Summer Update

Keeping the Interest Alive

In past years, summers have meant gaming conventions. I consider myself geographically fortunate to live near I-70 between Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis, Indiana, which for a number of years have been host cities to two of the largest annual tabletop game conventions - Origins in Columbus and Gencon in Indianapolis. 

A large game convention offers attendees a lot. There are friends there that I only see in person at the conventions. The exhibition hall is a massive showcase of what's new in our hobby. Demonstration games and tournaments, pick-up games and scheduled events, seminars and the list of things to enjoy goes on and on. There is so much to see and do at a big convention that I rarely get much sleep. 

This year, of course, the conventions have been cancelled. Well, at least the in-person part of conventions. There are some online convention events and that brings me to my first bit of news. Playing online doesn't totally disappoint me. 

I am devoted to face-to-face - at the table - gaming. It is the part of the hobby I most enjoy and my preferred way to spend hobby time. I enjoy the excitement of sharing table space with live humans. I like to share snacks and meals, jostle and nudge, and feel the positive "vibes" of being with people who are having fun together. I like to touch the dice, hold my breath as I watch the person next to me roll their dice during a tense moment while we are all hoping for a successful outcome. The "table culture" appeals to me.

In recent months, in the absence of face-to-face gaming, I have started playing remotely with my regular face-to-face group, as well as watching a few streamed games on YouTube channels. I have also hit the pen and paper solo modules a bit harder than usual. I have even started painting a few miniature gaming figures again in an effort to find things hobby related to fill my spare time. I might say that "adjustments" have been made in how I enjoy the hobby. 

The other aspect of personal hobby news I would like to share involves a couple of recent RPG purchases. Browsing in the convention exhibition halls invariably results in a bit of money being spent as something new catches my fancy. In lieu of this "prohibited" summer activity, I have done my "browsing" online. 

Liminal is an attractive game book written by Paul Mitchener and set in a very atmospheric modern day UK where the supernatural is presumed "real". Liminal contains both game rules and setting in its well illustrated 287 pages. In Liminal. players take on the roles of investigators working as a "Crew" for a branch of police that are focused on extraordinary happenings. The game mechanics are simple and intuitive, the characters in Liminal have some depth and the setting is simply fantastic. I really like Liminal and am excited to bring it to the table (hopefully) soon!

Mork Borg is a head banging, punk rock role-playing trip from Swedish game designer Pelle Nilsson, graphic design and art by Johan Nohr and dead people! Mork Borg, which I am informed translates as "Dark Castle" or something similar, contains simple to understand, "old-school" game rules as well as an ultra-dark apocalyptic setting in its 90 pages - some pages are rather shockingly illustrated (although not quite as shocking as LotFP!). This is a tome that even "feels" special in the hand due to the materials used constructing the book's hard cover. The book's interior space is filled with a colorful layout which differs on each page and offers us a chance to "discover" Mork Borg as an experience a bit beyond just reading a book. 

While neither game strikes me as introductory, both Liminal and Mork Borg are "complete" purchases in the sense that everything one needs in order to play the game is included in a compact volume, even down to the starting adventure - supply your own dice of course. For the gamer experienced with either  type of role-playing game - investigative (Liminal), or old-school games (Mork Borg) - these should be easy games to grasp.  Even if the rules-lite style of mechanics found herein do not appeal to you, the settings alone in each of these books are worth the price of admission - as they say. Whether online or sitting around the kitchen table, I look forward to uncovering the "Hidden World" through Liminal, or delving into a bleak and decaying dark castle world of nightmares with Mork Borg.

The World That Was

Lost Civilizations and other Treasures

Tabletop role-playing games can be viewed as an extension of fantastic literature to a group medium, the game table. The inspirational writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard and various myths and legends from antiquity are frequently cited among those sources of inspiration. A common thread through many of these sources is that of the lost civilization - the fallen empire.

The ancient Greeks wrote about the lost continent of Atlantis. Historians tell us about early civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt which may excite our imagination. Archaeologists have discovered evidence of complex civilizations unrecorded in any histories, many in Africa, the Pacific and the Americas. As we begin to explore Mars, our imagination wonders what forms of life may have existed on this fabled planet?

I consider myself a "world builder" in the realm of tabletop games. I prefer to run games set in world's of my own creation - that is with my own personal mix of elements drawn from a variety of sources accumulating in my head over a life-time of reading and travel. Anywhere I find there is a "mystery" - that is something that remains unexplained - there is fodder for imagining. Many of my games have been set in quasi-historical settings with a focus on a possible explanation for why we don't have all the facts. It can be fun to explore "what could have happened!"

Fey creatures and the world of fairy, the fantastical creatures and beings of mythology and legend, and the dark, formless things that go "bump in the night" can provide hours of entertainment and adventure for our role-playing characters - all in a make-believe world. The "lost civilization" - whatever that turns out to be - can provide an endless source of potential settings, mysteries and discoveries to explore and exists in one form or another in nearly all the adventure stories that inspire my interest. 

The so-called "dark ages", which have existed through-out human history during those periods when written records were sparse, unreliable or non-existent, can support a lot of speculation in the form of "what really happened" as played out at the gaming table. Fancy a game based on the real King Arthur? So little is actually known of this legendary figure that we are free to make-up just about whatever we like and use it at the game table. Suppose fairies did exist, but are now hidden or gone? Without physical evidence of their existence, we in the modern world ascribe them to superstition and fiction. But what if they were once real?  What if the fairy tales are based on actual events - yes, we can play as if that is the case at our own gaming table.

An interesting fictional game world needs many things - a lost civilization, preferably one advanced in some now-forgotten lore or science, is a must in my opinion. (I also consider an inland sea as a geographic necessity!) Secrets, far horizons, and mysteries make life interesting. We play to discover, so give your players lots to uncover!

Hit Points...Again

Beating a Dead Horse

It seems that one topic in D&D lore generates more discussion, and maybe house-ruling, than any other and that is Hit Points - HP. I am pretty sure that the idea of hit points is a carry over from certain wargames, especially naval wargames where each ship typically has armor (class) and hit points. In a naval wargame armor reduces the amount of damage caused by certain weapons thus reducing lost hit points. The hit points themselves are an abstract method of calculating the capacity to absorb and take accumulated of damage. It isn't hard to see the parallel in mechanics. If this sounds familiar, it should because the authors of the original edition of the world's first role-playing game had previously collaborated on a naval wargame, Don't Give Up The Ship.

In White Box era D&D, adding additional hit points is a chief feature of character advancement and allows characters of higher level and therefore with more HP to survive a greater number of damaging hits - rather like a battleship that can absorb more damage than a destroyer can. It would be a silly concept were it not for the fact that it has worked fairly well for nearly half a century. The use of hit points to track character damage was eventually ported over to computer and consul games when they arrived and despite there being systems that track individual wounds having been devised early on in role-playing games (Arms Law/Rolemaster) the idea of hit points (or health as it is sometimes called) is still the way we gamers roll.

An ample supply of hit points allows each player to "calculate" how much damage their character can take before they risk character death. This is a key element of old school play, the trade-off between calculated risk and reward and the management of limited resources. Hit points are in effect "game currency", as they are spent adventuring and then renewed upon "healing". The players must add their own narrative either verbally stated out loud for all or internally as they mentally think about what the numbers mean in order to "make sense" of this abstract concept.

From the beginning, players using the three little brown books (and later editions) have been rolling dice for hit points in an effort to make each character a bit different from others. The number and type of dice rolled varies according to character class and level and those differences are part of what sets some classes apart from the others and establish some as having more staying power in combat. The early editions of D&D have often been characterized as producing greater numbers of character "deaths" due to factors such as hit point totals can be as low as 1 for a starting character and character "death" occurs when HP reaches zero. Later editions increase the potential hit points and cushion "death" with various saves and allowing characters to go into negative HP. Digital RPGs frequently reboot the character as they are reduced to zero health, thus avoiding the need to suffer meaningful character death.

One solution to even-out the fickleness of our hit point dice can be to allow players to assign maximum hit points for each character based on the number and type of hit dice rather than rolling randomly. Using this method a White Box edition first-level fighting man who would normally roll a d6, adding 1 for being a fighting man and then adding any constitution bonus for their total starting HP would instead always assign 6 points (maximum possible roll on a d6) plus the appropriate adds as the character's starting HP. Thus a level 1 fighting man with "normal" constitution would have 7 HP. A successful hit in White Box delivers one d6 damage which is subtracted from the character's current HP. Using this system a first-level fighting man would survive the damage from at least the first blow in combat. Maximizing HP for first-level characters has been a frequent house-rule, but it could also be applied to every level making characters of all classes much more resistant to damage. If the same rule is applied to monsters balance can be maintained.

Using values for hit points based on the maximum total possible if dice had been rolled would even out the extremes of randomness and make all characters a bit more robust regarding their ability to absorb damage. Such a house-rule will undoubtedly extend combat as everything takes a greater number of hits. If longer combats with characters who are better able to shrug off damage seems desirable, the flexibility of the role-playing hobby rules means that there are methods to alter the mechanics to produce the type of game one desires. 

As with most things in classic D&D and other games, there are trade-offs to changing the rules. The modular nature of the White Box game rules allows for very heavy modifications without seriously damaging your ability to play D&D. If you find the temptation to summon the demon of innovation at your table irresistible, you are not alone. I have tried (and eventually abandoned) a number of "fixes" for my HP dilemma include weapons that do a fixed rather than random amount of damage with each successful hit (1 or 2 pts.), assigning part or all of the damage from each attack to armor points until they are used up, adding the raw constitution score to the initial character hit points, and the list goes on. Each new method I have personally tried tends to slow the game's combat down a bit. There is something to be said for a very "fast" combat mechanic. 

The Beggar's Mark

Seeds for an Episodic Urban Campaign

Drawing inspiration from time spent revisiting Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar stories and Goodman Games excellent Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, in particular the latter's pages 43-44, I have been thinking about an urban campaign. The two-page illustration (a section of which appears above) depicts many aspects of the "shady side" of the game's Thief class. The illustration appears to be the work of Stefan Poag and demonstrates the level of old school artwork found throughout DCC RPG. In this section of the illustration DCC RPG artist (Stefan Poag) pays homage to AD&D PHB artist D. A. Trampier. We all draw our inspiration from somewhere!

So here are my "inspired" ideas for a campaign I am calling "The Beggar's Mark":

As a stranger to the city you find yourself funneled to "The Warren", an area outside the walls where most foreigners dwell. A "Gate Tax" must be paid to enter the city where no armor may be worn and weapons larger than a dagger must be "peace bonded". Spell use inside the city is strictly controlled by The Guild.

Rumors of treasure can be heard aplenty. There are wanted posters for those who have broken one of the many laws. For those wishing to avoid the inconvenience of the Gate Tax, illicit entry into the city can be gained through the sewers which are controlled by the Beggars' Guild - the "stink" being known as the "Beggar's Mark." 

Upon the gibbet hangs a famous thief - some say the gem he stole is still in his stomach!

Patrolling the city streets are the "Knight Watchmen" - vigilantes? or maybe thieves?

The new Overlord looks worried. Perhaps the 12 Spiders have something to do with that?

Some warn to stay clear of the Hobbit's "Family Business"!

Who is the "Cat Burglar"? Several cats have "gone missing" - is it wererats? (Perhaps a cat "familiar" seeks a solution.

"The Chimney Creep!"

The Gnome Pickpocket - child thieves who dress as "gnomes". They HQ at "The Orphanage" which is in a dark temple to a reawakened god(dess).

The "Patsy" - Mob is hiring muscle (to take the fall).

A vengeful imp, whose mage is murdered by a rival, plots revenge and seeks help.

The "Key Seller" claims he has the key to several locked doors - he will sell the key for a price.

A jealous "lover" who is plotting the elimination of a rival.

A vendor who claims she has "magical fruits".

Are the ravens circling the city someone's trained pets?

"Give the dog a bone" - I am thinking of Sweeney Todd's meat pies!

The Magician's purse is stolen. What magic does it contain?

The Spider's Web - informants?

The Artist who is magically able to transfer affections through his "art".

Dirty Laundry - blackmail most foul.

Although I am not a huge fan of the Greyhawk thief as a class, especially among dungeon delvers, I think I understand why Gary Gygax includes thieves among his milieu and why Gord the rougue may be his most iconic fiction character. This particular DCC RPG illustration, seemingly titled "a man among men, a thief among thieves", brings to mind the possibilities inherent in the class. It is merely one of hundreds of inspiring pictures as nearly every page of the massive DCC RPG tome is richly illustrated with such black and white old school drawings, each containing many a story just waiting to unfold at your gaming table. Even if you never use the rules as written, I find the DCC RPG is a wealth of inspiration.

Horror!

On Running a Horror Themed RPG

It's not about making them jump. It has more to do with building tension and opening up a space in our minds where we are free to imagine the worst. Timing is everything in horror - and in most things in life as well. In brief, a summary of what I have learned about running a horror themed RPG consists of the following:

• In the Dark - Our imagination is the scariest place. (It doesn't hurt to turn the lights down.)
• Alone! Isolation means no retreat and no help. "It's Panic Time!"
• Conspiracy... "Is EVERYTHING out to get me?"
• The Unknown - Avoid showing the monster if you can. As soon as they see it, it becomes less scary. The mere threat is always better - it keeps them guessing.
• Trapped, but with some hope of escape. Leave the door open a crack to avoid a feeling of helplessness and resulting apathy.

Game elements that help achieve the "horror" feeling at the table can include:

• Rules that get out of the way and quickly fade into the background allows for character immersion.
• Characters that are mortal and vulnerable with health deterioration that is gradual and incremental.
• Game mechanics that assist the GM in "pacing". I see this as crucial for creating the horror mood. Clocks and timers build tension, humor resets the tension level to zero and there are other mechanical ways that can help the GM to resolve things quickly or   s.l.o.w.l.y   as needed.

There is generally an element of investigation in most horror games and that should be the focus. Combat leads to death, either player character death or monster death. Either tends to end the tension and with it a lot of the fun. Horror is all about the build-up - the anticipation. But do not stretch it out too long or it will feel contrived and the players will lose interest. To run a successful horror session, you must be constantly reading your players mood - feed them just enough to keep them interested, threaten just enough to keep them on their toes and when the time comes for the finale, make it fast, furious and tense. 

Band of Blades

Mercenaries in a Grim-Dark World

I am an eclectic when it comes to games (and most other things in life), so I occasionally dabble with systems outside the White Box and the OSR. When I post about such games here, I do so in part because this blog intends to go "Beyond" as the title implies. While my first and principal love remains strong for the world's first role-playing game, which I fondly refer to as the "White Box" version, I do enjoy reading and playing other types of tabletop RPGs. One recent acquisition that rises to the level of intrigue is a story game based on the Forged in the Dark system called Band of Blades. 

The Forged in the Dark system, also used in Blades in the Dark and Scum and Villainy, is mechanically related to games Powered by the Apocalypse. Both systems use a dice mechanic that gives degrees of or partial success - success with complications - in addition to failure and absolute success results. In Band of Blades a pool of six-siders are rolled. A six result on any die is considered a "success". If the highest die score rolled is a 4-5 then it's considered a "partial success" and the GM may assign a negative consequence or condition in addition to the character succeeding. If the highest number rolled in the dice pool is a 1-3, then a failure is declared. 

Band of Blades (BoB for short) is inspired by Glen Cook's novels of The Black Company. BoB's mercenary Legion is the central theme of the game and parallels Glen Cook's Company in many ways. For example, the principle characters, Commander, (the Captain), the Quartermaster, the Marshal, the Lorekeeper, etc. suggest to me similar characters found in The Black Company who are also referred to by their position or title. Like The Black Company, Band of Blades is packed with flavorful language and atmosphere. Names like the Blight, the Cinder King, the Broken and the Chosen grab and excite me. The game's dark military tone is reflected in its mechanics including stress, trauma and corruption in a way suggesting an overall horror theme. The Forged in the Dark system makes extensive use of progress clocks and this puts pressure on players and dials up the tension. 

The default setting for BoB is the western part of a civilized area - the Aldermark - which is being overrun by an army of undead (the similarity to another popular book series is probably intentional as BoB lists The Game of Thrones as among its sources of inspiration). The game's backstory is that the Legion recently took part in a devastating battle, referred to as the Battle of the Ettenmark Fields, in which the forces of "good" (this is a relative term in a grim-dark setting) lost and the Legion is now retreating eastward trying to keep ahead of the advancing inhuman horde. The game consists of a number of "missions" the players will undertake (while role-playing their cast of characters) as the Legion makes its way to Skydagger Keep where they presume that sanctuary awaits.

There are game elements in all the Forged in the Dark products which don't exactly set well with me and they have so far kept me from fully embracing any of the three FitD games that I am familiar with (although each has its own appeal). The Flashbacks mechanic which allows players to narrate a retcon (plot shift) of events thereby altering the lead-up story of what has already happened as a way to deal with unforeseen challenges which can upset their plans seems very "weak" to me (and it tends to hinder verisimilitude). The "success with complications" or "yes, but" inherent in the degrees of success as found in the core mechanic places a lot of work on the GM to come up with relevant content on the fly. (It seems a lot of GM work to stay on top of a degrees of success system and not get into a rut.) I am also not a fan of the "playbook" character concept which the Forged in the Dark system borrows from Powered by the Apocalypse. At least in Band of Blades the players are not out-right criminals as they are in previous FitD games.

The setting and mission based adventuring concept are what draws me most to Band of Blades. Will I use this book, my guess is yes. Will I run (or play) Band of Blades as written, probably not. I am inspired by many of the ideas contained in this 450 page book and I will likely use some of the ideas I borrow from BoB in something else I run using different system mechanics. For anyone who enjoys the fiction of Glen Cook, Joe Abercrombie or Steven Erikson, there is going to be something to like in Band of Blades.

Movement Rate and Its Implications

Reading Between the Lines

In the original edition of the world's most popular game there is often as much left unsaid as is written in the small journal-size little brown books. For me and many others who enjoy making our own content this is a boon. It provides space for us to customize the game relying on our own creativity and common sense to adjust our play just as we like it. 

In Volume 3, The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures we are told that a turn segment equals 10 minutes and that an adventurer may move 120' during this time. "Thus it takes ten minutes to make about two moves - 120 feet for a fully armored character." (Vol. 1 lists movement rates as Light Foot Movement 12", Heavy Foot Movement 9" and Armored Foot Movement 6" and the use of inches is a reference to tabletop figure movement distances.) 

Applying a bit of logic, I ask myself why does the character only advance 120 feet in ten minutes? The obvious conclusion is that our fantasy heroes are not sprinting down the underground corridor. Rather, they are obviously moving cautiously in a hostile environment, listening for danger and scanning all surfaces for clues. I think this cautious movement can be assumed to take time and results in the slow game rate of advance. 

Volume 3 also details locating secret passages, which requires the character(s) stopping and searching and takes an entire (ten minute) turn. An elf who can search like any other character additionally has a reduced chance to spot or sense the presence of a secret door due to some irregularity in the surface indicating a secret passage while simply moving or passing by the location. Obviously this assumes that said elf is taking a careful look around while passing by (at the normal movement rate) and not rushing blindly ahead. 

The brevity of the original three little brown books, and their reliance upon concepts borrowed from Chainmail and other wargames, begs that the players bring in additional resources and knowledge and upon occasion, to make stuff up, for no game rules, even later editions containing hundreds of pages and multiple supplemental volumes can foresee every possible eventuality and need for rules to cover them. And why would we desire such?

Yes, I am delving rather deeply into speculation with my "reading between the lines", but for me (and for many others) this is part of the fun I have with the game and why I prefer a rules lite approach in my favorite RPG systems. I enjoy using my imagination. I enjoy figuring things out in a game context and I enjoy improvising and discovering what surprises may come out of playing the game with friends. After all, it's just a game of make-believe that we play for our own entertainment. 

Dark Secrets

What man was not meant to know.

In many of the sources which Gary Gygax listed in his Appendix N of the Advanced Game's Dungeon Masters Guide, magic/sorcery is a dangerous practice often dealing with sinister forces posing threats to one's sanity and mankind in general. This is reflected in certain game "magics" starting with the game's original edition.

Volume 1 of the three little brown books lists a spell called Contact Higher Plane. Its use may cause insanity. Its use may reveal dark secrets which threaten mankind's existence. From its inception, the world's first role-playing game has included the concept of planer dimensions - planes of existence which are normally beyond human perception, but can be reached using powerful magics. These planes have included everything from hell to various elemental environments. 

The spell Contact Higher Plane establishes communication with an entity from such alternative plane, a deity, demon, or other supernatural being, who may divulge certain information to the caster in the form of answers to specific questions. The risks involved include false information as these beings may be deceivers, and insanity. I suppose the idea being that contact with such knowledge may unsettle the mind of the caster.

In the original edition of the world's first role-playing game Contact Higher Plane is a potent spell. It is ranked as among the spells of the fifth level and therefore only available to Magic Users of considerable experience - namely those who have reached 9th level or above in their class. In terms of the game this represents many sessions of play to reach such lofty levels. Magic Users of 9th level carry the title of Sorcerer, and may command such additional powerful magics as Polymorph Self (and Others), Dimension Door, Invisibility, Fly, as well as such destructive magics as the dreaded Fireball and Lightning Bolt (in addition to many lessor magics).

The resulting "Insanity" can be role-played as permanent, or temporary, as debilitating or as a mildly amusing personality quirk, all depending on the preferences of the referee and player. Depending upon how the referee rules on it, such "Insanity" may be cured using Cure Disease, Remove Curse, or Wish magic.