty" (dwarf thief, 3rd level): elderly curmudgeon, looking for one last Big Score. Not particularly interested in dying (i.e. cowardly), but knows his adventuring days are coming to a close and would really like a comfortable retirement (i.e. will take foolhardy risks for chance at REAL treasure). Not interested in hypotheticals...must be something he can see and touch. Looks on Tanis and Hasslehoff as surrogate kids.
• Hasslehoff Birchbark (halfling druid, 3rd level): cheerful and talkative, often past the point of usefulness (i.e. gets in trouble because of mouth). Enjoys going new places, seeing new things, meeting people. Has sticky fingers and "borrows" small items not nailed down (has bulging belt pouches). Would rather talk than fight. Considers Flint and Tanis family, and feels he must care for them and help them "lighten up."
• Tanis Red-Beard (half-elf assassin, 3rd level): he's good at what he does, but what he does isn't very nice. Has a lot of emotional baggage about his past (i.e. doesn't like to talk about it), instead always trying to focus on the task at hand. Shrewd and practical. NOTE: my campaign seems to see a lot of half-elf assassins; perhaps that's a "thing" in this world. Tanis looks on Flint as a father-figure, Hassle as a younger brother.

All NPCs have 4,001 x.p.; ability scores are as per DL1 save that Hassle switches DEX and CHA scores. Equipment is mostly as per DL1 (without the magic weapons); Hassle uses a quarterstaff, not a "hoopak."

Duke VanUz first attempted to hire these three adventurers a couple weeks before making the acquaintance of the PCs. They refused his offer of patronage and instead attempted to find the Sunken City on their own. Unfortunately (for them) they did...and were promptly captured by hobgoblins. Both Tanis and Flinty have been able to escape, but Flinty was recaptured (is being held in The Larder, #65a) and Tanis is hiding near the falls (#67b), seeking for a way to re-equip himself and rescue his companions. Meanwhile, Hasslehoff is being held in the palace (#70g), where he provides amusement to Matabannik, the ogre-mage who is both City Lord and right-hand man of Onyx. The dragon has no use for the halfling's mindless prattle (she prefers the comforts of food, treasure, and luxury), but the ogre-mage has spent most of the last two centuries starved for company (hobgoblins are useless for intellectual entertainment and Onyx isn't much of a conversationalist)...the talkative druid is a welcome respite from the drudgery of scheming and plotting (not to mention drilling and managing the city's humanoid population).

[EDIT: decided to change Tasslehoff's first name to "Hasslehoff." I told you: I'm in a fey mood this morning]

Dirty, dirty half-elf

Reading over these, I'm finding myself kind of delighted. I think there was a part of me that figured I would never need or use such saccharine sweet goody-goody PCs as the Dragonlance crew in a "normal" D&D game, but they're actually pretty easy to skin as regular adventurers. I mean, they are regular adventurers, but they often (in the fiction of the novels) don't act like regular adventurers. Tasslehoff is a pretty useless thief, for example, Flint never comes off as "6th level fighter," Raistlin acts all tough with his silver dagger while never actually casting a fireball or lightning bolt, and then all the moralizing and pathos and melodrama that passes for conversation ("conversation" itself passing for "adventure"). Can't they just trudge through the wilderness in silence?

But I realize I'm being silly (and digressing)...the point is, I like these guys as potential NPC followers, and I like the various NPC bad guys I've created as well (got about six of those). The black dragon may actually be the most boring of the bunch, but I see dragons as kind of lazy creatures...they're so big and powerful that they're inclined to be slack and arrogant unless there's another one of their kind around. Onyx (haven't bothered to rename her) isn't the mayor over "sunken town:" she's the goddess, worshipped by the humanoid monsters both in the swamp (i.e. the lizard folk) and those living beneath its surface. She's like a cat...a gigantic, scaly, acid-breathing cat, lazily reclining on her hoard, expecting her people to feed her, taking long naps, and generally lording it over everyone from a prone position.

I got rid of the hatchling black dragons, just by the way...Onyx doesn't have a mate so why would there be hatchlings? And why would Onyx have left her brood in the surface swamp anyway (that's kind of a good way to lose the next generation...)? There's an otyugh there instead. Not sure the party's going to stumble into its grove, but they might, if they follow the guy's taking out the trash....

All right, now I'm just rambling. My apologies. I'll get something better up and posted in the next couple days. Happy Friday!

Class Proliferation

Just continuing from where we left off...

First off, let me say that, aside from the reasons I noted in my previous post, there's no special reason you need to have a "class system" in your role-playing game. Traveller doesn't need a class system. Neither does Pendragon or original Gamma World. There are some systems like Vampire the Masquerade that actually confuse their own design purposes by including a class system (see "clan"), though VtM does demonstrate yet another reason class systems are expedient: they limit what might otherwise be a baffling number of choices/options to a manageable number.

[I hear some folks might saying, HEY! Gamma World has classes: humanoids, mutant animals, and pure strain humans! To be clear, original GW only offers two choices: a PC with mutations or a PC without. If you choose the latter, you get some bennies when it comes to interacting with ancient technology. I don't see a "class" distinction when there's no real, mechanical difference between choices]

I'm not a stupid man (usually), but I just don't have the patience to wade through some of the character creation systems out there. I've played FATE games on multiple occasions (at conventions) and had a good time using "lite" streamlined chargen (once) or pregen characters. I own a couple-three FATE games. But I haven't run them...haven't even finished reading the rules. My eyes just start to glaze over when I start skimming the aspects and stunts and skill lists (skills! why are there always skills!). I have a much easier time managing a "light" class-less system (say Over The Edge) than something so robust...I don't want to "build" a game with a toolbox, I want to PLAY.

It may simply be that Dungeons & Dragons spoiled me a long time ago. The expedience of its class system with its distinct, recognizable archetypes just proves to be such a useful working template for fantasy adventure games that it's hard to get away from it...whenever I pick up an RPG that has  "quick-start" characters or archetypes (like Hollow Earth Expedition or Shadowrun or Deadlands), I always find myself asking 'Why didn't they just make this a class-based system? Wouldn't that have been easier?'

However, it's not always wine and roses in the world of classes. Class proliferation, the expansion of the choice list to fill an ever greater number of niche interests, can eventually lead to wrecking the joint...especially in games where the classes cease to be recognizable and/or the distinctions get muddied or outright buried. Palladium's RIFTS is probably "Exhibit A" for class proliferation leading to a loss of expedience due to proliferation: the original core book contains 28 distinct classes (or more if you count each "dragon RCC" separately) and each supplemental "World" or "Dimension"  sourcebook (more than 50 of which exist) add another half-dozen...or more!...new classes to the mix, many of which are no more than slight variations of others. Do you really need to include six variations of the juicer? For that matter, do you really need juicers and crazies and borgs? Aren't they all just enhanced/altered fighters with different downsides?

In the world of Dungeons & Dragons, class proliferation isn't nearly as extreme, but it IS present, and has been for decades. The original Little Brown Books had only three classes in 1974, increasing to five with the release of Greyhawk (1975), seven with Blackmoor (later in 1975), and nine (including the psionic variation which "drained" existing class abilities in exchange for psionic ones) with Eldritch Wizardry in 1976. That's nine classes if you're not counting each multi-class or race-class combo separately. By 1978 the AD&D Players Handbook had eleven classes available to players, with a character's race providing only slight variation (though many-many multi-class options).

While this was only officially increased to fourteen with the advent of Unearthed Arcana in 1985, the time between 1978 and 1985 saw the appearance of a number of classes in Dragon magazine, many of which were used in peoples' home campaigns (we used at least two or three, and I'm sure we would have included anti-paladins, if we'd had that copy of Dragon).

So how many classes do you really need? How many classes are "too many?"

It's pretty clear that most folks feel you need more than three (unless the capabilities of those three are so minimal in distinction that a race variation can make one feel "heavily modified;" see OD&D). But is 4th edition's 22 (spread across three PHBs), each possessing four "paragon" options (4E's equivalent of "prestige classes") that become accessible at 11th level, too many? I would certainly say, "yes," but it's possible I'm in the minority.

Classes (and class-race combos) are certainly something that can be tailored for each individual's campaign; in fact, in some games (like Rifts) I'm not sure a campaign can really function without a strong editing hand. But what a particular gaming group can stand with regard to class quantity is up for debate.

Back in D&D's "primordial ooze" days, new classes (and class options) were added in dribs and drabs until a saturation point was reached round about 1979. My evidence for this? The very unscientific fact that TSR was happy to stand pat with its "official" class list till 1985. While I realize that other things were keeping the company's main designers busy (lawsuits and finding new ways to spend their wealth), I have to think that if there'd been a real clamoring for new classes, the company would have found some way to put out a new or updated or modified PHB; heck, just a "revised edition" that included a handful of extra pages.

[by the way, this falls into the "more evidence" drawer when it comes to my idea that subsequent editions are written MAINLY for returning, experienced players. Once you've added a bunch of classes over time, veteran players come to a new edition with an EXPECTATION of being able to play with their favorite shiny bauble. It's why there's so little "pruning" that occurs between editions, despite the fact that a dozen plus classes is probably excessive for a new player]

So what, JB? Having classes is fun! Having more classes just means more options which means more fun! You just said that groups are going to vary in opinion over "how many is too many."

That's right; I did say that. I said that limits are going to vary depending on groups...but there reaches a point, with ALL campaigns, when the proliferation of classes is going to be too many. When the number of class options is so many that game play is no longer expedited. That number may vary from table to table, but each table has a number. And I think that knowing that number...or, rather, finding that number...can be useful.

I've delved into this a little bit in the past when I was reminiscing over the gaming group of my youth. While it lasted only seven or eight years, it represented a substantial investment of time (in hours spent) back before my friends and I had much in the way of responsibilities or distractions. I would estimate that we spent at least three times as much time on Dungeons & Dragons as on ANY year I've spent regularly playing as an adult, the equivalent of a 20+ year (adult) campaign. Which is about right for the power level we were often playing at.

[to be clear, we ran...roughly...three full campaigns during this time period, taking characters from 1st level up to (what would be) a retirement-worthy high level]

Most of this was played with 1st edition AD&D; our group disbanded shortly before 2nd edition was released. Including the Unearthed Arcana (we never used Oriental Adventures), here's our breakdown of classes:

Cavalier (subclass: Paladin): never used. Never ever ever. It wasn't that they weren't cool, or that we couldn't roll up characters with high enough ability scores. No one wanted to be strait-jacketed by their codes and alignment restrictions. Plus, what good is a horse in a dungeon?

Cleric (subclass: Druid): we saw several clerics over the years, though the first PC cleric did not appear until we picked up the Expert set (circa 1982) and the followers that came with high levels outweighed the lack of "oomph" at low levels. My friend Matt's longest running PC was a cleric of Athena. A visiting player brought his high level cleric to one of our game sessions (another cleric of Athena? Maybe). There were also two Drow clerics of Lloth at later points (one male, one female, both played by different players at different times); one of these (female) was multi-classed. We never had a PC druid (I rolled one up, a female half-elf with the oh-so-original name "Galadriel;" she never saw play time). One half-elf "converted" (mechanically and religiously) to a cleric of Artemis. There was also one "healer" PC, based on the NPC class published in Dragon magazine; "Fr. Cornelius" was Chaotic Evil and insane and lasted all of one session before being castrated and left for dead by his fellow party members.

Fighter (subclass: Ranger, Barbarian): my co-DM (Jocelyn) 's second oldest PC was a straight B/X fighter, and probably the most badass character to ever roam our campaign; she deserves her own post. My brother played a dwarf fighter/thief; another player (Crystal) played a 6'3" female human fighter fighter who sported about 50 weapons including a man-catcher ("to catch me a man") and exceptional (%) strength. My brother played a barbarian also ("Bork") who was killed at least once in an intra-party feud. There were a couple 1E bards who started in the ranger class (one was mine) but we never had any dedicated rangers. One of the earliest character sheets I still have stashed is a level one elf (B/X) named "Silver Fox;" no idea whose it was. Jocelyn's oldest character was a 1st level (B/X) halfling that I gave her when she randomly showed up to the first adventure I ever ran and needed a character...it is the only "halfling fighter" I remember anyone ever playing back in the day. Matt also ran a half-elf "archer," though I can't remember if this was taken from Bard Games' The Compleat Adventurer, a Dragon magazine, or was some kit-bashed combination.

Magic-User (subclass: Illusionist): quite a few of these, though most were played by one guy (Scott); his longest running PC was a straight MU named "Lucky Drake" (later "Lucius Draco"). He also ran an illusionist (who adventured through D1: Descent to the Depths of the Earth), and a (male) Drow magic-user/assassin with house-ruled pyrokinetic (psionic) ability. Also seen: a half-elven fighter/magic-user and a female (wild?) elven magic-user with red hair and a penchant for fire/arson. Now that I think of it, fire and arson were fairly common proclivities of magic-users in our games. Not Lucky, though...he was a strict lightning bolt type of mage.

Thief (subclass: Acrobat, Assassin): quite a few of ALL of these. Jason's longest running PC was a thief, grandfathered into AD&D from B/X. Matt had an assassin. Scott had the aforementioned magic-user/assassin. After the UA's release, most thieves (at least three, maybe four) chose to become thief-acrobats upon reaching 6th level (two bards did). In one campaign, my bard took assassin as his second class (instead of thief...no, this was not the guy who started as a ranger). My brother's halfling thief-acrobat was the kind of douchebag only an annoying younger brother can run. A couple of (prominent) halfling thief henchmen/NPCs. Scott ran a female half-elf thief who was brutalized and killed by a tribe of bullywugs (I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City) in what may have been the lowest point of our many year campaign...a campaign that had MANY low points (see Matt's healer character above).

Monk: I created a monk character with the name "Soft Treader" (because I suck, okay?) who wore a cape with a hood that looked a bit like Moon Knight (not really an inspiration) and, as far as I remember never used his hand-to-hand attacks; had a crossbow and "jo sticks" instead and made it to about 2nd level before being abandoned (or killed...I honestly don't remember). Pretty sure he was Lawful Neutral, which didn't fit in all that great with the (usually Chaotic) party we were running.

Bard: three of these, though one (mine) really had three iterations across the years: first as a fighter-thief-bard, then as a ranger-acrobat-bard, and finally as a fighter-assassin-bard. The other two were both female; one (another half-elf ranger-acrobat) was a prominent NPC. The other was a crazy-ass mix of storm giant/human/elf that (I think) was of the "standard" fighter-thief variety...albeit one with a bunch of crazy air elemental type powers (this was NOT my character; another long post).

A few years after this group disbanded, I did have the opportunity to run a short (maybe three month?) AD&D campaign for my brother and some friends. They were in high school at the time and were tired of me maiming their PCs with Chaosium game systems (ElfQuest, Stormbringer, etc.). The group consisted of a fighter, a couple clerics, and an evil magic-user or two. Oh, and another (1E) bard who was sacrificed pretty early on in order to power The Machine of Lum the Mad. Since that time, I've really only run/played BECMI or B/X...at least as far as anything resembling a "campaign."

So what's the breakdown? How many different classes are we talking? Well, that's really only about EIGHT classes, plus multi-class combos and racial variation. I mean, the monk? I can hardly call a class played in one or two sessions by a single player (probably one just "trying out" the new rules) as really viable class. Other than the thief, most single-class characters were a "main" class: fighter, cleric, or magic-user. Subclasses were something to be shoehorned into a multi-class character (or bard) or left for NPCs. The thief subclasses were the exception for us, and I'd guess this was due mostly to them all being "thief PLUS" type classes: they had all the abilities of a thief, plus extra abilities. And UN-like other subclasses (paladins, rangers, barbarians, etc.) there were no behavioral restrictions mandated by their class. Any rule that restricted us with regard to who we could loot and what we could carry (treasure-wise) was enough to render classes undesirable and untouchable.

Getting crowded in here...

If we had played without behavior restrictions, would we have made use of more classes? Possibly. Certainly the cavalier's "boost ability score over time" looks like the kind of tasty exploit we would have lapped up. But it's hard to say: the original four B/X classes (fighter, magic-user, cleric, and thief) were so straightforward in how they worked. A class like illusionist seemed pretty easy to add, because it was (mainly) just about swapping out the spell list. And you can do a LOT with four classes, a handful of races, and an ability to combine the two (or more) elements.

Which, unfortunately, doesn't really answer my question.

I just want to add a couple-three more thoughts (as I wrap up an already-too-long post): one is that my remembering of my old campaigns' classes is probably not accounting how much of our enthusiasm or affinity for a particular class was due to level restrictions. No one played dwarves (for example) because they max level was capped in all but the thief class (and who wanted to play a dwarf thief? He can't even climb walls!). This was a major consideration for us "back in the day."

Secondly, regarding 3rd edition (and 3.5 and, by extension, Pathfinder): I've played this brand of D&D and despite it only having only 11 "core classes" (we won't count the later "Complete" line of 3.5 that added at least 12 additional "core classes" to the mix), it was TOO MANY for my taste, simply because of the lack of restriction in combination. I suppose there's nothing "wrong" with a gnome or half-orc ranger...in some ways, that's a nice option to have, an example of "outside-the-box" thinking, casting against type, etc. But there IS something about allowing (for example) ANY race to become a paladin, or a monk, or whatever that makes a class that once felt special and privileged to be "less special." And the open-ended multi-classing? That defeats the whole purpose (and advantages) of having a class-based system; instead you're doing a class-less system, just not one as robust as other "point-buy" RPGs (like GURPS).

In the original AD&D PHB, there were a total of 56 race-class combinations available to player characters (58 in games that allowed the human and half-elf bard options). 22 of these were specific, demihuman multi-classes, almost all of which were composed of primary classes (not subclasses). 50 is probably more than one will see in a long-running game (mine used less than half this number, and we enjoyed trying out new things and tinkering)...but I can see wanting to have 150% to 200% more available than what one would expect to find over the life of a campaign. For me, based on my past experience, 40 would feel like a pretty safe maximum.

Besides, I could always add more if some player really REALLY wanted to have something unusual (a half-giant pyrokinetic archer, for example).
; )

Old Time Religion (part 1)

Can I please get some gaming content in my blog-o-sphere?

[all apologies to Jeff Rients with his recent DCC adaptation]

Ugh…life has been rough lately, but no one wants to hear about it (not that they don’t care, it’s just that that’s not why they tune it). So now that we’ve passed the All-Star break and Seattleites can officially stop paying attention to pro sports (at least till September) it’s time to start leading by example.

Let’s talk clerics.

It’s funny: as a kid growing up I never played clerics as PCs. Not that they didn’t provide SOME interest to me. As a kid with his grubby hands on a Basic set, I have to say Sister Rebecca was no huge role-model (all apologies to Mrs. Moldvay)…the examples show her to be a secondary bludgeon and “Jimminy Cricket” type conscience to party members. Now if there’d been a turning example in the rules my feelings might have been different. Instead clerics just felt kind of “meh” to me…at least compared to the Elf (Silverleaf) and Fighter (Morgan Ironwolf) examples.

[and let me tell you, reading about the Dwarf and Thief getting off’d quickly didn’t endear me to THOSE classes either…though perhaps not as much as not seeing ANY examples of Magic-users and Halflings]

[note to self: need to put more examples in D&D Mine and make the characters interesting]
Now it was a different story when I got to the Expert set a year (or less) later. The ability of Name level clerics to inspire fanatically loyal followers is, frankly, awesome and had me absolutely invested in the idea of clerics as a viable class. The first “pre-gen” Expert character we made was a cleric for my buddy Matt (though less than 9th level) so that he could lead some hired mercenaries into a desert wilderness to fight a blue dragon. This character would go on to be his staple PC when we converted over to AD&D later.

Clerics in AD&D became even MORE awesome with spells up to 7th level and the fantastic Deities and Demigods rulebook. Man, there were a lot of bulls sacrificed on altars back in those days (and not just by the clerics)…a lot more than you find in your average 21st century D&D game anyway. I did write up a priestess of Thor (complete with poorly drawn picture with horned helmet), but it was a character I never had a chance to play.

As I said, I had some interest in clerics, but they just weren’t my normal “type.” Which is funny because the last couple years (ever since rekindling an interest in D&D) has found me playing a LOT of clerics. Well, two clerics and a paladin, but that’s three holy types out of a total of four D&D campaigns I’ve played in since I got back into this “old school thang”…75%? Pretty darn unusual considering my past track record.

[I’m NOT counting DCC play-testing as “D&D” by the way]

Now, I play clerics a little different from the way some folks do…I say this as a long time Dungeon Master who’s seen a lot of clerics pass through his campaigns (with varying degrees of success). I tend to be a “lead from the front” guy, rather than a “support/medic” person. Now part of this is due to my (generally) forward and abrasive personality, but part of it is my personal take on the cleric character class…and this is the only way I can justify the character concept.

Now let’s back up for a moment: why the heck am I talking about this? ‘Cause that’s pertinent to the discussion. Well, a guy over at the dragonsfoot forums asked a question about how XP was awarded for treasure and provided the following hypothetical:

“…let’s say the party willingly leaves treasure behind (the cleric doesn’t want to desecrate the tomb, as is often the case). What do you do then? Do you award any XP at all?”

The responses were many and varied. I provided my own answer – the B/X answer – that XP is only awarded for treasure recovered. Why? Because XP earned represents a character’s skill as an adventurer treasure hunter (which is why XP is awarded for treasure found). Part of my response included the following:

“If characters choose to leave a chest of gold behind because “it’s too heavy” or refuse to take a jade idol because it’s “sacred to someone’s deity” then they aren’t very good adventurers are they? The proficient, experienced adventurer (i.e. the one with the higher level) will demonstrate his or her ability at treasure retrieval. This is a PROFESSION…if they don’t intend to make money at it they might as well work as shop keepers or blacksmiths or fisher folks or whatever.”

What was not immediately apparent from the post (but what was explained later by the poster) was this:

“Indeed, no XP should be awarded for leaving treasure behind because it’s too heavy, but the Cleric example still strikes me as a potential problem. I understand that players should be adventurers (i.e. “treasure retrieval experts”), but there’s just something odd about a cleric robbing tombs. I’m not really arguing anything here; just making an observation. I guess he could just be an adventuring cleric.”

This seemingly innocuous question (at least, it appears the poster feels the question is innocuous) is…to me, at least…one with tremendous implication to one’s D&D campaign. I mean it strikes right at the heart of “what is this game all about?” And depending on how it is answered, it drastically changes the color of one’s game.

Well, it does if you care about such things or are even slightly introspective about your role-playing. I know there are plenty of people who don’t give a shit…but that’s a separate post.

There are two basic parts to this question, one general and one specific…and if you can’t reconcile the two you are going to run into disconnects between players and the game. Disconnects with regard to the underpinnings of the game’s “fantasy logic” anyway; I suppose you can still play D&D like an over-complicated version of Munchkin instead of an RPG.

[to be continued due to sheer bulk]

Don't Sass an Assassin (Part 1)

I know I've been waxing nostalgic about AD&D lately. This post might well have a bit more of that.

I've posted before how far back in time my relationship with the assassin class goes...way back to my primordial beginnings on the playground (circa age 7 or 8)...long before I ever laid eyes on a D&D book or rolled a single strange-shaped dice. In the realm of elementary school recess, when we "played D&D" (i.e. "played pretend") there were only ever three character "classes:" the fighter, the magic-user, and the assassin. That was OUR Big Three, thank you very much, and nary a cleric in sight (well, other than the nuns and priests of my Catholic elementary school, but that was, of course, different).

However, I wouldn't lay my hands on a copy of the AD&D Player's Handbook till age 11 or so. And as it was only 2010 that I laid hold of Supplement II, age 11 was my first introduction to the official assassin class.

[interestingly, we had been using the DMG and the MM for close to two years, in conjunction with the B/X rule sets. Imagine our surprise at multi-class characters, bards, psionics, druids, etc. Hell, previously we'd had a ton of frustration whenever trying to use a monster that had some spell-like ability NOT detailed in the B/X books. Crazy!]

Anyway...by the time we actually picked up the PHB, no one really wanted to play an assassin. Jocelyn's main character was a fighter. Matt had a cleric. Scott always played magic-users. And Jason had a long established Thief. While my younger brother often played with us, he was generally relegated to a "shorty" role like dwarf or halfling (later his penchant would change to barbarians). No one was interested in a class that maxed out at level 15 while other (human) classes stretched onto infinity.

No one but me, that is...but I was usually the group's designated Dungeon Master.

And even when I DID get to play (when we started trading off the roll of DM in the campaign), I spent the bulk of my playing time as a bard...in those days of "high level" play, I would never have settled for a character that was limited to 15 levels.

[yes, high level...once you reach a certain level in the game, death becomes a fairly moot point given the access to wishes and resurrection-type magic. The real problem with sustaining high level play is giving players something to play for...which came for us because we were heavily invested in the campaign world, i.e. that play that happens AFTER one achieves the "end game" conditions in D&D]

But the assassin class was always fascinating to me. To many of us, really. There was no "ban" on evil characters in our campaign and most of us ran characters on the darker side of Chaotic Neutral anyway. In fact, now that I'm reminiscing there were a couple-three assassin characters in the campaign, though they were all "secondary" characters to a player's "main" PC.

There was Shadowspawn (yes, named for the Thieves World character), played by Matt. Matt's main character was a lawful good cleric of Athena, but he was a big TW fan, and Shadowspawn was based heavily on his namesake, wearing black leathers and carrying knives in every conceivable location.

Then there was Dark Flame ("Darkflame?"), played by Scott. Scott's characters were almost all wizards of some sort, and DF was no exception, being a Drow multiclass magic-user/assassin. He had a reversible cloak/outfit and would generally portray himself as an elven magic-user so as not to get thrown in the hoosegow. As if anyone would F with a drow anyway.

Even one of my bard characters incorporated a bit of assassin, being a fighter-assassin-bard mix (you can blame Gygax for that one, as his character Gellor in the Gord series was a ranger-thief-bard; once we read that we ruled sub-classes were okay for bard advancement if Gary said it was okay).

Oh, yeah...and my little brother played an assassin (briefly) named "Dirty Harry."

All of these characters were, of course, capital-E "evil" as per the alignment requirements of the PHB...but being cold-blooded killers didn't mean they necessarily went out of their way to be disgusting assholes...they just didn't have much love in their hearts. And while they were capable of murder for pay (what adventurer isn't?) they still found a way to interact with their fellow player characters without their career choice getting in the way (probably helped that no one ever played a paladin in our games).

And yet, I don't recall a single "assassination" ever taking place.

I was reading Alexis's post on assassins the other day (natch, since it directly pertains to the character I am currently running in his AD&D campaign...more on that later), and while I grokked his point, it was far and away outside my experience as a player.

I'm reading the PHB right now, and I can see that an assassin is allowed an assassination attempt if he (or she) achieves surprise. But I honestly don't remember ever simply allowing an "assassination attempt" (and it wasn't very often an assassin, working solo, achieved surprise...especially in a dungeon or "marching order" type setting). Our guide was more of the blurb in the DMG (page 75) about achieving "optimum conditions" - gaining "absolute trust" from a target, attacking someone asleep, or drunk and unguarded. It also says:

If the assassination is being attempted by or in [sic] behalf of a player character, a complete plan of how the deed is to be done should be prepared by the player involved, and the precautions, if any, of the target should be compared against the plan.

See, no one ever took the time to prepare a PLAN of assassination...and just happening to surprise a guard or monster doesn't mean you have time to formulate "a complete plan;" you get one or two segments of surprise, period! In our campaigns, if an assassin was lucky enough to achieve surprise, he'd generally just try to backstab the opponent in such a spur of the moment circumstance.

So, no, we didn't have any "magical" assassinations. Even though we were playing AD&D in the age range of 11-15, we could still read the books, and we took the rules as canon (the same reason we incorporated speed factor and other minutia into our game).

Likewise, while there were assassins guilds (we had a rather infamous one in the town of Willip in the Greyhawk campaign), none of our assassins were members of one. Per the PHB (page 29) player characters did not have to be members of a guild...and since we didn't want to be beholden to anyone, we chose not to belong.

Which meant there were never any "assassination assignments" and never any "fees for assassination" paid out. Duh!

In practice the idea, or concept, of the assassin was cooler than the practicality of playing one...that is, unless you were really interested in working the concept. And because assassins in our campaign were secondary to our main character (or, in my PC's case, secondary to the prime role of "bard"), none of us dug deep into what it meant to be an assassin: seeking clients, earning a reputation, jockeying for guild status. None of the assassins in our campaigns ever got higher than 9th or 10th level so the issue of challenging guild masters (for higher level advancement) never came up.

In review, I feel there was never an issue of "playing the class right," but there was a missed opportunity for exploration of an interesting character concept. And as I'm older and (somewhat) more mature, I find myself having some regrets that I didn't "take the plunge" and run with it.

Which is the main part of the reason I've decided to play an assassin in Alexis's AD&D campaign.

; )

[I find I have more to say on the subject of assassins, so it appears this might develop into a series of posts; oh, boy!]

Riding that Nostalgia Train

I can only take a certain amount of Aerosmith. 

I’m back at the Baranof, knocking back a stiff martini, and have Wolfmother piped into my headphones as I type. Why? Because Janie’s Got A Gun was just calling up bad memories. Not even memories really (there were no images attached); just weird-ass, hinky feelings. That song was popular at a time when…well, I don’t remember exactly what was going on at the time, but it couldn’t have been all that great, as I’ve apparently blocked it out. Let’s see: per wikipedia it was released in 1989 with Pump. Yes, I remember that. Peaked at #4 on Billboard in 1990 and was probably on extensive radio airplay the same year. In 1990 I was 17…that was the year my father left my family. (*sigh*) 

High school was not a fantastic time (for a lot o folks it ain’t; that’s nothing special). There were certainly some high points to go with the lows, and things actually started up-swinging for me in a lot of ways with 1991 so I won’t complain (plus I still have a pretty positive, if distant, relationship with my Dad, which is more than a few o my friends can say). But I was definitely pining for Dungeons & Dragons in 1990, that’s for sure. I stopped playing the game, pretty much cold turkey, sometime around 1987 or ’88. Shortly before the release of 2nd edition, which happened around that time. No, it had nothing to do with 2nd edition D&D; if I’d still been playing when 2E was released, I probably would have jumped on the bandwagon and bought into the Forgotten Realms and all that nonsense. No, my reason was both more simple and more complicated…I didn’t have any players. At least not the players I wanted. 

In high school, I did play role-playing games…a number of them, many of the Palladium or White Wolf or Chaosium variety (how’s that for a “grab bag?”). Hell, I made some pretty good friends in high school, some of whom lasted through college and beyond, and who did indeed play (1st edition) AD&D, even in high school. Plus my younger brother still played for awhile (as did his best friend or two) and I acted as a 1E DM for them on multiple occasions (as I’ve talked about before in this blog). But my little brother and his buddies…and even my peers who were in the same age and class as myself…were not “my type” of gamers. I really don’t know how to talk about this without sounding insulting or snobby, but I’ll give it an (admittedly half-assed) shot: none of ‘em were mature enough to play MY brand of AD&D. 

Prior to high school, I had spent…oh, let’s say five or so years playing hardcore with a small group of friends. Five years is an eternity to a kid who’s 14…more than a third of his life. I’m 38 now…I haven’t even been married for a third of my life, and I’ve been married for more than 11 years. Five years is a shitload of time for a kid that age. And consider how much time we spent on the game of D&D. Sure we had sports, we did Boy Scouts or family activities, and school (of course). But we played at school…the same way people “play” on the internet when they’re supposed to be working at their jobs. And we didn’t have jobs or careers…no soul-crushing 8 hours torn from our waking hours. Hell, we could talk D&D on our “commute” (to and from school, via foot and/or dirt bike) as we wanted. We could talk on the phone after school. We could see each other on the weekends. The only relationships we were bent on maintaining were our friendships…and those imaginary ones created in the game. 

My little circle of friends tired of dungeon-crawling pretty fast, as I’ve discussed recently. After that, it was more about creating a real, living and breathing (if imaginary) world. A world in which we were the “movers and shakers.” Our characters had loves and hates, likes and dislikes, friends, allies, and enemies. Hell, we had “turn-on’s and turn-off’s”…all noted on our (rather extensive) character sheets. All aimed at trying to flesh out the imaginary avatar. Give it life, the way authors do their characters. 

Crazy kids. 

AD&D was our jump board to a “higher state” of role-playing. You may disagree that there’s anything “higher” about it (just “different”), but I’ll stick with the term for a moment. We were still “going on adventures” but the adventures had more to do with the characters themselves than with anything insidious in the virtual environment. And little had to do with “backstory.” 

For example, one girl (yes, members of the opposite sex like RPGs) who played with us, Crystal, created a female fighter named “Tangina.” By virtue of random rolls from the DMG, we discovered Tangina was pretty goddamn strong and over 6’ tall…an f’ing amazon, if you will. Tangina also had plenty of gold to equip herself and spent it on half-a-dozen plus weapons, including both a two-handed sword and a man-catcher (“in case I need to catch me a man!”). Typical low-level character derived from random generation. Her “backstory” was pretty short…her family had tried to marry her off to a minor noble who was an asshole (or she just didn’t want to get married, I forget), and she fled to pursue an adventuring life. No one got killed, there were rumors that her ex- was still “searching for her” but I don’t recall a single appearance by him or his henchpeople. Mainly, she was just a wanderer with a simple story explaining why she wasn’t a medieval (very tall) housewife. She had a Halfling henchman named Shorty who was none too bright (in our games, halflings were always NPC comic relief, never as heroic player characters…I don’t think any of us had ever read Tolkien at that point). The point is, with minimal “characterization,” Crystal was able to drop into an imaginary life completely alien to her 13 (maybe 14 or 15?) year old self. Interacting with NPCs (not just killing orcs), looking to make a good (if imaginary) life for herself and NOT worried just about “gaining XP and leveling up.” 

And Crystal was a very minor player in our circle. There’s a lot of talk (at times) in the Old School realm about “D&D’s endgame:” build a castle, gain a dominion, settle down. See, for us, that wasn’t the end of the game but something around the mid-point. Getting the castle and the followers put you on a footing to interact with other landholders (kings and barons and such). It opened up other “adventures,” more interesting than simply “going down the hole looking for loot.” Political machinations and alliances, romances and marriages and betrayals, power and land grabs, revenge and vendetta…not to mention the quest for godhood (a personal favorite, none of this silly “quest for immortality” schtick from Mentzer…I’m talking about displacing Olympians in the celestial pantheon through right of conquest or occult subterfuge). 

These were the games I played as a kid. This was the type of campaign (and we had several) that we adapted to the AD&D vehicle. This was the kind of campaign I was running as a DM (or running IN, as a player), form circa 1983-1987. And I started playing the game in ’81 or ’82. But I lost those friends when I went to high school: Matt, Scott, Jocelyn, even Jason and Rob. It doesn’t matter terribly why our circle ended…I’ve kept in contact with those folks (off and on) over the years…but we did stop gaming together. 

And while I continued gaming, finding new folks that wanted to game, they weren’t interested in the same things I was. They wanted to go into that hole in the ground looking for loot. They wanted to fight through 20 levels of The Temple of Elemental Evil. They wanted to set-up simulacrums of their high level magic-users, blissfully constructing magic items on other planes for fun and profit. Role-playing was still fun…but when you played AD&D, it all came down to who had the biggest sword. 

And I didn’t want to play that. So when I did game with them, we played other RPGs. Sometimes incoherent, poorly designed games…but at least it wasn’t AD&D. Because I couldn’t bear to play a poor excuse for something that had previously lived and breathed and transported me…as both a player and as a DM. 

And why do I bother to write all this tripe? Who cares, right? Stop living in the past and get on with the good gaming available now…people who care (like me) know AD&D is a pretty crap system as is. [and, yes, I still think that to a great degree] But I’ve started playing in Alexis’s AD&D campaign, and its quickly becoming obvious the guy cares a great deal about the game world he presents…more than anyone I’ve met since those friends from my childhood. His approach is different from mine…more logical, more reasonable, more intelligent…but underneath, driving it, is a very similar passion. 

Look, I am very happy to be living in the time and place and real world that I am. I would not prefer to have been born in a medieval-type world with magic and dragons…I like electricity and running water and not needing to carry a sword on my way to work in case there are highwaymen about. I don’t go to RenFairs; I don’t belong to the SCA. 

[I DO own a real (non-replica) sword…but then, I was a fencer for a number of years and when you’re in Toledo, you owe it to yourself to pick up a piece of Spanish steel when presented with the opportunity]

I am NOT saying that I prefer fantasy to reality. What I’m saying is I greatly enjoy and appreciate a chance to dissolve into fantasy as an escape every now and then. And on a regular basis, if at all possible. And in order to do that, you have to have a certain level of “buy in” that meets your personal expectations. Mine are high. Alexis’s are off the fucking chart. I dig on that. 

All right, that’s enough for now. I’m just glad I’m getting a chance to play AD&D with some like-minded folks after so many years (you should see how these players get into character…and there are no funny voices or accents involved. Nice). Can't wait to get me some land grants and titles.

; )

The Rogues Gallery

I'm looking for a copy of the 1980 TSR book, The Rogues Gallery. When I was a kid, my buddy Matt had this and I remember thinking I was unimpressed, or that it wouldn't work for our campaign, or that I didn't understand it or something (I honestly don't remember why I was put off by it, to tell the truth, but I was).

Now, I want a copy. Any idea where I might find one, used or otherwise?

Thanks.

"Dragons Should Never Be Just Another Encounter"

So commented Blueskreem on my last post. Right after he said, "screw balance."

Damn.

I've got three or five blog posts on the tip of my fingertips that I've been trying to decide how to order (which to type first: the begging, the gushing, or the ranting?), and one dude comments and completely throws me into a tizzy.

Dragons should never be just another encounter.

Those words just keep ringing in my head, even as I need to get some sleep before the morrow. Ugh.

How often do YOU throw dragons into your game as an off-hand encounter? Me, I never did. Hell, I hardly ever saw a dragon in one of my games. Ever. Generally, if there was a dragon, then it WAS the adventure, i.e. the whole enchilada.

I can clearly recall getting together with my buddy, Matt, shortly after acquiring the Cook/Marsh Expert Set. Anxious to try out the high level characters. Finally, players could have PCs able to take on the dragons in Moldvay's basic! We rolled up a 9th level (or higher, I don't recall) cleric for Matt, outfitted him with a bunch of mercenary soldiers (those were new with the Expert set also), and sent him out into the desert to find...and fight...a blue dragon.

As far as I can recall, that was the first time I used a dragon in a game of D&D. I don't recall if Matt survived or not (though I almost certainly recall letting his cleric use a lance...those rules were new with the Expert set as well). Ha...even then I treated clerics like paladins.

The next time I recall putting a dragon into a game...hmmm...I think there may have been a green dragon in X1:Isle of Dread, but I'm not sure it was ever encountered. Later...much later (as in, AD&D later) I got ambitious after reading The Hobbit and made a knock-off of Smaug and Lonely Mountain. Again, the red dragon WAS the adventure...get to the mountain, kill the dragon, get the treasure.

I don't remember anyone ever making it that far.

Back when I was younger (before my "creative metabolism" started slowing down), I drew a LOT of maps, nearly all "dungeons" of one type or another. And almost none had a dragon. Frankly, there was always the odd question of how did a dragon get IN to the dungeon in the first place...especially a deep, nether level. Not to mention what did the thing do for food.

[good morning! I fell asleep in the middle of posting!]

But mainly I had a problem thinking up any dungeon where a dragon would be another cheap-o encounter. I mean, they have such incredible killing power. And their treasure hordes are so big. And, and...

I get a little intimidated at the prospect.

I know I've mentioned before, at least in passing, how few old TSR modules had dragons in them. The giant series (white in G2, red in G3). Old I2 had a great black dragon. Um...there was a gold dragon polymorphed into a goody-good humanoid in a couple (X2 and UK1)...but really, not all that many. I mean, considering the game is called Dungeons & Dragons.

But this was fine by me. I always wanted dragons to stay "special" and rare and powerful (and rich!). The idea that you could "scale down" (starting in 3rd edition and I'm sure continuing into 4th) was always...well, at first it seemed nice that low level characters could actually have a chance at confronting a dragon. Now it seems...well, a cop out. Like giving kids trophies for everything just so they feel like they accomplished something. I know, I know...that's a "generational thang." But it feels the same.

In my opinion, you SHOULD have to work hard (at playing a game...sheesh, is that really work?) to have the stuff you need to take on a legendary creature with any chance of survival. You know, back in the "old days" an ancient red dragon was right at the top of the food chain. 88 points of damage with a breath attack? That's instant barbecue to most 4th level "heroes" (or 8th level "superheroes" that fail their save). Non-fighter classes might as well toss their character sheets if they accidentally wake the wyrm.

But now, dragons seem like "just another monster." Oh, a big monster...a "boss" monster (or whatever the term is). But just a monster. Maybe one that talks.

I did throw some Ancient Wyrms into my B/X Companion...what I like to call "Smaug-class" critters...though I didn't devote nearly as much space to it as Mentzer's Companion with his "large" and "huge" dragons (would you like that super-sized, sir?)...just enough to keep 'em interesting up to the highest levels of play. Personally, I think they're fine and dandy as "big bads" and they definitely deserve to have whole adventure scenarios built around themselves alone.

Just wanted to say I agreed with Mr. Blue's sentiment. How could you dare to call a dragon "just another encounter?"