The Ridiculous and The Sublime

Ron Edwards once wrote that (with regard to Fantasy Heartbreakers):

...nearly all of the listed games have one great idea buried in them somewhere. It's perhaps the central point...that yes, these games are not "only" AD&D knockoffs and hodgepodges of house rules. They are indeed the products of actual play, love for the medium, and determined creativity.

Emphasis added by Ron, BTW, not me.

Edwards suggested that every RPG designer has a FHB lurking inside themselves, wanting to be born, and that we should write them (though not necessarily publish them!), both as an exercise and as a bit of cathartic release.

Myself, I came to the conclusion that we might as well all be writing Heartbreakers...yes, ALL of us...AND publishing them because...well, you can read my first thoughts on "D&D Mine" way back here.

D&D Mine...ol' JB's rebuttal to "D&D Next." We've seen it all over the place in the last three years (gosh, was that really 2012? Sheesh...lots o water under Ye Old Bridge since then...)...self-published variations on the original fantasy RPG. Sure 5E has come out and procured a decent following for itself (are there still folks playing and loving the hell out of 4th Edition? If there are, I'd be curious as to how many) and Pathfinder appears to be as strong as ever. But the independent fantasy adventure games haven't stopped popping up...if anything, I think they've become more prolific.

Are they "diluting" the fantasy RPG marketplace? I don't really think so. What I think they ARE doing is:

• Giving people an outlet for their creative expression.
• Showing other folks what is possible.
• Providing good ideas into the collective headspace (to be acquired and added to our games).
• Demonstrating that you don't need to shell out cash for the latest-greatest.
• Inspiring others to do likewise.

As a dude who (long ago) decided to stand for the possibility of full and creative self-expression in all people, it warms my heart to see so many games.

[hell, even Edwards just self-published his own FHB (Circle of Hands). Ha!]

From Zero to Badass in under 40 pages.

Most recently, Venger Satanis provided me a copy of his entry into the retro-clone/D&D Mine/FHB realm: CRIMSON DRAGON SLAYER. Actually he provided me with several PDFs for review, but Crimson Dragon Slayer is the one I'm most interested in discussing. Because it's a damn mouthful, I'm going to abbreviate it CDS in this post (though Venger does not do so in his text).

Not all retroclones/FHBs are serious in nature; many either strive for parody or (perhaps more accurately) simply embrace the ridiculous and silliness inherent in the "Dungeons & Dragons genre" (is D&D a genre? I think it might be). Hackmaster was perhaps the first to not take itself seriously, but there are others...Drowning & Falling is one I find especially amusing. CDS falls into this "humorous" category of 'clone, as it seeks to create an emulation of 1980's fantasy...and I mean EARLY 80's fantasy. The default setting is 1983 and you (yes, you) have been sucked into your Commodore '64 in a Tron-like mishap, forced to adventure as your alter-ego through a land inspired by B-fantasy movies, Savage Sword of Conan comics, Lovecraft, Star Wars, and old video (arcade) games.

Gamers of my generation (born in the 70s) will find a lot of recognition in this kitsch: it's the stuff we grew up with and (as such) the stuff we threw into our early days of gaming in huge, heaping handfuls. That doesn't necessarily mean it will tickle your funny bone or anything...some people hate this kind of thing. But for me, it's a reminder of my roots in the hobby. I may (these days) wince at the sight of Marc Singer's oiled pecs and feathered hair in The Beastmaster, but shit like that was a tremendous inspiration "back in the day."

Heck, it's STILL an influence (note the "beast master" class in both The Complete B/X Adventurer and in the appendix of Five Ancient Kingdoms). I can TRY to appear all "literary" and say these things are an homage to ERB's Tarzan but, no, it's all f'ing Marc Singer, dude.

*ahem* Anyway, that's not what I want to talk about. You may dig the jokey nostalgia of CDS or not (kids born in the 90's are probably going to miss a lot of these references unless they're some kind of 80's-philes), depending on your temperament and stomach for such things. I want to talk about the game itself...there's some good stuff here.

First off, if you knock off the style of the thing, you find there's not a whole lot of cloning going on. CDS uses a D6 dice pool mechanic that's fairly cool. I've been working with similar dice pools in my own designs lately (probably makes me a bit biased), but Venger's got a neat one that still manages to link well with the 3D6attribute/class/race/level-thang. Basically, you roll a number of D6s based on the difficulty of the task being attempted and your character's effectiveness at such a task (usually no more than 4 dice) and count the highest number rolled on any single die to determine the result of the task.

Folks who've been around have seen this kind of thing before, of course; usually designers take one of two tacts with it:

• A binary pass-fail (like "all even numbers are successes") where one counts the total number of successes to determine the "quality" of success at a task. See games like HEX, Sorcerer, etc.
• An incremental quality based on the actual number rolled...like Extraordinary success, Good success, Partial success, etc...with a subjective (GM) interpretation of what exactly "extraordinary" versus "good" means. See games like Other Kind, InSpectres, etc. This kind of mechanic is one of the staples of "story games."

Venger's mechanic uses an incremental interpretation, but it's not subjective (at least not for successes). Instead, the die result has set-in-stone interpretation based on the actual number rolled.  A 5 or 6 is a success, for example, a 4 is a half success (like "half damage" in combat), a 3 is a minimal success (or what he calls a "mostly fail;" minimum damage or penalty to next action), a 2 is a straight fail, and a 1 is a critical fail (where the GM gets to subjectively hose the PC). Since you only look at the highest number rolled, rolling more dice gives you a much better chance of succeeding (i.e. "not failing")...and since you can boost your dice pool with "genre emulation" (in this case, making an 80s reference or using some sort of cheesy, B-fantasy one-liner), it encourages specific gameplay AND gives characters a chance to be pretty badass...again in the same way as the genre being emulated.

Another neat aspect of the mechanic is "dominance." Rolling a "6" doesn't just mean you succeed by you get to add a "perk" to the task (like double damage or triggering a stunt...there's a short list of six perks from which to choose). Rolling multiple 6s allows you to choose multiple perks, so your badass gets even MORE badass when you triple-up or quadruple-up on damage (for example). 666 really IS "the number of the beast" in CDS...and your character is the beast!

[by the way, I love having titles for specific dice pools: Advantaged, Super-Advantaged, Super-Duper-Advantaged, Advantage Supreme all make me chuckle...but it's useful as well as fun to put finite restrictions on dice pools]

The available classes are cool interpretations of classics. Of special note is both the thief (the way its sneak attack/backstab ability works) and the ranger (wow, who thought I'd ever have anything nice to say about a ranger?). In fact, the CDS ranger is cool enough that I'd probably adapt it to B/X (or any similar game)...low-powered (compared to most versions of the class), but interesting and effective in its own way.

[also, while the subclasses are interesting, I really like the shaman variation with its specific set of animal metamorphoses. It may be a "joke list"...how useful is it to turn into a turkey?...but the idea of limiting the shapes is a good one. The defender is a bit more practically useful, but less fun]

The idea of a three aspected alignment - what a character IS, what a character THINKS HE IS, and what other characters THINK OF HIM - is an especially interesting concept. It would be cool to develop this a bit (though it does have some practical aspects in CDS as written...a person who thinks they are good and righteous may find it impossible to activate a Holy Sword, based on the DM's determination of actual alignment), but regardless it's food for thought.

The simplified "effects" for weapon types (edged weapons explode, blunt weapons stun, etc.) are well done. Another thing worth stealing.

I really, really like the magic system, and it's quite adaptable to other old school games. Wizards can cast any spell equal to their level of experience or lower, but it costs them a number of Willpower ("Wisdom") points equal to the level of the spell. The mitigating factor to this is that wizards can siphon off willpower from living beings (blood magic!), as well as that a caster can "go negative" by casting a spell (which knocks the wiz out and requires a death saving throw). Wizards can ALSO cast spells higher than their level, though at three times the normal cost...so if your 3rd level mage wants to pull out an 8th level FACE MELT (yes, that's an actual spell), it's cost 24 points of Willpower (probably putting your character in a deep, dark hole of negative willpower).

[I like Venger's take on alchemy, too]

The spells themselves are pretty cool: three per level starting at 0 and going up to 10 (actually, there's only one 10th level spell: WISH). Many of these are pretty humorous in tone (the 6th level spell TASTE THE RAINBOW, for example, or the aforementioned FACE MELT), but level-wise they seem pretty well scaled. They're certainly cool enough that I wouldn't mind playing a wizard in this game.

Especially with the weapon proficiency rules. Yes, characters start out with limited proficiencies  based on class (save warriors: they start proficient with all weapons). However, if a character wields a particular weapon enough (i.e. in enough combats) and survives being disadvantaged, they'll earn the ability to use said weapon. That's a nice touch.

Let's see...armor does damage reduction which is sensible given the task resolution system (and easier than the alternative: a Warhammer-like armor save). Initiative (turn order) is determined by action taken, with similar actions being simultaneous. The equipment list is suitably nutty, but if you're going to reference the A-Team in the text, you should at least have the van on the equipment list (they've got an Air-Wolf chopper, after all).

Lastly, I wanted to review the advancement system, which is downright awesome: characters begin at 0 level (having just been sucked into their computers, natch), and then may advance as high as level 10. Leveling up gives your character more hit points, and a daily number of bonus dice (equal to level) to spend on boosting those task resolution rolls. Oh, yeah...most classes also have some sort of level-tied abilities (like wizards and their spells). While this is all well-n-good, the interesting part is the way characters advance in level. There are no experience points in CDS; instead, advancement is based solely on accomplishing specific actions. To me, that's The Oldest of Old School (when Arneson would award someone "hero" status based on finding a magic sword, for example). Gaining level one requires the PC to "adventure, explore, and kill a humanoid or creature without aid." Gaining level 8 requires the PC to "acquire an unbelievably powerful artifact or relic." The scale is pretty good, and requires characters act like their level title to gain their level title. For example, characters don't achieve the ability to build castles at 9th level...instead, they only gain 9th level by building a castle.

That's pretty hip, and in an FHB (where characters are supposed to kill and loot their way to the top) easily...or, at least, practically...accomplished within the parameters of game play.

The game is short...it's about 27 pages of rules plus a 7 page adventure. But there's no bestiary (that usually accounts for a third of OS rules' page count) and there's precious few magic item descriptions (though the ones there are tend to be "packed with flavor"). The adventure has plenty of monsters from which to extrapolate a whole world (if one wanted to use the setting), but CDS actually has more potential than the beer & pretzel use for which it seems destined. There's a stout little game foundation under all the smirky. I dig it.

Having said that...

I wrote a little post the other day about the latest Appleseed film, and how I disliked it, in large part due to the re-skinning of the main character's personality as well as the way she was drawn. After writing this, Venger emailed me to say that if I found such light fare as Appleseed Alpha "too sexualized" than I should burn his PDFs without bothering to open them. See, Venger makes no bones about the fact that he enjoys 'racy, sleazy, sexualized, objectifying "soft core porn" artwork' on his book covers. That's what he likes to look at, that's what he finds aesthetically pleasing. To put it mildly, Venger's a bit of a perv.

I point this out because there are folks who are turned off by his aesthetic...and yet, Crimson Dragon Slayer is surprisingly devoid of anything I deem terribly offensive. Yes, there are a couple "damsel in distress" type Conan drawings in the book (which is, if anything, part of the genre being emulated), but the male characters are as scantily clad as any of the female characters who (aside from the aforementioned damsels) are depicted in dynamic or bad-assy poses. CDS is a world of naked (or semi-naked) barbarian action heroes, and the aesthetic presented doesn't seem especially gratuitous.

Nor does the game system seem to be especially, offensively sexist. Yes, there are aphrodisiac spells and mechanics like needing sexual gratification with another person in order to refresh bonus dice, but such can be applied to either male or female protagonists. As the author points out, it's part of the R-rated, 80's genre. There's no objectification of "buxom serving wenches;" no "wandering harlot" tables, no treasure hoard consisting of "nubile slave girls." Still, if you find this genre (or the 80's!) patently offensive, then CDS probably isn't your cup of tea.

Honestly, it's not really to my taste these days (probably hasn't been since I was a teenager). But I've seen worse...and when I say worse I mean recently (within the last year) and blatantly (whether intentional or not) and perhaps even maliciously. I don't see that in Crimson Dragon Slayer.

Most of us have vices, and probably all of us have "guilty pleasures." Compared to a couple of his other works, Venger's RPG seems more the latter than the former, but regardless of how you feel about the style, there's some interesting things going on in the game. I only wish I'd gotten this review out sooner as he was selling the book at 50% off during the Memorial Day weekend.

You can pick up the PDF for $7 over at DriveThruRPG.

Onward and (slightly) Upward

AKA Big Ass B/X Session Part 4

[one thing I completely forgot to mention in my last post was how Sweet Tito got into the fight with the ghouls...as the only "magical support" on the party, he wanted to cast a spell at the ghouls. "Use lightning bolt!" said AB. "No! Not in water...you'll fry everyone!" said everyone else. "They're dead already! F it...use lightning!" You may recall AB's earlier ease with which he casually roasted fellow party members when he was the one wielding the fireballs. However, cooler heads prevailed and Sweet T. instead gunned down a ghoul with magic missile]

Once everything was through the copper-plated hallway, conscious, and fully dressed, the party took stock of its situation.

“Anyone need healing?”

Ah! The party cleric! Echoing the words of magical paramedics heard around gaming tables in many nations.

“Me! Me!”

Ah! The cries of Gustav! Echoing the words of incinerated fighters everywhere.

Actually, Borgnine was in pretty bad shape (I ruled he had taken some “eating damage” prior to the battle being joined), but he was willing to allow the bulk of the healing to go to Gustav.

I use the term “bulk” loosely, as Luke proceeded to roll “1s” for every single healing roll. What the hell is it with Game Science dice? I had wanted some previously, but my own dice seem much more random than Luke’s snake-eyes-prone rollers.

Fortunately, once he was out of “cure spells,” Alstar could still use his staff of healing.

For 1 point cured.

AND…for 1 point cured.

[the B/X staff of healing can only be used 1 per day per individual]

Gustav was still under 10 hit points. “Maybe we should camp here guys!” What? The room is filled with water. “How about in the ghoul’s room…does it look safe? Could we secure it?” The chamber that had housed the ghoul’s was even less inhabitable…a dank, filthy, probably-disease-ridden chamber…and also filled with water. “Maybe we should…” Everyone was on-board to continue the expedition, and Gustav lost the argument to rest/sleep at this point; though they DID allow him to walk in the back instead of point.

Part of their wariness at stopping, might have been due to the wandering monster I rolled while they were waiting on the paralysis to wear off. Wandering monsters are uncommon in White Plume Mountain, but they ARE present…and waiting in one place for too long is a sure-fire way to meet some.

In this particular case, the party was still spread between two ends of the copper-lined hallway, when a set of invisible foot prints when splashing by…past one group of party members, down the corridor, past the second group, and thence off into the darkness. The party had no time to even draw swords but could just stare at the footsteps of whatever it was.

Disconcerting to say the least.

“We need to get out of here before the Predator comes back!”

The ‘Predator’ (or whatever) did NOT come back and the party didn’t go hunting for it (just as well), but it did cause them to spare a few glances over their shoulders as they made their way deeper into the heat of the mountain.

Up the stairs and onto a dry (if slick with moisture) corridor, the party heaved a collective sigh of relief (“Can we rest here?” “No!”). Down the corridor they find themselves at a door: stout oak, iron-bound. After having Sly listen (nothing) and try the lock (“It’s unlocked”), they kick it open to find themselves at one end of a great hall, extending off to their right into darkness.

By the light of Blaarthislaarv, the party can see that the rest of the hall (if hall it is) is barred from them by a 5’ wide pit extending from wall to wall. Holding the light above they can see the pit is lined with gruesome, jagged razors, crusted with some sort of blackened residue like ancient rust that has putrefied in the slime of evil (sometimes my prose waxes all weird like that…I’m trying to get across that they didn’t like the looks of the pit). However, 5’ is nothing right? Easy-shmeazy to jump the gap.

“This looks like some sort of trick…maybe the other side is slippery?” The players decide to cast continual light on a coin and toss the thing across the gap. It hits the floor…and bounces…and bounces…and bounces…ricocheting off walls and floors and ceiling down along the hall until finally dropping out of view, presumably into a similar pit near the other end of the hall. In the brief flash of the bouncing light, the party did see there appeared to be a similar door on the other side of the hall.

“Crap.”

A rope was tied around the halfling’s waist. The solid oak door was removed from its hinges, and carefully laid across the pit. Bryan gingerly walked across the makeshift “bridge” and edged his foot onto the floor beyond. His foot instantly skidded into the air on the frictionless surface, though a fortunate dexterity roll allowed him to land on his back on the door, catching himself.

After this abortive (and near fatal) attempt, the party hunkered down to think. “Um, anyone have a fly spell? No?! How about levitation? What kind of party is this?!” I let him stew awhile on their dilemma.

[truth be told, it was just as well they did NOT have a fly spell, as these kind of spells don’t function in the frictionless area of the room…anyone who tried to fly over the pit would probably have gone from bird to pinball to pin cushion. Tim…who was watching the game by now even if he wasn’t participating…later remarked that I was pretty good at “not giving hints” or advice to the players. Hey, there were seven of them…they had plenty of “brain-power!”]

“Fine,” said Luke, “I guess I’ll use my potion of gaseous form. All my equipment turns to mist, too, right?”

No.

“What?!”

Turns out this was yet another (weird!) difference between standard B/X and Labyrinth Lord. I mean the B/X text for gaseous form is pretty clear:

Upon drinking this potion, the user's body will take the form of a cloud of gas. Anything the user is carrying or wearing will fall through the gaseous party to land on the floor.

Doesn’t get much clearer than that, right? There's even an illustration.

Meanwhile, LL’s description of the potion is equally clear:

The person who quaffs this potion, in addition to all items on his or her person...

Guess which one we used?

Right. Welcome to Naked Land, population YOU.

I’m not sure when D&D started to wuss out on things like this (I’ll have to review my 1st edition DMG...yep, there it is), though I suppose having gaseous form affect one’s equipment IS consistent with other magic potions, like growth and invisibility.

However, “consistency” (like “game balance”) isn’t something I’m all that concerned with. Why can someone quaff a potion of polymorph and change their armor into the fur and hide of an owl bear? ‘Cause it’s magic, of course! Why does a person drinking a vial of gaseous form leave all his or her gear behind while drifting away as fog? Because it’s a damn cool effect, that’s why!

So Alstar semi-reluctantly used his potion (he may have been saving it for a quick escape). He drifted across to the other side of the chamber where (after an hour or so of waiting) he finally recovered his physical (naked) form. The party members tied a rope to an arrow and fired it across the room for him, and he tied it off to the knocker/ring of the far door. The party members spiked the other end (good thing they kept those spikes!) and were then able to (carefully) navigate the frictionless floor, using the removed door as a portable toboggan/slide/bridge and the rope like a ferry-line.

*Whew!*

One thing I forgot to mention earlier: the far wall was illusionary, with the actual stone wall being some ten feet or so beyond where it appeared to be. This was discovered when they initially fired an arrow (with rope) down the hall and into the far wall. Having discovered this little “hidey-hole” (between illusionary wall and real), the party decided that here at last was a location where they could “make camp” and rest up, recovering spells and such.

Boy was Gustav glad about that!
; )

And THAT is where we ended for the evening, around about 11:20 or so. Everyone lived (thanks to my exceedingly generous nature!), though a couple were definitely a bit battered by the experience. All seven of the dudes said they wanted to come back for our next Thursday meet-up at the Baranof, including the two new guys, Vince and Randy. Hook, line, and sinker folks.

As in the past, I’m having fun with White Plume Mountain. I know I’ve joked a bit through these posts that I’ve been “too easy” on the players and “let them live” but really I’ve just been giving them the benefit of the doubt at times…and I AM being fairly tough (I don’t “give hints” or suggestions on how to overcome challenges…and a lot of WPM’s stuff is of the “challenge the player” variety). The ghouls? I was able to use them to beat the characters but good, even with the cleric getting off his “turn attempt.” If I hadn't it simply would have meant another TPK notched on the belt.

Don’t think so? Those ghouls were naked AND hungry…if the party had not “taken the battle to them,” they would have had no problem running down the corridor and chasing them down from behind. Except for the thief, all the adventurers are wearing plate mail (with only one magic suit between ‘em) and are a lot slower than the gibbering horde of ghouls. Claw-claw-bite is an f’ing nightmare for characters…especially in hordes of six to eight. Anyone read Steakley’s book Armor? Ever see a genestealer horde rip open space marines in on the 40K battlefield? Same kind of deal.

Like this: a 2 HD ghoul needs to roll a 16 or better to hit AC 2 (that’s plate mail and shield)…a 25% chance. Now multiply that by three and multiply that again by six (the maximum number that can surround you and attack)…that’s an average of 4+ hits per round, each hit requiring a save versus paralysis. And if your back is turned ‘cause you’re running from the horde, you don’t get your shield bonus.

Messy.

As it was, one ghoul (and some lucky/unlucky rolls) took down a 7th level character (the cleric)…that’s pretty buff for a 2 HD monster! And I remember feeling confident about taking the halfling eventually as well (if Farnsworth hadn’t roared up like a naked Beowulf!)!

So I don’t really feel bad about leaving out the “medallions of turn immunity.” The encounter was scary enough. Same with the guy running through the induction field…isn’t it more fun to have him ALMOST killed by the microwave attack? Plus his gear was toasted pretty good. If we were running Star Wars instead of D&D, they’d be fitting Gustav with a black body suit and breath mask right about now.

As for the frictionless room…I may not have made it sound all that dangerous, but then, the players took every precaution to keep danger at a minimum (which is good since those razor lined pits had a little something-something referred to as “super-tetanus” in the module). Of course, I suppose I could have interpreted the “no flying magic” to include a drifting gaseous form…but as it was, there was always a chance a wandering monster might have showed up while they were waiting for the potion effects to wear off…

Suffice is to say, it was a good little two hour session, and I can only hope this Thursday is as much fun. I hope so! If I truly “held back” from killing off the player characters, it was at least partly due to wanting them all present for the next few encounters…when things get REALLY deadly (and fun!).

Later!
: )

JB Goes Soft, Everyone Survives

AKA Big Ass B/X Session Part 3

Let’s see, let’s see…where was I?

Oh, yeah…going soft in my old age.

Sludge, slosh, slosh trudged the party through the heat and humidity of White Plume Mountain’s interior dungeon complex. It wasn’t long past the pit that the players encountered their next challenge.

The length of the corridor was lined with gleaming copper plates, each mounted from just above the waterline nearly to the ceiling. The copper was polished to a highly reflective sheen, reflecting the flickering torchlight many times, lighting the corridor with their gleaming luster.

Hmm…

One party member (Gustav? Maybe) was chosen to sally forth along the length of the corridor. As he slowly advanced, the warm air seemed to become even more oppressive. He found he was sweating. Touching his armor he found it warm to the touch, growing hotter even as he advanced. Tiny sparks flashed around the edges of his metal plate armor. He was becoming decidedly uncomfortable.

Gustav turned back. “Maybe we should send the thief.”

[Sly the thief was the only character NOT wearing metal armor]

Sly advanced farther down the corridor than Gustav, until he started to note the smell of burning cloth and leather…the rivets and buckles of his leather armor were actually starting to radiate heat, and a curl of smoke was rising from the dagger in its scabbard. Sly decided HE better turn back as well.

What to do, what to do…Brian the halfling volunteered to crawl the length of the corridor on his back, underneath the line of the plates, and simply poking his head up for occasional sips of air. Shucking his backpack and magic ring, he prepared to attempt the maneuver.

But Borgnine the dwarf had a better idea. “I have a ring of fire resistance…perhaps it will allow me to cross the hall unscathed!” The party figured this was worth a try and Borgnine plunged ahead, ready to turn back at the first whiff of singed beard.

No problema.

The party gave a little cheer as the dwarf waved to them from the end of the long hall. “There’s a chamber here!” he called. “And stairs going up to dry ground!” The party talked about how he might string the ring on a rope and pass it back to them for a one-at-a-time crossing. “Let me just make a quick check for secret doors, first!” Okay, the party would wait.

Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. Borgnine (who was very good at analyzing the stonework whenever the party entered a new area), was just being thorough. However, imagine his surprise when a section of the stone wall actually began to swing out from the wall adjacent to where he was searching.

“Huh, I don’t think I did anything to trigger that.” He wondered aloud…as the gibbering horde of filth-crusted, slime-gleaming creatures poured forth, raking the dwarf with blackened nails ands and sharpened teeth.

He never even had a chance to lift his axe before being paralyzed by the ghouls.

Now let’s pause the action for a moment so that I can have a sidebar: ghouls are some scary mother-f**ers, okay? Flesh eating cannibals, sure…that part’s bad enough. But claw-claw-bite attacks? Any one of which will paralyze your ass? It’s a good thing that elves ARE immune to ghoul paralysis (which I always thought was kind of weird), otherwise a pack of ghouls would tear a number of parties to shreds.

Now I don’t know about you, but I generally play that a paralyzed character can be slain immediately by any creature taking a round to do so. In practice, getting paralyzed by ghouls pretty much means you’re destined for the soup pot. There’s precedence for this (I think of the “example adventure” in the DMG), but really it’s kind of left up to the DM how to handle this. Can a “held” or paralyzed individual only be slain by an edged weapon? Do ghouls’ claws and teeth count as “edged weapons?” Yeah, probably.

However (and I can barely believe I’m writing this), at this point in our session I wasn’t ready to outright kill any of the party members. See, contrary to Trollsmyth's opinion, I don’t think death is boring…I’m sure poor Borgnine would have found being eaten alive while unable to scream a fairly UN-boring experience. However, heroism (in my mind) is courage in the face of suffering, and the party hadn’t suffered enough yet to warrant a hero’s death.

Besides Josh was one of the new guys…Jeez, JB, how mean are you?

Actually, Josh was more afraid that he was going to drown from being paralyzed facedown in 12 inches of water. Man, I don’t even need to try…the players are ready with suggestions for offing themselves! I decided that the dwarf had been paralyzed face-up, and the ghouls were taking their time with eating him…cavorting around, ripping at his armor, pulling a tender morsel from here or there…

The party decided it was time to mount a rescue. Brian was already set to go…and started crawling…slowly. Farnsworth started stripping out of all his armor and gear to make a “bundle” he could haul down the corridor with a rope. Gustav asked, “what if we just ran down the length of the corridor as fast as possible?” and decided to try that.

The induction field heats metal as it passes between the copper plates…the farther one travels the hotter metal gets (and the more damage an individual takes). Each 10’ interval beyond 30’ or 40’ does a certain amount of damage, the amount increasing the farther one travels. The module states that anyone running the length of the corridor “takes all the damage” from each 10’ section. Enough damage to flash fry anyone foolish enough to try such a tactic.

I rolled for damage and it was plenty enough to incinerate Gustav…but here again I paused. Certainly, the fighter should be penalized for his folly, but would any sane person push himself past the point of flesh crisping pain and bone melting agony? I decided to allow a saving throw versus Death Magic. Success would indicate the fighter turned back prior to death.

[O the shame of going soft!]

Truly, I thought it silly that anyone could tear through the hallway (in a foot of water and muck!) fast enough to burn to death. Gustav made his save, and I ruled he took 75% of the damage…half what he would have taken before turning back, and one-quarter of the damage on his return trip. Needless to say, he was still in a world of hurt (I believe he was down in the 5-7 point range after being up over 40) and none-too-eager to get into the ghoul fight.

Alstar the cleric cast resist fire on himself and hustled down the corridor (past the halfling) while the others watched. “This is where the cleric gets a chance to shine,” said someone (maybe Josh, maybe Matt #1).

It only took a couple 10 second rounds for the courageous cleric to get past the copper plates, holy symbol brandished, and shield at the ready. “Get thee back to Hell!” (or something) was shouted…at least in my imagination. Luke just said, okay I’ll turn them. Great.

According to the text of White Plume Mountain, the ghouls each wear medallions that make them immune to clerics’ turning attempts.

Now some of you who have been reading the blog lately may recall certain griping I did regarding this very kind of thing…how does one prepare for un-turnable undead? Why would one presume undead would be un-turnable…and thus send your cleric into certain doom? Because that’s what was going to happen in this case…the cleric’s turn attempt would auto-fail and the ghouls would shred him while the rest of the party watched, just as had happened with the dwarf.

I decided to be strict with my interpretation: ghouls could not be TURNED…but a 7th level cleric DESTROYS ghouls and the medallions weren’t strong enough to resist his holy might. The cleric blasted all but two of the ghouls and the players were thrilled even as the remaining ghouls fell upon him, while I hid my secret shame at being so easy on the players…

In the following round, Alstar (All-Star?) blasted another with dispel evil...and then he fell beneath the envenomed claws of the final ghoul.

Meanwhile, Farnsworth was attempting to pull his bundled armor and weapons through the sludge using a rope. The module is pretty specific that this kind of action won’t work; the heated metal burns through any rope or bindings leaving a steaming pile of red-hot metal in the middle of the corridor. Un-deterred, the naked Farnsworth ran back to the party to retrieve the 10’ pole…he was going to push the pile to the end!

Brian the Halfling finally finished his crawl and popped up ready to do battle. However, he was a little beat from his recent submerging and had a difficult time landing a telling blow. Meanwhile, the ghoul clawed and scratched the stout-hearted Leftfoot, but somehow, the halfling’s fiery blood shook off the effects of the creature’s paralyzing attack (love those Halfling saving throws!).

Brian was forced to go toe-to-toe with the remaining ghoul for three or four rounds, both landing blows but neither succumbing. This was the length of time it took Farnsworth to finish prodding the flaming bundle to the end of the hall (his pole was charred down to 8’ or so by this time). Having purposefully left his sword hilt exposed and jutting from the pile, the burly fighter drew and hewed the ghoul from behind, finishing it in one flaming swing. After which, he likely dropped the weapon and cooled his hand in the murky water.

While the party waited for the ghoul’s paralysis to wear off, Brian figured out a way to rig the dwarf’s ring of fire resistance on a rope while Farnsworth joked about tea-bagging his helpless companions.

To be continued…

Old School D&D = Getting Naked

Sorry for the laziness, folks...it's been a lazy day off for me today (well, at least as far as blogging is concerned). However, I got good stuff from last night's game down at Gary's Games in Greenwood. Hoo-boy...it'll probably be three or four posts, which I don't have time to throw up right now. However, some random thoughts:

- Old School D&D (that whole "challenge the player, not the stat block" thang) often involves getting naked...either purposefully, or not (anyone ever play the original Tomb of Horrors?). Aside from the naked encounter that started off the session (a little female frontal), different player characters ended up stripping down to absolute nude on two separate occasions (and a quick strip would have been helpful for a third "near-drowning" incident except for timely help from other party members). More on THIS later.

- I'm like Labyrinth Lord a little less these days...I AM still playing B/X D&D of course, but LL has been present at the table in multiple hands every session, including last night. And it's always particularly jarring when we run across discrepancies between the two systems (more disconcerting because every time I introduce LL to someone, I tell them it's a near perfect duplicate of B/X). I'm not talking about AD&D level spell adaptations, I'm talking about basic magic items from the Moldvay set that function completely different! More on this later, as well.

- I'm getting soft...no one died last night, but four folks (maybe more) got "let off the hook" by Yours Truly. This will be discussed in detail when we get to the actual play posts. Suffice is to say, there were some situations that would have spelled instant death in the past that I let slide. However, if I was guilty of letting a couple folks through, it had more to do with wanting them to survive to the later rooms (and even deadlier dangers!) rather than killing 'em off two encounters into the game.

All right, have to go...I'll post more later!

: )